The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. Now
here is your host? DJ leaves? Well, well, well, we
have wrapped up the fourth of July holiday as we've released this podcast. It's
still a long holiday weekend for many, and we got lots and lots and
lots of fights. Hello and welcome back in in a brand new month with
the Big Fight Weekend Preview podcast. I am the somewhat confident host TJ.
Reeves. I have returned from my mini vacation. Thank god. We have
survived with the twins turning sixteen. We did a little beach bak over in
the East coast of Florida. Survived there, have gotten back to the West
coast of Florida. Doesn't matter where I am. It also doesn't matter where
Dan Rayfield is. It only matters. Do you hear us on the pod
going into the weekend, Dan hanging out his home in northern Virginia holding things
down at the time you and I are taping, we should just pull the
curtain back. We have not consumed fully all the food on for the July
in the offing for me is still the big in laws shindig where they will
count the calories, I think with a calculator. With what we're gonna do
with hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans. I can't remember, you're not
we don't do that here in northern Virginia. I don't know about your family,
We're not doing that. Okay, the podcast I went, so I
got there there swimming in the pool. Yeah, and we'll have some nice
grilled steaks later for dinner. That's the bood for you. But I mean
we're talking full on gorge with the You're not a potato salad guy, but
they have like macaroni salad going, potato salad going, and then even apple
pie and ice cream afterwards, because that's what America's independence is all about.
Gorging, gorging with food. On July fourth, so happy birthday of the
US of A. We're glad that you found us here on the preview pod.
Tons to preview here. As we head into the weekend world Championship fights
and then compelling names and fight cards that are really all over the place.
Shakur Stevenson, who you heard from earlier in the week on the podcast,
including its own standalone podcast, is in action in Newark, New Jersey.
We've We've got the two UFC guys headlining in Anaheim. Rayfield's all over.
We got to talk about Nate Diaz and George masbat All. We got to
talk Nate ds George mass of the audience. It's on the rundown. It's
on the rundown there at this I didn't say we have to do it all.
I put it as a matter of this one of the main It's okay.
So we got that tight under card and we're going to that's all the
way out in Anaheim. I'm more intrigued by Daniel Jacobs and Shane Mosley,
which we've talked a little bit about. Shane Mayles a junior, so that's
on the undercard. We have that. But wait, there's more. We've
got a Golden Boys show headlined by William Zapeta, who's very near to getting
a world title shot. It looks like top lightweight contender. He's in action
on the Golden Boy Dezonne main event. But wait, there's still more because
we've got a Matchroom Boxing de Zone show in London with the heavyweights. Rayfield's
looking for his slobber knocker, which Janni Fisher and Alan Badge. But wait,
there's even more. There's a Sunday Japanese world title unification fight in the
what do you prefer junior bannamweight super flyweight? What do you prefer kaz Ioca
Fernando Martinez for unification in the junior bannamweight super flyweight division. We've got fight
cards all over the globe, so can we get to it please. I
don't know where to even begin besides the leftover potato salads and and acids.
All right, so you know what, Let's begin with the ESPN Top rank
show. That is the most prominent one. It is Shakur Stevenson, it
is Artem Harttunian. It is Stevenson at lightweight one hundred and thirty five pounds
making the first defense of his WBC title. Let's begin with that card right
now in the preview mode. My friend, all right, give me some
thoughts on this and the last time, I mean Shakur had a shoulder injury
didn't look great. Is it the final fight as you talked with him about
in his top ranked is is he gonna renew? Is he gonna go somewhere
else? As a promotional free agent. There's a lot here involved as a
subplot. Yeah, I mean well, first of all, yes, it
is his final fight of his promotional contract. He has been offered a extension
that he and his team rejected from Top Rank. That goes back I think
a couple of months ago. But listen, both sides. They're professionals.
Top Rank is a professional company. They is not their first rodio with a
contract coming up a renewal. When you talk about sch course team, it's
in his team. His manager, James Prince, is a very experienced manager,
has worked with lots of top guys and has got a long standing relationship
with Top Rank. They're pro. So they're doing this event. And as
Bob Aramess stated and is sort of what he said in the past about other
fighters, is our contract is up. We've fulfilled our obligation. Chaquor is
going to fulfill his obligation with this fight. And uh, you know,
by all means, if you can go get a better deal elsewhere, shop
yourself around, take it. You know, no hard feelings, no animosity
if you if you can't or you're not interested, or whatever the case may
be, you know, we still want you, we still love you,
We'll still do business with you. Come back to us, and we'll see
if we can get it done. I mean, it's kind of like,
I'm not going to draw the exact comparison because it's it's a little bit different.
But you know, Aaron Judge becomes a free agent from the Yankees at
the end of last season, and he goes and he shops around, and
he gets a big offer from the Giants, and at the end of the
day he has a conversation with the ownership of the Yankees and they basically say,
do you want to be with us? And they made him a huge
offer and he stayed. I mean, and so yes, it was partly
legacy, partly money obviously. But Shakor's in a situation where, you know,
it's the first time in his professional career since he came into the pros
after the Olympic silver medal, that he's got an opportunity to become a free
agent and he's going to take his opportunity to do that. He's got you
know, Eddie Hern's been talking about him and and top ranks. Still obviously
he's interested. There's a there's a big wide world out there. We'll see
what the what the office are. But in the meantime, you know,
he can't let that be a distraction because he does have a title defense that
he's going into. It's in his hometown of Newark against Hartytunian, who was
not a big name or a top top guy, but he's a reputable fighter.
He was in a metalist for Germany, a bronze medal winner in the
same Olympics where Shaquur won his silver, much lower in weight in the twenty
sixteen Games. And you know, if you know hardytuny In, you're probably
only knowing because of the fact that his last fight, which was a year
ago, fifty one weeks ago when he gets in the ring on Saturday,
was his only loss and is really the only fight that most people that have
ever heard of him ever have seen. He gave a very good effort,
lost a very close decision to Frank Martin, which was the fight that the
Martins prior fight to when he got the fight with Tank Davis that he lost
a couple weeks ago. In the twelfth round, Hardtunyan took a knee after
taking some punishment, and so he's getting this opportunity against her court. Yeah,
it's not a big name fight, but she of course, seems to
respect him. He remembered him from the amateur ranks and seeing him in the
Olympics and that sort of stuff. But look, you mentioned about the last
fight that that Chaquur had with the Edwin de los Santos. Fight horrible,
horrible fight. Horrible fight mostly Steve, mostly the fault of del Santos.
But Chakor was not at his best either, as he discussed. I mean,
he's you know, he did have a bona fide injury and it just
you know, was an ugly, ugly fight, and so he I think
he's stung by the massive criticism from that fight. You combine that with the
impending for agency. You need to look good. This fight is absolutely I
mean, most of the time it's you know, the old saying is win
and look good the next time. But this fight, in my opinion,
and you know, somebody wants to disagree, that's fine. I'm for you
know, mean, you got to get to win, that's obviously the most
important thing. But if there was ever a time to don't think about,
you know, win and look good next time, it's win and look good
this time, because a you want to erase that stink of that last fight
against Delo Santos out of your mind, any other promoters that might be interested
in you in their mind, the fans that you want to support you,
the press that you want to cover you, et cetera. Win and look
good this time, because not only will our race that putrid U fight against
de los Sandos and when I you know, and I was there, we've
seen bad fights, CJ. That was a bad fight to a different level
of bad fight. Is the point right for guy? And again I don't
work for his promotional arm or I'm not in his camp. But he was
also injured and he said that after the fight, was it the left arm,
I can't even keep it straight where he couldn't throw the left and he
basically for the whole fight didn't or from like the third round on didn't throw
the left. I think that was the case. He basically just boxed or
maybe he couldn't throw the right and he kept just using the left and kept
put the more left. So but you got to look good. I'm with
you. If you're in the hole fans, you got to get it done.
But it's more than just look good because of the stink of the last
fight. Is because you are making a big deal about your free agency.
Now he's the one that's been talking about it. If he didn't talk about
it, you know, it might get mentioned and whatever. It wouldn't become
like the theme of the of the week. If there's been more said and
written about his free agency, that's about to be on him than his opponent
and the fight. So besides erasing the last performance, you need to look
good because you don't want to go into free agency coming off of well,
potentially a loss number one that would be kind of disastrous number one, but
more importantly, perhaps two terrible fights or something that's not inspiring, let's say,
because you're trying to get a future promoter, whether it's top rank and
a renewal of a new deal, or it's Eddie Herner or somebody else that
may come along to pony up and make you a lot of guarantees and promises
and that sort of thing. So you know, he's put some pressure on
himself, so now it's time to see if he can deliver and be the
fighter that we all know. He's got that talent. This is not about
Schaquur Stevenson's talent. He's never going to be a big knockout puncher, but
you can still be a dazzling fighter and not be a knockout puncher. So,
as we discussed in the Ta Femo fight last week, just because you
don'tet a knockout doesn't mean that it's like a disaster at the end of the
world. It's a matter of can you make it somewhat crowd pleasing and do
your job, take care of business erasist think at the last fight, put
yourself in a good position in your free agency. Obviously, you know Hardytuningho
is a good fighter himself. He's gonna have something to say about that.
So that's the intrigue of that fight, all right. So that's the main
event. Now interesting on this card. There are some names on this card
and there's another world title fight, and that is Oshaki Foster fighting Robinson Consissau.
That is for Foster's Junior lightweight championship, and he's he's quite the story.
We've talked about him a bunch. We previewed his fights and handicapped as
well on the bet Us show that we'll be doing on Friday at one Eastern
time. In this case, again, here's another opportunity for him on the
ESPN platform here and on Top Rank to showcase himself. I'm intrigued by this.
