Speaker 1: Well off of a lighter weekend that did have an
exciting fight in Orlando that we are about to talk about.
We are ready to recap that. We've got some news
and much more. Welcome into the Fight Freaks Unite recap
pod here on the feed. I am the somewhat competent
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should be subscribed up. Go to substack and online and
sign up there. Get in the no breaking news, his takes,
his show and tell with all his memorabilia. Hello, Dan Rayfield,
good to be with you. Rayfield has been chopping at
the bit for like the last five minutes. Will you
shut up and start the show so that we can
talk about the TAAs fight and what might be the
round of the year. Yes, we're getting to that. We'll
get to that in a moment. First, thank you for
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sure you're following subscribing. We love being here going into
the weekend. A preview and a recap coming off the weekend.
Now full disclosure of the audience. Don't we do a
good job of being audi honest with the audience. We
do a pretty good job of being honest with them.
By the way, I've gotten not one but two compliments
for the use of farcical on the last podcast as
an adjective talking about the Jake Paul Tank Davis fight.
But we try to be honest with the audience, all right.
There's not a lot this upcoming to Labor Day if
we can for you and me to go over in
the preview and the recap mode, so there probably is
not heaps. There's not gonna be a recap podcast on
Labor Day weekend here in the United States, but we
will have a pod.
Speaker 2: They'll get over. It'll get over.
Speaker 1: They'll be able to, you know, spend time with your families,
go cook out, go to a ball game, go to
the beach, go do whatever, play some golf, go to
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So the most valuable Promotions card was the most prominent
one in the United States. The main event, the final fight,
the co main event final fight was a stink bomb.
I can tell because Rayfael Rayfield says he could smell
it from northern Virginia. It was not good. It was
not good, but at least the co main event fight
was really good. So we're gonna begin with Yankiel Rivera
and Angelino cord Angelino Cordova and a flightweight title fight
that had no winner. That was the main event, all right?
What about in this fight? Not good?
Speaker 2: No, the styles just did not mesh at all. I mean,
I actually was sort of surprised because I'm not the
same I thought it was going to be like this rousing,
intense battle. And to be honest, I thought this even
before they turned in this thing bomb. I felt like
that the co feature that we're going to talk about.
That was a tremendous fight. That is a I will
be on an honorable mention Fight of the Year list.
That was the theeas A Boss Barrow fight was phenomenal.
I thought from when the card was first announced that
should have been the main event. Now, my I don't
know this, but I'm gonna just use my educated guess
about why they did that. It's because Yankill rivera an
Olympian from Puerto Rico. He has just signed with that
with Most Valuable Promotions And whereas the other fighters were
not they you know, Tees is not with them entirely.
He's with Box Lab and Warriors Boxing. So I feel
like MVP wanted to give their guy the shine in
the made.
Speaker 1: For their own one of the guys I signed, right,
they may.
Speaker 2: Be involved with the others, but this was for them,
was like a bigger deal. But in the end, the
fight was no good. You know, I'm not saying they
put it on and not you know, thinking it was
going to be no good. Sometimes you put a fight on,
it just does not mesh. And that was what happened.
It was a messy, dirty fight that was just filled
with constant fouling. Luis Pabone, who was the referee, earned
his money in a big way. It was just ridiculous.
They were throwing. It was like, as I wrote in
my piece about the fight, it resembled much more of
a wrestling match than as a boxing match. It was
just terrible. But in the end I thought it was
sort of apropos that it turned out to be a draw.
It was a majority draw. They had one judge had
it one fifteen to one thirteen in favor of Cordova.
Two of the judges had it one thirteen to one thirteen.
So there you go with your draw. And the reason
I said it is because they were boxing for the
vacant WBA Interim Flyway title and a pox on the WBA.
I'm glad that the interim title went unfilled. And the
reason is because if you go back just a few
weeks ago, you had Ricardo Sandobal pulling off the big
upset in Japan against can Share Taraji to win two
of the belts, including the WBA and the WBC. So
he's been active, he just won a few weeks ago.
There was literally zero reason for this to be made
into an interim title fight, even if Taraji had won,
he would have retained the title and had been active.
So that was the WBA breaking their established, cited policy
of stopping creating these extraneous belts. So I'm sure they'll
figure out a way to make another vacant interim flyway
titled out. But at least it did it went unfilled
in this particular fight. Now they called it a draw,
and it was a shitty fucking fight for sure. However,
I did didn't think Yanki Rivera did enough to win
the fight. Now, I'd be less than honest if I
said I literally and I do score. When I talk
about how I was scoring, I do like type in
or write down each individual round by round score so
I can look at it and tell you, well, I
had it X, y Z the score. I didn't score
this fight like that because it sucks so bad. I
just stopped. But I was, you know, paying close attention
to it. I felt like Reval probably eked it out.
But be that as the may they called it a draw.
It was a garbage fight. Cordova is so fucking dirty
it's ridiculous. He really is the one that that initiated
a lot of the dirty.
Speaker 1: Tackles I'm asking because some of the audience maybe one
of those two did it ever rise to the level where
it was maybe going to be a d Q because
of whatever Cordova was doing.
Speaker 2: Now they were they were kind of both giving it
back and forth. I mean there was like like Rivera
would retaliate. They were they but it was some of
it was just because the styles weren't good. So they
would get into a clinch and they would wrestle and
they would both wind up on the canvas. At one point,
there was when Cordova threw a absolutely blatant punch behind
the head that Pabone finally took a point away from him.
That was that was that was the right move because
that's the most dangerous punch and boxing just to just
cannot do that. And I think Pabone also got so
sick and tired of watching them grapple and wrestle that
at one point in the fourth round, when there were
some punches thrown but they ended up on the canvas,
I felt like it was just a wrestling move. He
was like fucking and just called a knockdown, you know,
And that was a.
