So off the weekend, which is a holiday weekend here for us in the
US for Memorial Day. Happy Memorial Day, everybody. As we go into
a fight Freaks Unite recap off of world title fights, huge knockout for Luis
Alberto Lopez, revenge for Lee Wood, controversial scoring for Chris Billham Smith.
I mean, my lord, did we have any action and a welterweight prospect
for Golden Boy that's looking better and better in Alexis Roach And we've got all
of this to go over. Thank you for finding us. I am the
somewhat competent host T J. Reeves. He is our insider Fight Freaks Unite
substack, Big Fight Weekend dot Com. Hello Dan Raphael. Good to be
back with you with plenty, plenty, plenty to go over. Oh yeah,
we had a pretty busy weekend. I was trying to juggle three different
browsers and streams at the same time. You know what struck me by the
way, I don't it speaks to our times, right. So we had
the Roaches Show on the Zone, the uh Laura Wood Show on the Zone,
the ESPN Plus Car with Lopez and Conlin, and the Billham Smith and
o'cole fight, which in the United States was on the Fight app four shows
of consequence, three with the World Championship fights, not a single one of
them on linear television. I watch everything on streaming, that's correct, that's
I mean for the kids, they get it. For for old guys like
us, that's that's like a weird thing to me. But are you why
do you keep bringing up old we're older? Are we really old? I
don't know if we're getting older, like I don't know. Like when I
was growing up, if you wanted to watch boxing, we had four channels
you put on usually any one of ABC, CBS or or NBC. Nothing
on PBS, you know, and you watched that boxing on those three channels.
And then if you had cable, if you were lucky and your parents
sprung for it, you know, you could maybe watch boxing on HBO or
maybe boxing on Showtime now was basically it, or on the Tuesday night fights
or ESPN's fights top ranked boxing fights on ESPN. Yeah, but yeah,
you're right, I mean it. You know, the times have changed,
and here was and here was the difficulty for me in the afternoon, trying
to manage this for the site, etc. I only have so many computer
screens, including with my TV, trying to manage these all at once,
and you only have so many eyeballs, And I did liking it. It's
almost like the NCAA Tournament in March and college basketball when you've got four games
going on at once, or an NFL Sunday where you're trying to watch all
the games at once or keep track of five or six of them on a
Sunday afternoon sometimes at once. It's a challenge it But football is different,
RAY feel, because they play for like ten seconds on a play or five
seconds, and then they take a little break and you can watch this screen
over here and watch another play. No, you can't do that with boxing
and constant action. You can't divert away from this screen to look at this
screen because you're gonna miss big punches or knocked down. I know you're me
on that. It's not the same thing. Well, what I typically will
do, and I get people who like hit me up on social media,
you know, how are you going to watch this day? Like what what
are you going to do it? In? So yesterday is a good example.
So I wasn't sure which one I was going to concentrate on obviously,
you know, I'm watching under cards. I'm going back and forth. I'm
in my office. I've got I've got all the browsers open, I've got
the the Zone browser open, I've got the ESPM plus browser, and I've
got the Fight browser, so i can just click screen to screen in my
office. And my perspective was, whichever main event comes on first, that's
the one I'm gonna be live with because I'm writing stories off them. Also
for the most part, So as it turnout, the first main event that
started was the Lopez against Colin fight, so I went with that one is
what I was going to concentrate on first. Now, that could have gone
twelve rounds. If it had gone twelve rounds, it would have it would
have cut into the beginning of the Leewood and lar fight. That would have
kind of been aggravating, as it turned out, because it was an earlier
knockout in the fifth round. There was actually a time from the time that
that fight ended. I forget exactly. It might have been twenty minutes,
a half an hour or something like that before the actual bell rang to begin
the Laura would fight. So that was actually perfect timing as far as I
would concerted, because they gave you a few minutes to get some of the
quotes and digest sort of what had occurred, and then get right into the
other fight, the Billam Smith one had on the other screen. I couldn't
pay close attention to that because it was happening around the same time, and
actually, to be quite honest, that was the one of the three fights
that were all sort of on at the same time that I was least interested
in, okay, But for me, I was also interested in You and
I were on opposite sides of the aisle. I had Billam Smith, you
had O Cooley. I was interested in, and in the timeline that one
started after the Conlin knockout loss and ending that one started up and was probably
Dan about three or four rounds in before the Wood fight started, So you
did get at least some separation of Okay, you've seen the ending of Conlin,
you've seen the beginning of Billam Smith and Oh Cooley, and now the
leave Wood fight is beginning. So it was a lot. It was a
ton to keep up with, and you wrote about it on your sub stack,
and we wrote about it on Big Fight Weekend dot Com. Shout out
to the guys helping me, Ricky Carroll and Sadiq Ahmed who were who were
helping write all of this because we even we even had uh chaos later on
with the Golden Boys shows, and you gotta have help, you gotta have
extra balls. Were Zilla like you are with at at least the roacha fight
did not you know that was didn't start until mutually all done, So that
was good and that was a good way to end things off. Okay,
so let's begin here, and by the way, thank you for finding us.
Make sure you're following, make sure you're subscribing Apple podcast, Google Podcast,
Spotify. We come off the weekend even on a holiday here, and
we did come early. We are promoting this. We came early because it's
a Memorial Day holiday. We're honoring those that have fallen in the line of
duty in the military or first responders, police, etc. We're honoring them.
So it's a national holiday, traditional national holiday for us. So in
our case, Dan and I are like, look, we got everything that
we need to get the show going. Let's go ahead and do the show.
Because there's stuff for the holiday and everybody's out of their routine and get
the show out on Sunday night. So, peeps, I hope you're taking
advantage of hearing us on a Sunday evening when typically this would be overnight Sunday
into Monday before you hear the show. But Monday is a holiday, so
that's why we're here in the timeframe where we are. So let's begin with
the Luis Alberto Lopez knockout of Michael Comlin. Upfront, you and I both
believe this was going to be a Conlin decision win. We picked it on
the bet Us Show Action Pack fight, and in the end, Lopez ends
up catching him with a booming shot, a one punch, a one hit
or quitter like we like to say, right a one punch ko and he
retains the title. Your thoughts in a recap mode? My thoughts were I
could tell after about the second or third round that this was not Michael Colin's
night. He looked really bad, Lopez looked really sharp, took the shots
well. Just never let Michael Colin get into any kind of boxing rhythm.
I mean, Michael has no problem fighting it out with a guy, but
Michael's bread and butter, his cells at being a boxer. He's not a
big puncher, but he knows that, you know, he's he's shown that
throughout his entire career, and Lopez is the opposite. Lopez is a guy
that tries to come and get you. He's got a lot of knockouts.
You know, he did go to distance when he won the title against Warrington,
but he you know, he inflicted some damage in that particular fight.
But I just didn't. I mean, I was like, right away pretty
much at the beginning of this fight, I just did not like Michael's body
language. I just thought he was getting hit too much. He was not
defensive minded at all. He wasn't getting away from the shots. He never
established the distance to keep or at least try guess to keep Lopez at the
end of a job and it was all downhill from there, you know,
good heart, and he tried and he hung in there, but at the
end of the day, there's only so many those big punches you can take
from that kind of those kind of shots. And you know in the end
that big Uppercott just ruined him in the fifth round. Sure, And you
and I were not there, You were not covering this, and we don't
know it as well. Did it appear to you though maybe weight drained and
SAPs some do we do? We just credit bad matchup. Lopez is a
bad matchup and firing back on him, And I mean, what would you
speculate as to why he didn't look himself? To paraphrase what you were just
saying, Colin, Listen, I just think some guys, you know,
I don't sometimes in boxing, there's not a lot of things to read into.
I don't try to like find every little you know, an issue,
excuse, problem, whatever. Sometimes guys just have a bad night. And
I'm not saying that this was the case in terms of that he would have
won on some other night. It just Michael Colin didn't have a more bad
matchup or bad matchup. And maybe it was a bad matchup. A guy
could take your shots and the guys firing back and it's a bad matchup,
and you find that out. He's been in with other good fighters that are
good punchers also and he hasn't had a problem taking the shots, So I
don't look at it like that. I think this was actually the perfect matchup
for him. I mean, this was the kind of fight that that Michael,
uh, you know can it's not a complicated opponent. It's not a
guy that's much bigger than you or or you know, has uh you know,
tremendous amounts of experience. I mean, Michael's a tremendously experienced fighter in
terms of his two time Olympian with a medal, and I'm plenty of experience
in the professionals fighting and uh, you know, big crowds and against good
opponents. Now sometimes it's it's you know what, you go in the ring
and you're not yourself, you don't feel so great. Whatever the issue is,
the other guy gets credit. Also, I'm not making excuses. I
mean, if Louis Alberto Lopez, he did what he does, he throws,
uh, you know, he's an aggressive puncher. He's defense sucks but
his hands are down. But I mean it's effective. I mean, I'll
tell you it's like Jamal Herring. Jamal Herring, who was doing the analysis
for the ESPN Plus broadcast, said exactly what I was thinking. Jose or
Luis Alberto Lopez's offense is his defense because he's so wild with his shots.
They come from all kinds of angles. He throws the shot from his hips
that that it's you know, and he throws with both hands, and so
he's constantly crushing you. So he don't allow him. You don't. He
doesn't allow the opponent to get back to or get into any kind of groove.