I may be more intrigued by this fight than the than the main event
here to see what Stevenson looks like. Because KANSASAO has had some interesting fights
with Oscar Valdez, with the Manuel Navarate. Let's see what this looks like
in the code feature as well. And shaquur So I mean for we'll talk
about contests out for a minute first before I get to to oh Jackie Foster.
Constau was an Olympic gold medalist, a three time Olympian, a national
hero in Brazil, been a good quality contender for a number of years.
He is doing something that is very rare in boxing that will take place on
Saturday. He is a fighter who is getting a fourth opportunity to fight for
a world title. That doesn't happen too often. He lost to Oscar Valdez.
There was some controversy because of the positive drug test that Oscar turned in
and an out of competition thing where the rules of the one organization did not
jibe with the commission rules. Blah blah blah. We'll have to deltigate that
again. But the bottom line was the fight was allowed to go forward,
but he did lose the fight. Now you take a look at what happened
in another title fight. He fought against Shaquur Stevenson in a world championship fight,
and that was the fight that was a couple of fights after he lost
to Valdez. That was the fight where Shakur at that time was the unified
champion. He had beaten Valdez, so he went into the fight Shakur as
the BC in the WBO champion, but he got stripped of the titles at
the way in because he didn't make the weight. So some would say he
had an unfair advantage and consis out lost. Now, I don't think that
really made a difference in that particular fight because Schakor just completely shut him down
one a very easy decision. So they bring him back. He wins a
fight against just a regular He wasn't even a win. Actually he got a
no contest because of some you know, I think it was a head butt
or something along those lines are an injury. But then he got another opportunity
against Emmanuel Navaratte, like you mentioned, that took place in November. That
was on the undercard on the night that Cha course stunk it out with Valdette
with de los Santos right in that fight was a freaking tremendous battle. It
was an absolute freaking slugfest with him and Navarrete. He got knocked down twice
and he ended up getting a draw in the fight. So that was the
third opportunity for a title. So on that fight, Navarette retained his one
hundred and thirty pound title, and now he's two and one in world title
fights again. He comes back in a fight in April and he gets a
win, and now he set up to fight O Shaki Foss. So you
know, fourth time, you know, if you don't get it done time,
it's it it. You know, you never say never. But I
can't off top my head, honestly, I can't really think of a guy
that's gotten five world championship opportunities without having ever won. Right, certainly,
not shortly, not in short certain if I get it out, certainly not
in short order of like two or three years, where you're gonna get a
fourth chance, is what you're saying after losing four times so constant now like
this is really like shit, or get off the pot to you know on
Saturday, you've got to tick care of business or you know you're gonna.
I just don't see how you can reasonably put him in another fight. I
mean, I'm all for guys getting I'm getting a second opportunity and you know,
not discarding a guy off a loss and things along those lines. But
you know, four times, okay, it's now. It's not like just
an it's not a one off. It's like a trend. You're not getting
the job now. In terms of o Shaki Foster, uh, you know,
we all go back to last year and end of twenty twenty three,
had that incredible fight against Eduardo Rocky Hernandez. You retain the title in that
just amazing fight where he stopped him in the last round. Comes off that
fight, I was a free agent going into the Hernandez fight. Signs with
Top gets the main event at the Madison Square Garden Theater in February against Abraham
Nova. He put on a pretty good fight. He dropped Nova in the
twelfth round. He won the decision, but it was a split decision,
and Oshaki did not look that great. I mean he admits that, you
know, but again not to be making excuses, but the reality was he
was hampered by a foot injury and then in the fight he hurt his biceps.
So he still got the job done in that but it wasn't scintillating.
It wasn't maybe what everybody expected. That's fair, but he still won.
So now he's coming to this fight. He's on the undercart of Chakor against
Consissau, a very quality, solid opponent, and we'll see if he can
shine. He talked about, you know, in the build up this week
about yeah, you know, I was dinged up with my injuries, but
I got through it, and you know, now I'm healthy and I'm gonna
put on a much better show against Consissau and I'm gonna, you know,
make a statement. So we'll see if he can do it. But it's
a good matchup and obviously, if sha Cour Stephenson stays with top rank,
this a logical fight, you know, not necessarily next, but at some
point will be Oshaki Foster against the course Temens because it's not unusual for the
jewor lightweight champion to go up and fight in the lightweight division. That would
be a very normal thing. We'll see if he can make that case could
be make himself if he puts himself in position to like at least put him
on the short list for that type of man. I got a much more
highly entertaining matchmaking fight that I want to make, and we're going to talk
about it here in a little bit and just a couple of couple of previews.
We're going to talk about the fight I want to see if everything works
out, we'll find out what all. Right, rest of the Top Rank
show that also has Keyshawn Davis back in action and a very entertaining a young
lightweight. Speaking of lightweights, and Abdullah Mason, you're looking forward to both
of these guys on the undercard. Right in Newark. So on July fourth
weekend, there's not a lot of sports going on. There's no you know,
there's MLB, but besides that, what else has happened. There's no
big other events in the evening. So really, for the first time in
a while, what Top Rank in the ESPN have done is they've carved out
a much longer window on the main network. Now we as diehards, we
can watch everything on ESPN Plus and obviously whatever's on the network, or just
stay on the SPN Plus like I often do in any event. For this
particular card, they're doing four fights on the main card on the main network.
They just added they it's always been Chaquor, Oshaki, Foster, and
Kishan. You know, in one of those fights, he's obviously a tremendous
prospect up in comor ten and oh, not taking on a big name,
but a guy with a great record in Miguel Midueno who's like thirty one and
two, a lot of experience, and Keishaan is you know, top rank,
and lots of people in boxing think he's going to become the next you
know, potential pound for pound guy, next you know, lightweight title challenger,
slash champion, and we'll see how he continues to develop. And he's
fought on Shaquor's cards in the past. They're very close to each other.
They like fighting, you you know, Shakur likes having him on his shows
and Kishan likes being on his shows. So that that's that fight. So
it's the it's the continuing development of Kishan, which I'm interested in because he
made the point in I think the last fight. Remember he took that suspension
at the end of twenty twenty three because he tested positive from marijuana, and
he came to the point where he admitted like marijuana was maybe becoming a little
bit of a problem in his life. He vowed that he was going to
give it up and he wasn't gonna smoke anymore. After he had sort of
said I'm still going to smoke. And it was very defiant, you know,
because even though maybe legal in terms of a normal person recreationally doing it,
it's still on the books as against the rules for most athletic commissions.
So, okay, fine, if you're going to smoke, you know,
you're fine to do it. If you're just a civilian, let's call it.
But if you're going to be a professional boxer and get caught with it
in your system, you know, you're just doing your own self of dis
service. So he got himself, I guess no longer doing that, so
good for him. But here's the thing. After he took that suspension,
he came back and he thought Jose Padraza, which was by far and away
the biggest step up of his entire career, and even though padraz had taken
some losses, he never gotten just destroyed. And Keisha went out there and
just knocked him out in the sixth round. That was a hugely impressive performance.
So this will be his second fight since he is supposedly stopped smoking weed,
and we'll see if he can put on another outstanding performance like that and
continue, you know, marching up the ladder, because it's not going to
be too long. Would think before he's in position to get some type of
bigger fight, even with just going into his eleventh fight. Now, what
they did was in the last few days they added the fourth fight to the
broadcast Abdullah Mason, who was a lightweight prospect who's only eighteen years old or
no, I take them back twenty years old, but a term pro I
think when he was like nineteen or eighteen, just a great, great prospect.
Looks like he's got all the tools in the world from Toledo, I
take them back from Cleveland, Ohio, and just every time out he's impressive.
And so they opened up the spot for that opening fight on the broadcast
for him to be in the main broadcast or he's taking on the veteran Luis
Lebron from Puerto Rico, who was a very sturdy, you know guy,
experienced guy, and they're putting him into that kind of fight. Now.
The thing about Lebron is he's got five losses, but he has never been
stopped in his career. It definitely looks like, at least on paper,
the most challenging opponent that Abdullah Mason has had. But I think the thing
about it is a lot of people who don't necessarily making a point to like
watch those early undercard fights on ESPN and the perliminters on ESPN plus, maybe
don't really know about Abdullah Mason. Maybe they've heard the name, maybe they
might have read a little bit about him, maye, hey've seen a clip
of a knockout on you know, they've shown some highlights occasionally. But now
the wider audience will get a chance to see this kid in action for the
full fight and really maybe try to see what he's all about. And he's
a very explosive, very talented young man and you know, one of the
many excellent prospects in the top rank stable. But he's got a chance now
in front of a big audience to shine on the main card. So I'm
definitely looking forward to seeing that, not so much that it's like the greatest
fight you ever saw in terms of the matchup, because it's like it's a
stepping stone type of fight. But he's a guy that you're gonna that a
year and a half, two years from now, is going to be,
you know, in serious position at a very young and curious because I can't
remember, but you always rattle these things off. Where do you have Abdullah
Mason right now? Off the twenty twenty three prospect list. He's a guy
that you've been talking to, You've talked about him several times or three for
sure, I can recall. I don't remember where I had him ranked specifically,
but he one hundred percent. I did the top fifteen at the end
of twenty twenty three, and he was in that. He was on that
list, you know, in the you know, within the I don't know
if he was top ten, but he was certainly high up there. But
without questioning, he made that list, and he'll make that list again this
year unless something, you know, go dramatically wrong and it loses. And
the funny thing is when I was looking at his record, when I was
just writing a little thing about him, I realized I remembered that because I
met the kid and talked to him and he's also got some brothers at box
as amateurs. I was at his professional debut. He turned pro on the
night that their great fight took place in Las Vegas between MICHAELA. Mayer and
Hamadusche for their unification. And the reason I was there because it was the
Friday night, but the next night was a Canelo Alvarez fight. So I
was in Vegas and I went to the Top rank show and got there just
in time to see his professional debut. And he was very impressive that night,
and he has impressed fight in and fight out since. And to be
only twenty years old and already thirteen and oh, you know, that's pretty
impressive. So that is the Top Rank ESPN show. And again we look
forward to talking more about the Stevenson main event and the Foster co feature on
the bet US show coming at one Eastern time. We'll handicap those fights and
as I mentioned, we're going to rifle through these. There's more. Let's
go all the way to Anaheim, California. What will be on fan Meo
pay per view. Two former UFC champions and two of the biggest names in
UFC are boxing each other in the main event in the headlining fight Nate Diz
and George Masbadal. I again, I say I am more interested in the
co feature fight, but Diaz and Masbadal obviously have some crossover appeal. Just
from my standpoint, these are guys that are trying to get paid more that
aren't in Dana White stable anymore with UFC. They're going to try it.
