Well awful weekend that has seen let's just say, a very interesting decision,
to say the least, in the top rank Bloxing ESPN main event, George
Campbosis gets his hand raised. There is some question about that. We're ready
to break that down and oh this is a little different. We're also a
bit in the preview mode for a Tuesday morning US Time Big Time Unified one
hundred twenty two pound title fight between Stephen Fulton and Naolia in a way,
so it's dual purpose here on the Fight Freaks Unite recap and the little preview
as well. I'm the somewhat capable host TJ Reeves. He is our insider,
Fight Freaks Unite is his substack. He is also insider for Big Fight
Weekend dot Com and he's about to put up with me face to face this
week in Las Vegas? Are you kidding me? For events? And Terence
Crawford, Hello, Dan, Rayphael, Welcome back to board. We'll see
about that. We'll see about that. The Clark County authorities have been notified
they are bracing for our arrivals later this week and the fighters I have already
been there and the hype is building it is officially fight week for Spence and
Crawford, but we've got other things to discuss and get to before we get
to that. My friend, as we keep saying, yes, sir,
let's get to it again. Thank you for finding us. However you've done
so. You guys are continuing to rate us and review us. Keep doing
that, give us a five star rating and review. We are still utilizing
bribery, whatever you want to call it. Incentive. If you rate us
and review us and you take a screenshot of it and get it to us,
we are going to give away at least a fight poster or a fight
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but you've got to be able to document to us that you did it.
Send it on a screenshot to our social media tag dan tag Big Fight
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show us the screenshot. And I'm keeping a number of you have done that.
I'm keeping the tally of who's done that. We'll draw somebody at random
off the ratings and review again. We review off the weekend. We preview
going into the weekend, and that preview will be from Las Vegas later this
week for Spence Crawford and the undisputed world welterweight title fight. We're looking forward
to all of that. Let's begin right away with the George Cambosis twelve round
decision when over Maxie Hughes of England. You and I are doing this on
Sunday in the early evening, and the look it was not a world title
fight. These are not massive names, but the continued online outrage and discussion
about the scoring in this fight makes it a juicy topic. So let's dive
right in your thoughts on the decision. How justifiable, especially a wide one
seventeen to one eleven card. Are you kidding me? Let's get into all
of it right now. Let's go. It's so disappointing because you know what,
it was so predictable that when you saw the way the fight was unfolding,
that this was going to happen, and it's so cynical, so sad
that I think I started thinking this like round like five or six, where
you know, you think Hughes is winning the fight and you just you just
know they're gonna fuck it up. You know they're gonna fuck it up,
and there's no It's like you see the boulder coming down the mountain. You
can't stop it, and you know you're gonna get fucking flattened, and you
just you could just see it coming a mile away. This ain't my first
rodeo, and it's just it makes me sick when I think about that,
because I don't I'm so jaded now when it comes to that kind of thing.
You just could see it coming a mile away, and you know what
they actually did exactly what I thought. They fucked Maxie Hughes bad so George
Cambosis, he's you know, he was the name guy, but I don't
even think about that from the standpoint of it being like in his hometown.
This was a fight between an Australian boxer, George Cambosis, and a British
boxer and Maxie Hughes. They're fighting in a Shawnee, Oklahoma on the top
rank show and it's it's you know, grant. It was not for a
major world title. It was an IBF lightweight tide of the Eliminatir, which
is important also from the standpoint that the winner is the mandatory challenger for the
title in that in that situation, especially given the fact that the likelihood and
will get to this later, that Devin Haney, who is the undisputed champion,
is going to vacate. Certainly he's not gonna fight George Cambosis for a
third time. There's no chance that that happens. And you're kind of like
Cambosis is the A side, but you're like Max Uses fighting his ass off,
And you know, he's been on a good streak. He had won
seven fights in a row, he had gotten a big win over the former
featherweight title holder Kid Gallahad, and he has been in in a good spot.
And uh, you know, Cambosa says looked terrible in his last two
fights. Granted he was fighting Devin Hainey, so there's something, you know,
you can understand that, but he didn't really look very good against Max
Used. The best way I can explain it is he was extremely aggressive but
very ineffective, and I found it very difficult to give him enough rounds to
give him the fight. So here's the way I break it down, TJ
is the following. The official scorecards were, as you mentioned, one seven
teen, one eleven, from Joseph Mason, who was on my shit list
for life. We're talking about shortly keep going one fifteen, one thirteen from
Gerald Ritter, who is a well known referee judge and has done numerous fights.
And David Sutherland and Oklahoma judge who's also on the on the list of
officials at work fights in Las Vegas. Very experience. He added one fourteen
to one fourteen. So here's the way I look at it. Me I
scored to fight eight rounds to four in favor of Maxie Hughes. My former
my my longtime friend and former ESPN colleague Mark Kriegel on the broadcast had it
one seventeen, was at one seventeen to one eleven in favor of Maxie Hughes.
Also, that's nine rounds to three. Honestly, I thought that was
a little bit wide. I felt like we talked about the the range of
acceptable scores, that was like the fringe of an acceptable score. I supposed
to me it felt like the right scores. If you had it eight four
for Maxie Hughes, fine, If he had it seven five for MAXI it
was fine. If you're really if you're like Australian and you really wanted to
bend over backwards and give every possible benefit of the doubt to uh, mister
Cambosis. Maybe somehow, some way you could get to one fourteen, one
fourteen, But to have it for Cambosis seven to five, I just I
and I and Gerald. Gerald Ritterer, I think is a usually a good
a good judge and referee. His brother Gary Ritter was the referee for the
fight. They're guys have been around for a long time. I have a
problem with that. And then, of course it's always the fucking case TJ.
There's always some fucking outlandish, outlier score that just makes you want to
blow your fucking brains out. How in the world do you find that fight
to be nine rounds to three in favor of Cambosis. It's not possible.
He didn't land the punches. For crying out loud, I mean he landed,
uh, you know, uh, some shots, but not enough to
give him round after round, enough to round. Like I said, I
learned the the you know, the first and foremost thing lean effective punching from
the I can hear it in my mind until my days are gone. From
the late great Harold Letterman, how you score a professional boxing match, and
George Cambosis simply was not effective. He was aggressive, but he didn't land
punches. And we've said it a thousand times on the show. I don't
live and die by the copy box, but they do provide a reasonable guy.
George Camboss was landing less than twenty percent of his punches in the fight.
He was outland that, he was outthrown, and it wasn't like it
was some huge round that kind of skewed the numbers. It was pretty consistent
throughout the entirety of the twelve rounds. Just it was I felt so bad
for Max he Use, who by the way, was such a class guy
in defeat, Like you could just see the disappointment on his face and he
was like, I don't want He originally went to leave the ring. He
originally did not want to talk and was so angered, but then he composed
himself and you're right, one hundred percent anger. I think it was just
disappointment. It was all the above. It was I don't even want to
be part of this. I'm leaving. And then he posed himself standing right
out on the ring apron or the steps and thought about it and came back
in and was absolutely class to stand there and answer the questions when he obviously
won this fight. I'll go that far. He obviously won at least seven
rounds and I had to fight eight four on the big fight weekend car.
So I mean, so let's get into a couple of different aspects of this.
Yes, on the quantitative, that is what you always talk about with
CompuBox. It's a fairly close fight, but even Maxi Hughes outlanded on the
quantitative George Cambosas for the fight. This is interesting. Further on the quantitative
that even if you're trying to make the argument for Cambosas to have won six
or seven rounds, there's only five rounds, five where he landed more punches.
So that's I don't want I don't want to get into you. But
here's the more box a guy. But here's where I'm coming to back you
up. If you watch that fight, Maxie Hughes kept landing hard, straight
left hands and with more frequency that were more important than any big punch that
Cambosas was landing throughout the fight. He had to have landed. Would you
not agree at least a half dozen maybe as many as ten solid, good
straight left hands that were better than anything. So it's a quality of punches.
Who's winning the round with the more significant quality punch or two or three?
And that's that. I mean, it was just obvious. It was
Tim Bradley on the broadcast made the and he said this early in the fight.
He was one hundred percent right when they showed the angle where you could
see their feet. Max uses a south pod George Cambosa is a right handed
fighter. So the idea is, you know, we think about the arms
and the hands and the punching, but the base of everything is the feet.