And that's effective for his defense because he keeps up that pace and that
pressure. And the bottom line was, Michael Colin, I have to assume
the game plan was to go and box him at a distance, mix it
up occasionally if you have to, but stick and move, and stick and
move, and do that for as long as you can, as good as
you can. And Louis Alberto Lopez wasn't having any of that. He was
not going to allow him to get into that kind of groove. And you
could tell after about two rounds that Michael Conlin was going to be troubled for
however long this fight went. And then he dumped down into that wild uppercut
and he paid the price, and he went to sleep for a couple of
seconds there, and the fight was over. And in fact, the referee
before they could even before the referee could even begin a count or wave it
off, whichever I mean, obviously he's probably gonna wave it You saw the
towel from the corner from Adam Booth, the trainer of Michael Conlin, come
flying into the ring. And you could tell also by the way after round
four when they went to the corner that Adam was a little concerned. And
you know, you don't usually see urgency from a trainer after four rounds,
but it's it felt like there was some urgency, like like Adam knew,
you know, we don't have it tonight. And that's the deal. And
now the problem that Michael faces is now in his two biggest fights both in
world title matches. This match three fights ago against Lee Wood, a fight
he was winning but also got knocked out even more spectacularly than he got knocked
out on Saturday. Where do you go? Yep, two biggest fights are
both KAO losses. He's got to start over, and he said he had
a social media postum an early Sunday that basically said, I'm going to take
some time away from everything, including social media, and reevaluate where I go
from here, and we'll I mean, we'll see. I mean, certainly
he's young enough that he can he can you know, rebound, refocus,
but he's got now a lot to get back in order to get back in
a world title fight. I'm just not four stage. I'm not sure he's
not young. He's had a ton of amateur fights. He's in his thirties.
Um, this was his best opportunity. It's not to say that he
can't get another shot to say, what is his? Does he really want
to go through that effort to climb them out? And again he's not getting
any younger. He's taken punishment now in some fights. Um. And let
me tell you, Michael is a very we talked about on the podcast the
other day when we were previewing of what a fan favorite he was with the
Irish fans, in particular in terms of the way that things went when his
pro debut with the giant electrifying atmosphere that they had filling up the Madison Square
Garden theater. Uh. And Michael has been a fan favorite for a long
time, whether he's been fighting in New York City where he drew lots of
fans, or he's fighting obviously in in Northern Ireland. Uh. Michael's a
good dude. Uh. I like him. He's a very likable guy.
And his brother Jamie, who's now used to be a professional fighter right now,
Pretty Colin Boxing, which is the promotional outfit that works with top rank
on their on their events. Um So listen, I wish Michael Conlin absolutely
nothing but the best, A good dude in my mind, a hard worker.
Uh And but Louise how Berto Lopez, you know people write him off.
You know we picked against him. This guy is the road warrior man.
This guy now has three of his big all three of his championship victories
have come in the enemy territory. Went to London, went to London and
annihilated Isaac Low in the elimination fight, which got him the opportunity to fight
for title. Took a couple of tune up fights while he's waiting to get
the shot. Then for the title fight, went to Leads, England,
a fortress where Josh Warrington is from. Fought him in his hometown and out
fought him and out slugged him out and out boxed him and won a majority
decision that really should have been an unanimous decision. You know, when you
go to a guy's hometown like that you win the majority decision, you know,
that was really a clean win. And then in his first defense,
he didn't have a celebration homecoming fight. He didn't take a soft touch or
just pick an easy mark. No, the guy went in with a very
quality, reputable, legit contender in Michael Colin and did it in Michael Conlin's
hometown. And this is not like just any old hometown. This is Belfast,
Northern Ireland, where they don't fuck around. And yes he knocked them
out, you know, yep. Bad two weeks by the way for the
Irish fans, uh, the Irish and the Northern Irish fans, because Katie
Taylor was beaten last week in Dublin and now Michael Conlin knocked out in bellefan
listen, even even even on the undercart of Katie with Gary Cully getting knocked
out, it was a big surprise, sou. But the good thing for
if you're if you're an Irish fan is they've got a lot of good young
prospects coming up and and even like Katie Taylor, she's still champion at one
hundred and thirty five pounds, so all is not lost. And Conlin again
is thirty one twenty pro fights in thirty one. It's not like he's thirty
five. So let's let's see if he and maybe he does not re emerge
after these two knockout losses, combining it with Lee Wood, we'll see.
We'll see. For Lopez, just give me one quick thing and we'll move
on. For here, what do you think is next? Because there are
some top rank options potentially, and he's a top ranked fighter, what do
you think is next off the knockout? Well, I mean there's there's First
of all, they're gonna have to have a conversation with him. What does
he want to do, what are his expectations. I mean, it would
be nice, honestly if he could actually get a fight that was, you
know, not in his home, in the other guys some town for a
change, whether that means fighting I don't know about in Mexico, but somewhere
in the United States and in a Hispanic area of Las Vegas, West California.
Whatever. But I think look, they have other champions that they work
with. They're the promoter for Robes Ramirez. I don't think that. I
think the logical fight that that would be interesting was the loss that he took.
Louis Alberto Lopez has had two defeats. One of them was very early
in his career back in twenty eighteen in Mexico, his most notable loss,
which came the following year, but that was a nationally televised fight in the
United States on Showbox. He lost a decision to ruben Villa, who then
later fought for a ROL tuttle and loss. But ruben Villa recently signed with
Top Rank, made his top ranked debut in recent you know, just in
the last couple of weeks, and looked very, very sharp and getting a
victory. And he's a very solid prospect, a solid contender, I should
say so. I think eventually that might be an attractive fight for Lopez to
try to avenge his loss to Via and Via getting another title opportunity. I
can absolutely see that fight happening, and then they may also go the route
where, you know, we just want to make a good, exciting fight,
but a fight where Lopez is probably going to be the favorite. Look
they promote Joet Gonzalez, who has also come up short and some title fights,
but he's always gives a great effort, always is in an exciting fight,
and that would be a very fan friendly kind of fight. I could
see Top Rank looking to that direction. He's going to have options, whether
it's a via a joet a unification against Robesi Ramires, which obviously if that
were to happen, it's probably a ways away. And I say that because
Robesi Ramirez is first headed to Japan to defend his title on the undercard of
the great matchup between In a Way and Stephen Fulton. But suffice it to
say, the top rank stable between fighters at one hundred twenty six pounds or
other fighters at one twenty two that could come up and wait whatever, there
are a lot of opportunities and options. I think for him, the other
unification fights seem a little bit unlikely for different reasons. You know, I
don't think they're making a fight between him and Lee Wood, although I would
certainly embrace that. I mean, you never know. I guess so that
that's probably unlikely. And like I said, robes He's got the WBO title
and Lee Would Lee Wood come stateside come fight in Las Vegas? I don't
know that Lee Wood would ever come fight in Mexico, and I don't know
the money would be there in Mexico. Would Lopez turn around and want to
go back to the UK again for a big pay Day and fight Lee would
And again that's top rank against match Room two. I'm sure that that,
based on Lopez's comments prior to this fight and after this fight, that this
is a guy who was utterly fearless. He doesn't care about going to the
hometown or wherever. I assume if you pay him right, he'll go.
Lee Wood coming to the United States to fight him, I don't think Lee
Wood would be fearful of that at all. But he made it very clear
what he wants in his post fight There's not a big amount of money to
come to the United States to fight, to fight Lopez. I just that
seems a bit a bridge too far. Well, Lee Wood wants and we'll
get to him, but he wants the big city ground stadium fight where he
lives in Nottingham. And he also would like a unification. The other champion
in the way class for what it's worth, it is with PBC and that's
Ray Vargas. And so I don't know how makeable, If they've makeable is
the right word, that would be all right. So I'm to say if
I had, if I'd have bet something on it. When Lopez comes back,
he's going to fight one of the top ranked guys, probably not going
to be a unification. In the next fight, He's most likely going to
fight one of their contenders, a Joet urban Villa. And maybe I'm forgetting
somebody, but I'm sure there's somebody else that's that's there also. It's going
to be that type of fight. We'll see him on ESPN in a in
a title defense. All right, fair enough, So let's move to the
Lee Wood victory over Mauricio Laura. Now, you and I, we pulled
the curtain back all the time on this. You and I put the podcast
bed on Thursday night overnight into Friday for the preview, and we did not
know, We did not have any inkling that there was a weight problem looming
with Mauricio Laura being significantly overweight the week before the fight and the week of
the fight, to the point that we find out later Friday that the British
Boxing Board of Control on Wednesday had basically told him it is unsafe right now
for you to try to cut all the way down to one hundred and twenty
six pounds. We're not gonna let you, Mauricio Laura, be any any
less than one hundred and twenty eight and a half pounds or we're not gonna
sanction this fight. We're not gonna let it go forward. And so we
didn't know that, so we put this thing, we put this podcast to
beether we do a tremendous job, if I do say so myself, you
and I previewing this thing, and it turns out we have a weight debacle.
W ei w e i GHT a weight debacle, not a w ai
t, a weight debacle to wait on the fight, I guess we have
a weight debacle, all right. So that unfolded while we were doing the
live bet Us show in the hours just before the live bet Us show on
Friday. To make the wagers that this would be a non title fight for
Laura, he stripped the w BA went ahead and stripped him on Friday,
as they should have. So the fight, the fight is only a title
fight for Wood to win the title, which he did, all right,
So let's get into it, and in full disclosure from me again, in
all the craziness, I didn't watch this as closely as you did. I
saw the back half of the fight where honestly, Raphael Enlightness, all including
me, it did not look like from about the eighth round on when I
was watching that, Mauricio Laura cared very much anymore that he knew he had
lost, He knew he was going to lose a decision, and wasn't trying
very hard. That was my perception of that. It was Wood just doing
whatever he wanted in terms about boxing him. All Right, what are your
thoughts with all of that being said and what it looked like to you now
that Wood has captured the decision and gotten his title back. Well, I
would say if you were watching him from the beginning, it would have been
your same perspective. After maybe about two or three rounds. Look, Lee
Wood, if you watched their first fight that took place back in February,
up until the moment when he got knocked out by the left hook, he
was handling Laura pretty well. He was up on all three scorecards. I
mean, he wasn't totally dominating, but he clearly was winning more of the
rounds. He might have had lost maybe two rounds if you want to be
super generous, maybe three rounds. But the point was Lee was in control
of the fight, and then he got stopped when he got up from the
knockdown and the trainer Ben Davis and throw in the towel with six seconds left
in the round um And there was some criticism there, but Lee was fine
with it. He's like, look, I knew I had a rematch.