We saw Nate Diaz in the ring with Jake Paul. He was okay as
a boxer. Paul schooled him for a lot of the fight that was last
August, virtually a year ago. All right, set it in a motion
a little more, and then I want to get to Daniel Jacobs and Shane
Mosley Junior. Go ahead, yeah, I mean listen, if you're first
of all, this is I don't take every fight is a serious fight,
but I don't take this fight serious from the standpoint like it's going to have
an impact on you know, your rankings, world title opportunities, that sort
of thing. It is a non traditional matchup within boxing, but there is
a segment of combat fans. Certainly Nasbadal and ds have big fan bases on
their own and maybe drawn to this event based on that because they're MMA fans,
and so what the pokes at Fanio did. And by the way,
they've made this available all over the place, besides the Faniel paper U it's
on his own paper, UITs on I think UFC Fight Pass. You can
buy it on regular you know, your regular Cabler satellite anyway. And the
thing I like about also is compared to all these pay per views, they
didn't. I mean, it's forty nine to ninety nine, but it ain't
sixty nine ninety nine or seventy nine ninety nine or some crazy price like they've
made some of these other events. There is they hope that they're appealing to
the UFC fans, because good luck at forty nine to ninety nine getting a
lot of people to carry. Maybe some will, but good luck to the
back to the fight though. The thing is, and I don't follow UFC,
you know that. I mean, I watch a little bit, but
I had to like look up when I wrote a story about when the fight
was me because I wanted to jog my memory. So they fought in UFC
two forty four in Madison Square Garden. This is at the end of twenty
nineteen, and they did like the trophy belt that they developed, the BMF
belt, the Baddest motherfucker. I mean, it wasn't a real title,
but that's what it was for. And so it was a hugely hyped up
event, big, big, big deal, two badasses within UFC, and
in the end it was Masvidal who got a third round TKO, and that
was because of Nate Diaz suffered a cut over his eye, so he didn't
lay him out, he didn't, you know, submit him or he didn't
he didn't choke him out, yeah right, or he didn't tap him out
because he had his leg in a modified boss and crab and about to snap
it in half. These are the things they allow in UFC, which Rayphiel
loves those factors, including in professional wrestling. But I digress, right,
So they come into this fight to do a real boxing match that's an authentic
fight, not an nex shibition. A ten round light heavyweight boxing match,
no, you know, official fighting round. Everything is the same as a
normal boxing match, the same way as we were watching, you know,
pick your top contenders in the light heavyweight division. They're just not as experience
in boxing. Nate Diez is oh to one officially as a pro boxer,
with the one loss being by decision to Jake Paul where he you know,
was competitive, and Masvidal is one in oh in boxing, had had a
boxing match I guess a number of years ago that he won. So they're
very novice to the boxing game in terms of this fight, and that's the
main event. There are two big names, and so what they did was
besides the fact that you figure you're gonna draw in a m M A crowd,
which is what they're catering towards, in the terms of the main event,
they have put on uh uh, a kind of a quasi like a
good interesting undercard for a variety of reasons. One the cod feature is you'll
talk about Daniel Jacobs, who is a former two time middleweight title holder,
a very well known fighter, had big fights. Chavez Junior obviously had the
big, big fights again Canelo and Glovekin lost clean to Canelo, but it
was competitive, and there are those that thought that he'd beat TRIPLEG that night
when they were meeting to unify the titles. You know, and he's also
got a very known story because he got tons of attention from the fact that
he overcame cancer a guy who was you know, on on his literally like
on his deathbed. Was not only able to come back. It's one thing
that survived the cancer. He came back in box again, and he didn't
just come back in box again. He came back in box again at the
highest level and was involved in huge fights. So he's been off about two
years plus. His last fight though it's not like he came he retired and
he was broken down and beat up. He fought in the UK against John
Ryder. In his last fight, there was a WBA super middleweight eliminator.
He lost a very controversial decision in that fight. Had that fight been in
the United States, I dare say he would have got the decision that night.
Didn't happen. He you know, they looked for other fights, didn't
really work out. They couldn't find the right event. Anyway, he's been
wanting to come back and this this event came up and and the folks at
Faniel that were putting on this undercard, we're looking to do a like a
legitimate, solid, you know, good undercard of a boxing fight, and
they've done that. Because Daniel Jacobs has a well known name. I'm interested
to see how he looks after his left I've always liked Daniel good dude and
a heck of a fighter, and he's finding Shane Moseley Junior, who has
sort of come up the hard way. He's got the great name, which
is what got him in the door. But when you're in the door,
you got to do something with that. So he's got the great name in
terms of being the son of a Hall of Famer and Shane Moseley Sr.
And uh. And he's kind of, you know, come along in his
career where you know he's lost some he's won something. But the thing about
him, when I first saw Shane Moseley Junior fight, I'm like, this
dude cannot fight at all. He was terrible and toad the kid's credit.
I definitely give him credit. He has worked hard and he has made something
of himself. Now, is he gonna be a world champion? I mean,
I guess it's still conceivable, But he's gotten better. He's taken some
losses, but he's got four losses on the record. He's got four.
He won a couple of fights since his fourth loss. He's won four fights
in a row. YEA. And when he did lose his last fight to
Jason Quigley. He was a majority decision, was very close and he didn't
get the hand raised. But he has gotten better. He did beat Rosatto
for what that's worth. He beat Demetrius Ballard, which you know was a
solid win for him who only had one loss going into that fight. And
so he's taking a risk. I mean it's kind of a calculated gamble,
like he's going in with a guy that's, you know, coming off of
a two plus year layoff, that's you know, into his late thirties.
So if you're not going to do this type of fight, now, what
are you waiting for? So Shane Shane Sr. Who hasn't always been in
his son's corner, is with him for this fight, been talking him up,
and I mean, can you I guess he called a crossroads fight,
right. You got one guy see if he can make another run in Jacobs
who's been at the championship level. You got another guy in Mosley that's looking
to put a big name on his record to see if he can you know,
boost his career to the next level. So as a co feature on
a fight with that's kind of a non traditional main event, but have combatants
who are very famous and well known, Like, I think this is a
good even interesting matchup. And then in terms of the rest of the card
that they're putting on, obviously some of this, you know is uh,
you know, for hype and all that kind of business. So you got
a motto Vargas, who is the the the one of the fighting sons of
Fernando Vargas taken on the Sean Garcia, who is the brother of Ryan Garcia.
So that's sort of like they've you know, they've been talking ship with
each other. You know, I'm not sure either guy is going anywhere necessarily,
but uh, you know, we'll see what they can do in that
fight. I mean, a model Vargas has got a lot more experienced professionally
than Sean Garcia is ten and er. Uh anyway, it's it's it's it's
a lightweight fight. Garcia is seven oh to one, but is like I've
watched him fight, he's he's really I mean, I don't I'm not trying
to insult the kid, but he's basically been just living on his brother's coattails.
Whereas a motto is you know, trying to make a real go of
it. I mean, I don't. I don't really, I've not taken
Sean Garcia as like seriously dedicated to boxing compared to the Vargas. Uh.
You know, the brothers are fighting with their father, so that's that's one
of the fights. And then you know, they got Anthony Pettis, who
was a former UFC guy who actually gave Roy Jones. You know, I
guess we'll be finally Roy Jones's final professional fight, So I guess. You
know, they got six fights on the pay per view, a little bit
for everybody. Good luck, good luck with the pay per view. We'll
see what happens with it. And again we'll handicap the Jacobs Mosley fight a
little further on the bet Us show. And I get it that there will
be the crossover MMA UFC fans, it'll be interested in this. How many
of them are interested that is? That remains to be seen in that one.
But we did we did it. It's justice there and gave it a
preview. All right, I'm going to impress you here. You always like
my geography about thirty miles to the northeast of Anaheim. In my la geography,
you go up off the six to zero five and that's Ontario, California,
and that's where the Golden Boy main event is with top ranked lightweight continu
contender Williams Zapeta back in action. No Golden Boy, bro Golden Boy,
Golden Yeah, whatever I said, Golden Boy dis own main event. And
in this case, Zapaida, as you have made mention of a couple of
times, is not just top ranked in one of the rankings, he's top
ranked in all of them at lightweight right now. So, uh, call
me crazy. But if Shakour connects the dots here, if Shakur wins and
Shakur wants to fight a name with another promotion, here is that name the
number one contender, call me crazy again. And Zepaida is an entertaining fighter,
a knockout fighter. Out a little more on this main event and then
maybe is this setting something up for the fall or the winter here with Shaquur
Stevenson depending, well, I mean, I think you're getting way far ahead
of yourself because number one, that the the Chaquure Stevenson, the type of
fighter he is, the defense and the slickness is you know, in the
immortal words of Duke from Rocky Too, he's all wrong for his baby.