Where are your feet? How are you getting leverage? How are you
controlling where the fight takes place in the ring. And if you're in a
south versus right handed situation, the idea is for one of the fighters to
be able to put their foot on the outside of the other guy's foot to
create that in spot in the ring, which is going to give you a
better leverage. And as Bradley very you know, aptly pointed out, it's
not that complicated, but you gotta take you out to observe it is that
Max and Hughes was way more successful in getting his foot on the outside of
where George cambosis foot was, which was what enabled him to fire those hard
straight left hands and land and do some damage even though he's not a big,
big puncher, and Cambosas was seemingly awfully be fuddled and had a lot
of problems dealing with the with the south boss stance, and so from that
standpoint, he was able. In my estimation, I's not alone you and
lots of other people that watch it thought that that was enough for him to
be able to outland and outbox George Cambosis. I never liked to get involved
in using as a proxy straight copybox as a reason I got up on the
fights because I just won't do that. And there's nothing against copy box.
Like I said, they do a good job, but it's only a guy
to the fight. I've seen many fights where a guy may be outlanded and
the other guy wins, And I always make the point here in the most
extreme example, you could outland me a thousand to one, but if my
one knocks your fucking head off and you go down for ten, I win.
So that's right. Keep mind, so I'm not going to use the
copy box as the guy, and the stats weren't that wide apart. Uh.
But if you have two eyes and you paid attention to the fight,
Maxie, he was controlled the fight. That's it, end of story.
And it's terrible because uh and by the way, I don't this is not
I don't And I say this also about controversial with shit decisions. Can't get
on George Campos about it. He went in there and fought as best as
he could, fought his heart out as did Max Hus. It's not a
matter of uh, the blaming the boxer because he didn't do anything wrong.
I mean, I always thinking about the case of Timothy Bradley and all the
all the ship that rolled downhill when he got the victory against Manny pack Out
and everybody blamed him when it wasn't him, it was it was the judge,
as it was Bradley that took the brunt of that. Uh. But
I felt really bad for MAXI Hughes. This a guy that's been kind of
a journeyman fighter for his career. This was his biggest moment ever fighting in
a chance to fight for an actual world title and uh and uh and got
screwed and it sucks all right, So one more aspect to this just to
eliminate it. And I'm gonna give credit here to one of our writers on
Big Fight Weekend dot Com, Sadika med wrote about this on Sunday and we
put this out on social media. So the specific judge that we're going to
hone in on is Joseph Mason. He is a Colorado based judge. He
had the one seventeen to one eleven card, which again is indefensible. I
mean, I know that Joe Tessa Tour was kind of joking around after the
fight. Hey, you'd like to sit down with the judge and have pizza
and beer and have him show you the nine rounds. No, I'm not
going to go along with that. You would say, Joseph, you're not
allowed to work anymore title fights because the card is so off, or any
the very least. Yeah, at the very least. I want to hear
his explanation and just tell me what you were seeing. And here's the problem.
The reason why this stuff gets people so upset, and myself and any
others you whoever I'm sure Maxie used, is that very very rarely. It
happens occasionally, but it's very very rare that there's any accountability than here,
let me finish, and the regulators let me finish in my Rayfield impersonation.
So where I'm coming on the accountability is this guy has had two awful cards
recently in prominent main event fights that should have been some kind of red alert
that there is questionable judging in his background, on his competency and on his
accountability. One of those fights is the region's Progray recent title fight with Zoria
that was very hard to stomach and watch, very few punches landed, and
he had that fight one sided for Progray when it really looked like a fifty
fifty fight. Now in his defense, in Mason's defense, one of the
other judges in that fight had it very wide for Progray. But still two
of them not being competent or not being right doesn't mean that it absolves the
other one from not being or not being right. It was a bad card
and what was a very close fight that Zaria could have just as easily won,
and he had the fight one seventeen to one eleven. He also had
another card in another fight, and you may know, off the top of
your head, I was looking for the date on this the Channard Bunch Janielsen
Boca Chica fight. In that case, this same judge also had an awful
card where Bunch was apparently winning this fight, was winning the fight on the
other judges cards, and yet Joseph Mason, this same judge, had Boca
Chica winning ninety six ninety four in complete disagreement with his other judges, and
again it was deemed to be an awful card. You may remember more about
that and how recent that was. My point on the accountability Exactly what you
just said is, with those two previous cards, what is this guy doing
working a main event fight on top rank I know, in looking I'm answering
my own question and looking at his list, he mainly works cards in Colorado,
not TELEVI, not a big time thing. But he got the assignment
for the program title fight in New Orleans by the WBC. He was on
their list and he worked that title fight. Here he is on top ranks
list to work the main event fight. Well, let's not, let's not,
let's not mix things up. It's not a top rank list. Well
not a top rank Olahoma, I'm sorry. The Oklahoma list and top rankers
clarify that because I had a bunch of fucking idiots on Twitter today saying that
it's corrupt because top rank picks the judges and they wanted Cambosas to win,
and nothing could be I mean, they probably did want Cambosas to win,
but nothing could be further from the truth as far as who picks judges.
In no place in the world, there's the promoter pick the judges certain Oklahoma
and the IBF, because it's an IBF alone, it's not even the IBF.
It's not even I mean, yes, a would they have had input,
don't think there. But listen, I'm gonna say this one time and
pay attention everybody. The sanctioned bodies often will provide a list of who they'd
like to see and as a courtesy out you know, the locations, those
regulating agencies, in those state commissions or tribal commissions, they may go over
the list, and because they respect what they do and all that, they
may say okay, and they'll take one of the lists. But in the
end, there's only one group that officially picks judges and referees for fights.
And if the sanctioning bodies don't like it, or the promoters don't like it,
they can take their business elsewhere, and that is up to the State
Commission. So, as one example, when they select the judges and the
referee for the Arrow Spence Terence Crawford fight coming up this week at the meeting
that they're going to have in Las Vegas, it's up to the commission.
Now, what the Commission will do is they will ahead of time tell both
sides Spence's team and Crawford's team. They will provide them the list of the
pool people that are on the list. I believe it'll be six judges and
six referees something like that that they will choose somebody of so everybody has it
in front of them, and if for some reason that either side does not
like a particular referee or judge, and they can make the case, then
that might that person might be dropped from the list. And in the end,
the commission will be responsible for choosing one of those people from the referee
list from the pool, and they'll pick three judges out of the pool period.
And if the promoter doesn't like it or the boxer doesn't like it,
it's too bad, and that's the way it is. So the promoter had
nothing to do with choosing these three officials for the fight. That's on the
Oklahoma regulators. And also there's also state commissions, I mean regular rather tribal
commissions in Oklahoma and other states that would do the same thing. It's not
up to the promoter or the fighter. Are we done with that nonsense?
Good? Good with that clarification. And wasn't there I remember Jis Kleimus was
making this and I'm trying to remember what the fight was in the last month
or two where they were objecting on the front end to that judge whoever it
was, and that judge had a questionable call in one of his moments of
any Probably yes, they were upset with that judge. They objected in Nevada
to that judge, and just like you're saying, it's taken under consideration,
but it's ultimately up to the Nevada Commission and whom they approve. So for
whatever it's worth, there's a good explanation on how it happens. But you
agree with me, there's now enough fire forget about smoke. Why why is
this guy working big time fights? Where's the accountability with that kind of card,
in that kind of fight. It's what plagues the sport. Where is
the accountability? So there you go, I mean, and the thing is
his card overshadows his terrible card kind of ends up giving cover to Sutherland,
and Ritter Sutherland had a draw to me. Again, it's my opinion is
like the outside of acceptableness, the fifteen thirteen is a real problem and his
shitty card gives cover. And that's not the first time it happens. Sometimes
you see a decision that's terrible, but it's you know, I'll put it
to you like this. If all three judges scored the fight one fifteen,
one thirteen in favor of cambosis, there'll be a lot less outcrier who plow
or even if it was one fifteen thirteen, one fifteen, one thirteen and
one fourteen one fourteen, people would still be up in arms about it.
But it's the crazy outlier card that drives people out, free up the wall
and causes the chaos. Two more points than We're gonna move on to Keyshawn
Davis and the co feature and move on to other stuff, including Fulton in
a way, and we're going to talk a lot about that in a couple
of moments. Camboss said in the ring after the fight, I will give
him a rematch. He deserves a rematch down the road, not immediately.
I see your look. I don't think he gets anywhere near this guy to
ever fight him again because of the southpaw stance, etc. I see it
in your face. You don't believe that, and I don't believe it.
I don't believe. I mean, listen, Georgian, it is good that
he said that in all, but you know, there's other business and he
did make the point he so why would I give him the media rematch.