That was what Ben said. He was in and had his in his mind.
We know we can get this back. They made some adjustments. You
could tell the adjustments. You know, a lot of times I think fighters
and trainers say that shit, but they don't really know what the fuck they're
talking about. They were there. There's not really I mean, not that
they don't know what they're talking about. That that it's sort of just it's
just, uh, it's just words. It's a cliche thing to say we're
going to make adjustments. But in this particular fight, Lee Wood actually,
in my opinion, did make adjustments. His right hand was up the whole
fight. He was not gonna get hit by that left hook with any kind
of you know that he didn't see coming. Like he like what happened in
the first fight. He stayed committed to the jab. They very very you
know that they worked in this and we said it after the fight that the
jab to the body was a huge asset for him. If you look at
the way that fight unfolded, he was very reliant on the jab, certainly
to the body. Um again, I don't we talked about copy box all
the time. It's a good guy to the fight. Lee landed roughly a
third of his punches to the body in the fight. Obviously that was not
by accident, so he did. He did make some adjustments and they worked.
Lee is a superior boxer to Laura, and that showed. He is
a little longer than Laura. That showed. He kept him on the outside,
but he fought him on the inside when necessary. When the hooks came
from Lara, he took them well because he saw them as opposed to getting
caught without seeing it, like what happened in the first fight. And he
also made Laura respect his power because in round two he put him on his
ass. So that was a big moment in the fight also. And so
in the end you have a guy that has shown his power, His defense
has been sound, his jab is good. He kept a distance, he
was a little bit taller, a little bit longer. He kept him on
the outside when he could. He was willing to fight him on the inside.
When necessary, and it discouraged Laura. And you know, some would
say while he was drained from whatever attempt he did try to make the weight
even though he was over, maybe he was flat disinterested because he lost a
belt, etc. I don't there. That's a lot of you can say
all that, and that's fine, but at the end of the day,
you get in the ring, you do your job, and he did not
do his job. And whether it was because he was disinterested or because Leewood
was kicking his ass, you know, I don't know for sure. What
I do know is that Lee Wood did a great job in that fight.
He boxed very very well, He showed toughness and he won going away.
And when you can look at the scorecard, agency one eighteen one o nine
twice and one sixteen one eleven. I thought one sixteen one eleven was awfully
generous to to to Laura in this fight. So for me, this was
a huge win for Leewood. You know, he took he never wavered on
taking the rematch. You know, we talked about it in the podcast interview
that we played on the preview about you know, taking this fight on just
uh, you know what three months like thirteen weeks the first fight after getting
stopped. You know, Eddie Hearne spoke about it before the fight and he
said after the fight. Look, Lee came to my office on the Monday
after the first fight and like I want the rematch, and he was with
Ben and you know, and Eddie's words, he goes, I thought he
was mad. And I looked at Lee and I thought he was mad,
you know, mad like as in crazy, not in British terminology nuts exactly.
Yes. So but that's what he wanted to do. So they you
know, a voked the rematch. Eddie will tell you he wanted would to
just sit tidy or take a confidence builder or some other fight. And what
he wanted to do is he wanted to do the third fight between Laura and
Josh Warrington. That was what his preference was. Um, now it looks
like there's a good chance we'll see Lee Wood against Warrington uh in the next
fight. Now that's one of the fights that he mentioned after afterwards, when
he was asked what do you want, he wanted a couple of things.
He said, he wants a big fighted City Ground. City Ground is the
big soccer stadium in Nottingham where their local pro soccer team football team has played.
I looked it up, by the way, the City Ground, that's
what is it. Are you talking about Nottingham Forest, Yes, Forrest,
Yes, Nottingham Forest FC football club has played in that stadium since eighteen ninety
eight. About that Seed stadium. So he wants a boxing event there.
He said it several times leading up to the fight and several times after the
fight. Eddie, I guess we'll try to deliver it for him. Warrington
could be the opponent for that fight that obviously be a huge event for the
UK. And the other thing he said was I want a unification fight.
He actually was asked like he asked who won between Lopez and Laura. I
mean, I mean Lopez and Conlin because that fight, like you know,
had ended, you know, like an hour or so or forty five minutes
or whatever before in Lee Wood had emerged as the victor in his fight,
So he'd like a unification. I don't again, I don't know how realistic
those are, but certainly the City Ground against a Warrington type opponent, or
Warrington specifically, I would think is very very doable. Warrington would be getting
another title shot. They're all with nat Room, they're on the same broadcaster
with his own. No reason why that fight can't happen, So that would
be a pretty big fight. Lee said, Look, he's only got a
couple of fights left. He thinks in his career. He's thirty four,
he's not getting any younger. You know, he's he's having his best days.
He considered that victory on Saturday. He said it's his biggest win and
he's had some big wins. Listen, and Lee's a nice guy too.
You know. It's fighters like that are easy to root for in the ring
and out of the ring because they're very pleasant, nice people. He's a
hard work and devoted, dedicated guy to his craft. You know, he
was a guy that had taken some upset losses in like British title level fights
and nobody really ever gave him a chance to be a world champion. And
you know that's the beauty of the sports. Sometimes you see these guys and
they they're good fighters, but you don't see them necessarily as world class,
top elite fighters in their division. But what we think doesn't really mean anything.
It's what what is the fighter thing? What's the work? He's willing
to put in the adjustments. He's willing to make the sacrifices. He's willing
to make. Leewood did all of that. He became a world champion.
He's got knocked out, he came back, he beat the guy, avenged
a loss. I mean, how do you not like that story? He's
a he's a good dude. He makes a good fight and I was happy
to see it. Redemption for him. So he gets the victory. Art
does now by the way, Wow, And and he obviously embarrassed himself by
not training nearly hard enough and not cutting the weight early enough for what went
on, and now took a one sided defeat. We'll see what happens with
him next. But I mean, the weight situation notwithstanding, I mean,
that's never a good thing. But it's certainly not the first time a guy
missed weight, even by that much, and it's not the last time.
What was concerning was when you're in that kind of fight, you still have
to have some pride when the bell rings and you want to you gotta try.
I mean, we ask fans like I don't get really too jacked up
of a guy loses, Like a lot of people like, get crazy.
Oh guy, he's exposed. He's no good. This not because he lost
a fight. I've never had that attitude. Guys, if you put in
two quality fighters in the ring, or even not quality, someone's gonna win,
someone's gonna lose, and the guy that loses it it happens. The
thing to me is if you lose, so be it. But where I
really draw the lines. If it looks like you don't try or give a
shit, don't If you don't give a shit, why am I wasting my
time watching you? And I watched Lara fight that fight against who wanted it
more than anything, and his opponent didn't seem to give a shit. And
that's what offended me, Not that he lost, not even that he didn't
make the contract situation with the weight and got stripped and all that. I
mean, it's not good. But what offended me, as a fan who
spends my time and money watching and reporting, is if you don't try,
you know, that's that's offensive to me. And it didn't feel like Mauriceo
lare really in any way try. You know, there was even less energy
in his corner like you figure, okay, the corner they know he's losing.
They know he's getting his rear end, you know, knocked around.
And it wasn't like he was getting beat up. He was just losing the
fight. You know he's getting beat up. That's a different story. There
was no urgency in that corner at any point that I could detect. And
when he went out for a round twelve, you'd have thought he was in
like the third round of like a life. So fair to say they had
checked out as a team and he checked out as a fighter, probably because
of the way in stuff. He knew he was getting stripped, he knew
he was getting fined for what happened, and he knew he was losing.
He knew. I don't know if battling a match, I can't speak to
a fine, but what I can tell you this is, if you can't
make one twenty six and you're no longer have your title and you're going to
go to one thirty, now you got to kind of start over. Laura's
cachet was he was this knockout guy at featherweight that kind of came out of
nowhere, and now he's kind of got to start over. Now. That's
not to say there won't be opportunities for him. At one thirty, he
shows he actually wants to get back in the ring and be a real fighter.
So that was as as as as tremendous and as heartwarming and as excellent
as Lee Wood was on that day. It was the opposite for Mauricio Lara.
Super disappointing. You know, at least with Conlin the other featherweight title
fight, you can't say he didn't try or he didn't try. I think
Michael was in there try. He just happened to get out gunned and lost
a fight. But there's nothing to be ashamed of in Michael's case. But
Laura, you know, he didn't. He didn't he didn't give it an
effort, and that was disappointing. All Right, the rest of that undercard
real quick, and then we'll move on to the other action. Jack Catterall
was finally back after his controversy your loss over a year ago to Josh Taylor.
He won in the co feature fight. And also Terry Harper. We
didn't really talk about this a lot in the preview mode, but Terry Harper,
the women's WBA Junior Middleweight champion, had her fight with Cecilia break Who's
last week called off on the morning of the fight because Brake Who's was sick.
They were able to put her on this show in Manchester and she did
win by ten round decision over her filling opponent, Ivana Habazen. Okay,
so those two fights were on the undercard. Anything of note they're coming out
of both of those, my friend, Well as it relates to Terry Harper,
I mean, you got to appreciate the difficult situations. She's made,
the weight, she's gone to bed, She's waking up on Saturday morning to
be prepared to go in there and box against one of the all time greatest
women whoever put loves on in Cecilia Break who's in defense of her title,
finds out the fight is off, and at that moment there's you don't know
for sure. I mean, am I fighting? I'm done? I mean
I'm bummed out. I'm not getting paid, blah blah blah. Fortunately a
Matt Room had this event one week later. They were able to somehow salvage
it. And by the way, when they got habiz in, they got
a really equality opponent in her. It's not like she's a bump. She's
bought for the title. She's been one of the better women's fighters for quite
a while. She must have been in the gym and you know, at
least close to the weight. And I was just gonna say, sometimes your
best ability is your availability. She must have been working out and on weight
because she only had six days to basically make weight at the women's junior middle
weight. But it's also you gotta you know, for Terry Harper, from
the mental perspective of, okay, now you got to like reprogram yourself and
think I'm going back in, think about another opponent, a different event.