Uh, that's a hard fight for Zepeida with the skills. Now Zepeida throws
a billion punches and maybe he connects. What point I'm making here is this,
there's no that is not by any means like something that's on paper that
they're talking about. Now, Dale Hoya has been you know, edging or
egging on court to to to look for that fight. But here's the point.
Oscar de lay as a fighter and Williams of paid it where if he
wins, he maintains a very rare feat. As we just said, he
is ranked number one by all four major organizations. So you want to talk
about something more rare than a than a title, than a fighter getting say
the fourth title shot or almost as rare unusual is a guy being number one
across the board in all four organizations. So he don't have to fightha course,
Stevenson, somebody's gonna make him a mandatory in order to fight, But
it's going to be an opportunity for him to sort of pick and choose what
direction he wants to go in in terms of fighting for a world title.
But he's got to contend with the Giovanni Carbrera first who's only got the one
loss, although it's it's uh the one loss. You and I were there,
that was heught he lost uh to a pitbull cruise. On the other
card, when Errol Spence had the fight against Terrence Crawford last July, last
July, twelve months ago. Yeah, so Cabrera. Cabrera has come back
and won one fight since then. But there's a whole different kettle of fish,
so to speak, going from fighting your last fight against Ricardo to Williams
Zapeta, who, as I said, hard punching southpaw, throws a billion
punches. His offense is his defense because he's so busy and he's so relentless,
and he's such a good puncher that he does not give opponents a chance
to breathe. You want to ask Max to Hughes about that, who got
beaten down in four rounds by him back in March. I mean, that's
just the typical kind of Zapeta performance. So, you know, good luck
to Giovanni Cabrera. I think this would be a humongous upset. The levels
are off the charts different in my opinion. I don't know if it's going
to be early or late but I think that williams Apeida is going to deliver
another monumental beatdown to Giovanna Cabrera. I mean again, this does not seem
complicated to me. I mean that that's a fight that would be a lot
of fun if it were to happen. I will go ahead and say this.
I didn't say this in the first thirty five minutes or so of the
podcast. Shaquur Stevenson's match up with with Della Santos was a garbage matchup on
paper to begin with, and this one's not much more above of garbage matchup.
What that tells me, TJ, no offenses. You didn't know anything
about Edwin Dave Los Sanders going to the fight. It's just it's just a
guy, and it's not just a guy. Keep in mind that your cor
was supposed to fight Frank Martin, whose team accepted the fight and then pulled
out right. But it's just a guy they hold on. Can I finish
the point? This guy's the number one contender in all the organizations. He
knocks people out. It's compelling. He's got a West Coast following. Stevenson's
been on ESPN enough times where he's got a national following along with fight fans.
That's a fight that is a compelling fight. Okay, you're missing,
you're you're we're crossing like ships in the night. I'm not anti the fight.
I like the fight. I'd like to see the fight. What I'm
saying to is, yes, it's be interesting for everybody to be involved in
and to watch, but it's not by any means a fada complete because he's
gonna have opportunities in other organizations. Now, if if Dozipaida was only the
mandatory or the number one he's he's not gonna fight. He's not gonna fight
Gervonte Davis and Lomachenko because they're going to fight each other to have two of
the other belt. Okay, so somebody could make an interim title because that's
what they do. Unfortunately, so that's a possibility. He could absolutely get
a chance to fight Barentchik, which might be the easiest route to a world
title. Even if it's not nothing for me or anybody else, it does
a lot as though it gets him paid and it gets him a title.
Are you telling me that a fight with Baranchik is gonna pays the pay to
more than a fight with Chaqueur Stevenson now on again. What I'm saying is,
if you're strategic, you get a title, you make a good purse
for the title fight, and now you got a title and it gets you
much much more money when you go into a unification. Don't you think that
Chakor versus versus the paida as a unification is way bigger than it. But
now we're arguing semantics. It's not a true unification if you're the interim whatever
and somebody else. No, no, no, no no. If you
fight Barent, yeah, if you would beat if you were to beat him,
if you fight for Rancheck, you're the WBO champion, and then you're
fighting Chakurt theoretically in a BC unification. So now you get two bites of
the apple. You get the title at the BO, you get a good,
strong purse for the title challenge, and now you're in a much better
stead to unify and negotiate that money as also a fellow champion. You got
to just I mean, I'm just talking about mentality. How about go beat
Shaquure Stevenson and now you're a shot caller at one five. That's a humongous
win. If you get it. But if you win another title and then
you beat Chakor, you're even a bigger shot caller strategic. Maybe you're complicating
something that's fairly simple. Right now. I'm give me a better fight,
Chaqueur Stevenson. Again, we're having a disconnect. I agree, But I
also understand the business a lot better than most people. And the business means
you do something else before Chakor if you can for a title. Now,
if they come and they offer the fight, or Golden Boys signed Shakur and
they can make it, by all means, take the fight. I'm just
making all has a chess that the chessboard would say, you're gonna do something
else first, all right, and have confidence in yourself and then try to
land the big one. Well, we'll see. Let's move on, Let's
see how's it paid. The looks and again, surprising things can happen.
What happens in that fight with Cabrera, it's boxing. We don't know.
We will fight. What happens in the fight with Stevenson if something goes wrong
for him, who knows. Earlier in the day, in London, Johnny
Fisher, Allen the Savage Babbage fighting in a ten round heavyweight main event.
I've seen them at the press conference. You know, the Brits don't care.
The English don't care about July fourth. It's a whole different thing for
them. They had the press conference on July fourth and they were ready to
rumble. It looked like artificial or not at the Averys all right, So
well, yeah they have a hard time with that still two hundred and forty
eight years later. But in any event, Fisher Babbage headlines. It is
Saturday afternoon US time, Saturday night on de Zonne in the UK. So
obviously we'll pay this a little bit of mine too. Even if this is
not for anybody that's going to get a you know, a significant fight off
of this, it's still fairly entertaining here. Dismatchup, we think, oh,
without question, and that's the reason we're even talking about it. That's
why it's headline. The number one. Johnny Fisher has gone, in my
estimation, from a heavyweight suspect frankly that had a large fan base that turned
out to his events where he was fighting on undercards and sold a lot of
tickets. So Mattrim continued to put him on. And not only was he
continuing to sell a ton of tickets, but he was getting better, working,
hard, looking, good strong, good chance. It seems like good
punching power, nice personality, like a fun fighter, no doubt about it.
When he went and fought in Las Vegas in a fight that he had
back in his most recent fight in February when Mattriom did, I think it
was one of the Connor Bend cards that they had in Vegas. Johnny was
on the undercard that night or that afternoon in our time, and he brought
like a couple hundred people that traveled from the UK to see a complete mismatch
and he ended up getting first roundnocout. But they were there to party and
tear their guy on. That's the kind of loyalty that his fans bring.
And he is just in a very exciting, very fun fighter to watch,
big puncher. We'll see as he continues to develop. It's still a long
way to go before he's in the big big time, but he's eleven to
zero ten knockouts. And Babbage is a smaller heavyweight you know had previously,
uh not too long ago, fought down in the bridgerweight division. But if
you watch him, his earlier fights, and he was also on a lot
of matchrom guards just incredible action fights, just balls to the wall from the
get go. I'm telling you right now, I don't know what's gonna happen
in the fight one hundred percent, but I'm i'd be Actually, I have
to look at the numbers. You know, you talk about sometimes you do
the bet Us show and the over under is like you know, right or
some crazy enough. I would take the under no matter what the under is.
On this fight one and a half. You probably would be a little
hesitant, but you're saying take the under. I would take the under.
I think this is a one round fight. I think Johnny Fischer knocks Hi
out in the first round. Really, I mean, very very good.
Possibility, could be advantageous. I'm just looking because we didn't prep this.
Again, you and I don't script per se. You have a rundown,
but we didn't. We didn't prep this. I'm just looking to see what
bet Us has that listed. Even though when Babbage fought for the bridgerweight title
in April of this year against Lucas Rozanski that took place in Poland, he
did get stopped in the first round, by a much smaller guy. And
I mean, granted that's his only loss, but Babbage has been down.
Babbage gets hit with everything. He does not know how to spell defense if
he spotted him the d E F E N S or in the case of
Britain, the d E F E N C C the C. So he
is not known for his defense. Not that Johnny Fisher is mister defense either,
but it's a different level in mine. I will tantalize you. The
over under is three and a half under under under you're saying for Johnny Fisher,
get him out of there under all right? Compelling and again that Saturday
afternoon. But here's the point of DJ no matter what happens in that fight,
because if Babbage lands a great punch, you never know he's got power
too. He's got ten knockouts in this twelve wins, all right, I'm
sorry, eleven knockouts in this twelve wins. These are very fun, exciting
fighters to watch. It's going to be no matter what happens, in my
opinion, absolutely an explosive kind of fight. They're not gonna have to find
each other, bang bang bang can don't be in a bathroom, don't be
at the fridge, be in fun of the screen when this one starts,
is what you're saying, Like, there are probably people that if if this
fight goes as quick as it might go, you know, probably taking pisses
longer than this fight may last. And there's an image for you on a
July fourth show. That's the match Room shows Saturday afternoon in the US,
Saturday, I use the to use the fireworks, you know, make that
analogy with fireworks on July fourth. I don't know, but I don't know
which one you were going for there on that No, I'm talking about with
a Babbage against They don't care about our July fourth fireworks. That's got nothing
to do with them in England. I'm for audience that's listening. Yeah,
there could be some fireworks on Saturday for that one. But wait, there's
more. We're gonna to news, We're going to get to nostalgia. But
we're not done yet. We got a world title unification junior bantamweight battle between
kaz Ioka Kazuto Ioka of Japan Fernando Martinez of Argentina. Thank you, WBA
IBF unified one hundred and fifteen pound titles and This is Sunday morning in the
US, Sunday morning Sunday night in Tokyo. So this makes the preview pod
as well. Raypael always up for some good Japanese title boxing, and this
is this is something that looks like it could be a compelling fight here,
especially this is the division with Bam Rodriguez as well. And here we've got
a unification fight coming the next weekend on Sunday. Get up early or watch
it later on tape delay. You were saying to me though all the problems,
you were saying to me off the pod before we hit the record button.
