Speaker 1: All right off of a weekend that has seen Joshua
Bououcei will win a questionable decision over Zach Parker in
a light heavyweight made event in England. It has seen
Lanier Pero, the Cuban heavyweight come to the United States
and get a victory. It also saw really going into
the weekend right before Halloween, MICHAELA. Mayer won another world title,
this time at junior middleweight. We're going to recap all
of that. We've got fight news and much more. Welcome
in It is the Fight Freaks Unite recamp podcast. I
am the somewhat capable host, TJ. Reeves. He is our insider,
Big Dan Rayfield. Fight Freaks Unite is the substack and
the newsletter.
Speaker 2: My friend. Good to be with you, so much to
go over.
Speaker 1: We have survived Halloween excess candy in the Reeves household,
Rayfield sending me pictures about all of your different candy
loot that young Rayfhael had obtained, etc. Everybody survived, hopefully,
everybody was saying, and I got to get the candy
out of the house, like I'm saying to you every year,
because I'm really the only one that eats it, and
so I've got to get rid of it.
Speaker 3: I've got to about just for the flex. My son
comes home with a big bag of candy and running around.
Then they left it here and he went out and
got another big, big bag of candy bag.
Speaker 2: Like a couple of pounds, Like a pound of candy
in a.
Speaker 3: Bag several pounds. Ridiculous. But here's the flex. In my neighborhood,
we always would get like a couple of these every year.
There was people handing out the full bars, full string,
full thing of Star Wars, the full kick cat, the
full like bags of like we were not fulling cookies.
Speaker 1: We were not fooling around. Yeah, full full candy is
not fooling around. Club in the Rayfield neighborhood, Oh my gosh.
Now we were handing out the assorted bite size and
then we had like a separate patch of the of
the sour patch and the airheads, and nobody in the
house eats that.
Speaker 2: So we got to get rid of that. So anyway,
I must say, I got.
Speaker 3: A strong, strong recommendation if you don't it, but and
we got to get rid of them because otherwise I'm
gonna eat a few more than I should the watermelon.
Sour pats are an absolute bomb. All right, watermelon, that's
the flavor tremendous. So we actually you're.
Speaker 1: Not posed watermelon, but the sour patches like straight sugar.
You might as well just take a spoonful and such
a watermelon.
Speaker 3: That's the point. So we were giving out. We were
getting out the kit kats, the sour patch assortment and
uh some little gummy bear thing that that my son
mus and by the way, must I must say, we
had more kids this year than we've had in years.
We probably had about seventy kids. And I realized the
reason why because my wife put out on the front porch,
put out on the on the ghost light. So there
was this white light, and I was like, what the
fuck is going on? Because I kept seeing it in
my office through the through the shade. There was like
she was like it was like the bat signal.
Speaker 1: She was advertising like the bat signal. And by the way,
my two, my two have now reached the stage at
age seventeen. They did not dress up, they did not
go out. They were handing out candy in our neighborhood.
They were not feeling great either, twelve, So what was
he dressed as real quick while we digress, and then
we'll move on.
Speaker 3: He was Bucky the Beaver.
Speaker 1: Bucky the Beaver because in years gone by he's been
various things from like super hero to various Okay, yeah, on.
Speaker 3: That Halloween is still a big deal in the house.
Speaker 2: I got you.
Speaker 1: I realize that this is a boxing podcast. We are
going to recap the fights, but you and I are
humongous baseball fans. We're doing this Sunday night into Monday.
My god, I had no rooting interest in Dodgers Blue Jays.
But that is as crazy a game seven. I'm saying
this as crazy dramatic a game seven in any sport
that I can recall. We're not trying to be hyperbolic here,
but you chime in, you're a big baseball guy. Oh yeah,
you got the Yankees. You got no love for the
Blue Jays who end up getting their hearts.
Speaker 3: That's not true. First of all, all right, before I
covered boxing, in my early days of my professional journalism
career as a sportswriter, I covered a lot of baseball.
I love baseball. I covered minor league baseball, multiple teams
New York met minor league baseball New York Yankee, Minor
League Baseball, Saint Louis Cardinal Minor League Baseball, Independent League baseball.
I covered a lot of shit, had the great fortune
to cover the great Derek Jeter as a minor leaguer.
That tells you how fucking old islandp So I'm a
diehard baseball fan. Now, as far as my rooting interest
as a Yankee fan, you grew up hating the Dodgers
and the Red Sox, so I have no love for
the Dodgers. And although I'm not a Toronto Blue Jay
fan per se because they play in the same division
as my beloved New York Yankees, much respect to the
Toronto Blue Jay is a great organization, I was rooting
in a big time for them for a variety of reasons. One,
I did not want to see the Dodgers become the
first back to back champion since the Yankees went three
in a row twenty five years ago. My favorite all
time player when I was a kid was Don Mattingly,
who's spent forty years in baseball, made the playoffs once
in his final season as a Yankee, never made it
to the World Series until this year as a bench
coach for the Blue Jay so I was really hoping
that Madameie would get the ring. But in the end,
it was a fantastic World Series. I loved every minute
of it. The Game seven drama was amazing. The Game
three eighteen inning game. I watched all rail pitches of
that game. Unrel incredible game.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just saying on that Game seven trendous.
I mean, you can talk about Game seven's in the NBA.
I mean, I'll always be partial to Bird and the
Celtics beating Magic and the Lakers for the first time
in the Game seven and eighty four when I was
a youngster.
Speaker 2: All Right, I'm partial that.
Speaker 1: That game was not as dramatic as what we just
saw on November the November.
Speaker 2: The first into the second, twenty.
Speaker 1: Twenty five into the second, basically late night Eastern time,
where the where the Dodgers hit a home run in
the top of the ninth of Game seven, with the
Blue Jays two outs away from winning their first World
Series in thirty plus years, the country of Canada is
on edge and the guy him in As hits the
home run to tie the game. But the basis then
you have two plays in the bottom of the ninth inning,
that either one of them are gonna win the game
in Game seven to win the World Series, and you're
gonna be known forever. And the Dodgers get the guy
out of the plate by a toenail.