But because she'd already made the weight, now you got to somehow hold the
weight for a week. Now. Obviously she didn't stay on one hundred and
fifty four or whatever. She was sure higher seven days, but you got
to be a little bit careful about that. So but she was a pro.
Habism was a pro. They put on a decent fight. Terry Harper
won the fight pretty handily on the scuorecard, you know, eight to two
on two of the cards and seven to three. But uh, you know,
I just give a tip of the hat to everybody involved to be able
to save the fight. Hopefully brecous heels, you know, gets better and
they can do that fight at some point later in the year, which is
what Terry Harper indicated. Uh, and Eddie said they might try to do
um So hopefully that works out. So they were able to save that that
fight, so good for them. And as far as Jack Catterall go,
has been a long time coming. We've we've documented you know, his uh,
his situation. He hadn't fought for fifteen months. He had the big
fight for undisputed against Josh Taylor, hugely controversial. A lot of people thought
that that, uh that certainly Catterall should have got the victory. Uh,
he didn't get the victory in any event, but they tried multiple times to
make the rematch. It was on, it was off. There was postponements
because of network issues in England, there was issues with COVID related stuff.
There was injuries, there was this a lot of different things that happened.
And finally when the when the last thing that happened, which was an injury
to Josh Taylor's foot, and it was going to be another X number of
months before the fight was going to be rescheduled. The Dubbo which by that
time was the only belt left that Josh Taylor had which he had allowed himself
to be stripped or vacated all the other titles because he wanted to have the
rematch with Jack to sort of set the record straight because he had taken so
much criticism, even though it shouldn't be directed at him since he's not the
guy doing the scoring in any event. Finally, when that foot injury occurred,
in was going to postpone the fight for another several months. The WBO
stepped in and said enough is enough, and they ordered the mandatory fight for
him again for Josh against Tiafimo Lopez, which will take place next month.
So now Jack hatterallas stuck. He finally he parts with his promoter. He
signs with Eddie. This was the first fight of that new contract. He
goes in there and he beats a Derek Foley, dropped him a couple of
times, wins a clear decision, you know, pretty wide, but got
in good work after being out for so long. And now the real possibility
exists that with the victory it could set him up for age shot later this
year against Regis Progress. Now that is not a guarantee. I don't think,
because for small Regis has his fight coming up in June. If he
wins that fight, there's going to be probably two excellent possibilities for him within
the top, within the within the top fighters that are with match Room in
that way lass one will be Jack Catterall and the other one will be the
winner of the fight between Richards and Hitchens and Montana Love. So that's gonna
probably be left up to what does Regis and his team what do they think
is best for them, And it'll be up to Eddie Hearn to present him
with offers, and you know, whichever one probably can pay him the most
or make it the biggest event will probably be the one that he would take.
So but but Jack Catterall is back in business, um, and uh,
you know, good for him. He got a good he got a
good shake off the rush, win against a decent opponent, took care of
business and he puts himself in a great position and welcome back Jack Catterall.
Understood on that. Again, we percolate a long here on the fight for
each Unite recap so in the chronology and again in fairness for both of us,
because as I admitted to you, before I didn't get to see a
lot of the beginning of the Lee Wood fight. As it turns out,
you were not able to monitor a lot of the Chris Billham Smith Lawrence o'coley
fight, because again, that was going on in the Sandwich in between Michael
Conlin's win, which you were trying to write about post fight, and then
the Lee Wood fight beginning. So I was locked in on billham Smith and
that fight. What a tremendous battle in Bournemouth, England, on the coastal
town where Billiam Smith is from, where Lawrence o'coley, unbeaten WBO cruiserweight champion,
was putting his title on the line against his good friend. I mean,
this was well out there as part of the narrative. They had sparred
together, they're good friends. Now they're in the ring fighting, and this
one had drama with billham Smith a significant underdog, scoring a fourth round knockdown
on o'coley and Dan Raphael he had him in real trouble to potentially stop him,
and the crowd is roaring in that stadium, Vitality Stadium in Bournemouth,
a fifteen thousand or eighteen thousand seat soccer stadium. It was roaring and it
looked like it might have been a stoppage day. Then o'coley seemed to recover
a little bit, but one thing he kept doing through the whole fight was
clutching and grabbing. After he threw the big right hand, he'd throw the
right hand, and it was hug time. He'd throw the right hand,
it was clinched time. And finally the controversial referee, Marcus McDonald had had
enough and took a point away and continued to warn him stop holding him,
stop holding him. And then later in the fight he took another point away
for too much holding. Now we have drama for a possible decision, and
then we have a couple of billam Smith knockdowns late in the fight. The
first one was kind of questionable Dan in the tenth round, where was it
more of a gazing, grazing blow. But again o'coley is trying to grab
on. He's off balance all the time. Was it a punch? Not
sure right, the referee ruled down a knockdown. Then in the eleventh it
is a knockdown. It's a clean left that drops him stumbling forward. So
now the crowd is roaring Bill him Smith finishes off what looks like a fairly
easy win because the referee, Dan Rayfield is called not one, not two,
but three official knockdowns and has taken off not one, but two penalty
points for holding on o'coley. Now, I know I went to public school
math and you ridicule me, but that's five. That's five points right there,
ter in this decision. Five. I went to public school. Also,
I understand that. I mean, even even with my non private school
education, my higher learning a math tutor, that's five points. That's what
that means is that the judge that well, just say what the judges' scores
work. I'm looking here. Here we go one sixteen, one oh seven
in favor of Billan Smith, one fifteen one a wait in favor of Billan
Smith, and then one twelve one twelve. But here's the thing. That
means that if my math is correct, that means that o'cole, in all
of the rounds that didn't have a knockdown or a point deduction, he won.
Right. Okay, so let's delve into this. I got you here
on this so we have think that I don't I know, but I'm ready
to help because I wrote about this on Big Fight Weekend dot com plug right
there. So these three judges, this is interesting and this is important and
this is why you love the recap podcast. So the judges are Mark Williams,
who is a referee and a judge in Brittany's an English referee judge,
Bob Williams. I'm sorry, keep me straight, Bob Williams. He had
refereed the co feature fight just before that and then he sat down to judge.
And this this happens a lot in Britain with referees alternating as judges in
these fight cards. So Bob Williams sat down to now judge the main event
and he judged it, I believe, properly and scored it properly, and
in his case because of the math. Again we go over the math of
him having it one sixteen to one oh seven. That's eight to four.
He had one fifteen one away, right, keep me straight on this.
So he had it seven to five for billham Smith and he properly took the
five points away from o'coley for three knockdowns and two points off. That's why
it's not one fifteen, one thirteen. We're good there. All right.
The next judge in this case is a female judge, and I want to
get I want to get this all right. Uh. In her case,
she had refereed some She's a judge of German descent, and that's Diane Milani.
Milani had previously refereed one world title fight involving Natasha Jonas and scored it
for Jonas on an unanimous decision. This was the second world title fight she's
ever worked, and she's fine, she's fine with the math. Here we
go with math again on what we're scoring one sixteen one O seven, which
is six to eight to four, five points off. All right. Now
we get to the American judge, Benjamin Rodriguez. And as much as boxing
fan in this country wants to go crazy on the Dave Moretti scoring last week
of David Haney and Vasili Lomachenko, how do you get to one twelve one
twelve, which the indication there again is he believes o'kole. And again we're
not privy to look at the scorecards. We haven't seen the scorecards, the
exact cards, but we're taking this with clues that if he gave billam Smith
only one hundred and twelve points on his card. He's got it eight to
four for o'coley because billam Smith didn't get knocked down or seriously hurt or points
taken away in any of the rounds. So that means the American judge Benjamin
Rodriguez, who's based out of Northern Illinois, who referees primarily in Wisconsin and
Northern Illinois. I looked him up through box Wreck. He had only refereed
one other world title fight earlier this year in Japan. It was a second
round knockout by Jerusalem, the fighter that lost on Saturday night at the Golden
Boys show, so his card didn't mean anything. In the Japanese fight he
traveled to Japan, there was a second round knockout, so Benjamin Rodriguez,
Benjamin Rodriguez did not deduct five points from o'coley, but the three knockdowns and
the two points deducted for holding. Otherwise he would have had one twelve one
eleven, not one twelve one twelve and the other incredible thing. But that
means I guess that means that he probably had a couple of ten ten rounds.
He maybe I've had a ten ten round and to me again, you
and I've gone over this. You shouldn't have ten ten rounds if you're a
championship judge. Score one rounds are okay, but not okay to me,
score winner. You're in a championship fight, score winner. The you just
don't know the rules of boxing's not saying. I'm not saying it's not allowed
within the rules. I'm saying that you should, as a championship judge,
tell me who won that round. If one fighter is more aggressive, then
give it to him. But you have to be honest about it. And
there are times I'm not is that case, but there's absolutely times where a
ten time round is most of the time, that's when you have an opening
round. Get to know you, nothing happens, there's like one punch landed
by one guy, two punch landed by the other guy. Nothing happened,
and like it's a ten ten round. Okay. When I scored town round,
which is like two or three times a year, that's basically the reason.
So I'm not I mean again, I can't speak to I haven't seen
the round round of mister Rodriguez's square card yet, but I do not say
that a ten ten round is like illegal. If you feel like you need
to use it, you do it. But it should be sparingly all right.
And again I haven't seen his card either, but we have five points
in question here in five separate rounds you get you can't you can't get him
to one twelve with the five points taken off. He should be at one
eleven. And again this should be scrutinized. Here we go back to accountability
the British Boxing Board of Control, the WBO. This referee because Chris Billham
Smith easily won six or seven rounds of that fight to only be given four
rounds three of him. He had knockdowns in two other ones that was a
point taken away, but he got to win, did get to win.
But this, this judge should be scrutinized. And I wrote about it again
on Big Fight Weekend dot Com read about it more because the other two judges
had it much more in line and took the five points off. With this
America and it's an American judge in Britain that did this, there should be
real questions about whether he should be judging anymore world title fights. I'm looking
like this more from the big picture of how disappointing. Lawrence o'cle he was,
okay, Yes, the coal is bliss with all kinds of physical talent.
