Well off of a weekend that has seen an awful lot, including a title
win for Shakur Stevenson. Not unexpected, is it? Bye Bye? With
Todd Rank boxin a wild Sunday Morning in the US. Sunday Night in Tokyo,
upset win for Fernando Martinez. He was dominant surprisingly to win a unified
junior Bannawey title fight. We got judging controversy in that fight and also in
the co feature fight in the Top Rank show where Robson conssaw ends up winning
a decision that can only be described as a robbery. Manda. We have
a ton to go over and we got Jaron Boots in us on the podcast
Boots with Dan Rayfield before the fight week gets really underway for him homecoming defense.
A lot to cover. I'm merely the somewhat competent host TJ Reeves on
the Fight Freak to Night Recap pod. Hello, Dan Rayfield, good to
be back with you, my friend. A shame of it. We don't
have anything to talk about, anybody to hear from on the show. Yeah,
I'm I feel this one's going to go downhill pretty quick. It will
probably by the way. Find us Rateist review US Apples, Preacher, Spotify,
Rayfael getting a little testy right now because we don't have enough good reviews.
Review us. It does help us out five star review. Take ten
fifteen seconds and review us. That will help us out. I'm gonna say
this playfully to you before we ever begin any discussion, because we have not
rehearsed this. We don't ever rehearse this. Are you ready to come over
to the dark side of the force with me and fire you some judges and
fire me some judges because we saw it again this week and I keep preaching
from the pullpit. You can come on down to the altar, mister Rayphaiel,
you can come on down and agree with me. We got to fire
somebody to start setting the tone that it is unacceptable to see what we are
seeing. Are you coming over to the dark side yet? Are you still
falling out? No? I don't accept your characterization. I've not been one
to say you don't ever get rid of a judge. That has never been
my opinion. In our my viewpoint, there are certain times where it is
warranted. There are certain times where a little kick in the ass and maybe
some more training is warranted. In other words, if you have a career
where you've done a great job or a very good job, let's say,
for a long period of time, and you fuck up on a fight,
you know, that's not shouldn't be the end of your career. But when
it becomes more of a regular thing, then you got to sort of take
into account. We're going to get into that. We're speaking obviously about the
Oshaki. Oh yeah, but I mean, just for example, we went
to bed in the middle of the night, and you go to bed later
than I do. We went to bend the middle of the night. After
the fights in Newark, the fights in Anaheim, Ontario, California. Nice
call, by the way, on Johnny Fisher first round. You you could
have cashed on a half round over under with the under because it didn't even
make it one minute, a third of a round, a third of around
over Alan Babbage, who you know, Okay, whatever I mean that you
call it. So we had a ton there, but we had I mean
early Sunday, we had a horrible scorecard. And yes it was a decided
win for Martinez, but we had a we had a whitewash twelve nothing for
the guy on the road. So we got we got bad scoring early Sunday
morning US time as well to go over. All right, So let's what
we're gonna get into it. But what makes it worse doesn't excuse a shit
scuorecard, but when the right guy wins, it at least takes you down
a notch. So because I've seen it now as we do this Sunday evening,
I have seen most of that fight through technology, et cetera, and
Martinez clearly won the fight. But to mark the card twelve bagel is just
it's inexcusable because clearly ioka one. I thought three maybe four rounds. So
but we'll get that. Yeah, we'll get to that one, all right.
So let's start with the ESPN Top Rank show the most prominent one.
Shakur Stevenson does win, he does win decisively. We're obviously going to talk
a bunch more about the controversy of the co feature fight, but let's give
Shakur's victory for the WBC lightweight title defense. It's due. What did you
see? What did you think? And is it? Bye? Bye?
Now? From Top Rank? From everything we're seeing and hearing, including including
Bob Arrom not even being there in Newark, which was fascinating, But go
ahead, not that fastining I'll get to that in a second. First of
all, in terms of Shakor's victory, clear win one. Basically every single
round, the judges had it anywhere from six to four to eleven to one.
You know, I thought eight to four was kind of generous to Hartunian.
You know, in my mind, she court probably won at least ten
rounds. Could have been eleven rounds. If you're going to give Hartunian any
rounds, maybe it was the first two rounds because neither guy did really anything,
and maybe he could maybe give him or one or both of those rounds.
Possibly there was one round later in the fight where he actually was the
only round where he scored double digits in terms of punches landed. But this
was a whitewash. This was his second loss in row. We had him
much closer, less definitive decision loss about fifty one weeks ago to Frank Martin
and who then went out of course to have the title shot against Travonta.
Davis looks Chakors in an interesting position because, on the one hand, he's
a prodigious talent. There's no disputing that he's a tremendously talented fighter. He's
got fast hands, got fast peat, got incredible defensive abilities, he's got
a great amount of experience as a pro and his background as an amateur.
You know, can basically do everything that you can want a fighter to do,
except he doesn't have the big punch, and that that lessons sometimes your
marketability. Because even in his hometown of Newark where this fight took place,
he won easily, and yet the crowd spent quite a bit of time booing
at times during the fight. And then there was the shot that the production
folks from ESPN showed after round eleven with a steady stream of people literally leaving
the arena. I've seen that happening for it. It reminded me, and
this is a fighter technically speaking in terms of their boxing that he is somewhat
reminiscent of as a Mayweather. I remember being when Floyd Mayweather was an awesome
talent and he was fighting Carlos Valdimir for the welterweight World championship. Uh and
in nine rounds, ten rounds something like that. Into the fight, people
were just exiting, like, you know, like they were giving it away.
In the lot, uh, you know, of the hope. This
is in Vegas, so it's not the first time that's happened, but it
is a little bit surprising when it's your hometown. I mean, Floyd is
from Vegas also, so that was a little surprising too. So that's kind
of an embarrassment, Uh right there. But he's still won handily, and
so the question is not is he gonna go on and be a Hall of
Famer or continue to in you know, embellish his resume and continue to beat
good opponents and all that. But it's a second fight in a row.
That was a disappointment action wise. He didn't have any injury issues. Cardytunian
tried much more than De los Santos did, and you know, he couldn't
really do any damage. And so now it's a second fight in a row
under that circumstance. Although this was way better than that ship fighting. Yeah,
but he go was in the free agency. So here's the point.
If you are a buyer, your your top rank, your matchrom you're Golden
Boy, You're a Frank Warren, you are PBC, you are whoever you
want to talk about in the promotional field. Are you willing to put up
a tremendous amount of guaranteed minimum not guaranteed, but pursas for minimum fights over
a long period of time. So it's no secret. I reported this.
It's been reported widely. They spoke about it on the air the other night
that a couple of months ago or however, long before this fight between him
and Urtituny was even made cop rank and offer cha court a contract extension for
five fights that would give him a minimum of three million dollars per fight,
so a total package of fifteen million dollars minimum. Obviously, that's the that's
the floor. Anything that's a bigger type fight, you're going to negotiate for
a higher purse. But by the way, let me just h that's a
lot of money. That's not insignificant money, No, of course not.
You can say it's not stratosphere money like Canelo Alvarez makes or what you mentioned
Mayweather what he used to make. Reason, that's a lot. That's a
lot of money to be guaranteed on the front end. I'm just saying that.
Yeah. So so the point is he turns that down thinking there's you
know, a bigger part of the gold elsewhere and so I questioned whether he's
gonna be able to find that pot of goal from somebody else, because while
three million, in my estimation, is a fair price, is somebody else
out there gonna beat that, Is somebody else out there gonna be able to
to uh to keep him active on a regular basis. I mean, so
he's gonna have to face those things now, Bob Aaron, Let's get to
that for a quick time. One second back to the fight. Back to
the fight, because we heard him in the corner saying to his corner more
than once, I'm gonna get this guy out of here. I'm gonna saying
it, yeah, And so that did that. I just thought I would
add that to the discussion that it's not as if he wasn't aware, Shakur
Stevenson, I need to look good. I need something spectacular. It's not
good enough for me to just dance box score and get another decision here.
I want to do something. And I thought some of it was hard to
tune in trying to survive in the last two or three rounds, et cetera.
So that I just thought that compelling that he even realized and was verbalizing
in the corner I'm gonna get him out of the I'm gonna get a knockout,
and it didn't happen, So go ahead, like, I don't think
that he fought a bad fight by any means. If you went like that,
you know he dominated. And the thing is, and this has never
really been the way he fights. Even if he's not scoring knockcouts, he
doesn't run. I appreciate that he stands right I mean, right in front
of the guy, yep, and makes him miss. The problem is he
doesn't really make him pay and hurt. And it is fair to say this
is IY and you may correct me here. He hasn't come close to losing
basically in the last that he hasn't been in jeopardy, hasn't been hurt,
hasn't been down on the cards and had to rally. So there's something to
be said for that. You can say what you want about level of competition.
Every time I literally close to losing. I think he's won every single
fight he's ever had with not even a shadow of a doubt. I can't
think of a single time where he was in jeopardy, certainly in the last
three or four years of him being prominent. I never think of somebody hurting
him. He's down on the cards halfway through the fight. Maybe hasn't been
the case. Even in his last time he lost the boxing match was in
the gold medal final of the twenty sixteen Olympics against Roe against robas Ramirez.
That was a fight that absolutely was controversial, that could absolutely have gone either
way. It's very very close. He lost it by the skin of his
teeth. And and and we've seen what Robasi has become as a quality professional.
Also so even in his biggest fights, Consasou wipeout Oscar Valdez, knocked
him down, wiped him out, Jamal Herring when he won an one,
when he made his first when he won the title, uh completely dominating and
stopped him. Nakatia big step up, complete wipeout, a shutout and knocked
him down like the guy doesn't lose rounds for the most party. Even on
his worst night against Deal Santos with an injury, easy like eight to four
kind of fight against the guy that wasn't doing anything. So no one disputes
the ability. It's about the marketability. You have to and this and it's
fair or unfair in boxing, or you can be a great boxer, and
God bless you for your abilities and your talent to hit and not getting all
that, and that's fine, do your thing, but it does not entitle
you to make a gazillion dollars because the only way to get that money is
to move the fans, to entertain them, to create a reason that we
want to watch you, to to to give you an emotional attachment to the
fighter. And so if you're not in an entertaining kind of fight, that's
fine, but you cannot get paid the big big bucks. There's a reason
why the guys that usually make the biggest money are in the more thrilling,
big time fights. Floyd's a little bit of an exception. I'm really still
not quite sure that all happened, but God, you know, good for
him that it did. But if you take a look at the guys that
were the biggest paid fighters of their time, Oscar Tyson Holyfield, you know,
Canelo pick Manny Pacyaw, you can Sugar Ray, Leonard Hagler, guys
that made the big big money through the years, Tommy Hearns, we can
go on and on. You know, they made the biggest money because they
brought out the biggest crowds and the most hype and fought the best guys and
we're in thrilling fights. Sure Core has not yet achieved that. It's again
not a knock on his bike. I happen to think he's a phenomenal boxer.
I rather like I'm not actually anti Stadt. I hated the Taelo Santos
fight, but I didn't hate the performance against you, and I thought he
did a nice job. I appreciate the guys that staying right in front of
the man and make the miss. That's why I like watching a Winky write,
for example, even though he never made super exciting fights. It's why
I like Pronel Whitaker because he stood right in front of a guy and made
a miss. That to me is a special talent. And he has that.
But the question is what's it going to command on the open market.
I want to answer the question about Bob Aram. I spoke to Bob Aram
leading up to the fight because I used some I wanted his take on the
Free Agency because that's one of the pieces I wrote before this fight Bob Aram.