I don't even think under the odd and I'd be laughing out loud at my
TV going because you lost this fight because he deserves to have his hand raise
and you lost. That's why. But his next stop is, as he
said, it's the IBF title because this was the eliminator. Or whether you
like the business or not, they're not changing it. It's not there's nothing
to protest or or you know, the same stuff that went on with the
Loma and Haney fight whatever. Although I didn't really have a problem with that
decision. But the bottom line is George Cambosa's next fight most likely will be
for the vacant IBF lightweight title, and you know, Max Hughes will have
to figure out what he wants to do. I hope that somebody gives him
a chance to do something. The problem with Maxie Hughes and Frankly Camboss it
was such a shitty fight that it's gonna be hard. You know. It's
not like Hughes had this incredible performance and he looked great and he made it
exciting, everybody wants to see him again. It was just a very pedestrian
kind of boring fight. So I certainly don't have anything bad to say about
Max Hughes. I was glad to see him put in that kind of effort
and felt bad that he didn't get the decision. But is somebody out there
gonna be willing to pay a lot of money to put him on in a
big fight. That's who knows. I mean, it seems unlikely, but
I hope for his sake he does get another opportunity. Okay, So on
that co feature, Keyshawn Davis won and won easily over Francesco Ptera of Mexico.
Knocked him down. I thought we might be looking at a late ko,
but to Petera's credit, he hung in. He was even firing back
at Keishaw Davis late. So give me your thoughts on another dominant win for
the former US Olympic silver medalist. I mean, Keishan Davis is a work
in progress. He's now nine and oh, I do reject entirely the notion
that he feels like he should be fighting for world titles in his next fight
and all that. You know, not everybody is Loma Chenko and he's going
to come and fight for world titles in their first handful of fights. And
I actually thought that what Brian McIntyre, who's his trainer, said in his
interview is that yes, he knows that his fighter wants to get right to
that big spot row read immediately, but he understands he does need some more
seasoning and the fact that, uh that he scored a knock down and couldn't
finish him like that, and maybe he is a part of that. You
do need some season I'm not saying he needs thirty fights or anything before he
can fight for a title, but he probably needs you know, two to
three, you know, maybe next year, and then then after that he
gets another gets the sort of bigger fight. He wants to move quick,
and I totally appreciate the you know, the excitement and the exuberance to get
your career going and get into the bigger money and bigger profile fights. I
don't think he's a great prospect. I just don't think he's ready for that
just yet. He did get to the knocked down, but he also have
to remember the fighter he was fighting. It's not like he's a superstar Francis
so Patara, but he he he was there to try to win. Also,
he did the best that he could when he was taking punishment, he
dished it out. Also he gave it back to a degree. And you
know, he's now got four losses, has never been stopped, So it
wasn't really I don't think an accident that he didn't get knocked out by Keshan
Davis. The bottom line is this was actually a good ten rounds for Keshan
to get some of that professional experience that he needs. That will serve him
well as he moves along in his career and eventually does get the opportunity to
fight for bigger fights and titles, etc. And look, the lightweight division
is loaded. It's about to have a lot of opportunity because of the fact
that we all think that Heiny is moving up and wait, those belts will
become vacated. Not to say that Keshan's in position to fight for one of
the vacant titles, but what it does is it kind of it relieves some
of the congestion and guys start to fight. Titles become filled, and there's
eliminators that get decided, and maybe he fits into one of those at some
point. But I'd say I agreed with what Keishan said, have to fight.
He you know, he graded himself. He said, I give myself
like a C plus B minus. I thought that was a really honest and
fair assessment of his performance. Yes, he won a shutout and two scorecards
and one round went to Peter. On the other scorecard, he did score
the knockdown, but I kind of thought he would stop the guy. I
kind of expect a little more. Pizzaz. I'm gonna mark him off for
his team agreeing to let Tessator do that absurd interview with him during his ring
walk, which you know it's not see it, but I saw your reaction.
So he was literally doing a walking talk as he came through the ring.
Yes, Now, then that's not Keishan's fault, and it's you know,
that's when when you're the broadcaster, that's something that comes to you from
your producer. So I don't in any way lay that at the feet of
Joe Testator, who's a tremendous broadcaster. He was doing what he was told,
but it was a badly thought of idea. It was even a worse
executed idea because you could barely hear what Keishan was saying since he was wearing
the Spider Man outfit with the with the mask on. It was just a
freaking train wreck all the way. It's a Saturday Night Live sketch. Just
wow. Bottom line is interview fighters in the dress room, and he must
set fine interview them after the fight if they're medically okay to do so fine.
I've even seen at one time or another, you know, over the
course of years, they might even have a guy make a comment towards them
during the actual fight or when they're in their corner, but during the ringwalk,
it's come on, that's it's showtime at that moment. You know,
it just seemed a very poorly executed idea. I just did not like that
at all. I'm now on a little bit of a tangent, But in
the end, look Keishan Davis. He keeps the train moving, got good
ten round experience against a solid guy. And by the way, the reason
why this was the opponent that ended up being a contracted for the fight is
when Top Rank was looking around for an opponent for Keishan to face, they
were looking for a fighter who was in the ratings among the Sanctation bodies,
and Patara is in the lower part of the rankings, and you know they
wanted that ranking. And by beating a guy in the ratings, that's going
to help Keshan's ratings improved, because at some point when he does get the
chance to fight for a world title, it seems like he's gonna be the
kind of guy that not a lot of guys are gonna rush to fight that
just to heads their bets. They're gonna have to put him into a mandatory
position. And you know, as I have been told numerous times through the
years, you get him in the mandatory position and then you worry about how
you're gonna get or who you're gonna fight for the title, not the other
way around. So you get the position. You can always turn down the
title fight. If you're a matchmaker a promoter, you don't feel your guys
ready, but the idea is lock in this position. So when you think
your guys ready, then you can take advantage of it, as opposed to
the other way around, where the guy's ready and then you gotta wait for
six months or a year to get him in the position. You get the
guy in the position, and you worry about doing the title fight next or
later. You don't do it the other way around, and they're in the
process of getting Keyshun in position, and they'll worry about it later when if
they believe he's ready for that fight. The conversation will continue in a moment.
First, a couple of words about a couple of sponsors. If you're
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let's move on, shall we, and let's talk about the upcoming fight
on Tuesday. Here's where just because of the way that it falls Tuesday morning
US time, Tuesday night in Japan, even though this is a recap podcast
that's out late Sunday and a Monday, we get to preview this one.
In fairness, you and I have already previewed it on the bet US Show
bet US's Boxing show on their platform's YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, etc.
We did this on Friday, so they can go back and watch the full
handicapping version. But let's get into this just a little more here for the
podcast audience, we're both excited for this. At the time we're doing this,
it is Sunday evening US time. They're gonna have the way in in
a few hours from the time that we're doing this, and then fight is
obviously Sat. Thursday, Tuesday night, excuse me, Tuesday night in Japan,
Tuesday morning in the US. So we're interested in this, and with
good reason. This has the potential to be a tremendous fight, So give
me a couple of thoughts on it, because now it's about to be here
in the preview mode. Listen. As soon as this fight was made,
myself and I think most diehard boxing fans were like, this is one of
the greatest fights you can make in the sport today. This is the bandom
Waite, undisputed champion in a way, one of the best fighters in the
world, undefeated, big puncher, big star, just the tremendous fighter,
three division champion, legit pound for pound quality guy taken on, you know,
as he moves up in wait having vacated those undisputed titles. You know,
all the belts at one eighteen going up to junior featherweight to fight a
fighter in Fulton who has two of the titles, who I think is by
acclamation considered number one in the weight class. No offense to Marlin, to
Polace who holds the other two belts who pulled the upset against Aclandalaieff to win
them. Nobody really ever had Akmandali of number one. And to Paulus you
know, again, all due respect, I don't think anybody has him number
one coming off that win. Fulton's the guy. He's got wins that matter.
You know, he'd beat Danny Roman, a former unified champion. He
beat Brandon Figueroa in a unification fight that was a great fight, Fight of
the year candidate. You know, he beat Angelo Leo to win the title,
who was an undefeated fighter. I mean he's you know, he doesn't
have a long track record of the top fights, but of the weight class
as it exists today. He's the best guy and he looks to part as
far as like, you know, there's what you've done and how you when
you watch the guy fight, what do you think of the performance? You
know when he seems like he's a well rounded fighter. He's got good talent,
good skills, good speed, good iq. Not the biggest puncher,
although he disagreed with me about that on our podcast that we had him on
not that long ago. People can go back a couple of shows ago and
listen to that. I you know, he's a fearless guy. He embraced
going to Japan. Not a lot of guys want to do that. Obviously.
Part of that is getting paid more money than he's ever made even close
to it for this fight. You know, my understanding isn't getting in like
the three to four million dollar range for this fight, which is this money?