Speaker 3: You could watch baseball another twenty years and not see
a ball get wedged under the under the fence on
a hard hit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But then the leaping catch with two outs in
the bottom of the ninth like we dream about in
the backyard of the driveway. Two outs in the bottom
of the ninth and the leaping catch at the wall
to preserve the World Series.
Speaker 3: Knocked it where he knocked his teammates.
Speaker 2: Own teammate over.
Speaker 1: And then the goal ahead home run by the other
Will Smith, not the famous Will Smith, the actor, This
is the other la Will Smith. And then the the
Blue Jays are threatening in the last inning, and the
Japanese reliever that they paid like some billion dollars Yamamoto.
Speaker 2: For he gets the double play to end it.
Speaker 3: And by the way, he pitched the night before, and
he pitched a complete game in Game three, So Dobbs's
the MVP. Well, it's a great series.
Speaker 1: Again, this is a boxing podcast, but we thought we
would give that a couple of minutes.
Speaker 2: That was insane.
Speaker 3: If you told me that, if you told me that
a Japanese Dodgers player was gonna be MVP pretty much
betting on Otani, not Yamamoto.
Speaker 2: Crazy Crazy Game seven, and I can't wait to see.
Speaker 1: I mean, the rating, the audience is obviously going to
be sky he It's not going to be as big
as the eighties and nineties when you had fewer channels.
But the fact that that Canada as a country is
a different rated market. The fact that Japan, I want
to know, who was watching Sunday afternoon in Japan could
be everybody crazy? All right, So we covered a little baseball.
Speaker 3: I'll just I'll just preface by before we begin our
boxing discussion that the baseball activity this past weekend was
far superior than the crepple that we saw in box.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, let's get to that craple we got.
By the way, thank you for finding us again. Follow
subscribe Apple, Spreaker, Spotify. We're recapping right here as we
rock on. Uh. All right, so I have to confess
I've only seen highlights recaps of Joshua Buozzi and Ze.
Speaker 3: Talking about right there yea. If you saw highlights that
probably lasted about five seconds.
Speaker 2: Yea, and it was not long on social media. I
do know this.
Speaker 1: My man David Payne, who I constantly prop up here,
the boxing writer in the UK, he messaged me and said,
TJ robbery.
Speaker 2: So Rayphael, do you agree? Did Zach Parker get robbed?
Speaker 1: Or was it such a garbage fight it was tough
to conclude who actually won this light heavyweight main event
for Queensberry In.
Speaker 3: The immortal words of my good friend. Ron borgis the
longtime boxing writer for the various Boston newspapers and International
Boxing Hall of Famer. Speaking on the Legendary Nights episode
of when Don King tried to overturn the Buster Douglas
Mike Tyson knockout, as he said, now you know what
it's like when you're working at the seven eleven at
three am and they come in with the gun. That's
what this was like.
Speaker 2: It was that level of robbery.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you something. There's we all have varying
degrees of agreement or disagreement with scorecards, and we can
talk about range of accepted those scores all you want,
and to me and I'm certainly was not alone. It's
not like I'm on an island. I haven't seen anybody
that really was like, Wow, Bowatzi deserved the decision. This was,
to me, first of all, before we get to the scoring,
a absolutely horrible, disgustingly, terrible, horrendous fight. I made the
point on social media it's so bad. It'd be like
if you're watching Gimore Riggan Doo fight himself. That's how
bad this shit was. This was unwatchable one man.
Speaker 1: Again, for those of us that have not seen the
fight in its entirety, For what reason was Bowatzi disinterested?
Speaker 2: Unable to do anything? Was he disinterested for what reasons?
Speaker 3: Well, for a couple of things. One I think Buwatzi
perhaps it's showing the side effects of the very very hard, rugged, brutal,
grueling fight that he lost against Colen Smith earlier this year.
I'm not sure that he'll ever be the same now
after what I saw in that fight and what I
saw in the match on Saturday. I hope he is.
Obviously he's a nice guy. I've got nothing against Bowatzie whatsoever,
So that's part of that. He was following the guy around.
He was you know, not doing much of anything. And
it was only a ten round fight, not a twelve rounder,
Thank the Lord, that wasn't twelve rounds. And Parker, although
he stunk to join out also he came with a
very specific plan. It was very obvious, let me throw
a couple of punches, moved it a side, I'm gonna
grab a hold when I have to. He obviously he
went down onto the canvas about six times from grabbing
him around the waist and falling down. I mean, you know, frankly,
the referee could have done a little bit or better
job that was that was a problem, could have definitely
warned him about that or taken a point away, but
he didn't. So, you know, if if it's working, you know,
why why fix it? You know, if the referee is
letting you get away with whatever the infraction is or
the gray area of the rules.
Speaker 1: Are sloppy wrestling type fight at times well contributed to.
Speaker 3: A lot of running I shouldn't say running. He did
a lot of like punch and move grab, punch and
move grab. It was almost like, in some ways like
a super light heavyweight version of some of the worst
fights you could watch in the career of Ladimir Klitchko
were granted. As much of a fan of Vladimir's as
I am, I would be less and honest that there
were hots some fights where you know, he did the
all grab and move and you know, punch and move
and grab. So it was horrible, but it was working
and it was effective because he was definitely out landing Biatzi.
He was definitely controlling the space of the fight where
was taking place, to pace of the fight and when
it was over with. So Carl Frampton, the former world
champion who does commentary on some of the Queensberry shows
for his own, he had to fight nine rounds to
one in favor of park Now, I wasn't that generous
to Parker. I had eight rounds to two, and I
saw a whole bunch of scores from people on social
media and people that texted me afterwards that they had
a very wide in favor of of Parker. And so
now when it gets to the scorecards, you hear and
you know this is always the you know, you're like
a fuck ninety five ninety five and you're like, well,
that's the problem right here. In ninety six ninety fairre like,
all right, that's terrible and it's close, but you're figuring
Parker's still going to get it. And of course they
now said Bwatzi got to win. And it was farcical,
absolutely terrible. So here's what it was. Now, this was
not a championship fight. They were fighting for, you know,
a regional belt, so it was not a world title fight.