Speaker 1: Well and you mentioned he's a veteran championship referee. And
we've seen him before, Oh sure, go after fighters for
fouling or for or for not doing something. So it
kind of surprises me that he didn't warn one or
both of them. I'm just gonna end and they got warned.
Is they got I'm gonna dq one of you or
are in this?
Speaker 2: I don't think it rose to that level, I guess.
So he does, so he does take away so he
so he does call the knockdown. Uh, and so Rivera
gets a ten eight round that round. So the other
reason why you feel like the draw was maybe unfair
is because not only does Rivera get the credit for
a knockdown that would have made that a ten to
a round, when he docked a point, that's another point
that's taken away from Cordova. But when I looked at
the official scorecards, two of the judges score had obviously
had thought that that round belonged to Gardova. So on
the official card it's nine to nine. You know, it's
a ten point must system, so it's ten nine. Then
you deduct the one point for the foul, and then
the other judge did give it a ten a round.
But in the end it turned out to be a draw,
so bad fight, and uh, you've.
Speaker 1: Already given it probably more than it deserved, and you
don't ever want to talk about it again.
Speaker 2: I can tell, but I think there I don't like
Cordova has always sort of been like that, and a
couple of fights of his. I've seen Rivera, who I've
watched you used to be with Mattroom Boxing when he
turned pro and tell his contract right now and they
didn't renew their deals. I feel like he's a more entertaining,
crowd pleasing fighter, that he could make some good fights
in the flyweight division. You just got to have him
in with the right guy. So we'll see him again.
I'm sure he's still still I would consider so a
legit guy to take a look at. Now he's only
got eight pro fights. He's now seven oh to one.
Cordova is nineteen oh to two. But other than fighting
Rivera and having a fight against in Julio Caesar Martinez
in a fight that ended up that was a loss
that he came a no contest because Martinez tested positive
for a banned substance, those are the only two guys
of merit that he's ever faced in those twenty some fights.
That was a world title fight. But I'd be happy
to watch rivera fight again. Just let's put him in
with the right guy.
Speaker 1: All right. So that leads us to the much more
intriguing interim WBA your middleweight title fight where a Boss
Baru ends up winning over Joannis Tellus. And it was
a dramatic final round, including a knockdown in the final
seconds too. Great final round of this fight, all right,
So for everything that was bad about the final fight,
this one actually delivered.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It wasn't just about that final round. That final
round was just sort of the cherry on top. It
was a tremendous fight. I don't think it's gonna get
picked as the actual fight of the year, but it
will be me the honorable mention lists and people will
talk about it. This was a really outstanding fight, really
enjoyable battle. Totally liked it. It's one of the things
I like about boxing. It's like the fight starts off
at a certain pace and it builds and it builds,
and it's a twelve run fight. So okay, so they're
not at war in round one or round two round here,
but it's a steady, steady burn you know what I mean,
it goes from a slow burn to a bonfire. That's
what this was like. So by the time they got
into the later rounds, was just back and forth and
you know, lots of lots of flurries and exchanges and
you know, toe to toe action, but also good boxing.
These are both skillful fighters. You know. Berreu was a
tremendous amateur. Uh he was on the uh you know,
he's the former European champion, but he never made the Olympics.
But he's got a ton of background and had, you know,
many more professional fights than Tayas did. They As was
considered the favorite. It was on his you know, team's card,
if you will, a guy I was very high on.
And it's not like he didn't fight. He didn't fight
a bad fight, but he just was he He wasn't
as big of a puncher in this fight as we've
seen him in other fights, and and Brew was definitely
getting to him a bit. He just didn't seem to
have that type of punching power that he had shown
in other fights that kind of carried him late in fights.
And uh, it just felt like Brew by the time
they got to the middle of the fight was sort
of like a step ahead of him every single time.
Uh it was. It was a hell of a fight though,
really worth watching.
Speaker 1: And we say because again I did not see the
whole fight. I've seen the highlights. I've read your ret
cap that maybe this is a case where Tay has
stepped up in competition. He's in there with a real
guy that can take his punch, and now you get
tested and this is what happens when you all the time.
Speaker 2: I was just gonna say that I feel like this
is the this is the classic example of too much,
too soon. He was only his eleventh pro fight and
that that's you know, not a lot. I mean, even
though he was a good amateur. Also, you know, his
big claim to fame was in his most recent fight
when he won this interim vacant title. He did so
against Julian j Rock Williams, you know, of a credible professional,
had been the former unified champion, but had seen better days,
not as fresh as Berrew, not as slick as Berrew,
not as dangerous as he is again in their current state.
And so you know, guys like to rush guys now,
and it just if I'm the matchmaker no way do
I make this caliber of a fight right off the bat. Now,
he didn't have a choice in the terms of fighting
Berw because you know, he was actually a mandatory fight
within the BBA that they forced it to happen. So,
you know, but you got to take the good with
the bet. If you're going to go get a title,
you're gonna have to be prepared to fight your mandatory opponents.
So you know, Tez probably could have used a little
bit more professional seasoning. I'm also still at a loss
as to why he changed trainers. I'm not going to
place the blame on his trainer, Edward Jackson, but everything
was beautiful for the first ten fights. He looked tremendous.
Speaker 1: Hey, you said it in the preview three days ago.
You said Ronnie Shields was basically blindsided by this, and
you said, you know this does I'm paraphrasing. You said,
this doesn't always work out when you do this, and
it obviously didn't work out here. It's not the only reason,
but it didn't work out here.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I'm not gonna knock Edward Jackson, but
I'll go to battle with Ronnie Shields, who I feel
has been one of the best trainers in boxing for
the better part of twenty five to thirty years. You know,
he's a great boxing person, he's a great guy. He
knows a shit and his track record speaks for itself.