Yeah, you know, a guy that's never been a big draw or
sold a bunch of tickets or anything like, it's a you know, it's
a for him. It's a huge opportunity. And yes, money of course
plays a huge rolling, But I do genuinely believe that Stephen Fulton was the
kind of guy in my interactions with him, that wanted to test himself that
you know, if I'm not going for the biggest fights, why am I
in this sport. He's got a certain level of accomplishment in his weight class,
and he had the opportunity to go over and fight one of the biggest
stars in the sport, and he's taking and I think he's gonna show up,
and I think he's gonna fight his ass off, and I think in
a way is going to do the same thing. Now, remember this fight
was scheduled earlier in the year in March. It was postponed because in a
way had a dislocated knuckle that I reported about that They seldn really talked about
the injury of what it was, but my sources that told me it was
a dislocated knuckle. He's okay now apparently, and they're doing the fight now
just a little bit later on, as I joked, instead of being the
best fight of the spring, it's one of the best fights of the summers.
What we've got going on, and it listen it is. It's an
eight plus fight. I mean, if it wasn't in Japan and it was
a take in place in the United States, it'd be like the big fight
of the week on you know, HBO in the old days or Showtime or
ESPN or whatever, and it would be, you know, a much bigger
event. But this is now, it's kind of hidden away from the Americans.
They did a great job promoting and hyping it up on the ESPN broadcast
during the Cambosis and Hues fight. And just so people know, because I've
gotten this question already like a million times on my social media. They start
to broadcast on ESPM plus four thirty in the morning am four thirty am Eastern
Time Tuesday. That's when the stream starts. But they got about four fights
on the show, a couple of Japanese fights, and we'll talk about this
in a minute. The Robessi Ramires featherweight title defense is the co feature and
then the main event. So the stream is at four thirty Robo Ramirez approximately
six ish, and the main event they say approximately eight ish am Eastern,
So set your alarms and plan accordingly. I don't want to hear anybody telling
me they missed it because they didn't know what time it was. But less
end of the day, t J. It's a great fight, and the
good news is again it's on ESPN Plus where you can get it on demand,
even if you're having to watch it a couple of hours later, because
I fully realize you and I are in the Eastern time zone. If you're
in the Mountain or Pacific time zone, you're talking about five o'clock in the
morning or six o'clock in the morning earlier. To try to watch the main
event. Not everybody know the results, Stay off Twitter, that's right off
your phone, and then and then watch and enjoy. Okay, a couple
of other aspects to this, and again you and I are both on board.
You like the n a way for handicapping purposes, the monster ko.
I think Fulton hangs in. I think this is a distance fight. We're
gonna find out. It's interesting because this has come out over the weekend,
So let's address this that. At the Saturday press conference, Fulton's trainer,
Waheed rahim It brought up the hand wraps of in a way that he uses.
And they've seen the hand wraps and they've seen the hands being wrapped.
They are questioning whether or not rapping with the tape then putting more gauze and
rapping with the tape a second time doesn't create ate almost like a plaster effect,
almost like a bigger not so much padding, but almost plaster, harder
ability to punch through the padding of the glove effect. They went so far
as to say that they would be willing to you know, they would be
willing to say, okay, we'll wrap our hands the same way, but
what about fighter safety? So there's obviously an objection to that. How big
of a deal do you think this really is? Or is this gamesmanship?
What do you make of this? Because he clearly spent time and answered a
couple of questions about it at the press conference. The head trainer for Fulton,
I mean to me, it's I mean, maybe from their point of
view, it's a legitimate question. Part of it could be games and the
ship also just to you know, to get any little edge mentally, to
kind of disrupt or, you know, or aggravate or whatever, to get
your opponent thinking about things they don't want to be thinking about. I mean,
to unnerve them, to needle them. I mean, you know,
there's boxing is physical, but there's a lot of mind games when you go
into these types of fights. For sure, I expect to see some of
that next week, you know, are coming up and later in the week
with Benson Crawford, you know, big stakes. Obviously. My understanding is
that the way that he wraps his hands is by the rules of what the
Japanese Boxing Commission allows and how they have done it. And there's a ton
of fighters that have traveled to Japan and I've never heard that being issue before.
I mean, I don't know. I'm the hand rapping expert. The
one thing I am understand is that at least here in the United States anyway,
you can't put tape on the hand. Glau's got to go on the
hand first and tape over the hand. If you put the tape on the
hand, that may make it a little bit more hard because of the sweat
and then it gets wet and it just becomes a bit of a problem and
you have to do it in the appropriate way. Most trainers, so I've
talked, they don't really care how much tape you use as long as it's
not on the skin, and it's if it's on the I mean, there's
still rules they have to follow, but they want the gauze first, and
the tape over the gauze. So again, this is not going to stop
the fight. That maybe gamesmanship, maybe they have a valid point about it,
but in the end, Stephen Fulton is not walking away from this fight
in a way is not going to radically alter the way his hands have always
been wrapped, unless how some way the Japanese Commission makes a thing about it.
And I'll say this, I don't remember there being a problem when in
a way, who has fought the vast majority of his career in Japan,
but he has had at least, off top of my head, at least
three fights in the United States, one in Los Angeles, two in Las
Vegas, and there had never been any questions or issues that I'm aware of
in terms of things related to his hand wraps. So you know, I
do think it's probably much to do about nothing, but I don't blame them.
Just make sure when the fight's going on that you know you're have your
guy in there watching the raps the proper way, and make sure if you're
in a way that you have one of your people watching Fulton, just to
make sure there's no funny business. So two or three interesting points, because
we did have this debate before, and we'll just do this real quickly.
First of all, you brought up he's got a knuckle injury, so you've
got to be careful. You don't want him reinjured once the fight is going
on on how you wrap the hands and make sure they're protected, So that's
a concern. The second thing is I remember this from the rematch with don
Are. They used different gloves than the first flight fight, and I remember
you talking to us about, hey, when you're selecting the different style of
glove, you testified here on the podcast that it can have an effect,
and there is no doubt he blitzed done Air in the second round of that
fight when it was a great twelve round fight the first goal round, So
that kind of adds to the Okay, how much I don't remember. I
don't remember what did they switch the brands or something like that, right,
and it was a different brand with a different feel or whatever, and it
made it have made that a big a deal, But it just adds to
the intrigue on how much do the wraps and the gloves really matter or not.
If you've got big time punching power, gloves make a big difference.
They make a big difference. There's a reason why, guys, you set
it out in the in the boardroom, you know, in the contract stage,
to get the kind of gloves they want. Now, the greatest example
that I can think of is the first fight between Manny Paco and Eric Morales
where Morales was allowed to use uh the Rayas gloves and or I'm sorry,
I forget who it was. One of them wanted to use the winning gloves
that were more protective of the hand. The other one, I think it
was Morales, I wanted to use the Rayas and uh pack was upset when
his side negotiated that away. Um and a lot of people like, oh,
what's the big deal. It's like gloves, Like, so you're wearing
a pair of Nikes or in a pair of Adidas or you're wearing a pair
of Rebox whatever. I'm gonna tell you something again. I have there.
They're eight ounce gloves. They weigh the same. But I have literally stood
and I've held a Ray's glove in one hand and I've held a winning glove
in the other hand. And I'm gonna tell you right now, not that
I want to get hit with either one, but I would a thousand times
rather get hit with that winning glove than with the raised glove. The Rayers
Ray's gloves, which is known as the quote unquote puncher's glove. They're small,
it feels like, and they're sharp on the sides, and it's just
a different feel winning, you know, not to be to exaggerate, but
they are like pillows. No I'm not sure which what kind that in a
way and foldon are going to use, but that and that this is not
the issue in this case. It's more about the wrapping. But there is
a difference in the type of gloves that that that fighters select. I mean,
there was a whole big thing I remember having. I joked around about
it not that long ago with Leonard Ellerbye, you know him, and I
unfortunately got into a terrible shouting match in the media center when Floyd was fighting
Madonna and one of their fights over the conversity of the gloves where they ended
up paying Madonna. I think it was like six hundred thousand dollars additional to
make him change his random gloves really the kind that Mayweather wanted real and it
was a whole big to do. Um, trust me it gloves matter.
Six hundred thousand dollars payoff to switch the gloves. That is striking. That
is striking, and so that's why you are who you are. On the
gloves, he wanted like them to wear the I think it was the everlast
power lock version, but he wanted the other everlast version. And there is
a difference. And you know, listening like if you if you're the best
guitar player in the world and somebody screws me these strings, you know it.