It was not even an official eliminator. But Frank Warren
was making the point in the lead up, because he
is the promoter, of course for Anthony Yard, who challenges
David Benavitees for the WBC title in the in the
Read season or the Read card that's coming up November
twenty second, was talking up the prospect of the winner
of that fight, that the winner of Boazzi and Parker
would be in the running to get a shot at
the winner of Benavides against the Yard. Well, when you
see a fight that fucking terrible, that absolutely piece of
shit fight that I spent and I'll never get those
forty five minutes of my life back, they basically eliminated themselves.
I mean, whoever you think is the winner because Bowatze
looked absolutely horrible, and Parker, I thought fought exactly how
we had to fight to get to win. But why
would anybody want to watch that? Again? Like, it's just
a negative in terms of you know, any fan interest
or marketability for an event. I ask again, a horrible decision,
I ask again of.
Speaker 1: You because you thought it was eight two and again,
Carl Frampton's a former world champions scring it right there
at ringside, thought it was nine to one. Are we
dealing with just gross incompetence from these judges or are
we suspecting there's something something the farious is up here
that they wanted to make sure Bowatzie won the fight.
Speaker 3: However, I mean, look, they're both with Queensberry this. I mean,
Watzi's the more heralded fighter. He was the Olympian, he
was the one coming off the great fight with Callum Smith.
He's the one that at one point had an interim
title that there's so much high hopes for.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: But I'm not I'm not making no accusation. I don't
think the fix was in.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's so you're leaning more towards just incompetence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean maybe the judges thought they thought that
certain guy was supposed to win. I mean maybe they
were turned off by the holding, which is reasonable, but
not enough to give him six rounds to Bowazzi. So
you have a judge named Salvador Salva, who Frank I
had never heard of, who scored the fight six to
four in favored Bowazzi. You had Greg's Molenda who also
scored the fight ninety five to ninety five. And then
the other judge, your boy Marcus McDonald from Britain. He
had to fight ninety six to ninety four. So he
stinks as a judge almost as bad as he stinks
as a referee.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: All right, And like you said, this does not bode
well for Bowatzi to have any kind of an opportunity,
at least in the next fight. He's got to show
something else.
Speaker 3: I mean, who would want to watch that after that?
As miserable of a performance as Parker had, at least
I and most others felt he won. Biwazi had a
miserable performance and barely won more than one or two rounds.
In my estimation, if you wanted to lean over backwards me,
maybe you could somehow find a way to give him,
you know, four rounds maybe. I mean, if you wanted
to be just mister charitable for the upcoming holiday season.
Give him five rounds, but come on, you can't give
the guy six rounds in that fight. And it was
just a horrible fight anyway, you know, like I said,
it was Riggando versus Riggando.
Speaker 1: Okay, So for the show from match Room in Orlando,
we did preview that lanier Pero the Cuban fighting Jordan Thompson.
I was a bit surprised here that Thompson lasted the distance.
Were you surprised he would be a ten round fight
go ahead?
Speaker 3: I was definitely. I was definitely surprised by that. Thompson
was moving off from cruiserweight, where he'd been you know,
pretty much destroyed by by Bivel in a fight that
was not that long ago. He you know, he and
he hadn't fought for a couple of years, largely because
he was having hand problems. He had a variety of
injuries that impacted him. He never liked to see a
guy's career get thrown off because of the injuries. Obviously
that's never a good thing. But the case in him,
he was coming back off a two year laugh and
moving up quite a bit of weight and he was
always known as like, oh, by the way, I made
a mistake. He got knocked out by ji Opataia Patia
right right, batyah, yeah, my bad. That was a fourth
round knockout. That was all the way back in September
of twenty twenty three. So now it's a little over
two years later that he's back against Pero in the
new weight class. So apparently it healed up from his injuries.
As a cruiser weight, he was always known for having
good punching power, and you know, now you're going in
against a guy that's that's a natural heavyweight that's been
in that division. And Paro was a guy that had
a lot of amateur athletes. He was on the Cuban
Olympic team. He fought in the twenty sixteen Olympic Games.
I mean, this is not just a nobody type of guy.
It's a guy that has a lot of promise, even
though at age thirty two, he's obviously a little bit
older than your average up and coming prospect. Hey, look,
and Thompson put up a good performance. It wasn't it
was you know, as I refer to the fight, it
was sort of like, oh hum, just a regular fight.
It was you know, frankly, the fact that they made
it a main event was kind of disappointing in the
first place, just because it didn't really warrant a main
event position. But obviously I'm sure they're dealing with certain
budgetary situations with the zone, and you know, this was
not late the a level matchroom card, if you will.
It was just compared to Bowatzi against Parker, this was
like Daddy and work. But it was still it was
still a pretty bad fight. It was just a very
regular sort of who home kind of fight. One thing
was was Thompson, I guess, understandably because he'd been off
for such a long time, got off to a really
super slow start, like, didn't really do much of anything
for the first this as a ten rounder also didn't
do much of anything for the first handful of rounds.
Got back into it in the second half of the fight,
without question, he did got he got rocked really bad
though in the ninth round. That was probably the best
round that Perol had in terms of doing damage. And
in the end, I mean, it was just a kind
of a whole hoummish kind of fight. No one's gonna
be like looking to watch a replay of it. Necessarily
it was, you know, a pretty pretty uh clear cut
kind of decision. And you know, Perol though for him
and in this kind of drives me crazy. They kept
making a big deal about it on the broadcast. Well,
he's ranked number two by the Well. Being ranked by
number two by the WBA may be good for him
in his positioning. But if you're in the reality of
the world, we all live in the notion that lenniar Perow,
despite his promise, would be ranked number two in the world. Right,
it's an absolute joke, beyond comprehension, because he has not
fought anybody. Right, And if your best win, and this
is probably against Jordan Thompson is probably his best win.
He hasn't fought anybody. He's fought an absolute motley crue
of drek his entire professional career. You know, he's living
on guys like Joe Caddle, you know, nine six and
two journeyman that's been knocked out by a bunch of guys.
I mean, he is not fought anybody. And if your
best win is a guy who got a nuclearized in
a Cruiserway title fight, and even before that victory, you're
number two in the WBA. What the fuck does that
tell you about how horrible the WBA is.