Edward Jackson, at least at this moment, doesn't have that
type of track work. And again it's not saying he
won't have it in the future. Now, maybe something happened
between Ronnie and Taez and I'm not aware of It
didn't seem like that because wh I asked hez as
people they were sort of blindsided by it also, But
in any event, hell of a fight. And then we
get to the twelfth round where although at the end
of the fight the scores were clear for Berw one
seventeen one ten one, sixteen, one eleven one, fifteen, one twelve,
if you look at the score cards, it was awfully close,
and you know, through the first half of the fight
it was on the table. Uh, the score cards had
burrew pulling away a little bit in the second half,
but I felt like there's still a reasonable chance that
maybe the I mean, I thought Berw won the fight.
I had him winning, but I felt like there it
would be out of the realm given the kind of
crazy scoring we see sometimes that maybe the fight still
on the table when you get the round twelve. And
these guys both fought like it like it wasn't like
one guy was looking to sit on a lead and
another guy was looking a bomb a guy out. They
both came out with a purpose in the twelfth round
and made it very exciting. They were all over each other,
tons of flurries, tons of you know, uh, the fierce
type exchanges, and they're just going to battle. And I
felt like tay As, though tired out a little bit
in the last few rounds, he did find a little
bit of that win in that twelfth round. But then
you know, as they're as they're going to battle, twelve
seconds left and Beru just unleashes like this crazy extended
flurry and on the final punch that he threw of
the fight, he lands a shot and puts Tayas on
his rear end. And so now you're like, okay, this,
if you didn't think he was gonna win the fight,
this kind of should put the cherry on top and
seal it up for him. Tayaz beat the count, but
the fight was over. The bell rang before either a
man could throw another punch, and that was just sort
of like the dramatic conclusion to what had then a
really superb fight. So and they were very you know,
if you look at the copy box again it doesn't
count towards the official scorecards, but how closely contested this
fight was. After round seven, so you're just a little
bit more than halfway through the fight, they had both
landed exactly the same number of punches, one hundred and
six and when they got to the end of the fight,
they were only separated, you know, by a handful, by
like nine punches or something like that overall for the fight.
And if you take a look at the compy box
notes on the fight, they were separated by four or
four or less punches landed in eight out of the
twelve rounds. So that tells you just a guide, oh,
super very competitive and a good fight. And you know
what the thing is. And I wrote about this in
the pre fight. I wrote a story about Tayaz more
than I did about Beru. That are, he is trying
to put his name into the hat with all these
other top notch names that are making big time fights
in the weight class where we talked about on the
preview where we've got Fundor getting ready to Rman, and
they just made Virgil Ortiz against Eric sin Lubin and
mere Boy mortazeleev is getting back an accent probably with
Josh Kelly in the mandatory fight, and on and on
and on, and you know, there's lots of good fights
coming up, and even you know it may not be
a great matchup, but you got the impending arrival of
Boots Ennis into the weight class, and you know there's
a lot of guys in this weight class that are
active and getting involved. Xanders Ayas just recently won a title.
He was actually at the fight because he you know,
he lives in Florida, so he was ringside. He got
in the ring and took pictures with Beru, you know,
in there afterwards. Not like it's the mandatory fighter anything,
but maybe that's a possible fight. Anyway, The point is
the winner of this fight in this case, who showed
he's got skills, who shows he's got a chin, who
shows he's got fire, who shows he's got some charisma,
who's got some swagger? To a degree, he gave a
great and emotional post fight interview like I can't wait
to watch him again. Point I'm making is when you
win a fight the way he won the fight, you
automatically put yourself in position. Now he has the interim belt,
so that obviously adds to that aspect of putting himself
in a great position. But he just adds yet another
name to what has already been over the last bit,
one of the better weight classes, if not the very
best weight class in boxing. So throw another name of that,
you know, mix and ask these guys up and so
he'll be back. And you know, and even though Taya
has lost, like I said, he's ten and one now,
I still love to see him fight again because he's entertaining,
and hopefully, for this guy's sake, he will take some
lessons from a loss against a competent, veteran, legitimate guy
and learn from that that, you know, maybe it was
too much too soon, and they'll get back to some
of the basics and do a better job next time out.
But I don't think that this ruins his career. So,
as I say all the time, when you have a
fight like this, both the guys are elevated. The winner
elevated obviously brew and even in the loss where I
think he definitely could have fought better. Tayas, though, is
still a guy you want to see again. He's got
something that makes him interesting to watch. He does have
some something about him that makes you want to look
at him again. He doesn't fight like the prototypical Cuban.
You know, We've had plenty of examples where you guys
are extremely well skilled and well schooled from that amateur
system in Cuba, but when they get to the professional ranks,
even though they're very talented and they win their fights,
they're just not entertaining to watch, and it causes a
lot of you know, angst among people like myself that
you know, don't want to see a guy just put
a shin out there, but like to see him take
a step forward and maybe mixed up a little bit,
just make it somewhat entertaining. But because Tayas came away
from Cuba at such a young age it's only twenty five,
he was not indoctrinated in the Cuban system for so
many years where he was unable to maybe change up
to become more of a professional fighter instead of sticking
to that old Cubans style. So, you know, let's see
them both again that we'll see a rematch. That doesn't
make sense, it doesn't seem to me, but both of
them can do something. But Buru you want to see
again in a big time fight. Absolutely?
Speaker 1: All right, let's round out the card here that included
Lucas Body. We know that name because he's the guy
that scored the spectacular knockout of Ashton sylv back a
year ago. He's won a fight or two since then.
How did he look in his lightweight bout? And also
the junior lightweight Jamal Harvey made his debut back on
Friday night? So what else from the weekend in Orlando
for MVP?
