Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big
Fight Weekend. Now here is your host. DJ leaves all right,
we get ready for a weekend and has a heavyweight
main event in London that has an interesting junior middleweight
main event in California on Sorry, I had a couple
of contenda fights that we're gonna go over. We've got news,
we've got some nostalgia, and we've got the cheery disposition
of one Dan Rayfield. I am merely the somewhat capable
host TJ Reeves. It is the Big Fight Weekend preview. Hello,
Big Dan of the Fight Freation Night, substack and newsletter.
Good to be back with you, my friend, as we
rock along here with plenty to go over besides the previews,
whether it be protests of the Navarate technical decision, whether
it be looks like Xander Zaiez is gonna fight Jorge Garcia.
We're gonna tell you about all that here in a
little bit. Thank you for finding us. We do come
your way previewing going into the weekend Thursday night into Friday,
we do our best or recap as well coming off
the weekend Sunday night into Monday. That I say this
now rendering the summer months because it's a little bit
of a relaxation vacation time at least on my timeline,
not so much you. But you know your little one's
going to be out of school, not so little one,
your young man's going to be out of school. My
twins out of school. So we will do our best
to try to come your way twice a weekend, but
some of the time it might only be once a weekend.
You savages will survive most of the time. We are
here doing both, So thank you for finding us and
here on the podfeed, make sure you follow, subscribe, rate us,
review us. All of that helps. Also find the YouTube page.
When we're talking nostalgia and other unique content, go find
the Big Fight Weekend YouTube page and make sure you're
subscribing there. Frequently, Dan, people tell us how much they
enjoy what we're doing. Right, you get that feedback. I
get that feedback. Help us out, follow and subscribe on
the podcast feed. Make sure you subscribe and hit the
light button on the YouTube page because those will help
us as we rock along. I do get occasional feedback
from people saying you've got too many ads in the
podcast blah, blah blah, savages, let me help you with
something as much as is as much as Rayphiel and
I enjoy banter back and forth, we don't have to
do this for our own edification and our own benefit
twice a weekend. There is a financial motivation for part
of this as well, and that financial motivation is acted
upon by advertising with what we're doing. I know it
would be more seamless for some of you if we
never had an ad, but then you wouldn't have any
more Dan and TJ. So which do you want? Do
you want Dan and TJ who are trying to make
you know enough? That's correct? But would you rather have
some Dan and TJ and we make enough to you know,
get a happy meal? Or would you rather just think
about what Dan and TJ might have to say about this?
And and by the way, there are several of you
that have sounded off about you and me in the
back and forth. So the first thing that you guys
need to understand is we get along great even though
we disagree. The second thing is none of this is contrived,
all right, none of this is rehearsed. D If you
take this opinion, I'm gonna come at you with it.
We don't do any of that crap, right, verify that
we do not contrive this. This ain't the WWE.
Speaker 2: We do the US show. I don't even know what
your picks are, so like literally, you know my picks
as I send them to you. Correct And I never
know your picks until literally like a few minutes read
the show starts when I see the graphic.
Speaker 1: And then you're ready to ridicule me everybody exactly. But
the back and forth that you're hearing is, as we
say in the South, genuine. It is genuine, and so
that's who we are, all right, So let's get to
it with the previews and then news and a little
bit more here on the podcast. It is not a
stellar World Championship weekend. But that doesn't mean because ray
Ffiels always big on the heavyweights, that doesn't mean that
we have is you were all. Don't say it's not
true you're always big on the heavyweights. You're always big
when there's heavyweight action to be interested.
Speaker 2: I am not a big heavyweightight fan in general. If
there's a big heavyweight fight shirt, but in general terms,
heavyweight are you did you get? Like?
Speaker 1: Okay, so you and I love Soap, the show from
the late seventies, the ABC comedy and Richard Mulligan, the
famous character I can't even remember, the character named Burt.
Burt got alien replaced? Did you get aliens? I replaced
in the last five minutes, because we've done this for
three years and by the way, we didn't rehearse this
and we're already going at it and we haven't even
know where you're What I am saying to you is
there has to have been ten previous times when you
said to me, oh, I'm looking forward to a good
old fashioned heavyweight sl knocker, or oh, you never know,
you never know what to expect with the heavyweights, and
you say, oh, the heavyweight division is just something special.
You say that crap all the time, and I like you,
is the alien replaced? Rayfield sitting with me now that you're.
Speaker 2: Just about to find the audio or the video where
I said it was special. I liked a good heavyweight fight,
but if you, if I had my preference, I probably
would opt for other weight classes. To be quite honest
with you, I mean, unless it's the highest level. If
we're talking about you know, Fury and who sinking, you
know those types of huge fights. But yeah, you know whatever.
Speaker 1: So nonetheless, the upcoming Matchroom Disown main event is Saturday
night UK time, Saturday afternoon US time. It is Johnny
Fisher and Dave Allen in a rematch, a scheduled ten rounder.
So we need to clarify on that. A lot of
the main events now, even if they're not for a
world title or twelve rounders. A scheduled ten rounder. So
tee it up for the audience in the preview mode
about the rematch and what's going on here.
Speaker 2: Well, they're having a rematch because David Allen was a
huge underdog and Johnny Fisher, who a lot of people
in England, and Eddie Hearn if you listen to him,
think he was the next big thing in heavyweight boxing.
For one thing, he's exciting to watch Fisher number one,
number two. He draws a great crowd, he's got a
tremendous fan following. I mean, if you think about what
he had done, like it wasn't that long ago, as
in February of last year he fought on a card
in Las Vegast when Eddie brought Connor Ben over here.