Speaker 2: I'm with you bid.
Speaker 1: Omari Jones did get his knockout on the under card.
Tell me a little more about the under card in
that fight as well.
Speaker 3: So there were two prospects that were very interesting on
this card. One of them was Omari Jones, who I
like a lot. We discussed him on the preview. He
was he's from Orlando, so he's fighting in front of
the hometown crowd. This is a kid that won the
only American Olympic boxing medal in the Paris Olympic Games.
He you know, he's a he's a tremendous prospect in
the germer middleweight division. Perhaps they'll go down to the
welterweight division. So there the idea from mattrim here, because
it again it's only his fourth professional fight. You want
to get the young kids some rounds. That's that's paramount
to get that experience. He's he'sy young guy's you know,
just scratching the surface. He's a twenty two year old kid.
And now he's now four and zero with four knockouts,
which is kind of impressive because and they made the
point on the broadcast, I was thinking the same thing.
When he came into the pros. He was more known for,
you know, good boxing skills, not that he's afraid or
can't get into a solid fight. But nobody was really
thinking like, here's a puncher. But even though he's facing
limited opponents obviously, but he scored four knockouts in his
first four fights, so they wanted to get in some rounds.
He went two rounds, one round and three rounds in
his first three bouts, so he's in scheduled six rounders
since his first fight. So they put him in with
a tough fighter, supposedly twelve and two guy coming into
the fight, a guy nam Yusuf met to from. As
I said in the preview, he boxing a hotbed of
Tanzania in Africa. But he's a noted tough guy. From
the standpoint that even though he you know, has a
twelve and three record, he'd only been stopped one time.
I'm sorry, going into the fight, he'd only he'd never
been stopped. He's now got one stop his loss because
Omari Jones took him out, but he had gone the
distance in his losses. Uh and the idea was you know,
bring him in to get some durability and let's see
if we can get Jones to go, you know, past
the third round, maybe four rounds, maybe go the distance.
Even it didn't quite work out that way because Omari
Jones was all over this guy knocked him down with
some real harsh right hands and ended up knocking them
out in the third round and looked really good. And
it was very highlight realist because when he knocked him down,
you know, he had him so discombobulated that he was
doing like the shaky leg day.
Speaker 2: It was like a gumby and then he did he
did a kneel down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw, so he looked, he looked. He looked
really good. Amari Jones is definitely a top prospect to watch.
I mean, the first left hand that he landed in
the first round, you know, had him staggered him down.
And then he obviously he took him out with the
right hand over the top. He busted up his left
eye and took him out in the third round and
that was you know again, he'll be back, I'm sure
the in January. I think they're gonna have him on
a show with that matter. Who's gonna do. And then
in terms of the other prospect that was on this card,
this is the the British Olympian, the cruiser Way Pat Brown,
who is got I mean, look, Amari Jones has the
four knockouts in his first spoort fights. I'm not yet
convinced he's a puncher. We'll see as the crew develops
me starts to face better guys. Pat Brown looks like
a real puncher. I mean again, he's five to zero
now with five knockouts. He's twenty five year olds. He
was in the U on the British Olympic team. He's
fighting a little bit now. I want to say better guys,
but guys, it's team like. They're not as walkover as
the guys that Amari has been fighting. He took out
Felix Valera, who was very experienced fighter, has fought some
of the top fighters in the world, although not you
know obviously what he want was and he blitzed this
guy in two rounds. I was quite impressed by that.
So Pat Brown is another guy, and a big guy,
six foot three, solid two hundred pounds. Obviously, at some
point there'll be a heavyweight from Manchester, England another guy
to keep an eye on. So we discussed in the preview.
I was interested, not because I thought these these fights
with with Pat Brown or with Omari Jones were competitive fights,
but you want to see if you're met with the
certain kind of guys your match with, can you take
him out and look impressive? Get fans excited, get guys
like me excited. And the answer is yes, because I
very much look forward to seeing the next time Omari
Jones gets into the ring. I very much look forward
to the next time that Pat Brown gets into the ring.
These guys are definitely people we will talk about on
this podcast, you know, a year and a half, two
years from now, fighting potentially like in World championship type fights.
Speaker 1: All right, And we do want to go back to
Thursday Night because it is a recap podcast.
Speaker 2: And MICHAELA.
Speaker 1: Mayer did deliver as an easy decision win over Mary
Spencer in the main event in Montreal on the eye
of the Tiger Promotions card.
Speaker 2: And I didn't fully.
Speaker 1: Understand she not only won the WBA title, but she
won the other two vacant titles. So this makes her
three built unified. Yes, give me more, give me more.
On the mayor win and the ramifications of what it
might mean.
Speaker 3: Look, Mikaela Mayer is a really outstanding fighter and she
does not have a lot of drama associated with you know,
deals to make fights are where I'm fighting fighting, She's like,
line them up, then I'll fight them. She's gone on
the road, She's fought in the UK, She's fought, you know,
in she went fought this fight on Mary Spencer's home
turf in Canada, in her hometown of Montreal. Not only that,
but in a venue at the Montreal Becausino where Mary
Spencer has fought like eight of her fights as a
pro out of her thirteen fights, including like five in
a row. I mean she fought Natasha Jonas in her
own town of Liverpool. I mean she's fought other fighters
on the road, and I mean she's she's a road
warrior from that standpoint, and she's a hell off and
she's making herself into a Hall of Fame type candidate
with the accomplishments that she is achieving. She had already
been a unified champion in the junior lightweight division. She
jumped up and she was fighting at welterweight, where she
had the tremendous battle, great fight last year against Sandy
Ryan and she won the WBO welterweight title. She then
won the rematch against her in much more easy fashion
in the rematch it took place in this year in March,
and when they could not make a fight or there
was no real effort on the other sides behalf, I
guess to try to do an undisputed fight between her
and Lauren Price, who has the other three welterweight titles,
still as the WBO welterweight champion. When the idea came up,
well we can go to fifty four and you can
get a shot at Mary Spencer, who had the WBA belt.
She said, let's do it, and she didn't. There was
no issue. She was willing to travel. She went to Montreal,
she took a tour and Mary Spencer at her at
one time was a top amateur that Michael looked up to.