Speaker 2: So body, you know, people know him probably if they
know him at all, they know him because he scored
that knockout of the year that was picked by pretty
much everybody in twenty twenty four when he when he
lost every single round against Ashton Silv who was an
undefeated prospect at the time, and then he came back
and he knocked him absolutely into the next month, you know,
with one big punch and scored a spectacular knockout. He
recently re signed a promotional you know, promotional contract with
MVP with them and he just signed a new contract
with them, and so this was the first fight of
that agreement. So he's in a title eliminator in the
WBA for the mandatory position. So then by winning this
fight against Roger Gutiers, he's now the Tank Davis mandatory
and I don't We're not gonna see that fight right
away for obvious reasons. But body looked pretty good in
this fight. You know, he won the fight handily. He
was you know, he he obviously has big punching power.
He showed it against silv he scored. He showed it
a little bit against Gutierrez. He scored a very nice,
uh six round knockdown. That was a very clean, clean knockdown.
He just sort of ran out of time in the
round because the knockdown came right at the end of
the round. And you know he's talking about in this
post fight interview, if I just had a few more seconds,
I maybe get another punch off, Maybe it couldn't stop
Qutier's Kutier is a very solid veteran former one hundred
and thirty pounds title holder, tough out for pretty much
anybody that faces him, has a good punching power in
his own right and body did a good job. He
showed the power when he needed to, even if he
didn't get the knockout, but he also showed boxing skills.
He wins, you know, pretty handily. One seventeen, one ten,
one sixteen, one eleven, one fifteen, one twelve. Like I said,
it gets to knock down and by winning the fight
becomes the Tank Davis mandatory. And the funniest thing was
in his interview. So Jake Paul obviously is from MVP
as he's promoter, and Jake was ring excited. Now we's
standing in the ring with him after the fight, I
guess and he says, look, you know, I'm after They
asked him, like, you know, what do you want to
do next? Every fighter says I want to fight for
the title. He says, you know, I'm after the champion.
Jake's fighting him, meaning Jake's got the exhibition match coming
up with Tank Davis. So he says to Jake, he says, Jake,
I want the champ. You know, don't beat him up
too bad. I still want him also, you know, so
there was that was so he's kind of competing with
his own promoter in one sense to get the shot
at this at this fighter. Now, obviously Jake's not fighting
him for a title, but Tank theoretically will be the
next guy when it comes time to do him in
or whether that fight actually happens, who the heck knows,
But at the very least, Lucas body is in position
to fight for a title. And you know he's really,
you know, he's he's he is earned his position. He's
done what he's got to do. He's beating the right guys.
He's gotten a good push from the MVP. He makes
a pretty good fight. He showed some better boxing skills
and I sort of gave him credit for in this fight.
And you know, it's the biggest win of his career.
I mean, the So fight was probably the biggest win
because of what it did for his name was.
Speaker 1: Some of the most noteworthy moment. But the difference is
this is a bigger win.
Speaker 2: But other than the knockout against So, the rest of
the fight he looked bad. He was getting played with
in this fight against a good veteran former champion, he
actually looked pretty good. He did a good job in
terms of boxing as well as dispensing his punching power
when necessary. So I think all in all, this was
this was an entertaining card. I enjoyed it. There was
other fights on the show. Also, you mentioned about the
Jamal Harvey. So what MVP did was this was considered
like their first fight night show where they put on
world title fights and other name fighters, et cetera. And
they've been doing a series of their prospect shows, so
they did sort of like a two for one, like
they had two shows in the same Curb royalitiesort in Orlando,
this one on Saturday night than the previous night on
Friday night. But the one that I was more interested
in from the Friday night was the professional debut of
the junior lightweight Jamal Harvey, who had been the twenty
twenty four US Olympian, who was considered by many people
along it was him and Amari Jones were the two
big prospects or not, you know, they're all prospects, I guess,
but the one that was the most promising among the
professionals that you would see come into the pro ranks.
So when I'm looking at the team, I'm thinking, like,
who are the guys I think are going to be
the best pros off the team, And for me, I
thought Amari Jones number one, and he signed with matrim
and has looked really good in his early days as
a pro, fighting in slightly over the welterweight limit. Very
talented fighter. But the guy that I thought was number
two on my list was Jamal Harvey, and he did
what he had to do. He made his pro debut,
and you know, look, we all know about pro debuts.
Unless it's a freakish thing like what happened with Robeses Ramirez,
you pretty much get served up. You know, an easy opponent,
you shine, you do your thing, and you get a
couple bucks and you move on to the next one.
Try to get some pro experience. And that's exactly what
happened with Harvey. He fought a guy that was nothing
in particular. Look Marco del Aguila. He took it to
him in the first round. Looked sharp with his punches.
It was funny. He was a lot shorter than the opponent,
but his reach was a lot longer, so I was
able to get in there with his long left hands,
but also get jabs on him and get on the inside.
And so for three minutes, it took him like a
minute to sort of feel things out see what he's
gotten in front of him. Then he went to work
and he landed a whole bunch of punches, never really
seemed to really badly hurt the guy, but certainly was
landing clean shots. And when the first round was over,
he retired on the stool and he scheduled six rounders.
So Harvey had a lot of fans there, which was
kind of neat to see because he doesn't come from
that area. The fight was in Orlando. He actually comes
from my neck of the woods. He's from oxen Hill, Maryland.
That's the town that's maybe twenty minutes away from where
I live, right over the border from Virginia into Maryland.
And you know, I'll be looking forward to watching his progress.
I love to watch when the young amateurs come into
the pros. It always gives me a sense of like
a rebirth, kind of like springtime when the flowers blue
and all where the trees, uh you know, turned green
and all the snow was gone. You wouldn't know about
that living in Florida. But that's why I feel like
when I watch a Jamal Hervey turnpro. Wh when I
watched the you know, the the fights with like Amari
Jones as they come along and move up the ranks.
