Speaker 1: Well well off of a weekend that has seen Mikayla
Mayer become a women's world champion again. In fact, it
has seeing three different women's world title fights in three
different locations that we're going to recap. Xander Zias, Bruce
Shueshue Carrington also victorious. We're going to recap all of
those fights. All we got lawsuits flying that we're going
to delve into. We got some nostalgia. Oh and we
have one of the top most interesting names in boxing
promotion and all the world, Frank Warren, as a guest
on this very podcast. It is the Fight Freaks United Recap.
I am the somewhat rested, somewhat hydrated, No, not really
on either one of those. Host TJ Reeves, he is
our insider. Fight Freaks United is, after all, his substack.
Why are you not subscribed? The email newsletter is fantastic.
You get all the intel. Hello Dan Rayfiel. And you
know I was spending my Sunday afternoon out in the
blistering heat and humidity of Tampa Bay. Now it ended
up being profitable, the Bucks end up getting a win.
I'm in a good mood. I think I literally lost
about four pounds of water weight and I didn't play
in the game, so it has been a bit of
an afternoon. But you know what I'm posting, I'm here.
I'm gonna tee them up for you and let me
let you knock them out of the park. How are
things as we come off of the weekend here with
a lot of women's world title fights to recap and
I'm looking forward to this conversation with Frank Warren? How
are you?
Speaker 2: I'm good, Tjan in a good mood. Also, you know
why because the Giants did not lose today.
Speaker 1: That is true. They lost back on Thursday night.
Speaker 2: Close out the regular season.
Speaker 1: They're in the postseason. Have we figured out the Mets
and all the scenarios? I had somebody trying to explain
that to me in the Buccaneer press box and I'm like, dude,
I am dehydrated, i am delirious. I'm seeing images of
relatives that have been deceased for twenty years in my life.
I don't want to hear about the Mets playoff scenarios
on Monday.
Speaker 2: I don't care about the Mets playoffs all right.
Speaker 1: Event Thank you for finding us follow subscribe to the
podcast feed you get twice the Rayfield twice. The fun
is we like to say Friday preview show is out
Thursday nine and to Friday Monday recap Recap show out
Sunday and Monday. And then you get special interviews and coverage,
including this Frank Warren interview that you're going to hear,
but get different interviews, different things that are going on.
Give us a thirty second review here, five star reviews,
help with the algorithms, etc. We are way up in
the rankings on boxing podcast. Keep it going, peeps, tell
them how great Rayfield's coverage is and what you enjoy. Dan,
I've gotten so much good feedback in the last few
weeks from people that enjoy the fact that we are
here consistently previewing and recapping every week. Review us, rate us,
and review us. That will help us out with that.
All right, buffet of women's world title fights, why don't
we go chronological deal chronological Friday Night ESPN top rank
in New York. Michayla Mayer does win by decision majority
decision over Sandy Ryan. She captures the WBO welterweight women's title.
It was a very competitive fight, as we thought it
would be. We talked about this thing getting saucy in
advance over the whole thing about did Sandy Ryan snatch
away MICHAELA. Mayer's trainer, etc. And then it got even saucier.
Before the fight, we had some interesting drama. Although I
have a thought or two on this, but I want
you to take it away with the drama and then
the actual fight. Give me some inside and analysis, please.
Speaker 2: Well, the drama that you're alluding to is what I
think is. It's a totally unfortunate and ridiculous situation that
that Sandy Ryan, as she's leaving her hotel to go
to the arena for the fight, was accosted by an
unknown assailant in a hoodie on the sidewalk apparently, who
threw an open can of red paint at her and
covered her in paint, hit her in the stomach. As
she explained, it could have been much worse. Okay, she
got covered with paint. That sucks, and you know, in
the end, there was no damage done in terms of
injuries like that, so that's good. But the fact that
she would have to deal with that, you know, was
very unfortunate, and she blamed mikaelam Mayer's team. I'm not
saying that Mikhaela Mayer was involved. She says she wasn't,
and I believe her, But I don't know if I
believe that nobody that was affiliated with her or that
was one of her supporters was not involved, because it
seemed like too big of a quinnan's that you would
just randomly be throwing red paint at a young woman
leaving a hotel room kind of out of nowhere like
that and then get away card, run away.
Speaker 1: You and I are contemporaries, And maybe this is my
middle aged self and maybe I'm so jaded from watching
so many different conspiratorial of this. The conspiratorial of that
is that the conspiracy theorist in me that is sitting
back going this is like right out of Vince McMahon's handbook. WWE,
how do we spice this thing up? We have an
artificial controversy of somebody coming and throwing paint supposedly on
on Sandy Ryan here from Mikayla Mayor's team, so more
people will be interested. I just really perked up. The
Internet perked up. Is it just me being crotchety and
conspiratorial to think at a first blush reaction that this
may have been contrived by both sides. Just what do
you think.
Speaker 2: I can be as old man and crotchety as anybody
can get to get off my lawn and yell at
a cloud, no problem with the best of them. But
I don't believe that because they didn't even nobody knew
about this until the broadcast is already underway. You know what,
They didn't unless you were there or you're part of
the team, or you knew it from when it happened.
They never even discussed it on the broadcast until they
were already involved in the main car, so there was
not going to be any benefit of extra ticket sales
or extra eyeballs or anything like that. So I don't
I don't believe that this is as conspiracy. You wouldn't
do that. I mean, you know, the ww is great
at what they do and uh, and it's been around
for decades. But in the end, boxing is still real
and I don't buy that this was a conspiracy whatsoever.
This was somebody loose cannon, if you will, on the
mchalem Mayor team in my opinion, or maybe it was
maybe it was flu key, but somebody threw paint at
Sandy Ryan. And obviously, whether it was done by somebody
involved with the event or it was just trickly a
coincidence and an unfortunate situation, is certainly and clearly unnerved
Sandy Ryan. You could tell when she was being interviewed
by Mark Kriegle in her dressing room when she got
to the arena. In the end, let's not make this out.
Nobody like to put a gun on her. No one
tried to stab her. I try to pack her. You know,
in the end, it was paint. I mean, it's not
I'm not I'm.
Speaker 1: A weird crazy thing.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know if somebody build on her team were
saying you shouldn't fight, and you know, I respect Sandy
Ryan is like, no, fuck that. I came a long
way to New York City to defend my title and
get paid, and I got an arena full of people
there ready to watch me defend my title. So you know,
I definitely respect her for that, and I respect what
Michaela said when they interviewed Mikaela in the dressing room
about the incident. She's like, look, wait, I had nothing
to do with it, and I'm sorry that it happened. Uh,
you know, I wouldn't want that to happen, and you know,
she said the right things, and then they went there
and in the end, I fought a hell of a fight.
I mean, it'll it'll be, certainly, at least in terms
of women's fights, one of the fights, you know, I don't.
You know, We'll still see what happens between now and
the end of the year. But we're getting near the
end of the year. We still have Serrano and Taylor
to come in November. But I feel like the fight
we saw on Friday night between Mayor and Sandy Ryan
is going to be, at the very worst a leading contender,
if not the hourright winner of the women's fight of
the year. And that's really the main thing we're here
to talk about, is they put on a hell of
a show. You said it was close. It was Mikhaila.
Mayor in my opinion, rightfully won the fight very closely,
ninety five ninety five on one card, which was reasonable.
And you and I always talk on a regular basis
about the range of acceptable scores. A score of ninety
five ninety five is perfectly legit. A score of ninety
six to ninety four in favor of either of the
women would be okay with me. As a turnout that
one judge had it ninety seven to ninety three in
favor of Mayor. And even though I don't agree with that,
there were so many close rounds that it's hard to
really have a real big conniption about that. Because here's
the thing. Take a look at the official sport cards.
They were all over the place for the three judges,
even though they came out with scores that were sort
of in the similar area. There was a couple of
clearly dominating rounds for one or the other, but a
lot of the rounds, you know, a wow, this is
a close round. Did you like Sandy Ryan who landed
maybe a bigger punch, or Michaela maybe you know, put
it on her a little bit more in that particular round.