She was like one of the when boxing first became
an Olympic sports, she was one of the top women.
Then michaela followed and you know, and it has a
lot of you know, helped pave the way, I guess
for some of the women today that are successful amateurs,
but Spencer's also forty years old. She doesn't have a
particularly glittering resume. Even though she was a tremendous amateur fighter,
and Michaela took the tour, even though she was coming
up the weight class, she was looked like a bigger puncher.
She was faster, she had a good chin when she
got a hit with the right hands. Because Spencer did
land some good shots on her, and Michaela is just
a Jesus warrior. She walked basically into everything, kept punching
and just out punched her, out hustled her, was quicker
than her, had better defense than she did, and just
one going away, one hundred to ninety on one squarecard,
ninety eight to ninety two on the other two. I
think I scored it ninety nine to ninety one in
favor of Michaela. Now you asked about the titles, So
she won the BBA belt that was Mary Spencer's. If
you go back a few weeks ago, last month, or
whenever it was, you had the farewell fight for the
great Cecilia Brecho's who had been a long time under
speeded welterweight champion, and she was having her farewell fight
in the junior middleweight division where she was challenging Emma
Co's and for those belts, and she won that fight,
and because it was her farewell fight, she did what
she promised she would do. She said, I'm done. She
won the titles, retired and then vacated those belts, and
the sanctioning bodies at wb C and the WBO said, okay, well,
we were seeing Mary Spencer against Mikayla Mayer. They're obviously
worthy rank contenders and in terms of Mikhaela, a champion,
and so they allowed them to fight for the vacant title.
And so now she wins the BA title, and she
wins the two vacant titles, which makes her the three
belt title. Theer in the junior middleweight division. She still
has the title in the welterweight division. As far as
what she wants to do next, she talked about if
the sanction bodies will allow it, I'd like to fight
in both weight classes and just take the biggest fights.
Most likely she'll have to make a decision, and I
guess it will depend on where the biggest and best
fight is. But there's going to be action for her.
It seems to me there are good candidates in either division.
My preference if she could just wave a wand or
I could one and have the fight that we want
to see. I'd love to see her go back down
to forty seven and fight Lauren Price for the undisputed title.
Speaker 1: I will just say this, because we talk about this frequently.
You've already put the WBA and their rankings out on blast.
It's garbage that they gave her two titles. It tells
me they're devoid. You love that word of any real
contenders at junior.
Speaker 3: I would agree with that at all, because okay, it's.
Speaker 1: My take, so I would like to finish it. I
started for like seven seconds. She didn't fight anybody ranked
in the other two organizations to earn either one of
those belts. It's garbage that they handed her two other
belts while fighting the WBA World Champion.
Speaker 2: It's garbage.
Speaker 1: She should have to have fought at least one of
the fighters ranked in one of the other rankings to
get one of those belts.
Speaker 2: It's garbage.
Speaker 3: She wins the fightle the title from Spencer.
Speaker 2: Which is the WBA title.
Speaker 3: If you are aware of the WBO rules and this
is something that they've done a thousand times, including recently
with Aarents, Crawford and others. If you are a reigning
champion of the WBO and and you delect to try
to fight in the next way class, you are immediately
eligible to fight for that title as the champion in
the in the one way class below.
Speaker 2: So speaking, you got to fight somebody else that's in
their rankings.
Speaker 3: That's not true. It's absolutely in their rules in their
purview to approve a world championship fight for w.
Speaker 2: Fair enough, and the third belt is what that.
Speaker 1: She's a title and so now talk your way into
how she deserves that belt.
Speaker 3: Because she's one of the best femal boxers in the world.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean she deserves to be handed the WBC
belt without fighting a WBC fighter with the WBC title.
Speaker 2: I have no they have no real stars or marketing.
Speaker 3: I got ninety problems with thanking bodies, and this one
of them.
Speaker 1: But what I'm saying to you is when the public
at large says these belts mean nothing.
Speaker 3: They don't mean they mean a lot.
Speaker 1: Actually that when they mean nothing in terms of significance.
It's things like this that lend credence to that. It
doesn't It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter as much if
you're just being given a championship belt that.
Speaker 3: She wasn't given anything.
Speaker 1: The WBC title when she didn't fight a WBC contending fighter,
and under your own criteria, it has nothing to do
with the wb A ranking and belt she had.
Speaker 2: She was given that belt period. She was given that
belt period.
Speaker 3: I feel like if you looked at these two women
very clearly, they're two of the best out there, and
they allowed it to happen. I have no problem with that.
Speaker 2: What women you lost me?
Speaker 3: What women?
Speaker 2: Who are we talking about now?
Speaker 3: Mikaela Mayer and Mary Spencer are two of the best
female boxers in and around.
Speaker 1: Mary Spencer didn't have the WBC title, and yeah, if.
Speaker 2: If, if, if grandma had a beard, you have a beard.
Speaker 3: But well, I mean we can. We can find examples
in Men's Boxing Office, and all.
Speaker 2: Of them are garbage.
Speaker 1: When you get handed a title that you didn't really win,
you're handed the title, That's all I'm pointing out.
Speaker 2: And this is what people think. It's dubious.
Speaker 3: We can we can rip to samection. Somebodies every which
way from Sunday. I feel like this is one of
those reasons that's really in the pantheon of rippage reasons.
This is one of them, the.
Speaker 2: Bon of rippage.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll move on and see what she does
next and who she fights next, and uh, stay tuned
for that.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Shall we move on to some news and this is
kind of interesting here and could get intertwined. So the
first thing is Ryan Garcia may be fighting Mario Barrios.
Did you like how I phrased that, Rayphael, Yes, Ryan
Garcia may be fighting Mario Barrios in twenty twenty six
for the WBC welterweight title.
Speaker 2: Part one. Tell me about Part one? That may be OK.