And again, I don't got to be carrying Bob Aram's water by no
means at all. But I asked Bob if he was going to be at
the fight. I think I spoke to him on Thursday, maybe it was
Wednesday, I forget what they was. And he's like, look, I
just couldn't fly cross country again. I said, Bob, you know what,
I can't even blame you for that. He had his PI, had
other PI, had his other family members there from the New York area that
represented as he joked, and obviously he had other people from the company there.
A step son, I guess Todd de buff was there. Who's the
president of the company. In any event, Bob is ninety two or ninety
three years old. Bob just spent time in Miami at the at the Tiafimo
fight. Before that, he had gone literally around the world for a ninety
two year old man with his wife, who's no you know, she's she's
older. Also, they went to California to Perth, Australia to read for
the Tyson fury A fight. They went to Perth, Australia, and they
went to Japan, and they went back to the United States. The point
is, he made the point to me this was in not in any way
have anything to do with shakors impending for agency or the desire not to be
there or anything along those lines. It was just a mirror that you have
to sometimes you just you can't do it all, especially at that age.
And the travelers apps brutal, and you know, I marvel at the travel
that Bob has done for a person that is, but you understand, I'm
not putting you in the middle. That's his answer that those that want to
say you made the effort to go to all of those fights overseas, which
was much more brutal travel. And it's no secret that this true. But
it's no secret that this guy's been knocking top rank for the last couple of
weeks. And for those that want to connect the dots and say Bob Aram
has figuratively washed his hands and said let him go test free agency. I'm
not even going to be there. They want to have that opinion. I
can understand where that opinion comes from. But if you if you read the
quotes that he gave me about your core, he I am not disputing that
that's what he told you. But for those that want to say, you
had no problem flying from Las Vegas to Miami for Tea Fimo Lopez. Why
didn't you stay on the East coast and just fly to New York later in
the week. They have an argument. Whatever his answers are, I can
say that again, I don't need to defend Bob Aram and we've certainly had
our battles, but I will say this, I have known by there for
about twenty five years. I've interviewed Bob Aaron literally thousands of times. I've
spent time with him on a personal level. I've spent time with him on
a business level. I know Bob Aaron, probably not as well as anybody
in the media that exists today in boxing. I feel like I know him.
I can read him well. I believe that he was being legit when
he was like I just couldn't do it. Had nothing to do with the
impending for agency at all, all right, because obviously there are other top
ranked fighters that are on the card as well, that are on track that
you would want to see. So now we'll wait to see. Yeah,
he has he had, you know, we'll get to the undercard with the
Abdullah Mason and Keishan Davis and the O'shaki Foster concerts, I'll fight and other
prospects. So again, you know, when you're ninety three, you're not
traveling every single of that. I don't disagree at some point to fight itself,
he's in a quandary. He fought a dominating performance against a reasonably he
was good, he was not spectacular, and it's a decision win, and
he's a free agent. I think that's a good way to sum it up.
And now we'll see what happens with Shakur. We've been over that a
bunch on what might be next and even and it's going to tie into what
else we're talking about in the region on floor tank. But he can't get
either one because most likely they're fighting each other. And I grow more and
more convinced by the day that that deal is gonna get consummated and we're going
to see that big fight this far. All right, So rest of the
card and here we go. Well, you know, before we get to
that, let's get rid of the rest of the car. Let's do the
other fights first and we'll get back to Shaggy. Let's do the prospect well,
all right, So the prospect fights. Abdullah Mason won first, Kishawn
Davis also won, and I got thoughts on the referee in the Kishan Davis
fight. But go ahead, what are your thoughts on those before we go
off on the judging and the robbery, Ubo Shaki Foster, Go ahead,
I'll start with Abdullah Mason. That was the opening fight of the main card
broadcast against Luis Labron, Puerto Rican, a veteran who had been in the
ring with some solid opposition, had lost five fights, but had never been
stopped before. Abdullah Mason is a two year old fighter that has the most
massive amount of upside that I can think of of any of the younger fighters
around right now. A southpaw, power, speed, poise, so calm
absolutely destroyed this guy. I mean, I thought he's gonna win the fight,
let's you know, obviously, But the guy had never been stopped before,
and he'd fought some like decent guys like he had fought like Duke Reagan
for example, who was an Olympian who won a medal, and you know,
he he lost a decision that was at times competitive. He had fought
against you know, a couple of other like okay guys or experienced guys like
you know Brian Schavalier for example. You know, nothing, no big names,
But to think he's going to go in the ring against Abdullah Mason and
you know, losing is one thing, but to get absolutely pummeled, knocked
down twice and just dismissed like he was a used tissue was a little surprising.
So Abdullah Mason is one hundred percent one of the best prospects in boxing,
and he is looking impressive every single fight he's had. Uh. I
like the poise, Like I said, the tight knit family that they're with.
He doesn't seem to have a lot of issues or distractions that are outside
the boxing ring. The focuses on the job. And uh. You know,
if you're if you're buying stock and a young fighter, you know you'd
probably want to have some Abdullah Mason stock in your nice portfolio. So that
was a good win for him from the standpoint that he beat a good veteran
who had been around in experience, but more importantly got He's like all of
his fights have been on ESPN Plus as part of the preliminaries, but this
was the first time he got a chance to be on the main card,
to be on actual ESPN, the network where you're gonna have uh, you
know, you're on in every bar in the country, you're on in a
restaurant, tut all over the place. People are gonna see you, and
they're gonna they're gonna like that style. Just a fierce style with a tremendous
uh uh skills and and you know, the the aggressiveness and the power is
one thing, but he also has boxing ability and quickness, so he can
He's like it seems to me at this point with the defense. Also a
very well rounded fighter at a very very young age, So that was impressive
to me. The other fight that came after that was another light weight fight.
That was the fight between Kishan Davis, who was my prospect of the
year a couple of years ago, with Miguel Madueno, who was a very
hard nosed, durable veteran, awesome chin only one speed in that straight ahead
fast as possible, you know, go there and try to bang you out
of there. Never been stopped before in this now three losses, including last
night. Had had a barn burner fight with Steve Klagget where he lost the
decision where it threw like about ten billion punches. That was back in twenty
twenty three into last year, and the only other loss he had was to
a former world champion, Jezreel Carrales and Kishan Davis. You know, he
gave him a tough fight from the standpoint of making it physical, more than
Kishan's ever faced in his career. But I thought Kishan looked dynamite in that
fight. I thought he did. He he he blunted an absolute animal in
terms of the aggression, and he tamed that animal very quickly, and he
won going away. In the cards. It was nine to one on all
three score cards. And he showed some toughness. He showed some grit that
you know, I suspected that he had, but you didn't know it because
we'd never seen it before. Now we've seen him have to show some great
and still win every single round. All right, So what I will add
to that, I need your help with the referees name. It's a new
Jersey referee, I thought, and I even had this on social media while
things were going on. I thought he lost total control of the opponent Midueno,
and should have been warning him and taking points away much earlier for holding
for wrestling, threatening to disqualify him. Get the thing under control and the
end result is two things. One, he ends up getting struck at the
end of a round. It wasn't a massive punch round six. And then
I believe it was by the way the referees name that every the referee's name
is David Franciasi, Frank Frankiasi, Frank Kiossi, all right. And again,
in all cases, officials are in charge and how they control things in
all sports, whether we're talking about football, basketball, boxing. In this
case, it's a much more violent head to head combat sport, but they
they're in control. They they can dict how things go. And when Madueno
picked up Keishawn Davis like he was gonna do a John Cena body slam,
and the man did not even take a point away for doing that, when
he clearly picked him up like he was gonna slam him, I thought he
lost control of that fight and things got progressively worse. I would have been
perfectly fine with take a point away, warn him again, and then take
him over to his corner if you have to, and say if he does
anything else like this, it's a DQ. Say it through the interpreter or
whatever you have to do, it's a DQ. We're not here to do
the UFC or the WWE or any other form of grappling, throwing wrestling.
It further frustrated Keishawn Davis, I believe because every but every time this guy
got close to him, he wanted to grab him. He wanted to grab
him and hold him around the head, grab him around the wall. You're
right, but but looking in the longer picture, first, I don't disagree
with what you're saying. I'm not quite as harsh on that it should have
been a DQ necessarily. I do think maybe a point was warranted. But
the point I makeeer is in the long term of Keishon Davis's career, to
go through that kind of fight was actually good for him. To have that
just absolute guy that was just disregarding of of some of the rules, and
you know, he's had to show some toughness and you want that before you
get to the big time. You want to be able to know in your
heart that you can do it, and you want the public to know you
can do it. You want your team, your promoter, your broadcaster to
know that you've got something inside you that you can deal with that type of
uh stuff. Let me put it into this guy that runs the commission obviously
is Larry Hazard. More on him in a few minutes, and more on
him in the nostalgia too. By the way, Uh, he was a
referee for a long time before he was ever heading up the commissioner being a
judge, you think Larry Hazard would have stood idly by and not penalized that
guy or threatened that guy with a DQ. Please. I mean there are
certain referees even in the present day, you know, I mean in the
end, though, you know, I stand by what I said, which
I agree probably should have had a point deducted, wouldn't mattered in terms of
the way the scoring was going. And uh, now that the fight's over,
I'm glad that I got to see Keishan Davis deal with that kind of
nonsense in that adversity to show the guy was tough because Keishawn was ripping him
with shots, he was tough. But the whole the wrestling, the grappling,
the pulling him, you know, twisting, we're procrastinating long enough to
the big one. All right, So now we come off of that fight.
And okay, so first thing out of the box, this this fight
is not ever going to go into a time capsule as an interesting or exciting
fight. It was a boring fight with neither fighter with much offense throughout the
fight. And then we get to the decision, and comically, for example,
Mark Kriegel, the unofficial scorer on ESPN, puts his card up eleven
to one for Oshaki Foster against Robson Costasao here for the UH one and thirty
pound title that was up for grabs. So then you hear the first card
is one sixteen one to twelve Consasao on the PAF spin and eye immediately did
my did my best, Rayfiel? What are we doing here? One sixteen
one twelve? Maybe Consisle won four or five rounds, by the way,
I must intro in eight rounds. Tim Bradley in his reaction, actually said
what are we doing? What are we doing? I thought he must have
been listening to our pot. Yeah, exactly, all right. So that's
the first card that's read in the next car, by the way, goes
to O'shaki and then Consasle gets the split decision. Shock, stunning, go
ahead. I had it ten rounds to two in favor of Oshaki Foster,
and I'm at a loss. You had you had Ron McNair, who was
the judge that had the fight for Foster, had it one sixteen to one,
twelve. To me, even that was being generous by probably at least
one round. We always talk a lot of times about the range of acceptable
scores. In this particular fight, you could probably have it anywhere from eleven
to one, maybe nine to three. To me, that sort of felt
like that's the right sort of thing. I had it ten rounds to two,
kind of right there in the middle. Timothy Bradley, not Timothy Bradley,
but Mark Kriegel I believe, had it, like you said, round
eleven one. But whatever it was, it was like clearly like to be
able to find seven rounds to give to his shocking. I mean, he
looked like the most shocked guy in the building when they not not that not
that fight. He did not win seven rounds, And I don't believe Jack
Foster was in was the boss from the opening bell. It was not scintillating,
but it was effective. He way way way out boxed him. He
landed way more punches, He threw way more punches. He controlled that fight
from star to finish. He landed him in every single except one metric that
there is except on one of the cards he did better except on the official
cards of two judges. There you go. I love that he controlled it
start to finish, except the one clown judge literally gave Consissau the first four
or five rounds in a row. Am I right where he almost built an
insurmountable leaf. I want to say he gave him the first six rounds where
he basically built an insurmountable leap on that judge's card. It's just he did
the reason why I think want he counterpunched some, but he didn't do nearly
enough to win that fight. He he didn't do anything. Now I'm gonna
say again the judges don't have access to copy box. Copy box is not
the end all be all. I say it every single time. But I
will also say, in their nearly forty years of existence, the statistics that
they provide are a reasonable guy to a fight? Is it that way every
single time? No? Of course there are anomalies. There are exceptions,
But when you see a fight and a guy only lands based on their breakdown
and again there's a variance, but they're generally in the ballpark. It seems
to me he landed eleven percent of his punches only seventy six and eight entire
twelve round fight. And it wasn't like if you look at the round by
round breakdown, you know he had one or two big rounds. It was
all spread out, like seven punches this round, five punches that round,
eight punches that round. Not nearly double digits, double digits in only two
rounds the entire fight. Uh, And thus are the only two rounds that
he actually outlanded a Foster in the fight. So that off the bat,
you know, that is incredible to me. And the the real problem here
is this, let's take it. Let's take a controversial decision, law.