Copy box wise, they actually landed I think the overall total,
Mikaela landed one more punch in the whole fight. But
again that's not to say who did what in each round,
it's just that's the overall totality of the ten rounds.
I thought Mikaela got off to a tremendous start, That's
why I had her winning. Because I had her winning
like four of the first five rounds. I thought she
out boxed Sandy Ryan beautifully. Her jab was in her face,
she was pushing her back, and even Michael who was
not known as this big heavy puncher at one point.
I want to say it was maybe the second round
she landed her right hand that almost took Sandy Ryan's
head off and then knocked her back big time. She
was really taking a tour. But Sandy Ryan as tough
as heck, and she came back very strong, and she
did a hell of a job in the part of
the five two. Maybe not as busy with her punches,
but certainly when she landed, you know, Mikhaela felt them.
But Michaela. She has been in some rough fights with
bomb Gardner, with Sandy, She's been in the fight with
Mamya behind a douche that was a tremendous fight when
she unified FLEs. So she's been She's taken some good
shots from these these women, and she's shown a great chin.
To the best of my recollection, Michala Mayer has never
been on the deck in her twenty two fights as
a professional and you know, this was a big win
for I mean, got to remember she was in the
UK for her last fight that was in January and
she lost a similarly very close, action packed split decision
against Natasha Jonas. That'll be another fight that will be
in the list of women's Fight of the Year candidates.
And they tried to make a rematch and when it
didn't happen, it didn't come through. They got Ryan to
come here to fight the fight, and this time she
got a little bit of benefit of dow in the
majority of the decision. You know, that's what happens is
a close fight. I'd love to see them do a rematch.
I doubt it will be next, but I think that'll
be there for these these two women in the future
at some point when when it's a big fight is necessary,
they'll definitely be an appetite from the public. I believe
for this match rematch that happened in great fight.
Speaker 1: As you detailed, Mikaela Mayer is never in a boring fight.
She's she's usually in action fights. She scored a lot
with the lead right hand, and I believe she won
the fight in the tenth round. I think it could
have gone either way, and I thought she won the
tenth round to help her get the victory. All right,
So that was the main event. As we mentioned, Xander
Zias and Bruce Shoeshoe Carrington were on this undercard. Zius
won easily, Carrington had some problems. All right, what are
your thoughts in the recap mode from Friday night there
on those two fighters and their wins.
Speaker 2: Well, let's get to Zias first, first and foremost. I
thought that was probably about the best that Xandersias has
looked as a professional, you know, And I'm not really
taking strong account until like getting a first roun knockout
in your pro debut, I mean, since he's been stepped
up to like fighting, you know, even eight rounders or
ten rounders. This was a ten rounder against a fighter
that was maybe not a top contend or anything like that,
but you know, bonafide, legit professional who's been in the
ring with good, good opponents and this and that Damian Sosa,
you know, has been in the ring with the good opponent,
has never been stopped before. But Xander, it just doesn't
have or doesn't show me anyway, for the most part,
punching power in his weight class. I mean, he's he's
got some knockouts, but he never even came close to
hurting Sosa in my opinion. But that said, I'm not
knocking the performance. It was a dazzling performance. It was entertaining.
He just did what he wanted. He out boxed me,
out punched him. He was slicker, he was faster, his
defense was on point. He just was, you know, beating
into the punch the entire fight. And that was a
very very mature performance from Xander's eyes, coming on the
heels of his very lopsided, near shutout win on two
score cards anyway against the former world title the Patrick
Desita that took place in June. Combined that with what
he saw what you saw against Damian Sosa on Friday,
where he just you know, completely dominated, you know, an
opponent that I think even the top rank people I
figured figured he would give some competition even if he
wasn't going to win. He didn't really give him competition.
So it seems to me, and we'll see what top
rank does when they match his next fight. Xander's ayas
is at this point he's ready to take a little
bit more of a step up against not just retreads
and journeymen, but you know, find yourself a decent guy
in the one fifty four way class that actually might
have a chance that's not on eighty twenty kind of
fight and match him up. Now, we talked about in
the preview and and everything about the prospect of the
very strong likelihood that at some point next year we're
going to see Xander's eyes taken on Vito Milnikki. He
was also on this card. He won his fight on
the undercart that was on part of the ESPN plus
preliminary preliminary fights. He got a majority decision, and maybe
you know, it was a weird scoring like that was
a fucked up judging situation. He had one judge had
it a shutout, one judge had it eight rounds to
two for Veto, and then a third judge because there's
always one, had it five rounds to five. But Vito
was the clear winner of the fight. Not a particularly
good fight, but nonetheless, they did what they're supposed to do.
They both won their fights. They both did so in
opinion emphatically, and I think before, not before not too long,
you'll see top rank make a match between Vito and Xander.
I can't tell you it's the next fight, but I
feel like it's coming. Uh, definitely in twenty twenty five.
But for Xander's point of view, very strong performance and
uh just don't see the power right now. In terms
of Bruce Shushu Carington, that was the other fight that
was the opener of the main card. Look, Top Rank
and ESPN have been laying it on as thick as
like you know, a prostitute putting on eyeliner on a
Friday night. Okay, in the hype that they've been given
Bruce Shushue Carrington. Sorry about that.
Speaker 1: That's an image. That's an image on a Sunday night.
Speaker 2: They have been laying the hype is so ridiculous for
what they've been given Carrington. And I say that, by
the way, TJ. I'm not in any way, shape or
form anti Bruce Carrington. I think he's a tremendous prospect.
I enjoy his fights, I enjoy his personality. He's a
really good prospect. But there's a difference from being a
prospect to being a guy that the announcers and the
company rave as say he's ready for a title shot.
They put him in the same conversation as someday being
an opponent for Noya in a way, when in a
way was in New York in June at the Boxing
Writer's Dinner to collect his Fighter of the Year award.
He went to the top ranked show the night before
or then Africant it was the night before the night
after whatever, but he went to their card on another night.
I guess it was in June when Bruce Carrington also
fought on that card, and they showed them like bowing
at each other and like trying to link them together.
And I'm laughing about this because, again all due respect
to mister Shoeshoe, this guy is a very good prospect.
He's now thirteen and zero. He has fought exactly nobody
of any real consequence, and they can say what they want,
but just because you keep saying it over and over
and over doesn't make it true. He's bought nothing but
junk up until this fight against Sagawa, who was a
journeyman type opponent but toughest nuts. I told you this
in the preview. I said it on our on our
betting show that sagawas couldn't give this man trouble. If
Bruce Carrington is not ready and that is exactly what happened.
This was a very close fight. One Jo chatted a draw.
I could absolutely see that being a draw. Maybe jushou
eked it out barely because he closed better. Cigaua for
whatever reason, just didn't fight the last basically round and
a half or so.
Speaker 1: And literally didn't round like he had a sense of
urgency at all.
Speaker 2: I agree, he didn't fight at all. I mean, and
I don't understand that. You you you're near the road guy,
it's not your promotion, you know, you really need to
close the show now. Segau was coming off a very
very big win for him, a tremendous upset against Reuben Via,
the featherweight contender who fought for a world title with
being Jose had been a Jose had beaten A Louis
Alberta Lopez in a non title fight. I mean, real
solid victory. Is his reward, you know, if that's a reward,
was to fight this fight against the prospect, and he
acquitted himself extremely well. And Carrington is lucky as anything
to get out of the dodge with a majority of
decision victory because let me tell you, that fight easily
could have gone the other direction. I thought Carrington looked flat.
I didn't think he looked dynamic. His punch pout put
was way down. Uh you know, listen, maybe he was
got an injury that we didn't know about. Maybe he
was ill that we didn't know about, and all that
and that happens. But uh, you know, the hype that
he has been getting was never commensurate with where he
was in terms of his ability. Now that said, this victory,
as as questionable as it may be, I believe will
help him get better. And to his credit, in his
post fight interview, he gave props to the guy with
that he's going to make me better that you know,
he's tough guy. You know, I'm gonna go back and
learn from this. I mean he's saying all the right things.