You know, if somebody moves like the same thing with the same thing
with a baseball bat, or with golf clubs or anything else, it's by
field, same thing with boxing gloves or wraps or anything you're using with your
hand, you're gonna know that it feels differently, or that the same keyboard
in my office and suddenly somebody puts a new keyboard in front of my computer.
I'm gonna know there's a difference. I want what I want. So
so two other things. One it reminds me of the Deonte Wilder controversy with
Tyson Fury. What or you believe about that? About the gloves where the
gloves loaded up? Are we're going to use a different type of glove?
There have been battles. Is the point over gloves? A bunch? This
is about hand wraps. I'm going to impress you right here because I know
why they don't do it anymore. But back in the day long ago,
in the nostalgia, they would have the fighters come to the ring and then
they would wrap their hands in the ring and glove up in the ring.
The reason they don't do that now is you want to build up the anticipation
for the fight. You want to have them come to the ring, have
everybody anticipating, and then start the fight, not stand around for ten minutes
to wrap the hands, wrap the gloves, put the gloves on, lace
them up, tape them up, shadow box a little bit to get loose,
and then do the introductions. But I just I think that part is
fascinating people. People have to understand that in the thirties, forties, fifties,
and maybe all the way up, maybe even into the sixties, they
were still wrapping seventies in the ring, even in the seventies, and it
was being done in the open in front of everybody to watch what's going on.
That's why that's necessary. I mean, I'm not saying it is.
I'm saying they do it in the back room. Both sides are allowed to
watch the other side wrap. They've got the officials there from the commission.
And once they're wrapped up and they're gloved up, obviously there's an inspector there
that shadows them everything, every every spot that they go, and they spend
some of the time, you know, loosening up, and they do hit
mits and and and you know it's not just shadow box and they hit the
mits. And that's a better way to do it. Like you said,
it's it serves a better purpose for the public, and it serves a better
purpose for the athlete. All right, and real quick, the co feature
fight again is Robi Ramirez and Shamizu. Shamizu again older not a lot of
pro fights. Ramirez on the rise as the featherweight world champ, the WBO
featherweight world champ. He's a decided favorite. You and I both agreed on
the bet Us show this should be a Robes Ramirez knockout, and this is
just gonna be something real quick on that because that's the co feature fight.
Somewhere around six six thirty Eastern time. Adjust your time zone accordingly Tuesday morning
as we preview this before the main event Fulton and the Monster. Yeah,
I mean, look, Robesi Ramiers is on the ascent. He's a two
time Cuban Olympic gold medalist. We've all we all know. It's been well
chronicled how he lost his professional debut uh for for uh you know, which
seemed like a disaster at the time, but he's certainly certainly strained himself out
since then, changed teams and he's been on a great run. Had an
excellent performance in his last fight to win the vacant WBO title where he really
essentially shut out Isaac dog Bay to a large degree, scored a knockdown in
the twelfth round that he didn't need to necessarily get the win, but just
made it. Like the cherry on top. So he's he's on the ascent.
He's a tremendous fighter and do a lot of different things. Can fight
going forward, can fight going backward, can fight like a you know,
uh with both hands. Um. But he's this output also and when top
rank, you know, who's the co promoter for in a way, when
when the NWA team was putting together this event, they wanted a second world
title fight, and so they took Ramirez who was available and was ready to
come back on short note, you know, not short notice, but not
that long after his title win that was in in April, So it's it
is a relatively short turnaround, and he's gonna go over there and fight this
fight, and they're giving the opportunity to Shimizu and Mesu. As you mentioned,
he's he's got, you know, a pedestrian career so far in the
sense he hasn't really ever fought a top name. He's eleven and one with
ten knockouts. His one loss was by a knockout. He's also a South
PA. He's thirty seven years old, but he's known in Japan because he
also was a two time Olympian, although much earlier in the days than Robici
Ramirez. So he's getting this opportunity. He has won three fights in a
row, and uh, I think they sort of look at it like,
you know, he's near the end of his career or at least in terms
of his age, and so we're gonna get him this opportunity and as I
as I have sort of thought, they're kind of like feeding him to the
wolf, to the young guy um or the much younger guy. And so
it's a chance for Ramirez on a bigger stage just in the United States in
terms of worldwide, going to Asia where there's lots of title fights to take
place in those way classes over the years, to shine on a big card
and uh, maybe gained some fans. And uh, you know, he'll
be the bad guy obviously because he's gonna be in there with a with a
Japanese fighter that all the crowd will be rooting for. But uh, it's
a I view it as sort of a showcase fight for Amiras not quite the
same as the main event, which is that a level fifty fifty matchup,
which is like I said, I know, we spent a lot of time
on the rap still just from a pure fight and fan a fan fight.
It's just an awesome matchup. And by the way, we didn't discuss this
about it. It took five minutes from them to make the fight. We
spent five years dicking around trying to get Crawford and Spence in the ring together,
and thankfully the fight next week. When when When in a Way won
the bandom Wait undisputed title by knocking out Paul Butler at the end of last
year and said in his interview afterwards he was gonna go up and wait,
and he had said it before the fight even happened, that he was going
to be moving up after this fight and he wanted to fight, you know,
for another world title on a fourth weight division. And then Stephen Fulton
heard that and basically told his people, can we you know, do this?
And I guess the in a way people inquired the bottom line it was
they both sort of thought like, hey, hey, let's fight each other.
And I swear to God TJ. It was like a week later the
fight was made. But the point you're making is the fighters wanted the fight
to happen, and Terence Quawford even said to you when the Q and A
that we played on the podcast, you got a quick two questions in for
Errol Spence and Terence Crawford. During the media call last week, Terrence Crawford
said to you on your question, the reason this happened is Errol got on
the phone with me and and we worked it out, and Arrow basically allayed
whatever the latest fears were to get it to get it worked out. In
this they also could have got on the phone five years ago. I mean
that's true too, And I will continue to say this all week long.
We have to pick sides with all this. The reason this fight has not
happened for this long is Terrence Crawford didn't want the fight to happen, especially
last year when he was a promotional free agent, and last summer became last
fall became last winner, and Terence Crawford, as it turns out, was
working his own deal to fight somebody else. So incontrovertible. As Don King
used to say, that you were looking to do something else besides fight Errol
Spence. You're the reason why that fight didn't happen last year. So anyway,
but he said to you, we got on the phone, we got
it worked out. I get the feeling here that in this case these two
guys, while they may not have actually he talked, they realize we need
each other. Fulton realizes this is a huge payday in a way, realizes
this is two belts at once in the upper division against a marketable, big
time name and an American fighter that's a two belt world champion. Let's make
the fight. Let's all make a bunch of money. Let's make the fight
not hard, not hard. When the one thing about that, though in
a way, could have easily gone to junior featherweight, just picked a regular
kind of you know, contenders type opponent, made a huge amount of money,
still packed the house, and then after that got the opportunity to fight
for your title. He didn't have to do this now, but he wants
to be great anyone. You know, certain guys have that mentality. They
don't want to screw around. They want to go for the gusto right away.
You know, it's it's uh, I mean to me, it's great.
It's a great thing for the sport in a way. As a phenomenal
fighter, he's gonna be a Hall of Famer someday, no matter what happens
against Stephen Fulton. And how do you not respect that he went from being
undisputed at bandom wait and said, you know what, now it's on to
junior fearueit. Let me go for the best guy right off the bat,
and same deal with Fulton. Put my titles up, no rematch clause by
the way yea and the way it should be, and I'm going to go
over to his home country and let's see what happens and hopefully we get a
great fight. Okay. One more note out of all of this is as
we go to Las Vegas later this week for Spence Crawford and all the coverage
that we're gonna have, and let me just say this again by way of
promo here, you want to be locked in on this podcast feed because if
we get special stuff, special interviews, they may be set apart besides just
the big fight, we can preview the full bonanza that we're gonna have like
a Vegas buffet on Thursday night into Friday. So keep it locked in here
because we'll have some different stuff on the Big Fight weekend podcast feed as the
week goes on for Spence Crawford. While we're out in Las Vegas. You
thought it was interesting, and I thought this was I don't understand why we
had to have a coin flip, but there's going to have a there's going
to be a coin flip between Spence and Crawford. I don't know who gets
to call the coin. I would hope the three belt world champion gets to
call the coin and whoever wins the coin flip gets to make the decision to
come out to the ring for second. And you would assume whoever wins wants
to come out. Yeah, that's it to determine who walks last. I
mean that was sort of you know, can you clarify. I don't know
why we're having a coin flip. One guy's got three world titles, one
guy's got one. The guy that's got one should walk to the ring first.