Let's say Pacy against Bradley. Let's take Pacy against Jeff Bourne. You know
what I mean, Hey, take take your pick of some type of controversial
decision. Yeah, it sucks if you're the guy that gets the loss.
But in the long run, it didn't impact the earning power of Manny Pack.
Yah. He was still a megastar, still gonna make tens of millions
of dollars in his next fight. You can take that for the you know,
the biggest high profile you know, uh, robbery type fights for a
fighter like Oshaki Foster. The only reason he's making the money that he's making
is because he has the WBC title belt. Without that belt, he goes
from making hundreds of thousands of dollars for a fight. Now you know,
I don't know what his contract costs for in the next fight, but I'm
talking about in general terms. It wouldn't be out of the realm for a
guy like him to go from making say like four or five hundred thousand dollars
for a fight like that, to you lose your title. In your next
fight, you might be making seventy five or one hundred and when you haven't
made huge amounts of money in your career, right, that is a massively
damaging loss, massively damaging loss because you don't ever make that money back.
And so that's the real hurtful part about this, that these two judges had
a direct and dramatic impact on this man's livelihood. I say, then,
are you coming to the altar with me that we got to get rid of
somebody to re establish You cannot sit here and have a clown card with everything
you just describe. When these fighters' futures are at stake, I mean I
get. There are two more variables. I get those guys aren't hearing the
commentary. They don't have the compy box. There's no crowd booming through the
whole The crowd's booming through the whole fight. So I get that that part's
difficult. I watched this fight largely without the commentary, right, I'm paying
attention to it, and I have on another browser I have on very low
commentary, the pay per view of Masbad. So I watched this fight almost
entirely with no commentary. That's right, And I still had and then when
it was over, I turned it up so I could hear the results in
the reaction, and I was shocked because I didn't know how they were calling
you other than I saw the brief graphic when they showed pregles. Those judgment
are sitting there, They're sitting there. I did have the sound up,
and I was also monitoring the Zapeeda fight, which I wrote about on Big
Fight Weekend dot com with our guys, with Ricky Carroll and Sadeka med writing
other fight recaps. So I was in charge of the Zapeida so I had
that up on fuller volume, but I had the volume up somewhat on this
fight, and Tessa Tour and Tim Bradley kept saying about, oh, Shaki
Foster controlling the action. You know, this is a this is not a
great judge. We're gonna we're gonna call him out. But the only point
that I'm gonna give the names, let me give names. Anthony Lundy had
at one sixteen one twelve for Consas, and he's one that gave him like
the first five or six rounds in a row. And then Paul Wallace had
at one fifteen to one thirteen, which is just slay less of a joke.
Uh So again, I yet to find a single person that says they
thought Conscias out won. Yeah, a million people on social media who hit
me up directly. People in the business, Yeah, who actually thought the
dude won. The Cons's family knows he didn't win the fight. He did
not win the fight. So two more things about this Foster obviously in tears.
I mean that post fight interview was tough to watch because he's having to
stand there and say I don't understand how this happened. And you heard his
corner man, I don't know you know that better? Who that is?
Uh? He said, this guy didn't touch him, which is true with
what the numbers you just gave. He didn't touch him Consissau throughout the fight.
How did we lose? How did we lose this? Why do we
have to do this every single week? I again, I love you,
love my nostalgia with movies. I love the movie The Game with Michael Douglas.
I don't know if you saw that one with Sean Penn where he's the
investment banker and his brother's playing the ultimate prank on him for his birthday,
where his whole life becomes a game because he's a bored guy and there's life
and death situations that are being played out with paid actors, but he doesn't
know it. He has a couple of life and death situations where he could
have died. Michael Douglass has a line in that Game when he's being in
that movie The Game, where he's being a ruthless businessman and this guy wants
to resign and he says, no, no, you're not resigning. I'm
firing you because when I fire you, confidence is restored, because action is
taken ray fail. I'm quoting that line. Confidence will be restored if you
excommunicate a judge that has a card like that, You're never working another title
fight again. That's it, baby, confidence will be I can't. I
can't argue on this one. I mean, the Lundie card is so outrageous
it's just ridiculous. So I don't I don't disagree. He's a guy.
Also, the other thing about it, he doesn't have a lot of experience
in the world title fight psych. Some of the other judges shaking cards,
so they have a a shitty card as an experienced good judge. But you
have a vast history of dozens of other outstanding scoring, right, you know,
you can't really hold it too muchgainst them. But let me tell you
our thing. I don't think anybody I'm gonna say this like I said against
related to Tim Bradley when he got the win over uh over many Paca,
where Jeff Forrden got to win over pak Ya or any number of other guys,
don't blame the winner. He was not scoring the fight. Constale was
an honest fighter, was in there working his ass off trying to get a
world title. This was his fourth opportunity. He had lost to Valdez in
a title fight. He had lost to Shakor when Chakor was overweight and been
stripped of two belts, but he had the opportunity to win them, but
he didn't. He obviously had the draw last fall in a great fight against
Neverette. So he goes into the fight two and one in world title fights.
Now he gets the belt over his shoulders. So for him, I'm
happy, but not the way it came out. So one more point on
this. Will the WBC step in here and say this was such a horrible
decision. We are saying this has to be a rematch regardless of whatever else.
Well en thems. Let them step in and say, Oshaki Foster does
not deserve this, that decision is terrible. Let's let's do this again.
Well, I think before that happens, that would have to probably before anything
would be initiated on that, Foster and his team would have to like live
some kind of official protest. They're not going to do it on their own,
but they will if he does. Lots of protests. Knowing the way
the WBC operates, they may not agree with him, but they probably will
give it a look. All right, So that's that card. I'm watch
the man. Look we just did this last week with the Bam Rodriguez where
two of the clown judges don't have him winning a fight that he was dominating,
including knocking the other guy down. Because over again, this is worse
because damn still won the fight by a knockout. Agreed, And maybe there
is a slight criticism that Oshaki Foster could have fought harder like he did at
the end of the Rocky Hernandez fight, could have fought harder in the eleventh
and the twelfth round to be more dramatic. Now, as it turns out,
you're looking at those cards, those two judges had Consisao up significantly enough
that the eleventh and twelfth round would not have won the fight for Oshaki Foster
on ten nine rounds. He would have had to have a knockdown of some
kind or something dramatic. On their two clown cards, they had the Brazilian
up big enough to get the vision there, so again awful. Well,
if you look at the card like Lundy Lundy's card, which was the sixteen
twelve card, you know there was no way he could have won, that's
right, I mean without knock downs at the end. Yeah, I mean
he already had him up, you know, he had him up, but
all through the entire fight like he had him up. He had him up
by what two with two rounds to go, and I think he gave ninety
six ninety four after the after round number ten, and then he gave him
eleven and twelve. Right, Yeah, he gave him eleven to twelve exactly.
So it turns out to the extended the lead like he had given O'shaki
rounds nine and ten that allowed him to cut the lead to two points.
But then he so I guess if Foster had won eleven and twelve, his
cards had a draw and then the fights at all. Yeah, but still
I think that's one thing that in a in a rematch, and one thing
to learn from is fight harder at the end in the in the ninth,
tenth, eleventh, and twelve round. Do not take it for granted what
those cards are going to be. Not excusing those judges. Let's see if
any action gets taken. Let's see what the WBC does. How we move
on? You want to move on, Let's do it. We got more
to cover, we got another bad scorecard coming too, and all of this
all right, So William Zapeta did win. This was simultaneous to the Foster
fight with Consasao ending Zaepeida ended Giovanni Cabrera in the third round. Interesting Sopeyda
took a little bit to get warmed up in the Golden Boy main event.
In the first round, I thought Cabrera was very impressive with the jab and
the left in the opening round. Then about midway through the second Zapeta started
finding the range with the combos and boom goes to dynamite in the third round.
Big combination, A couple of body shots, can't get it. There
was nothing at all about a surprise in this fight. First of all,
Zepeida is not the quickest starter ever. Never for two seconds I think Giovanni
Cabrera was gonna win or even compete. I thought that Giovanni Cabrera is a
glorified club fighter in my opinion, to knock on him. I'm sure he's
a nice guy. I didn't think he looked very good when he when he
lost the fight against Isaac Cruz that we saw he won to fight since then.
Zepeida is an animal. There was no chance that he was going to
stand up. In my mind, for uh, forget about twelve rounds,
but even probably through the first half of the fight. I forget what the
over under was in terms of half. Actually we didn't okay under, Yeah,
we didn't officially handicap the fight, but I would absolutely have taken the
under on this fight Zapeida. I've said it before, I'll say it again.
His offense is his defense. He throws so many punches, He pressures
guys. It's very very hard unless you're something special to be able to stand
up to that and take it or or get away from the shot. Good
body puncher too, and that came out in this fight again. That's the
shot that ended it. The bottom shot did it. He just crumpled them
and it just takes one. He's just a very aggressive fighter. And again
he as we discussed in the preview, Williams of Paida, is number one
in all four sanction body lightweight rankings. He's going to be getting a world
title fight. It's just a matter of which organization is going to make it
mandatory officially. First, you know what's the status in terms of how long
it takes to put it together. But I'm very confident that probably in his
next fight Williams. Beta should be fighting for one of the world titles,
and you know who it's going to be again, I guess remains to be
seen. Obviously, if if Tank Davis and Lomachenko do their fight with each
other, that won't be the case. Chakor Stevenson. You know, that
would be a fascinating fight because that's you want to talk about. One hundred
and eighty degree difference. Young guy's an absolute just steamroller, blow you out,
bash your fucking face in, take you to the body, throw a
billion punches, and not mister defense and a southpaw, and then you go
with the Shakhor, who's also a southpaw, but the slickeest, quickest,
you know, skillful guy you can find. And I thought it was interesting.
I interviewed Oscar de la Joya before the fight, and Oscar was very
diplomatic, very political, and said, I have not talked to Shakur Stevenson.
Believe what you want, he said, However, I'll be happy to
talk to him after his fight tonight, and we would love to make that
fight, he said in the ring. Then after it was over, we
would love to make that fight, but it takes two to tango. I
understand he probably hasn't fucked him because that would be that would be interfering with
But now not to say that guys don't interfere with could But I say again
what I said to you on the preview podcast, that would be a compelling
fight. Put it in southern California with a big crowd and a big gate,
because again, Zapeieda would be a good draw. Chaqueur is a name
brand that's been on ESPN enough. I don't know, I don't know what
the finances are. Uh, we'll see, We'll see what happens with the
paida. But I'm with you, I can tell you what the fight.
