Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, brand new month and we are ready to
recap everything here on the Fight Preach United Recap podcast.
I am the somewhat capable host t J.
Speaker 3: Breeves.
Speaker 1: Hello to our insider. Fight Preach Unite is a substack.
It is the newsletter you should be subscribing here in
the new year of twenty twenty six to get all
the intel, all the info.
Speaker 2: Hello, Dan Rayfiel, good to be back.
Speaker 1: We had world title main events in New York City
and San Juan, Puerto Rico and Newcastle, England. Lots to recap,
some fight news and more. How are things coming off
the weekend?
Speaker 3: A first really big boxing weekend of the year, so
that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, we would agree. Business is good. We have lots
to go over.
Speaker 3: Again.
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sure you're following, subscribing, and give us a five star
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Let's begin with the Ring six card the des Own
pay per views Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. I
have to say you and I many others believe that
Shaquur Stevenson was going to win. He dominated. I'm saying
that over Tea Fimo Lopez from beginning to end. The
judges agreed, all three of them only gave Lopez one
round in the fight. So Shakur moves up and makes
history winning a fourth world title in a fourth different
weight division already in his career.
Speaker 2: Very impressive.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that, what are your thoughts as that headlined
the show at the Garden and there was not a
lot of drama because Stevenson, I'm saying this was good,
if not really good, and Lopez did almost nothing throughout
that main event.
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
Speaker 3: Well, I thought Chakur was better than just good. I
thought he was absolutely fucking brilliant. I thought he did
exactly what he wanted to do. He did how he wanted,
when he wanted, where he wanted. He wasn't boring, he
didn't run, He stood in the pocket for virtually the
whole fight and fought the man and just moved out
of the way, and you know, hit and don't get hit.
But he wasn't on the back foot, he wasn't running.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: It was it was a I thought, a tremendous performance.
I had visions of you know, our boy Winky Right
and Felix Trinidad. I had visions of Bernard Hopkins and
Kelly Pavlick. You know, you can just go down the
line of the brilliant masterpieces in fights between two top guys.
I mean, it was that type of matchup. You mentioned
that the judges gave Tiafimo only one round, so all
three judges scored the fight one nineteen to one oh nine,
which is how I had it, same, same, same scorecard,
and the judges all gave Tiafimo the eighth round where
he landed some nice body shots and maybe like a
good right hand to the head. And I think the
feeling I think from a lot of people, including some
of what with the broadcasters were saying, was that was
kind of around where maybe like Chakort just kind of
took his foot off the gas a little bit, kind
of took a little breather, and that allowed Tamo to
do a little bit more than he had done. But
like you, I thought that Sirkar was gonna win this fight.
In my mind, I'm thinking it's gonna be like, you know,
eight four, maybe nine to three. I wasn't necessarily expecting
like a you know, I could have even been a
shutout possibly for him to win basically every single second
of every single round and do it in Sometimes you
can win a fight and the scorecards look a little wide,
but if you watch eat the individual three minute segment,
there's competition each round. I didn't even feel like there
was competition in most of the rounds.
Speaker 1: They were easy to score for the most Yeah, every
one of them were easy to score. And that's because
Stevenson was using that right jab and then working off
of it with a one to two enough and moving enough,
and I mean, we're just we're gonna keep it real
throughout this podcast. Teyo Fimo Lopez, if he had a plan,
I don't know what the plan was. He certainly could
not close the distance.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: Sergio mora Is the.
Speaker 1: Analyst, kept saying, if this fight stays at this distance,
this is this is gonna get dominated.
Speaker 3: And they thought it was right at his at his distance,
at his pace, at his everything. It was our show
for a t Fimo, who just was never in the
fight for even a second, And I thought, you know,
going into the fight, you think of t Femo some
people do as a more of a puncher. Now, I've
been saying steadfastly for the last couple of years that
while he could definitely crack at one hundred and thirty
five pounds, absolutely is not a puncher in any way,
shape or form at a one point forty where his
only stoppage was in his first fight in the division
against a much lesser level opponent, and he hasn't come
Not only it's you know, it's one thing you don't
get knouts because you're fighting the best fighters. But he's
not even getting knocked downs. He's not really doing any
real damage. So I didn't see him as a puncher.
But we all know Shakhor is not really a big
puncher either, it never has been. But I frankly thought
he looked stronger than t Fmo in this fight. His
body looked fantastic at one hundred and forty pounds. He
was an unbelievable condition. Not to say that that t
Fimo wasn't, but I feel like he was the stronger guy,
and they made a point where you could hear him
telling his grandfather Wally Moses, who was his trainer, in
the corner after round two, I'm the stronger guy. And
if you're you already know you're the better defensive guy.
You already know you're probably a little bit quicker, and
now you're the stronger. I also, that's that's three stritching.
You're out for t Fema Lopez. So I just saw,
you know, he did exactly as he pleased. He hit
him with the jab, was on point. He talked about
that also after the fight. I thought his jab was spectacular.
It was a weapon, and it was arranged.
Speaker 2: Landed, won one hundred and fifteen, one hundred and twenty others.
Speaker 3: It was the most in the fight that he ever
landed in a fight. And compy Box is tracked.
Speaker 2: You love my lines.
Speaker 1: It was like Lionel Richie all night long with that
right jab and Lopez could not get out of the
way of it. It was there was a difference in
the fight basically.
Speaker 3: So I feel I think that, unless I'm mistaken, I
believe that compy Box has literally tracked every single fight
of teeth of Shakor's entire career. He landed one hundred
and five jabs forty you know, out of two hundred
and fifty two. That was the most he ever landed
in a single fight. He landed overall forty four percent.
If you're over forty percent in a fight, you're doing
that's that's big numbers. He was fifty percent on his
power shots. He never let Lopez, you know, he outlanded
Lopez in eleven of the twelve rounds. I think the
only round he didn't outland him was in that eighth
round where t Femo got the nod on the judges cards.
He held him the single digit connects in ten out
of twelve rounds. I mean, the coffee box don't lie
in the in this respect, and they take a look
at now sometimes you know you can make you know,
it's it doesn't paint the whole picture. I think in
this fight it absolutely paints the picture. Here's the thing
about it. Also, not only did she cor win and
the way he won, I don't feel like he ever
had to get out of like basically first year, he
wasn't he wasn't pushed to the wall to do what
he did. It was like it was like a glorified
sparring session.
Speaker 2: All right, he said that.
Speaker 1: So that brings us back to and you actually commented
about this on social media and we read it in
the sub stack the end corner advice from senior, the
lack thereof or almost like there wasn't a plan. How
do you not have some kind of a cut man
to help with the blood flow that started in the
back half of the fight and he's bleeding the whole
rest of the fight.
Speaker 2: This, I mean, let's say it.
Speaker 1: He had some clownish behavior all throughout fight week. He
was clowning a bunch and he is that type of
personality clowning a bunch before this fight. But this was
a clown show in the corner to not even be
able to help him or make an adjustment at all.
So I don't know how much it would to help Dan,
but you go ahead because you were pointing it out.
Speaker 3: Also well, first of all, on the one hand, the father,
if you're gonna cast blame and doubt on his performance
in the fight again, Chaquara, that's absolutely fair. You gotta
give him some credit because whatever we think about him,
his son did win the lightweight championship and unified and
the Junior welterweight championship with the Dad also, So there's
been good and there's been Dad, but he's never really
been on x's and o's guys. He's more of like
a motivator compared to the specific instructions that Wilely Moses
was given to Shakur. But this fight in particular was
as bad as it got in the corner. First of all,
the cutman is inexcusable. There's a lot of good cutman
in boxing who know what they're doing, who can close
and not to say that, you know, you got to
take care of the cut, but I didn't feel like
the Lopez cut was that bad, but it bled down
his face the whole freaking fight after it got cut
in like round six or seven, And so that was
that was absolutely pathetic. That reminded me of the misery
of Kelly Pablock on the night that he lost the
middleweight title to Sergio Martinez because his team is too
fucking cheap to pay a real top notch cutman what
they need to as an insurance policy, and they hired
like the local friend who came in with a bunch
of fucking diapers and tissues or whatever and tried to
cut right. So that was the same.