He's a very by the way, all the all the
things I'm saying again, I'll reiterate, I am not anti Carrington.
I think he's a tremendous cross and I enjoy him
very much and I wish he does become a top
fighter because he can never have enough. You know, he's
a great talker. He's a great talker, great personality can
draw fans in New York. I mean, you need that
type of guy. You know, it's not the same.
Speaker 1: But he has still the skill level and the victories
don't match the hype, is what you're saying. And I'm
with you one that he had problems the other night.
So I thought, especially early on in the fight, he
looked confused. I thought Tim Bradley was pointing out, hey,
Sagawa is coming aggressive at him, and Sagawa's got a
good plan and using movement, and it's like Carrington couldn't
figure that out. So you're exactly right that we need
to see more. We need to see more against bet.
Speaker 2: I don't want it before we go. I don't want
to hear about a title fight. I don't want to
hear of it in a way. Uh but but but
just let's continue the learning curve. I mean, I think
one of the reasons that they've kind of gone on
the fast track is because as a featherweight at age
twenty seven, you know, you're really not you know, you're
you're a little older. Frankly, from the personality perspective and
the fact that he's a New Yorker, an African American
New Yorker, quick hands, flashy kind of style, you know,
look he you know, I'm gonna date myself with it.
But he's reminiscent, not necessarily because of the punching power
or the or or other attributes of his game, but
just from the marketability and the and the way he
talks and everything he does remind me he is reminiscent.
And it's the same way class as a young Kevin Kelly,
you know, the Flushing Flash from New York, who you know,
used to use to fight a ton of fights in
that same uh Madison Square Gardens theater back in the
in the nineties and was obviously became a featherweight champion.
It was one of the best featherweights of his time
and fought everybody, had some classic fights. Uh listen, they
gotta just slow the hype train a little bit. Uh,
be a little more uh uh you know, walk softer
and then carry the big stick when you actually should
be carrying the big stick right now down. We shouldn't
be turning this one up to eleven.
Speaker 1: Put it like right and and by the way, laying
it on thick is me with the syrup on the pancakes,
or like here're the good. When the Polynesian saw us
at Chick fil A on the nuggets, either one on
the nugs. But yeah, qu shu win a little more
from him, by the way, speaking a little more, a
little more to go, and then you're gonna hear from
Frank Warren of Queensberry pro.
Speaker 2: I got it. I gotta mention one of the fights
in the undercard though, yep, as I said in the preview,
my one of my favorite top rank prospects who opened
the show the first fight of the stream. Uh and
I believe after what he's been doing in his recent fights,
he's gonna move up to the cart and get a
little more attention, get a little more love that he
deserves from top rank instead of some of these other
guys that are massively over in my opinion, and that
is Rohan Polanco, the Dominican Olympian, scored another sensational performance,
another knockout victory against Marcelena Lopez, a veteran who, by
the way, Marcelena Lopez in over forty fights going into
this fight, granted a little bit older, had never been
stopped in five loss and four previous losses, had never
been knocked down in a career spanning more than forty fights.
Where he's fought plenty of top notch guys and Rowan
Planco dropped him four times and stopped and making made
him take a knee on three of those occasions, and
then stopped him in around number six. He's a tremendous prospect.
To keep an eye on Rohan Polanco and top rank.
Do the right thing and give him a little hype
and a little love, more so than some of these
other guys that you overrate.
Speaker 1: Now we're quoting Spike Lee movies. Do the right thing,
all right. Also on Friday night, Alicia Baumgardner retained her
undisputed women's junior lightweight title, and then on Saturday, in
a bit of an upset, but you and I both
called this, Terry Harper captured the WBO lightweight Women's world
title in the Matchroom Design main event in Sheffield, England.
I what about these? I have to confess to you.
With all else that was going on, I was not
really much involved in either one of these. Certainly in
the UK they cared more about the Terry Harper win
and the card. So give me some insight on both
of these real quick.
Speaker 2: So I watched the Bomb Garner fight. It was on
what's called Brinks TV. I watched it on Triller Plus.
I mean, I guess they made that their stream available
to other platforms. One thing that really irritated me is
that they kept saying on this card and it was
the history of the first ever all women's boxing card,
blah blah blah, not true, bald faced lie. Truth does
matter still in my opinion, facts still matter. It's not
even the second all women's card. There's been several of
them over the years. That being said, this was the
main event was on a purs fit even though that
was her last fight Alicia on her a Matchroom boxing contract,
and it was a good match up on paper. I mean,
you know, we can just you know, we don't have
to lindiigate once again all the reasons why Bombgarner had
not fought for the past fourteen months because of her
drug test failures. But nonetheless she did defend the titles
in her return. This was in Atlanta, Georgia, or the
outskirts of Atlanta, I guess. And what Marietta, Georgia. They
were saying. It was that kind of soundstage too. They
had like a VIP only it wasn't like they didn't
go seller.
Speaker 1: And by the way, and by the way, let me
interject too, that we talked going into the weekend that
Hurricane Helene had roared up the Gulf of Mexico had
caused wind and rain damage here. That same hurricane came
ashore Friday and flew up through Georgia and right through
Atlanta with heavy wind and rain and flash flooding in
the area as they were holding. You know, it moved
through in the afternoon in the evening as they were
about to hold this card in Atlanta.
Speaker 2: For all the card went through, it didn't really seem
to impact the show, so, you know, whatever it was
in the end though, Look, Pursua was a good opponent.
She was the mandatory in the WBC. That's why it
had gone to a purse. But because it was a
mandatory and there wasn't a lot to look at in
the fight, I mean, it was just sort of it
gotten off to a little bit of a slow start.
There was one knockdown that Bombgarner was credited for because
she made it wasn't like she was hurt or like,
you know, all the way down, but because the way
the punch landed, that Pursue I guess was ruled that
she had touched her one glove through the canvas, and
so Lawrence Cole, who was the referee, appropriately gave her
a count. But other than that, really nothing had much
had gone on. And then in the fourth round there
was a headbutt that opened a cutover Delphine Pursuon's eye,
and there was a lot of conversation. To me, honestly,
it didn't really and I'm not a doctor, but I've
seen certainly a million headbutts and a lot of cuts
in my day of color and boxing. Didn't really seem
that bad. The blood wasn't getting into her eye. It
was in a spot where at the very least it
was gonna drip it was going to be down the side,
not right into her eye. So it wasn't really seeming.
I think it wasn't impacting her vision. But in any event,
they decided that the fight should be called off, and
because the fight had not gone four complete rounds, it
was just shy of finishing round four. Therefore it was
really no con So she retains the title, and you know,
just sort of a disappointment, but she's back in action,
you know, Neither I don't know if there will be
a rematch. I'm not sure what the WBC will do
because it was a mandatory fight. We'll have to wait
and see on that. As I mentioned, it was the
final fight of her match from boxing contract. I had
the occasion to speak with her manager, Keith Connelly on Sunday,
who said, yes, it is the last fight of her contract,
but you know, in the next couple of weeks, he
said he plans to sit down with Eddie Hearn to
discuss the future deal. He says, We're not going to
go and talk to anybody until we sit down and
talk with Eddie, just to see what their thoughts are about,
you know, doing a new contract. But look, at the
end of the day, whatever you think about her drug situation,
Bomb Garner is still the undisputed champion in her weight class.
She only has the one loss in her career way
back in the day, a fight that she avenged. And
we'll see, because there's gonna be some other fights out there.
I'm sure that she'll be willing to move up and
wait for the right fight. There could be a rematch
down the road with say McCallum Mayer for example. Data
an interesting fight back back in the day she had.
She has a win over Terry Harper, who will talk
about in a minute, So there's definitely some opposition out
there for Licia to go up against whatever her promotional
scenario was. And then you mentioned about the Terry Harper
fight that was the main event on the match from
cart that took place in Sheffield, England. She beat Rihan
and Dixon who was ten andz going in with one knockout,
but had never fought anybody. She kind of got gifted
a a vacant title in a win against just a
regular kind of opponent, and look, Terry Harper is vastly
more experienced, had fought way better opponents. And despite the
fact that she had suffered a loss to Sandy Ryan
in her previous fight by a knockout back in March
of this year, and then before that she had gotten
to a draw with Cecilia Brecust those were fights that
were in weight classes where she was way over where
she should have probably been fighting. She had been a
champ at one hundred and thirty and thirty five, and
then she had fought at one forty seven, and she
also fought bretcost Technically was a junior midleweight title fight.