If Shaquor was turning down three million over the course of a five fight contract
at a minimum, I would certainly say that Williams of Peieda would be the
type of opponent that would probably be higher than just your regular opponent, So
he probably would want more than that kind of money. And I don't know
if that's there, and Williams of Paeda's probably not going to do it for
free. I don't know if that fits into a dizone budget. Obviously,
I say zone because that's where Golden boy has its fights. I don't think
you can make that a pay per view. Uh, that would be I
think there'd be a huge pushback on that. That's a terrible way. They
don't know. We've had a bunch, We've had a bunch of fights on
pay per view that you shake your head at. So who knows who's buying
Stevenson on pay per view after the last two fights come on? And that's
another and that's another good point. But if you had that, you would
have a you would have a tremendous live gate depending on where you put it.
I don't know if you could get the Crypto dot Com arena with basketball
season and hockey season for the Clippers, Lakers, and Kings. I think
you overestimate the drawing power of that fight. You got some different venues where
you could have that fight. Listen, Corkor drew about eight thousand to his
hometown where they had the Upper Bowl closed. The gate for that fight off,
Bob Aarin was accurate, was going to be around seven hundred thousand dollars.
Williams Apaida is an outstanding fighter. He fought in the Toyota Arena,
not exactly the Crypto They didn't sell, you know, fifteen thousand tickets.
Now, it's a good fight, but it's not like, well, it's
just a really good matchup. We'll see, So what happens with him next?
Anything else from the Golden Boy Carter show up? Move along? Let's
move move along, all right? So the Famio pay per view and by
the way, Jaron Nis coming up with Dan again. He defends his IBF
welterweight title coming in Philadelphia this weekend. Hear him in just a few minutes
before we're ranting, before we're done ranting. The fan Meo pay per view.
Did see the two UFC former champions fight. Now, that was a
packed house in Anaheim. I don't know what the gate is, what they
were charging for tickets, but it was a loud, full electric building.
And Nate Diaz did win over George Masvidal in the main event. Diaz a
little busier, they had They had some moments where they were trading shots.
Clearly both of them were tired from what I saw as the fight went on,
to be expected and a little sloppy. So that was the main event.
I'm more interested in the co feature Shane Mosley Junior and Danny Jacobs and
what are your thoughts on the Anaheim card. I thought it was to me
of all the fights of the weekend and that when I say what I watched
was the Shakur card, the Zipaida I didn't get a chance in the full
card, but certainly the main event this pay per view, the Mattroom card
from the UK that was in the earlier part of the day that started like
Next Generation Prospects with Johnny Fisher. Everything I watched this weekend, this was
the best card. This was the most entertainment value. The main event between
the Diaz and Masvidal was was a fun fight. They had a lot of
people there, over eighteen thousand at the at the arena where they had this.
This was in the US where the Ducks play hockey, and so they
had a lively crowd. Uh. They had some interesting guys and fights on
the undercard. I thought, for my money, Uh, this was the
most entertainment value of the weekend. It just goes to show you that you
can take a guy like an Adz and a Mazvedal who are known to their
UFC fans for what they did in the in the cage, who are obviously
very limited in terms of boxing experience. Nate Diaz was fighting this second professional
fight. He had lost uh a previous decision in a ten rounder to Jake
Paul and Jorge Masvedal had only had one previous fight that was like in two
thousand and five, so you hardly could count that. Uh. And they
have a rivalry, and they have a story, and they're compelling and they're
exciting to watch, and they made a heck of a fight. I mean,
they bought and you know what, I know, they're not the skill
level of like the top pound for pound fighters of today, but by no
means that they embarrass themselves. And I'm gonna tell you right now, mas
Madal and Diaz would probably be able to hang with some of the I'm not
saying they're going to beat up on Bivol or better Bev or some of the
other you know, absolute elite light heavyweights, but you know they would be
in the fight with a lot of guys that are like on the second level,
let's say, just because they are experiencing combat and they know how to
handle themselves, and they've I guess shown improvement. I thought Diaz looked way
better in this fight than he did against Shake Paul, and now granted against
Shake Paul, he was fighting a much heavier than he normally would be fighting.
This was back in the light heavyweight division. But I enjoyed the fight.
I didn't, you know, I didn't see their fight when they fought
in the UFC. I'm not a UFC guy, but I did read up
on a little bit. I saw some clips of it. I get that
it was a huge deal at the time that they fought, and you could
just tell in the excitement that was there in the crowd that these folks were
really pumped up for this fight. And having watched interviews and seeing some of
their press conferences and read some of the quotes, I'd written a preview of
the thing, like they are characters and they are compelling, and it was
interesting. And even though I'm not a UFC guy, I was like,
by the time this fight was getting underway, I'm like, I really want
to see what happens now. So that was interesting to me. I thought
it was a well done pay per view. I thought the production of fan
meal put together was excellent. The broadcast team was solid as a rock.
Marroinalo, you know, was the main blow by blow person who obviously is
experience in boxing, wrestling, MMA, you know, all kinds of different
combat. Sean Porter did a good job. My old boy Brian Campbell,
who I worked with for many years at ESPN, thought did a terrific job
on the desk and also doing the interviews. I mean, it was just
a they ran it first past and I forget there was that one of the
popular MMA fighters was along with Seawan. Who was the other guy, I
can't remember, No, I don't know who he was, another Sewn Sean
something or other. Anyway, but the bottom line was I thought everybody involved
the matchmaking, the production, the promotion, I thought they did a good
job. I mean, I'm being honest about that now. In the in
the co feature, which is the other fight that was sort of intriguing to
me more so going in anyway, just based on the boxing aspect, was
Daniel Jacobs against Shane Mosey June. This was a super middleweight fight. Mosley
Junior, the son of the legend, the Hall of Famer, who's made
a career for himself after self admittingly that he was no good early on in
his beginning of his career, but he's come a hell of a long way.
Jacobs was trying to get back in the ring after a two and a
half year layoff and a controversial loss to John Ryder, and he looked like
it. He came in. He didn't look like he was in great shape.
He looked slow. It was not the Danny Jacobs that I covered his
whole career of This was a fighter that failed to make the weight. He
came in like a pound and change over one hundred and sixty nine plus for
a one to sixty eight fight. You know, two and a half years
out of the ring, had no snap on his punches. And Danny was
a hell of a puncher in his day. And he got out hustled,
and he got he got out boxed, and he got you know, basically
beat up in the later rounds to a degree. He got a bad headbut
unfortunately that had him, you know, bleeding down the side of his face.
But you know, Jacobs is a is a great person. Overcame a
lot in his career with surviving cancer to come back and win a world title
and engage in some humongous fights. You know, gave Kenatti Gloffkin in his
prime, the toughest fight he probably ever had a lot of people thought he
won that fight, competed well against Canelo, had other wins Sergio Mora,
you know, Chavez Junior, other fights on the record, a big first
round knockout win, electrifying for the Battle of Brooklyn when he knocked out Peter
Quillen when they were both at the top of their game. So he has
an accomplished career. But time waits for no man in this business. And
Daniel Jacobs proved that by the way that he was his outclass basically because it
wasn't like that competitive. I mean, it was a one sided scores.
One of the judges had a shutout one hundred and ninety the other two judges
had it ninety nine to ninety one. Yeah, and that was performance of
his career to this point. That's the most significant performance. Now here's the
question I always posed to you, What does that mean? I mean,
certainly we're not going to see him in a world title shot anytime soon?
With no, that's not true, Okay, But go ahead, all right,
what is your thought? I'm going to tell you he turned down a
world title shot to get the Jacobs fight because he wanted the bigger name,
he had the opportunity. He may get the opportunity again, especially off this
win Carlos A Damas in a middleweight title fight. Now, remember one thing,
Shane Mosey Junior has done a nice job of shuttling between weight classes.
He's done fine as a middleweight, but he's also had several fights in the
super middleweight division. This was a fight where he went back up to super
middleweight to fight against the Jacobs, but he probably can easily go back to
middleweight where he is now even more qualified to get a shot against a guy
like a Damas than he was even before this fight. So I think,
I don't I can't tell you for sure that the next fight's going to be
a world title fight, but absolutely, based on this win and based on
the performance and the fact that the weight is, he can go in either
weight class. I see no reason why he wouldn't. There's not a lot
we talk about it all the time, how shitty the middleweight division is in
general. Shane Moseley coming off this type to win with that name and that
personality gives you a guy that you can root for, gives you a guy
that is interesting, gives you a guy that has gotten a lot better who
and the other middleweight he's He's got a bigger name than the champions. More
people know Shane Mosey Junior's name than Janebeck or a Domas for that matter,
so he can maybe bring something to the table. So I think without question
he can get a world title fight in the next fighter too, no doubt
in my mind. And those are those are the two main fights. But
I also wanted to talk about a couple of the other prospect fights on it.
Yes, so Floyd Mayweather was in the house because the one fighter that
Mayweather Promotion still has under contract. His looks like one of the blue Chippist
prospects in the business right now. And this is a kid from Las Vegas
that Floyd's known since the kid was maybe like eight or ten years old.
He's eighteen years old named Cermel Motan who's now four and oh with three knockouts.
You've seen him on the preliminaries for some of the Amazon Prime pay per
views. He turned pro at the end of last year on a Canelo undercard
and he looked good again. You know, they put him on this show.
It's kind of at the last minute, but he made it onto.
You know, he's one of the pay per view fights. He scored a
second round knockout against a fighter with about twenty fights, not a great record,
a guy that was basically five hundred, but he looked really good.
Just explosive, fast, very poised for an eighteen year old as a lightweight,
and just just a good prospect. Absolutely somebody to keep an eye on.
And the other fight, which to me, this was sort of like
a fun fight. You had a Motto Vargas, who is one of the
sons of Fernando Vargas, who was in his corner. Emiliano, who's with
top rank, who's the youngest of the three brothers. He gets most of
the hype, most of the attention, but there's also a Motto, and
there's also Fernando Junior, a Motto is now eleven and zero. But they
matched him up with and he's a lightweight. Also they matched him up with
Sean Garcia, who was the brother of Ryan Garcia. So Ryan Garcia was
in the house and a Motto Vargas kicked his ass. I mean it was
very impressive. For all the hype that Emiliano gets, you know, a
Motto said in the post fight. You know, I know that my brother,
my younger brother, everybody thinks he's the good one. But let me
tell you, me and my other brother, we're doing our thing and we're
coming along too, So Wat's out for us. He's a spitting image of
his father. It is absolutely unfucking candy, the facial resemblance between him specifically
and his dad compared to I mean, the other brothers look like their dad
also, but he looks like that when I covered Fernando Vargas when he is
an active fighter, if I was standing in front of I would think he's
Fernando. You had a little deja vu seeing him on the screen last night.
I agree, so uh. And Sean Garcia, by the way,
like his brother missed weight by three point one pounds instead of three point two
pounds, ended up getting his ass kick. And I can't say it was
unhappy to see that after everything that's gone on with the Garcia Clint Garcia family
over the last couple of weeks. So right, but am out of Vargus
impressed me. He did what can I say? All right, busy,
busy, busy weekend. We did touch on Johnny Fisher, the Nicholas Cage.