He was fighting a complete nobody. Early on the show
in a small ballroom in a casino in Vegas, and
he traveled hundreds of people, it seemed like, from the
UK for that kind of fight. So he's a draw,
he's an economic force and they were building him slowly
but surely, and they stepped them up in a major
way against Dave Allen, who was, you know, a fun fighter.
Everybody in the UK love is the guy. He's fought
a lot of top names. You know, it was usually
one when he stepped up. He does have seven losses,
taking some brutal knockouts, but you know, still was considered
a litmus test for Johnny Fisher. And the reason why
the rematches happened is because they went the distance in
a fight that most people thought that David Allen won
and that Johnny Fisher got a gift. And on top
of that, David Allen scored a knockdown in round number
five and had Johnny Fisher ready to go, and he
was very lucky to escape with a split decision victor
in that fight. I mean the judges had it ninety
five to ninety four, two score cards in favor of
Johnny Fisher. One judge had it ninety six to ninety
three in favor of David Allen. He is lucky as
hell and it was really no other thing they could
really do to put Johnny Fisher in front of the
paying public again unless he cleaned up the mess. Now,
the fight that they had the first time around took
place back in December. That was on the undercard when
Tyson Fury and Alexander Rusak had their rematch in Saudi Arabia.
This time they're doing it in the Copper Box in London,
so they'll be obviously a bigger crowd. You know, Johnny
Fisher is from London, you know, they call him what
do they call him, the Romford Bull? I guess Romford's
like an area of London where he is from, so
it's his hometown. You know. David Allen is also from England,
but not from literally in London. So Johnny Fisher will
be the huge crowd favorite. I'm sure he sold a
ton of tickets for this fight, and you know, at
the end of the day, what they probably will do.
Whether you're a Johnny Fisher fan, a Dave Allen fan,
you don't give a shit whatever, or you do like
seeing heavyweights, they're probably going to put on a rumble,
But the reality is Johnny Fisher if he really wants
to be taken seriously as even a potential future heavyweight contender,
and he got to win this fight and do it impressively.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, do you believe I know what you
just said there? Do you believe this is just much
more hype for him? You haven't seen it yet to
this point. You really have to see it not only
on Saturday, but you got to see it against somebody
even more legitimate than Dave Allen, who's who was retired
not long ago as well and is now back out
of that retirement. From a Fisher standpoint, you got to
see much more than even Saturday, right, Yeah, I mean,
I'm you.
Speaker 2: Just want to see an improvement. You want to see
him understand what happened in the first fight in December
and make sure he when he If he's able to win,
there's no controversy. I'm not even saying he doesn't have
to get a knockout. I've never been a big believer
in Well, if he doesn't get a knockout, you know,
you know, he must be nothing. There's plenty of guys
that go through their careers and are not necessarily big
knockout punchers. The main thing is you want to see
improvement and you want to see him score a win
where there's not controversy. If you're a supporter of his,
you know, and if Dave Allen that happens to win
the fight this time and they actually give him the decision,
you know, it's going to call it the question the
future of where Johnny Fisher is gonna go. I'm not
gonna say the guy's got to retire or anything like that.
I'm just saying it will give you a very good
insight that he's probably not going to the top. He's
only twenty six years old, so it's not like he's
an old guy. But for a Dave Allen like, getting
the fight last time was a gift for him in
terms of just the payday, the opportunity and then performing
the way he did was obviously big for him with
the you know, the loss certainly didn't hurt his reputation
or people's interest in his career. You know, once he
got six seven losses, another loss not gonna do much
and didn't get knocked out, but he's lost when he
stepped up. I mean just as an example, he had
won two fights in a row, but they were like
four round fights. The last time he fought like a
known guy quote unquote, when Fraser Clark, who was the
Olympic medalist, who was a younger fighter, a younger in
terms of his experience, he's older in terms of his age.
He was only seven to oh and Fraser Clark took
him out in six rounds. And then obviously Fraser Clark,
you know, had his own problems when he fought against
more well known guys than just absolutely you know, got
obliterated in the fight with Fabio Wardley. In the second fight,
he did really well in the first fight. They got
to draw. But I'm making the point though, that David
Allen has fought a much higher level of opponent than
Johnny Fisher has, and so this was considered a huge
step up for him because he had fought absolutely nobody
in his first you know, a bunch of fights, and
when he did stake a step up, a modest step up,
I might add, he kind of flamed out. He didn't
you know, you know, yeah, I guess he got the
official decision, but a lot of people thought he'd lost.
He got knocked down, he got beat up, and it
was a bad night at the office, even though he
got to win. So the object of this fight, besides
of course what he'll do I'm sure entertaining the fans,
is to go out there and you know what, sweep
this mess up show that you know, he might have
just had a bad night back in the December, you
know that I can still make a name for myself
do something in this heavyweight division, and that starts with
taking care of a fighter of the level of a
Dave Ballen. It's not disrespect because Dave Allen's an honest
fighter and he's come, you know, to do a great
effort every time I've ever seen him. But he's not
the most skillful or talented guy out there. And so
now Johnny Fish shirt's on him, baby, see what he
can do.
Speaker 1: Okay, So again, that's Saturday afternoon US time primetime in
the UK on his own for the Matchroom show later
on in the night. Again, there's not a world championship
fight that we have of relevance, but we do have
a relevant junior middleweight contender fight, and that is Sir
Hey BULLACHALWK fighting Michael Fox again a ten round main event,
correct here not a twelve round main event. But interesting
here that we know Boachuk from the fight with Virgil
Orties that took place back last August, the Hotly Contestify,
Am I not the correct that you were there for
that one? Maybe I was not there for that you
were not there, but nonetheless a tremendous battle that ended
up being a majority draw as it turns out with Ortiz.
So now he's fighting Michael Fox in this main event.