So Harvey looks like he is. He's got fast hands,
and I feel like he's got good power and so
as he said, it's a good start to the journey.
Speaker 1: All right, So there is the recappage of the weekend.
Now let's move to some interesting news and nuggets. We're
gonna talk a lot in the coming weeks about the
Canelo Alvarez Terrence Crawford fight. And an interesting little subplot
has developed with Canelo and him putting up a photo
on social media right about his sparring partner and surprise
surprise on who the sparring partner is.
Speaker 2: Well, he has brought in and it was a surprise
he has brought in Jeron Boutsenis to his training camp.
And that that that's like causing like a lot. That's like,
you know, what does the old saying breaking Twitter? I guess,
I mean there's a lot of boxing, like, oh my goodness, now,
look he's a welterweight that's moving up to jingior middleweight.
Terrence Crawford's most recent weight class was junior middleweight, where
you know he won one of the belts. Actually It's funny.
He's the WBA champion and the belt that that that
uh Boots will position himself to go for if he
wins his upcoming fight with Lima. This is a WBA
title eliminator in that weight class. You know anyway, But
when when I see it, a Canelo Alvarez brings in
a Boots Ennis bring with him, He's not any old
sparring partner. Boots Tennis is a championship fighter. I'm sure
he's being paid very well to come and give him work.
And by the way, if you're Bootsennis, it's never a
bad thing if you can get work from a Canelo Alvarez.
Is you want to handle yourself against a bigger opponent,
like as you're gonna be fighting junior middleweights, and here
you are in the ring, sparring with a super middleweight,
obviously not going all out on each other. But what
it tells me is Canelo Alvarez understands that just because
Terrence Crawford is a fighter who started his career as
a lightweight and is now coming up two additional weight
classes over junior middleweight to challenge him in the super
middleweight division, that I'm taking this super seriously, I need
real guys to press me and who can simulate Terrence.
And it is about the same size as Crawford, you know.
Now I'll have to get I assume he'll get Boots
to maybe turn around and fight him southpaw to some degree,
you know, because even though Crawford is often listed as
a right hander, he is in fact most of the
time when he fights, he fights as a southpaw. But
he also can switch up, which is another reason why
he's been so successful, because he drives guys crazy. Boots
is as a right handed fighter, but they'll get him
to switch up, but they're looking to simulate the speed
they're looking to simulate, you know, the approximate size. Boots
is known at welterweight anyway for having good punching power,
and he can give him good work, it seems to me.
So that was a really interesting turn of events. As
you said, it means to me that Canelo knows that
Terrence Crawford is a danger supponent. This is not just
I'm going to walk through this small guy.
Speaker 1: Very interesting that that name did pop up all right now. Also,
the Nevada State Athletic Commission has announced the referee and
the judges for this fight. So pick it up on that,
on on what they chose at their meeting and what
they're gonna do.
Speaker 2: Right, So, every month they have a meeting. It was
on this past Thursday they did that. This was on
the agenda where they select the officials for this title fight.
And so honestly, if you said to me before they
made the elections and you said, Dan, what would you
think as far as who's going to be the ref
and who's going to be the judging Kendle as gods
might winness, I would have picked this exact four people,
one hundred percent. The referee is Thomas Taylor, for me,
the best referee in boxing right now? Are we anywhere
you go? He's a tremendous referee. He'll do a you know,
a great job. I think he's just you know, there
always comes a time like for many years it was
a Kenny Baylisser at Tony Weeks, and you know, they're
they're guys that go through their period of time.
Speaker 1: Jack Race recently, Jack Race, right with whoever.
Speaker 2: You want to pick, and there's lots of guys that
are that qualify as being top notch officials but right now,
Thomas Taylor is like showing you the prime and that's
why he catches these big assignments. I mean years ago
was Richard Steele. We can go on and on, but
Thomas Taylor his case.
Speaker 1: To brag on him, I think he is not only
at first, he's younger, so that helps.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Number two, he's very engaged in any fight that he's doing.
He's very engaged and active in breaking the fighters, warning
the fighters, being consistent, coming over to the corner and
telling them stop doing this, coming over to check on
them if they're beaten up. And he's worked a number
of the premier he worked at Javonte Davis, Ryan Garcia,
he worked the Crawford Eryl Spence main event in Vegas.
Speaker 2: So he just worked Uh, he just did the Pacquiao.
Speaker 1: Barrio Barrios.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's funny actually because all four of the officials,
the judges I'm about to mention, and the referee are
the same exact four that worked the Barrios and Packing fight. Now,
that may be a good thing for some or a
bad thing, because like I thought that that Paca was
the clear winner against Barrios, these guys sported a draw
or you know, a majority drew in an event. But anyway,
the judges for this fight again and not in any
way at all a surprise. Steve Weissfeld, who, like Thomas
Taylor being the number one referee in boxing, I have
long considered the number one judge in boxing. I don't
think that's you know, anything controversial. And then the other
two judges they selected are Tim Cheatham and Max to
Luca who have you know and every judge you know,
when I posted on social media that these were the
judges that were selected, you know, we're like, wow, these
guys are this, they're that, and they cite like a
bad card or are they disagreed with or whatever, and
I'm like, guys, these guys judge hundreds dozens of championship
level fights as well as other non championship fights where
they're doing you know, the eight rounders and the six
rounders and ten rounders and whatnot. They're gonna have someone
that you don't agree with. Okay, that's sign, but that
still doesn't mean they're not elite judges. And all three
of these guys are in that category. Now, are there
cards that they've turned in that I personally definitely And
vigorously would disagree with absolutely, but what I know, and
again I'm not like friends with them, but I met
and know each of them individually on a someone not
personal likely hang out, but I've had conversations with them
and see them at fights and talk them at fights.
Same goes with Tom Taylor. These are honest, hardworking judges
and referees who are do come to the party to
do their job and that that's all you can ask for.
