Well off the weekend that has seen a wild ending for the WBA Featherweight Championship
where ray Ford his crowned as the champ with seconds despair. We're going to
talk about his TKO of Coolmatov in the main event of the ESPN plus Top
Rank show Saturday night in Borona, New York. Plus. Luis Alberto Lopez
kept his IBF featherweight title on that same card. Discussion on that discussion on
Dear God, a Jake Paul fight that didn't even make it out of the
first round yet again, and then and a main event that never happened with
Amanda Serrano and the controversy around that. We are ready to recap all of
it. It is the Fight Freaks Night Recap. I am the somewhat competent
host TJ Reeves plenty on the show, including our insider Dan Rayfield. Good
to be with you, my friend. And we should say upfront, fresh
out of the oven peaks Sunday Night and the Monday you have talked with Francis
and Gano. The Francis and Gano who's fighting Anthony Joshua and Saudi Arabia already
coming this week on Friday, coming quickly US time. That's Friday afternoon.
So Francis and Ganhu on the podcast coming up. How are you a big
Dan? Everything good? Yeah, I'm a little cranky today, but we
don't have to get into that. But I'm good and I'm happy to be
with you to talk boxing on all the other bullshitting life. The good the
good news is this time it ain't anything that Reeves did. It's other people
that you're looking to take. It Usually isn't things that you've done. That's
true sometimes in it. But all right, listen, we're gonna cheer it
up because we've got a lot to cover and include some great nostalgia, some
news like I'm not gonna sing it again, but the divorce may not be
final for Canelo and Premiere Boxing Champions. Stay tuned, stay tuned more on
that. All right, let's begin. By the way Radus review Us.
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us as we come off the weekend with the recaps. What a fight?
What a fight, I say a third time, what a finish to the
fight with ray Ford of Canda, New Jersey becoming a world champ. Kalmatov
was tremendous, but Ford out fought him and stopped him with seconds to spare
in a fight that he was about to apparently win on decision. All right,
Dan, your thoughts on the main event as Ford captures the WBA featherweight
title in what I will call a phenomenal ending at least anyway to that fight,
Well, I can say, and you know this because you and I
talked about it going into this fight. I thought this was going to be
a really good fight, and I was glad to see that. Not only
was it a really good fight, it was even better than I would have
expected. It was a really superb fight. It's the kind of fight where
you see, frankly, both guys make a name for themselves. Even though
Komatov lost, it's got nothing to hang his head about. He fought a
heck of a fight too. He was winning going into the twelfth round on
two scorecards, and ray Ford same deal. Obviously, he won in dramatic
fashion. He makes a big name for him. So these two guys announced
their presence. I hope boxing fans got a chance to see it. If
they didn't see it and missed it for whatever reason, on ESPN Plus,
watch the replay. It's there on demand. Absolutely worth. It will be
a fight of the Year candidate sort of in the conversation, obviously we got
a long way to go. Certainly you don't see more dramatic ending. So
to set the stage, these guys are fighting for the belt that was vacated
by Lee Wood. Komatov had been the mandatory, but Lee would announced he
was going to move up and wait. So ray Ford was the next guy.
He's been dying for this type of opportunity, a top rank which signed
Komatov won the purse bid. Ford is with Mattroom Boxing, so he had
an interesting aspect in terms of the politics where Mattriom has their fighter going on
a top rank card because of a purse bit. So Eddie Hearn makes the
trip with this fighter to see the fight and they put on an outstanding,
outstanding fight. You had the power, punching, aggressive style of Komatov against
the guy in ray Ford that's more of a boxer. But they can each
do the other thing. But Kolmada is a better broad Ford's a better boxer,
but they can also you know, Klomatov can box and Ready can fight.
So it made I said ahead of time, this makes it for a
really good style matchup and they and they absolutely fucking delivered in spades on that
type of performance. Really close fight. I mean, Komatov I thought pretty
much dominated the early going and it showed on the cards. He was up
after five rounds on h I believe all three cards actually, and Ford finally
turned it on in his corner. They were talking to him. He was
telling himself, basically talking to himself to get himself into the groove. And
slowly but surely he's chipping away. He's winning rounds. And but the beautiful
thing about this is they're just banging it out, but not like with reckless
abandon where they don't know what they're doing in terms of defensive responsibility or technical
aspects or using jabs or you know, by the way standing in the pocket
but not being afraid to you know, I don't know duck and and and
you know, make a guy miss and faint and that type of thing.
Uh, and it just just kept heating up and heating up, and they
weren't running. They were in the center of the ring just as a great,
great fight to watch. Never really slowed down, good paced the whole
time, back and forth, back and forth. And you know, listen,
there was lots of action, I mean, and one guy would get
the better, the other guy would get the better. Now, all that
said, my feeling was, even though Ford is starting to win some rounds,
that Kolmotov is maintaining his lead. Never did I have even though Kolmotov
in my card, which I had at the same as two judges one oh
six to one oh three going into the twelfth round, the other judge had
it h one oh five one oh four in favor of Ford, and and
you had a situation where you know, you can see it close as long
as like I wouldn't have been upset if it goes to the cards and you
got normal, like close scores as long as I thank god there wasn't some
wacky outlier and it goes a distance. But obviously if Ford's down, he
doesn't know this, but they suspect it because his corner is telling him,
you know, all the right things in the in the in the in the
corner. Before the twelfth round, his team did a hell of a job,
you know, his trainer, Freddie Anthony Rodriguez told him the true ruth
spot on the entire fight. And I can appreciate that, and like they
really they really thought they could win this fight, get the knockout, and
he just kept going after it, kept going after he hurt him with a
with a couple of shots there to southpaws. So there's that aspect to it.
And look in the end Ray had is in terms of his output,
like in terms of differential on punches landed, if you take a look at
the coffee box, he saved his best for last because his biggest rounds in
terms of the punches landed was around eleven and then followed up by round twelve.
Now you're getting down the stretch, DJ, two minutes fifty three seconds
are seven seconds left in the fight. He gets the knockout, all right,
So let's get to the ending. Because I thought it was the right
call line that it was not a knockdown right away. Now that would have
been vital for the ending. Had the fight finished, and potentially it's a
ten eight or ten to seven round on the decision. So I thought that
was the right call. You heard some ooing and aye, and Tim Bradley
like right away thought that maybe it was a knockdown, but I thought even
live before the replay, he shoved him down. So now there's like fifteen
seconds left in the fight, and Ford gets him turned around and hit him
with a good left and Kolmatoff is clearly noodle legged, as I like to
say, he's out. He's and he's staggering towards the corner and the ropes
and that's the only thing that kept him up with his back turn. So
I can tell by your inflection you agreed with the call. There didn't need
to be an extra punch or two anybody with the stoppage. Anybody who doesn't
think that was the right stoppage is a fucking idiot who doesn't know anything about
boxing. Twelfth round are the hard fight. The guy's been badly hurt a
few seconds earlier. This is not Meldrick Taylor Chavez, where one guy's all
the way in one quarner and the other guy's on the complete other side of
the ring and there are two seconds left and there's you know, now you
know you can speculate if he can you know, if the referee new not
know the red lights fashion blub bla blight, Nos, there's less than ten
seconds left. Whatever, they're right there. Ford's on top of him,
and if he lets him keep throwing punches, he's gonna badly, badly hurt
this man who's turned around and all fucked up. And so Charlie Fitch,
who was the referee in this fight, I thought, did a perfect stoppage.
There was Comatov did not complain about it, which is you know,
often a telltale sign when the other guy, you know, has nothing negative
to say or doesn't make a stink about it. The corner didn't make a
stink about it. Perfect stoppage in this fight, and you know he'll live
to fight another day. He's still young, twenty five years old, only
has the one loss now, and it was a great fight that he was
winning. And so Ford gets a let me just give you a stat here
as dramatic a knockout win as you can get. I mean, this is
what it comes down to. We saw a similar situation last year with O'shaki
Foster when he retained his title against Rocky Hernandez and needing the knockout to win.
So back at that time, the great historian and our pal Steve Farhood,
you know, all those years with showtime, you know, did the
research. So I'm not taking credit for the stat but he put out at
that time that when O'shaki Foss did that, he became the fourth teenth fighter
in the history of boxing history ever one hundred bazillion years, whatever how long
the sports around one hundred plus years, just the fourteenth boxer ever to in
the history of world title bouts to trail going into the last round and get
a knockout. Ray Ford now becomes the fifteenth guy to do that. And
I'm thinking of others. There's you know, when when Mike Weaver won the
heavyweight title by knocking out John Tate in your home state of Tennessee, Knoxville,
Tennessee, where literally it's a fifteen round fight, Timber John John Tate
probably won thirteen or fourteen rounds, and then you're right, Timber, Mike
Weaver knocked him out. He heard him, He knocked him out face first.
There's not a lot of examples of that, but that was one we
mentioned though Shaky Foster. There's also the famous obviously chav Is and Melja Taylor.