This is the Tom Loffler three sixty Promotions card on
UFC Fight Pass, so we give him props here for
this main event. So tell me more about the California
main event. The junior middleweights here in action.
Speaker 2: Well, Tom Laffert, you know, does these cards on a
regular basis. He has a deal with the UFC Fight
Pass to put on his events every few months, and
he's been doing a good job building up some of
the fighters that he works with and putting on competitive
fights on top of that. And for Boachuk, they didn't
have a spot for him on one of the bigger
shows at the moment, but he just can't leave the
guy in the shelf. So Thomas fulfilling his promotional obligation
to bring him back. As I mentioned about the first
fight we talked about with Johnny Fisher and David Allen
when they fought the first time, it was on the
undercard of Usik and Theory number two and Sady Heavy
back in December. Bochuk has been out of the ring since.
He also fought on that undercard back in December. So
they're back. They're the heavyweights in Bowchuck are on the
same schedule, so to speak. But he did fight on
that undercard. Remember in that card, he was originally supposed
to fight Israel Madromov, which a lot of people were
very excited about, and then Najamov got supposedly the chest
infectioner bronchitis or what have you, and he pulled out
and he ended up going into a different fight that
was later on, So he ended up fighting on that card.
They filled They filled in with Ishmael Davis for Boachuk.
They still allowed it to be a WBC Final Junior
middle with eliminator. So Boachuk won that fight and he
did so in dominating fashion, and so he's sitting there
as the mandatory in the WBC for the Junior Middleway title,
which currently is held by Sebastian Fondora, although Fondora is
gonna fight the rematch with Tim Zufers So in Bochuck,
I don't believe the mandatory is quite due yet anyway,
but nonetheless, in that fight back in December, it was
Bochuk you know, basically beat up on Ishmael Davison. You know,
he retired on his stool after round number six. He
was really you know, taking it to him, and so
now he's just trying to get back on the groove.
You know, you can't sit around and just wait for
the title shot. You gotta stay busy. It's the worst
thing in the world as the inactive. We've seen that
happen with so many fighters where they take a long layoff,
they come back and they just don't look as good
as they should because they've got talent, but at atrophies
if you just don't fight. So they're not going to
do that with Boachuk. So he's back in action in
this main event on this card against Michael Fox, a
credible veteran, not a world beater. He's twenty four and
four never been stopped though. So Michael Fox is known
for having you know, a pretty good chin. Obviously he'd
never been stopping before and Bochuck, you know it was
a very hard puncher. He's got twenty fi four knockouts
and twenty five wins. So you know, what's the old saying.
You know what's gonna happen when the when the rubber
hits the road? You know the uh, you know we're
gonna We're gonna see is Botchuck what kind of power
he really has? If Michael Fox can take the heat.
Fox is a south baff For what that's worth. He's
won two low level fights in row, just uh, you know,
six to eight round fights against you know one it is.
Speaker 1: It is interesting that he was fighting a twelve round
main event for for the secondary w b A title.
What at welterweight back in twenty twenty one, he's now
been at uh junior middleweight? What the last two fights?
Am I correct? Or at least the last.
Speaker 2: Say the last No, No, he's been a well he's
a welterweight. I mean he fought he fought slightly over
the weight in the last fight.
Speaker 1: But the fight was a six round fight. What do
we make of that? We won a six round decision.
Speaker 2: Do what as I was saying before you interrupted me,
is that the opponent that he was fighting in his
last two fights, one guy in the last fight, which
was in November, was three wins, five losses and two draws. Now,
Michael Fox is from uh the DC, Maryland area, and
there's a regular club show that takes place at the
Maryland Life Casino and Hanover, Maryland, and so he fought
on that card against a guy who was three five
and two. That was a matter of stay busy in
my local area, bringing a few ticket buyers. He won
the six round decision. Before that, you know, he had
fought in July, he fought another guy that was eighteen
and twelve with two draws, one a decision there. But
those were like the easy fights quote unquote, because before
that he fought Edges Kavalawskis, who was a world class fighter,
a former two time Olympian who fought Terren s Croft
for the welterweight title. Actually just fought last weekend in
in Africa and a WBC eliminator and lost that fight,
but scored two knockdowns against the SOCO. In that fight.
Fought Gabriel my Estra, who fought the upset minded Luke
Santa Maria, who's pulled a bunch of upsets and lost
three fights in a row, all by decision, two to
ten rounders and a twelve rounder. So now he's back
in a real fight. You know, he should be the
big underdog against Boltchuk. But like I said to me,
the biggest interesting thing about the fight not only to
see how Botschuk looks after, you know, coming back from
that last victor in December, but can he score be
the first man to ever score a knockout against Michael Fox?
I mean, if you're ever gonna do it a guy
that's got twenty four knockouts and twenty five wins against
a guy that's got four losses but never been stopped.
That you know, if I can find one intriguing thing
about this weekend of fights, that might be it, because
that is sort of the thing I am most interested in.
And if if Bochuk wins, he maintains his position as
the WBC's mandatory challenger in that weight less and obviously
if Fox wins, it's a tremendous upset. He won't assume
that role necessarily as the mandatory, but it would be
a huge feather in his cap and so you know,
on a otherwise very very low profile weekend, Let's say
at least the two fights we're talking about, they are
interesting in some capacity. The heavyweight should be fun. Fisher is,
in my opinion, not to be too dramatic his career
as a perceived potential contenders on the line, and Botchuk
obviously is risking his position against a capable but not
great fighter.
Speaker 1: And Fox is a crafty South paond at least he's
fought a couple of fights. And since you love to
have fun with me, I love the two minute giatribe
that didn't explain why he was off for eighteen months
from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty four. Was that
new injury? Why Fox Fox didn't fight a fight for
eighteen months from twenty twenty two into the middle of
twenty twenty four. Was that an injury?