I'm putting all the movies of the nineties and early two thousands. The
car stealing movie has gone in sixty seconds. This was gone in thirty nine
seconds, where he knocked six seconds thirty six seconds, I discredited three.
So he knocked him down. Babbage got up and he looked like an elephant
on roller skates. He had no legs, and the rep said, that's
it. You like my metaphors, that's it. So the real question that
begs here, at what point is Johnny Fisher in a bigger bout, bigger
consciousness? What say you? Real quick? Yeah? I think next.
I think they're going to step him up to a degree. He's a big
ticket seller. He's coming along, he is getting better. You know.
We put together a nice eight or nine punches eight punch combination that ruined Babbage
and TJ. Let me remind you when we were doing the bet Us Show,
we didn't make the official pick on this, but on one of our
viewers who was in our question and answer session, asked me about to despite
what was my response? Please you said it would not surprise me if he
knocks him out in the first round. And then I asked you what the
under was and the under. I don't care what the under is on taking
the under. Yes, and you were right on that one. Let me
just while we're you know, breaking our arms, putting ourselves on the back,
one of us had Shane Mosley Junior to win over Danny Jacobs. That
was not you, but you did have the Babbage Johnny Fisher correct last night
checked I was five and two for the weekend. I'm with you. I
think the only thing I missed was the shakur Ko or No. We bothieve
were coming up on Ioka. Ioka cost us as well in a couple of
moments. But for Fisher, I mean, clearly this is a match room
fighter and there's some options that are there. So they're talking about matching them
up with Dave Allen, which is a popular heavyweight who's never maybe gotten to
the top level, but he's got experience that seems, off the top of
my head, is like the perfect kind of fight for Fisher. If you
think he can go somewhere, you're not overmatching him, but you're not putting
him in a complete mismatch either. It's a fight that the fans would get
behind over there it would probably do a very good crowd. There'd be a
lot of good talk between the two of those guys leading into the fight.
Dave Allen has a very well respected and kind of beloved figure, even though
he's never gotten to the top, top level. That seems like a very
reasonable fight to make, and if he's able to successfully have a fight like
that, then maybe, you know, you know, depending on how far
maybe then he's in, maybe they make a fight with him and like a
Chasora for example, right, you know, or a bigger name. But
but Johnny Fisher is a guy has started out as a as a just a
guy that could sell some tickets. That was exciting that they put on the
before the belt cards. And as he's developed and then put his you know,
his training habits and got himself in shape and improved his skills and and
obviously has great power, is getting better. But babbit, being honest,
was a much smaller guy, absolutely made to order. A first run knockout
was what I anticipated. It happened, and that will move on. But
Johnny's fun to watch no matter who he's gonna be in with. I love
watching his heavy heavyweights always ratcheted up all right. Then we move and Girana
is coming up straight ahead. But then we moved to Sunday morning, US
times, Sunday night in Tokyo, and the surprise of the weekend not just
that he won, but how impressively he won in this fight, as Fernando
Martinez captured now the WBA and the IBF Junior bantamweight titles with a twelve round
win. Varying degrees of how wid the score should have been, but it's
shocking from this standpoint that he goes into Japan and really controlled the fight from
the very beginning. Ioka deserves some credit because he hung in there. This
is me saying that, but Martinez was hitting him like Lionel Ritchie. We're
going back to the eighties again, all night long with the uppercuts in close
left, upper cut, right, upper cut, over and over again.
What a performance for him to win this twelve That was huge. That was
Martine's best performance of his career because the fights were on He one against in
Kajas that gave him the title, and then the rematch. They were big
wins for him, of course, but I didn't think he was nearly as
entertaining or as on point as he was in this fight against Ioka. He
had had another fighting mateia against Jade Barney, which was a much lesser a
guy, which he won in his second title defense. But this was a
big time fight. This was again going over to overseas to fighting Japanese sort
of legendary type fighter four division champion who you know has a fan base,
and that's why the fight obviously was there, not in Argentina or somewhere else.
And I was surprised that he showed not only the type of skills that
he showed, but the amount of punches that he threw, Like that's not
I'm not that I've seen like a million Fernando Martinez fights, but of the
handful of his fights I have seen, including the Bornea fight fight and the
two Ankahas fights, I was not to say he's not a guy that gets
there and tries to make a fight, but I was a little surprised just
by the the combination of his skills and the output and the precision. I
thought he really put everything together. I want your opinion. I think part
of it is maybe father time is caught up with Ioka a little bit,
because he did not look like even early in the fight that he had the
same reflexes, the same you know, snap on the punches, whatever,
and maybe that was part of this. And then we're going to get into
the scoring here us as well. I mean, Martinez clearly won the fight,
but the score, the scoring is comedy for this one as well.
But Ioka is not. He was not coming off some like crazy long layoff
or huge injury. You know, he had fought on December thirty first,
this last fight, so you know, seven months I mean, in this
day and age of boxing is not exactly you know, a massive layoff.
So yeah, I mean he's thirty five years old and the other guy's younger,
and so you know that does take it all. He's had a lot
of fights, He's been in the ring with a lot of quality guys.
It's you know, it's it's also the rounds you know that the guys have
been in. If you take a look at Ioka, you know this is
now you know, he's three hundred and thirty plus rounds. You know,
the other guy is literally half the rounds. So Ioka is now at three
hundred and thirty one professional rounds. Fernando Martinez after that fight is now at
one hundred and fifteen rounds, and that is a big difference. And the
amount of damage you've taken those other one hundred and fifteen rounds, you know,
it's probably a lot more than Fernando Martinez has taken in all one hundred
fifteen rounds he's had so far in his career. So from that standpoint,
yes, but again I was impressed because Martinez came with a good game plan
and he executed offensively, keeping those punches going. You said about uppercuts through
some body shots, the ability to take a punch, because it's not like
Ioka didn't land shots. Ioka landed a lot of good shots, but he
took them. And this is a huge win, and we talked about it
beforehand. Not only does he unify, he you know, he keeps the
IBF title, he wins the IOKA WBA title, and he puts them up
in position for what I think would probably now be a very entertaining and big
time fight against Bam Rodriguez. Bam said this was the fighter he wanted next.
Obviously, we got to wait to see what takes place in terms of
whether a strata uh you know, illegally and officially executes his rematch, right
it seems like he will. But even if he does, fine, so
he fights Bam in the rematch at the end of the year, and uh,
you know, and Martinez right now is not I don't think he.
I mean, I'm not sure who he's with in terms of promotion. He's
not with any of the big entities to my knowledge. Uh, maybe they
do a thing where match Room if they really want to make the fight,
you know, you do, you do the rematch between uh between Bam against
Estrata, and you bring Martinez to that card. You put him in a
defense against you know, a reputable opponent, and set up you know,
if they both win, we're finding each other to unify. I mean,
those are the types of things that that promoters do all the time. So
we got I would I'd be very interested in that. Martinez made that a
much more interesting fight now than it was a couple of days. And he
was tremendous and by the way, he fought hard tenth round, eleventh round,
twelfth round to make sure that he got the win. It turns out
on one of the cards. Let's go to the comedy again, and I
promise we're getting the boots in US. One of the cards was twelve bagel
twelve nothing for the visiting fighter. I thought this was interesting in rewatching the
fight. I have seen the rewatch of the fight from the ESPN deportis ESPN
Knockout Feed. Their unofficial scorer gave Martinez the first three rounds their unofficial score,
then gave Ioka two rounds and through ten their unofficial score. I'm not
sure who it was had the fight five five all right for what it's worth,
which means on his card Martinez needed the last two rounds we do one
twenty one toh eight. The reality is that Martinez probably you know, the
right score quote unquote right score, probably like eight four right. I'd go
to one judge had one judge had at nine to three, not out of
the realm, and one judge had it twelve zero, which was kind of
surprising. That judge, by the way, is Edward Hernandez, who's a
California so again, but compared to what we just went through with the Oshaki
Foster fight, this is fucking child's play because clearly the right guy won the
fight. The scoring was all fucked up, but it doesn't impact the result.
It doesn't impact the livelihood of the either man involved. So I'm not
saying you let it slide, but I can't. I don't have it in
me to muster more indignation for the second time in this show. So I'm
done talking about the score. Indignation is done. Martinez gets the win,
great win for him. We'll see what happens with him next. I know
what's happening next for Jiron boots Ennis. That is his homecoming title defense for
the IBF Welterweight Championship that he owns. He's fighting David Abanezian coming up in
Philly this Saturday. But you don't have to wait for later in the week.
You got boots Ennis right now with Big Dan. Well, it's my
great pleasure to be joined on our podcast day by none other than the IBF
Welterweight Champion of the World, Jaron boots Ennis. Boots thank you so much
for doing this. I appreciate your time. How's everything going getting ready for
your fight? I appreciate you. Thank you very everything going great. You
know, can't wind it ill you know with that town, well that folks
know you are scheduled to make your first title defense Saturday night at the Wells
Fargo Center in your hometown of Philadelphia. You're taking on the challenger, David
Evanestin, who's thirty four and one with eighteen knockouts. You, of course,
John, are thirty one and oh with twenty eight knockouts. What's intriguing
team about this fight? A few different things we're going to get to.
First of all, you know, because you got thirty one fights, it
feels, I think to a lot of people you've been around kind of forever,
but you're still only twenty seven years old and making your first defense.
But the big thing about is you get to go home to Philadelphia, to
the Wells Fargo Center, your first fight with your new contract with Mattroom Boxing.
There's gonna be a big crowd on hand. Mattroom Boxing has been saying
there's gonna be well over ten thousand people in attendants. We'll see. There's
still some time before the fight. But how big of a deal is there
for you not only making a first title defense, but to do it,
you know, in your hometown, the great fight city Ofhiladelphia, Pennsylvania.
Oh, that's a very big deal, you know, just the first fight
at the Wells Fargo Center. You know, well, and you know it's
a buzzing to be able to you know, fight in the Wells Fargo Centnate,
I had just running the bill in like March, okay, and I
had told my edit use the game, and I told my my security,
I said, I said, one day'm an sell this place out. And
then one or two later, you know, I did the partnership with met
Stroom and you know now here now you know, basically sell this place out,
you know, in fight here in my hometown to some my world side
in my hometown. Yeah, and you said it's the first fight at the
Wells Fargo Center. Just so people are clear, they renamed that building.
They have had fights in the venue. But since it's been that call call
that this will be the first card. And uh, and you're the headliner
and you're, like I said, you're taking on Evanescim. But I want
to ask you about this fact. Originally you were scheduled to take on your
mandatory challenge at Cody Crowley. You guys have announced the fight, You've done
the press conference. He was undefeated at twenty two and zero. Unfortunately,
Cody had an eye problem where he had surgery and he was not medically clear
to do the match, and they had to switch and find a new opponent
for you and Evanescian. Do you have any any sort of letdown in the
change or for you with sort of Cody Crowley, fine, Avanessian finance all
the same to you, what's your your take on having the opponent change up
on you like that. It's just always saying to me, I'm just glad
to be baking, glad to be able to you know, fight. I
told him before, I told Eddie before, before the fight even, I
say to make sure I have a backup just in case. And you know,
you know he did and what he fels I want, you know,
I don't care who, who who he would have filed. I just wanted
as long as i'na be able to fight, you know, in front of
my friends and his family, you know, on July thirteenth and Edge wellis
Circo Center in from the beautiful Show and get a knockout. I ain't really
care who it was. So you mentioned about, you know, excited to
fight at home, fight the opponent you're fighting, defend your title. Before
you got the IBF title, you had won the interim title. The champion
was Terrence Crawford. He had become the undisputed champion last July with his big
performance and knockout against Errol Spence. After that was over, he declined to
fight you because even you were the manager. I don't think he was necessarily
ducking Boots Ennis, but he had sort of other things to do that was
put on him very quickly after the fight. In any event, that title
became vacant and you were then elevated to the full champion from your interim status.