But Errol Spence is also the guy that's the more established star. He's
the more established pay per view fighter. It's not a knock on Crawford,
I mean, but he's just not the a side in terms of the accomplishment,
which is the number of belts he has in the weight class. For
this fight, it's three against one, and Spence is the guy that is
sold a lot more tickets and sold a lot more pay per view in his
career. So this was one of the things that if it was at all
a concern to Crawford, who wanted to just do it fairly or get his
chance to at least walk when he wanted to. Spence said, okay,
fine, why are you going to dick around about the little stuff. At
the end of the day, the bell's gonna ring and they're gonna have to
go to battle, and whatever happened in those few minutes should not change what
occurs in terms of a few minutes you're waiting or walking around. Don't they'll
make I'm sure that it's it's fair, and you know, it does kind
of add a little bit of spice if you will to fight weekday have and
said, I actually asked some of the promoter types, you know, when
they're gonna do this coin flip. There was not anything specific. The feeling
was probably at this yes, so that's a probably. See this is where
I rely on you. Who's flipping the coin? I expect Rayfield to get
to the bottom of before it happens. Who's flipping the coin? Is it
a Nevada Commission person? Is it Bob Aram? I want to know if
it's Wayne Newton. Is Newton still playing in Vegas? Is it gonna be
Wayne Who's flipping the coin for the ring walk? For Spenson Crawford. I
expect nothing less than you're getting to the bottom of that. I think there's
probably they're gonna I mean again, if they do indeed have it at the
press conference, which will be on Thursday afternoon. I mean they they can
invite a celebrity, you know, or some maybe the president of the of
THET T Mobile Arena. Maybe it'll be one of the promoters, you know,
if it's Tom Brown, you know who that knows what what's the difference.
It's a fifty fifty choice. I mean, is long as you flip
the coin, who cares who flips it? I mean, I'm going to
be Jimmy Lennon Jr. We know what. It could be Jimmy Lennon Junior.
It could be, you know, one of the moderators of the press
conference. It could be one of the showtime people, could be a Vegas
showgirl, could be Danny Gans, could be uh, I don't know.
Jimmy Garoppolo is reporting to Raiders training camp. Maybe he's available to flip the
coin for the raiders. I don't know. As long as the person has
the competence to actually flip the coin, it shouldn't be a problem. All
you only have to make sure it's a two headed coin and it's not loaded
coin, and it's like the same on both sides, you know. But
look, it's you know, I can appreciate. Aron was like, you
know what, I'm not gonna sweat this. Who cares? I mean,
I can just for my own mentality. If I was like an actual boxer
and it came down to like this type of situation. That was one of
the big deals to try to get a deal done. Who cares whose name
goes first? Who cares who's walking to the ring first? My only concerned
to be whose name do they say after the fight? That's what matters,
because you're the winner. Good enough, Now you made mention. You made
reference to this earlier a little while ago about the extension for Devin Haney and
Regis program and as it relates to Haney potentially vacating all of his lightweight titles.
As we were talking about George campbos as the Future and the future at
one thirty five, So what exactly is going on here with the deadline extension
to later this week. Okay, So, as I have said and written
and others have done the same, the WBC did present a request of that
Devin Haney on this past Friday give them an answer to whether he was going
to opt to fight Shakor Stevenson and his mandatory WC lightweight title defense or go
up twe hundred and forty pounds and be installed as the mandatory for the WBC
title holder, which is Regis Program. And from my point of view,
if he decided to do either one, I'd be totally game for it.
If he fights Program, that'd be interesting. If you fight Shor, that's
I'd like that a little better actually, but they're both perfectly fine interesting fights.
Then match Room Boxing, which is the promoter for he just the former
promoter for Haney who is currently a free agent, but he has a good
relationship with Eddie Hearn and the folks i'm at Ram who did promote him for
a while. They are trying to make a deal to do a fight between
Regis and Devon, and so they asked the WBC to give them the six
day extension till Thursday of this coming week to see if they can get that
done. So it seems as though if they can get that done, that
Haney will in fact go to one hundred forty pounds, which would mean that
all those lightweight belts will become vacant. As I said before, he wasn't
under no obligation to answer the WBC because he still has belts and other organizations,
So it wasn't like, you know, he didn't have to tell them
what he wanted to do. They were asking, They asked for the extension.
They're working on the fight. If it doesn't work out, there's still
other options for him because he could then stay yeah, I'm gonna fight shakor
he could try to move towards one of the other organizations. He can certainly
become the mandatory in the WBO, for example, He's had the back and
forth with Tifimolpez, who obviously is going to come back and fight after saying
he wasn't going to actually retire. But if he does end up going and
the route and making a fight with Regius program, that's a good fight.
It's gonna be a lot better than that Zuria abortion we watched a few weeks
ago. Um and uh, it'll it'll line up all the jockey for the
lightweight belts, including Cambosis after the win over us to get his his shot
at the vacant belt against whoever they put a Bilemos or somebody else in their
ratings. Um. But anyway, that's a pretty good fight. But I
mean it also, uh is interesting if Haney does go to one hundred forty
pounds fighting a bigger man, a stronger man, a good puncher, that's
a very fascinating fight. I'd love to see this record fight. That's the
ultimate chess match and in a really interesting fight. As I've said before,
I think it's a big fight. But I think if there's ever a fight
that actually did need a little bit of marination a word that I don't really
care for much in boxing, that is a fight that could use a little
marination. Is marination a word marinating And we're going back to Don King words
again, marination. So that's that's a bob Aram word is wanted. By
the way, I should make mention to the WBC that is so hot to
try out if they want an answer from Devin Hanny. You know where I'm
going from this. Who just fought Lomachenko back in Ape. But what April
right, Uh may Progray just fought and defended his title a couple a couple
of months ago. WBC needs some resolution on this. The same WBC that
is now twenty five months in counting not saying that Jamal Charlo you have to
fight someone. The WBC has no credibility none until they do something at middleweight
with somebody that hasn't fought in twenty five months, still being their world champion
and has defended it against no one, has fought no one. So I
will slightly disagree with that standpoint, but I understand the irritation about the about
the the middleweight title belt. It is unfortunate at least Carlos so Adamas has
an interim title and has been active in the sense, uh, elevate him,
then elevate him and let Jamal Charlo come fight him later his act together.
That's it's I mean, let's go kind of like that. It is
it appears that the rules are being enforced in a way that is not even
handed among all weight classes. Now remember also here's the difference though in the
lightweight division. They've got a bunch of guys jockeying want the shot want the
title fight. There's nobody really doing that in middleweight. They're not really aggrieving
anybody. Adamas has got his fights, he's being paid. He just fought
a couple of weeks ago. It's not like there's twelve other top top guys
who are saying, I want to fight for the title. In the lightweight
division, which is very, very loaded. You got a bunch of guys
prowling around who are making, you know, requests and demands of the organization.
So as long as the WBC's not taking any heat from fighters and promoters
and managers center in the middleweight division that I'm just saying, they're not harming
anybody's on it should well, you're harming the guys that you know. In
a Damas's case, and I don't work for him, he should be the
world champ at this point. They should elevate him and make him the world
champ because the other guys fought no one. At the very least, you
ordered the fight with Charlotte, which they what they did do if you paid
attention to the convention, what they did do was they ordered that fight Adamas
to fight Charlou. Adamas had become the interim champion. They then said you
can each have an interim bout, which I believe was the fight that he
had in his most recent play. Adamas Charlo has not yet had the interim
to each other. Yeah, he didn't fight anybody and hasn't fared anybody.
I get you, Okay, Moving on a death, the Wan kid Mesa
has passed away, give me more on that name who he was more of
a fighter in the seventies and the eighties. So I know we're going back,
especially for the millennials, the gen zers, but give me more of
the sky. Yeah, it's good to teach a little history because you know,
back in their day, this was a guy that was talked about the
way that we talked about some guys today that you know, twenty five years
from now people may well have forgotten. But you know, if you watched
network television boxing like I did in the nineteen seventies, a late nineteen seventies
into the nineteen eighties when it was still predominant on you know, CBS,
NBC, ABC on a almost every single weekend practically, Juan Kidmeza was one
of those guys that you saw. He was a junior featherweight. He won
the WBC title. He's probably, unfortunately Desk known for the two losses that
he took against Hall of famers wherever. The first time he had a chance
to fight for a title was against the great Wilfredo Gomez and he got stopped
in a fight in Atlantic City for the one hundred twenty two pound title back.