Speaker 2: Well, I know a lot about boxing, let's go I
don't know the schedules and the intimate details of why
a journeying ish fighter has been off eighteen months. Could
have been an injury, could have been a promotional thing.
But he did come back after that. Maybe he just
was pissed off about losing the Kavalawskas the way he did.
He lost every single round and got knocked down two times.
He did come back, like I said, he got the
two you know, softer type wins and now he's taking
another step up. So it is what it is. By
the way, he didn't ask me that question anyway.
Speaker 1: No, but usually you answer questions before I asked him.
Sometimes clarify on the UFC fight Pass, because I'm not
completely familiar with that. Is it a subtle price to
pay if you just want to watch this fight and
you're not already subscribed? How do they work that with
the UFC much.
Speaker 2: It's like having ESPN Plus or Disown or any of
the streaming services. You pay a monthly subscription price, or
you know, I guess you can buy it for an
annual fee. And they have lots of UFC programming. But
they do have you know, they do have this deal
with Tom Loffler where they put Tom probably puts on
i't know, maybe I don't know, six or eight shows
a year and that's part of that package. So if
you've heard of like we've discussed, I think the junior
middleweight prospect Callum Walls, Schmierland, who trains with Freddie Roach,
who's gained some popularity, who's done cards in the Madison
Square Garden Theater on Saint Patrick's Day, and that sort
of thing. Like he's a guy that's built his whole
career on UFC fight Pass. My problem, and I don't
have a problem with UFC Fight Pass. To me, the
more the merrier in terms of there's a platform that
will pay a license fee to put on boxing events,
and the UFC fight Pass people, you know, they pay
tom you know, a small fee, but enough to do
these types of shows. The problem is, if you're a
box I don't know anybody that's gonna buy UFC fight
Pass just to see just for that fight, right, just
for those shows, you know. And yes, of course there
are some UFC fans who also like boxing, so it's
maybe a nice diversion. I just feel like, you know,
if you want boxing fans to see your product, it's
got to be done in front of boxing fans. So
they put on a nice show. That's fine, but the vast,
vast majority of boxing fans don't ever see it. They
might see a clip on social media or YouTube, but
very rarely do they see those fights. I don't subscribe
to US. I see UFC Fight Pass because I'm just
not going to pay for a service so I can
watch a club boxing show, you know, once every once
in a while, Right, it's not worth it for me.
Speaker 1: All right? That leads us thin to the news. And
wait a minute, Big Dan did Turkey Ala Sheik not
say in the ring on the Saturday of Cinco de
Mayo weekend September twelve, Canello Crawford in the stadium those
were his words. In the stadium in Las Vegas, meaning
Allegiance Stadium, all thought. But now, wait a minute, what's
going on here? Where it may not be on the
Friday night and supposedly according to the reporting from a
ring magazine, it may not even be in Las Vegas,
if that's to be believed. Well, what's going on here?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna use when you say the phrase reporting from
ring magazine? Yeah, rocket respect. Anything that is quote unquote
reporting from ring magazine as it relates to a Turkey
event is not real reporting. That's the boss telling them
what to write, basically because he owns the publication. I'm
not knocking that, but you just always have to keep
that in mind when you're reading the ring about events
related to Turkey al Sheik, just because they're not going
to write anything that he's not going to approve of, obviously,
so just get that out of the way. So if
they wrote it, he said it. The answer to the question, though,
is I have no fucking idea, As you said. He
got in the ring with Terrence Crawford and Canelo overs
facing off against each other and announced that the fight
was going to be the Friday night in the Allegiance
Stadium in Las Vegas. Obviously that's the big stadium. Now,
my reporting has said that that fight was headed to
Netflix through their deal with TKO. They were going to
bring that fight to Netflix, not to a pay per view,
which was obviously a huge deal for boxing fans, and
Netflix is ready to back up the truck and pay
a tremendous license fee to put on that event for
their subscribers because as we have talked about before, as
it relates to Jake Paul and Mike Tyson and now
this upcoming fight between Katie Taylor and Amana Torano for
their third fight, Netflix is in the business of doing
tenth pole events and obviously, Terrence Crawford against Canel Alvarez
is a ten pole event. And now he has switched
the date, supposedly. I'm not sure. I believe that it
will actually be switched, and maybe we'll see it go
back to where it was. But now we're saying it's
a Riad season event, meaning not TKO, and it's going
to be on the thirteenth, which is the Saturday, which
makes more sense in my opinion, and he put out
a list of potential cities to hose it. I think
Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas. I mean,
why are we trying to reinvent the wheel?
Speaker 1: Here?
Speaker 2: Here's the bottom line to my knowledge, that Teamobile Arena
is available on Saturday the thirteenth, and in boxing of
the last decade or so since Team Oblerin has been opened,
the biggest possible fights for the biggest possible gates take
place on a Saturday night on normal pay per view
in the Teamobile Arena. If they want to put it
on Netflix, obviously that'd be great too. So I'm not
sure why we're trying to reinvent the wheel. I can't
fathom that the fight would go to New York City,
there's not a venue large enough gate wise. It doesn't
make sense there for either fighter. Los Angeles, yeah, they
have great first class arenas. You could do the fight
at the Crypto Arena. But I know my boxing business
as well as anybody, and I can promise you this,
there is no venue in the state of California, much
less in Los Angeles where they can achieve a gate
large enough even close to what they would do in
Las Vegas at the Team Mobile.
Speaker 1: Now for an event like this right now Turkey.