Speaker 1: Shit was that this was not much better in a
World Championship pay per view to not be able to stop.
Speaker 2: I mean he just cut.
Speaker 1: The cut looked worse like in the eleventh and the
twelfth round. I mean it clearly was a longer cut.
But at least early on, maybe they could have helped him.
I don't know that it wouldn't matter to any here's
the problem.
Speaker 3: Even if you have a shitty cutman, usually when you
get sent out for the beginning of the round, at
least for the first few seconds they get hit, the
cuts closed. He was getting off the stool when the
belly to go back into the fight and the blood
was dripping down his face. That was absolutely so that.
I don't even remember who the cut in his name was,
but he sucked ask completely and his father. I mean,
here's what I wrote. I wrote this on my piece
on substack. I hope people get a chance to read it.
He's offering no serious instruction. One of the things he
yelled at his son after the fourth round was you
gotta hit him, yo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not profound, isn't it. That's profound In the
sport of boxing.
Speaker 3: Right after the seventh round, he's like, give me power.
What the fuck does that mean? I mean it was that's.
Speaker 2: Kind of like, that's kind of like Doctor Frankenstein.
Speaker 3: It's a love I actually I almost felt bad for
TeaF you well, because yeah, boxing is an individual sport,
but you're supposed to get some comfort, some instruction, some motivation,
some motivation, some support from your team in the corner
for your one minute.
Speaker 2: Can I tell you nothing again?
Speaker 1: This has been a clown thing on and off for years,
and it was there again. I don't know how much
it would have mattered, because again, Stevenson was that good.
Speaker 3: That's the point. I it's not that he would have
won the fight if the corner was better. I feel
like it actually hurt him. It made it worse than
because of how terrible they were, so that that has
to be addressed. I mean, whatever you think about tia
Fimo's performance, you cannot have complete and utter ineptitude in
the corner. I mean it is like absolutely pathetic.
Speaker 2: All right, Back to the winner.
Speaker 1: Back to Stevenson, so again, fourth world title in four
weight divisions.
Speaker 3: It's more than four world titles because he unified titles
that one.
Speaker 1: Right, you know, But again he steps up immediately and
wins the WBO Junior Welterweight tel do you believe.
Speaker 3: And the lineal title. By the way, he's the man
who beat the man who beat the man.
Speaker 1: So he will Will he stay at that division? I
know Connor Binn got into the ring and they did
the whole WWE Wrestling promo yelling at each other.
Speaker 2: What do we think?
Speaker 1: Is he gonna move back down to lightweight where there
might be a tasty unification there?
Speaker 2: You know, what do you think?
Speaker 3: Here's the problem. You'd like to see him if he could,
if you want to go back to undred thirty five
pounds to unify. The problem is there's no fight at
one thirty five. That would be a big deal for
him to go into too, unified, because if he is
the WBC champion, Abdulla Mason is the WBO champion. I
guarantee you top ranks not making that fight. I've Dulla
Mason ain't ready for that at this point. He's twenty
twenty years old or twenty one years old. He just
won the title. No chance of that happening, in my opinion.
Raymond Maretaya obviously got the very good performance in in
the victory against Andy Ckruz last week. That's not I mean,
there's nothing wrong with that fight, Don't get me wrong.
I'd be happy to see it, But I mean, I
wouldn't really give Maurtaia much of a shot in that
fight at all. But even if I did, Maritaya is
not bringing money to the table for Shakur the way
other opponents are. So neither of those are like big
deal unifications in the scheme of the financial part of
the business. The WBA title is vacant, so there's not
even anybody there to unify with at the moment. So
I just don't see there being that kind of big
fight at lightweight. Now, at junior welterweight, there's a lot
more names and activity around it. I mean, you know,
you got Gary Antlin Roussell, He's has a fight coming up.
You got Dolphin Smith, who just looked really good in
a great fight against Sabrill Matias win a title. Richardson
Hitchins has the IBF title. Uh, he's going to be
on a on A on a Ring magazine card coming
up in February. But I don't know how sexy those are,
so you know they're gonna have to figure it out.
I mean the Connor Ben thing. I mean, if they
make the fight, I mean, I'm fine with it, but
I feel like the Connor Ben people, Eddie Hearn, Keith Connelly,
Nigel Ben the kid, they want to go after a
WBC title in that walterweight division, and this would just
be a non title fight, and frankly, the way that
your Court looked and as sort of limited as Connor
may be, I don't think that's a really good fight
for Connor anyway.
Speaker 1: But the other thing is it's a let's be honest,
it's a tall ask to suddenly say to Shakuerz Steveson,
now go fight a fight at one forty seven if
that would to be the limit at welterweight. When he
was just fighting at one thirty five. Uh, and he
only fought at one thirty five for a couple of fights. Uh,
And now you're fighting in one seven. That would be
a lot.
Speaker 2: I'm saying that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think at the end of his career, sch
Court probably will be as heavy as one point fifty
four in my opinion, but I just don't see the
reason to go to that level. And even if he
did the the tell if you will why it won't
happen is because when they were going back and forth
and jabbering in the in the ring, Shakur was yelling
it out, giving me the give me the rehydration clause,
the way you gave to Chris Eubank or the way
that Chris you Bank gave to Connor Ben, and they're not.
You know, Connor Ben's not gonna do that, and trust me,
their team is not stupid enough. Connor Ben's team is
not stupid enough to give that up. So it's all
well and good for them to gibber jabber like that,
but I don't think that's happening. And even Eddie barn
he came out in his post fight press conference and
some other comments he made that he his preference would
be to go for a title. So, like I said
in the in the immediate aftermath, okay, fine, they're gonna
gibber jabber and make noise, but I don't see it happen.
And if it does, great, but I doubt it.
Speaker 1: All right, So we'll see what happens with Shakour. A
great performance by him, and I'll I'll say this, give
me your take, and then we're gonna move on to
the rest of card. You definitely you have to put
that guy right now on the pound for poundless how high,
because he keeps winning impressively, moving up in divisions and
winning world titles. He's got the skill set and that
was a great That was a great performance for him.
That was a near shutout performance in a main event
where he was the underdog.
Speaker 3: I mean, he already was probably top ten obviously going
into the fight.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: But I feel like based on attrition, meaning the retirement
of a Crawford for example, which opens up a space
up top and moves everybody up a little bit. You know,
he goes into that probably into that top four or
five or six. I mean, you know, we know the guys,
the candidates there. You got Alexander Husick and who was
there at the fight. We have Noya in a way,
there's Bam Rodriguez, There's Dmitri Bivol, There's maybe Arthur better Beev,
there's Chaquar Stevenson. Those are the general guys. You know,
there's other guys who've been rising up, maybe not as high,
like a David benavidt is that type of fighter. But
no doubt about it that of course Stevenson just on
the eye test alone, the defense, the speed, skills, the accomplishment,
He's one of the best fighters in boxing period. I Mean.
Anybody that doesn't say that is just not either is
just a hater or doesn't watch boxing.
Speaker 1: And doesn't understand what they're watching when they see it.
All right, let's move to the rest of the car
Keyshawn Davis does get a final round stoppage. It was
a battle in his return at junior welterweight non title
fight with Jamaine Ortiz. He eventually did get the TKO,
got a knockdown where the referee, Thomas Taylor stopped the
fight in the middle of the count that Keishawn was
the better fighter throughout the fight, but eventually got the TKOL. Right,
what are your thoughts on his return in the win?
Speaker 3: Well, his twenty twenty five was so utterly disastrous, so
utterly turbulent and tumultuous that you wondered is he ever
going to get a shit together? He had had a
great start to his career. He ended up winning a
lightweight title and you're like, Okay, this guy's going to
the moon. As far as he started, because he's drawn
big crowd at home. He's got a very appealing personality.
You know, he can talk on the mic. He can
be introspective and thoughtful. I mean, just a lot of
things to like about him. You know, a good old
fashioned American, an Olympic medal winner, had a lot going
for him, had a good team behind him. You know,
had been featured on a lot of the ESPN shows,
so he was getting some good exposure. You know, he
fought at home and drug crowd. He drew crowd in
New York City, so there was nothing not to like.