He's a very good boxer. He's got underrated punching power and he didn't
use any of it. And when we talk, so let me let me
say this, I think two thanks, say I think two thanks happened.
He was controlling the beginning of the fight. He had billam Smith backing up,
and then he got caught in the fourth round with the left hook,
and from there I think he was cautious. I think he was tentative about
getting countered with the left. It was a different fight, Dan, So
go ahead. Well, what I was gonna say about about his whole career,
basically, not just this one particular bout, is that he's always sort
of been safety first. If he can go get you, because he's got
no fear of what's coming back, he'll get you out of there like he's
done with some lesser a type of compe opponents in these faces. But he's
like when you talk about the clutch and grab. Like I said, I
didn't see the full fight, but I saw enough to understand what a coal
he's about. I've seen him fight in other fights. Also, the clutch
and grab is absolutely maddening. It's like he's like the British version of John
Ruiz throw the shot grab on. I mean, I sat through a lot
of the terrible genre he's fights during his day. Um, it's almost like
he doesn't trust himself. Like he knows he's got the power, he knows
he's got the size advantage, he knows he's got the reach advantage, he's
definitely got the technical advantage, and he's like scared that he that he can't
utilize it, Like he doesn't really understand his own physical gifts in a man.
In a weird way, it's almost like like like he's never been properly
trained to utilize what he has, or that he hasn't grown into his own
body yet, Like he doesn't understand that he's as big as he is and
as long as he is, and as tall as he is and as powerful
as he is. Uh, and you know that's on him and his team.
And in a good desire, he was there too. He didn't want
to disappoint in front of those fans that we're all cheering for him. He's
got a big heart. He had that big gash over his eye, and
uh, you know he was kind of like I feel like his mentality from
Bill and Smith in that fight to become a world champion was I'm not going
to be denied. And if you ever watched Chris billones been earlier in his
career, which I saw him fight on some of these undercard fights that I
have seen from Britain, you know he was, in my perspective, was
exciting fighter, you know, hard worker, not really championship material, to
be honest, and uh, you know again it goes back to Lake Leewood.
You know, he believed it and he did it. Good for him,
congratulations And it was interesting to hear sugar Hill Steward in the corner with
o'coley like in the ninth round. In the tenth round, he knew this
was big trouble because the points had been taken away, and especially after the
tenth round when there was another knockdown scored, he was emphatically f bombs flying
with the coverage on Sky Sports apologizing for the f bombs flying, trying to
get Laurence o'coley to get him out of there. Knock I mean it was
almost like Emmanuel Stewart, knock this effort out, go for it. Stewart's
nephew, that is correct. He was. He was imploring him the same
way, get him out of there because he knew we're probably behind, except
of course on Rodriguez's card, which was either with or without a blindfold,
I don't know. But in any event, Billham Smith gets to win two
more heartwarming parts of this again with the crowd roaring behind him. His mother
is suffering and dying from breast cancer Dan. He admitted this in the build
up to the fight. He dedicated the fight after the fight to his mom.
He's in tears in the ring about his mom. My mom got to
see me be a world champion. And he has a one year old whose
birthday was Friday, the day before the fight. He says, what a
birthday present from my little guy. I got this belt. Now we're gonna
play with the belt. How cool is that these guys they go out there
and take these punches, Dan, for our enjoyment, or for what we
do for a living or whatever. But they're human beings. And billam Smith
what a moment in his hometown to have a mom dying, to have a
little infant and he wins a world title. Great story, one final time,
Just great story, yeah, you know. And the thing about it
is he's probably gonna have to faight Laurence Occoli a second time and they are,
yeah, the rematch clause. And that's the downside of boxing. If
I'm coolie, I'm trying to make sure that's not in born of it.
The game with the roaring crowd and everything against me. Have to fight somewhere
else if you can't take the shot and you're gonna grab on and hold constantly,
it doesn't matter where the fight takes place. I mean, Lawrence o
cole has to and I mean, I'm sure sugar Hill has worked with him
on these types of things, but it just doesn't feel like he understands what
he is. He just he thinks he's the different kind of fighter than he
actually displays in the ring, and it's it's kind of maddening to watch.
And I'm just listening. I mean, I thought that o'coley would win the
fight, and I'm not like unhappy that that Bill and Smiths won the fight.
But Lawrence of cole is a very maddening fighter because the skills and the
abilities are there. My biggest question about him is not his physical attributes and
can he do it? It's really what's going on in his head, that's
right, And sometimes in sports in general, boxing specifically, it is the
difference between the years, the mental aspect of the game. What happens when
there's adversity, what happens when you question yourself? Do you train hard enough
in boxing? Do you have confidence at the plate in baseball? Whenever you
want to talk about I mean, I've always said, I've always said when
when When the choice is, if you had a choice, and you are
a promoter or a manager, you're signing fighters, which would you rather have
the guy with the A plus pound for pound talent but the not so great
head or a work ethic where the guy with the B talent but the I'm
gonna outwork every single person that there is and has that mentality that I'm not
gonna be denied. Give me the guy with the B talent and the ethic,
then the other way around every single time, And probably the guy with
the B talent is the one that won this fight. I don't think there's
probably he was. And then there's then there's the guys that which is the
guys with the A plus work ethic and you know, like a Mayweather with
the A plus talent. That's the best kind of fighter you could have,
you know, no doubt Canello in the present day name. I'm all right,
So there we go. All right, So there's the wrap up on
the w BO Cruiserway. Time to fight and Okoli, look was very gracious
after it was over. He said, hey, he beat me, he
beat me, and we'll do this again. We'll have it. We'll have
a rematch and maybe that rematches before the end of this year coming up.
All right, let's finish up on the recaps with the Golden Boys Show,
which did see a world title win for Oscar Colazzo as he captures the WBO's
Trawlway title and made history. Dan Raphael, you love the history and the
nostalgia. Seven professional fights, the quickest ever Puerto Rican world champion, seventh
pro fight. He gets the win on the undercard Alexis Rocha then wins the
main event as a welterweight contender on the Golden Boys Show in front of a
raucous crowd that the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, California. It was a
pro Roacha crowd. They were roaring he got the knockout. All right,
Your thoughts on the Golden Boy card to wrap up the recaps here, Well,
I mean, that's Rocha's home base, that's where his fans are.
They were all out there for him for the most part. And look when
Roacha was first coming up, I watched him a few times, and you
know, the Golden Boy people would hype him up, and I'm like,
I mean, I don't know if I see I see an exciting guy.
I mean, I see a guy that's good to watch and maybe he can
get to, you know, a certain level, be ranked and that sort
of thing. Do I see a future world champion? I am not so
sure about that, I have to I have to say though. Over his
recent fights, granted, part of it's because of the type of matches he's
been facing, but he's kind of he's starting to grow on me a little
bit. TI. I mean, he's getting better. It feels like to
me he's doing what he's supposed to do. The one loss he had,
which is in twenty and twenty, he loss a very uh you know,
competitive decision to Rashitty Ellis, who was a very good boxer. That was
when Roshit. He also was with Golden Boy. Ellis has since gone on
and had the loss earlier in the year on the Tank Davis undercard, but
still a good he was a good amateur. He's still got a lot of
good skills. But since that time in twenty twenty, Rocha a couple of
things. He stayed busy. They've had him fighting regularly and he's come up
with some solid wins. He you know, he has the knockout against Blair
Cobbs, he has the the It wasn't that there's a great opponent, but
their previous fight against Georgia She where he put him down. I think that
was like a face first knockout. He goes in there against Anthony Young,
who was maybe not a world beater, but certainly not a bum. I
mean it was a good amateur in his own right and only had a couple
of losses. You know, pretty solid guy. But but Alexis Rocha,
who is sitting there as the WBO's number one mandatory for Terence Crawford's belt.
Before Terence Crawford and the Errol Spence people could finalize the deal for the undisputed
title. The WBO and the Crawford people had conversation with Golden Boy and the
ROACHA team about you know not you know, because remember that fight had been
ordered by the w BO, but everybody backed off. I think that everybody
on Team Roacha and Golden Boy felt like, you know what, We're not
going to go mess up this megafight. And by the way, our guy
still needs a little bit more seasoning, so we're gonna get him a couple
of more fights. We'll step aside, and uh, if we get a
chance to fight the winner of Errol Spence against Crawford, great, If we
don't, will fight for a vacant title and maybe he can put together a
little bit of a run. So but the bottom line is every time now
Rocha steps in the ring, he is risking that mandatory status to fight for
a world title. So he had that on his mind. Not on his
mind, but certainly there was in terms of a factor in fight. Who
lose your mandatory spot is gone. But listen, Rocha win in there against
a pretty decent opponent in Anthony Young and absolutely tore him apart. Looked,
I thought, looked probably as good as he looked frankly, Roacher just beat
him up, knocked him down, you know, wrote to Young's credit,
he got up, he was, he was he wanted to continue, but
he just the referee, which is Thomas Taylor, who's probably in one of
the best referees in boxing m made them made their appropriate stoppage. And it's
just another good win for Roachi. He's exciting, he's got a fan base,
he's coming into his own in terms of his talent, and he's going
to get an opportunity, whether it's against the winner of the fight between Terrence
Crawford and Arrow Spence, or it's going to be for a vacant title.
At some point, this kid's gonna get the opportunity. And then Golden Boy
has done a very good job moving him, keeping him busy. He comes
in good condition. He by all accounts as a hard worker, and he's
not you know, he's only twenty five years old. It's not like this
is an old guy. He's got plenty of years left. He hasn't really
taken punishment. Good puncher, just like I said the one close loss to
Rashidi Ellis. You know, Golden Boy does not have a ton of top
names that are headlining type of guy, but Rocha of the of the guys
they do have, and I'm talking about guys like Virgil Ortiz obviously, Ryan
Garcia, a Zerdo Ramirez, those types of guys. You gotta put Alexis
Rocha in that spot now because he makes exciting fights, He's a bonified contender,
and he's gonna fight for a world title. He brings a crowd.