Speaker 2: Obviously, if you take a look at the amount of
money that is being spent on the different events that
he is doing, involving Ring magazine as well as the
reas and events, they're clearly not designed to earn a
profit because the amount of money that is being spent
on the event or persons and all the other expenses,
and then you just even look at even rough out
what the revenue is, they don't come close to matching.
I mean, he put on an event in Times Square
where just on the purses had to be in the
thirty million dollar range. And when I tell you other
than they announced on the Ring Social that it did
two hundred and sixty five thousand pay per views that
had to be worldwide because there's no fucking way it
did that in the United States. So the only revenue
that there was for that event was whatever the pay
per view did in their take on it. And then
you know, I'm assuming that that video game and some
of the other they had some money from sponsors, but
not even close to cover the kind of money that
was paid on person. So the money may not be
the most important thing. But again, by all accounts, you know,
Canel Alvarez and Terrence Crawford are going to earn between
the two of them, you know, well into the nine
figures for this fight, and that's just that fight. That
does not include the undercard and all the other expense
to go on top of making a massive event. So
I think when it's all said and done and listen,
if Turkey comes up with some other interesting thing to do,
you know, so be it. But logically speaking, it belongs
at the Team Mobile Arena on Saturday the thirteenth.
Speaker 1: Did you say logic that sometimes that doesn't always.
Speaker 2: Or maybe they go back to the original plan and
it does happen on the Friday night in the stadium,
But here's an interesting thing about it. I found it
very fascinating that they that when Turkey made that announcement,
he very specifically said it would not be that I
forget if he mentioned TKO, but he said it would
be a re ed season event, after previously announcing that
my good friend Dana White and TKO would be handling
the fight. So perhaps we don't know the details. Perhaps
there's some type of issue going on between Turkey and
his team and the folks at TKO and Dana. I mean,
maybe it's not the best way to get off to
the start of a new relationship because they haven't really
even started other than to make them an announcement, all right,
so we'll find out. And the other thing about it, though,
DJ here's the thing. Uh UFC has their Mexican pay
per view. Uh that's taking place in Mexico on the Saturday.
So that means if Turkey moves his event with Canelo
and Crawford to Saturday, to some degree, he's competing against
supposedly the people who are his partners.
Speaker 1: No, supposedly he is competing against him.
Speaker 2: Obviously if they're still partners, I'm saying, right, So that's interesting.
I mean, the bottom line is Canelo and Crawford are
They're still fighting in September, and.
Speaker 1: And by and by the way, I know we could
be considered bias. Canella Crawford's bigger than any UFC anything.
Oh right, yeah, period, absolutely, So stay tuned. Last chapter like.
Speaker 2: This DJ one more thing about it. In a perfect world,
which this is not, this fight would be on Saturday
in the T mobile on Netflix without a pay per
view surge Archer, all the great fans around the.
Speaker 1: World, Stay tuned, Stay tuned. It may be that, uh,
while we're here, let's talk about the other news, including
a couple of you found out something. So they had
the Thursday press conference for the Ring magazine to his
own pay per view that will actually be at Louis
Armstrong Tennis Stadium in Queens, and that is going to
have a double header of Shakur Stevenson and William Zapeta
for the lightweight title, and Edgar Berlanga and Hams of
Sharaz are going to fight in a super middleweight showdown.
So we do know that's confirmed right July twelve, and
it's also yeah.
Speaker 2: There's also other fights that they announced. It's actually a
very solid cart. They also had announced original and these
are still on the card. They're just not getting the
hype yet because the focus has been on the two
main fights with Berlanga Sharaz and Stevenson Zepeda. But they
also are having Alberto Pueo defending the WBC one to
forty title against the former title holder, Sabrill Mattias. And
they got a very interesting light heavyweight fight on there
David Merle against Iman Katiyev, who may not be the
most well known guy, but an outstanding up and comer
Olympic Olympic medalist, and also the japan East prospect that
fought his pro debut in the Times Square card a
Rato Sutsumi. He'll be in his second professional fight on
the under card. But the focus of their news conference
that took this that took place this week in New
York was on the two main fights. And the Louis
Armstrong Stadium was formerly and now I broke that a
couple of days ago before that it's never hosted boxing before.
For people who don't know what it is, it is
one of the three stadiums that is part of the
US Tennis Center in a flushing New York and Queens.
It's sort of right near where the New York Mets
play at City Field. There's three stadiums there. There's the
big one, which is the Arthur Ashe Stadium, which holds
like twenty thousand. That's where they played the US Open.
Speaker 1: That one now has a retractable roof. They've even put
a retractable roof on it in case it rains on that.
Speaker 2: Not yet not. So that's the main stadium where they
do the US Open final. The Louis Armstrong Stadium, which
is kind of next to it. That's a fourteen thousand
seats stadium. You can fit more for boxing because I
remember you can put seats and stuff on the floor
because the ring doesn't take up that much space. That
has a retractable roof. That's where this is taking interesting. Okay,
So that one is the one that happens, and then
they have a smaller one called the Grand Stand that
holds about seven or eight thousand. That is also one
of the other places. So those those stadiums host matches
throughout the US Open, but they decided to go with
the Louis arms intersting. It's not as big as the
big one. It has the retractable roof, which has to
be a very attractive part of the reason why they're
going there. It will be very picturesque. I'm a little
concerned about boxing fans who are used to going to
certain places in New York to you know, it's a
little circuitous to get there compared to going to a
place like Barclay Center or the Madison Square Garden, which
are very easily accessible by many many of the train lines.
Not so much with this stadium. But you know, I mean,
one thing I'll say for Turkey, I'll give them the
A plus for innovation because they did do whatever you
thought about how it turned out with the Times Square
thing that was interesting. This card was actually being discussed
for a Central Park until they ended up deciding to
go to the Louis Armstrong Stadium. So you know, there
is the desire and the political will, if you will,
to try something a little bit out of the box,
and so for their sakes, hopefully we'll be successful. I
hope the fans turn out for because it's a good card.