And then all of a sudden, can't make the weight,
ends up killing you know, wrecking that show gets stripped
to the title. You know, gets in the melee underneath
the arena. You know, him and the brother attacked the
other guy in the dressing room, he admits later on,
and then he says he's retired, which was all bullshit.
He says later that the reason he was overweight he
was to hit a drinking problem. So hopefully he says
he's got that under control. I hope he's right. He
switched up his whole team, He got a new manager
and James Prince. He split with Brian McIntyre, got a
new trainer and dedicated himself. And if you know what if,
if if he can take his twenty twenty five and
just put that in the rear view mirror for good,
put it in the trash can. Yeah, exactly, in the
trash heap, and get back on the straight and narrow.
Stay off the drink. You know, train your eer end off,
be a good citizen, don't get in fights in arenas,
you know, don't act like a dick. Make weight and
put on the kinds of performances he did against Jamaine Ortiz.
He's gonna be back as a champion and then I'll
do this in the future. One hundred and forty pounds
teems to suit him very well. He showed power. What
I was impressed by is if you take a look
at Jamaine Ortiz, who's you know, a good fighter, but
maybe not an elite fighter. He did in his only
previous losses, had competitive decisions against Vessely Lomachenko. That was
in a non title fight, but was competitive as heck
challenged Tia Fimo for the junior walterweight title. I thought
he won that fight. It was a horrible fight, but
I thought he did enough to get the victory. Was
it turned out a very close decision that went in
tia Fimo's direction. But if you can come into a
fight against Kishan knowing that your only losses were to
the caliber a fighter of a Loma Chenko and a
tia Fimo Lopez at you know, in a world title fight,
and also against Loma who was, you know, being a
champion in multiple divisions. And now Keishon Davis not only
beats you more decisively than they did, he knocks you
out in the twelfth round. That's a very big feather
in the Keishon Davis cap. So we dropped him with
a great body shot in the eleventh round. He was digging, digging,
digging like he was looking for you know, gold, twelfth round.
Dropped in the eleventh round also, well right, right, yeah,
So what I'm saying is it's like he was in
there digging, like he was out there panning for gold,
you know what I mean. He was just kept on
going to the body. So he drops him in eleventh,
almost stopped him in that round, and then in the
twelfth round he had already busted up his face and
bruised it and opened up a cut on one of
those big things of swelling, so he's now bleeding. And then,
like you said, he hits him with not just a body,
not just a good a good shot to the to
the head, but put together the punches and you know,
knocked him down a good combination. And that's all. She wrote.
Thomas Taylor with the right stoppage. I mean, there was
only a few seconds left in the fight, but you
can't let him continue. He probably wouldn't have beat the
count anyway, So look for a return fight your first division,
in your first fight in the division, I don't think
you'd asked for anything more than that performance. I mean,
he showed that he was in good shape. He seemed
like he was in good spirits, and you know, I
hope you can keep a shit together and if.
Speaker 1: He can, we shall see if he can stay out
of trouble.
Speaker 3: Remember face, it's going to be a champ at one
hundred and for well, you.
Speaker 1: Say that, but failed marijuana test before he admitted drinking problem.
We've obviously had problems making weight or whatever. I don't
think it's a guarantee that he's going to be a
world champion in anything.
Speaker 3: Again, I think it's pretty guaranteed.
Speaker 1: Okay, stay tuned, all right, So we moved down the card,
and again we have not mentioned this. One of the
world title fights was lost on the weigh in day
when Carlos Adamis didn't come close to it even he
didn't even make the way in because he had passed
out and gone to the hospital.
Speaker 2: Right, it wasn't even at the way in.
Speaker 3: No, he never, he never. He was in his weight
cut and he had I got sick or ill or
something happened, and you you reported.
Speaker 1: I saw it on social media that he had been
as much as one hundred and eighty pounds twenty over
the middleweight limit in recent weeks, if not the last
couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: I would told there was in the last fourteen days
he was one hundred pathetic.
Speaker 1: That's pathetic and not taking your training seriously and being
way too overweight. I mean, it surprises me that somebody
from his team and from whomever didn't sound the alarm
like earlier in the week when he's clearly he we
don't know this alright, I'm speculating, but he clearly had
to be several pounds overweight at least maybe even as
much as ten pounds overweight in fight week if he's
one hundred and eighty two weeks ago. So again, Adamas
loses out on a title fight and on the payday
because he couldn't make weight. So we lost that title fight,
and that moved the Bruce Shoeshoe Carrington title fight up
in significance for the WBC's featherweight championship, and he ends
up getting a knockout with Carlos Castro, but he had
some problems earlier in the fight before this put it away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was a good fight. This was a good
test for Shoeshoe Carrington. I've made the point in many
times that I'm a fan of Carrington's. He's got a
fun fighting style, he's obviously very talented, he's got a
great personality. But he had never beaten anybody. So I'm like,
why are we giving this guy? Why are we making
a you know, at one point top Rang was trying
to link him to an inn aaight fighter. I'm like,
what are you doing. I mean, that's, first of all, anyway,
it's not even a featherweight at this point. And second
of all, you know, the guy in Carrington then beat
a soul and the one time he even took like
a half step up against Sagawa, that was the fight
we end up getting, Like I forget think it was
a split decision or majority decision. A lot of people
thought he lost that fight, so you know, he hadn't
fought anybody, now, okay, at least Castro, and he gets
an interim title, which was ridiculous against a nobody. But
I was glad that when Fulton vacated the title, they
didn't automatically just elevate Carrington. They made him fight for
the vacant title, which is good for the sport, but
it's also good for the fighter that wins because you
don't go in as an interim and then all of
a sudden you're elevated, and then when you win, they
don't announce you as the new champion, which is one
of the biggest moments of a boxer's career. So they
match him up. Who was this was? The next guy
in line was Carlos Castro was a pretty good fighter
who had took a loss to Fulton by split decision
that a lot of people thought he won. He scored
a knockdown in that fight. He had been in the
ring with some other good opponents in the past. Anyway,
that was a good matchup. So it was a very
big step up in my opinion, uh for Carrington to take.
And as you mentioned, he was doing fairly well in
the first three rounds, he was clearly winning the fight.
In the fourth round, he got absolutely rocked to his
boots by a right hand. Thought, maybe he's gonna get
knocked down. Now it's time to like, see how is
he going to react, how is the how is he
gonna respond? Is he gonna fold up? Or is he
gonna suck it up? And and and get through the situation?
And you know what took credit to him. He got
through the situation. He got a shit together. He said
he'd never been buzzed or rock like that before in
a fight in his whole life. And he did what
he had to do to survive. And there was still
a lot of time left in the round when that happened.
It was probably about you at least a minute and
a half or so left in the round. Got through
the round and then shook it off and came back
and pretty much dominated the rest of the fight. And
then in the ninth round scored. You know, a sensational knockout,
and that's the way you win a world title, overcoming
a little bit of a diversity as Corni spectacular knockout
in front of a big crowd and instead of you
know you already have being elevated bullshit. Uh, the ring
announcer says, and the new WBC featherweight Champ of the world.
And that was a great moment. And you know he
then you know, made his comments afterwards and now he's
calling out everybody. I have no doubt he'll take. The
fights have offered Raphael Espinoza, who's in the same promotional
company with Top Rank, Angelo Leo, who Top Rank has
some involvement with, and Nick Ball who's got a fight
coming up next week, who's with Frank Warren. Any of
those matchups will be intriguing in my opinion, for.
Speaker 2: He's a talker and he got the knockout. He's a
New York guy, so there's some.
Speaker 3: Know they made the point, I guess. I mean, I
never did my own research on this, but they were
saying that he's the first ever fighter from Brooklyn to
win a world title. In that iteration of the Garden
because there's been a few, you know, you'd think, I mean,
there's been guys who've defended titles.
Speaker 1: Win a title, win the specific specifics is to win
a title in this version of the Garden in New
York or News.