Yes, was going to lose us, all okay, so interesting on
that point. The wild thing to contemplate is if Kolmatoff simply goes down while
he's sputtering noodle legged and goes down and can stand up after he goes down
for the mandatory eight count, he's gonna win the fight. He doesn't know
that, and he's concrusted probably, but it's crazy in that moment that because
he didn't go down and he's laying on top of the ropes in the corner
back turned. That's wild to contemplate. You talk about what ifs, and
there's the win for ray Ford and we should not take away from what was
a tremendous twelfth round. One more example and celebrating the championship, Yes,
go ahead. Another great example that I was because I've been thinking about this
ever since it happened. I'm like, what other fights can I think of?
Were the guy because I didn't ask Farhood for the list of the fourteen
fights, But the other one that springs to mind. I remember watching it
live on HBO back in the day when you had Pernel Whitaker, who at
the time was the WBC welterweight world champion. He was absolutely having his clock
cleaned by a guy that at the time no one ever heard of. It
was undefeated from Cuba. Theobellis hurtito and if he doesn't win the fight,
Oscar de la hoy is sitting at ringside and there Gargante when pay per view
goes dow on the drain and he's getting his rare end kick. Now,
Pernel is not a guy with a lot of punching power, and in round
eleven he absolutely cleaned Diabelli's Tartato's clock and knocked him out extremely violently and salvage
the del ay fight. But he fits into that statistic of trailing in a
world title fight and coming from behind in uh, well, I take that
back. I guess that wouldn't coun because it was it wasn't the last round,
It wasn't the last Still dramatic, but okay, fair enough, doesn't
fit the metric I mentioned, But still a late knockout in a guy getting
his rare end kicked to come back. But look what Ray four did is
not the kind of thing you see every day in boxing. And the kid
has a lot to be proud of. Uh. You know, we talked
to him on the podcast last week. We know how important this fight was
to him, you know, really meant everything to him. He's been working
his whole life to this, I mean, and that's what it comes down
to, in your biggest moment, do you rise to the occasion. He
did, and Kolmatov did for eleven and a half rounds or eleven and three
quarters rounds or whatever, and was not able to close the deal. And
uh, you know it's it was a I love I watched the fight a
little bit this afternoon again. It just a great, terrific matchup. Absolutely
loved it. Glad it lived up to what I thought it would be.
And by the way, ray Ford accomplishes another thing. When Mattroom Boxing started
its Matchroom, it's Matchroom USA brand. When de Zone was created at the
late part of twenty eighteen, they signed a bunch of amateur fighters. Some
panned out, some didn't. Somebody like ray Ford now wins the title they
had. Diego Pacheco is now on the cusp of you know, being in
a major fights at super middleweight sille undefeated prospects, some guys you know,
never did anything. But ray Ford becomes the first fighter in Mattroom USA history
or their American prospects that they signed to take a kid from the amateurs,
sign them and develop them into a world champion. So you got to give
a tip of the hat to all the folks at Matchroom for being able to
do that. That's a you know, I remember for a long time Golden
Boy, which was always a top promoter, but the one thing they hadn't
done was take a fighter from O and O to a world title, and
it was like they kept they would lose, they'd get the opportunity, their
guy would lose. Finally they got the job done, and now Mattroom Boxing
can hang their hat to say that we know what we can sign you,
we can develop you, and we can help you get to the world title.
And now ray Ford's gonna, you know, obviously be in some bigger
fights. He's talking about maybe going to one thirty because he had so much
trouble with the weight cut. He's not going to be at one twenty six
for much longer. Maybe he'll make one defense. Certainly, no more than
that. I don't think maybe one thirty. Even in the next fight.
They've got Cordino over there, as he mentioned some other fighters in the weight
class. But it was an awesome fight. Loved it. Sign measured every
minute we've given to it. Yes, sign me up for rematch. And
by the way, I did not mention this leading up to it, but
our writer on Big Fight Weekend dot Com, Sadik Ahmed, young up and
coming writer, he was in the building. He was in the Turning Stone
Casino covering the fight for Big Fight Weekend dot Com. And I'm going to
play a conversation that he and I had here in a few minutes, just
because of the atmosphere in the arena. But go ahead and finish up.
Luis Alberto Lopez won the co feature fight, as we theorized, heavily favored
over Abe, the Japanese opponent. He defends his title. Some quick thoughts
from you on that in the co feature, Well, he's a very unorthodox
fighter, and he's a lot of fun to watch because he throws punches from
all angles. You don't know where the heck they're coming from. And it
was the kind of fight where going in you know, it was not meant.
I don't think anybody at top rank, or if you knew what was
up, that you really thought it was gonna be super competitive. As a
matter of fact, I actually asked one of the people at top rank just,
you know, not like it was a big deal, but just in
a passing conversation, you had these two featherweight world title fights on the same
card. How was it determined that we'll put Louis Alberta Lopez against Abbe in
the co feature and Ford and Clmatov in the main event. With Lopez having
been the more established champion and have done the fights overseas and look good and
scored knockouts, but Kolmotov and Ford are not known for it is not even
your fighter. And it was basically said, we think that that's going to
be a better fight. It was nothing against Lopez, and they were right
because Lopez and Abbe was a mismatch as many expected. It's not Lopez's fault
or top ranks fault. It was the mandatory inflicted by the IBF. He
did win an eliminator against Keiko Martinez and so he got the fight. He
saw bertal Lopez completely outclassed him. He was a lot shorter than Abe,
and you know, abb came, he tried, but he just didn't have
the skill level or the punching power to deal with it. And unfortunately for
Abbi also, you know, he was very very badly hampered in the second
round. There was a very severe bruising and swelling around his I believe it
was his right eye that caused all kinds of problems that ended up being a
complete, you know, disaster on the eye, and it certainly impacted him
for the for the rest of the fight. And so by the time they
got to round eight, and he's losing badly. He's lost every single round
and Lopez is almost daring him to come in at times, and you know,
he just couldn't do anything with him. And there was, you know,
the closing sequence. You know, Lopez is a showman. He raised
his hand and raises his glove to the crowd and started waving it around.
Crowd starts going crazy, and he basically literally runs to the guy and unloads
I don't know, fifteen sixteen punches. Now, a lot of them missed,
but a lot of them landed. And at that point, you know,
Mark Nelson, who's the referee for this fight, who was one of
the best referees in boxing. He just had no choice but to stop the
fight. It was a complete shot out and he retains the title. And
you asked, I know, in the pre fight, we talked about,
well, if the guys who win in the defenses against you know, against
their opponent in this doubleheader, you know, might the two winners fight in
a unification. But I can tell you right now there's virtually no chance that
ray Ford and Lopez get together in the next fight. I would be shocked
beyond belief. I just doubt that's happening. They both talk about wanting to
go to one thirty. You know, Lopez wants a unification. He's probably
you know, may be able to get it with maybe the winner of Espinoza
and Robasi Ramirez rematch. But he also talked about going up to till one
thirty. He said he'd love to fight the winner of the Oscar Valdez and
Liam Wilson, who take you know, take each other on, you know,
coming at the end of the month. So maybe that's a possibility.
That fight has the possibility that could be upgraded to an interim title, so
it might be it would make it more interesting for Lopez potentially, but uh,
look, I enjoyed the card. I mean, it may have been
a mismatch between Lopez and not Bay, but it was a good fight to
watch it with some good action there. And then the main event is you
know, you're not going to get much more competitive of better fights. And
as I as I as I made the point to some others and posted on
social media. You know, we as boxing fans, we're so abused by
this business, by this sport, by the industry, by the TV people,
by the promoters, by fighters talking shit on social media but not getting
in the fucking ring that you put up for all that all that shit you
put up with as a fan to just once in a while get that kind
of gemis we got it. And we've had some stink bombs as of late
to a Femo Lopez title defense, hold your Nose comes to mind, but
at least that one obviously delivered Dan hanging there again. Some comments here from
Sadiq Ahmed coming who was in the arena for that title fight, and then
we're talking to Zone Show and Francis Anganu here in just a few moments,
sadik As I've been promoting. You were right there, and what a dramatic
ending, you know, like like any great Hollywood movie, it's the ending.
It's the ending that everybody wants to talk about. Let's talk about the
ending first, crazy ending. You're there at ringside covering it. Did you
realize at the time how close it was to being the final bell when everything
got stopped there? Or did it take a few seconds to process all that?
How did it work? Yeah? Well, so I had the sense
that Holmtov took their early rounds at least you know, you know, three
at least three of the first five to me, at least from ringside,
and then after that, around the fourth round, Ford started to come forward,
and that's when things started to really change. That's when Ford started to
win rounds. It didn't hit me until, you know, we were sending
the scorecards that yeah, he was like behind on two digitous scorecards and that
he actually needed to get the stoppage to in order to win. I was
surprised personally. I did have it close. But I feel like what transpired
after the fourth round sort of impacted how I saw things because from the from
then on, I soft forward, you know, coming forward winning rounds after
you know, sort of struggling those in those early rounds. But certainly at
the dramatic end, in the final few seconds, did you realize that the
fight was almost over? Could you tell that as it ends up being stopped
with seven seconds left in the fight. What about take me back to that
specific memory. Yeah. See, I personally thought Holmotov would make it to
the very end, but then there was a moment where Ford clearly clearly shook
him. He went down. That was rule to push, which I believe
was rightfully so. And then it seems that Homotov, whatever happened before that
push, didn't recover and he just you know, for the slimed punch after
punch after punch, and it caused Holmotov to slightly turn his back away,
something that we struggled to see because the people in front of us, Eddie
heard and all the top brand people were just jumping up and down of what
was going on, but trying to look between Eddie Hearn, Bob Aarram,
whoever else what just happened there. I just made the point with Dan that
in a wild twist, if he actually goes down doesn't flop into the ropes.