I'm a little disappointed it's on pay per view. Once again,
everything is on pay per view. It seems like uh
and it's also you know, uh again good fights. But
again maybe I'm aging myself and you two TJ. If
this was the the old the old third days, let's say,
of our what we know was the HBO Showtime era,
this would be an excellent like main event, doubleheader type
show on World Championship Boxing, your Showtime Championship Boxing, not
a pay per view card.
Speaker 1: Uh, stay tuned.
Speaker 2: Uh And and by the way, they did talk good
shit though at the press covers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was some good back and forth, including uh
Shakur and Zapeida, which I think is going to be
a highly entertaining fight. More time to talk about that.
And by the way, more news here that you have
found out about Turkey Ali Chic and what's up here
with whether or not Ryan Garcia and and Devin Haney
will fight next after let us not forget Garcia lost
his fight with Roley Romero. So is that rematch could
put or what are you finding out? What do we
know about that?
Speaker 2: I don't think it's totally could put now, he called in.
He was not in New York for the press conference
that they had on Thursday in Manhattan to you know,
to do the kickoff press convers for this card with
Berlanga and and Shiraz and Shakur and Zapeida. But they
had at one point when they were doing the main program,
uh Turkey called into Wade Plemons, who was the host
of the proceedings, and had him on the speaker on
the cell phone, and he, you know, greeted the folks
that were there and talked about the fights a little bit,
and then talked about some other fights and was still
talking about the prospect of doing Garcia and Haini and
talking about other fights that the wins in the in
the fights on his upcoming card could lead to. But
a couple of days before that, I had reached out
the Turkey and messaged him and said, just could you
clarify basically, are you still planning to go through to
do the Garcia and Haini rematch even though obviously Ryan
had lost, and you know, obviously the other fight was
not the very good fight either, even though Hany was
the winner. You know, is what are you thinking about?
And he was like, look, I don't know. We should
know for sure in a couple of weeks. I'm paraphrasing
what he said. Basically, it was like, you know we might.
He used the word delete the rematch, I mean, not
do the rematch, and talked about the possibility of doing
some other fight for Ryan as sort of like a
lesser tune up fight to just kind of get him
back on track. So I think, right now the jury's out,
I kind of hope they don't do the rematch next.
I mean, the first fight was nothing spectacular to begin with.
Number one, The two fights that they fought in the
interim on the same card with each other one year
later were both unwatchable. I'm not sure what's going to change.
And you put that fight now in Saudi Arabia, you
make it even less interesting to the American public, which,
of course, if there's going to be anybody interested, it's
the American public, right And you want to put it
as a main event on pay per view, and there's
other fights you could do. I'm not saying don't ever
do the rematch. I'm just saying, you know what, maybe
the best thing is to let it lie for a
little while. These are not old you know, guys that
are that are not going to be fighting for a while.
They're still in their twenties. I mean, if you go
a couple more fights and then let the the rematch happened.
Speaker 1: Naturally, we keep it real. There is zero buzz for
that rematch right now for those two performances. We know
that that's the reality. So do something else and then
come fight each other. Especially Garcia's got to get the
stink off of him after losing, all right, so let's continue.
There is more of an update after we came off
the weekend and the Emanuel Navarate technical decision over Charlie
Schwarez to keep his Wborez.
Speaker 2: Where do you get them?
Speaker 1: All right? So, uh, the Filipino fighter Suarez, Uh, there
will now be a hearing as we talked about it's
coming in June, and tell me more about uh what
we've learned here, including Bob Aarm saying, hey, I already
have a slot here for the potential rematch. Go ahead
with the latest.
Speaker 2: So there was never a doubt that the that the
Suarez people are gonna do a formal petition to the
commission to try to overturn the result. Obviously we all
saw the replay after they went off the air, and
after that the the uh, the main card ended in
the decision had been announced where they did find footage
on the ESPN cameras of a punch landing and causing
the cut on never At Day's high. So anyway, I
I texted with Andy Fosster, who was the executive director
of the California Commission, and asked him, you know, if
they had actually final you know, if the Suarez people
had actually put in the protest. He said, yes, they had,
and they would be on the agenda for their upcoming
meeting on June second, So he'll have his day in
court and the Commission will review the fight. Now, he
did say to me specifically asked him, like, what are
the possibilities, And one is to leave the result as
it is, which is a technical decision victory in favor
of never At.
Speaker 1: That which, by the way, I interrupt, I believe that's
what they should do. They should stand by their guys,
stand by the call, stand by the policies, and leave it.
But you disagree with that, I believe that.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you're not on the commission. The second option
is to make it no contest. The third option is
to overturn and the result and make it a victory
in favor of Suarez. I asked him why would if
there's a possibility to change the result, what would be
the delineation between if you see the punch and it
this makes you decide we should change the result? Why?
What would make it a no contest? And what would
be the threshold to make it a win. He didn't
want to get into those details. I'm not really sure
why there would be a difference, because if you're going
to change it, I would think you know, you do
it there. It shouldn't be a choice of both it.
I would think it'd either be you leave it or
you make it a win. I'm not I don't really
quite get the no contest part because the video evidence
is so clear, but be that as a may he'll
have his day in court. Meanwhile, I talked to Bob
Aaron obviously he's the boss man of top Rank. He
promotes both fighters Suarez and Navarette, and asked him if
he wanted to do the rematch, because remember, just because
whatever the commission does, if they change the result, if
they leave it, if they make it a no contest,
whatever it is, and the WBO, whose title was at stake.