Speaker 3: Also, he's also the latest fighter from a very storied
area of Brooklyn, Brownsville that's produced a number of world
champions Mike Tyson, Riddick Bow, Shannon Briggs, Daniel Jacobs, others
as well. Danny j I said Danny Jacobs. Also, you know,
there's there's been others that have come along in that line.
That's a pretty good lineage to follow if you can
come from a place like that, and you know, you've
got ye Zab Judah's another one that came from that
area that won a world tide. I mean, there's been
a bunch of guys over the years. So he's the
next to mine. And he's a really fun fighter to
watch and got a great personality. And I hope he
stays around and and does well for a long time
because guys like that are good for boxing. You know,
he may not have fought anybody going into the Cashow fight,
but it wasn't because he wasn't willing to do so.
He's willing to fight the best guys.
Speaker 1: And he got to win there, and we should see
him again, we would think fairly soon here in twenty
twenty six. Let's be active. We like activity. All right, Well,
we'll go over the rest of the undercard. We mentioned
Austin amer Williams fall the last minute replacement and won
by decision. But I don't know you and I've never
talked about this. I don't know that I have ever
seen in something that wasn't a spoof a fighter lose
his hair piece in a fight, like Jirell Big Baby
Miller did in the.
Speaker 2: Fight with.
Speaker 3: Kingsley Ibe.
Speaker 1: So give me more because it it became a social
media sensation.
Speaker 3: This was ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I saw it everywhere where.
Speaker 1: He had like the convertible hair piece flapping, and then
they pulled it off and then the hair piece they
literally had it at ringside in its own seat and
put photos on social media.
Speaker 3: Do you know who actually caught it? Yeah, go ahead,
give me the d the WBO heavyweight.
Speaker 1: Yes, because he's the one that tweeted the photo that
it was in the chair beside him.
Speaker 2: Like, does anybody want to come to.
Speaker 3: See Jerald Miller. First of all, you know, there's lots
of puns we could take. I wrote that he had
a hairy moment against exactly it was a hair raising victory.
We go on down the line, uh, I mean the
fight itself, like overall was like just the the you know,
an okay heavyweight fight. Nothing we would be talking about
for days at a time. This will people be watching
this clip for a long time, you know if they
remember when we were kids married George Michaels Sports Machine, Yes,
where you'd see.
Speaker 1: Like Sunday Night with all the highlights right in the
in the nineties and the two thousands.
Speaker 3: Or when sports Hutter was a watchable program and they
would do like the plays of the week. This, this
clip of the hair flapping up and down would absolutely
be on all those shows, no doubt about it. This
is before we had such things as Instagram and TikTok
and Twitter.
Speaker 1: It makes me harken back to Christmas vacation and ancle
Los sent his herpyece and it catches on fire and
they're trying to put the fire out and all of.
Speaker 3: That with the this was just money shoah. So in
the second round. There was probably like, I don't know,
thirty seconds left in the round and he gets hit
with a with a shot and you look and you
see like his hair moves, but okay, you're not really
You're like, what's that about? And then he gets hit
with other shot and now it moves even more. And
then if he's getting hit with a couple more shots
and it flips up, like you said, like a convertible.
He got Todd Grisham, who's doing the commentary, like what
is going on? Like he was, he was speaking for
everybody like I can't believe what I'm saying, not because
it was a great moment in the fight, because it
was just so bizarre and so strange. And then the
bell rang and before the the one minute rest period
was over. While the ringing, while the crowd's going crazy
because they saw it. It's on the big screens and
the commentators talking about it. Uh, Jerald Miller gets up
off the stool before the next round starts, and he
you know, he ripped off. You know, it's just still
taped down or like on the back, it was still like.
Speaker 2: Whatever adhesive or whatever.
Speaker 3: He pulls that ship right off and Nanny threw it
into the crowd and.
Speaker 1: The which by which, by the way, there are nerve endings,
and that probably had to hurt a little bit and
wake you up even more if you were a little uh.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's that's so silly as anything we've seen.
Speaker 3: He tells the story. I don't know if I believe
this or not, but he says, a couple of days
before the fight, he was visiting his mother, who I
guess he lives in Brooklyn. He's from Brooklyn. I think
he lives in Florida. He's visiting his mother. He goes
to like take a shower. He's he must have stayed
over or whatever he was doing, and he accidentally, instead
of shampoo, used like ammonia or some kind of bleach
and it made his hair fall out. So when the
hair fell out, he had his manager get him a
you know, he said, go get me one of those
means and he.
Speaker 2: They they adhesive or whatever are on his head. Oh
my god. All right.
Speaker 1: So, the only thing that I'm going to say, and
I'm trying to say it with a straight voice after
this hair raising experience, Rayphael, is there any relevance for
Jarell Big Baby Miller in the heavyweight division. He got
a split decision. Or is this just a clown show
at this point for things like this and failed drug
tests and whatever else.
Speaker 3: I mean he is, he is clown show ish. But
here's the reality of the business. He's a heavyweight who's
twenty seven one two twenty two knockouts. He has a
good chin, he has a personality, he has ah, he's
a known quantity. You know, some is for good, some
is for bad. But if you follow boxing and you
follow heavyweights, at this point, I would think you know
who Jeral Miller is. So he is a good b
side for anybody coming up. He's made some good fights.
You know, the fight, not this fight in particular, but
the previous fight is he'd been coming off like a
seventeen month layoff. Unfortunately for him. His last fight had
been a very good fight that he fought against Andy
Ruiz in the in the in the Read season card.
That was the one that was in August of twenty
twenty four, headlined by Terrence Crawford. That was a good fight.
It was a draw. So he'll always get work because
he's got a name, and he's got a good record
and he's durable and he'll you know, he'll come to fight.
Can he become the heavyweight champion? I mean at this point,
with all the things that have gone on, and he's
thirty seven years old. At this point, it's a lot
of water under that bridge, I mean above that opportunity.
When he tested positive and blew the fight against Anthony Joshua.
And you know, the crazy thing is he's fought. He's
from Brooklyn, and that fight between him and Joshua was
supposed to be at Madison Square Garden and obviously he
fell out and Ruiz filled in and got the upset
and that was history. He's never fought at Madison Square Guarden.
No one tell the fight the other night, so that
was a first rihim. And but remember he was fighting
Kings of the Ibay, who's not exactly a world beater,
and you know, he struggled to get the victory in
my opinion.
Speaker 1: All right, and as I mentioned again, Austin Amil Williams
got the win. And the fighter that Turkey al Chic
has been propping up is Ziad al al my youth.
He was actually beaten by Kevin Castillo right also on
this card.
Speaker 2: Just to a quick recap of that.
Speaker 3: Well quickly. I mean, I'm a youth like he looked
good the first round he scored a knockdown against Castillo.
I mean, Castillo was just a you know, a regular
type opponent, you know, nothing spectacular, was five to two
and one coming into the fight, no knockouts in his victories,
and you're like, Okay, this guy who was not known
for having a big punch. I mean, he came into
the fight Almanouf as seven oh and one with only
one knockout, and so when you see him drop the
guy in the first round, You're like, oh, wow, okay,
so maybe he's Allo something and he's gonna take care
of business. And then he pretty much lost every round
the rest of the fight, or most of the rounds
the rest of the fight. And he was an eight rounder,
and the judges did a good job. They gave Becausetio
the victory. He deserved seventy eight to seventy three and
seventy seven to seventy four in the other two squorecards.
So you know, I'm not sure where he's going from here.
He's got a lot I mean, I'm though Eddie Futch
or Robert Garcia or Teddy Allis or you know, I'm
no trainer, you know whatever, But you watch the guy
fight for like a minute, and you can tell there's
a lot of defense, of a lot of technical deficiencies
that he does that are just gonna that need to
change if he's gonna go anywhere. I mean, he has
been brought along by read season folks in Turkey. They're looking,
of course, you know, for them, they would take great
pride if they can find, you know, a top fighter
or a world champion from Saudi Arabia. I don't think
Almanoff is that guy. There may be somebody else in
the future, but I don't think he's the one.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on in our recap mode to
Sam Puerto Rico and the Xander Zaiaz Unified title fight
at one fifty four. That was the top rank main
event with a Boss Barreu. Zia's end up ended up
getting a split decision victory.