She's back at that light and she quitted herself well.
Even though she lost those fights. Now she's back at
lightweight where she really belongs. And she even admitted like
she felt much faster without the extra weight and everything.
And it showed because she was able to really take
it to Rihann and Dixon, who you know, fought hard,
but there were some competitive rounds in the fight, but
in the end it was clearly Terry Harper that was
the obvious winner of the fight. Scorecards officially were ninety six,
ninety four, ninety seven, ninety three twice. The ninety seven
ninety three seemed like the right call in my mind,
and you know, pretty good fight and in the end,
Terry Harper, you know, she she gets a little bit
of a vindication from her previous two losses in the
heavier weight. She wins another world title. She's now a
three time world titlelder because she's won the titles now
twice at the lightweight division and also down in the
junior lightweight division. Look, she's she's a hard working fighter.
She usually makes a pretty good fight and we'll see,
as I said, that's that's a good weight class. There's
a lot of a lot of good women in and around,
and you know, we've talked about the women. They can
move up, they move down, so it shouldn't be any
real issue in terms of having the ability to find
a quality opponent to take on in the future.
Speaker 1: Good stuff on all of that, and by the way,
we should make mentioned we don't get them all right,
but you and I both unbeaten on the bet Us
Boxing show. You went five and oh, I went six
and oh. Now some of these, I mean, we knew
the over was going to be in play for these fights,
especially the women's world title fights. But still we'll take it.
We'll take it. They count as wins, they count as w's,
they count as wins.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's been a time where we've picked an
over where we thought was easy money and we lost.
Speaker 1: So of course, of course, all right, one primary news item,
then we get to Frank Warren. Oh oh, and it's
a very interesting one. On Friday, as Devin Haney filed
a lawsuit in New York Eastern District Court against Ryan
Garcia and Golden Boy Promotions over money and over Garcia's
positive drug test, and he also sued the strength coach.
Correct here too, he sued everybody but Santa Claus in
this lawsuit. All right, you've done some digging and looked
into the lawsuit. I guess the first plus question to
you is, can you recall, because you're a great historical reference,
the last time a fighter lost a fight, which Hany
did and then it's ruled a no contest like this
after the fact, and now we got lawsuit over peds.
I certainly don't have the depth of knowledge you do,
but I can't recall something like that in recent history,
at least anyway, where it's a lawsuit after the fact
over a ped violation and he's suing everybody. What about it?
Speaker 2: I don't remember. I'm not saying there's never been one
that's happened, but in the inventory of my immediate memory,
I do not recall a lawsuit being filed under that circumstance.
I mean, I've read the lawsuit. It's like sixteen pages,
actually shorter, because one page is the end, you know,
just the names and the docket stuff, and then the
bottom is just signatures whatever. And basically what the upshot
is is he's suing him for battery based on the
fact that he didn't consent to having Ryan Garcia on
peds and therefore, you know, by punching him under the
you know, having the peds in a system that was
amount into into the legal opinion as battery. And we'll
see it's an interesting legal uh theory, I suppose. I mean,
I'm not a lawyer, but I've not really ever kind
of really heard that. You know. Ryan Garcia, as he
is one to do, had to make a comment about
it on his h on his Instagram where he said, quote,
I'm being sued for doing my job end quote, you know,
and the the snarky onaned me we we uh. I
I resisted the urge to respond say, well, last I checked,
your job is not to ingest ostering. But that's a
different story. Uh so he's So that's that's the the
upshot of that. In terms of the the the strength trainer,
there's a very well known, popular, UH friendly strength coach
who works with all kinds of athletes, lots of boxers,
lots of celebrities named David Scooter Honig from Long Island,
and in the lawsuit he is accused of having given
uh uh Ryan Garcia the Austrian UH now he was
not working with Ryan Garcia on a regular basis, but
when Ryan Garcia was having so many struggles to make
the weight and then obviously well he claimed later that
he missed it on purpose. But and I heard this
way back. This is not from the lawsuit, but I
knew this at the time, in real time, as this
was occurring when they were going forward to get ready
for the weigh in. That when he had disappeared in
New York and no one really knew where Ryan Garcie was,
and you know, his teams, you know, found he was
drinking and running around with a girl and this, and
that they had called on Scooter to basically come and
help Ryan drop the last few pounds. And so the
accusation is that supposedly he gave him whatever he gave him.
Now that I mean, look, you never know what the
real deal is. But in my knowledge of Scooter Honik,
that's not his style at law.
Speaker 1: So this is one point where I love to interject,
and you love this when we go back and forth,
because my mother wanted me to be a lawyer. I
keep telling you this. I love legal dramas, and I
love looking into legal cases and whatever. And one thing
you hear all the time, my friend, is there is
a difference between what you know or what you think
you know, and what can you action prove when it
comes time to prove it. You know this, So I Key,
I listen to you, and I keep thinking about, how
are you going to prove even if you think you
know that that's where it came from, how are you
going to prove that this guy gave him the stuff
as opposed to maybe he took it on his own.
Maybe the person that threw the red paint on Sandy
Ryan gave it to Ryan Garcia, maybe vendor. How do
you how do you prove who gave it to him?
Unless you've got some kind of video evidence, unless you've
got an admission on the record, anybody like like, let
me give you an example, if Ryan Garcia, who's been
popping off about everything, were to have given an interview
that said, well, I just took the drugs that my
strength coach gave me. Okay, Bamo, Now that's interesting of
of Okay, now he is outing the strength coach. But
I don't remember that happening. I don't remember Garcia saying.
Speaker 2: That, somber, How you proved that go ahead. This is
also a case, not a criminal case, so the burden
of proof is less in a criminal in a civil
case than a case. But Steve, I don't know, I
mean who that knows. But they also so that's that's
a small part of the case. In the paperwork. They
also sue Golden Boy because when this was the Golden
Boy part is over the money. When Ryan Garcia was
suspended by the New York State Athletic Commission, part of
the the order that he signed off on and his
lawyer signed off on, where that he had to return
the purse for the fight, which was well over you know,
the guaranteed person, not whatever there would be on the
on the pay per view or anything like that, but
it was way over a million dollars. And so the
Haini camp asserts that and they go through and there's
actually exhibits in the in the in the lawsuit where
Devin Haney the deal that they made. This is also
interesting because it pulls back the colonel. But on the
business side of things, when it got down to the
nitty gritty, the split of the money on the event
was what Ryan Garcia already called Devin Haney was entitled
the forty seven percent of the gross profit or of
the net profits of the event. So it was you know,
you know, it's a little less than fifty to fifty.
But obviously Ryan, you know, even though he wasn't the
champion going into the fight, Ryan was, I think everybody
would agree, was the bigger star, the bigger name, the
one that was driving the promotion. More so, Hainey took
a little bit less than fifty to fifty. So the
point is they assert that if you had to get
back over a million dollars from Ryan Garcia, we are
entitled out to forty seven percent of that money. And
Goldenway is not paid that and so that's part of
the lossuit. Also so interesting where we'll go who that knows.
But they did sue him, they did sue Golden Boy,
and they did sue the strength coach. And it just
was filed on Friday, And it's not going to be
something that plays out in a few days, a few weeks,
you know how these things go. That takes time to
wind through the legal system. They'll be discovery, they'll be
possibly depositions and all that. Maybe they'll settle, Maybe we'll
go to a court, we'll see. I kind of find
it hard to see this is actually going to go
to an actual like right trial.
Speaker 1: But this is about trying to get the money from
Golden Boy primarily, I would think. But this doesn't move
quickly through a court system, through a federal you know,
civil court system in New York. It's not gonna happen
next week.