What was your take on that? Were you disappointed that he didn't fight
you, that you didn't get the opportunity to sort of win the belt outright
in the ring against the reigning champion. I always wonder how fighters process that
when that happens. I mean, you always want you always want to take
the boat, you know, from a champion, and that was the goal
took about from the champion and Phil better. You know, that's way better,
you know, by taking about beating him up and things like that,
but you know, you know it is what it is enoughing I could do
it. It was out of my control. Were you of the opinion that
he was somehow avoiding you or you understood sort of like the business choices that
get made in this business, in this sport. Honestly, I don't even
know. I don't know, okay, fair enough. Well, one thing
you may be familiar with if you're studying up on David Avanessian, is that
you know that it was in December of twenty twenty two, two fights ago
for David, that Terrence Crawford knocked him out in the sixth round to retain
his title. At that time. David has won one fight since then.
And even though you're not fighting Crawford, you got evanesc In, but I
know you would have liked to fight Crawford. Is it at least sort of
maybe mildly in the back of your mind that maybe I can show up Terrence
crawfor a little bit by knocking David Evanestin out even more quickly than Terrence Crawford
did. No, I really don't care about it. I'm, like I
said, if I'm excited to be begging the ring, and that's my main
thing, being back in the ring, putting on the show for my friend
and family, and uh, you know, and being thrown in a big
statement with a big knockout. I'm going ahead fun and put on a show.
Now, I really really don't care about He's a the guy that knowing.
Now, when you when you prepare for evaness and sort of what is
your scouting report on him? What have you seen if you've looked at video,
or what's your take on his style? I know you obviously believe very
strongly you're gonna win and win the fight by a knockout, but can you
just give me your team's thought process and the type of fight that he brings
into the ring. I mean, he kind of fight like my last opponent,
like Will. You're just not as big for pressure as it. You
know right in front of you. Don't move here. It's gonna be a
long night for him, gonna be a long light or gonna be a short
night. You know it's gonna be. It's gonna be along with short night.
If you do what I'm saying, I get what you saying. You
think you think you're gonna end this fight early. I think is that?
I mean, that's I hear the confidence in your voice. I know Evanescan
from having to watch him plenty of times. We saw what he did with
Crawford. You feel like, I mean not to say you're taking him lightly
or anything like that, but you think this is I get the feeling you
think this is easy work. I'm definitely not taking it likely lightly at all.
You know, I'm going to know the show, have fun, we
smart take my time beating up, you know, breaking down in uh froming
a beautiful show. Like I said before, you know, I don't take
nobody lately at all. You know, I mean focuses him right now,
that's it. That's all. Get him up out of or away and at
Im Victoria's you know, make carry they you know it's bigger and better team.
But I mean focus is David Evan Eedian. So I had mentioned when
we were just starting out the interview that this was gonna be your first fight
since you signed with Eddie Hern and mattrom Boxing. Prior to that, you
had been fighting regularly on the PBC cards because you were associated with with Showtime
and they were doing all those events when Showtime came to an end. Uh.
My understanding is that you know you had been and involved in conversation possibly
signing with PBC. Obviously that did not work out. Can you say what
happened in that situation and what was sort of the the sales pitch if you
will, that Eddie gave you that that made you decide, you know what,
I'm gonna go sign with mattrom Boxing. I just want I just want
what was best for my career. You know, I'd like to stay active,
you know, and that's that'd be my whole thing. Stay actor,
stay busy, you know shirt. You know, do you feel like that
would not have been the case that you've been with PBC, Oh, that
you wouldn't have been busy? I'm not. I just I just like the
way that Eddie move move as guys and things like that, you know,
you know fight frequently. So see keep keep the shirt right. And it
seems like it's been a pretty good promotion, like because they said they've talked
about that there's going to be a huge crowd, and since you've never really
fought in a big arena in Philadelphia, I think you got to be pretty
excited about the fact that they are going to have, you know, that
big, big, big throng of folks. And so what ather thing I
was thinking about is when you go and you walk out for your ring walk
Wells Fargo Center, your first title defense, big crowd for you, cheering
you on. Is that the kind of and you're as a champion, as
a reigning champion, is that sort of like the moment as a as a
young fighter coming up that you dreamed about, Like, can you envision how
that's gonna feel, just emotionally when you have that happen, you know,
on fight night? Uh, It's it's all still amazing, you know.
I said before, I said, I just rung the bill, you know,
and in March at the six Ers game, and like I said,
I told you, I told my security all we will say the place out,
and now I'm doing it. So it's gonna be a blessing. It's
gonna be everything, you know, everything I've you know, I'm pained of,
you know, and I can't wait, you know, I'm ready.
I'm ready to recite it. So at twenty seven years old, it seems
like in boxing for the most part, fighters are you know, in their
prime, approaching their prime, or right in the middle of their prime.
Do you feel like at your age now with the title, uh, getting
involved in bigger events that you that you are now in your prime of your
career. I definitely feel like I'm getting here. I feel like I'm getting
there here yet, I definitely feel like I'm getting here. So beyond evanescent
because I know we've discussed that, you think it's going to be a long,
short night as we discussed what are the kind of goals that you have
beyond you know, just obviously retaining your title? Is it? Is it
making the pounds for poundless? Is it maybe moving up and weigh at some
point and winning titles another way? Class's sort of what's what's sort of on
the laundry list the checklist for Jeron Boots, And that's about the things that
you would like to accomplish in your career before it's all over. Oh,
well they don Victoria's you know, make sure they not looking at it,
Damon and he's in it, or you know, Stanfolkers left in. But
my main goal is to be undisputed at one forty seven at this fight,
you know, I want to collect the rest of the bolts and then move
up to fifty four into the same thing at fifty four and against sixty against
sixty eight, maybe sixty eight. Oh, you think you can go as
high as one sixty eight. Wow. Yeah, I mean I know I
can. I would have to see how my body feeled or you know,
being a being a heavy. Okay, So I just want to wrap up
with this and uh, you know your goal you've established, as you just
said, you'd like to somehow figure out a way to navigate the politics and
become the undisputed champion. But I wonder along the way to doing that,
what do you think is sort of the big fight for you at welterweight.
Terrence Crawford is not coming back to that weight class. Obviously, you have
the WBC champion Barrios, Mario Barrios, He's supposedly in conversations perhaps to be
fighting against Manny Pacao. Stanny Onis is there, He's undefeated, obviously a
good fighter, maybe not the biggest name in the world. Brian Norman is
probably about to be elevated from the WBO once the Crawford belts are all vacated.
So when you look at those group of champions, besides yourself, what
do you view or maybe there's something else as your big fight quote unquote big
fight in welterwait angle all all of them, you know, because the all
big fights that you all have a boat, so one of them, so
you think that you can maybe run the table and then hey, that's that's
not Yeah, that's that's That's what I'm going to do, you know.
And like I said, don victorious, you know, next Saturday, and
that's the goal. You know, a ton of ton of unified and you'll
be undistooted to collect these boats. Well, I guess before you can start
collecting all the other belts that you don't have, you got to take care
of your business against David Avanes. And you say it's going to be a
big win for you and a beautiful performance. As you said in front of
the hometown Boots, I wish you nothing but the best in your perform it's
in your fight Saturday at Wells Fargo Center live on his own. I thank
you very much for your time. I wish you the best of luck.
Thank you. I appreciation you, bet, Boots, thank you so much.
All Right, So again there's a lot of excitement in his camp and
in the Philadelphia area. What kind of crowd are they going to have?
Et cetera. And I've said over and over again, I'm anxious to see
what this guy can do at the highest level now as the IBF champion at
one forty seven. Wrap it up as we head full full into Boots in
this week here. Hey, listen, Boots is a pleasure to talk to.
He's a very friendly and very engaging young man. It's his first defense.
Like you said, he's got the title because he was interim champion.
Terrence Crawford had won the undisputed title when he unified everything against Errol Spence,
and his next fight was supposed to be the mandatory against the IBF champion or
the IBF mandatory rather, which was Ennis. He've decided that that was not
his liking for a lot of differ reasons. I don't think he was ducking
Ennis, but obviously, you know he's gonna make huge amounts of money for
this Magam fights. Anyway, while we would have liked to see that fight,
Ennis becomes the full title holder. So this is the first offense.
But so what's intriguing to me about the fight? Because I'm being honest and
I don't disrespect Avanessian, but its just my opinion that he has no fucking
shot in the fight at all. Okay, So the question is how how
one sided is it? How quickly does it end those types of things.
Avanescian in twenty twenty two fought in a in an Omaha, Nebraska, in
a got a title shot against Terrence Crawford. This is in the fight before
Crawford fought Errol Spence when he was you know, did his own thing with
B L K pron and we're not with a big promoter, and he got
knocked out in a devastating fashion in the sixth round. He has since won
one fight, that was in December, and now he goes into this fight
against Enny. So I asked Nnis in the interview that you heard, you
know, would it be a feather in your cap because you wanted the fight
with Crawford if you go in there and not only because he was talking knockout
that I'm gonna knock the guy out. Could you do if you did it
quicker than Crawford, would that at least be a statement for you? He's
I don't really care about that, which is fine. I'm going to be
interested in that. Like if he can get rid of the guy around the
same time five six, seven rounds, you know, then you know you're
talking as opposed to if it drags him into like you know, ten to
eleven, twelve or even perhaps the distance. So not that that's a disqualifying
factor of his how good he can be if he happens to go deep into
the fight with Evanescin or doesn't get the knockout. But I'm looking for that
because I think that the guy is going to just destroy Evanescian and and this
is gonna have thirteen thousand plus or so probably in that building at the Wells
Fargo Center. Philadelphia hasn't had a big fight in quite a while. And
he's a very very exciting and talented and cool guy to deal with. I
mean, I've enjoyed, I've been I've been talking of Boots and covering him,
you know, since he was in the early days of fighting on Showbox.
So good luck, we'll see him in a big spot here for him
personally in this homecoming fight in Philadelphia at the Wells Fargo Center. It's where
the Sixers and the Flyers play basketball and hockey. Let's see what it looks
like for this week. But you get that in advance of fight week,
all right, A couple of other news items, then some nostalgia before we
are gone. Canelo Alvarez. We keep saying that Edgar Berlanga seems to be
the leading name that he would fight in September. Nothing's official, and now
a name has emerged that I think has perked some people up. Let's say,
in the UK in particular, how much how much credence do you put
in the name Chris you Bank Junior being kicked around? What say you?
Oh? It's absolutely it's definitely being discussed and it's definitely being gone back and
forth between the camps. Now, my good buddy Chava over at ESPN Deporte's
reported this story that that was a possibility that he would fight him. In
my own sources that I checked in with after that came out confirm absolutely one
hundred percent that they are talking about doing that possible fight. But Berlanga remains
another candidate. Also, the one thing that I was told is that the
third candidate that seemed to be in some of the reports was also still the
Jamal Charlotte possibility. I'm told that is just simply not in the case,
which happy about because you know, if you if it's a by, if
it's a choice between Charlo Berlanga or you Bank, whatever you think about them.