So this is as good of a panel on paper
that they could have probably picked. And that's what it is.
And by the way, I always find this interesting when
they do because these are all public things. When they
announce the assignments, you can listen in on their conference
call where you can ask the commission. You know, if
you don't get a chance to listen in, you know
what the assignments were that were made for these fights.
They also have what the fees are, so people always
find this fascinating. Thomas Taylor is the referee that for
this fight. His his pay for the fight is twenty
five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: And which see it seems on the surface it should
be more than that fight.
Speaker 2: It's like a million, hundred million dollars. Yeah, and the
judges get twenty grand apiece.
Speaker 1: And granted they're not taking any of the punches. They're
not giving or taking any of the punches. We get that,
but it seems like it should be more than that.
But then again, I was talking to somebody about this,
and I believe that it is the case that most
of the NFL officials, that's the elite of the elite,
not the head referee, but most of the officials, they're
making like fifteen grand on a weekend, ten or fifteen grand.
It's not like they're making one hundred grand or you know,
one hundred dollies.
Speaker 2: Should be somewhere in between that, don't you think for
the amount of you know, with city that is focused
on them and pressure you pay them for their trouble.
Speaker 1: Aren't well? Right, But it's just it's interesting that they
reveal that that that's what these guys are getting compensated
for this, and I'm ill.
Speaker 2: It's even more money than what's in the boxing match.
I mean dollars going.
Speaker 1: To the players. It's going to the players. So all right,
So very one other speak of money. One other interesting
aspect of this. There there is a another substacker who
put this out, who follows UNLV football, and he is
the first one. I think he may have beat my
man Rayfield on everybody else. He's the first one to
write the number.
Speaker 2: I looked for the number, all right.
Speaker 1: But TKO Promotions had to work out an agreement with
the University of Nevada Las Vegas on UNLV having the
date already for Allegiance Stadium September thirteenth, so they worked
out an agreement to buy them out of that football
game on that date. And according to the I'm gonna
get the name of the of the substack so that
we can give them proper credit here, it was one
point five million dollars for the payout that that TKO
Promotions gave to UNLV. And also in that deal, this
was interesting as well that they included a suite at
Allegiant Stadium and one hundred tickets to the fight, which
obviously the school will utilize for donors, heavy hitters, sponsors,
et cetera. So that was interesting that that's the price.
The rumor had been out there that it was maybe
as much as a five million dollar buyout buy TKO,
But generally speaking, I know this when they're putting on
a big time event at one of these stadiums. It's
usually a million or a couple of million dollars, so
UNLV needed to be made whole. If they're moving off
that event, they probably got to pay a penalty to
the Clark County officials under the Raiders who own the
stadium to get out of the deal. TKO then comes
in and pays them to get into the deal. And
now UNLV actually played the football game this past Saturday.
They played Idaho State on set.
Speaker 2: They moved they moved it up a couple of weeks,
which is interesting about it. I'm not sure if it
was in that same article you reference or I just
saw it elsewhere. Was that the UNL the athletic department
is like twenty some million dollars big time, like twenty
seven million dollars in debt, So you get an extra
million five or whatever the number was, and they can
put it towards some of their debt. That's a pretty
nice windfall, I guess.
Speaker 1: So the name of the the sub stack, so that
we have this uh correct, I want to make sure
on the proper name is the scarlet standard. He follows
you in LV football and he knows. So it's interesting
that that's what they ended up paying out and doing.
And do we know as of yet what they believe
the capacity will be. I mean, I gotta believe it's
north of sixty thousand, if not of north of seventy
thousand tickets that they're going to try to sell.
Speaker 2: I've always seen like for the I don't know if
this is exact, but when I've seen like The Raiders,
or you look at that if you look it up
on Google or Wikipedia or whatever, they list the capacity
for a ball game is like sixty five thousand, but
you can fit way more than that for a boxing
match because when you're doing a football game, you're utilizing
the field of play. When you don't have to put
in one hundred yard area for the football game to
take place, and you're putting the ring in, you can
fill up obviously those areas around the ring with spectators,
so I would have to believe that you can put
in probably close to seventy thousand. Now what they actually
scaled for I'm not sure. Well, there's still lots of
tickets available. Obviously, the fight still not for three more weeks,
so we'll see how that plays out. But I suspect
whatever it is, whether they're all buying them, or some
are discounted, or some are giving away, whatever it is,
at the end of the day, there'll be a ton
of people at that fight. It's a huge event and
it's a very fascinating historical fight.
Speaker 1: There you go, all right, some heavyweights to close it out.
What is this on my rundown that ike Abayabuci, who
is fifty two years old, who was in prison for
a long time, former heavyweight contender from the late nineties
in the early two thousands, is still fighting and was
fighting this weekend. Am I correct?
Speaker 2: You are correct? I mean it's the craziest thing. So
a few months ago there had been some word that
he was going to come back and fight. Well, just
to back up a minute, in the late nineteen nineties,
iky Beyabuchi was considered a future heavyweight champion by a
lot of people. He had absolutely destroyed Chris Bird, who was,
you know, a top fighter, but a slick fighter, whereas
I'd be able to was this a sheer you know,
just big time punching machine. He scored an absolutely sensational
knockout against Chris Bird on HBO. Chris was like, you know,
if you ever saw you'll know what I'm talking about.
Like he got up and the drool was like coming
out of his out of his mouth. That turned out
to be his last fight until the one he had
the other night before he defeated Chris Bird. He also
had what I think you can very reasonably discuss, maybe
besides the first Evander Holyfield Mike Tyson fight, but his
fight in nineteen ninety seven, also on HBO against David
Tua at a time when David Tua was twenty seven
and oh, this is before David got the opportunity to
fight Lennox Lewis for the heavyweight championship. This is the
best fight of the nineties in the heavyweight division, other
than maybe that Tyson holy Field, and obviously maybe Tyson
versus Buster Douglas. You know in there that was the
eighties or ninetees.