Speaker 2: I have read in my day, uh, tons and tons
of litigation, tons of lawsuits in the boxing space, whether
it's about you know, sanctioned bodies or or lawsuits because
of promotional stuff. Usually they're center around money and this
and that. This lawsuit in particular, as I read it,
I found it to be shockingly light on details compared
to other lawsuits I have read. Understood usually when you
read a lawsuit, obviously the lawsuits are written from the
perspective of the of the person that is suing the other party,
and so it's laid on, you know, like everything they do,
they walk on water and everything the other side does.
They're evil and cart it, uh and they try to
make it out like that and they pile on their
their views of everything. This one really wasn't like that.
It was like they made the accusations, and they obviously
had the specifics in terms of what the splits were
on the UH, on the on the money of the event,
but I didn't feel like I was reading some massive
indictment on the other side. Yes, Ryan Garcia used the
drugs and that's been you know, showing he signed the
situation to say I would take the suspension. He basically
admitted it. So that was surprising. We'll see how it
plays out.
Speaker 1: All right, So we covered that thoroughly with the Hainey situation.
What say that we move on to a fascinating conversation
that you had. This is good, This is good, Yes,
that you had this weekend with Frank Warren, who heads
up Queensberry Promotions and has been one of the more
prominent UH fight promoters in the world, specifically in the
UK for decades. Now you're gonna hear about Daniel Duboise
win from Frank's perspective over Anthony Joshua. What does it mean?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: What about the Fury rematch with Usik and how does
that play into dubois future hams of Schiraz is his fighter.
We got a nick Ball fight coming up. You're gonna
hear about so let me just say to the audience,
this is a bit long compared to a lot of
the interviews we have, but it is well worth it.
Well worth it. Listen in to Big Dan and Frank
Warren and we'll wrap with some nostalgia on the back
side of this.
Speaker 2: Right now. Well, it's my great pleasure to welcome to
our podcast for the very first time, but a man
I've known for I don't know, Frank, about twenty five
years or so. It is the Hall of Fame promoter
Frank Warren from Queensberry Promotions. Frank, we got a lot
to talk about after all the events you've been involved
with recently, a lot of stuff coming up, So thank
you very much for doing this with me today. I
appreciate it.
Speaker 3: I'll tell us some pleasure. Ben.
Speaker 2: Well, let's get into it, Frank. I mean we're about
a little bit, a little bit less than a week removed.
By the time people hear this, it'll be about a
week removed from that massive event that you were involved
with co promoting in Wembley Stadium where your man Daniel
dewascort a spectacular victory, massive knockout against Anthony Joshua to
retain the IBF heavyweight title. Just a terrific fight alb
yet one sided. And so I think the question a
lot of boxing fans have Frank is after that kind
of victory, what is next for Daniel Dubois.
Speaker 3: Well, he actually, excuse me, Dan went on he went
on holiday today and.
Speaker 4: We're going to sit down when he comes back and.
Speaker 3: Look at the options. But obviously the big fights taking
place on the.
Speaker 4: Twenty first of December in Read part of.
Speaker 3: The Red Seen Read season, which is the rematch between
Busik and Tyson. So we got an eye on that,
and there's been a lot of We've had quite a
few approaches from aj Seen asking about rematch, which you know,
I wouldn't have a problem with that because I think
I think Dan Dan will deal with the rematch the
same way as the last fight. And we also look after.
Speaker 4: Quite a few other.
Speaker 3: Good heiryweys, like saying Parker, So there's some good fights
there to be made against some good heavyweights.
Speaker 2: So, as a person like yourself that's been involved with
the biggest events for decades, which do you think from
a financial point of view, from a fan interest point
of view, which is the biggest one in your mind?
Speaker 3: I think the biggest one would be would be the
winner of the fight in December for obvious reasons. I
think you know that the four belts would be on
the line, and it would be and it would be
an interesting scenario because you know, if it's Tyson that
it put me in a pretty awkward position because both
the guys and I'm quite close to them. But if
this is a business at the end of the guys,
if if you have to, if they went in that direction,
then it's something we'd do because we've done it in
the past with guys that we you know, two guys
that we are we have we know we work with
the other. I believe Tyson will win the fight, but
if it were to be sick, what a great rematch
that would be between him and Daniel because it was
quite controversial last time round, and certainly from my perspective,
and I've got my views on whether it was a
low blow or not, I think it was a legisimate punch.
But anyway, he's grown up a lot since then. I mean,
he's probably when you look at Daniel, he's had four
fights in twelve months, which was against Lusik, who was
the undefeated heavyweight four belt champion at the time.
Speaker 2: Three free belt, but still still a type evyweight honestly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, who was undefeated and he went in there
as an underdog. He then thought Babe Miller who came back,
who was undefeated, who was a top ten ranked fighter.
He then fought Hergovich for the interim title, who was
also undefeated, and againly when he's an underdog in that
fight and done a job on her. Addition, obviously with
aj two time world champion, Olympic gold medalist, I can't
think of many heavyweights at this stage of the stage
of a career. He's at a full literally first full
four times in the year against such good quality fincs well.
Speaker 2: I also, Frank, think about it like this. When he
fought Usik, he got the opportunity he he you know,
and you and I certainly had a public disagreement about
our thoughts on that, and I'm glad we can put
that aside. But he didn't win the fight, and it
was kind of a low point for him, and then
for him to bounce back from that in the manner
in which he did, and to dust himself off and
not just win the fights like you mentioned against Jeral Miller,
and then in the fight after that against Philip Perkovic,
and then obviously Joshua. To me anyway, as an observer
of boxing for you know, decades, myself here covering it,
writing about it, et cetera, like to see a guy
go from being basically on the scrap heap to a
lot of people to winning very impressively and then again
against Joshua, What does that tell you about like his mentality,
that he could kind of recover from what had to
be a very difficult time after the USIK loss.
Speaker 3: Well, he had, I mean a lot of people, let's say,
people said that basically, you know, you didn't have heart,
and some people even said that, you know, said things
like Twitter. I never agreed with that at all, and
I felt that, you know, since the Music fight done
him a favor in many ways, you know, because he
had to he grew up after that fight. I said
to him, Look, you knew you had the power to
hit to hurt him, and you allowed your frustration with
a referee to get into your mind.
Speaker 4: And that's not what it's about.
Speaker 3: You know, you have to be your own referee. You've
got You're very capable we got a very good job.
You're very fast on your feet, and you've got and
you're very powerful punch with both hands and that. And
we sat and talked about it, and he watched the
fight back. I know, we watched it back a few times.
And I think that's been the making of him. I
think he's at the grittiest teeth. I think he's matured
mentally because he's he's quite you know, he's a very
introverted guy. I mean, even after this fight, the last fight,
he didn't want to do the press come for he
sauldn't want to go home, and that's I mean, that's serious.
He just wanted the guy. He doesn't like, you know,
the publicity side of the sport. He has no time for.
It's once you get him there, you know, you're talk
and so forth. But getting him there is hard work.
And you know, as I say it, mentally, he's really
he's really really has matured. And physically he's got stronger,
and he's i mean he's only twenty seven a couple
of weeks ago.
Speaker 4: And that's quite younger, you know for a heavyweight.
Speaker 3: And and you know, I just feel he can go
from strength to shrimp now. I mean, this is exciting
times for him and for the heavyweight division, because one
thing's for sure, whether you like him or you don't,
you've never seen him in a boring.
Speaker 2: Fight, That's true enough. And as you mentioned, at age
twenty seven, he's basically the youngest of the top contenders
and champions there in the sport, in the division right now.
And you know, look Tyson Fury and Joshua and who
was sick. I mean, they're also outstanding fighters, but they're
not getting any younger. I mean, Danigill maybe around for
a number of years once those guys, you know, exit
the stage. But you know, one thing I gotta say,
as I respect a lot, is that when he lost
the fight the way he did against against Joe Joyce
a few years ago, and then the way he lost
against Usik, Frank Warren never waivered. You stuck by him.