Gustavo Oliveri, who was the president of the WBO, stated
very specifically that they're not doing anything until they see
what the California Commission has to say. And as I've
said many times, remember the Commission has the right to
discuss what happens in terms of a result the organization.
They're the ones that control the belt and the ratings
and whether they ask for a rematch in terms of
their title. So they're not going to make that decision.
But the point I asked about when I talked to
aarm was and this is what he told me, isays,
whatever the Commission does and whatever the WBO does that
does not between we can't just ask to do a rematch.
So they're going to do a rematch, he said, an
immediate one. And his idea and he was very specific,
like I'm not saying this is a done deal if
I can pull it off. What he would like to
do is take the rematch to Manila in the Philippines,
which is Suarez's hometown, and do the fight in October,
when it will be the fiftieth anniversary of a fight
that Bob promoted, which is a thriller in Manila, one
of the most famous fights in the history of the sport,
the third fight between Joe Fraser Muhamma Ali for the
heavyweight championship. They did that fight at a place called
the Aarneta Coliseum. It's on the outskirts of Manila. They
have refurbished that building and Bob would like to do
this remap be Navarette and Suarez in that building to
help celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of that fight. And I
thought that was a pretty ingenious idea, and we'll see
if he can pull it off.
Speaker 1: Okay, so stay tuned on whether Navarate cares to do
that as well. Oh, he addressed that, by the way,
is it financially worth his while to go ahead and
have that rematch, because you would think you would think
that's a big component of yes.
Speaker 2: Well as so I asked Bob about that exact fact,
so he sort of read my mind. He said, there,
I'm going to quote from the exact quote that he
gave me and that I wrote in my story that
you can read on my substack. There's only one thing
that will make him inclined, and that's m O E
m O n E y. He actually spelled out the
word money, and he said, we'll get neutral officials. The
first fight was a great hilacious fight, and you know,
so he wants to do their match, and obviously if
they they're gonna have to pay Navarete probably to go
and do it in Suarez's hometown. But you know Navarrete,
if you watched him of all these years, you know
he's a warrior. I don't think he's gonna shrink from that.
As long as the money's right, he'll do it, I'd imagine,
particularly if the WBO orders it.
Speaker 1: Well. A couple of more things here. Speaking of the WBO,
their vacant WBO Junior Middleweight title fight was headed to
the purse bid, but it's now been settled that Xander
Zyaz and Jorge Garcia will fight. And what have we
learned about when this is going to be tell me more?
Speaker 2: Well, this is happening because, as we discussed the previous week,
Sebastian Fandora elected to do the rematch against Tim Zuo
and not to comply with his WBO mandatory was Xander Zia,
So therefore he has been stripped of that title, and
so Zias was going to fight for the vacant title.
The next guy up as Jorge Garcia, who if folks
are not that familiar with him. It was maybe like
a month or so ago where he scored a very
big upset win against Charles Conwell to put himself in
a great position. And so without any moss or fuss
or purse bids even getting scheduled, the promoters who are
top ranked for Xander and Jorge Garcia is now promoted
by zan for Promotions in Golden Boy, who had an
option after the Conwell fight. They all worked everything out.
So this fight's going to take place for the vacant title,
and what I am told is it will be July
twenty sixth. The site is still not ann ount, not
determined yet. The top rank is out there looking around
to see what they can come up with in terms
of a site, and the significant factor of that is
it's going to be that July twenty sixth card, unless
there's a dramatic eleventh hour change, that will be the
final Top Rank on ESPN Plus card now that the
contract is due to expire on July thirty first, So
sort of bittersweet, I guess from that standpoint, And.
Speaker 1: Again, what's going to happen to Top Rank boxing with
another outlet, and as some are saying, is boxing ever
going to be on linear TV after this or will
it only be a streaming property from here on out?
Depending stay tuned. One more item and the bevy of
female stars, star fighters, and in this case even a
star MMA fighter continues for MVP promotions with Hall of
Famer Holly Holme having agreed to MVP and she is
now going to come obviously into the fold and fight
for them. Tell me more about home coming into the
Fold here with Jake Paul's Most Valuable Promotions TJ.
Speaker 2: This one really came out of the blow. There's not
a lot of things that can announce that they are
completely shocking. This was like where did this come from?
Like this was way out of nowhere. So Holly Holm
has been one of the top women boxers for a
long time, but not since two thousand and thirteen. I mean,
she won a ton of titles when women's boxing was
nowhere near the level it is today. But at that
time she was one of the best in the sport.
But she found greater options and greater money to move
to MMA. She became a very big name in a UFC.
She won a world title in UFC at one hundred
and thirty five pounds as a boxer. She'd been fighting
more as a welterweight as a as a junior welterweight.
But remember, and I don't follow MMA closely, but when
I was writing little bit about this situation, I recalled
and I saw some of the notes about it. She
had fought a massive fight in UFC against Ronda Rousey,
so I mean she's well known for that.
Speaker 1: She is famous where the kick that basically dispelled the
myth of Ronda Rowsey being under indestructible. I remember stopped
her with one thunderous kick and uh and Ronda Rousey
again the aura, like the indestructible aura was over. So
that Home is obviously well known for that moment.
Speaker 2: She busted Douglas ter basically.
Speaker 1: Yes, with away an MMA kick.
Speaker 2: So so she wasn't fought in boxing in for a
long time. Right, She's she's signed with MVP. She's going
down to one hundred and thirty five pounds in boxing.
She did fight at one thirty five as a UFC fighter.
She's gonna fight Yolanda Vega, who is a Mexican fighter,
twenty nine year old who was undefeated. Home is forty
three years old and hasn't had a boxing match at
a very long time, but not like she didn't fight.