My opinion, Charlotte would be absolutely the last of those three that I
would be interested in. You know, I don't love the U Bank fight
personally speaking. I'm personally more interested in the Berlanga fight for a lot of
different reasons. But you know, you Bank. You know, at least
he's fought good guys at super middleweight. He's you know, beat James de
Gail. He you know, he beat Arthur Abraham. He's you know,
fought Billy Joe Saunders and a loss, even though it was a number of
years ago. He's fought you know, other guys that have had accomplishment in
the super middleweight division. Now. The one thing that some people have confused
is that if he did fight you Bank. From what I am told,
this is not being discussed as a fight to do in the UK. This
would still be come September fourteenth, which is the Mexican Independence Day weekend Saturday
in Las Vegas, even though there is a UFC card that same night where
I guess they're gonna have the first ever combat event at the new Las Vegas
Sphere. They would still go forward and do a Canelo fight at you know,
either the T Mobile or the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Uh, they're
not. They're not too worried about that. The sphere for a combat event,
my understanding, will only hold probably what twelve thousand, and it's probably
less that with all the kills because of the way it's constructed, with the
you need for the for the television and all that. So it will also
be a big event. But there's room to do those two big events because
I I I still am convinced. No one has ever shown me any data
to the contrary that the audience of a boxing big star fight like a Canelo
or a big UFC fight, that the overlap is minimal, that it's just
that it doesn't eat away from one or the other. I mean, I
don't think you want to go out of your way to schedule things against each
other. But if you did, it's not like if you were scheduling two
big MMA things against each other, or two big boxing matches against each other,
the two at the same time. I don't think we'll have much of
a It will be a net. So whoever it's going to be, if
it's you Bank, that's fine. I mean, you Bank will talk it
up. He's a good interview, he'll he'll, he'll speak and you make
it intriguing. And if it's Berlanga, obviously you've got the element of the
big Mexico Puerto Rico and Berlanga talks a lot of shit. That'll be a
big part of it. Now a lot of people are saying, well,
you know he's still duck and David Benavite's and you know what, Obviously,
like every boxing fan, of course I would like to see Canelo fight David
Benavidez. He has not shown interest in doing so. But I will say
this in terms of September specifically, say whatever you want about last fight,
next fight, this, that, the other, that the WBC should have
ordered the mandatory, they should have forced his hand whatever. In the reality
of the world that I live in, David Benavides, even if Canello said,
Okay, fine, I'll fight David Donavites, he's not going to be
ready for September because he has a torn ligament in one hand, he's got
another injury in the other hand, and he got cut in the last fight
that was just a couple of weeks ago, So he's not going to be
ready to go back into a training camp in a few weeks, so he's
not available for September. Understood, yep said, at the end of the
day, whatever Canelo's reasons for not wanting to fight him, even if he
changed his mind and said, okay, fine, bring him on September fourteenth,
David is probably not available to do a match on that day. So
now you go beyond that, all right, and who's the who's the next
opponent And we'll find out in due time, because that's about sixty days away
from now. I think we're gonna find out probably in the next week or
so. All right, good tease on that. Okay, you mentioned about
Sean Garcia, the brother of Ryan Garcia, losing on the undercard of this
Fan Meo pay per view in Anaheim. Ryan Garcia was there. We we
haven't really covered this and we don't need to go on and on about it,
but Garcia, we did touch on it a little bit on the bet
Us Show. I believe Garcia has been reprimanded by the WBC. Golden Boy
has disavowed him now after racist comments he made an in an online social media
live interview. Garcia tried to play it off as joking throughout throughout the interview.
He's also talking about child rape, for example, in addition to racist
comments. Clearly we have said for two or three months not well his arrest,
including covering a rest for destroying a Beverly Hills hotel room. Clearly all
the people that said he was trolling leading up to the to the fight against
Haney, I said from day one, this is real. He's got problems.
This is not a troll. Maybe partially, but absolutely he's fucked up,
you know, drinking, drugs, partying, the whole thing issues,
allegedly headed to rehab, but not in rehab severy night yet so well,
he actually tweeted like I skipped reeap to go to my brother's fight. Like
that doesn't to me, that does not show any level of seriousness about recognizing
your problem. But to think about it is this, It's one thing if
you want to say crazy shit, it's one thing that you get busted for
peds or even like you know, you had had a bendur and you fucked
up a hotel room. I mean, you know, we've seen plenty of
the rock stars do that, and that's not cool, but it happens.
I find it very difficult to come back in our society when you go on
your social media of your own free will and you write the following, fuck
all inward, and he spelled it out, fuck all Muslims, and that's
what he wrote, among other things that were very very inappropriate. Then he
went on his own live stream and he said, I hate N word,
I'm anti black, I'm the KKK. Hey, let's go bring George Floyd
back to life and go kill that N word again. That you do not
come back from that in our society. I mean, I was just reading
an article in the newspaper unrelated to Ryan Garcia about what's the actor's name that
was in Seinfeld that played Kramer, Michael Richards. Michael Richards who said some
unfortunate racial things in one of his comedy acts. Right was basically he's been
has been. Yeah, he's basically been canceled for fifteen years since he did
that post Seinfeld. Now, I don't I'm not I'm not saying that people
should be canceled for fifteen years either, because I do think they are can
show real sorrow and regret for what they did, and you know, people
deserve a second chance. But right now, Ryan Garcia is in my opinion,
he's just fucked up, and honestly, he should get the derision.
It's one thing to feel compassionate for somebody that has a mental health problem,
whether that it's dealing with an alcohol problem or a drug problem, but you
cannot say things like that, Yeah, I know, because I'm gonna use
them. I mean, we've heard this before representing other other sort of comments,
but it's the very famous line from the great poet Maya Angelo. But
people show you who they are, Believe them. Yeah, And if you're
saying these types of things and then you make some half ass apology where you
try to make excuses and and kind of I was choking around is one of
them? We're joking around. We should dig up George Floyd and kill that
in again. Is not a fucking joke. Noah, Yeah, all right,
so this was interesting too. On the de owned Golden Boys show,
Oscar de la Hoya address this prior to the main event fight and said,
listen, I am somebody that has been in rehab. He said, I
have been in touch with Ryan Garcia, and he goes. The thing that
I don't understand is every time I've talked to him, he's fine. He's
talking about the future, he's talking about having to ride out the suspension.
Oscar even revealed we were looking at trying to do some kind of an exhibition
with him to get him paid. He didn't say what kind of exhibition,
boxing exhibition, would it be something else? Uh, But Oscar Oscar even
said at this point, I don't understand this, and we are basically he
said, we as Golden Boy, don't condone this. And he's got to
go get help. So there's where it stands, well where at because he
said I'm going to rehabit. Then he blew it off to go to his
brother's boxing match, and uh, and then I saw him being escorted out
of the arena by police or security apparently there was. And by the way,
let me tell you, when you say the kind of shit that he
said, there are people out there that are going to be far more offendive
than I who may take a hand and say, yeah, you want to
say that to my face, bro, and and and maybe have a knife
or maybe have a gun or maybe I know, you know, some other
way to take care of that. We don't. We don't wish that it
escalates to those kind of things. But this is what you're doing. And
so uh yeah, the trouble only magnifies even more for him, and we'll
see long run if he can ever get his act again. There's a lot
of belief he's never going to get his act together at this point, the
way he has spiraled down one, all right, and still facing the rest
of the suspension and facing the vandalism felony charges in California. And by the
way, if there is the type of I mean, just from what we've
seen, the drug and alcohol problems, he's got a long road to conquer
that because that's forever. That's forever that you're trying to get that that Oscar
talked about, he was in rehab for drugs and alcohol four different times.
So in his trust, be very he was being very open about that.
All right, nostalgia And then we are done. Have we talked enough about
bad judging on the previous show and on this show I think we have coming
up on Tuesday, it is the thirteenth anniversary of a of an absolute awful
decision and you've you've talked about this before in the podcast that led to one
of the most fascinating punishment punishments for all three judges elaborate on this real quick
well. This of course is the junior middleway fight that took place in Atlantic
City between Paul Williams and Arislondi Lara. Both of them were world champions,
although they weren't at the time. This was a non title fight. Williams
had won a world title at welterweight, Lara had you know, went on
and became a champion in the grym midleweight division. They both had excellent careers,
but this was like an HBO card. They did this fight in the
boardwalk hall in a Lytic city, but not in the big maner in.
It was in the smaller venue upstairs. I covered this fight, this is
like you said July ninth, twenty eleven, and Paul Williams looked like he
lost basically every round of the fight. You know, Paul was getting beyond
his best days at that point. Paul was a ridiculous handful for anybody when
he was at his best. But this was the second to last fight of
his career. Obviously, he probably would have still thought if he hadn't had
the motorcycle accident, but he was already pretty well done because the fight before
this, Just to put it in context, this was Paul's comeback fight after
at the About in the end of twenty ten. In November, that's when
he took the massive and I mean massive, second round knockout loss against Sergio
Martinez in a middleway title fight. People have always asked me, like,
what are the biggest knockouts you've ever been to? I always cite Paul Williams
getting drilled by Sergio Martinez is among the top two or three knockouts. First,
that was yes. So now that was November of twenty ten. Fast
forward now eight months to eight nine months to in July of twenty eleven,
he comes back against Laura, who at the time was undefeated. Uh and
you know it's a high stakes fight HBO main event, and Lara runs him
out of the ring. Everybody, I mean, I was ringsidn everybody had
him winning, you know, nine to three, ten two whatever. I
mean, just a wipeout for Laura, who absolutely fucking played with him.
And then, of course, like all the nonsense, it certainly seems apropos
that we're discussing it today after what we saw in the Oshaki Foster fight about
twenty pounds twenty five pounds south. Anyway, the scores are read, one
judge has it one fourteen to one fourteen, so a draw, which is
like, you're like, that's a horrible fucking card. He got away with
it because he didn't get the derision because uh, that was Al Bennett'scorrek Caar,
Donald Gibbons and Hilton Whittaker had the fucking audacity to score that fight for
Paul Williams one sixteen, one fourteen and one fifteen one fourteen. And I
just remember very specifically sitting there in my chair and like hearing those scores and
looking at like the other media, uh people in my area looking around,
and and nobody nobody's even saying anything. It was all sort of like like
we were all trying to process. Like I think the thought was maybe if
we don't say anything for like the next five or ten seconds, they're going
to come back to the microphone and say, we have a mistake. Yeah,
reread their scores correctly. Didn't happen, And so you mentioned about the
punishment. Now, I don't know if this is an unprecedent. Think I
can't say that it's never happened, but certainly in my experience at least at
the highest level on a way of covering fights for almost twenty five years,
I don't ever remember this happening. They did. They the New Jersey Uh,
their their regulatory board, the New Jersey Commission. It's not really a
commission, they call the Athletic Control Board. They suspended all three judges,
not including the judge that scored to fight a draw. They they suspend all
three judges. That was like a big, big deal, big story.
Uh. And I have to tell you, I'm not sure if any of
the judges have ever scored another fight since then or they were permanently put out
the passer. So that goes to your content, your your concepttion. Now
we go back to Michael Douglas in the game. Actually confidence is restored in
the process. So that was that was a huge, huge thing. They
had done the full review and they didn't find you, look, they were
seeing that anybody try to get a bribe. Was there any sort of like
thing on tour. They didn't find any evidence of any kind of sketchy business
like that. Uh. They just suspended all three of them, uh for
pending additional training. And I don't know if they got training or they didn't.