You always, at least publicly spoke very highly of him,
and you know, never seemed to back away from keeping him,
you know, in the spotlight and putting him back in
fights and building him back up. What was it that
you saw about him? Where in my experience anyway, after
the second loss to Usik, the way that that happened.
A lot of promoters might have, like, you know, distanced
themselves to some degree or not made him a priority.
But that's not what you did, because I'll.
Speaker 3: Genuinely believe them that. You know, sometimes it takes, but
you can be mature physically and not mature, you know,
mentally fight wise. And I just felt that I just
thought he was there. I think he'll I'll think he'llowed
be allowed. In the fight with Usik, he allowed the
referee to get to him. I thought the referee was
very fussy. He kept stopping, stopping the fight, you know,
at the low blow stuff. I mean, even when USI
wanted to continue, he said, no, no, take more time
and went nonsense. And it was nearly it was nearly
four minutes. And there was a couple other moments in
the fight which I weren't happy with, and the referee
didn't give the correct instructions at the beginning. But look
that that that that happens in boxing. We've all been there,
We've seen things like that over the years.
Speaker 4: But you could have if you're a fighter, you've got to.
Speaker 3: Have a mindset that you know you're in the other
guy's backyard. I know the fight was in Poland, but
the majority of the I think it's forty seven thousand crowd,
you know, probably ninety percent of them were Ukrainians. So
you're in the other guy's backyard. And if you want
the title, you've got to go and get it. You've
got to go and fight for it and rip it
off of him. And he just he just allowed allowed
the referee, the fussiness at times of the referee allowed
that to get to him. And that's not acceptable and
it's not good enough. And as a say, you know,
when he looked back at the fight, I know he
thought himself and we had the discussion about this, is
that you know, I should have won this. I felt
I had the power to do it. I could hurt him.
I gave him up until the Tyson unification fight. He
gave Usik. He's toughest fight, no doubt about that. He
did to him what nobody else has.
Speaker 4: Done, which would really hurt the man.
Speaker 3: And no, Sick's a great fighter, by the way, but
it's it was the making of him.
Speaker 4: And you know, for me, it's not the end of
the world where.
Speaker 3: Fight gets beat and it's how you get beaten. The
more importantly how you deal with it and come back.
Speaker 2: So when you made the fight with Joshua, I know
you were a supportive of Daniel. You thought he had
a great chance to win, that he would win, he
had the power to do. Maybe what he did. We've
seen Anthony Joshua had been stopped before when he had
to fight with in Deuries. But Frank, let's be honest here,
I don't think anybody, even if you were a Daniel
Dubois supporter, thought that he was going to go in
the ring and get ten and then knocking out clean
with one shot. Like nobody thought it would be that easy.
You couldn't have thought it was going to be like that.
Speaker 3: Now I felt, I genuinely felt, and I said before
the fight, same as I said before the Hergovic fight,
I know he's got the power to if he catches you,
you're in trouble. He's a good finisher. But I felt
for the Joshua. Certainly, with a Joshua fight, it was
it was going to be who ever went on the
back foot was going to struggle because they're both offensive fighters.
And for for Daniel, he's got superb jab and what
it was lacking certainly in Hurgovich for that fight was
a lot of her head move If you look in
that fight, he was free jab and he.
Speaker 4: Was moving his head like little shimmy, so you know.
Speaker 3: He was just rolling working his way in. But the
first meaningful jab that he hit AJ with his head
snapped back. Yeah, you're that was that was for me,
was the meaning most meaningful moment in the fight, because
once he did that, he was I knew that AJ
would go on his back foot. And after that, as
you say, I mean, he managed to put him down
on the floor and that was a ten eight round
and same in the net round. But then if you
look at a penultimate round a J. Hitt were a
really good up upper cut. He caught him with a
good uppercut and he creckly see from come through that,
and then the fifth round he's corner. They used the words,
they said, you know they're going to come out down,
roll the dice, basically go for it, and that that
that for me, was his downfall.
Speaker 2: That was a bad mistake, well, I think for.
Speaker 3: Them at that stage. So you know, if you look
at the scoring of the rounds, what was he must
have been about five rounds behind but.
Speaker 2: I know he had lost. He had had three ten
eight rounds against him in a ten nine round where
you know, even though he did't get dropped, he still
lost round. So the wires way ahead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so seven seven rounds up. But the thing and
that means that at that stage that AJ's got to
stop him to win. But what when he did that?
And again I said it before the fight, it's going
to be about it's about the counter punch when they
when he lets his right hand go, he leaves himself
very vulnerable. A J. He leaves hisself vulnerable. The chin's out.
And then and he counted and caught him after a
J caught him with a tremendous shot by the week
and and you know, for me again it was not
just about who's biggest puncher, who's got the best chin,
And Daniel's got a good chin.
Speaker 4: I mean there's one a chin, one a chim.
Speaker 3: Problem with the fight with Joe Joyce, I mean he
had four fractures of his of the orbital bone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was a guy. I may have given him
a lot of grief after the USIG fight, but I
was like, you know, anybody given Daniel Dubois grief for
what happened in the Joys fight. Doesn't understand how hard
that injury is. That's a legit injury.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's a life and you know it's a
career ending injury because he's he's he's retina was was
was coming away, as the doctor said it was. You know,
if it had gone, I mean longer would detached completely.
Speaker 4: And and you know, and as I say in and.
Speaker 3: Again in the other fight, I mean, he got caught
with jab in that fight, and it was just like,
you know, it's a peculiar. It's a very peculiar situation.
It's not like he's taken you know what what I
was saying boxing, you know.
Speaker 4: A belting or anything.
Speaker 3: He's not had a good he's not been hurt badly
in any fight. And he has got a good chin.
I mean, she must have caught him with a good
I would say, good fifteen jab for fifteen right hands
in the first couple of rounds, which is which I
didn't like by the way they absorbed them. And he
gritted his safe and come through. So you know, he's
grown up now and uh, and he's on a high
and he's got and he's got a lot of confidence,
and he don't brow his confidences.
Speaker 2: He looked that way, and I don't make a lot
of the body language when a guy's coming into the ring,
but it was very noticeable watching the broadcast did he
didn't look like he had a care in the world
coming to the ring, Like no nerves, just cool and poised,
like he's just going out for a nice launch, win
his pals or something like that. And then you know,
in that kind of atmosphere ninety something that ninety eight
thousand people you know, hit the home stadium, you know,
mostly Anthony Joshua fans, although I'm sure because he's also British,
there was definitely were You're right, so can you just
speak to like the atmosphere of that night and how
he handled that spotlight.
Speaker 3: We again, when we made the fight, the fight was
made that the winner of Ergovich and Daniel would would
fight Joshua and just's the attraction. He's the more well
known fighter out of them all, and it was just
in the part of the deal was and I wanted
the fight, so I believe he'd beat both of them.
It was that the winner would have sort of the
winner of that fight would ring Walk would be first,
even though he know it's for the interest. It then
became for the interim title, and then it was upgraded
after usik vacation titled to a four I vs. So
he walks in as the world champion second. But he
was focused, you know, he was on it, as you
quite rightly say. And the crowd, the majority of the crowd,
I would say probably you know, ninety percent of the
crowd were behind a j because let's get it right
for the Brits. He was a gold Medacry, Olympics, two
time world champions.
Speaker 2: He's a superstar. That's the bottom moment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he's not.
Speaker 3: He's not just a boxing a champion. He's a sports
star over it. You know, he's crossed over to the
general public. And but I said they'll cheer him going in,
but I promise you to cheer cheer Daniel going out
because I know the performance he are put in and
that's exactly what happened with him.
Speaker 2: If you do a rematch, is they're going to be
Dubir Joshua and Jubai walk second.
Speaker 3: This time he's the champion, He's he's the boss. Now,
don't worry.
Speaker 4: I mean I've got to say, if he was, you know, if.
Speaker 3: He was to fight the winner of Tyson and Alexandra,
of them, obviously they're they've got the three.
Speaker 2: One of the round the three belt.