Speaker 2: More on that in a moment.
Speaker 1: He was impressive throughout this fight, Obviously, home crowd behind
him and seemed to boy him and inspire him, especially
when Beru had a pretty good round late in the
fight and then zaias came on as the as the
final championship rounds ten, eleven, and twelve took place. That's
at least my analysis of it. What did you think
as he ultimately gets to win and is now the
WBO and WBA one hundred and fifty four pound champion.
Speaker 3: I thought this was a really good fight, Number one good,
you know, entertaining. I mean, if you took the time
to watch it, you didn't walk away disappointed. I sort
of figured going in this would be an entertaining fight.
I like the sportsmanship and the class between Xander Zyaz
and a Boss Barut. I mean, as detailed in the
pre fight, they've known each other for years. They had
sparred probably, you know, eighty to one hundred rounds together.
I woul't necessarily say they're good friends, but they certainly
have tremendous respect for each other. But their competitors, and
obviously it was a big deal. They they both deserve
credit for in their first defense, they didn't go the
easy route and go for some soft touch. Xander Zias
easily could have just taken whoever and gone home to
Puerto Rico, but he wanted to bring his fans, you know,
a quality fight. You know, he's from Puerto Rico, but
he lives in Florida, but he hasn't fought in Puerto
Rico for you know, got to go back to as
very very early in his career, you know, when he
wasn't even a main event guy. So he figured his
you know, his thing he always talked about was when
I become a champion, I want to bring home a
real fight to my people. So instead of taking a
soft he brought home another champion. You know, a guy
that was you know who's coming off a great victory
in a super exciting fight against Teez that took place
only about a month apart from when Xander won his title.
Xander won his title, I want to say, in July,
and Barreu won the interim title in August and then
was elevated when offered officially went to super middleweight for
the Canelo fight. So these were two guys who were
putting on the line against a real opponent in their
first defense, barw having the stones to go to the
lions Den, and they produced a really good fight. Now
we talked about the so he wins the fight, and
like you said, there were some very good moments light
in the fight, as the commentators were talking about Zanner.
In my opinion, I think anybody watching he did not
have to go in there and lay ball to the
wall in the twelfth round because he was definitely winning
the fight. But he did, and it made it exciting,
and he said, you know, that's the way champions fight,
So I can appreciate where he's coming from. He wanted
to give the fans a show and always that.
Speaker 1: Always make sure because we go to the scorecards and
we have an eight to four for Barrew, which not
on this planet, that island of Puerto Rico any other continent.
Speaker 2: Did he win eight rounds of the fight the.
Speaker 3: Way the judges had it, where two judges had it
one sixteen to one twelve, which is eight to four
in favor of Xander's eyes. And as you mentioned, the
third judge and we will name checking her Oliver Bryan,
who stinks out loud, obviously they gave he gave the
score as you mentioned, one sixteen to one to twelve
in favor of Brew. Now, Buru was competitive and he
probably legitimately won four rounds in the fight, but he
didn't win eight rounds in the fight. Under no possible
circumstances did he win eight rounds in the fight. So
that is just I mean, it's we sound like a
broken fucking record sometimes. I mean, we always talk about
the range of acceptable scores. If you want to tell
me that you thought that it was seven to five
in favor of uh xanders Ayas, or you want to
tell me he was eight to four in favor of Xandersias,
that those are the two probably the right scores, you know,
if you really really really wanted to bend over backwards
because you maybe give you know, maybe make it for
Xander for nine to three, you know where because Breuw
was one of some of those rounds, you know, like
you know, I figured like six, seven, eight nine, like
in there he was doing okay. So the way I
look at us like this, don't ever forget your boy,
Oliver Brian.
Speaker 2: I go, I go a step beyond.
Speaker 3: At at least the right guy won the fight. I
got you.
Speaker 1: I've said this for years. You've got to start firing
these people. You're never going to work another fight again
if you keep giving incompetence scorecards in championship for at
least at the championship level, you got to start firing him.
You gotta hold him accountable, whether it's bad referee, bad judge, whatever.
Otherwise this just continues to go on. There's no message.
Since there's no deterrent, there's no I can't argue. But
if I'm not being what if I'm not on on
point here? That was just bad but again the right
good win.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: The thing that I also liked about Xander is that
even when he had that rocky moment in the ninth round,
I mean not not not Zius, when he landed on
brew in the ninth round and he you know, he
shook him up pretty good, you know, Brudy not fulled up.
I mean, he's got a good shin. The dude was
there to compete the same way. You know, he came
into the Tas fight as an unknown guy for the
most part, but that doesn't mean that they can't fight.
And he was a good amateur and uh, you know, okay,
so he didn Pete Andersias, but he should definitely have
his name mentioned still among the top ten guys in
the one hundred and fifty four pound division, which is
a pretty good feat around these days because the one
to fifty four weight class you know, too many people.
Is the best division of boxing as far as the
depth coast, and it'll be very interesting is what they
can get for Xander's eyas going forward in that in
that very loaded division with a lot of you know,
good good champions and good good contenders as well. I
mean he wanted Fondor. Remember he signed an agreed to
the Fundora fight. Fandora is the one that dealt on him.
That's why he ended up getting the vacant title fight.
And we'll talk about the other guy that won a
title in that division also.
Speaker 2: We're about to talk about that next too.
Speaker 3: But now Sanders got two of the belts in the
hottest division of boxing.
Speaker 2: That's right. There's some interesting names in the.
Speaker 3: But there's also Virgil of Artis and Boots Ennis and
you know other good fighters in the weight class.
Speaker 1: All right, So that moves us then to earlier in
the day, our time in Newcastle, England, our time in
the United States, and that is the Josh Kelly upset
of Bakram rtaz Alayev to win the IBF version of
the one hundred and fifty four pound title.
Speaker 2: So Kelly gets the win, and.
Speaker 1: I fought again and I did not see the full fight,
but I thought in seeing the highlights, he definitely controlled
the action and took obviously martaz Elayev's best punches, something
that Tim.
Speaker 2: Zou was not able to do.
Speaker 1: Obviously when we last saw the Russian score that emphatic
third round knockout in October of twenty twenty four. All right,
I'll just put it to you like this, How surprised
were you that Bachram couldn't get to him, couldn't knock
him out and uh and instead gets beaten by decision
and an upset by Josh Kelly to become the new champ. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, listen, A lot of people might look at
it and say, okay, like Kelly won a majority decision
in his hometown, it must have been home cooking. Well,
if you watch the fight, it really wasn't like the
majority decision. Wherever the fight was, it could have been
in Russia, it could have been in his hometown. Wherever
it was, that was that was good scoring. I can't
I can't quarrel with it. One judge had it one
thirteen to one thirteen, which very very much was reasonable,
and the other judges had it one fifteen to one
eleven and one fourteen to one thirteen. We're gonna get
that at one fourteen to one thirteen card in a
minute by my boy Steve Gray.
Speaker 2: We're gonna get there in the Yeah, here we go again.
Speaker 3: But as far as the fight itself goes, look, martaz
Lav hadn't fought for fifteen months, but it didn't seem
like he was like out of sorts or not sharp
or anything like that. You know, he just I always
look at it like this, like I think because boxers
only fight once twice a year, that we are hyper
sensitive to how they perform in those fights. If they
were fighting more often, it might be not quite as much.
Like you know, if you watch like the Major League Baseball,
they play every day. So if there's a game that
goes one way on Tuesday, he forgot about it by
Wednesday or Thursday because they're playing another game, in another game,
in another game. In boxing, though, you get so caught up
in it. So the most recent memory of martaz Leav
was the absolute devastation of tim Zo. So I believe
in some people's minds they made him out to be
like this beast that he really isn't. He had a
great night that night. You can't take it away from him.
But I think he's not maybe as great as he
looked against Zoo, and he's probably not what he was
when we saw, you know, the deficiencies against Josh Kelly.
He's good fighter and but not a world beater. Uh.