If he actually goes down and there's a mandatory eight count and he can
stand back up, the round is over. The wild part of it is
he didn't go down, back to Ford laying kind of over the top rope,
gets hit again and the referee says, that's it. Amazing, amazing.
How loud was it in the Turning Stone resort in that moment when he's
waving it off, Because you could see on the TV Ford's crowd, his
part of the crowd, his corner, going crazy. It didn't translate as
well maybe on the ESPN Plus broadcast. How loud was it in that moment
when the fight is stopped with seconds remaining? Sadik To me, it was
pretty loud. Granted Turningstone is in you know, it's on the largest of
arenas, I think seats about five thousand, But it was pretty loud given
the number of people that were there, very wild seasons when that happened.
What about for Ford? You were there for the aftermath? I mean tears
in his eyes. He becomes a world champ, As Dan was saying,
he doesn't think he's long for the featherweight division, had so much trouble making
the weight here. But what about for Ford in this victory. What do
you say, having been there, having covered the post fight aftermath, and
what is his potential here? What's his upside? Yeah, for the last
few years I've underestimated him, even going into this fight. I didn't think
he'd pull it off, so he surprised me here. Yeah. I think
going forward, if he just continues working, you know, doing his thing,
I think he could do pretty well at one thirty as well. I
know he's talked about, you know, moving up, so we'll see.
If he doesn't move up to one thirty. I think he holds you all
right, Sadik I met as with us. There is another moment or two
here on the Fight Freaktion Night recap podcast. He was there for Big Fight
Weekend dot Com inside the Turning Stone Resort. Sign me up for a rematch.
I don't know that it's realistic that it can happen, but you would
not be opposed to that, and Needa would a whole lot of fight fans.
That was a very entertaining fight. I'd love to see Kolmatov get another
shot at Ford because he was so close to winning this fight. Saturday night.
For sure, I'd be down again. I know Ford has talked about
potentially moving up, so I don't know how workable it is given that Ford
is also a match from Fighter Cloths with or it's co promoted at least by
top rank. I mean this happened because of a purse s bid, but
ain't gonna work it out somehow? Then sure, I'm down. Listen,
We're down with your great coverage. Nice, nice job. I know you
made extra effort to be with me as we take this Sunday night and get
into Monday, because Sadiq has been traveling all Sunday afternoon and Sunday night to
his home in Canada after being there. But two words that we love in
my household worth it Was it worth it? I think yes? For sure?
It was a getting out of fights. Yeah, it was definitely worth
it. Sadiq, Thanks my friend, keep up the good work. Thank
you great stuff, and again Sadiq doing a fantastic job as a young writer.
Reporter was there on scene in the Turning Stone Casino for that Ford Kolmatov
fight. Let's move on the other show simultaneously was in Puerto Rico. Okay,
can we get it let's get it out of the way before we get
to the Amana Serrano cancelation of her title fight. All we did was debate
would this Jake Paul fight get to the middle of the second round with Ryan
Borland, little known from Dickinson, North Dakota on the big est show originally
California, but fighting out of the mega center of Dickinson, North Dakota.
So we spent like ten minutes on the bet Us show going on and on
about over under one and a half rounds. That was the only intrigue.
Rayfield, I'm gonna start complete disappointment that he's in there with a guy that
not only is trying to not hold him, not try to fight back,
but just seemed from the first time he got hit for how can I comfortably
go down and not get killed here? That's all that it looked like.
As soon as he got hurt a minute into the fight, there was no
attempt to hold, no attempt to get out of the way, no attempt
to fight back. It's a joke. I'm saying that, all right,
give me, give me your right. Yeah, I mean the reason why
I was disappointing was, I mean, look, first of all, nobody
expected he's gonna win the fight, obviously, but if you are in the
mindset of your trying to develop Jake Paul, this was not an unreasonable match.
They saw a guy with a good record, a guy that had a
decent amateur career, who had way more professional fights seventeen and two coming in.
They didn't want to put Jake in with a big puncher. Find this
check stat box two because Borland, Ryan Borland only had six knockouts. But
it was they thought that Ryan Borland would move a little bit on him and
maybe take him a few rounds and that sort of thing. And he didn't
do the kind of fight apparently that he normally did, because he just covered
up. I mean again, I don't want to get to and down in
the weeds. But on the punch stats, I mean, you have Jake
Paul. This is hilarious. Jake Paul lands twenty four of seventy four punches
in one round thirty two percent. Borland landed three of twenty four. Point
is Jake Paul landed as many punches as Borland threw, and that is never
a recipe for a victory. He was looking for the soft spot to fall
down. He finally went down to the knee and referee appropriately stopped the fight.
You know, but I'm not and I'm not I'm just not going to
criticize Jake Paul because if he was starting out, these are the kinds of
fights that you have, and I think that they truly believed that, yes,
he would win, but this guy would at least be there to extend
him a little bit. And I couldn't good conscience take an under one and
a half. I know three that I just couldn't do it. You and
I are texting each other as it was about to begin, and we both
held hands and jumped off the cliff that it was going to make it to
the middle of the second round. Are you Selma or Louise? I don't
know. I don't know better. It was like we didn't when we handicapped
on the US Show. I think you took it the same way I did.
We weren't doing this in a serious manner. It was all about under
correct and you know, and if I had to do it again, so
just one more time, it's gotta be a little more credible moving forward,
or I mean, if it's just gonna be on regular zone, that's one
thing, and maybe that's what he's content to do for the next couple of
fights. But a little more credible is gonna help or else the interest is
going to wane in watching this. Perfect example, all right, perfect example.
Just quick story. Buddy of mine is a marketing manager for two nightclub
bars in Clearwater, Florida, one of them on Clearwater Beach. So they
worked out, they broke her to deal with the zone to be able to
show this fight card as as as the bars, which is more expensive than
having your individual dezone thing. So he was in touch with me and he
said to me, is this Jake Paul fight gonna be a complete joke,
a complete circus? I said, likely by the second round, yes,
but the hope is that at least goes one round. He was texting me
and calling me Rayfield and going, that looks like a fixed fight. I'm
just giving you his I'm just telling you. His reaction was that looked like
a fixed fight. And his attitude was, if this is what they're gonna
offer, even on his own for a bar pay per view, We're not
buying that right now unless the quality is better. I'm just putting that out
there. For consent. I'll just tell you they're gonna He's gonna come back
and his next fight's gonna be another boxer, hopefully it's a better than Borland.
He's gonna do a non pay per view fight, and after that's over
there, look to see what other thing they want to do another pay per
view. You know, Look, Jake was calling out Canelo Alvarez afterwards.
Pleased with that enough, and you know, I'm a I'm a Jake Paul
fan. I don't. I think he gets a lot of grief for no
reason. But I also get when you do that your stern things on purpose.
I don't take I think he probably would love to fight Canello, but
I don't take that serious because I know that's not happening. He's thirty pounds
difference. Canelo is obviously doing other things. But I enjoyed the show and
he wasn't the main event, so I don't know why people are so uptight
about it. He's a prospect with popularity trying to fight, and these are
developmental fights. End of story. Okay, ray Ford had these developmental fights
when he turned pro I mean all these guys did. The Komotov had these
types of developmental fights when he turn pro all these guys do that, and
then it was supposed to set the states for the Serrano fight, and then
what happened happened. Okay, let's get into that, all right. So
again, you and I were in text communication. I've been talking to you
more than Missus Reeves all weekend, and I don't know that that's a good
thing. You certainly shouldn't be talking to me more than you're talking to Missus
Rayfield, but we're in touch. I saw it on social media, and
full disclosure, I was also doing stuff with college basketball and a live show
Saturday, and I'm like, Rayfield, WHOA. I'm like, is this
true? You texted me back legit legit that you were hearing from another ride
ahead of time. You did. You said, legit legit about the rumor
that she's not even glowed a rule. Well, right, but I mean
you also put she's not gloved up a half hour. You put that on
the text message to me, So then I'm looking into it and I'm like,
she's not gloved up a half hour before she's supposed to fight, or
fifteen minutes before she's supposed to fight, all right, so we now have
learned more. You know, she's in tears in the ring Amanda Serrano.
She was sort of explaining it after the fight. We've learned more because Nakisa
Baderian, who is the partner of Jake paul Most Valuable Promotions, he explained
it that while preparing to have her hair done and or having her hair done,
some chemical apparently got in her eye and on her hands. That's what
happened, and they believe that treatment Friday and treatment Saturday afternoon was gonna help.