I mean, he pretty much checks a lot of the boxes you want from
your fighters fair enough. And again, if I don't know how much you
want to give on Collazo winning the WBO straw weight or minimum weight title fight
and again makes history as he gets the stoppage with Jerusalem injured to the body.
Colazzo was taking it to him to the body in this fight and gets
the stoppage on the stool. Anything else on that in the recap mode,
I mean, just listen. Colazo may have only had the six fights going
into this matchup, but I think that a lot of people favored him to
win, even though Jerusalem was much more experienced. Klazo was a top notch
amateur. You know, he's been fighting real fights pretty much since he you
know, maybe the first two or three fights. He didn't fight anybody particularly
solid. But from the time he got to like about his like the fourth,
fifth, six fights, he was fighting like legitimate guys like he you
know, he wasn't on that Lomachenko track where you're fighting, you know,
a legitimate tenure pro debut and then a world telling your second fight. But
he was fighting real fighters, you know, in the very early stages of
his career, after just like literally like two or three fights. And here's
the thing though, about the straw weight division, and if you can go
back and look through history, guys who fight in that small weight class typically
move a little bit quicker. So the fact that he was matched up in
this kind of match early in his career like this, and that he won
neither one of those factors really surprise me very much. This was also a
mandatory fight, and uh, you know, we'll see how long collazo A
can continue to make one hundred and five pounds, which obviously is the smallest
weight class in the sport. He is already twenty six years old, so
it would seem that when you get to that age typically at some point you're
going to move up. And we'll see straw weight. Unfortunately, it's not
exactly the sexiest division. There's not a lot of name recognition, certainly in
terms of in the United States. There's not a lot of top competition.
I mean, sir, if you want to go fight, uh, you
know, in in Asia obviously, and there's the majority of the better straw
weights through the history of the weight class, usually our front places like Japan,
uh, you know, a Thailand. So I can't get overly excited
about Colozzo because of that fact. I don't see like there being some big
matchup for him. But you got to give the guy props early in his
career. Seventh fight makes a record for his count, you know, for
his island of Puerto Rico, which is a great boxing traditional hotbed. So
good for him. But there was a reason why it was the third fight
down the card. This is true. But it's a victory. It's a
world title win for him, and we'll see what happens after that. All
right, some news you're just kind of make up for it because he didn't
want to talk about it in the preview podcast because he didn't when you're talking
about all the title fights with Colozzo and Jerusalem, well, it was a
title fight that was taking place in America. Not it was, there was
one, that's true. Uh and ye as you mentioned though, it was
third third on the card. Uh. So some news and then some nostalgia
and we're done. And the news also involved speaking of match room and yet
Eddie hearn it's an extension for Diego Pacheco and Pacheco going to be back in
the ring later this summer. Give me something, well, I think Diego
Pacheco is probably the best super Mitawave prospect young contender out there. I mean,
this kid has really developed nicely ever since they signed him out of the
Amateurs with Mattram. He's come to now eighteen to oz with fifteen knockouts.
There's nothing to be negative about. He's got the size, he's got the
charisma, he's got the exciting style, he's got the skills. He's tall,
he's rangey, he can punch. I mean, he's young, he's
only twenty two years old. You know, he already has some you know,
he's bringing along a bigger fan base from the La area. I mean,
this kid is you know, I can't tell you he's ready to fight
Kennelo Alvarez. But he's among the super mittaweights that will be the next in
my opinion, the next group you know after Kennello is you know ad done
at the time. You have him ahead of Berlanga right now in terms of
prospects status with blan Long absolutely ahead of Berlinga, no doubt about it.
Uh, no doubt about it. And you know, listen, I doubt
it will happen. But they both a fight for matrim So maybe someday,
you know, the Mexican American uh Diego Pacheco against the Puerto Rican Edgar Berlanga.
You know, we all know what that rivalry is about. So something
that maybe keep an eye on down the road. But Pacheco um maybe didn't
have the flashy kind of first round knockouts and all the hype that Berlanga had.
And by way, I'm not knocking berlang and saying he's not still interested
to watch, but if I had to rank them, I would put Pacheco
ahead of Berlinga. So it's not a it's not a dissem Berlanga. I'm
just being honest about my viewpoint. But he signs a contract extension and as
as part of announcing that contract, descended he still had by the way,
he still had at least two fights left on his existing agreement. I'm kind
of surprised he resigned because he's in such a great position that he would have
commanded a lot of interest in the free agent market and maybe he still would
have signed with anybody. Probably would have been able to, you know,
get more money out of him, uh and and do a better deal.
But that's that's between them. But the bottom line is, as part of
the announcement of his contract extension is that he's going to now headline one of
the Naturam de Zone cards that's going to be in Mexico. You know,
because besides building him up here in America, you know, they want to
put him in front of the Mexican crowd because you know, he is a
Mexican American, he makes good style, and Naturam does a handful of cards
per year and in Mexico. So he's gonna headline this card July seventh in
Monterey. He's gonna fight a fighter named Manuel Diegos nineteen one and one with
sixteen knockouts, and he'll get a chance a headline'll defend like a regional title
and you know, continue to continue to move the chains. I mean,
I figure the last two fights of this deal, he'll he'll fight those types
of fights to continue to you know, to learn and to grow. And
then come next year, I think we'll see Pacheco step into bigger fights.
And as part of that announcement, by the way, Naturam also announced that
they had signed the junior lightweight um Eduardo Rocky Hernandez, who was thirty three
and one with thirty knockouts, who's been a big, big puncher. He
used to be with Golden Boy. His one loss, unfortunately was a first
round knockout, which put a lot of people, uh you know, sour
on him. In an event, he gets this opportunity with Matrium. He
is number one in the WBC, so he's in a very good spot to
fight for one of the titles at one hundred and thirty pounds and he will
be in the co feature. So he got two exciting knockout guys. Uh
you know, both Mexican background and listen, I have to say sometimes you
need don't know who the fighters are on the cards, the cards that Matrium
has put on that have been in Mexico, like literally every single one of
them has been a good show to watch, including the great fight with non
Chinga when he won the one o eight pound title and what I picked as
the twenty twenty two fight of the Year. So I'm even though they're not
fighting like huge names like I love watching Pacheco, I've I've I've gotten to
like him a lot, and Hernandez, you know, it's uh, it's
it's uh either getting knocked out or knocked the guy out. So we'll see
what he can do as he tries to move on to get this title shot.
At one hundred and thirty. We're about excitement. We're about big punches,
big moments, and excitement, and so we're looking forward to that for
July on that the Zone card. All right, before the nostalgia, are
we really going back to Tyson Fury Anthony Joshua because you have to do it
for the people. But I mean, Fury has like run out of the
only person he hasn't called out at this stage is the boxing guy Dan Raphael
for it a possible opponent this summer, all right, So he's talking about
Anthony Joshua again and maybe it would be in the fall, all right,
So I mean, how much credence do we put in this besides the fact
that Fury wants his name out there and loves being on social media and throws
names out. Well, he's been throwing a lot of names out because he
went to Australia in the last several days. Because as good buddy and sparring
partner, former WBO champion Joseph Parker fought in Australia and scored a first round
knockout a couple of nights ago, and Fury made the trip and was there,
and so there was a lot of conversation in the Australian media. He
was talking about about I want to fight in Australia, maybe he'll fight against
and all the names came up, Jai Opataia, the cruiserweight champion, maybe
would move up and fight him for the heavyweight time. Then they were talking
about the Australian fighter Demsey McKean as another possible one. They went they ran
through like a McKeen has been a former sparring partner of his right and that's
where the Australian meat is trying to connect the dots. I'm not I don't
know. I don't know if they sparred together. But I know that Demsey
McKeen is a big, strong guy with very limited skills. Opataiah is not
nearly as big, but a lot more skill. But okay, so but
those are the Australian guys. And now now he's on social media once again
saying I'm not gonna make a deadlines and go crazy with this, but I
want to fight Anthony Joshua. He claims that they send a contract to the
matchroom people. Eddie Hearn refutes that, says, no, we haven't kind
of contract, but I have been in touch with George Warren, which is
Frank Warren's son who runs a lot of the Queen's very business, and that
they're talking about doing that kind of fight in September. But again it's it's
there's so many things percolating, because there's also still the possibility that Joshua Eddie
says me is still fight in August, talking about doing a Dylan White rematch
and then perhaps a big fight against Deante Wilder come the fall in Saudi Arabia.
So there's so much stuff going on. But but Fury once again,
and you know, shame on Tyson Fury because he had the opportunity to fight
for the undisputed title against Alexander Usik in April, and they blew it because
he was being, as Usik says, greedy belly on the terms of the
rematch. And now he's aced out because he's heavyweight champion. Yes, we
acknowledge that he's a great fighter, fair enough, but he blew the fight
with Usk. In my opinion, it wasn't Usk's fault. You know,
he tried previously to do a Joshua fight and sent out like eight thousand messages
on social media that did not take place. He's lost out on the prospect
of doing another fight that had come up as a as a title defense against
Sangs a lie because Joe Joyce exercised the rematch right, so that took him
off the table as a Fury opponent. So all the different guys that sort
of had gone by the wayside, and you're not left with a lot because
I'm sorry, but Tyson Fury fighting in Australia against Demsey mcken Okay, that's
you know, he's a world champion. Nothing wrong with travel in the world.
But that might excite some people in Australia. But I don't even think
that fight would would excite people in the UK. It would be a nonentity.
It would be almost irrelevant in the United States. So you know,
he could do it if he wants. But you know, I Fury just
got to figure out what he wants to do. And he does that.
Do you have to negotiate a deal that you can live with? You know,
people forget sometimes negotiation doesn't mean you get everything your way. The whole
idea is if both sides leave a little bit unhappy with the deal, that's
probably a good deal. And he's been unwilling to that well. But at
this point it's either find a fight with somebody or sit and wait until late
this year for the chance to fight Usk for the undisputed and we'll see.