Speaker 3: They have been in negotiations, they're changing paperwork, they're going
through things, they're trying to make the fight. I talk
to people on both sides of this, following up on
a report by The Ring magazine which broke that story,
but it is accurate. They are looking to do this
fight in the first quarter of twenty twenty six. It
would take place, I am told in Las Vegas. It
would be a joint pay per view between the Zone,
which is where Ryan Garcia is aligned and PBC, which
is where Mario Barrios is aligned. The WBC title that
Mario Barrios has that he's still lucky to hold because
of the very sketchy draw he received against Manny pacya
that took place in July. The WBC, from what I
was told by the various sizes, they still have to
sign off on this as a title defense for Barrios.
Will see if they do that or not. Still not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, here we go again with
a fighter that hasn't won a fight in over a year.
But here's the big behalf, Ryan Garcia. We're gonna let
him have a title shot.
Speaker 3: Okay, look I get it, but boxing's a business and
Ryan Garcia is a big star. So that's the first thing.
That's the same reason why the WBC hold on hold on,
same reason why many Pakia was allowed after four years
of retirement because he's a leeged.
Speaker 1: Same that reason why they gave Mikaela Mayer the third
title at one fifty four.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you.
Speaker 3: It's not quite the level of star of the other
Still they.
Speaker 2: Don't have anybody else in that division, so there you go.
Speaker 3: I'll go, Well, that's that's by the way, that's another
aspect in terms of women's boxing. The universe of the
top contenders is much smaller. But I promise you there's
a lot of other worthy candidates to fight Mario Barrios
for the WBC welterweight title than Ryan Garcia. My biggest
problem with it, and again this is not knowing whether
the WBC will sign off on doing the fight. I
would assume they probably will, but we'll see what happens.
The problem I have with it is that a Ryan
Garcia is coming off of a loss to Roly Romero
in May, and it wasn't just a loss. It was
a bona fide loss, not controversial. He got knocked down
clear as day that he lost the fight, and it
was a horrible fight. So you put it all together,
like why should he jump the line? Gets So they
are definitely in conversations to make that match.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And again both sides were bullish on it, and we'll
see if they can work.
Speaker 1: On But but let's go to door number two. Here
we go at door number two is the Jake Paul
Tank Davis fight now scheduled, what a mere twelve days
from you and I taping this recap pod Sunday Night
into Monday is in jeopardy.
Speaker 2: And we don't mean that in the late Alex Trebek.
Speaker 1: It is in jeopardy of not happening because Davis has
yet another accusation of domestic violence. In fact, a woman
filed a civil lawsuit earlier this week in South Florida
alleging that Davis assaulted her at a nightclub early last week.
She didn't waste any time in going and filing a
civil lawsuit. So he is in trouble again with another woman,
another domestic violence situation, and it has now cast into doubt,
if not great doubt, that Davis is going to be
part of whatever this farce is with Jake, Paul and
Big Dan. Is the name Ryan Garcia now on the radar?
Speaker 3: What do we think? What do we know a couple
about that? To answer your last question, first, they did
contact the meaning the MVP folks did reach out about
Ryan Garcia's availability, and apparently he was told They were
told he is not available in part, and Oscar de
la Hoya, who is Ryan Garcia's promoter at least for
the next fight, made a video for his social media
where he says, look that ain't happening. You guys are
on Netflix. We're on his own. We're not doing something
with you guys. We are with our partner on his
own period. So take that for what it's worth. Secondly,
they are deep in this discussion with the Mario Barrios
fight as far as the Tank situation goes, And by
the way they've been reaching out, it wasn't like Ryan
Garci was the only guy. It looked that they they
had reached out for Nate Diaz, the MMA fighter. There
was conversation. Eddie Hearne addressed it on their show about
Anthony Joshua. There were other people that they look They actually,
according to Chris Mannicks, who was doing a lot of
reporting in this and did a hell of a job
on it, they actually contacted Terrence Crawford about a dailability.
Now if this goes forward, if he then cost forward,
it most likely will not happen on November fourteenth. They're
looking at other dates to switch the whole event into December,
so it would give anybody that would become a replacement
opponent if in fact Tank is out of the fight,
that it would not happen until you know, mid to
late December, so we'll see how that goes. Tank Davis, though,
is most likely out of the fight from what I
am told. We'll see what happens. Netflix, you know, apparently
is not real thrilled with this latest thing. You talked
about the civil suit that the woman filed. She not
only did she file the civil suit, but she also
her people have contacted the police that are in South
Faria where this incidents mostly took place. And you know,
obviously you're always innocent til proven guilty in our judicial
system in the United States of America. But Tank Davis
got a problem to keep in his hands. He wants
to put hands on everybody except for Lamont Roach like that.
Speaker 1: And I'm not laughing about domestic violence. I'm just laughing
about the line about Roach because he didn't fight very
well in the fight.
Speaker 2: And here's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: He has repeated, repeatedly demonstrated he can't stay out of trouble,
can't stay out of legal trouble, can't stay out of
a courtroom. And is lucky he's not in a Baltimore
jail right now for probation violation for the previous problems
earlier in the in the year where again, there was
a domestic violence arrest, and then they elected not to
move forward because the victim would not or the accuser
would not cooperate. And now here we are again.
Speaker 3: This is a different girlfriend who's allegedly that they were
together for like five months. According to some of the
things I've heard and read, and which is what's in
the lawsuit that she filed, she worked as a cocktail
server at a gentleman's club in South Varna. I don't
think she was a stripper, but she was a waitress
any of that.
Speaker 1: And he went to the business, assault and assaulted her, according.
Speaker 3: To her according to the lawsuit, attacked her in a
back room that apparently had no cameras or whatever, dragged
her through a stairwell, a kitchen, assaulted her in the
parking Uh not the parking lot, but the parking garage. Uh.
And it just fits the bill. This is a guy
in tank who has been repeated. It's not like I'm
not in any way with condone domestic bounds. But you know,
if there's a if you're with somebody for a long
time and there's volatility and something erupted, you know, once
and it was long ago, and you've put it to
bed and made up like shit like that happens. We're
all human beings. But when you have a consistent and
repeated offenses allegedly against multiple different women, it's clearly a problem.
And a lot of people in boxing just want to
sweep it under the rug because he generates a lot
of money, he has a popularity. But the reality is
if you look, and you could go on ticket Master
or whatever they're they're ticketing people are for this tank
and uh and uh Jake Paul event, and the tickets
were DA They're not selling at all. There was tons
and tons of tickets available.