And in Nikisa Baderian's words, she was improved vision wise, but the
doctor was too concerned about you're about to go in there in a sport where
they're swinging back at you. I'm not going to clear you. And apparently
they were pleading, pleading for her to have the opportunity to even try it,
and he said nope. The commission overruled and said no, the medical
the medical people have to do what the medical people have to do. It
sucks, it's it's unfortunate, but look, you know, as Raypiel ever
been around hair, chemical in the eye can't cancel the main event. Can
you ever recall that one? Because you know, apparently she went out for
a jog and the stuff got in her eye. And you know, nobody
did anything on purpose. No one was trying to defraud anybody. Amanda Torano
was absolutely crushed by the situation. You could tell by the emotion that she
had when she was doing the interview in the ring after it was announced to
the crowd, you know the crowd, because it's a humiliating thing for her.
No, I mean it has happened. I mean the fans there,
they got a complete show other than the main event. Unfortunately, they did
offer them everybody a refund. They paid or said they would pay. Her
opponent, Nina Menke, her full purse was a mandatory fight. They said
they hoped to reschedule when Amanda is ready to go again. And it sucks
now, it is not unprecedent. I actually remember a specific example and I
went and I looked up my reporting on this from ten years ago, and
there was a fight that took place in It was supposed to take place in
Russia, and this was a fight that was a cruiserweight world title fight.
It was the rematch. People remember this was the WBA Cruiserweight title holder Dennis
Lebedev who was having a rematch with Girmo Jones, who was a don King
fighter, and they're literally in the dressing room taking care of business. And
as you know, when drug testing happens, lots, you know, samples
get collected before the fight, samples get collected after the fight. The results
come back at different times when your tested more than once. It turned out
that one of the test results that was related to a test that Girmo Jones
had taken, who had failed to drug test previously in his career, came
back positive and the result came to the attention of the regulators while the undercard
was going on. So they have a positive drug test while the dudes in
the dress This on after a lot of discussion. This is like two hours
before the fight's supposed to start. They're in the dress room trying to figure
out what they heck to do, and like twenty minutes before they're supposed to
walk to the ring, that fight, the main event, a cruiserweight world
title fight, was canceled. So it's rare, but it does happens.
Happen, Yeah, ocasially, and I've looked and it's it's less rare,
but again, not common where you have fights that are canceled at the weigh
in. And we saw what happened with Zerdo Ramirez canceled at the Wayne.
I was there in Las Vegas. I can still a picture when they canceled
Corrals Castillo three because Jose Lewis Castillo was overweight. Yet again, there's a
famous Michael Spinks fight against Dwight Braxton that was canceled the night before in Washington,
d C. Because I got one, I'll jog you. Carl Frampton
lost out on a title fight, title defend something because he was in Philadelphia.
If I'm right, he's sitting there, he's sitting there in the lobby
and a worker in the hotel lobby knocked like a concrete something over onto his
hand and broke his hand. I was there, and so that I mean,
but again that's the day before. But that's yet on that Bruce Trampler
and Brad Goodman from top rank. I mean, it was crazy. That's
that's what happened. Yes, so strange things happen. And again we wish
her well, we don't, we don't. We don't want to see her
sideline for any length of time. She is being evaluated further for the eye.
Jake Paul even said cornea damage to the eye. I believe them when
they say they were doing anti inflammatory treatment and they were trying to see if
she could fight, but obviously better safe than sorry. And she'll come back
there, probably in fight at some point and maybe even later this year.
We'll see, Uh, we'll see what anything on that, anything further.
Just just a crazy situation and it's it's very unfortunate. And I'll just add
she is a class act. I have been around her. I watched her,
uh when she was on the undercard of the Jake poll battle with Tyron
Woodley the rematch in Tampa, Rayphael she must have done fifteen interviews with all
kinds of different people that didn't really matter, a whole lot local media,
whatever she gets it. She used to fight for very little money, so
she has calm full circle now to fight for big money. And this was
a huge moment for her. And it's humiliating, that's the word I'll use
again, that she could not defend and had to stand there in the ring
in tears and say I can't I can't defend tonight, and I'm upset.
My heart hurts and eighteen thousand people. Roughly, they had over a million
dollar game. Matter of fact, I spoke to Nikisa on Sunday and he
was telling me that the gate for this fight was it was it was large
dollar wise, it was bigger than when she fought Katie Taylor at the Garden.
That's not how much. The people in Puerto Rico were happy to have
her fight there for the first time in a couple in a few years.
And you know, she's spent most of her career living in Brooklyn. She's
now apparently living once again in Puerto Rico, but she hadn't fought there for
a few years, and so this was like a big moment. And like
I said, we can move on, but you just hope that she heels
up and comes back to fight another day. Else said on that all right,
now, later this week coming up it quickly. It is Francis and
Ghanu and Anthony Joshua heavyweight showed a knockout Chaos Rayphael coming Friday in Saudi Arabia.
You do not have to wait for later this week to hear from Francis
and Ghanu. Here he is right now on our recap pot well, it's
my great privilege to have my first interview today on our podcast with the one
and only the man from the UFC, now a big boxing star making his
name. It's Francis Naganu, the Predator, and Francis, welcome to my
show. I appreciate it. First of all, just how excited are you
for what is another huge boxing match in your career from BFF. Bro from
BFF, I think you'll really be rowing. I see PFL Yes, sir,
that's that's you. Well, that's your new that's your new MMA home.
But people know you from your UFC days. You got trus through fair
enough anyway, So huge fight again, another big one, just a few
months after a last Yeah, another big one, right, So, I
mean it's great to get here, get in the boxing after all those little
drama in the past, gets here finally getting in the boxing that was my
dream spot. And then get to the point that, you know, I'm
fighting the two best fighters in the world back to bad who have done that
before, Nobody Prances and Ghana. So I'm very happy about that. I
feel very you know, I feel that things are shifting up. I feel
from the to be the unprivileged to become the privilege in life. Well,
it is quite a remarkable story, as you said, to come into boxing
and immediately in your first two boxing matches fight the two biggest names in the
heavyweight division, uh and and and uh. You know, perhaps more after
this, depending on what happens, if it's your if it's what you want
to do. But you mentioned that was always your dream sport about boxing.
What I'm curious about because I, you know, I don't follow a lot.
I know a little bit about you, but I've been reading up on
you a bit, but I haven't really seen the answer to this. If
it was your dream, what made you go into mixed martial arts instead of
trying boxing first as a professional opportunity. I started boxing, but again I
was alone. I started boxing. I was twenty two, and then it
took me five years. I was in Cameroon for like another four years.
They didn't have any opportunity, and then I have to lift Cameroon to Europe.
That took me over a year to get in Europe and then get there.
Was looking an opportunity for boxing, where to box and this, and
then MM came around and was quick and easy, you know, Grabb and
go, and I was doing it until someday even without me expecting I have
the US, had the USC contract. Then I couldn't let that opportunity go
regarding my stretch tradition of the time. So I took the opportunity, but
Buxton was always in the back of my head. And then again when it
comes the moment, when it come the opportunity to take on Buxton, I
didn't as it did to cross over and dive into that opportunity. Well,
when you took that opportunity this passed October and got the chance to fight against
the heavyweight champion, Tyson Fury, I mean, you know this, nobody
gave you a real chance to win, much less really compete. I think
you know among the public, certainly among a lot of the media members.
Obviously you had a lot of belief in yourself. So I wonder what was
it that coming into the sport as a professional gave you the confidence that you
could not only compete, but in the eyes of a lot of people,
Francis win against Tyson Fury. Well, my life experience was what gave me
the confident because people are not giving me any chance. For me, it
wasn't anything you It was just he has always been like that, you know,
they always write me out. Uh so much that went better on me.
I'm concerned, you know, always been there the duck. So coming
into this fight, you was just already it was another another day in the
office, you know, another story, same thing. So when you when
you fought him, you did obviously very well. You knocked him down.
You ultimately lost a split decision. But I mentioned so many people thought that
you won, did you uh, even though you didn't get your hand raised.
I just wanted to know if you did you know, did it?
Did it? Did it? How did you feel about that? Like mentally
emotionally that you feel like maybe you got robbed in the fight, but it
certinly didn't impact your ability to make obviously a ton of fans in boxing,
to show what you could do in the ring, obviously to land another huge
fight like you have. And I'll mention, uh, you know, obviously
this fight against Anthony Joshua in Riad, Saudi Arabia on pay per view and
uh PPV dot com his own pay per view. Uh, Like, were
you bothered by that or were you just sort of shuk it off? You
know, I shake it off. Life is not always fair. As soon
as you understand that you're going to be doing great in life, you know,
And then I knew even getting there. That's why I wasn't even surprised.
I knew that I was coming into this new sport. Every nobody was
counting on me. I'm even sure that some Joorges wasn't watching the fight.
They have the scoreboard ready even before the fight started, you know, or
sometimes they wake up sometime in between the fire. I'm like them, the
fight is still on, and then just decided to put something on the paper.
But they wasn't watching at all. Right, So again it's the story
of my life, always been count out. And I knew that he wasn't
going to be easy in the term of like just stepping into a boxing and
then just being in everybody hard and and just expecting to be treated right by
every by everybody. So when you when you come into the fight against Tyson
Fury, obviously just kind of snuck up on people. I Mean they knew
who Francis Nuangandu was, but had no concept of what you might be able
to do inside the boxing ring. Uh, clearly everybody saw what you did
so I would I would think that you're not sneaking up on Anthony Joshua.