Speaker 1: When was that Tyson and Douglas was February of ninety yes, okay,
so yeah, holy Field bow one was tremendous. Holy Field
Tyson was tremendous. But you're saying this fight also.
Speaker 2: This this goes in the conversation of the best heavyweight
fights of the decade. I mean, just an all action
battle and he and I always thought that Tua won
the fight, but it was a very close decision, and
I got the decision. Okay, So he fights so that
then he wins that fight against Tua, he wins, you know,
a couple of like lesser fights where he's staying busy
against his regular jamoke type opponents. Then he comes back
on HBO. This is March of nineteen ninety nine. He
scores a devastating knockout against the undefeated Chris Bird, who
would go on to become a two time heavyweight champion.
And when Ibebuci now has a win against the big
punching Tua and the slick southpaw Chris Bird, he's being
both opposite styles. He's done it in devastating or exciting fashion.
And this guy has looked at as the future of
the heavyweight division and he's being featured on HBO. And
then because he's a knucklehead and he had a lot
of problems mentally and this and that, he got arrested
for some sexual assault situation. He wound up in prison,
he was deported. I mean, it was a whole saga
there was talk of comebacks. There was talk of this,
but the bottom line is it never came to fruition.
And he got out of prison a while back and
he hadn't fought, but there was a lot of discussions
in recent months he would fight. It didn't come off.
Now they announced he's going to fight again. Now. He's
from Nigeria, although he had lived for many years in Dallas, Texas.
But he's back in Nigeria apparently because he was deported.
And he did in fact fight a local fighter from
Nigeria on Saturday in Lagos, Nigeria and eighteen an eight
and two fighter now named Idris a finny who I've
never heard of, who's forty years old, which makes him
a baby because Ikbuci is Iba Buci is now fifty
two years old.
Speaker 1: We had ninety two years a fighter in the ring
in Nigeria, by the way.
Speaker 2: So he ends up getting the stoppage. I guess the
opponent retired on the stool after the third round. And
I would be less than honest if I said I
saw this. I did see this. I read the result
because I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm a boxing
dunk junkie and I'm a big boxing door, but I'm
not spending that. They were a s outfit that was
offering the fight from Nigeria for like thirty dollars on
a stream, and all I could picture is like, my
computer's gonna be infected. The unbelief of I do this.
Ain't getting any Nigerians my credit card, yeah for a
boxing stream, so you know I'll be getting like email
saying oh and by the way, you've also inherited a
billion dollars. I mean, so I did not pay for
the stream at thirty bucks.
Speaker 1: He is apparently going to fight on This was not
just a gimmick once or twice, I guess by a Bayabuci.
Speaker 2: What else is he gonna do. He's been in prison
on and off for decades, and you know, he came
back to the ring in fifty two and he'll go
down as one of those guys in boxing history, a
lah tony Ayala. But you just always wonder what if Ayala,
of course had been in prison years and years and
years ago for also sexual assault and rape. Uh and
Uh ended up getting out of prison and you know,
restarting his career and actually won some fights and then
you know, lost and then ended up going back to
prison and died, not doubt, you know, a couple of
years ago. But you know, he had so much talent.
He was a big amateur Iba Butchi is another one
of these guys where you're just like, oh, what he came.
Speaker 1: There's so many cases of this everywhere, and not just
in sports and society, of people that ruin their life,
that ruined their promise, their potential, their possibility, and ruined
their life.
Speaker 2: But I Beabchi had gotten to a position where he's
literally on the doorstep of becoming the heavyweight champion.
Speaker 1: And he's an his life. Yeah, and threw it away.
Stupid all right, So, uh, at least Ike's fight came
off because the Jerrell Miller Big Baby Miller and uh
and Michael Hunter fight is now not gonna happen on
the undercard of Canelo Crawford. Well that is because Don
King got involved and said, uh, uh, I have a
contract with Michael Hunter and he's in a different knock
this off, So it was not.
Speaker 2: Going to be on the undercard. What it was gonna
be was the uh Tek Zufa Boxing and Turkey and
everybody was gonna put on another card earlier in the week,
oh as they lead into the big card on the thirteen.
So this was actually gonna be on September eleventh in Vegas,
and it was gonna take place at the Font and
Blue Casino, and it was going to be a strange
on the zone and this was the main event of
whatever that event was going to be.
Speaker 1: The However, however, now it is.
Speaker 2: Right, So so Turkey had announced that, and so Don
King claimed to have a contract with Michael Hunter, and
he was sending seasoned assist letters to everybody and their
mother about this. And if you're if you're the Saudi's
and you're Dana White in that group, you're like, what
are we gonna do? We're gonna go to battle with
Don King over Michael Hunter. It's not lacking. So they
they said no thanks, so they canceled the fight. Now,
besides that, though King had won a purse bid to
do Kubrat Pulev, who's not his fighter, who's the BBA
regular title holder at heavyweight against Michael Hunter, who is
the mandatory This is a first bid that took place
back in May. King bid one point one million dollars.
He scheduled for a particular date that did not happen,
but then supposedly reschedule it to take place later in
the fall, and you know, he says he's going to
put the show on. Meanwhile, the pool Lef people, rightly
so are protesting to the WBA saying no, no, no, no, no,
we are not because they didn't They were there at
the person fit, but they didn't offer a bid because
they knew that it was bs the way that it
was handled, because Michael Hunter should not have been eligible
to be in the fight in the first place, for
a variety of reason. We don't have to spend minutes
on the reasons why, but suffice that to say, they
went to arbitration and they made a settlement with Poolev,
and the WBA rescinded the pirst bid win. And so
they said, no, no, no worries. They signed a settlement
agreement with Poolev, and they've now made it where Poolev
is entitled to make an optional defense against anybody in
the WBA's top fifteen. You want to do the optional
defense of what the regular title TJ.