Speaker 2: So the public was hipped to it.
Speaker 3: All right, I'm glad. So anyway, he also threatened to
kill her, supposedly in the text mess.
Speaker 1: And and I'm just saying this, we give our opinions
over and over again. The days of him getting out
of all of this, I mean, he had a felony
hit and run with injuries in Baltimore and basically was
given house arrest instead of jail time because he violated
the house arrest. I mean, how many more breaks do
you have to be given where they didn't prosecute him earlier?
This summer on another domestic violence. All right, so it
appears at this stage he's out of the picture. Can
we fairly well conclude, because MVP put that statement out
over the weekend and we publicized it on social media,
et cetera, that they're looking into all of this, that
this November fourteenth thing, especially with what you said, with
the tickets being being poorly moved at this point, can
probably well conclude we're going into December with somebody else.
Speaker 3: Right, can't remember there's other bond at least a bomb
Garner's defending her un disputed title that, uh yeah, at
junior lightweight you have the Gary Antoine Russell's Navatory against
Heroka from Japan. So there's a lots of other people
look into.
Speaker 1: There's three other world title fights underneath legit fights. So
are we looking at December? Then they got to find
somebody else when we got the.
Speaker 3: Dates, other dates are looking at in December for what
in terms of the main event was in my opinion,
and it's not like on Monday morning quarterbacking. I've always
felt like, uh, while I'd never i'd never really ripped
Jake Cwford doing this kind of fight because I get
what he's trying to do here. But I feel like
the match with Davis specifically was a very ill conceived matchup.
It's one thing for the public to embrace on Mike
Tyson fight, who is the bigger man at heavyweight the
the legend of legends. Uh, Tank Davis ain't Mike Tyson
and he's nine, you know, sixty five pounds smaller. It
was just it was ill conceived from the beginning. So, uh,
if it gets canceled, I'm not going to be upset
about it. I would I was it rooting for a
to get cance or anything like that, But you know
what if other reasons prevented it from happening, so be it.
I mean, that's life.
Speaker 2: What is the possibility I'm only speaking hypothetically, And then
let's move on.
Speaker 1: Please, Yes, they say the Jake Paul main event can't
go on, but we would like the other flights to
go on. It's now not going to be a Netflix thing.
Can we do a last minute deal with the Zonne
keep those fights in it? Intact, MVP has their promotion,
they sell whatever tickets they can sell, or is there
zero chance that would happen? They're just going to scrap
the whole thing if they can't figure it out.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess anything is possible. My experience of
other situations that have arisen where you have a main
event that's in jeopardy for whatever the reason. Now, they
probably gonna two things. It's a couple things. Most likely
there will not be an MVP event on November fourteenth.
They will move the fight the event into December on
a one of the couple of days they were discussing,
and either Jake Paul will still fight Tank if whatever
it gets worked out, or he'll fight a new opponent
and the undercard will go along with it, ask Plant,
I mean, it's not that complicated, all right.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned Eddie Hearn. He gave a quick comment.
Speaker 1: He was in Orlando for this fight card, this Matchroom
fight card, and Chris Mannix asked him directly if Anthony
Joshua would fight this year, and he said yes. And
then I think Mannix even followed up and said could
he fight in December? And he said yes he could.
Now whether he will, that's two different things.
Speaker 3: What do we make of this? The question was would
he fight this year? The answer was one word yes.
So now you have to deduce. Okay, if the answer
is yes, that he's going to fight. Remember, for those
who forget, he's off the September destruction last year against
Daniel Dubac, came out of that, had elbow surgery and
has been rehabbing and recovering but apparently back in the
gym and doing okay, And it was still unclear when
he was going to fight. So if Eddie says he's
going to fight this year, now you have to look, Okay,
what are the dates that are remaining. Well, one of
them is November fifteenth, which is the two weeks from now,
which is the Chris Hubank Junior Connor Ben rematch, which
is taking place in London, Anthony Joshua's hometown in front
of a big crowd of British fans. Eddie Hern has
another card on December thirteenth that's taking place in Stockton, California,
that's headlined by Diego Pacheco against Lailo Sajo. Then he
has some involved that I guess, or there's a read
season card that's taking place, a ring magazine card. I guess.
December twenty seventh, that is the in a way, you know,
Japan versus the World card where the main event is
in a way against David Allen Picasso for the undisputed
title up one twenty two. So if Anthony Joshua was
going to fight between now and the end of the year,
and it's probably gonna make one of those two cards. Now,
Chris did not mention when he was talking to Eddie
November twenty second, which is another Ring Magazine event that's
taking place in Riad that's the one with David Benavide's
and Anthony Art. Perhaps that might be a possibility. But
if he's going to fight on one of those cards,
that's what it's going to be. They're not going to
create a new event for him because the broadcasting situation
is already scheduled.
Speaker 1: Thing I laughed before, he's gonna fight on an undercard
on one of these other shows when he's a headlining
pay per view superstar for years.
Speaker 2: I don't buy that to rush that. I don't.
Speaker 3: I can only say if you believe Eddie at his
word for something. So the question was could he no,
would he?
Speaker 2: Would he? And the answer is yes, yes, all right.
Speaker 3: So that means you gotta go with whatever dates.
Speaker 1: What are the chances that Eddie's got some fight, whether
it's in Africa like you talked about or whatever, that
suddenly gets announced late December and he's the main event.
Speaker 2: That's obviously possible, isn't it. But not yet.
Speaker 3: I guess anything is possible. Look, we got we got
two months left in uh we're now here the couple
of days into November. We got the rest of this month,
we got December. So sometime in the next sixty days
or so, he's either gonna fight or not, and whatever
will be will be. I mean, it's not he's not
going to be a big name of ponent. He's not
fighting for a title. He's obviously not fighting some huge name.
You know. Remember we're going to go.
Speaker 1: Ahead and dispel that. It's not Jake Paul, and you
and I have already talked about this. He would actually
he would destroy He would destroy Jake Paul.
Speaker 3: As Eddie said, if they come to us and it's
crazy money, you know, we probably would do what Anthony
Joshua would love to get his hands on, Yeah Paul.