It's there's not a known way to see this in the United States while
it's going on live right, it's not. There's to my knowledge, there
is no official broadcast anywhere in the United States or in England for that at
are UK. My understanding is if you live in Mexico, where they where
ESPN Knockout brings in a lot of overseas fight is available on ESPN Knockouts,
so some people might have a satellite dish that picks it up or something like
that, but there is you know, it's disappointing. I thought maybe ESPN
Plus might pick it up. Maybe de Zone would pick it up, but
not the case. But as you mentioned well, number one, it's important
because it's a unification fight between you know, two champions, and Ioka is
what have been one of the top champions for a very long time, borderline
hall of famer in my opinion. You know, he's a four division champion,
and you know unification fights mean something, but more so in this case
because the winner of this fight is the guy that Bam Rodriguez was calling out
after his great victory against one Francisco Astrata. Now I know that Estrada is
most likely going to follow through and formally execute his right to the immediate rematch,
So we'll see that fight in the fall. But the winner of Ioka
and Martinez could still be there to fight Bam Rodriguez in next fight after that,
which would be probably in the very beginning of next year, so not
that long away. Bam has even said that traveling to Japan wouldn't be something
they would be opposed to. Remember, Bama is co promoted by Teaking Boxing,
which is mister Honda's company, and going to Japan would not be a
big problem for him, so their stakes in Ioka versus Martinez just on its
own as a unification, but also it does set up the possibility of a
much bigger fight in that weight class. And by the way, BAM's brother,
Joshua Franco, there's a family angle here. I thought he'd beat Ioka
in the first fight. You're not the only siko that watches these fights in
Japan. It was ruled to draw. Then in the rematch, Franco was
significantly overweight, was having mental health issues and basically now is retired from the
sport, and Ioka beat him in the rematch. But now there's even a
family revenge angle too for true Bam potentially down the road here. So I'm
intrigued by this. I don't know a lot obviously about the opponent. I
did look at it before we did, but Martinez on Fernando Martinez, But
go ahead Martinez. For those in the United States, he's actually probably been
seeing more than Ioka because Martinez has been on showtime because when he won the
title uh and then defended the title, it was in a rematch with who
beat him and that or who he beat and that was against gerwy and Kaas,
who is a well known fighter in that way vision that fought on a
ton of American fight cards, and when he was with Top Break on the
ESPN several fights of course, and then showtime. So Martinez is that guy
who's undefeated sixteen and oho with two of the wins against a gosh Ioka is
a bit older than he is. I mean he's thirty six years old Ioka,
So I mean, I'm not sure how much he has left. Necessarily,
Martinez hasn't been real acting. He's like thirty two, and Martinez hasn't
been real active either, So this is interesting going to Japan. Ajoka.
If you take a look at Japanese boxing right now, and it's tremendous right
now, there's a lot of they got a lot of world shame. He's
a lot of really outstanding fighters. To me, obviously in a way is
number one. But then if you're the you know, putting in a way
all the way at the top, if you take a look at that next
group of the champions that they have and where there where they are, let's
say in the hierarchy, guys that could be like on a pound for pound
type of list for example, not just of Japanese fighters, but in the
entire sport. You know, you got Nakatani who's been making a name for
himself, has looked great. But Ioka is right there in that same kind
of in that same sort of area. Like I said, he may be
a little bit older, but he's got a tremendous amount of accomplishment. He's
got the titles in the four wake lesses. He's looking to unify in this
particular matchup. He's a really good fighter, and he's made some great fights
also through the years. I've watched lots of his fights, uh, you
know, whether they've been against big names or just regular fighters. But you
mentioned the two Franco fights. He's got a win over Donni in the Edis,
who was a four division champion from the Philippines, who's one of the
maybe one of the best Filipino fighters ever, you know, once you get
beyond uh you know, Manny Pacaut and maybe one or two other guys.
I mean, he's he's a top notch guy. But I hooka beat.
You know, he beat Tanaka, he beat Rodriguez, he beat uh,
you know a lot of good fighters. So by the way, he also
lost the fight in the Edis, but he avenged that, you know,
a couple of years later. But if you go through his his resume,
he is beaten, while the guys in those smaller weight classes reveco and you
know, on and on Felix Alvarado. It's I mean, maybe not household
names, but if you follow those small weight classes, you know these are
quality victories and see if you can keep it going. And Martinez, you
know, would be a career win. I would consider it a much bigger
win from the vat Ioka than it was the beating on cas All right again,
that is Sunday morning, US time Sunday night with the fourteen hour time
difference in Japan for Ioca Martinez and unification at the junior bantamweight level. Man,
we gave you lots lots on the previews. Let's spend a few minutes
on some news and then some nostalgia before we head off here off of the
fourth of July on the preview end of the weekend. Okay, So the
WBA has made a couple of announcements, not the kind that you want to
make about doping violations for a couple of fighters in the In the case of
a couple of fighters, go ahead, and enlighteness. Well, it was
really only one announcement. The other one I kind of found by accident.
They never actually else anything, so I was rather surprised by it, to
be honest with you, and that's, you know, kind of disappointing.
They wouldn't put it out there. But in any event, the w BA
has stripped Erica Cruz of the women's you know, WBA title that he held
in the junior featherweight division. She had if you remember, she fought on
the undercard of one of the fights in Mexico that that Matroom Boxing put on
back. I forget the executive I guess it was in May and she fought
into a draw with a woman from from a Nazarina Romero from Argentina. They
fought to a draw. But even though they were being tested by IT,
and they weren't being tested by VADA. There's another outfit called Drug Free Sport,
which is not as highly regarded as VADA. They don't do as stringing
a testing. It's not as in my opinion, and I've looked into both
of them, VADA blows it away, but at least it's something, and
in this particular instance, they did catch her with a banned substance, not
only one band substance, TJ. Not only two banded substancees, but three
band substances. She's doing her best, Gerald Miller, my gosh, I
mean she had she had two different anabolic sterois or related to stanazol. She
had another thing called for for mos for osamide. I'll help you. Stanaz
a law is a big time steroid, by the way, big that's like
Ben Johnson's shiit right correct? Yes, So anyway, so she hit the
jackpot seven seven seven across the board and she's got to give the belt back.
How long? How long is she looking at for a suspension in this
circumstance, were looking at at least I mean it's going to be at least
six months, and were looking at a year. Well, no they haven't.
They didn't announce a Keep in mind one thing when it comes to drug
violations, the sanctioning bodies are responsible for the title. They can tell you
you can't fight for our title for a year, or for six months or
two years whatever, and they can striput you with the title, but they
can't prevent you from boxing because they can only control who's eligible to fight for
their belts. So the WBA announced this situation that they stripped her. What
Mexico and that local commission has done has no announced, and I'm not sure
if they've done something yet. This just happened. So in terms of the
the WBA's decision, so one would assume she's going to be suspended for some
period of time. Any of them, she's not because of this violation.
Certainly in the United States, she's not going to get a license any time
in the near future. But she probably wasn't planning to fight her anyway,
but she did lose her world title. The thing about it was that the
fight happened. But unfortunately, when you're being tested, you're being tested leading
up to the fight, in the days leading up, the week's leading up.
But the ones that are right at the end and then right after her
test that was positive came back were right before the fight, so she fought
even though they didn't have that result back. So she had the A sample
that was tested. That's what came back dirty. And the reason she ended
up getting stripped is because she'd let the deadline pass to test the B sample,
So the B sample was never tested because she didn't ask for it,
but that's if you don't do that, that means you're guilty anyway. So
the WBA wants the deadline for a test to be passed. They were like,
all right, if you're not going to do that, now you're stripped
to the title, and now it's going to be up to you know,
the local commission to meet out whatever kind of punishment there was. So that's
what happened. That was just something that was announced on Tuesday of this week.
Now, if you go to the next one that we're gonna that,
I'm gonna mention this is the one in my mind that was flotally under the
raider because it never was any kind of like official announcement or anything. It
was a surprise me. Now, it's not the biggest name, not the
biggest title, but there's a fighter named Evgeny Tashenko who if you follow amateur
boxing, he was the Russian Olympic gold medalist in the twenty sixteen Olympics and
then he stayed amateur and got a late pro start, so he hasn't had
a ton of pro fights, but he won the WBA also followed the WBC
and created the bridgerweight division two hundred and twenty four pounds between heavyweight and cruiserweight.
So he had a fight for the inaugural title of the first ever WBA
bridgerweight title fight. So in Germany he won. Back in December, he
knocked out a German fighter named Leon Hearth in the sixth round in Dubai and
won the Bridgerway title. All right, he hadn't fought since and then I
hadn't heard anything about it. So just by happen since I was looking at
for some other things, and I stumbled across and then got a copy of
the document that the Middle East Boxing Commission. I don't even remember when the
A samples were, but apparently sometime between December and more recently, he had
the A sample to come back positive. He then asked for the B sample
to be tested that came back positive. So all the way back on April
fifth, this is a few months ago, already the Middle Eastern Commission notified
the people involved that he had flunk to the B sample. Well, you
lost me a little bit. The fight was in December, the A samples
positive at some point, and they waited till April to try to litigate B
sample or no, no April is when the B sample came back. There's
time you have, you know, thirty days when the results came back.