And in this fight Josh Kelly showed when I've told
you about Josh Kelly where I have been completely unimpressed,
even all the hype he had coming out of the Olympics,
and fought a bunch of nobody's and even against nobody
sometimes didn't look that good. But you can't take away
from the fact he got the opportunity when a lot
of guys didn't want to fight matazze alive. The reason
he got the shot is because Lubin, you know, dragged
it out to the Day of the Poor Person and
then pulled out and went to fight Virgil Artis instead.
And so good Kelly gets to fight, and he he
he lived up to the hype that.
Speaker 2: We took advantage of the opportunity.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, So you got to give him credit. Uh, he
did it? Surprise?
Speaker 1: Did it surprise that that martaz Eliev could not get
to him, could not hurt him, knock him down, maybe
stop it, man, But I'm not talking about the dramatic
moments at the end.
Speaker 3: No, it didn't surprise me because I don't view Martaze
Aliab as the puncher that he looked like against Tim Zoo.
And I say that because I also watched him fight
like Jack Colka, you said.
Speaker 1: It in advance of the fight too, that maybe the
Zoo night was an aberration or he caught Zoo, And
it doesn't necessarily mean that Martaze Alive is going to
be the conquering hero.
Speaker 3: So there was there was both guys scored knockdowns. So
Maurtazz Alive was down in the fourth round. That was
a flash knockdown. He touched the glove down, didn't think
he was hurt.
Speaker 1: And caught him coming in. Kelly with a left hand
knocked him off balance. But it's still clearly clearly a
knockdown because he put his glove down to keep from
going down on his butt.
Speaker 2: Clearly.
Speaker 3: Now fast forward to the ninth round and he gets
a knockdown against Josh Kelly, but this was a hard knockdown.
This was a knockdown where Kelly spoke about in his
interview afterwards, and he wasn't sure he was gonna be
able to continue. He said he was lifted by the crowd,
which was his hometown crowd. Without without you guys, I
don't know if I would have been able to get up.
So he shot a lot of balls to finish that,
and there was still some time left in the round
and he was able to get through the crisis and
and go on, uh you know, for the for the
championship Browns uh uh you know, ten eleven and twelve
and and pull out a close fight. I mean, it's
not going to go down as a classic. There was
a lot of movement, a lot of whole but he
got the job done. That's the bottom line. I mean,
you know, in that situation, you know, it's the old saying,
you know, win today, look good tomorrow. That the most
important thing was win the title, and he did that.
And now let's get to the Steve grey cart all right.
Speaker 1: So let's get to that, which again on the math,
each fighter had a knockdown, so that kind.
Speaker 2: Of keeps it even.
Speaker 1: But the score is going to be a little wonky
when each fighter has lost a point in the fight.
Speaker 2: But then it got wonkier go ahead.
Speaker 3: I've been watching boxing. I've been watching boxing since about
seven eight years old. Okay, I'm fifty five years old.
I've been covering boxing for over twenty six years at
this point. I've seen crazy shit, I've seen expected things whatever.
I've covered a ton of fights at ringside, from the
biggest fights in the world to club shows, and I
can say with I think certainty. I mean I maybe
if somebody could find an example, I'd be willing to
tell you I am wrong. I have never, in my life,
as a fan, just watching fights or as a journalist
covering fights, seen a refer a judge rather in an
in any fight, much less a close world championship fight
that is so significant, score the twelfth round of about
ten ten, and that ten ten round costs Mataza a draw,
which means he would have kept the title, and it
changes the entire course of his life in his career,
and Josh Kelly's life in his career and boxing as
we know it today. So if he scores that fight
and he gives Murtaz for.
Speaker 1: The twelfth round, if he scores it for one of them,
yeah yeah, but he gives.
Speaker 3: It to Martaza if he ends up getting a draw
in the fight.
Speaker 1: Well, I long believe, while we're just on the soapbox,
that in world championship fights, you should never be allowed
to score around ten ten.
Speaker 3: Period. When you say that he can't win, totally agree.
You're hired to do that. Anybody can score around ten
to ten. You're supposed to be the expert. You're supposed
to be the one that can split the hairs when
it's that close. And yes, at times like I might
score a ten town round on my own scorecards which
are not official obviously, once or twice a year, because
there's a first round where they combined to throw like
three punches and nothing lands, and you know that's an
even round. But even rounds should be extremely rare, and
as you said, should never happen in the twelfth round
of a world championship fight. So in the last time
that the ABC, the Association of Boxing Commissions went over
their handbook, their rule book, or made their recommendation and
change some of their language. Now, obviously you know he
works with the British Boxing Board of Control. They are
not overseen by the Association of Boxing Commissions was here
in the United States, but one of the things they
added into their rules and rigs was and I forget
the exact language, but they basically change it to like,
don't score even rounds now. I mean, it's not I'm
overstating that they wrote, but they strongly encourage their members
to pick a winner in the round. And I would say,
by extrapolation, in the twelfth around him a fucking world
title fight, you don't fucking round.
Speaker 2: Pick a winner.
Speaker 1: Agreed, Agreed, all right, So bad scoring is not just
exclusive to the United States or this case in Puerto Rico,
but it's also been there and questionable judging and questionable referreing.
All right, all things aside, Kelly does get the victory,
and so later in the night we saw Jiron Innis
in New York sitting ringside when Kelly won the fight.
Earlier in the day, I'm going, there's your possible Jiron
Innis fight for the IBF belt.
Speaker 3: What do I know at.
Speaker 1: One fifty four, if they can't make the Ortiz thing happen,
there's the possibility for Jiron Nis at junior middleweight to
go get a world title.
Speaker 3: Even if that I would be a little surprised if
they would serve up Josh called a Bootsennis in the
next fight, because he can draw a big crowd and
make some real money fighting at home against you know,
another good contender, but not somebody on the level of
a boot Tennis, So uh, you know, he's not a
mandatory at this point. So I just I'm skeptical that
it will happen. I mean, they're both with Mattrooms, so
it's not out of the realm of possibility. But I
feel like they still have hope to make the Virginal
Ortis fight, even though as I said to you before,
it most certainly will not be on that March twenty
eight date that had been set aside. But we're gonna
have some more clarity about that. I think this week
we'll see what happened. Now Oscar de la Hoya and
Golden Boy they did finally a counter lawsuit against Rick Margian,
who was the manager of Virginal Artis, that they claim
as the one that was screwing up the deal, not them.
But we'll let the lawyers and the courts figure that out.
But that could potentially, you know, side, make things sideways
going forward. But I feel like there'll be some type
of resolution.
Speaker 1: They said on the Desonne broadcast that that's what they expected.
They were talking about it and said that they expected
that there would be some kind of at least immediate
ruling on can Virgil Ortiz go accept the Ennis deal
if he wants it? Because again, we're not going to
go over all of it. But one of the main
point is they wrote a letter or tease his side
to Golden Boys saying we don't have a promotional deal
with you anymore because the deal expired when you didn't
renew with his own right.
Speaker 3: So but oscars have to do besides just finding a
lawsuit against Bridge if they want to, if they want
to get a court to uphold their promotional contract, they're
gonna have to file to get an injunction against them, which.
Speaker 1: I and I'm surprised that that the other side doesn't
get the injunction that says we're free, we're free to negotiating.
Speaker 3: But they're not going to go get an injunction because
they're gonna wait till the other side doesn't. Why would
they do that and risk it. They don't have the
the they feel like they can do go do what
they want to do. So but here's the point though,
and I say this that, from the experience of having
covered a number of these types of suits, even if
they if Oscar and Golden Boy try to get an injunction, again,
I'm not saying that it's definitely gonna be this way,
but this is the way that it generally happens. The
court is not inclined to uphold or are to to
to not allow somebody to pursue their living. So what
Golden Boy probably could the best case scenario for them
would be is if they did seek an injunction, would
be that the judge would say, no, no, no, I'm not
going to enjoin the fighter from making a living. But
what I will do is, pending the outcome of this
case as it winds its way through the courts, is
we will take X number of dollars or X number
of percentage of the purse or whatever it is, and
we will put it in scrow, and he can go
and do his business, and you'll fight it out, and
then if you win and get the money, and if
he wins, he gets.