They they they realize what you're capable of. I'm sure that they've watched your
fight against Tyson Fury. Does that make it maybe like a little more difficult
going into this fight. It's no longer like a stealth operation. They know
you, they've watched you box. They only have ten rounds to look at,
but they're gonna be more prepared, perhaps than Tyson Fury was. Then
it's up to me to find another way to be sneaky. You know,
if they're waiting into the left and then I'll come to the right. If
they are waiting into the right, I'll come to the left. Listen,
I understand that. I know because you have the experience now in both sports
at the highest level, between boxing and mixed martial arts. I wonder which
do you enjoy doing more. Well, First of all, you have to
understand that boxing has always been my first dream, but it's complicated because Meme,
I've been into mm for the past ten years and I'm very comfortable in
MME. So regardless boxing is tough for me or Meme is, boxing is
still tough for me and Meme in MM, I'm more confident. You know,
I know everything in my body mechanics is they are there. Everything is
there. Not that it's easier, but it's less complicated. It's less stressful,
even on my body. That might sound crazy, or it's more that
on your knee and everything, but it's so physically easy for me than than
boxing because my body mechanics is adjusting to the boxing. When you fought against
Tyson Theory, I wonder do you think it was it was more because you
are a lot better than maybe many people thought you might be, or was
part of it because maybe he didn't take you seriously because he wasn't as prepared
as he should have been a professional athlete. Well, I think he must
have been prepared, But first of all, the most important element was that
people I was better than what people expected. First of all, people many
people wasn't even expected anything. Who was hilarious for a guy that is even
though I never did a boxing was a compassport added a compassport champion in another
com combassport, right, So I think that was the thing, because honestly,
I don't think that was a great performance. I don't think that was
the awesome performance. But I think he was just enough to surprise people and
they were like, wow, you know, but I believe that I can
do better than that. I can do way better than that. Right,
you the greatest that you can find about him, But you were just like,
Well, for a guy that who wasn't expecting anything from him, that's
great. What are you expecting from Joshua? I mean, he's obviously a
much different type of opponent, different type of style fighter, not as tall
as Tyson Fury. Like I said, you're not sneaking up on anybody this
time. So what are you expecting from the former heavyweight champion? Well,
expecting him to come, prepare and come to the war, because yes,
he has seen me already, and then he knows that he has a lot.
There's a lot under line here. There's a lot for him to lose
here, So it's gonna come with everything that he has. One thing I'm
very interested in is you're obviously making a huge amount of money in this fight.
You made a huge amount of money in the fight against Tyson Fury,
as as I've heard you say in interviews. You know you got the bag.
You know, after a lot of time. I'm in a in a
MMA where you didn't make the kind of huge money I said, I fumbled
the back. I fumbled the back. Well you didn't you that's not what
you said. That's what other suns somebody else said that you bumbled the bag.
Uh. But I just wonder, you know, how how just amazing
is it to you that you could have such a storied career in mm A.
Uh, you know, make money, but come into boxing and your
two fights, from what I understand, anyway, eclipse your entire career earnings
in mm A in one fight, much less the second fights you're gonna have.
Well, I think we don't. I would not use this to like
bash what MMA have given to me, you know, the opportunity. But
the reason why we were sharing is because of my MMA career. And then
there's also a lot of boxing fighters that they are not even making what I
was making in the MMA, and also not because I have a we have
some situation in mm whish mean about that was the standard? Right? That's
not the standard. If I would have fight in the PFO after if I
would have fight uh in the in mm after my last fight, that was
the moment that I was basically manifesting if I would have to fight in MMA,
I would have still made a lot of money, right, because even
from my last fight, I turned down a lot of money, the money
that I have never made career, I turned down because I was standing by
something. I had some principle that I didn't want to break it up.
Right. So the fact that I didn't have the money is not because the
money wasn't there or because the money wasn't offered. It is because I swich
and then I get to that specific point and it was the moment that I
stepped into boxing. But again, if I were to fight in MMA,
in any MMA organization, I would have made make a lot of money as
well. All right, So let me then wrap up with this. You
mentioned my last question for you. Uh, it's been announced by PFL that
after this fight against Anthony Joshua in a boxing match, that you're supposed to
return to have your first ever PFL fight against the winner of their big show
that they just recently had in Saudi Arabia against Uh, I forget the guy's
name who won the Renan Ferra, right who who won that that big match
that he had? So is that your plan to go back and do that
PFL fight next, and do you plan like I think of Claressa Shields and
boxing. She's also was on that card with the PFL, and she's been
shuttling back and forth between the two sports. Is that your intention to have
this fight with aj, go do that fight in PFL, maybe another one
whatever, and then eventually come back in boxing again and basically make two sports
as a combat stars. As far as fighting in the MMA, yes,
that's my uh, that's my uh, my goal to combine a bit,
because I think I still have to. I still have a few fights in
MMA, but after this one. The understatement from fighting ren and Ferrera after
this fight is a potential option because it depends how this fight goes. Because
this fight is my lead into a un disputed fight, which I think will
be back to back. I will not let this after this fight. If
I win this fight, I'm going to fight for the on disputed. I
will not step out and go fight MM. Maybe had a reason of injury
or something before fight on disputed. I think I will go straight to fight
on dispuit. Well, I'll tell you what. If you can go back
and forth and get those big mega fights. It's a beautiful thing to have
options, and you obviously are a man that has options. Francis, thank
you so much for your time today. I appreciate it. I wish your
best of luck. Let me tell you've made a big splash in boxing,
and having not known your story and followed what's occurred, I can't help but
be a fan. And I'm not just trying to kiss beer in here.
Thank you. I appreciate you, Bo, Thank you so much, Fransis.
Good luck with you. Excellent. Get mister ray Field, to get
him fight week and to get it rolling, all right, You got to
look at him while you were talking to him. Everybody wants to know what
kind of shot do you think he has? You saw him as fight week
begins. Give me a read on what you saw. We heard from him
obviously, but yeah, give me thought really confident. You know. My
perspective is he kind of and we and as people heard the interview, I
use the terminology he snuck up on Tyson Fury because nobody gave him a chance
in hell to do anything, even though everybody respected him for his accomplishments as
a MMA fighter. But you're not gonna hang with the heavyweight champ of the
world in your pro debut as a boxer. But he did because Fury does.
I believe it's a combination of Fury not taking him seriously and the Gano
being obviously better than maybe people gave him credit for it, and you put
the two together and it makes for a fight that he obviously scored a knockdown
in and looked very good and you know, certainly could have walked away with
his hand raised in a victory even though he ended up losing his split decision.
Well, he's not sneaking up on Anthony Joshua because everybody now knows that
you got to take the dude seriously because he just did what he did against
Tyson Fury. And Anthony Joshua has never been the kind of guy, in
my mind to take an opponent lightly. Number one and number two. Anthony
Joshua has been active, he's been fighting well, he has that confidence.
I mean, he's going to now be fighting for the fourth time in a
twelve month period, so you know he should be sharp. And while I
expect Anthony Joshua to win the fight, you just can't underestimate the fact that
if if somehow, some way he can land the kind of punch on Joshua
that he landed on Tyson Fury. That could be a problem. So there's
definitely intrigue. The fact that it's a ten round fight not a twelve round
fight, you know, probably is better in the sense for Joshua because not
that he ever had a problem with the stamina note, but it just makes
me it just gives him another advantage that, you know, he doesn't have
to go as long. I mean, I guess France and the guy who
might be troubled if they did go into the twelfth round, but he seemed
to go ten rounds with no real problem in terms of his win against Tyson
Fury. I think it's going to be a fun fight. I mean,
I think Joshua's going to probably be a little a little uh, gonna box
a little bit early on. I don't think he's gonna rush out there and
try to clean his clock right off the bat, and I'll see what he's
in front of him, and and uh and and they'll they'll do what they
do. But I think it's gonna be fun to watch. I'm actually very
excited about it. I mean, there's hey, there's there's there's real intrigue
just from this standpoint, because if in Ghanu is good again, then he's
got a chance to screw it up for Anthony Joshua once and for all.
And if Joshua does something that Fury couldn't do, which is beating Ghanu up
and or knock came out, okay, now there's more leverage. There's a
lot of He thinks Friday, he thinks there's a chance. Mean he supposedly
he's supposed to go back to PFL to have his first fight under their banner
after signing with them against the winner of their unification PFL Delator fight. That
happened, But he was saying, like, maybe I'll fight the winner of
uh ooh sick against Fury perhaps made to the second place to shut it undisputed.
That probably won't be undisputed because the titles will splinter, but he can
still get maybe a title shot. He's ranked in the WBC now and all
that he you know, the world is his oyster right now. He's and
do what he wants to do and make a lot of money in big fights,
and with PFL he can do the same in boxing. And I must
say, I'd never interviewed him before. I never met France and Naganu.