This was in nineteen eighty two, again a nationally televised fight. He
won a bunch of fights after that, and then he was in a fight
and again this was a network television fight. He got a chance to fight
against Haimi Garza, who was forty and zo at the time and a big
time puncher, and you know, he pulled what people thought at the time
was a big upset. It was considered that, I believe it was the
Ring magazine round of the year in nineteen eighty four. They exchanged knockdowns,
but he knocked him out in the first round in what was a very big
upset in of all places, Kingston, New York, not too far from
where I was born and grew up. On national television, it was like
a big deal a matter of fact, after I heard, you know,
the WBC, which is the title that he helped. They announced his passing
at age sixty six. That took place this past Thursday. I actually went
on YouTube because I had I had watched the fight a million years ago,
hadn't seen that fighting forever, and rewatched that a very exciting, you know,
one round shootout. So you know, Juana's is not a guy that's
going to be in the Hall of Fame. But he had a very credible
and an exciting career. He fought uh from nineteen seventy seven to nineteen eighty
seven. He then retired for ten years, came back and had two fights
in ninety seven one one lost one, and then retired for good. So
I consider his career eighties, you know, seventy seven to eighty seven.
Finished his career with a record of forty five and nine with thirty seven knockouts,
but was typically in exciting fights. Had a ton of his fights in
Inglewood, California, thought it the old Silver Slipper in Las Vegas, a
ton of his early fights, had one successful defense when he finally won the
belt against Mike Ayala, who he stopped in round six, and again not
a not a Megas star, not a Hall of Famer, but for that
time period in the late set and he's into the eighties, one of the
stalwarts of these smaller weight classes, an exciting fighter from Mexico, fought a
ton of fights in America and was a future prominently on some of the network
television broadcasts. And if you were watching boxing back in that period of time,
you certainly heard of Wan Kidmaison. And so anyway, I thought,
you know what, it's it's important to not forget that what these guys did
in the past, especially when they passed into at least, you know,
put some glory on their name and all the things he didn't there. And
I'll just go along the same line to early eighties Salvador Sanchez, the great
Mexican featherweight. The anniversary of his final fight was what last week, you
had some nostalgia that was up there, and he died. He died three
weeks later in a car crash. After that, a Zooma Nelson and a
Zooma Nelsa fight, but a Zooma Nelson fight, if I get it out
of Yeah, he was Sanchez. You know, Santez was a big star.
Sante was a first ballot Hall of Famer and one of the all time
greats. But I'm just pointing out that he was on network TV all the
time, on those Saturday afternoon shows that you're talking about on ABC, CBS
whatever world title fights and building up to it. He was only twenty three
and died in a car crash, his own car crash, speeding in a
in a sports car in Mexico three weeks after. So that anniversary is coming
up here in a couple of more weeks after his final fight, which the
anniversary was just last week with a Zuma Nelson. By the way, Zuma
Nelson is in the Hall of Fame also, but when he fought Salvador Sanchez
in that fight, he was really unknown. He was I don't know if
he was. He wasn't a late replacement like in the last couple of days.
But he came in later to take that fight with Nelson with Sanchez at
Madison Square Garden, and he put up an incredible performance. It was I
believe it was a fifteenth round knockout for Sanchez, but it was the great
fights of that decade, and he went on Nelson to become I think it's
not even arguable he's probably not probably he is the greatest ever fighter from Africa
that turned professional. You know, all due respect that all of it was
at your point as all of it was after the loss to Salvador Sanchez,
right, the loss to Sanchez could put Hi on the map. But then
he became, you know, a big deal. He won titles in you
know, multiple weight classes at a featherweight, super featherweight where he was done.
The bulk of his work had some you know, ended up on HBO
and Showtime and you know big big undercards, had two two three actually even
though one was later on Big Fights against Jeff Fennick. I mean, it's
a great fighter, but he was unknown in that first and the first big
fight he had with Sanchez. But uh, you know, we digress.
Well, it's still good nostalgia though, go back and see it in the
eighties and real quick, this is on the rundown Manny Pacquiol exhibition. He's
made the announcement the sickness, the sickness is bleeding through my rundown here from
Dan Rayfield that we're keeping up with Manny Paciel's exhibition with a retired Wee Tai
kickboxer that's coming. You know, I put that on the rundown, just
because I know how these exhibitions drive you crazy, because I know how much
you'd like to talking about like when Floyd made their Floyd Mayweather had the exhibition
with your boy Degie and my boy right, your boy deg So yeah,
I mean pack yell. Look, he's still from what I under stand,
still, I thinks he might come back for a real fight. He is
forty four. I hope he doesn't do that. He's one of the all
time greats. Is any forty five? Like late this year, he's like
forty four and a half right now too, and he hasn't fought in a
couple of years. He did have an exhibition in South Korea not that long
ago. But anyway, here's the point. He is. They did this
press conference. I watched some of it. It's it was like a big
thing outdoors at a stadium in Bangkok, Thailand, and he's gonna take on
I guess a guy who there is a big star. I don't I've never
heard of him. A muoi Tai kickboxer, a Mui Tai star and a
kickboxer. Do you want me to to try the name, don't you bukataw
boncha meck is what it looks like from tullakaw me okay in the Kicking the
World, somebody somebody enlightenings that how big a deal this guy is. But
he's like, I guess he's a retired Timytai bought kickboxer, uh forty one
years This is a boxing match, correct, I can't believe pack Yeah,
I would agree to anything other than that. And what is it? Four
rounds? Is it? More? From what they announce what was said at
the announcement, it will be a six round fight in the junior middleweight division.
It'll take place in Bangkok. The date was not announced, but they
said the first quarter of next year. You know, we'll see if it
actually happens. But yeah, they did like they did like a big deal.
They had like a big press coverts in the pack out. Obviously someone's
gonna pay him a lot of money to do this. In the you know,
the big lawsuit that's going on with what is at Paradigm Sports where somebody
gave Manny the big signing bonus and maybe the fight happens and maybe a dozen
and Manny's counting money. Well that that Paradigm it was settled and he lost.
Yeah, but I mean he got the deposit and tried to say,
audio, so you gave me my money bottom light And uh, I love
to talk exhibitions just for the mere fact that they aggravate you. So all
right, let's move on to Nostalgian. Then we gotta get kind of just
make one more point about the mania I think. I mean, it's not
the biggest deal in the world. Manny Paco had two professional fights of his
glorious career in Thailand. It's actually the location in Thailand where he won his
first world title at flyway in nineteen ninety It was the lineal flyweight title and
the WBC title. That was a line you could trace all the way back
to Miguel Canto, the great Hall of Famer. So Thailand has a lot
of great memories from any where. He became the world champion back in nineteen
ninety eight. And it also happens to be where he lost that flyweight title
in nineteen ninety nine in a fight in which he failed to make the weight,
got stripped of the title, and then got knocked out in the fight
when it went through. So he has one of his great wins of his
career in Thailand and one of the more forgettable moments of his career also on
Thailand. And now we're going for the third big moment, this monster exhibition
match. This is why you are who you are. It is a sickness,
but I am I am gonna hold you right now accountable. You gotta
find out who'slipping the coin on the ring walks for Spence Cross, I don't
care about you going in the nostalgia for for Thailand references for Manny Pat.
I want to know if Chris Angels flipping the coin. I don't think they
actually know yet because they didn't even know where it was gonna take I know
when when? When? When Errol Spence spoke to some of the reporters after
his workout that took place the media workout in Las Vegas a few days ago,
he brought he brought that up about it was going to be a coin
flip for the ring Walk, which he didn't like the idea of doing,
but he agreed to do it. So I made a few phone calls and
I was told they didn't know exactly when it was going to take place,
where it was going to take place, and I didn't ask who was going
to flip the coin, But I can only imagine if they didn't know when
or where, they didn't know exactly who's gonna flip the coin. Maybe it's
one of the Vegas Golden Knights. Maybe it's Celine Dion. Stay tuned,
we'll be in Vegas later in a week to find this out. Speaking of
nostalgia, let's do a little bit real quick and then we're out of here.
Terrence Crawford has an anniversary. His first unification title bout was a win
over Victor Postall, who we've been talking about recently, just got beat a
couple of weeks ago in a KO loss. This was seven years ago.
You were ringside for this in Las Vegas for Crawford real quick. Yeah,
I just thought it was interesting that here we are, I'll getting set for
this big monster unification fight for undisputed for between Errol Spence and Crawford. And
it was seven years ago when Crawford, who was at the time the WBO's
one hundred forty pound champion, got his first unification fight on the way to
becoming the undisputed junior welterweight champion, who took on Victor Postal. Now we
all know Victor Postal, you know, looked every bit of his thirty nine
years not that long ago when you know when he lost on the Showtime card
last week. But at one point he was a very formidable fighter. Don't
forget that when he when he fought that fight against Crawford, he had a
lot of people thinking that he had a real chance in that fight. He
was twenty eight oh going into that fight. He was considered a dangerous guy.