Speaker 1: What could also happen though, and this is what they
wanted because I read that, and I read you're writing
on it, and I read some other analysis of it.
They just want an immediate ruling from the judge. He's
a free agent. He's a free agent black and White
in the contract we notified them on January the eighth,
Dala Hoya.
Speaker 2: And Golden Boy. He is a free agent.
Speaker 1: Agree with us judge, and if the judge agrees, then
they can go make the deal in Marigean can negotiate it,
and the lawyer can negotiate it whoever else.
Speaker 3: Again, I'm not saying it won't happen or that it's
not possible. Again, in my experience, it's highly unlikely that
the court will offer summary judgment, which means say you're
good to go, case dismissed. That's probably not gonna happen. So,
but but getting back to the fight itself and what
this means in terms of like Josh Kelly and Boots Ennis.
Before Boots goes to try to make a fight with
Kelly or any other fighter in the way class, their
goal is to still try apparently to get the Virgil
fight done. So let them take the next little week,
you know, week or two or whatever to see what
they can get and hopefully we'll see that fight. Because
don't forget the zone still wants that fight. I'm not
saying the Zone wouldn't do Boots Ennis against Josh Kelly,
but if Boots Ennis against Virgil Ortiz on the the
Zone wish list is a ten, Boots against Josh Kelly
is probably like a fucking two, you know what I mean.
It doesn't mean anything, not that it's not a bad fight.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to scale it just mean shit, doesn't
It certainly doesn't mean anything in the United States.
Speaker 3: They want a big American fight that they can say
is a pay per view worthy fight, so they continue
to sell the Ultimate Plan. Don't ever fucking forget.
Speaker 1: That, well, right, because that's that's part of the hook
for what they've done with their model, which again we're
not going to spend five more minutes on this where
they're charging you much more and still charging you for
pay per views, but they're giving you a discount if you,
as you said, if you have the Ultimate Plan, all right,
if you want to.
Speaker 3: Listen, I'll just put it to you like this. If
you are a die hard, which I assume if you're
listening to you and me ramble about boxing, you're a
fucking dur deranged diehard. So that's for you. That's what
the ultim plan is for. So if you are that
caliber of a fan and you buy all the pay
per views and you watch the Magualen Matximum shows, and
you watch the MVP shows and the Golden Boy and
the fucking crazy shit they show from Germany, if that's
your cup of tea, then frankly, the money they're charging
for the Open Plan, for my way of looking at it,
is actually probably worth it if you are that level
of a fan. So that's why they're trying to get
these types of fights done. That's why they got Ryan
Garcia and Barrios. That's why we saw a Ta female
with Cha Kor. That's why we're gonna get the fight hopefully,
you know, the next few months between Virgil and Ennis.
Those are the types of fights that they have to
just apply us on a month.
Speaker 1: By more otherwise they're screwing you out of what they're
charging you. There you go, all right, so we gave
you a lot on the recaps. Let's move into some
news before we are done. It is now official and
announced Deontay Wilder, the former WBC heavyweight titleholder, and Derek
Cesorro will fight in the O two Arena in London.
Date is April the fourth. Give me a little more
on this because we have talked about it a couple
of times here on the Pot.
Speaker 2: It's now official.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, now it's official. I mean they they were
both in New York over the weekend for the for
the fight that took place at Madison Square Garden. They
both attended the Ring Magazine Awards dinner that took place
on Friday night. They're gonna do on Monday, they're gonna
have it's not like a full press a press conference,
but they're gonna do some interviews and photo ops and
things like that, and then on later in the week.
I believe it's on Wednesday, they will be in London
for the full Blast you know, official kickoff Press Corp
still do that yet. It is on Wednesday. As I
look at my email blast about it. They're billing it
as the one hundredth because it's the fiftieth fight for
Deonta and the fiftieth fight for Tesaau, So there's that
little hook to it. I mean, two very well known
guys in the division. May not be for a title,
but it's gonna be a popular fight. They did announce
it will be on his own, not a pay per
view apparently, and two guys you know, playing out the string,
but two guys that still have desires to do something
more than just fight each other, I guess, and we
will see it happened. So I reported on it, as
you mentioned, like about a week or so ago. It's
now official. What's interesting is the group that's promoting it.
You know, you figure, okay, Chasaura has been with Queensberry
and he's been with matrimat times. So while Queensberry is
apparently involved because their logos all over the press release,
the main promoter is if you're you know, the the
Misfits crew that does those wax Fits boxing right right,
So they have apparently a division that's not the nonsense,
but they have something called Misfits Pro.
Speaker 1: Which is is that the non Misfits. I don't know
how we delineate distinguish.
Speaker 3: I mean, as a fan, I mean, you shouldn't really
care who the promoter is other than the fact that
sometimes will impact the level of the undercard. But so yeah,
that's the story. So m MF Pro and Queensberry are
promoting this event. Uh, and the press conference like I said,
is gonna be Wednesday in London. They'll do a smaller
media thing on Monday in New York City. And uh,
if you like slobbery, knocker heavyweight fights with good names
and guys that can knock a guy out and do whatever,
you know, maybe you'll enjoy this fight. Now. You know,
Deontay has not been in great fights in recent times,
but when he does land that big right hand, he
can turn out the lights and chesoora. You know, he's
been on a pretty good run. He's won like three
fights in a row against some pretty decent level of opponent.
There you go, it is what.
Speaker 1: It is when he lands that big right hand. I
think he's still an if he can do that anymore.
But you know what we'll find out. We'll find out
coming in Aple. Do either one of them have anything
left when it's the heavy I'm gona.
Speaker 3: Tell you right now, though, this fight will do a
very big credit the to a r Yes, and it'll
have some is well known by the Britain. He thought
Tyson Fury three times and Chasor is like a beloved
cult figure.
Speaker 1: And this will have some pay per view value, not
only in the UK, but in the United States.
Speaker 3: Well it's not. I just sit you. I don't think
it's a paper gew They're not going.
Speaker 2: To make it a pay for you Well, stay tuned.
Who knows, but at least it will have the interest
in this country as well.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: Another note, the Boxing Writers Association and The Ring Magazine
have announced their awards for twenty twenty five. You and
I have gone over our feelings on Fight of the Year,
Fighter of the Year, Knockout of the Year. You've written
about it on your sub stack. So what about their
official awards coming out and how it was either similar
or different?
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3: Okay, So the Boxing Writers Association America, which has been
doing these awards, you know, for decades and decades, as
as the Ring Magazine just coincidental, I guess. The announcement
of their of the winners was. I think both on Friday,
both on the same day. I voted in the in
the BWA Awards like I've been doing for the last
twenty something years, and no no surprise here in both
The Ring Magazine and in uh the b w A
A Terrence Crawford was the winner of the Fighter of
the Year. We don't have to you know, go through
chapter and verse, but you know, he did what he
did against Canelo and then walked off into the sunset
as the undisputed champion. Uh at minima, although I've gotten
tripped I guess a couple of weeks earlier by the WBC.
But nonetheless, I mean he was the winner the Fight
of the Year also, and I picked him as you know,
for what it's worth on my Fight Free Night substack
the Fight of the Year also. And I like this
that there's a uniformity to to the to the picks
that with you know, and they're they're not the same
group of people that are voting necessarily. Uh. The U
Bank connor Ben one was the fight of the year
by which we which we agreed on. Yes, so the
b w a A it won that which I of
course voted for, and it was also the same pick
in the uh in the Ring magazine. So uh, now
where there was some difference of opinion, uh, I feel
and I believe that the Ring Magazine got it wrong,
but that's just my view. The Trainer of the Year
that was picked by the b w a A. And keep
in mind that's a much larger group of people voting
than a small group of people that are making the
pick for the ring, but nonetheless the ring has the
history of one hundred years of making these picks. Also
Robert Garci, who I picked as the Trainer of the Year,
and also who was the winner in the BWAA Awards,
so he got that bw A A. It was a
second year in a row, and in the Ring magazine
it was Shingo in a way, who of course had
his son Nayoya make four title defenses of the undisputed
junior featherweight Championship. His other son Takuma became a bandonmwaight champion,
so of course he had a great year also, but
I feel like Robert, you know, was doing it with
a lot more people at a not necessarily a family
member type situation. Either. In terms of the knockout of
the Year, again I picked this as my knockout of
the year. I voted for it in the b w
A poll. It did win the b w A and
it also won in the Ring magazine, and that was
a sensational knockout. When then w BO welterweight champion Brian
Norman went to Japan and had a spectacular fifth round
knockout against Jin Sasaki, who actually put something up on
his own social media which was translated into English, where
you know, if you're the guy that got knocked out
and that wins the knock out of the year, most
guys might be not too embracing him, that kind of
like kind of sheepish, kind of embarrassed about it. But
Sasaki was like, look, basically I'm paraphrasing, He's like, shit happens.