Speaker 3: You know, that is what it is, and that's the
courtesy of it all. But look, at the end of day,
it was about having getting your getting the fight, getting
that opportunity and showing what he was all about and
him demonstrating as I say that, you know, he deserved
to be there, and he's certainly done it in Stahle.
He done it in better stolen authority with that was
for sure.
Speaker 2: Well, the one thing I counted about Frank is when
he beat Josh of the way he did. He beat
him way easier and way more decisively, frankly than Alexander
Russik did in two fights.
Speaker 3: Without a doubt, I mean, without a doubt, he absolutely
done a job on him. I mean he destroyed him.
He absolutely destroyed him. There was you know that was
he just you know, as I say, he showed these
boxing how good he is in boxing. And what impressed
me in that fight was the head movement, because that
was lacking in the Hergovic fight.
Speaker 2: Well, you've mentioned a few times about the upcoming fight
December twenty first that you know, you're obviously heavily involved
with that will take place in read the rematch between
Alexander Russik and Tyson Fury for the belts that Usak
has And I'm curious if you could just just give
me your take on I know, you know, I saw
Tyson was at the fight between Joshua and Dubi. Anything
that that that's interesting or notable about his preparation for
this fight as he goes in to a rematch coming
off of what was the first defeat of his career.
Speaker 3: Well, he'd be going to camp next month ocs Tiber,
which she's probably a bit about the second week of October.
He's he's in a very good frame of mind, good condition.
And I think this the fight between Musik and Tyson's
who what who did it take the most out of
because it was quite a grueling fight for both of them.
I mean I went to the break dressing room arf
was to contract congratulate Usik, and I'll tell you what
you know, you knew he knew and I certainly knew
looking and he'd been in a fight and certainly with Tyson.
You see that ninth round, I mean, it was quite
a devastating ninth round, but he manages to keep himself
up with it. Probably would the help of his heart
on the ropes that he did do and came through
and came through a very tough time to win. He
certainly won the last round, but.
Speaker 4: It was a fight of two halves.
Speaker 3: And for coming away from that fight and having spoken
with him, it's how he.
Speaker 4: How can I put it? You know, if he can.
Speaker 3: Do which I believe he can do what he did
in the first half of the fight, because going into
that it was the eighth round, it was Jake frown.
Going into the eighth round. Seventh round, Tyson caught him
with a really good upper cut and his legs went.
I mean, and everybody around me all said the same thing.
Is stopped him in the next round. But he came
out was sick, and I mean, he came out like
a great hand coming out of traps, and he caught him.
He caught Tyson with a shot on it. It's like
on the tip of his nose. And for some reason
Tyson lost all his composure of everything. And if you
watch the fight back, he keeps touching his nose and
the top of his head. And he told me afterwards
when we talked about he said, for some reason he
had he caught me.
Speaker 4: It was like a shot that hit.
Speaker 3: Him on the nose. He said that the pain was
very strange, that it shot up into his into his
forehead and that and it just didn't look comfortable. And
then obviously had that terrible round in the ninth round
and managed to get through it. So it's a fight
at two hours at the end of the day.
Speaker 4: And as I say, for me, I feel Tyson as
the I mean.
Speaker 3: They're both both got great boxing brains, they go both
got massive hearts, as can Tyson do what? Can Tyson
do what he did in the early part of the
final fight and sustain that? And I believe he can
do it, and I do think.
Speaker 2: He'll be well. I know a lot of people are
very much looking forward to the rematch given how outstanding
the first fight was, and I wonder, I mean, we've
seen the types of shows that that you and the
Saudi's and the Turkey al Chic and everybody involved in
these big events have put on these these wildly deep,
excellent undercards. Nothing specific that is there other and they've said
that the junior middleweight s Boachup will be on this undercard.
But I gotta figure if you're doing another big heavyweight
championship fight, knowing all the heavyweights you rattled off earlier,
there's got to be some other heavyweight actions going to
be on this card, whether it's Zang or you know,
Joseph Parker in a fighter or whoever. Can you shed
any light on what we may see on this undercard.
I know a lot of people are instead of one
of their maybe fights will be on that show, particularly
if they're heavyweight fights involved.
Speaker 3: There's gonna be heavy there be heavyweight fights, and there'll
be another Red Season early in the new year as well.
So that we've been working on those cards, there's still
some things to be done. And you know, sat down
with with with ag And and he's actually he left
he left the UK last night. We've had had some
quite serious meetings and good meetings regarding the fights that
we're putting together. So you're going to see all the
heavyweights and yet you know you've got a cab be out,
You've got Babe Miller or be back in action, I mean,
all of them. You know, all these guys are going
to be fighting in various fights, so six sights in
times once and once we're in a position that can
be announced, I think everybody's going to be over the
moon with it.
Speaker 2: So you're talking about this would be either for either
for December twenty first or for their first card in
the next year. You know early well, there'd be.
Speaker 3: Be spread across the two dates. There'll be a big,
fabulous undercard for the twenty first, and there'd be a
great undercard for the show earlier in the new year.
And they will be there will be quite always, I
mean on these.
Speaker 2: Shows have been quality all the way from Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: And Eddie and I would probably do another another Queensburry
b Matroom show.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you brought that up, because that was
the next topic I wanted to ask you. With Daniel
dubir H not only defeating Joshua but really knocking him out,
basically called you just can't lose. Your guys can't lose
against the Mattrium guys. I mean, I don't know the
exact number, but you won all five of the fights
in the five v five You won the fight between
you know, your side won the fight between Josh Wind.
I'm sure there's some other fights. I'm not thinking about.
How how many fights in a row has Queensberry fighters
defeated Mattrium fighters and you know the number off the
top of your head.
Speaker 3: Well, we've gone fairly well. I mean Nick Bull, Nick
Ca Catchy beat.
Speaker 2: Cardina, that's true. I forgot about that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Nick Bull came through. We've done and Ca
Catchy one again against Josh Warrenton on the last show,
so we you know, we've done. Okay, we've got We've
got a couple of good fights coming up on their
show on October and twelve. Got the first women's title
fights ever take place in the in the Kingdom, so
that's going to be interesting. It's quite historic as well
as far as women's pops is concerned. And it's one
of the basically Raven Chapman against the guy that the
Australian girls. So that's actually a good fight, yes kind of.
That's actually a very very good fight. So there's some
good fights there and it's been you know, I would
say it's been We're delighted with the results, but they
have been meaningful fights, all of them. They've been really
good quality fights and it's been a bit of an
eye opener to be honest, working with working with Matra
and Eddie, because you know, we're all working hard to
make this thing a success.
Speaker 2: But you gotta love kicking his asny fights, don't you.
I mean, you know you you're your compender. You guys
are better than business as well as your guys in
the ring.
Speaker 3: Well, I always want my guys to win. And you know,
they'll say when we made the fight B five, it
wasn't about you know, their five against the five. It
was about when we picked the wakes, picking a guy
for each of the wakes to win the fights, and
we were I was asked before the fight had what
was our best chance of winning? And I said at
the time, I think all my guys can win each
of their fights. We've we've picked a team to win
each fight. And you know, Hans of Sharans Schirez, who's
come through a good game, won a game on Saturday.
I mean, he's he's becoming becoming.
Speaker 2: Quite at him. Definitely, he's going to ask you about
him before I get the Saraso. Frank, you gotta love
kind of maybe I don't know, maybe occasionally rub it
into Eddi a little bit because he talks so much shit,
let's be honest, much more ship than you talked about that.
Speaker 4: Well, we have a bit of fun.
Speaker 3: We have a bit of fun between us, and it's
got yeah, it's it's it's big. It's been good and he's,
you know, to be honest, he's he's he's he's been quite.
He's taking it well. And look, it's I just like
what's going on in boxing atment. It's taken a long
time for something like this to happen, and it's it's
just great for everybody involved. Of course, we're all professionals
and we're in it to make money, but you know,
we actually do it. Do love the sport like yourself
as well, and and more importantly, the fighters are earning
tremendous pursy from this risk and he's revitalized the sport
in a big, big, big way, certainly in the UK.
And I hope that show they did that in the
Red season show they did in in la That was
that was.