Okay, the results of the B sample came back on April fifth, but
it stayed under the radar until July. Well, I found it, I
mean anywhere. Actually, I actually when I saw that, I'm like,
how the fuck did I miss this? I googled it to see if I
could find it anywhere, and I didn't see anybody else anywhere we reporting it.
So but this is what happened. So at some point between December and
April, the A sample was positive. He was obviously notified. So it
probably took a couple of weeks. They gave him probably you know, two
weeks, three weeks, a month whatever to request the B sample. They
obviously requested the B sample. That could have taken another, you know,
a few weeks or a month to deal with that. And so at some
point on either April fifth or in the days before that, that sample came
back as positive. That was a VADA test, by the way, they're
the ones that conducted that testing. And when that B sample came came back
positive, the Middle East Boxing Commission suspended him for one year. Backdated to
December ninth, overturned the result of the fight to an O contest. Now
I'm not sure what's going to happen with the result of the Erica Cruz fight.
Presumably the Mexican Commission at some point when they punish her, they'll also
change that to an O contest. But in Tashenko's case, again, he's
a great amateur. He's Olympic gold medalist. This you know, he may
not be fighting in a well known division in the pros, but you're an
Olympic gold medalist. It's meaningful and so on top of that, so he
get like I said, he got stripped of the title. So do we
know, was it again a hardcore ped a hardcore steroid? No, we
don't know. The only thing I know is in the official letter that they
sent to him, where they explained to him you're be sample as positive.
You're here by suspended and whatever. It was only quote prohibited substances. It
did not specify what they were. But by the word substances in my vernacular,
that means more than one. Because it wasn't prohibited substance, was prohibited
substances. Maybe sometimes so when the Middle Eastern Boxing Commission suspended him. Therefore,
obviously the w BA was notified about that also because they were the ones
overseeing the fight. They then stripped him of the title. And then again
I went to their website and I noticed on their on their phones, but
it listened their title as vacant. And there you go. So two w
BA champions in the span of you know, a few months, I guess
for doping violations are stripped of their titles. So at least from that standpoint,
you know, the fighters are being punished, you know, which they
should be as they should be, all right. A couple more news items
real quick. Queensberry announces the signing of an American that we should you know,
you should know this name as an American contender who had been a free
agent and then a top amateur super middleweight that has interest one of those names.
These are great signings for Queensberry Promotions. This is Brandon Lee, who's
twenty eight and oh with twenty three knockouts, but still a very young fighter
only twenty five years old from California. Have been and people know him from
seeing him on Showtime a bunch he had been with the network. He was
signed directly to showtime, even though he's fighting regular on the PBC cards,
so he's now signed with Queens. In the other podcast a couple of times,
he's a very likable interview. There's a real question mark about quality of
competition, et cetera, et cetera. And that's why you he's seen him
in a huge fight because there's been question marks about you know, you know,
is he on the right track to a world title shot? And maybe
that's what this was on MO because of the he wasn't with a promoter,
so that was causing some issues there and it's hard to you know, you
got to have some backing even if he had the network, they only have
so many dates for you. But you know, he's a very good up
and coming fighter still even with all those fights. The other fighter is a
fighter named Nathan Lugo who's only nineteen years old from Marietta, Georgia. Tremendous
amateur background. Most recently in terms of his amateurs he did turn pro on
an OTX card in Atlanta on his owne, but he wasn't signed to any
promoter and he won that fight. But he's the twenty twenty two the United
States national champion in the light heavyweight division. The interesting thing about Brandon Lee
and Lugo, both of them are managed by David mcwater, who was would
probably best known to normal to regular more regular boxing guns. You don't follow
the minute of this. They know him as of the manager of Tafimo Lopez
among others, but Tifmo's is his biggest client. And when I wrote about
this impending signings a couple of weeks ago in my substack newsletter Fight Freaks Unite,
I spoke to Dave about this and this was not like the Queensberry announced
it the other day. I'd already written about it, even though the paperwork
wasn't necessarily signed an official But basically what David said to me on the record
back at that point when I wrote about this is that they had gotten offers,
in particular for Brandon Lee from other companies Top Rank and I think matrim
was the other one, maybe was Golden, but I forget which it was,
but definitely Top Rank. That the that the offers were not to their
like and Queensberry, which is the reason why this is a big deal,
is because as top notes of a promoter as Queensberry is and has a great
stable, and we've seen them featured on lots of cards that come on ESPN
Plus In America, obviously they're heavily involved in these cards. In Saudi Arabia
they're the con Tyson Fury, but by and large they don't sign American fighters
because their cards are taking place in the UK and now of course in Saudi
Arabia, so they like to sign guys that are ticket sellers also. But
the talent level of Lugo and Lee is as such that it made it worth
their time and effort and money to go and get these guys. Lugo was
a tremendous young prospect and Brandon Lee they don't have to spend a lot of
time and effort on. He's already in a position to be in a world
title fight within the next couple of fights. So they signed them up and
they got themselves some very good talent and two Americans, which is a little
bit different than what they've actually done. So in terms of Brandon Lee,
his first fight for this new contract is supposed to be on the undercard July
twenty seventh at the O two in London. That's the main event. Fight
is going to be Joe Joyce against Derek Chasaura now Top Rank. Top Rank
just announced this week that and this was not a surprise I wrote about it's
totally not a secret, but they finally made it official that ESPN Plus has
the rights in America to stream Joyce against Chesaura. When they put that announcement,
they listed a couple of streaming fights from the undercard that we part of
the same broadcast. Brandon Least fight was not part of that. My hope
is that once he has an opponent, that that will be part of that
broadcast, so we here in America can see this. Excellent, makes sense.
You're making too much sense again, You're making too much sense. Again.
We'll see if they do that and then we go away. No no
official date yet first fight with them, but yet what you would think about
I think you think it would be soon. Right, he's only had one
pro fight, you would think it would be soon. I think his debut
for them is going to probably take place in Toddi Arabia. We'll see interesting.
And the nugget about Brandon Lee, by the way, he is the
answer to the trivia question of who fought the last fight before the shutdown in
the COVID nineteen Craziness of twenty twenty. Brandon Lee was in the showbox main
event because we actually talked to Barry Tompkins about calling the fight, and as
bizarre as it was, and we talked to Brandon Lee. No crowd,
right, no crowd note with no crowd because they didn't let anybody in the
casino. There was great debate about whether the fight was going to happen or
not on that Friday night. Everything had basically shut down Thursday afternoon Thursday night,
and because the Tribal Commission in Hinckley, Minnesota was involved that they wanted
everybody to still get paid et cetera, et cetera, showtime to pay them.
Blah blah blah. They went through and that was the final really sporting
event in all of in all of the United States for weeks was a Brandon
Lee Showbox main event. And he won that night. Because you love all
of this when I give you the minutia and the details. He beat someone
named Camillo Prieto that night by third round knockout in Hinckley, Minnesota on March
the thirteenth of twenty twenty. So interesting for Brandon Lee that he's now with
Queensberry and fighting on that card coming up later this month. And one more
item, real quick, and that involves a WBA again in Zerto Ramirez,
their cruiserweight champion. What's the latest news there before we get to the nostalgia
real quick, Well, Golden Boy has been working to put together at zerdo
Ramirez fight for later this summer, and now it appears as though we know
who the opponent's going to be unless something strange happens and they get some kind
of exception, which I guess as possible. But an event, the WDA
ordered his mandatory against you know, Joni old Dordkos, who is a massive
puncher, former champion who hadn't fought for quite a while, but he came
back for the first time in like eighteen months. He boxed on the undercard
from a few weeks ago when Adrian Broner fought Blair Cobbs in the main event.
He scored a first round not out on the undercard. So anyway,
he is the mandatory and they've given them, you know, a month or
so to make a deal or they'll call a purse bid. And if you
ask me, given what's available in the cruiserweight division. If you were saying
to yourself, ok a Wolken zero fight, like, that's actually an interesting
fight because one thing about Dorricos, who was a top notch amateur out of
Cuba, and like I said, he's a former former held the former held
the WBA title for a bit outstanding puncher. Like his nickname is one of
the greatest nicknames in the history of boxing, the Ko Doctor. I love
that, you know. And his loss you know, his losses are not
the type of terrible loss. I mean he lost in the tournament back when
they were doing the super was it the World Box was it? What was
that called the World Boxing Super Series? Well, no, no, World
Boxing Classic Classic? Okay, World Boxing Classic. In one of the most
spectacular fight of the year candidates that there was of recent years. This is
back in twenty eighteen, sensational fight got stopped in the twelfth round of a
unification fight by Marat Gassie to unify the in that tournament, spectacular fight.
He took it on the wrong end unfortunately for him, in the twelve round.
And then his only other loss was a majority decision to Myers Bradus,
who you know became the number one cruiserweight in the world. But Dordikos is
no joke, and Zerdo is coming off of having won the belt earlier this
year in March, when he won a decision over at Arson and Gilmary and
so as cruiserweight mandatories go, I'd be interested to see Zerdo against dorda Coos,
even though it wasn't a mandatory. So we'll see if they can put
that together, or maybe we'll go to Persh but I suspect they'll make a
deal and we'll see an interesting matchup, all right. Nostalgia time earlier this
week actually thirteen years ago, Tuesday, July second, Uh, the Vladimir
Klitschko, as it says on my Rundown totally schools David Hay in their long
awighted heavyweight titled Unification. Now you know why I wrote that the way I
wrote that, I don't know how much spelled and you spelled it out totally.