We'll see if he wants to sit and wait that long. But you're right,
he's got nobody. I mean, we're saying this, and we were
saying it at the time. He's got nobody to blame but himself that the
Usk fight didn't happen in the first place in late April, and now you're
crying about you don't have a fight and you're trying to fight somebody, And
I don't. I mean, I'll just I'll put it bluntly with you.
I don't have to see Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. I think Fury wins
the fight easily, and I don't think it doesn't pa anything. Even if
if it is it is in the UK to an extent, it's not as
big a fight when Joshua has now been beaten three times and now has no
titles, and I think Tyson Fury would probably beat him decisively. And at
that point it doesn't really prove anything because already beat him twice. Still a
fight that people want to see. But the point here is this, He's
already had the two fight of the three fights of the Wilder. That's right,
that's not the next fight, and that and that and there they're talking
about maybe having this double header where Wilder would fight Anthony Joshua. If you're
Wilder, why are you not waiting to see if Alexander usk will fight you?
I'm just putting this out there. See what you think of this.
Why are you not waiting to see if Alexander Usik will fight you? While
Tyson Fury's messing around, floundering and trying to fight Anthony Joshua. What do
you think of that scenario, my friend? Well, because Anthony Joshua,
uh, fighting there, even as a non title fight, is worth more
money than him fighting for the title, even against Tyson Fury. No,
Deontay Wilder fighting Alexander Usik for the title, in my opinion, is worth
less money than fighting Joshua. Okay, I got you, but if you
But in terms of Fury, he's not fighting Wilder for the fourth time.
I mean maybe down the road, but certainly not now. Usk is already
off the table. Dubois off the table because they're fighting each other in the
mandatory. I just mentioned about why Zangzle is off the table because he's might.
He's gonna you know, been in. Is he gonna come back around
to Andy Ruise? Hold on? You got you got? The fight between
Joe joyceon and Zang Soo Joyce is off the table also, and he's coming
off a loss anyway, so he probably wouldn't be in the line for the
heavyweight championship. Uh. You mentioned Andy Ruise, who apparently has asked for
you know, the sky, the Star, the moons, and twenty million
dollars, So that seems like a not not likely obviously for a lot of
reasons. Um, you just go on down the list. Deontay Wilder I
mentioned, will fight. They're trying to he's trying to restart those talks,
but he obviously uh from what Matt Room. Uh you know, Eddie Hearn
has been saying they're looking at other possibilities. A Dylian White rematch, which
makes sense for Joshua because it was a good fight when they fought before Joshua
won the title. Tyson Bee already beat Dylian White, so he's not a
possibility. I mean, maybe Tyson Furer will give us a fourth fight with
Derek jasur h. That's a joke. Yeah, that is a joke.
But at this point, what other options are there? Okay, some nostalgia
and then we've got to go. I know your heart tugs at this weekend,
at the passing of Johnny Tappy at eleven years ago, special thing.
You put it on social media. You wanted to commemorate at the passing of
a former world champion that lived a troubled life outside the ring. For sure,
battled drugs. There was no secret. They've made documentaries about him.
Go ahead with more. I just feel like when when you have those types
of anniversaries, when you're when you were that type of fighter, people you
wouldn't have to like reflect on it forever, but you should just remember it,
I mean and take a minute think about it. And he gave so
much gendertainment, so much joy, so many great fights. He was It
was a He was a tremendous fighter, you know, if that's what we
know him for, because he won world championships and three weight classes. He
unified titles, He was in a number of major fights, had you know,
was on HBO regularly, was on Showtime, regularly, fought on ABC,
fought on ESPN. You know, he was known to the boxing public.
He had a lot of fans, you know. But the thing about
Johnny also, and I was fortunate I got a chance to know him a
bit through the years. This is just I mean, yes, demons to
be beyond. I mean, you're done to talk about people that have troubles.
This guy had troubles that on top of troubles, on top of troubles,
on top of troubles, all kinds of issues. But such a good
heart, such a nice guy. I mean, yeah, demons obviously,
but just a pure soul, if you will, in that sense, like
then most likable guy you could ever meet. I mean, I have met
good memories of like hanging out with Johnny and interviewing Johnny. And you know,
I didn't really get a chance to cover many of his fights in person,
but I saw him around a lot of fights. I interviewed him several
times. It just just a great, great guy. And and I have
this one great memory of I don't remember what fight it was, but I
was in Las Vegas for some huge fight. I think it was an Oscar
Deloie fight and the late great Dean Chance, the former baseball pitcher Cy Young
Award winner who ran the IBA, which was one of the fringe sanctioning bodies,
which he always used to bust my balls about because I wouldn't really recognize
it. But I still loved Dino. He was a great guy. We
hung out, we talked all the time. He was a kind of guy
that would call you up, like two weeks before a fight where he was
gonna be He goes, big, Dan, are you come into the fight.
He'd be like, yeah, I'll be at the fight, guys.
I'm good. We're gonna go have dinner on Friday night or whatever. He's
just a great guy. So he has he had a gym that the IBA
rented or bought or whatever a property in Las Vegas, and anybody that had
an IBA fight, or even if you didn't have an IBA fight, I
guess they would open it up in this private area and you coming user Jim
to work out during the week of year fight and the week the night before
this this big fight in Vegas, they had a big barbecue and Dean invited
like a whole bunch of people. They're probably like fifty people as barbecue.
And we went over like after the way in or something like that. And
I can never forget the image of me standing there like having like a lemonade
and I'm and I'm and I'm hanging out and just talking boxing with my boy
Max Kellerman, and Johnny Tapia walks in and he walks over to me,
and Max is, you know, he's making his way through the crowd and
he sees us, and you know, I'm not that only we're like best
friends, but he knows what he knew us obviously, and he walks over
and now I'm a big guy, and Max is, you know, not
a small guy, and and Johnny is like a small guy. He was
like a freaking bandomwaight and like you know, junior junior, featherweight whatever.
So even not fighting, maybe he's like, you know, one hundred and
forty pounds, but but short. He comes over and he hugs both of
us at the same time, Like I just have that that crazy image.
He's like hugging Raphael and Kellerman at the same time. And that's just the
kind of guy he was. He was big on you know, love,
the hugs and kisses and just his gent of the soul as you can meet.
And so when I realized that it was the anniversary of his death on
Saturday, you know, it made me think. And you know, we
all talk about like should guys retire in boxing? You know, are they
taking too many punches? Is it too much? We want to be able
to talk to them later in life and you know, make their money,
make their legacy, and get out with their health and tact. The only
guy I ever thought should never ever retired was Johnny Tapia because as soon as
he was going to be done boxing, it was gonna be bad for the
rest of his life because the boxing sport and training and preparations for fights,
and was the only thing that gave him any kind of structure like going to
a training camp or going to the gym. And I figured, fight as
long as you possibly can. And he used to talk about this. The
only place that he ever felt peace, which is really sad, was in
the fight. During the boxing match, like in the chaos of the fight,
he feels that peace, which is unfortunate, but that's why I always
felt that no matter where he was, and he never took even though he
was, you know, had lost some fights. Wasn't the kind of guy
that took like immense, immense punishment. And I felt like, you know
what, Johnny should fight for as long as he could. And as a
reality was he was not fighting super top elite fighters. But before he passed
and I felt like he was going to fight again for sure. He had
won I think four fights in a row and look banamweight champion, junior featherweight
champion. I was there ringside in New York when he won the featherweight belt
against Manuel Mendina at the Madison Square Garden Theater and he cried like a baby
after that fight because he knew how big a deal that was for him to
get the third title. He never defended that title. He instead he took
the big pay day against Marco Antonio Berrera and ended up getting stripped to the
tuttle because he didn't make the mandatory. But he obviously it was a much
much bigger fight and the money was so big for him he couldn't turn it
down. But Johnny had a great career. He fought a lot of big
names and listen, he may have lost on the scorecards, but a lot
of people thought he won those fights. They were super close. He had
a fight of the year against Pauliayella, his great rival, and they fought
two tremendous fights. He had. He had the huge win to unify at
one hundred and fifteen pounds against his Alburquerque rival, the younger Daniel Romero.
And by the way, I picked Romeo to win that fight big time.
I thought he was gonna just beat Johnny Tappy up. And you know,
we talked about what some of our best picks are some of our works picks
me pick and Romero that night that was a bad That was a bad pick
for me. I wasn't covering boxing back at that time, I was still
working as a sportswriter in Bingham to New York, but was really into that
fight, and that was a huge deal. And by the way, you
can make a really strong argument that in the history of the junior bandom weight
division that he's at worst like in the top sternly in the top five.
For a long time, it was really like a two man race. It
was either Johnny Tappia or a Koside Galaxy from Thailand. Now you can maybe
at this point you can maybe put a guy like Chocolate Tito in the mix,
maybe a one Francisco Astrada if you if you what you think about how
they're one hundred and fifteen pounds fights worked out. But Johnny Tapia is way
way up there in terms of the greatest of all time, that one hundred
and fifteen pounds. And I never get tired of reminiscing and think keep him
alive. On a Memorial Day, we always want to keep the memories alive
of those that we've lost. In the case of military and first responders,
etc. Listen, we've gone for a while. There's one more piece of
nostalgia that promised promised me that we're not gonna go for thirty minutes because I'm
as big a Rocky fan as you are. But all right, so today,
as we tape this, forty one years ago, May twenty eighth,
nineteen eighty two was the release of Rocky three in theaters. Rocky against mister
t ultimately or Clever Lange ultimately. You you even put in the rundown the
greatest boxing movie of all time. First of all, I'm going to take
issue with you on that it's not even the greatest Rocky movie all the time.