Today was the first time I ever spoke to him. But I've been following
and learning about him ever since he was signed to fight Theory. And I
must say for in my experience in listening to those interviews and watching him do
interviews, and now having a chance to spend a little time with him on
Sunday morning on a zoom call, what an absolute pleasure. A pleasant guy
who knows where he's from, knows what he wants to do, very endearing,
just a great quality about him, a nice sense of humor, like
I thoroughly enjoyed getting a chance to talk to him. Great stuff on that,
some news and some nostalgia. Rayphael helped me. I thought it was
Splitsville with Canelo and Premiere Boxing Champions. Now we got word flying around everywhere
that they may be back at the table here Heimimungia may be the opponent.
How many times am I going to say may in my preference, maybe it's
Berlanga, maybe it's not. Back on Merre Boxing Champions on Amazon, we
got a lot of Maybies. What's the deal, what's the latest? Real
quick well, first of all, ever in your life have you known a
couple that was madly in love together and married, split up, went their
separate ways, and then then they're getting back together and getting remarried. I
know some people that have been like that over the years. It happens.
It happens. Uh, not to say that. I think that PBC and
Canelo are madly in love with each other. I think it's not that watched
the Doctor Phil show all the time. It's right there, it's there.
I don't watch Doctor Fell. I'll leave the Doctor Phil watching to you.
However, Uh, what's the old saying, Tej. It's a fluid situation.
Okay, But here's here's the best. Here's the best version of the
truth as I know it as we record this on Sunday evening. He did
split with PBC. They were done and he was walking. To my knowledge,
maybe that's wrong, but that's what I was told by sources on both
sides of the coin. But I think at the end of the day,
PBC realizes that this is my conjecture, if they're gonna make the Amazon thing
work in some capacity, you have to have the number one attraction in the
sport and you're not that far off of trying to get the deal done anyway,
because they did obviously sign him, they do have opponents for him,
et cetera. So they're now working on this as a possibility. And again,
unless something happened on Sunday afternoon or Sunday night, which is I guess
possible. To my knowledge, there's no deal done. They're just trying to
get it work through the process. But there are multiple suitors involved, and
he's talked to varying various outlets. So yes, they're back talking about doing
something with PBC on Amazon, whether it's Mongia, I don't think Charlotte's back
in the picture. I you know, on a more distant basis, perhaps
Berlanga, but I doubt it because that Erlanga put on social media that it's
cooking for him to be the guy. Nothing nothing definitive from anybody other than
Berlanga. But often the fighters are the last I mean, I have to
be honest. I mean, I can tell you that in my career there
have been a multiple of occasions rod fighters that said they learned about their next
fight by reading something that I wrote. Very true. I mean, Oscar
Deloya found that or I mean Freddie Roach found out that Oscar Deloya fired him
as a trainer because of talking to me in a hotel in Texas. I
mean it shit happens, I understand. So these are all possibilities. So
you have his Oonne is still in the mix. From what I am told,
it could be banger Langa, it could be Mangia, it could be
back on Amazon against you know one of those opponents. Uh it won't be
Benavidi's I don't believe in May. And there is another party that's also been
in the conversation and you've been saying that, and we got a role here
on this, but we're about eight weeks away. You've got to make up
your mind on what you're doing and there you're doing it coming up, so
they got time. It'll get done in the next few days. I believe
it's certainly by the end of the week. So there is Canelo, and
whether he's coming back to uh PBC in Amazon or whether he's gonna end up
on his own or somewhere else remains to be seen. All right, Quickly,
some news you mentioned Charlo Jamel Charlo is now beltless because the WBA says
you're now the champion in recess. He has none of the belts left correct
one p. Fifty four all right, and so uh fascinating. He did
fight Canelo and cashed in big for the money, but now starts at zero
in the junior middleweight division. And maybe he's not even gonna fight at junior
middlewaight anymore. What's the latest? What else? Well, I don't think
he's gonna fight at junior middlewa anymore. I mean, he does have the
Ring magazine title, for what that's worth. He is still the lineal champion,
so those are meaningful things. But yes, the WBA followed suit from
what the WBC did and made him the in recess champion. So I thought
to myself, he might be the only fighter in the history of this cobble
league look alphabet stuff that's ever been the unified champion in recess, which I
find to be a bizarre situation. Good but again, I can't really blame
the organizations because I think, you know, it could have just outright stripped
him. This was sort of like the happy media. They don't have to,
you know, kick him to the curb. But it's pretty obviously he's
probably not gonna fight in the weight class. He's got the option to do
so if he wants to come back to the weight class. So they call
him a champion in recess, and so what that means is if he decides
he wants to fight in the division, he can do so and get the
next shot available at the person that becomes, you know, that wins the
vacant title. But the reason why they did this is because he hasn't fought,
you know, in his weight class or defended those titles. You know,
it's been ever since the Brian Kastanio rematch when he became the unified champion
of the undisputed champion, and they took a long layoff. When he came
back, it was against Canelo in September of last fall. That was at
one hundred and sixty eight pounds. He hasn't committed to anybody about whether you're
going to go back and fight and defend at one hundred and fifty four.
So you're take into account the layoff, then you take into account the fact
that his last fight was out of the weight class. Then you take into
account the fact that he hasn't given an answer to any of the organization about
whether he plans to fight in the weight class, and then on top of
that you throw in his legal problems that are sidelining him at the moment,
and that obviously is going to hold things up for quite a while. So
you know what go be in recess when you decide what you want to do.
If you want to fight for the title, let us know and you
can have the title shot right off the bat. So in the meantime,
now it's how do they fill the vacant title, and so they put together
this fight between Israel Majimov and Kurbanov. That fight had been added to the
Anthony Joshua and the gun Who undercart in Saudi Arabia on Friday. You know,
Hercy Alaschk had put a big picture up of the card with the faces
of the people that are on the undercart. That fight was announced. The
guys have been training and everybody was expecting it to become for the vacant WBA
title, which it is. Then as I reported that the fight was going
to be off because Madromov had a pre fight medical scan, that there was
some kind of issue with that. The British Board of Boxing Control, which
is the people who are regulating the fight in Saudi Arabia because they don't have
their own you know, athletic commission, boxing com mission, so the Brits
you know, usually take the reins on that. They basically said, you
know what, you can't fight, and now the fight was off. But
they're going through the process of second opinion, rescan, double checking, so
it is conceivable the fight may be back on. Obviously, the fight's on
Friday. There's not a lot of time I would expect something to happen.
Obviously sometime the next you know, I can't believe it would go more than
the next forty eight hours. So it remains up in the air. But
whatever, Charlot is no longer the WBA fifty four champion. He doesn't have
any of the sanctioning body titles, and they're looking to fill that belt with
this magromv versus kribononf fight, which by the way, is a pretty good
fight on paper if they can get it for the Saudi card later this week.
All right, quickly, a couple more things than some nostalgia. Terrence
Crawford now a free agent. That doesn't necessarily mean Rayfield was already prepping me
that doesn't necessarily mean that he's not still going to fight under the Premiere Boxing
Champion's umbrella and maybe on pay per view on Amazon, et cetera. But
he's checking out his options after winning that undisputed fight with Earl Spence. Yeah,
as he should. I mean yeah, I mean I wrote a thing
about that in my substack newsletter Fight Freaks two nights I'll go there and sign
it home. I wrote about that, and all of a sudden, I
have people like taking, like twisting the words on social media, saying that
that you know, he that he's divorced PBC, that he's he's leaving PBC.
No, he, I mean he might, but the reality is he
might stay. Just because I'm a free agent doesn't mean you don't re sign
or do a new deal. It's just that he's no longer under an obligation
to his next fight. He only had a one fight deal with p It
also contained an option from Errol Spence if Erol Spence loss, which he did.
He exercised the rematch right when he got defeated in their fight this past
summer. The contract specified that the rematch should take place by the end of
twenty twenty three. But just because the contract says something, and this is
or any contract, if the parties agree to go under different terms, so
be it. So. They had I'm told a handshake agreement between the parties
Spence, Crawford and PBC to you know, forget about the deadline at the
end of the year. Let's put it off into twenty twenty four. We'll
see what we can do. But it got to a point where it was
clear that the rematch wasn't going to happen. Incidentally, Crawford, as the
winner, had the right to select the wait for the rematch, be it
one to fifty four or one forty seven. He did, in fact,
from what I was told, picked one fifty four. But the fight is
not happening for obvious reasons. You know, you put that fight on the
business side of it is a disaster because he got absolutely killed, slaughtered and
crushed in the first fight, you know, Spence did. I don't think
there's an appetite for PBC to put on a very very high level, expensive
sort of fight that you know is going to die in terms of the gate
in the in the box office. So you know it makes do it.