But I don't remember if anybody's ever scored again, and I've never heard
of I've never heard of any of those three guys, and you've been around
much longer since the aular judge he did. But I'm talking about title fights
or whatever, New York, New Jersey. You ever heard of any of
them? And you know so, Hilton Winker, I'm looking on his box
Treck. He did come back and have some fights after that, but not
he hasn't had at least according to box Treck, he has not done any
fights in twenty sixteen. Since then, Donald Gibbons also did some other fights
in twenty sixteen, but I don't remember remember being in any kind of significant
fight. Hasn't worked anything since then. And Al Bennett, that was the
guy that had the draw. He actually judged up until twenty twenty. Did
come back after a long sabbatical, but again hasn't judged in a while.
But even when they went back and had other assignments, it didn't seem like
they were doing anything of significant nature, major television fights, world championship fights,
things along those lines. So that was one where you can disagree with
the way the commissions deal with things at times. The New Jersey folks got
that one right by getting rid of those three bumps all right seventeen years ago
on the night that we're recording this July seven, two thousand and seven,
a huge, big one point Fornito don Air. Tell me more about this
as a legendary fighter that you talked a bunch about. But what about the
nostalgia here as well for July seventh, Well, this was the coming out
party. I mean, people really didn't know much about no Needo at the
time. He wasn't a big name. He might I think he might have
been on a show box perhaps, or maybe that was even his brother boy
he was. He was just like a good up and coming guy, but
no one really knew much about him. And Vic Darchinyan, who was the
IBF champion at that time, was a big knockout artist, and they were
fighting on an undercard of Showtime in you know, he was defending the world
title against Donair, and this was the This was the introduction of what of
what became a legendary fighter. A guy that ended up in Donair won titles
in four different weight classes, five if you count an interim title. He
won in the in the junior bantamweight division, became a Fighter of the Year,
engaged in a Fight of the Year in his first bout with in a
Way, and just had a remarkable run unified titles at one hundred and twenty
two pounds. Was the first ever to go through the VADA testing not only
for a particular fight, but twenty four to seven, three sixty five,
and this was the start of the legend where we learned all about the massive
and incredible left hook the Donair owns. This was a spectacular victory, you
know it was. It was it overshadowed. The fight was in Bridgeport,
Connecticut because one of the fighters in that in the main event was Harvest Simms,
who was from that area. He lost his junior middleweight title in the
main event the Canadian fighter Joachim Alcine. But the one that stole the show
was Donair. Absolutely flattening and I mean flattening d'artagnian, who was a hell
of a fighter in his own right, undefeated, big knockout artist, and
he put him away with one gigantic punch in round number five. Beat him
again a few years later in a rematch when Vic was no longer at his
best. But this was when you know, Vic was in his prime and
at his best, and No Needle but his blow him away and went on
to have, you know, a Hall of Fame career. I mean,
whatever happens if he comes back and fights again. I don't know if No
Needle was going to fight again. He's coming off the fight last July where
he lost the title in a world title fight for a vacant title against Alessandro
Santiago on that Errol Spence Terrence Crawford card. Since yeah, he hasn't thought
since then, I haven't heard of anything in the works. But if he
is, if he is done with his career and he's forty one years old,
but he became the oldest fighter ever to win a flyway title for example
when up and weight came down and wait went all the way up to the
featherweight. Anyway, this was the start of the legend and from there on,
don Air was part of the boxing consciousness for the next you know,
from that time forward, and it was a great Victorian and we got to
see the birth of one of the great fighters of our time in terms of
his high accomplishment. And one more piece of nostalgia in parting, and that
is July seventh would have been the great legendary trainer from the Cronc Gym and
the longtime HBO broadcaster after that, the Emmanuel Steward would have been eighty years
old on July seventh of twenty twenty four. I know you've talked even on
the anniversary of his passing, and you've talked on other occasions too about Emmanuel
and your friendship with him throughout covering the sport. What else, what else
here do we want to say about this? Well, every time that the
anniversary has come around of you know, his passing or perhaps his birthday,
you know, I think about him. I think about him more than that,
I tell you the truth, because he was a very important part of
my early days as a boxing journalist where I got to know him, and
I always remember, like my first interaction with him. I had spoke to
him on the telephone when I first started working at USA Today because I was
writing an article about Thomas Hearns who was going to have a fight, and
I was doing a piece for the paper about that. But that was a
couple of months before I ever met Emmanuel. When I went out to cover
my first ever fight in person for USA Today as the official boxing national writer.
I went to New York City to cover Lennox Lewis against Michael Grant.
This is in April of two thousand and Obviously, Emmanuel was Lenox's trainer,
and so I went to the workout at the Madison Square Garden Theater where all
the media was and the guys, you know, we're going to do their
their media workout. And at that workout is the first time I met Emmanuel
in person, and I remember he came over she because he didn't know what
I looked like. He just had spoken to me on the telephone. But
the week of that fight they had, we were doing the new rankings that
we did for USA Today that that was one of my responsibilities. So for
the very first time we ever had them in the paper coincided with that fight
week, so they made like a big deal about it, and they put
my picture with the rankings in the paper. Now, normally when the rankings
would run, they didn't put my photo, but for the very first one,
they sort of introduced me and put my picture in the paper and with
the rankings. The whole thing Emmanuel had seen that as to a lot of
the boxing people and was thrilled that the paper was covering them, and that
having spoken to me and having read the rankings sort of as it was relayed
to me, like, Okay, he must he seems like he knows what
he's talking about or what he's doing. So I remember meeting him at that
workout and he comes up to me again I never met him before, immediately
gives me a big hug, and from that moment forward, Emmanuel and I,
you know, developed a close relationship. I consider him a friend,
like a guy. We could talk about things that were not even boxing related
sometimes, but he always wanted to talk about boxing and and just he had
one of the greatest careers of ether. Here's the thing, one of the
greatest careers ever. What puts him in the Hall of fame. He's known
mostly for being a great a great trainer, but people forget sometimes he was
also a great manager. Obviously, he was a broadcaster because the the generation
that didn't necessarily know him as a trainer came to know him and loved him
as a great broadcaster on HBO, where he had some of the most great
calls and just he just gave off such a degree of like just love for
the sport and just happiness giddiness when he would see a good fight, but
also was honest if he saw a shit fight or somebody did and did not
approach things the right way, he had no problem of speaking his piece about
that. And I mean he's known obviously for the three biggest names that he
trained. That's Lennix Lewis, Thomas Hearns and Vladimir Klitschkow, three all time
greats, you know, two heavyweight champions, and obviously Tommy Earns part of
the Four Kings. But I went and I looked up what I'd written about
him when he passed, because I just I knew I had made this list.
So besides the guys at the CRONC, which included like Hilmer, Kinty
and other fighters that came out of that stable, obvious Hearns was part of
that guys that he trained at one time or another who were well known.
This is just a few of them, because he trained dozens of guys in
no particular order, Mike McCallum, Jimmy Paul, Michael Moore, Dennis Andres
Milton, McCrory, Dwayne Thomas, Gerald McClellan, Evander Holyfield, Oliver McCall,
john, David Jackson, Julio Sezar Chavez, Oscar de la Hoya,
Prince Nasim Hahmed, Jermaine Taylor, Chad Dawson, Miguel Coto, and Canine
Bundridge, all who were guys at one world titles at one time or another.
That's just that is beyond and I think, as you were rattling that
off, I never knew about Chavez, I never knew about Prince Nasim Hamed
and some of those other names because you just think of him synonymously with the
Kronk fighters, with Hearns and then with the heavyweights. But it's amazing.
Here's what makes him so great. Among other things, he had the ability
to take a fighter from literally the beginning like a Hearns and developed him.
He was with a lot of guys at the very beginning, empty a lot
of these Crownk guys and build them from day one to champions. He also
became the ultimate hired gun where if a guy needed a new voice or something
to help change things around or a new direction, where he could come in
with a fighter that was already very experienced and kind of remold them. I
mean, the job he did with Klitchkow took him from being a guy who
had been you know, had gotten knocked out. Their first fight together,
he got knocked out by Layman Brewster. Matter of fact, today also Sunday
is the anniversary of the rematch when he knocked out Brewster to retain the heavyweight
with the manual in this quarner. But he lost that first fight with Manny
in Las Vegas against Brewster, they didn't separate, and from then on he
was a pivotal part of helping Vladimir to what became his historic second title reign
with the you know a million you know, stayed on top for like a
decade. Emmanuel with Glitchkow will be the first one to tell you that he
would never be in that position if it wasn't for Emmanuel story, because he
helped them both in terms of his game offensively and defensively, but more importantly
the mentality. Emmanuel, as great of a trainer as he was, was
the ultimate psychologist. I have told this story before, I will tell him
briefly once again. The night before Lennox Lewis had his rematch with Hassin Rockman,
which he was coming off a very devastating knockout loss that cost him the
heavyweight title. A lot of people thought that Lennox was awfully fragile mentally going
into that rematch. And I sat with Emmanuel Stewart at a little lounge at
the Mandolin day was myself and maybe three or four other reporters, and you
know, just shooting the shit. This was not like for interviews. We
were just hanging out night before the fight, and Emmanuel says, I gotta
go, guys, I gotta go up, but I gotta see my champion
and I got to get his head right. And Lennox Lewis came out and
I don't know what Emmanuel said to him, but he had Lenox in great
shape mentally and physically. And Lennox Lewis came out the next night and absolutely
fucking flat and Rockman in the center of the ring, right where the Don
King logo crown was what it looked like from the overhead picture that Rockman's wearing
the Don King crown. But that's the kind of guy Emanuel was have hing
in great shape him with the game plan, have the motivation, speak to
them psychologically beforehand, and then when you're in the ring, have no fear
to tell them what you think. I know, think about Lennox Lewis in
the Mike Tyson bite. He's beating the shit and the Mangos getting pissed because
han't knock him out. You know, he's still in there throwing that shit,
and now've turn that shit over and get this motherfucker out of here.
He's still dangerous. He was screaming at him and he's winning every single round.
When Klitschko was going the distance, it looked like with Eddie Chambers and
they're into the eleventh round in Vladimir spot Oh dominating win, but it's not
exciting anybody. He's like, we don't need another shit decision. We don't
need to go twelve rounds with this man. Get this. You know.
I don't know if he said get him out of here and use this to
the F word, but he basically dressed him down. And Vladimir, you
see on the video, he's like, okay, okay, okay, leave
me alone. And he went out there and we're like fifteen seconds off in
the fight. He fucking flatten Chambers Emmanuel had that way about him sure where
he could give you the tough love and also give you the love love,
and I love the Manuel Stewart would have been eighty on July seventh, Man,
what a show. Tons on the recaps, Boots in this week this
week for the ib F welterweight title. You heard from him on the pod
News and Nostalgia. Make sure you're following, make sure you're subscribing. Are
we ready to have a good week? We ready to rock on? I
hear in the hot, hot summer of July, Brother Rafaeld, we gave
him a ton on the Fight Freaks for night recap. I'll do us a
favorite. Leave a freakin review? Please, yes, rate us review us
if you enjoy this, take ten seconds give us a five star review.
Tell them how wonderful Rayfield is, especially if you enjoy the content with the
fighters and and are somewhat capable hosts. Yes, and by the way,
I will applaud and give top billing to whatever a mission or organization deletes a
judge as a championship judge. In response to some of this, can we
do that once to make things know? All right? With that? Brother
Rayfield, have a good week, all good, oh good, you have
a good recall. So there is Dan Rayfield. I'm merely TJ Reeves.
Follow, Subscribe, Apple Spreaker, Spotify to this podcast speeds you've been hearing
the Fight Preaching Night Recap podcast