She was in UFC for a long time, so she
was doing that that particular sport. So anyway, there they
announced that they signed Home and they signed Vega, who's
ten and oer with only one knocked out, So they're
going to fight each other in a ten rounder. It's
going to take place on the undercard when Jake Paul
and Julio Cesar Chavas Junior have their main event on
his own pay per view June twenty eighth. And the
reason why this came up this week was because they
did a press conference in Los Angeles for the main
event on Wednesday, and at that press conference Holly Holm
and Vega were introduced and showed up and then they
made that formal announcement. So that's quasi interesting. And again
we discussed this at times about Manny Pacio coming back,
about how he's going to fight in July and he's
going to have been inducted into the Hall of Fame
just a few weeks earlier. Holly Holm was already inducted
into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the women's
category in twenty twenty two and she's coming back to
but that was nine years after her last boxing match, right,
He's suddenly going back to have a boxing match this
coming June, so that was a little surprising. But as
a lighter, she was a hell of a fighter.
Speaker 1: For just like Bob Aram spelled it, will spell it
again m O N E Y for the female fights.
Speaker 2: But also it's also a big thing in terms of
just m VP's overall obvious what they're doing in boxing.
Speaker 1: Their initiative with women's boxing, they.
Speaker 2: Are looking to basically, you know, corner the market. So
they're never going to corner the market because you know,
Dimitris Salida and his team, They've got a lot of
quality female boxers also including Claressa Shields. They signed franchion
Cruise and they have some others as well. But MVP
has based on and.
Speaker 1: Matt Rooms got obviously fighters as well over in Europe.
Speaker 2: In the UK, Matroom doesn't really have any the top
women right now other than Katie Taylor, and Katie Taylor's
fighting on these designe cards with UH or not the
Zone cards, but with the m v P cards rather
in the Toronto fights, they did the Tyson UH by
Caul fight. They were on the undercard. Matroom was very
limited in that they didn't They were basically barred from
being involved in any way. Same thing pretty much with
the third fight. I guess, so, yeah, she's with them,
but Mattrim's women's ranks are very thin. They promote Beatrice
fiar Ferira was very good but MVP. Now they have
Home and Vega for what that's worth. They also promote
Amanda Serrano. They've been on a signing bage recently. They
announced the signing of Savannah Marshall, Chantel Cameron. They promote
the undisputed thirty pound champion, a Liisa Bombgarner, the outstanding
banaway champion, Dina Thorsland. They have Shadaiza Green. They promote
Eli Scani who's a unified champion. I believe it's one
hundred and twenty two pounder. So their wheelhouse right now
is definitely the top women's boxing matches.
Speaker 1: All right, lots there there is some nostalgia, and again
we have continued to do this. We want to push
people to go to the Big Fight Weekend YouTube page
and watch Dan and I reliving the nostalgia of actually
a couple of tremendous anniversaries two decades ago. It was
twenty years ago on Wednesday, May fourteenth, two thousand and five,
when Saint Petersburg, Florida's Ronald Winky Wright The wink upset
Felix Trinidad in one of the more dominant performances of
Winki's career, certainly a shocking, stunning upset. So we're talking
about that on the YouTube page and also as we
do this podcast on Thursday, the fifteenth of May. It
was twenty one years ago now, in two thousand and
four that Orlando, Florida, now living in North Tampa, Florida,
Antonio Tarvor the Magic Man KOed Roy Jones with an
unlikely one punch second round knockout. So we want them
to go relive all of your remembrances of these and
you're in my back and forth of the Winkie right
upset of Trinidad by decision and boom goes a dynamite
from Antonio Tarvor. Right. Then you to go find it
on the YouTube page.
Speaker 2: Right, hej you got any excuses tonight?
Speaker 1: That's one of the great moments from that Tarvor Any questions? Yeah,
I got a question, right, that's what he says exactly
any excuses tonight Roy and then and then he lived
up to it with the knockouts. So go back and
relive the nostalgia on the Big Fight Weekend YouTube page.
Do us a favor, subscribe to it, hit the like button,
comment on the videos. A lot of you are finding
those with the nostalgia pieces. So both of those anniversaries
are midweek as we released the podcast in the weekend.
May fourteenth from two thousand and five is the Winkie
Right win. May fifteenth, on Thursday is the win for
Antonio tarvar the shota. Arguably the biggest moment of Tarbar's career,
that knockout of Roy Jones.
Speaker 2: But I don't think that's arguable. I think it's not
even close. It's by way. I mean, he did have
three fights against Troy, but that was the biggest knockout
in all the biggest moment of all of them.
Speaker 1: So there we go again. We circle back that we'll
be on bet us handicapping the Johnny Fisher Dave Allen
Heavyweight main event for Mattroom, as well as the Bulletchuk
Michael Fox main event in California. The Junior middleweight showdowns.
Will have that on the bet Us TV platforms at
one Eastern time on Friday. Depending on when you're hearing
us on this podcast. You can obviously see on YouTube
on social media the bet Us Show later in the
day on Friday. A lot of people watch later in
the day or on Friday night or on Saturday, but
check us out live be there live on Friday. Other
than that, are we good for this weekend? My friend?
I think they probably are for all the action and
the activity. We will next come your way with a
recap pod off the weekend. Follower, subscribe to this podcast feed.
It helps us on Apple spreakers, Spotify, rate us and
review us. Many of you did that over the last
two or three weeks. Keep doing that. It helps us out.
Big Dan, have a good weekend. I will talk to
you on the bet Us Show next, my friend Live
Friday at one Eastern time. Yes, sir, there is Dan Rayfield.
I'm merely TJ Reeves. We are good for another edition
of the Fight Freaks Unit or another edition, excuse me,
of the Big Fight Weekend preview Fight Freaks U Nite
off the weekend kids on this feed. Bye for now.