So at Crawford is now allowed to go and fight wherever he wants, but
his best options, it seems on paper anyway, would still be with PBC
because they have the opponents now. He was in Puerto Rico at an event
over the weekend and he was asking some questions and well, he didn't like
embrace it and say I'm definitely gonna do this. Like he didn't close the
door when he was asked about fighting. Say, like Tim Zoo, if
he beats Sermon or Thurman, if he beats Tim Zoo, certainly, if
Zoo beats Thurman on March thirtieth, which is the PBC main event of their
first pay per view with Amazon, that's a good fight. I mean,
there's nothing wrong with that. Is it a mega fight? No, But
Crawford has got a huge name now compared to what it was after the Arrow
Spence victory. Tim Zoo is now the only guy with a belt in that
weight class because the other titles are vacant. You know, he was elevated
from the interim when the Canelo Charlotte fight started, So he's got to defend
his idle uh and that would be a heck of a fight. He's undefeated,
he's in with a solid guy, lot of subplots, got a whole
got a whole continent of Australia behind Tim Zuo too well. Who knows,
but you know, the other belts at the present time are vacant. IBS,
the WBA, WBC all vacant. They'll be still be filled in due
time. So there's there's those options. Obviously, he would like to fight
Canelo. That seems a bridge too far. Canelo hasn't really shown any interest
in that. You never know, you know, maybe it could be down
the road. But you hope that Crawford isn't gonna have some crazy long layoff.
He fought in July. He probably is not back in the ring,
no question, until at least June, probably longer. He's gonna be looking
at a year long layoff, and uh, you know, we want to
see the best fighters fight more often, particularly when you make good fights the
way Crawford does. So he'll figure it out. I just hope that they
can get him a good opponent, and if he chooses to go elsewhere,
maybe there's a fight for him, you know, with Matchroom, Maybe he
goes back with top rank, Maybe there's a fight in Saudi Arabia. You
know, any promoter out there would want at least have a common station with
Terrence Crawford. I mean, it depends on what his financial expectations are.
It depends on what kind of opponents you have to offer them. But you
know, I think PBC, in terms of least the opponent portion of things
is still the likely place to wind up because they have the best opponents to
offer him. All good on the news, some nostalgia on this busy podcast,
and then we are done. All right. Two different anniversaries all within
one year. March first of two thousand and eight, sixteen years ago,
back on Friday, Israel Vasquez in the wild Fight to regain the WBC Junior
Featherway title beat Raphael Marquez and the first fight the anniversary is as we are
taping this podcast, it happened back in two thousand and seven on March third,
So they fought basically fifty two weeks later in the rematch. So give
me the full lowdown. No, you got that wrong load down on these
fights, Go ahead, DJ. They thought the first fight and the third
fight fifty two weeks. The second fight was in the middle because they fought
in March and they fought a rematch in August, and then they fought the
third fight. Then wait a minute, we talk about rematches that can't happen
for three or four years. These guys fought three times in fifty two weeks.
Go ahead, yeah, And the fact of the matter is a lot
of times the big ones don't happen so quickly because of the amount of money
involved. These guys didn't make that kind of money, although they were well
paid, and they deserved every penny of it and a lot more for what
they gave to, you know, to the sport and to you know,
you know, Ezra Vaskez essentially lost an eye because of this, this series
of fights. But the first fight that we talked about, that was the
March's third fight two thousand and seven at the Home Depot Center in Carson,
which is the now called the Dignity Health Park Spectacular Fight. This was a
fight where you had Rafael Marquez, who was the bantamweight champion, moving up
to one hundred and twenty two pound way class to challenge Vasquez for the title
in that weight class, the WBC title, And it was a sensational fight
and it would have been the fight of the year unquestionably, except for the
fight that there was in a rematch that took place in August wasn't even better
fight, and that became the fight of the year for two thousand and seven.
So the two top candidates were Fight one in Fight two. You know,
obviously in the second fight was Vasquez regaining the title. But the first
fight that we're talking about was absolutely sensational, and in the end it was
it was Marquez getting the victory because Vasquez retired on the stool after the seventh
round because he couldn't breathe because his nose was so badly broken. I don't
think it was him quitting. It was really the corner and the ref stop
in the fight because of that situation. So he wins Marquez does, he
wins the junior featherweight WBC title, He wins the Ring Magazine title. It
was a huge deal and everybody wanted to see the rematch, and we got
it a few months later, and then you know, fifty two weeks later
we got the third fight, and so that anniversary was almost to the exact
date. It was like March first of two thousand and eight, so you
know, three hundred and what sixty three days apart. Correct, So the
first fight's a fucking classic, the second fight's even more of a fucking classic.
Wins the Fight of the Year award by everybody in twenty oh seven.
Then they have the third fight, and that's We talk all the time about
trilogies where the first fight might be this, or the second fight might be
that third fight, but there's always one kind of maybe not as good of
a fight. This is all three are outstanding out Technically, they had four
fights, so it's a four fight series, but we disavowed the fourth fight,
right, We don't even need to get into that one. That was
just pathetic, That was just not good. But the third fight spectacular,
also in the same venue at the home what was called the Home Depots uder
of the time. It took the second fight to Texas, but the third
fight was even more spectacular than the first and the second fight, and you
had Vasquez winning, I mean, yeah, Vasquez winning on a split decision,
but it came down to the final round. You know, it was
anybody's fight. It was just an absolute sensational fight. Vasquez had been down
in the fourth round. Marquez had had a point deducted for a low blow
late in the fight. Marquez also in the final seconds of the fight,
he didn't get dropped like flat on his ass, but the ref called a
knockdown because the ropes said prevented him from going down, And there was some
controversy with that, uh. And it turned out to be a super close
fight because one judge had it one fourteen to one to eleven one way,
one had at the same score the other way, and it was you know,
Vasquez, you know, getting the uh, getting the win because of
that in the in the in the other judge had it for him. Just
I mean, look, we talked a lot of times about Gaddy Ward,
about Morales and Marera, about Riddick bow and Evander Holyfield and some of these
classic trilogies, certainly the four fights between Marquez and Pakia. But these fights,
these three out of the four anyway between Marquees and Vasquez, two of
which the anniversary are you know, within these couple of days weekend right right
right, are every bit as good as those fights at the absolute highest level.
They were on showtime, they were main event fights. They were sensational.
You don't get better. Rafael Marquez has been elected to the Hall of
Fame to join his brother Jan Danuel Mark one, Daniel one Danuel Marquez.
There's also in All of Fame now. His Hall of Fame legacy is not
only built on what he did in the two wins he had in their four
fight series, but he also had the benefit of a very dominating and excellent
dantamweight title reign. Vasquez has been on the ballot for a Hall of Fame
hasn't gotten over the hump. To me, he's borderlined. I mean,
yes, these were great fights, but it's not just great fights. I
put you in All Fame. There has to be some more level of accomplishment.
So I've kind of been on the fence with him. I could see
him getting in this someday because he was a credit to the sport in terms
of always fighting, you know, the great action fights. Does have some
other solid victories besides just what he did against Basquez. But look, if
you never saw the fights, find them. They're worth it. They're fucking
great. I love them just as good as it gets in that era,
in any era. If you ask me, all right, two more real
quick twenty four years ago, Sunday, March third, two thousand, as
we released the podcast, Felix Trinidad wiped out David Reid, former US Olympian,
and won the WBA Junior your Middleweight title. And I love the Rayfield
phrase of the rundown, his three fight swath of destruction? Did you write
that at some point about this about Trinidad? Somehow? I think that might
be in a Rayfield story somewhere. I don't think I wrote that exact Terminigo
for a lot of reasons. The reason I know it so well is because
I don't know. Like a year or two ago, the Ring magazine did
a special issue devoted towards Felix Trinidad, and I was asked to write the
piece in the magazine by my pal Doug Fisher, who's the editor in chief,
and he and he did this because I covered these fights and was very
familiar with the material, which was to write about. The section that I
was writing about of his career was write about his three fight run and the
junior middleweight division, which was spectacular. Now, I didn't cover the David
Reid fight. This was in the period of time where I had been hired
to be the boxing writer at USA Today. But I had yet to relocate
for the job and actually start the job. So I actually watched the fight
on Showtime pay per view on a Friday night, you know, knowing I'm
going to be the boxing writer at USA Today. You know the fights on
March third. My first day of work at USA Today was like March eighteenth
or nineteenth, so I knew I was going there. So in that fight
he moved up. This is his first fight after defeating Oscar de Laya to
unify at welterweight. Obviously that was a very controversial decision. He went from
HBO to Showtime with Don King for this one bout and he fought David Reid
outdoors at Caesar's Palace on a main event of a pay per view. And
in the first half of the fight, David Reid was doing very well.
He was giving him a lot of good competition. But Tito Trinidad came on
very very strong, and not only did he win ultimately, he absolutely punished
and destroyed David Reid over the second half of the fight. It's as one
sided an ass kicking as you could possibly get other than having a knockout,
and really, in my opinion, it destroyed what was left of David Reed's
career. He was a young fighter. He always had the issue with the
eyelid. He was never going to be around for a very long time.
But this fight destroyed him. He was never the same. Tito knocked him
down in the third round, but it was really in the seventh round that
really started to do the serious damage. Put him down three more times in
the eleventh round. I remember at one point when he got knocked down,
David, he got up and he put his glove to his nose and he
blew out the other nostril. It was like fucking silly string flying across.
I don't know if that was brain matter or if it was bogers, or
it was disgusting. That's how much damage that Tito Trinidad inflicted on him.