Speaker 1: I keep I keep saying to you, this is all crapola.
Speaker 2: Okay, But I'm just talking about the fact.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no, but you keep legitimizing you, you
keep legitimizing the w b A by talking about optional
defense of whatever. This is where a lot of fans
want me to say, what are we doing here? Stop
talking about the WBA's interim garbage whatever. I'm giving oxygen enough.
Speaker 2: I'm explaining to you why this particular fight is not happening.
And that's actual.
Speaker 1: You're saying to me that the WBA is saying to
Poolev he doesn't have to fight Michael Hunter because of
an optional whatever, and I'm saying to you, no one
cares about that anymore. No one cares. He's not the champion.
No one cares.
Speaker 2: I am simply reporting what occurred, but the punchline, which
he didn't let me get to get to your punchline.
King said out a pressure. So the people are like,
you know, don go fuck yourself, Michael Hunter, go fuck yourself.
We're gonna go make a fight for Poolev to defend
his regular belt against anybody in the top fifteen as
part of our settlement with the WBA. And then King
literally yesterday sends out a pressley saying no, no, no,
the fight's still on. We're still doing Poolev against Hunter,
which is the most preposterous thing because Pool IV ain't
showing up and Hunter ain't showing up.
Speaker 1: So it's so other than the fact that neither fighter
will come to have the fight. Don is looking forward
to promoting Poolev Hunter. That's your punchline.
Speaker 2: That's the punch line.
Speaker 1: And Don turned ninety four years old by the two
days recently, and I'm not I'm not trying to be.
Speaker 2: More as Ken Tankers as ever, but I'm not.
Speaker 1: Trying to be morbid here, but sooner or later, I mean, Don,
Bob Aram is ninety three. We're going on and on.
These guys were promoting fights in the seventies and the eighties.
It is it is beyond.
Speaker 2: BacT that Don at ninety four is still so litigious
for no reason. It's like the guys literally, he's probably
made a billion dollars or so. Just Joe relaxed. Now.
Bob is cantankerous and can be also, But Bob is
much more chill than Don is. I mean, I know
both of these guys for decades, and you can have
a normal, chill, relaxed conversation with Aaron. I mean, I've
had one thousand conversations with King, And even when King.
Speaker 1: You talked to him fairly recently, didn't you earlier this year?
Speaker 2: Right talked to him every now and again. But even
when Don is not like with the lights on, he's
still at one hundred miles an hour. It's like, Don, relaxed,
Can we have a normal conversation. I can have a
normal conversation with Aaron, I've done it a million times.
But Don, it's like.
Speaker 1: In right, So the Hunter fight is not happening with Miller,
and it's apparently not happening with Poulev and who knows
whatever happens with Michael Hunter, who had some promise at
one point, but it's never gone anywhere for the last
three or four years. And there's one more note, a
retirement real quick. You did make brief mention of that
on our last podcast. It's now official that Hector Lewie
east garcia Is is hanging him up, or at least
so he says, for now. Because somebody apparently has ever
retired c II kabeya Bucci, nobody's apparently ever retired.
Speaker 2: Well, listen, I mean Hector Luis Garciat himself a pretty
decent career. He wasn't Olympian in twenty sixteen, first home
country of the Dominican Republic. He did go on to
win a one hundred and thirty pound title. His only
two losses, of course, came in back to back fights
against his most known opponents. You know, he lost, you
know when he he he won the title, and then
he moved up in wait immediately without defending, and he
got stopped by Tank Davis and a fight that actually
took place here in the Washington s area at the
beginning of twenty twenty three. And then and when he
lost the title, he lost to to Lamont Roach in
a close decision where it was really he was a
knockdown in the in the final round that that prevented
that from being a draw instead of a win. And
so he goes out in an and fought for a while,
so you know, it's not like he had been around,
you know, where he like a guy that they've just
fought and announced as a retirement. So that Davis fight
was in January twenty three. He fought Broach. At the
end of twenty twenty three, he did not fight at
all in twenty twenty four, and now here as we
go in into the late part of two thousand and
twenty five, he announces his retirement. So you know, good
luck to him. You know, not going to be in
Hall of Fame, but you know, got himself a title,
and I you know, fought in a couple of more
notable fights against Roach and then against Tank Davis and
was an Olympian. And you know, hopefully he enjoys his career.
I'm not. I don't can't say he made you know,
huge amounts of money, only had eighteen pro fights, finishes
up sixteen and two, and that's that's the news of
the week.
Speaker 1: If he is in fact done for good, he's good
for me. He says he's done now.
Speaker 2: But Miamisia, when guys retire, I take him at their word,
and if they change their mind, so be it. I'll
tell you what I.
Speaker 1: Only speel when guys are fairly young and they announced
they're not fighting anymore, I don't take them at their word.
Speaker 2: Just too well, I was gonna say, I take them
at the word except for Tyson Furry.
Speaker 1: Another classic example. Other than that, I think we are
good here on this edition, as we recap the MVP card.
We gave you plenty of news again. We're headed to
a holiday weekend, kind of wrapping up the summer for
a lot of people. There's not a lot going on,
but we are building to September and Canelo Crawford. Other
than that, my friend, let's have a good weekend. We'll
come back. We'll have a preview pod going into the weekend.
We may have something else. I don't want to spoil
everybody surprised. We may have something else also on the
pod feed, so make sure you're following, subscribing apples, Freaker, Spotify,
anything else.
Speaker 2: So we good, We're good, We're good.
Speaker 1: There's a big Dan rayphel I'm merely TJ Reeves. Thank
you for being with us as you've been part of
the Fight Freaks United Recap podcast