And I mean if Anthony Joshua fought Jake Paul and
his elbow was still fucked up, he would knock him
the fuck out. So you know whatever, if he just
wants to take I mean no problem.
Speaker 2: Think youay stay tuned.
Speaker 3: He would end Jake Paul what what.
Speaker 2: What gets sorts of what's gets sorted out of that?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: Mattroom.
Speaker 1: Also uh is planning this Raymond murataia Andy Cruz IBF
lightweight title fight. Give me more of the of the deeds,
Give me more of the ta You always like the
tea now in the re said give me spill the
tea here, give me.
Speaker 3: The t Mattroom boxing. As we discussed previously. I believe
we discussed this. I know I had written about it.
If they want a pur spid for this fight, yes,
very tie is with Top Rank and Eddie is the
promoter for Andy Cruz, the Cuban Olympic gold medalist. And
so he won that purse bit you know, a couple
of weeks ago for eight hundred and eighty eight thousand dollars,
eight hundred eighty eight th eight hundred eighty eight dollars.
He blew away the purspid that was offered by Top Rank,
which was five hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So he
has the rights to the fight and even though it's
not done yet. I talked to some folks that match
him about the particulars. The target date is January twenty fourth,
and we'll headline of his own card. They have to
get everything signed, sealed and delivered. But basically because it
was done on a per spid and both sides are
ready willing and able to do it, it's pretty much performer.
They just got to get the They're very basic, you know,
inter contracts. They got to go back to the IBF,
so they'll get that done. They have until November seventh
to return those signed contracts to the IBF. Once the
purspid takes place, usually have fifteen days to get them back,
and so January twenty fourth is the date most likely
will take place at the Font and Blue, Las Vegas,
a beautiful hotel where I stayed at. That was the
fight hotel the week of Terrence Crawford's fight with Canelo Alvarez.
They have an excellent Blue Live Theater where I attended
two small cards during the course of that fight week.
It's a great location for this type of fight, which
is not going to sell a gazillion tickets, but they
can stop a nice crowd there, and so that's what
it looks like in that and.
Speaker 1: It's a compelling fight, by the way, may it's a
compelling fight, we agree, And.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a good way to kick off the year.
You got, you know, a fight with intrigue that you
don't know who the winner is. That's two good guys,
two young guys. You know, young. I don't mean because
Andy Cruz a little bit older, but young in terms
of their careers or at their championship level. You know,
mur Tai is just kind of emerging with this title.
You know, they're both undefeated. So from that standpoint, it's
a good matchup and it will be a solid way
to I guess that would kick off the Matchroom Boxing
schedule of events that will take place in America for
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: And one other quick nugget.
Speaker 1: We talked at length about Mayweather Pacquiao and many Pacquiao
confirms they are talking whatever that's worth, right, as a
final a little endum off the weekend, they are talking.
Speaker 3: Right, So that was a lot of the reporting, but
there was nobody that was on the record from either
side saying that was the case. But when you have
the man himself who a few days ago attended they
did the as we discussed the Thriller in Minilo two
card that was headlined by Melvin Jerusalem defending his Strailway
title that as part of pak Yao's team. Manny did
a press corbence in Manila around that fight, and he
was obviously asked about that event, but he was also
asked about doing the rematch with Nanny with between Nanny
and Floyd, and he acknowledged, yeah, we're talking about doing that.
I'll read you one of the quotes. He's like, ah,
there's ongoing negotiation. I'm speaking to my team every day.
If the negotiation goes well and the fight materializes, we
obviously we'll announce the rematch. But he went on to
say that he felt like it was an interesting fight
right now. I don't have a shoulder problem. And if
you remember when the first fight happened and he lost,
he blamed having a shoulder problem. They didn't let him
take an injection for beforehand. He didn't want to pull
out of the fight. A lot of people got upset
claimed that he defrauded them because he went and injured
and it turned out to be such a garbage fight
that was so expensive. Anyway, I'm sure the boxing world
will be excited for the rematch to be made. I
feel like we are almost in agreement with each other. Uh,
there are a lot of things we agree on. There's
a few conditions that are still that we are still negotiating.
If the fight happens, it will probably be in Las Vegas,
and those are from Manny pac Yao's mouth. So that
lends a little bit more credence to the reporting by
myself and others as it relates to the discussions for
this rematch that I still feel like I might want
to set myself on fire before I.
Speaker 2: After deal with self. Emily, you said yes exactly all right.
Speaker 1: Other than that, I think we've pretty well covered everything
on the recap pod here coming off the weekend, So
we crank back up with some interesting fights here in November.
Speaker 2: We get November underway.
Speaker 1: It is now November, and let's see what happens with
the fight news and again keep it locked in on
Dan's substack for the latest on whatever this is with
Jake Paul and Tank Davis? Does it completely unravel? Do
they move off that date that they at least we
finally coming up? I mean, we got yes, and we've
got coming up this week.
Speaker 3: This coming weekend, we got a little bit of Virgil
Orties against ericson Lubin. Terrific fight.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Whatever you think about the fourteenth with Paul and Tank
or whatever, you know, at least the following day you
got a very compelling rematch.
Speaker 2: Yes, we're very interested in that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Raphael Spinoza back in the ring defending the featherweight belt.
That's an interesting card for Mexico that top rank probably
will put once again on their on their fast channel,
the way they did with the MICHAELA. Mayer event. And
so when we go on and then the twenty second,
you got that big right, and then so on and
so forth. We got a lot in a fight. So
it's all good.
Speaker 2: We got a lot here in November to get to.
All right, my friend, have.
Speaker 1: A good week.
Speaker 2: We thank you.
Speaker 1: As always, they need to lock in on the Dan
Rayfield fight, preaching night, substack and newsletter.
Speaker 2: I'll talk to you later on in the week, my friend.
Speaker 3: Good stuff, all right, TJ. You got it there.
Speaker 1: He is merely Dan Rayfield offt more watermelon sour patch
candy for him. I am merely the somewhat competent host
TJ Reeve. You've been with us, like, find us, follow us,
Subscribe to the Fight Preaching Night Recap pod here on
the pod feed on Apples, Preaker, Spotify.
Speaker 2: Bye,