And in that fight he won the WBA title, so made him a two
division champion. And then you talk about the swath of terror through the weight
class. Now I'm on the boxing me and I'm covering these fights. The
second fight was the mandatory against Mama du TM in Miami. He blew his
eye up and stopped him in the third round. And then came his final
fight in the weight class, which was the all time classic. I submit
to you the greatest fight in the history of the junior middleweight division. This
was the unification fight between him and the fellow undefeated Felix Trinidad against the fellow
undefeated Fernando Vargas. A spectacular fight. My second ever fight in Las Vegas,
and it doesn't get much better than that. But David Reid fight was
something special because whenever you thought about Trinidad as a welterweight, he always looks
scrawny and skinny, like he didn't look like you know, like he looked
weak, even though he had great power. Now he puts on a few
pounds and he really kept the power, you know, and he looked absolutely
sensational. I think that as great as he was as a welterweight, and
he did have a little bit of success as a middleweight, I wish we
could have seen the prime Trinidad for more than just three fights at fifty four,
because I think he would have been you know, he's already a first
ballot Hall of Famer. You know, he got in several years ago.
He was an all time great, one of the greatest fighters in the history
of Puerto Rico. Matter of fact, the fans that were at the Serrano
fight, you know, with Jay paulnerring, Tito was with them in the
ring when they made the announcement that the fight was canceled, and then he
spoke to the crowd in Spanish. He's as beloved a figured in Puerto Rico
as there is in terms of athletics, just just a legend. And I
saw the rough translation as he was standing there. He was telling the crowd,
she is Puerto Rico hero, she is a great fighter, she will
be back. He was encouraging everybody because it was ninety miles an hour,
or in Spanish if you don't speak Spanish, he didn't know what he was
saying, That's essentially what he was saying. But yeah, beloved, I
just would have loved to see Trinidad for a longer period of time that one
fifty four, because we got a glimpse of what he did, the way
he just destroyed David Reid and then Mamadu and then even though it was a
more competitive, superb fight in the end, it was also it turned out
to be a destruction of Fernando Vargas, the way that he knocked him out
and that run that. As I said, the swath of destruction at one
fifty four started with the David refight, which was a very very hyped up
big fight. And as a matter of fact, you want to maybe ask,
well, why would they have this big showtime pay per view on a
Friday night when it was already the era where it was basically every time it
was a Saturday night. And the reason was because then the Vada State Athletic
Commission already had a card that was scheduled. I believe at the Mandalay Bay
that Top Rank was doing on pay per view a Pauly Ayala titled Defense,
and they didn't they declined to regulate both fights on the same night. Now
they will do that sometimes, but not if there're two big shows. I
guess, right, right in any event, they've done that occasionally because you've
got to have your personnel for the undercard fights and all the other stuff.
I mean, they've done right, right, they've done I mean they did,
like Chavez against Sergio Martinez on the same night that Canelo fought at the
MGM, but for whatever reason, they didn't they didn't do it on this
night. So Don went on Friday night with his card with Reed and Top
Rank went on their car with their card on Saturday. So imagine if Twitter
was around then, how it would have broken when every he was bitching and
moaning because there was two pay reviews on two nights, both for like,
you know, fifty bucks a pop. All right, you did mention sweet
Pee Whittaker and before we're gone, give me a little bit. It was
twenty nine years ago on Monday, as we released the podcast March fourth of
ninety five, Parnel Whittaker moved up as the reigning welterweight champion. HA beat
Julio Caesar Vasquez for the WBA one hundred and fifty four pound title, that
same title that Trinidad would win years later. How about that for Sweet Pea
Whittaker Hall of famer, no doubt, and including that night, right,
yeah, so I mean the late great Parnel Whittaker. At that time,
this is nineteen ninety five, he is considered widely as the pound for pound
king, and they can't find opponents to fight him, to give him competition.
It's very much like the problems that Roy Jones had, the problems that
Floyd Mayweather has had. You know, there's always this particular fighter where the
only way you can find them competition is to force them up and wait.
And so even though Trinidad was not planning to go and stay in the one
hundred and fifty four pound weight class, he took this fight. Now keep
in mind this is when he established himself as the king, because this is
three fights post Chavez draw, which we all know is bullshit. So he
was really in the throes of his absolute peak. He'd beaten Buddy McGirt,
the Hall of Famer, in the previous fight, and so the only way
they can sort of find something that's interesting to the promoters, to HBO,
to feel to Parnel Whitaker, was to go up to one hundred and fifty
four pounds, and he took on the very credible WBA champion Julio sazar Vasquez,
who was a very good fighter, was fifty three and one going into
this fight, tough as now south Ball from Argentina, you know, really
good fighter, and Keito Trinidad just annihilated him on points. Basically. I
mean the cards were one card was like one sixteen to one ten, but
the other ones were very very wide, one eighteen or whatever. This was
a clear and decisive victory. But Parnel never intended to go to fifty four
to stay. It was just like, let me go and let me make
a little history he became at that time. You know, now it happens
a little more often because there's more belts with the WBO and whatever. But
at that time, in ninety five, he becomes only the fourth boxer in
history to win a world title in four weight classes. He had been a
champion, the undisputed champion at a lightweight where he unified at the time the
three belts. He had moved up and been the champion at one hundred and
forty. He had won the welterweight title, obviously, and now here he
goes to win a title in the one hundred and fifty four pound weight class.
And this was just one of the brilliant, brilliant nights of boxing in
the great Parnel Whitaker love it, Sweet Pee a Hall of Famer for so
many reasons. One a show we've had here on the recap. You've gotten
a ton about the dramatic win by Raymond Ford, all the controversy in Puerto
Rico with Amanda Serrano, not being able to fight. You heard from Francis
and Ghanu before the Anthony joshuall fight, some news and some nostalgia. I
think we pretty well covered it all. Listen, you know when you said
all that stuff like we are bringing it, we are, and why are
you not listening to this show? You've got to be following, subscribing,
share it out again. Thousands and thousands and thousands of you finding us each
and every week. Tens of thousands of you again found us in February.
Spread the word, give us a five star review. Make sure you're following,
subscribing, and Raphael, it is already Joshua and Ghanu fight week.
That main event is here Friday night in Saudi Arabia Friday afternoon in the United
States. So we're ready for that fight week, and you did a great
job of priming us for it within Ghanu on the pod. Anything else or
are we looking at that? So people just know this ahead of time that
they're listening that pay per view. I was looking on the schedule that de
Zone has listed for the start time, and I don't know, I think
they're showing the whole card, but the the you know, so the main
event obviously will come several hours later the card starts the pay per view whichever
bouts they're going to show. Like I said, I think all of them
starts at like I think it's eleven o'clock Eastern time in the morning AM,
because because Saudi Arabia read is eight hours ahead of prostern the United States time.
So do the math. And it's funny that I just said about do
the math because when I was dealing with the folks at Queensberry Promotions setting up
the interview with Francis Naganu, because they're the folks that are obviously the promoter
of record for the event, so I was dealing with their media team to
set this up. We were going back and forth on the text, like,
well, what time is it there? What time is it here?
I'm in the you know, the east cost east coast United States times,
oh year, eight hours ahead, and we're trying to they're trying to give
it to me a military time, which I was trying to translate. It
was a fuckings the year the Europeans all want to do GMT military time with
the you know, the twenty four hour clock. I know that, and
so I'm just like just tell me what time, Yes, what time is
the interview in Saudi Arabia, your time, and use it in like you
know, seven eight nine ten, not like sixteen seventeen eighteen, right,
and you got it done. That's the important thing. But again, brunch
with Rayfield coming up on Friday, late morning US time. The card starts.
Main event will be much later in the afternoon, but it's Friday afternoon
US time, Friday night prime time in Europe for that pay per view,
including Saudi Arabia for knock Out Chaos. I don't know. I don't know
about the name of the about the show. I mean, I like the
fact that they give these shows names. But I have to say, though,
you know, we obviously are going to spend a lot of time talking
about the main event, you know, between Joshua and the Gun, which
is obviously we talked about a super interesting fight, but the whole part is
really interesting. I mean, whether the Madramov fight takes place, and I'll
put that to the side. Jeans julais against Joseph Parker as the co feature
heavyweight fight. That's sort of lost in this thing. That's a very interesting
fight. To a lesser degree, obviously it's not on that level. But
Ray Vargas defending his title against nick Ball, that's a very interesting fight.
You know Ray Vargas. By the way, I'll just point this out.
I know there has been a lot of conversation that Ray Vargas had left PBC.
The reality is he's still with them and said they just were able to
make a deal to have him defend the title on this show because obviously they
don't have a ton of dates right now when he needed to be active,
and this is a fight where nick Ball did win the eliminator, so they're
doing the fight. But the point is the top four to five fights in
this card are all interesting for different reasons. I'm excited to see Justin Hooney,
the Australian heavyweight that's on the card against Kevin Lorena and some other younger
guys. They got Tyson Furry's half brothers on the card. Who's you know,
a four round fighter at the moment trying to make his way in the
cruiserweight division. So I'm all pumped up for it. Good stuff, good
stuff off the weekend with the recap, mister Rayfield, have a good week.
We appreciate it as always thank you so much. You bet there's big
Dan Our Insider Fight Breaks Unite is a substack and be locked in right there,
including if there's Canelo news coming to I am merely TJ Reeves. Thank
you for being with us here on the Fight Breaks Unite Recap podcast