Now Crawford, my recollection, was the favorite in the fight for sure.
Yeah, but people are like, Victor Postal might give him some trouble.
You know, he's a good fighter, and as I said, he
was undefeated at the time, and so they had to fight. It was
an HBO pay per view, the top rank put on at the MGM Grand
in Las Vegas. Again, I was at the fight, and you know,
Postal was sort of a mystery to a lot of people. I mean,
they didn't really know a lot about him. I'd seen a couple of
videos of him before that fight took place. But Terrence Scrawford went in there
and did what he does, and that was sort of like at that point
you're starting to think to yourself, Okay, he had done what he did
as a lightweight. He had won the title in US, in US Scotland,
you know, in Ricky Burns, his home area. He had defended
it a couple of times. He had that great shootout with the your yorchist
Gamboa, who was still undefeated when they fought, even though he was moving
up where he had been a featherweight champion. So you really didn't know,
like as Crawford gonna is he just beaten like these types of guys, or
he's gonna really be something special, like you know, now we know he's
something special. At the time, you're sort of like, we think he
might be. But it was sort of the jury was out when he completely
blew away, not in terms of a knockout, but just smoked him on
the scorecards and one easily scored a knockdown cruise to the one side of decision.
At that point against a very very well regarded fighter like Postal, you're
starting to think yourself, well, maybe we got something there. Maybe he
is as special as as as you know, maybe he thinks he is,
or that we some people think he could be. And from there. He
went on and had two more fights in the way class, and then ultimately
he got the chance to fight for the other two belts against Ango, who
was never did anything after that, but had won the two belts one by
one on the road in the other guy's hometown and was undefeated when he came
to Lincoln, Nebraska, about an hour from Omaha, another fight that I
was ringside for, and Crawford put on another spectacular performance with a body shot
and just blew him away in the third round. But the victor postall fight.
I always considered that to be like his first win. That's to me
anyway. I knew what he had done it light weight for me at junior
welterweight. When I saw what he did that night against a fighter that I
had a lot of respect for, I was like, Okay, this guy
really is the real deal, and we may be hearing from him for a
very long time. That's seven years ago. He's still undefeated, He's still
at the top of his game. He became undisputed at one hundred and forty,
he won a title and has dominated so far the guys he's faced.
At one forty seven, and I was going into the biggest fight of the
year, at least the most significant fight of the year against Errol Spenson.
So it just shows you the evolution from seven years ago to where he is
today. He doesn't even seem like he's lost a step at all. He's
not good. And one more piece of nostalgia here before we head to Vegas
for Spenson Crawford. Real quick, it was fifteen years ago coming up on
Wednesday, and you made reference to this about the hand raps and Antonio Margarito.
He stopped Miguel Coto in the eleventh round, won the WBA welterweight title.
You were ringside, and the controversy that we kept referencing about forty five
minutes ago on this podcast, it reared right after this and all of this.
Man, I still remember this, and I can't. I don't want
to accept My twins weren't quite born yet. This was fifteen years ago that
this took place. I can remember one thing very specifically, when Margarito and
Koto was first made. It was one of the handful of fights that in
my time of covering boxing, I was among the most excited for a fight.
I knew I was gonna go cover all the fights. I have covered
a couple of those fights that you just really like, I cannot wait to
be there. This is a phenomenal matchup. I just I was so excited
for Margarito against Koto and it turned out to be the heck of a fight.
And again it was Margarito who just was like not going to be stopped
that night. I used the analogy of the train coming down the hill with
no breaks. I mean, he just kind of ran Miguel over and it
was a glorious victory for him, and you know he felt bad for Koto,
but he had acquitted himself. Well. That fight really changed mckel Koto's
career. And now you go forward from that fight taking place in July of
two thousand and eight, fast forward to January of two thousand and nine,
and I'm at Staples Center now whatever they call it, Crypto Arena and Los
Angeles, and they're about to walk out to do Margarito's first defense of that
title against Sugar Shane Mosley, and we get word at ringside that they're having
to rewrap Margarito's hands because of some type of illegal substance that they found,
and they were that was why there was a delay, and it obviously became
a humongous scandal and the biggest story in boxing. Margarito was found to have
illegal hand pads in his hand wraps. He claimed he didn't know about it,
but nonetheless, the late great trainer Nazee Richardson, who was working chain
for that fight, was one of the was the person that was the representative
in the in the dressing room. Now he went to the dressing room,
Margaret already had one of his hands wrapped, and he wanted him to unwrap
it and redo it, and they commission wouldn't let him do it. They
let him just watch the second hand be rap and that's when he when he
made a comment about whatever he saw was going on, and they realized there
was some type of illegal pad in the in the wrap, and so they
made him unwrap the hand that Nazim wanted them to unwrap in the first place,
and they found it in that one also, so he had bad raps.
He ultimately got suspended, had his his license revoked by this. California
said a letic commission fight for a year and a half or whatever it was.
But the point why I'm saying this as it relates to what happened with
Kota Margarito, is that nobody that I know. If you know that he
was caught red handed with the bad raps for that fight, and you saw
what Miguel's face looked like after the first fight that they had. It is
my opinion and that of many, that he found a way to find to
fight Miguel Quota with illegal raps. Now was never proven. Then I had
a commission signed off on his his hand raps. I have said this a
million times. I'll go to my grave believing he cheated in that fight,
and the commission just missed it. They probably destroyed the evidence through all the
stuff away, no way to go back and find it and know what happened.
But step look at Koto's face, which is what your point is.
Yeah, and so I guess I'll use this. This point of view also
is that most likely, if he was cheating in the Mosley fight, it
wasn't the first time he did it. There's always if you're gonna do something
wrong like that, there's always a first time. It would strike me as
unusual that you would have just knocked out Miguel Kodo and now suddenly you need
to use illegal raps against Shane Mosley here like a humongous favorite against and without
the raps being loaded. Mosley, you know, who was considered sort of
passed his prime at that time, went in there and actually beat the living
shit out of Margarito and knocked him out, a guy that had this indestructible
chin and sugar Shane had, I think other than the Oscar delawaya victory in
the first fight is the biggest win of his career when he when he knocked
out Margarito, is a big underdog in that fight. So you know,
the anniversary of the great fight between Koto and Margarito, their first fight fifteen
years ago. But to me it's always tainted because in the retrospect, I
believe he was using loaded wraps in it altered Miguel Koto's career. Now he
got revenge and we went on and had some other big fights, became middleweight
champion, etc. But he was never quite the same after that Margarito first
fight. Good nostalgia, good on all this. We've gone for a while
and now we get ready for Fulton. And in a way, first the
Monster and Stephen Fulton, cool boys staff. They are fighting Tuesday morning,
US time. Again. We'll be running all about him on the Big Fight
Weekend website, your Fight Freaks Unite substack, you'll have recap of it.
We've made our predictions, our analysis, and then how about this as we
wrap it up on the podcast, I will see you in Las Vegas,
my friend. We will be around each other and we'll be part of the
preview podcast for Spence and Crawford with all kinds of guests. Again, you
want to follow or subscribe on this podcast feed because if we get some special
stuff as the week go on, we may put it up as a standalone,
etc. And if you're following or subscribing, you won't need a prompt
a social media link or something like that, a web link to tell you
that we've got something new. You'll get it automatically on Apple Podcasts, Google
podcast, Spotify. So enjoy whatever's going to take place in Japan early Tuesday.
I will see you Wednesday in Vegas, my friend for Spence and Crawford
coming later this week, Dan Raphael, look forward to it, look forward
to the fight week, look forward to seeing you, look forward to the
fight itself. Can't wait and find out who's doing that coin flip, and
then we got to find out where we're going to dinner one of these nights
as well. We got plenty to do. We got to figure out how
we're gonna do the how we're gonna do the well, we'll figure out the
preview podcast because we'll both be in Vegas. We got to figure out how
we're at Heck, we're gonna do the Sunday one for the recap because we'll
both be traveling. We're going to figure all of that out. But the
peach will be well served here on the podcast Speed with our preview stuff,
our recap stuff, the bet Us Show live from Las Vegas, God willing
later on in the week as well. Plenty to get to Dan. Thank
you, have a great week. We'll see you later in a week in
Vegas. To serve there is Dan Raphael. I'm merely TJ Reeves again,
thank you for being with us. Keep following and subscribing to the Big Fight
Weekend Podcast Speed because you get content like this The Fight breaks you night. Recap by