All right, So down on this because I don't know what that refers
to about this the stamage that we are going back thirteen years ago. Well,
the reason why because if you normally would spell the word totally, it's
ot okay. This was the fight where David Hay lost lopsidedly to Vladimir Klitchkow
and then blamed this loss in this Unification fight on his bum pinky toe.
It was the toe fight. He stood in the ring with Larry Merchant on
HBO and took his sock and shoe off to show you like his little pink
in like bruised toe and blame losing the heavyweight Champions of Unification and and I
blew, I like went crazy about that for a long time, you know,
and David Hey and I have actually joked around about it in the recent
past, even though for a while we were like, you know, cause
frenemies, I guess. But here's the point. Pinky excuse didn't fly with
rayphel Is what you're saying for anybody for that matter, was embarrassing. David
Hay talked so much about the clitch Goos, both Vladimir and Vitally for years,
and then he actually was supposed to do a fight against Vitally and behind
his back he went and made a fight against Nikolai Veluev and ended up winning
the WBA title. And then he had made a fight with Vladimir and pulled
out of the fight with a back injury that everybody thought was totally fake,
and they finally, finally, finally fought on the fight that we're talking about
July second, twenty eleven in Torrential rain in Germany in a sixty tho.
They got about sixty thousand people close to sixty thousand at this stadium where everybody's
getting soaking wet. I remember when David walked to the ring, they had
like little plastic booties on his boxing shoes so they wouldn't get all wet on
the way to the ring. But it was impossible. This was in Hamburg,
Germany. It was a freaking like a monsoon. But more notably,
Vladimir Klitchko, after all the shit talk that David A did as much as
anybody's ever bullshed, never shit talk anybody leading into a fight, Klitchkow absolutely
schooled him. Did everything other than get a knockout. David A held,
he ran, he grabbed, he literally purposely flopped on the canvas trying to
get point deductions. And finally later in the fight when he did it again
off of like a half punch of Clitchkow, the referee was so discussed and
said fuck that. He called it a knockdown and gave him account. And
so in the end, Vladimir wins like you know, ten to two,
you know, nine to three, whatever, just complete route, unified three
of the titles and you know, if you look back now, because David
Hey had a good career other than that, he was a legit cruiserweight champion
and had some okay wins and heavyweight, but this was one of the bigger
fights that Clinch had in terms of the hype in the build up, you
know, huge. I mean if you go look if you can google it.
The numbers that they did in terms of viewership in Germany was like over
ten million people in Germany. Think about that. That's not that big of
a country. Huge. He was a big deal fighting there all the time.
It was like his home away from home, right right, if I'm
not mistaken. Exceeded well over one million pay per view buys in the UK,
where David was a very popular figure. Huge numbers and as an afternoon
like late afternoon fight in the United States on July fourth weekend did a really
strong ratings for HBO, who televised the fight live, you know, in
the afternoon from Germany. This was a big, big heavyweight fight at the
time. You just won it. You just wanted out there that you've heard
all kinds of crazy excuses. This was the all my aching toe excuse of
all excuses. That's one thing. I mean, I'm not debating that he
did have a toe injury, but to blame the loss because you had a
bum toe, give me a fucking break. Wilder blamed it the loss to
Tyson Fury on my costume was too heavy and it zapped me and zapped my
legs. So we've heard, We've heard all kinds of excuses, all right,
Rayfhael wants to confirm that the next two pieces of nostalgia he was not
ringside for, but they involved the heavyweight title, and they were both a
long time ago, and they're both compelling. But let's get to both real
quick. It was one hundred and five years ago on July the fourth,
Yes, July fourth, used to not just be for baseball and hot dog
eating contests. It was also a big time boxing opportunity back in the late
nineteen you know, teens, nineteen ten, nineteen teens. Jack Dempsey stops
Jess Willard one hundred and five years ago on July fourth, nineteen nineteen,
and I still remember writing about this fight on Big Fight Weekend dot com.
I've relived it watched on ESPN Classic. Seven knockdowns in the first round,
so obviously no three knockdown rule in those days. And those days you could
hover right over the opponent and as soon as he gets up with the referee
could hit him again. He's maybe there was nobody up yet, did he
was? No pop him again? There were that would exactly so it is
it's slightly different than what you would see today. There were, First of
all, in visually no circumstance. Would there ever be a fight where a
guy would get knocked down seven times in the referee not stop to fight right
like you said, the rules were amended because back then there was no sending
the guy to the neutral corner where the audio the wipe the gloves off again.
The account in New York walk to the side, walk to design.
How you feel? You know what's up, baby, you know right right
right? And in this case the manassa mauler. Dempsey was the smaller guy,
much smaller guy. Jess Willard was the size of an oak tree.
And here is the manassa Maler just butchering the oak tree, and yet the
fight. So they thought the fight was stopped right in the in the chronology
of what happened, and they thought, okay, well, wait a minute,
Dempsey's the winner. He's celebrating. He leaves the ring in the waitment,
the referees going no, I never stopped this fight, and Dempsey's out
of the ring celebrating with his guys. They're like, get back in the
ring. The fights back on. Even though you've knocked him down seven times,
you gotta knock him down some more. Right, It finally stopped.
It was stopped in the corner after round three. But the thing about it
is, and this first of all, boxing history is so much fun to
go back and read about these fights, or watch the clips or different things
you can find on YouTuber documentaries and things you know, we talked about all
the time, like boxing was not created last year, Like these are fucking
hilariously interesting, so many nuggets and just great history. First of all,
one thing you should know about Jack Dempsey during his time, this is when
he won the heavyweight title, but he became in the ninth teen twenties.
He was the biggest superstar athlete in the entire country, rather than probably Babe
Ruth. I mean, that's the level he was on. It was Babe
Ruth, Jack Dempsey and everybody else because his part is to believe no pro
football. Really, it was just starting to come in in the twenties and
the thirties. Chicago Bears, baseball, box the baseball and boxing were the
two biggest mainstream things to go and be involved in, and I'm a Nasa
Maller was something else. A few things about this though, So Willard Jess
Willard was obviously a much bigger man than Jack Dempsey. He was. I
actually looked this up because I knew we were going to talk about this.
He was the favorite in the fight, which I don't think I ever realized
until today. He was slightly favored to win. The fight got dropped,
as you mentioned, seven times in round one. But different than today because
like you said, there was no neutral corner to go to. You could
just stand over and just you know, as soon as he tried to get
up beat the shit out of him. Here's anar thing that's amazing that this
in normal boxing today, if you're in a heavyweight fight or any fight where
you're over one hundred and forty seven pounds, you're wearing ten flocks. And
the fighters that fight in the in the below one hundred and forty seven pounds
are wearing eight ounce gloves. They wore five ounce gloves. Wow, that's
basically like wearing MMA gloves, right, So that's another big difference. Now,
obviously that changed over the years, because we're talking about a fight that
took place over a hundred years ago, So that was a that was I
mean, seven knockdowns. You can envision if you can hover over the guy
and you're wearing gloves that are literally half the weight of the glove that you
would wear today. If you were in a heavyweight title fight, that would
also probably be a big part of that. But there's a couple are things
that are just hilarious nuggets. I want to just give you here. One
they did this fight outdoors one hundred and ten degrees blazing fucking hot, right
right, blazing hot. I mean that's that was going off the top of
my head. Was in Ohio? Was it not Toledo, Ohio? Do
you remember back a couple of fights ago. I have to get a free
I have to get a free shot in here for all the enthusiasts about it's
never been this hot before ever, say again, it was one hundred and
what ten? It was one hundred and ten degrees on July fourth, nineteen
nineteen when they fought this fight outside in the daytime, not at night when
it was cooler because you didn't have stadium lights. And they I mean,
but again, one hundred and ten degree. Do you remember listen back a
few fights ago when they brought Jared when Top Rank did a Jared Anderson fight
in Toledo, which is his hometown. They had the bell that they had
their like the artifact there that was from this fight where they rang for that
particular fight. Now here's this is maybe the greatest nugget in the history of
boxing nuggets. I obviously just adore this nugget because it just shows you how
fucking fucked up boxing was one hundred and ten years ago, one hundred and
five years ago, how fucked up I was fifty years ago, and what
it is today now This is actually something that would never happen today. That
shows you that whatever still chaos happens in boxing, it's not actually as fucked
up as he used to be hex Rickard, who was a Hall of Fame
promoter who, if my memory serves, was actually featured on the cover of
the very first ring magazine you know, a gazillion years ago. One of
the most famous promoters in the history of boxing. He was a promoter for
this fight between Dempsey and Willard. And so not only was he the promoter
of the fight TJ, he was one of the judges. How about that,
ah, the appearance of impropriety. Who do I want to win the
now? Just imagine we're doing a Saturday's fight between Chakhor Stevenson and ardam Hardtunian
and Bob Arim is one of the judges as well as the promoter, right
as well as being the product exactly, So that that's hilarious. But that
was that was what started Dempsey on his way to becoming as big of a
superstar as could exist back in the nineteen twenties, and he was a megastar
and by by beating the living shit out of just Willard, because he didn't
just drop him the seven times he beat him down, He caught him and
just until they finally stopped it after the third round. So that was a
big deal. He became the heavyweight chamber of the world. All right,
big nostalgia there. I won more real quick And we go back nine years
previous to that. Also on July fourth, one hundred and fourteen years ago,
now, Jack Johnson scored a TKO in the fifteenth round over Jim Jeffries,
who had been known as the Great White Hope. This, this fight
was also built the fight of the century. We had like seventeen different fights
of the century. I think, no, Willard, Willard was not build
this fight of the century. Well no, I'm just saying, but we
had all of these. But you're saying that the Jeffries Jack Johnson was fight
of the century. We had all these fights of the century later on,
over and over again, we kept saying, oh, the fight of the
century, the fight of the century. It always seemed to get used,
but it was being used in nineteen ten for Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffrey.