I'm happy to get the award, you know, right, I mean,
at least he had a good sense of humor about it,
and he also said, and make sure to pay attention
because I'm coming back. He has a fight coming up
in a few weeks, I guess, which will be his
first fight since that absolutely ridiculous knockout that he suffered.
So most of the awards were in concert with each other.
Now the organizations offered up some awards that the other
one doesn't like. The BWAA does not give out a
prospect of the year, for example, in the Ring magazine,
they do give that a prospect of the year, and
for what it's worth, it match the prospect of the
year that I picked. My twenty six consecutive Prospect of
the Year, which was Emiliano Vargas, the outstanding Young Junior
welterweight with top rank, the son of the former champion
Fernando Vargas. So I was thrilled also by the way,
and I watched the Ring Magazine they did a beautiful ceremony,
a beautiful dinner awards thing, only it was like maybe
an hour and a half UH in New York on
Friday night before the big show on Saturday. They they
gave out a Lifetime Achievement Award and while the winner
was not present, filmed the beautiful video that they played
that was, you know, a couple of minutes long. My
dear friend Larry Merchant was given the Lifetime a Chief
and so it was beautiful to see that. You know,
it's a word season and UH. They did also differ
by the way in terms of the upset of the year.
So in the in the UH, in the b W
A A. But I guess we don't pick an upset
of the year. But in the in the UH Ring Magazine,
they also picked Armando Resendez's victory against Kayla plant which
was a tremendous upset. I mean that was you know,
most people had never heard of Armando Resendez and Kayla
Plant was supposed to be fighting to set up the
fight against Charlot. So you know, it didn't quite go
that way. Shit happens, it does. Manager of the Year
in the b w A was Keith Connolly, which was
to me a slam dunk. There's plenty of good managers,
but you know, he had, you know, a tremendous year
for his clients and just did all kinds of work.
They didn't pick one in the in the Ring magazine.
There was a difference in the female boxer the year. Also,
by the way, for the Ring Magazine, they picked the
excellent Japanese champion and whose name has escaped me at
the moment, but I'm going to look it up here. Yeah,
Miszuki Herouda. She continued to be undefeated, made a number
of title defenses. You know, obviously she was a great candidate.
I think she fought four times and defended her title.
The Boxing Writers Association of America picked MICHAELA. Mayer, who
won her both of her fights. She won a title
or she defended the title in the welterweight division, and
then she moved up. I guess no yeah, she defended
it in the rematch against Sandy Ryan, and then she
went up to one fifty four and won three of
the belts in that way class against against Spencer. She
was hoping to fight Lauren Price for undisputed at Walter
Way and she couldn't get as I said, fuck it,
and she went up to the next tow weight class.
Speaker 2: So the point the.
Speaker 3: Point of it, though, is in the in the calendar
year of twenty twenty five, whatever, those types of awards
that you're picking, whether it's you and I is individual
or the organizations, they really were not that complicated. Everybody
seemed to pretty much agree on who the winners were.
Speaker 1: Or we can look at it as we were trendsetters
and they agreed with the people that know what they're
talking about, Dan Rayfield and TJ.
Speaker 3: Reeves.
Speaker 2: I kind of look at it like that.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: One more quick note here before we are done, and
that is no Ninto Dunair, who seems to be able
to fight on forever at Banham Waite. It's going to
keep fighting on here at Banham Waite. Here, give me
the latest on this real quick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I'm not surprised. I guess. I mean,
he did have a very competitive loss in his last
fight that was recently. I was like, how long ago
was that, TJ? Like a month ago? Yes, it wasn't
really that long ago that he had lost December in Japan. Yes, right,
he was the interim title holder at that point. He
was taking on the champion. He lost a split decision,
and you're like, you know what, he's in his forties.
You know, he's lost now a couple of fights in
recent times, and you know, maybe it's going to be
time to.
Speaker 2: At some point it's over.
Speaker 1: And I know you were saying it as much as
he's had a Hall of Fame career, at some point
it's over.
Speaker 2: But he's apparently gonna fight on right apparently.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, he's not taking great punishment in
these fights, so that's a good thing. At least doesn't
appear to be the case. So he's gonna be on
a card. It's a good like if you're into the
Japanese type championship fights, which you now. I love the
streaming service in Japan that does a lot of these
events called You Next. They have a card that will
take place in Yokohama. It's on March fifteenth, and in
that in the one of the fights on the card
is the flyweight WBO champion Anthony Olaskagua, who's from Los
Angeles but has been making a living fighting and defending
his title in Japan. He takes out of Japanese Jukiya Imora.
That'll be one of the fights. But in terms of
don't Air, this will be a he's forty three years
old and he's gonna be in Hall of Fame, but
he's gonna have to wait a few years after he retires.
The question is will he ever retire? So he's in
a WBA bandon weight eliminator, not unreasonable despite coming off
of the loss, given how close that fight was. He'll
be in another eliminator, this time against Masuda, which is
hilarious to me because here you have Donair who's forty
three and nine, who's forty three years old, and he's
taken a guy with nine wins and one loss was
only twenty eight years old, so the gap and experience
and age is just dramatic. And he and and the
fight that he lost, by the way, was only in December,
so you know, for a guy in his forties like that,
and you know it's a pretty quick turnaround. He had
given your boys to assume me a tremendous battle, but
came up a little bit short in that, uh in
that title fight. So he's going to keep on going on.
And by the way, on the rest of the card,
your boy uh not Neilmtrong. He's going to defend the
uh the WBC Junior Flyway title on this card against
another Japanese.
Speaker 2: Hey fresh Mark.
Speaker 3: Right, well we go by Famamon.
Speaker 2: Yes, he'll be on the card too in March. Man.
So we've got it all.
Speaker 1: We've got it all here, including Donair fighting on listen
full recap. Nice job for all the cards again, New
York City, Puerto Rico, England. If you enjoy us, make
sure you're following, subscribing, spread the word, Apple, Spreaker, Spotify,
get on Dan, Substack, the Fight, Freaking Night, Substack, and newsletter.
We we conclude the first uh week of February. Here
we conclude with a Sunday, starting a new week. I
guess I should say in a new month here in February.
Here we go with that.
Speaker 2: Anything else were good here off the off the weekend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we're good I mean we're taping this. Uh,
but while we're doing this, the second zoofa boxing cards on,
all right, and uh, we'll see what happens. I'm gonna
will be when we get finished taping this, I'm gonna
go pop it on.
Speaker 2: So pop it on and you'll get a full recap
on his substance.
Speaker 3: That I've been writing a lot.
Speaker 1: But we mentioned, we mentioned in the preview mode that
those fights would be going on while we do this
Sunday and the Monday and get it out of the oven.
So if you're curious, find the results there on card
number two.
Speaker 3: These will come down a little bit next week after
a big week in this we we got.
Speaker 1: We've got ball and figure roast a title fight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, matrim has always produced this fun fights. They've got
one of these. I was in Mexico with the newly
crowned w BO Bantamway champion, Christian Medina defending against a
former title or in Adrian Curio. I can't imagine that's
not gonna be anything but a brawl, all right, So we.
Speaker 2: Look forward to those later in the week in the
preview mode.
Speaker 1: Other than that, have a good week, my friends, gets
off here tonight there goes Dan Rayfield.
Speaker 2: I'm merely t J Reeves. You've been with us on
the Fight Preach United Recap podcast