The first. Look, there's nothing better than the first, the first
that won the Academy Award for Best Picture. That's the best that it's the
best Rocky movie. It's better than any other boxing movie you can think of,
better than Raging Bull, It's better than than uh Cinderella. Man,
you're saying Rocky three, Rocky three is the greatest rock It's it's the best
Rocky movie. Why do you say that though, because clubber Lang, because
mister Team makes the movie, and well they got look the first movie.
I mean, look the Rocky first The first four movies are awesome. First
two obviously, with the with the hull, back and forth with Apolo,
third fight, of course, with the Clubber Lang scenario and the death of
Mickey Uh and him getting together with Apolo to become his trainer um and then
of course Rocky four where he goes and saves the world from nuclear war between
the United States and Russia with Dragou and all that. But Rocky three is
like it was the you know, the first two or the one story line.
Basically part one in part two is one story the first fight with Apolo,
in the second fight with Apolo, So we get to we get to
the third movie. Rocky's now heavyweight champ. He's riding high on the hog.
He's got all the money and and now someone's coming from him, and
I got a squat at you, and completely unrealistic because now he's edgy and
now he's a businessman. I mean he's basically he's basically an illiterate Rocky.
In the first two they can't re can't function, and now he's like a
businessman in the in the third one, and he's got all these title fights,
and he's got a man chin, he's got all the he's got all
the stuff going, and Clubber's coming to take it away. That's the that's
the point he got he clubber was like when Rocky was coming up, he
was the one that was working hard and trying to make a go of things
in his in his boxing career, while he was also as a you know,
working as a loan shark and all that, uh you know, or
or the enforcer for the enforcer for the loan shark for Tony right right.
But it's just it's just that, it's just a it's such a great story.
Obviously, mister t puts in. You know, he became a star
because of that film, uh put in. You know one of some of
that if you went and made a list of like thee hundred greatest lines from
Rocky movies, like probably like fifty of them or eighty of them are from
Rocky three, number one, number two. You know, he gets smoked
in the first fight Micky Die. He got him, you know, telling
the you know, Adrian, you want a real man, come see me,
that kind of stuff. So's he's always the trainer dies, he knocks
the dude out, he's he's hitting on the wife. I mean, there
was like Rocky's really down in the dumps at this point, and you know
he comes back to life and had the greatest one of the great um,
what's the word I'm looking for, one of the great sort of u uh,
plot twists, if you will, plot twists, That's what I was
thinking of. Is Apollo coming to bring him back? Like like one,
if you give up the title and you beat me, no, no,
I need you to win it back because it makes me look better And it's
some of the great First of all, the training scenes in that film are
phenomenal. But the other thing about about Rocky three is the first ten minutes
of that movie is maybe the greatest ten minute opening of any movie in the
history of fucking movies. Come, oh, the tiger is playing that.
I know I'm a big eye of the tiger person three person, but we
got we gotta settle down on the greatest opening ten minutes of any movie ever,
any sports movie or boxing movie. He's he's winning all the fights.
You realize that Mickey had set up a lot of these fights, you know
that were like against easy opponents. He's making a huge amount of money a
minute. You're using the wrong terminology. They was set ups. No,
they was hand picked. There's a difference between the two. He's doing the
credit card commercials, and he's on the Muppet Show and he's like rolling around
in the grass, you know, making out with his wife. Exact ducks
the position of a clubber, you know, in the basement lifting weights and
hitting the bag and and just going to Rocky's fights and getting pissed off when
he sees him knocking the guy on, calling him out. It was just
so fucking perfect. And then for the fight to end with the rematch and
Rocky to obviously win the fight. I mean, listen to me, I'm
a sucker for that. I love Rocky. I love all the movies.
That's my favorite. Well, I don't love Rocky five US terrible. We've
concluded it should have never been made. Agreed, Yeah, I disavow Rocky
five. I just alone, by the way, it's admitted he should have
never made rock five. He is now in his and listen, and I
mentioned to you in the Johnny Tappia section that we were talking about about when
uh, when we saw Johnny at the barbecue and he hugged me and Max
Kellerman. So the other thing that Max, you know, I've known for
over twenty years now and been a friend of mine for a long, long,
long time. Um, we both agree that Rocky three is the best
Rocky film. We agree it's the best boxing film. I'll stand by it.
I'll die on that hill Rocky three forever. Forty one years ago,
forty one years ago, agether it got it released. I saw it.
I saw it. I think I saw it on opening weekend. I saw
the movie. I saw it. I was a teenager seeing it on opening
weekend. I was. I was an early middle schooler, just like you
are. You and I are the same age we would have been. We
would have been twelve years old ish right around there. I wasn't even twelve
yet. I didn't turn I turned twelve months later, all right. But
they were in the big movie theater in Albany, New York, where my
dad lived, and going with with my father and some other friends. And
I'll never forget that huge screen I lived the first I didn't see Rocky two
in the movie theaters. I was a little too young, or Rocky one,
right, but Rocky three, man, never forget it the best,
well, and one of the great you love all these different lines. One
of the great lines from Mickey and I used this in life and about all
these other things where they're sitting in the house and that this is where the
discussion is going about. There was soot ups No, they was hand picked.
Where they're going back and forth about how he's protect My job was to
protect you. But what he says to aim Raypheel is rock you went and
got civilized. So in other words, like you said, he got married,
he got the house, he got the business. You're no longer You're
no longer the hungry fighter that has nothing but the chance to go win a
title in the ring. You you nows are known for their awesome training montages
that are like extended music videos. But the training montages he's prepping for the
rematch against against Club, you know, and when when he pulls Paulie into
the pool and he's training in uh, you know, we're apology. What's
the what's the key? What's the trigger? Because remember his heart's not in
it, Mickey's dead, Apolo's trying to train him, and what's the key?
What flips it around? What's the key? The key is Adrian.
Adrian is the key over and over again as his inspiration, Like in the
second one when she wakes up out of the coma and she says, come
here and whispers to him win and then Mickey, what are we waiting for?
Let's go? So so yes, she she's the trigger. She's what
gets him going to train correctly with Apolo and says, you know what are
we doing here? You know you got you're missing the point though the thing
was it wasn't. I mean, Adrian is part of that for sure,
But the big thing is when Rocky is like not his heart's not in and
he's slacking off, and Apolo's taking him to like the you know, to
the to thee the ghetto neighborhood where he trained to try to get the eye
of the tiger back, and Rocky's slacking off and he goes in there and
he is, you know, what are you doing man? What are you
doing in the training? Again he goes, there is no tomorrow, There
is no tomorrow. That's what the sugger was. And you realize and then
again oh wait, wait, wait wait, you're not remembering the correct in
the water in it right when he's when he's out there running, and then
she finally comes and talks to him, and she sets him straight and says,
what are you doing? We gotta live with this the rest of our
lives. We can't live like this. What are you really what are you
doing? What do you really want to do? Do you want to go
beat this guy or do you want to be scared for the rest of your
life to have fought him? And that's where it really clicks. And then
he's a different Rocky. And then he and Apollo are running in the high
socks on the beach, which I don't know if I can ever picture Raphael
running in high socks down the beach. That's a middle image and I don't
know if I want to go there, Yes, running and jumping up and
down and hugging in the water. And then we have the fight and the
and the hole. And also, let me say another thing, there's so
many great scenes in that film. We talked about the great opening montage.
We talked about the training montage, the whole confrontation with the blubber and him
when Nikki has the heart attack and he and he Hurst starts hitting on Adrian.
We got the training scenes that we talked about, there is no Tomorrow.
Then we got to fight itself, and we got the rematch itself,
and then we got the ending where remember the reason that Apollo said he would
train Rockies. I want you to train it, but you owe me a
favor whatever, right right out the favor at the end of the movie,
and he takes him in the gym, He's like, you know, he
talks about how it was hard for a man of his intelligence to live with
losing to him by one to live with it. Yes, well I lied
exactly, But I thought the ending was phenomenal where they went in to settle
the score, close the gym, and then they go to throw the first
punch and again breaks out into either Tiger you got the awesome Lee ryn Neeman
are at work with him, fighting each other. I mean, what the
fuck is there not to absolutely love about them. I'm not saying I don't
love the movie. I just I gotta go Rocky before I go, before
I go Rocky. And by the way, and by the way, the
watch to watch the training montages on YouTube. But the ending of Rocky two
is still such an epic, fantastic ending. How in the world It'stallane come
up with They're both knocked down and whoever stands up first wins. That was
a that was a great twist to the end of that, and then we
had all kinds of twists and turns on the third and the fourth one great
nostalgia. I love all the first four I love but if I have to
pick one, I'm taking three, all right? Forty one years ago in
theaters March twenty eighth, nineteen eighty two, and still one. On cable
TV. Frequently they'll run the rocket. Somebody's probably running on one of these
cable channels. On linear cable, it's still probably running a Rocky marathon this
weekend from Amory. If I'm like watching TV on any given night, I'm
on the couch or I'm going to bed or whatever, and you're flipping around
the dialing, you run in to Rocky three. You have to just watch
it wherever you pick it up. You got to watch the rest do it,
do it, uh, and be happy with that. All right with
that, I think it is a full show. Again. Thank you for
finding us, however you did so. You got plenty of fight recaps,
you got plenty of news and nostalgia. We're back with a preview in June,
coming later this weekend for the first weekend in June. In the meantime,
read up on Dan substack is Fight Freach Unite substack. Read us up
on Big Fight Weekend dot com. Damn Raphael, have a safe Memorial Day
holiday. We say the same to everybody that's out there listening to us.
Be safe, be safe driving, don't drink and drive. With the holiday,
with everything going on, remember those that have fallen. This is a
tough time for those that have lost somebody I love one, not necessarily just
in foreign wars, in battles, but also first responders, police, those
that have died in the line of duty. This is what Memorial Days all
about, is to remember them, keep their memories alive, celebrate their lives.
We try to do a little bit of that as I get serious here
at the end of the podcast, but listen, Dan, have a great
week. We'll be back to scrap again in June. My friend, that
sounds good. You look forward to it. We thank you for finding us.
Following subscribe to the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed you've been hearing the Fight
Freach Unite Recap podcast by