And you got more nuggets in and around this as well. And by the
way, in this timeframe, am I not mistaken? There was no limit
on how many rounds they were fighting. Jack and Jim Jefferies. I thought,
in this one, are you gonna tre okay, go ahead, hej
do you am? I sure? What kind of fucking question is I don't
know. I don't know if you are sure or not? Go ahead,
I'm going to the tros. So you tell me, you just to the
audience that he knocked out Jeffries in the fifteenth round, which you know,
in most people's minds, even those who were younger, know that there were
fifteen round fights and maybe stopped in the last round. Obviously, today would
be the twelfth round. This was round fifteen of a scheduled forty five rounder.
Scheduled forty five rounder because because keep in mind, I do know this,
they used to have fights that could go on, yes, So then
they had to come up arbitrarily with you know, what would be a good
arrange to stop a fight after we've seen enough, Let's go with forty five
rounds? I know, fifteen twenty, let's go with forty five three minute
rounds. I fancy myself as as a bit of a boxing historian, as
you know, I don't think that's buddy this for decades. I actually don't
know the reason or the way in which they determined that it should be forty
five, Like why wasn't it fifty? Why was it a forty? Why
was it thirty? I mean, why wasn't it twenty five? Yeah?
And I have to be honest with you, as much of a boxing fan
as I am, only thing I would want to sit through a forty five
round fight. No, you know that they would, they would have some
that would go into the twenties. I'm not talking about the decade. There
was a thirty rounds, So they arbitrarily came up. This was a scheduled
forty five round fight. The maximum it's gonna be is forty five because but
the reason why this is I think about the math forty five three minute rounds.
We're gonna be there for three hours, almost two and a half las.
Yeah, So this is as as notable as the Dempsey Willard fight was.
Because the great Jack Dempsey became heavyweight champion, went on to become,
you know, a massive, massive, massive, mainstream megastar. This was,
as you mentioned, dubbed before you know, going to this fight,
Jefferies was dubbed the Great White Hope. Why because Jack Johnson had become the
first black heavyweight champion and the white establishment was looking for a new white heavyweight
champion. They wanted to beat the black man. They tried to who who
they had who is going to do it. So now keep in mind,
Jefferies is undefeated, he's been retired for six years, hasn't fought. They
basically draft him to be the great White Hope. I don't know if he
necessarily embraced that element of it, but he was getting a lot of money
in a chance to fight for the title again. So he comes out of
the six year retirement. He was actually off the six year retirement against a
reigning heavyweight champion. He was a slight favorite, but that's because all of
the folks that were betting, who are most likely white people, were betting.
They wanted their guy to win, so they were probably betting more with
their heart than with their head. But they made this a huge fight.
They did call it the fight of the century. It did ignite race wars
in the United States. Unfortunately, it was the first time that they ever
built a arena, like you know, we've seen events where they just build,
like take the old Caesars Palace out there, arena that was so famous
in the nineteen eighties. They would put it up and they would use it
for the fight and they would tear it down. And they've done that plenty
of times. They did it in Saudi Arabia, for example, when Andy
Ruiz and Anthony Joshua had the rematch, they built this stadium outdoors in uh
Diria right outside of read for the one use only and then they tore it
down. This was the first time that ever happen. And this is in
Reno, Nevada in nineteen ten. They built this is a one time only
stadium to do the fight. So that tells you what a big deal it
was from that standpoint, and they fought this heavyweight championship fight. Now,
a couple are things about this besides the one use only for this arena and
this I remember I told you the nugget about the other fight where tex Ricord
was one of the judges as long as as well as being the promoter.
Well, once you know the text Ricord again, he was the ubiquitous promoter
of the time for the biggest fights. He was also the promoter of this
fight between I think this nugget's better than they hey, the promoter to judge
lay it on them. They text Ricord and I don't think this was just
a publicity stunt, because this type of shit was not like completely out of
the realm of possibility back in these days one hundred plus years ago. He
wanted the President of the United States was William Howard Taff, to be the
referee for the fight, and the White House and say that again, say
that you just flew by that. Say that again. Ricker, the promoter
of the fight, invited William Howard Taft, who was the United States President,
to be the referee for the fight, and Taft or Taft's office or
the White House declined. But that still shows you how big of a deal
this was that they would do that. And my impression from reading about that
that was not like a publicity stunt necessarily. I mean, sure it probably
helped get some publicity, but they would have accepted and been happy to have
the President of the United States serve as the referee in the fight. And
that to me is like an amazing thing. So in the end, you
have Jack Johnson, the underdog against a great white hope with all the you
know, many white people hoping that Jack would lose, goes in there against
this older fighter that was not what he once was, and knocked him out
in the fifteenth round of their scheduled forty five rounder, and it turned out
that it was the only loss of Jim Jeffery's career because it was his final
fight. He never fought again. That's that's that's your early nineteen hundreds fight
of the century. A factoid. What a nugget could you? Could you
imagine like a fight, a heavyweight title fight in the nineteen fifties, and
ladies and gentlemen, the third man in the ring is President Dwight D.
Eisenhower. You know, let's ask this for let's fast forward to the seventies,
al Le Fraser one to be refereed by tricky Dick Nixon, the United
States President Richard Nixon. I can't, so I'll say one our thing about
that. So so Jack Johnson retains the heavyweight title on July fourth, nineteen
ten. Now we and I talk about activity. We want our fighters to
be active and titles to be active. And things happened well. Jack Johnson
fought this fight against Jefferies and then did not fight again in defense. He
didn't fight even a non title fight. His next title defense was two years
later, on the same day, July fourth, where he knocked out in
the ninth round of a scheduled forty five rounder fireman Jim Flynn. So Lynn
between defenses now, and just want to think if if you want to know
more about this shit, this this fight in particular, because they spend a
lot of time on it, and I always do this on July fourth,
I make it a point at least watch some of it. The absolutely phenomenal
documentary that was on PBS about Jack Johnson. That was that that came out
a number of years ago. That was who was the filmmaker ken Burns ken
Burnson tremendous documentaries on baseball and on the Vietnam War, Civil recent Civil War.
Muhammad Ali he just recently did, not too long ago, he did.
I think it's a four hour documentary altogether, absolutely phenomenal about Jack Johnson.
I watch it on a regular basis. It's on YouTube. But they
spend a lot of time on the Jefferys fight, which is absolutely fascinating.
All right, And again, boxing was such a big deal in that twenty
five round forty five Okay, I did look it up while you were talking.
You don't know this, but the longest fight ever recorded Guinness Book of
World Records has it down. Is a professional boxing match held in April of
eighteen ninety three. Ray Field was not ringside in New Orleans, Louisiana,
for Andy Bowen and for Jack Burke. You ready, they fought a hundred
and ten rounds, yes, sir, seven hours and twenty minutes of actual
time from the first bell and we didn't even get a winner. At the
end of one hundred and ten rounds one hundred and ten rounds, they declared
the fight a no contest, later changed to a draw. I read this
fight at one hundred and ten rounds. How were either one of them still
standing and holding their arms up after it was seventieth rounds? I mean,
they weren't. They weren't throwing a zillion punches, So I understand. Honestly,
it's the kind of fight, no, don't. I've never saw it
gets on video or anything because it's from eighteen ninety three. But things I've
read about this fight were there was long stretches where they weren't really being active.
And the funny thing are read anecdotes about talking about people that were there
falling asleep in their chair and like being asleep during the last seven seven hours.
Yeah, we don't need forty five round fights, you know, or
or rounds or fights like this the last for one hundred scheduled for forty five
for Jack Johnson. What like this. You could get on your airplane at
Ellis Airport near my house in Washington, DC. You could fly to London
and land around the same time the fight would be ending if it started when
your flight took off on that seven hours. All right, we have not
been here for seven hours. We've been here long enough. We got a
bet Us Boxing show coming, as we've released this podcast off July fourth.
That's coming one Eastern time on Friday for the breakdown of Shakur Stevenson's main event
for Top Rank and ESPN and this title defense with Hartitunian will handicap. That
will also handicap the Daniel Jacobs Shane Moseley Junior battle on the co feature of
a Diaz Masvadal in Anaheim, California, as well as the Japanese showdown with
kaz Ioka and Fernando Martinez that will be battling as well. So that's in
Japan on Sunday morning. Check us out one Eastern time. On that.
With that, let's go back to the rest of gorging ourselves on July fourth
and even into July fifth with the leftover hot dogs, hamburgers, corn on
the cob, anything else that I might have missed. I will catch you
Dan Rayphael on the bet Us Show and whatever happens, we'll be back with
a Fight Freaks Unit recap podcast off the weekend to recap what is a bevy,
including the heavyweight showdown from Matchroom on Saturday in London with Fisher and Babbage.
We'll recap all of it off the weekend on the Fight Breaks You night
recap. Sound good? That's good? All right? Everybody happy for the
July be safety save for those of you that are on the roadways traveling as
well, very dangerous weekend of travel. Don't drink and drive, etc.
Etc. Don't do the amateur fireworks things, you lame os, you idiots,
and get yourself injured. I say that as a parting shot to the
peeps into the Savages for Big Dan Rayfhael. I'm merely TJ Reeves. You've
been listening to the Big Fight weekend preview headed into the weekend. Bye for now,