Speaker 2: A that was a really good cut. I was at
that card and that was great. I loved that. I mean, listen,
it's one thing from to do the big events in
Saudi Arabia, and I get that, but it would be
wonderful if they can. You know, they'll do their fair
share of shows there, but if they can at least
do some regular shows here in America, do some regular
shows in the UK, that would be I think even better.
You think they'll come back to America, come back to
the UK.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, they've had a great response to it,
and I'm sure down the road that that happened. At
the moment that you know, up until the end of
Read Season, it's going to be all about read for
obvious reasons, because that's that's that's how this all came about.
I mean Read Season. The Read Seasons is a multicultural event.
Is from it's much just about boxing. It's about all
different sports. I mean they have tennis to that's on.
They have equestrians riding UFC, various vario saball soccer and
and also music, dance, poetry from not just from Western Europe,
the west of the Western world, also from the Far
East to the Middle East. It's a multi cultural event
and it's the good thing about it is His excellency
is a complete boxing junkie, a boxing nut, and he's
made this a major part of the season. So you know,
it's been fabulous. So the next runner show we'll be
in Readonema. We'll see what happens after that, you know,
and they want to move forward in dose shows around
the rest of the world. But it's it's just been.
It's been phenomenal. It's been a phenomenal situation, and it's
been quite an eye open and as I say, everybody, everybody,
but everybody's been working together on this and that's that's
refreshing to see.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you about Hamsu Sharaza. You mentioned,
I mean, he looked absolutely phenomenal. He blew away Tyler
Denny to win the European title only two rounds to
get rid of him. That was on the undercard of
Daniel Dubois against Anthony Joshua. Before that, you mentioned the
five v five. He had a very very impressive eleventh
round knockout against Austin M. L Williams in a fight
where I think a lot of people weren't really sure,
you know, because that was sort of like an even
fight on paper. It seemed to me he gets to win.
And now you know, he seems to be like near
the top of a middleweight division that you know, understandably
at this moment in time is you know, it's not
making anybody remember the days of Marvin Hagler even Bernard Hopkins.
But he seems like a guy that can go an
off the long way. Where do you see him going
in his next you know, a couple of fights as
it on toy potential world championship opportunity. You got a
unified champion in Jannebec who's got a defense coming up.
You got Carlos A. Damas who's with PBC. You got
Arizoni Laar who just recently defended his title. What do
you think for Hamsa down the road in the next
fight or two.
Speaker 3: I think's next plot will be for wild Tossle.
Speaker 4: Look, he's a young man and that fight.
Speaker 3: That fight against Samo was quite interesting your clips a
couple of times in that fight he dealt with it
well and came back and did what he had to do.
But he's an extremely, extremely good fighter, and he's not
he didn't come into the boxing with a massive amateur
pedivere as such that he's done it. He's done it
the hard way. You know, we had every faith in
him and kind of guided him through to where he's
at and there and he's he's obviously done the business
in the ring, but I generally feel that he'll be
I think he'll be around for a long time and
it get better and better.
Speaker 1: He is.
Speaker 3: He does remind me of Tommy. I know we're speaking
of Tommy os who one of our certainly one of
my heroes in boxing. But he's got that sort of
look of him that rangy long.
Speaker 4: No, he's very loose.
Speaker 3: Lind got a long jab and quite tall and for
a big you know, for one of those sort of
mostly tall guys, they they sort of keep it long
for him. When he gets inside, it gets real app
So Tommy used to do it, and it's you know,
he's an exciting flights. He'll be in the exciting flights
and I'm hoping to say bloody end of the year,
he'll be fighting one of these girls guys for the
world title.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned you brought him along from the beginning.
Another guy that you've had I think his entire career.
I'm not mistaking his nick Ball, who you mentioned earlier,
is now got the WBA featherweight title. I want to
ask you a little bit about him because he has
a fight coming up against the veteran Ronnie Rios, who's
challenged for world titles in the past. Always given a
good effort when he's been in the ring, even if
he hasn't won the fight. He fights November the fifth
in that fight against Ronnie Rios, and just tell me
your thoughts. I know, you know you thought that he
he got the draw against ray Vargas. You thought he
won the fight. A lot of people thought he won
the fight. He looked absolutely tremendous in an excellent fight
when he took the title off of ray Ford in
June in one of the five on five wins. What's
what's the ceiling for Nick Ball? Because to me, he's
one of the most exciting fighters in boxing.
Speaker 3: I absolutely agree with it. I mean he's just like
a dynamo. I mean everything is all action.
Speaker 4: You know, you think he.
Speaker 3: Was Mexican rather than British the way he fights. He
just walks forward, he's just lets his shots go. He's exciting.
He's hurtful, but he's but he's also a good box
and he's quite hard to hit. He's quite. He's not
a very tall, not very tall fighter, but he you know,
he's got very good defense. And I thought, I mean
that that first title fight that he had against Vargas,
I thought he won that and I thought as a
bad decision certain from one of the judges score him
as atrocious and the and obviously he won the next one.
He should really be the two times to to a
belt or two time world champion. I feel, you know,
he's got the homecoming fight and neverpol tickets have gone
extremely well. That's going to be a good night on
the fifth, that's next Saturday, the fight takes place.
Speaker 4: He's fight and that's going to have been.
Speaker 3: Very, very exciting. It's gonna be a great night. We've
got some really good young fighters from that area and
all west of in the UK up in Liverpool and
Andrew Kanes on there, a young Cuban on there, and
it's going to be a fabulous fabb this night. We've got,
I mean, we're blessed with talent. We made a big
decision as regarding what we've been doing in the last
sort of six years, and that was, you know, to
focus on British talent. That we've done that and we've
done it in Stalin, and I think we've got probably
the best group of young fighters now, certainly in Europe,
maybe in America as the amount of them, and we
will be promoting shows America next year. We're coming to
the States to do some shows.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm only disappointed unless you tell me otherwise. I
don't think that that fight between Nick Ball and Ronny
Rios is on any American outlet unless you tell me otherwise.
Speaker 3: I'll have to check that without guys. I mean, I
hope he is, or someone's going to be in trouble.
Speaker 2: Well, if you need anybody's number, a top rank to
get it on ESPN Plus, let me know. But you
mentioned about the American talent this. I want to wrap
up with this because I think this is very interesting.
You mentioned about your talent base. You have obviously a
vast amount of quality in your stable of fighters from
Europe and the UK, but recently you started to kind
of quietly, if it seems to me, signing some non Brits,
including a couple of Americans. You've never really been a
guy to sign Americans. You signed the one hundred and
forty pound unbeaten contender Brandon Lee, who's I think right
on the verge of fighting for a world title. You
signed the excellent amateur who's only I think had one
fight when you signed in now he's two to ozer.
You signed the super middleweight Nathan Lugo, and then recently
you signed again not an American, but the Ukrainian heavyweight
who's now based out I guess in the United States,
six foot four, two hundred and fifty pounds, Vladislav Sirenko,
who's twenty one to oh with eighteen knockouts. I'm wondering
from your perspective, I mean, since most of the shows
you do are UK based, even with the fights you're
doing with the folks in read, what was the sort
of the reason to go and pursue non Brits, non Europeans,
bringing you the American fighters to your stable.
Speaker 3: Well, our son, George is the city's the CEO of
the business, and you know the viewer is we've done.
We've done what we've done in the UK and we're
no have an extend America. You know, I came out
to I've done quite a few shows in America years
ago when we when we did with Jay Lark in
the late Jay Lark did the show, the show Box series.
We've worked with certainly with we've show Time, you know,
very close to all that, a lot of British fighters
and in fact, I remember Barrera. We've you know, we
signed Antonio Barrera, he won the world titles. We've done
Johnny Johnny Tapia. We did a show back up and
down in Texas with him. So we've you know, we've
we look revisit and all that now.
Speaker 2: So that's that's like twenty that's like twenty twenty five
years ago. It's been a while.
Speaker 3: As the point, yeah, absolutely, as you know, because we
we we we we you know, we've we've changed the
direction we was going in.
Speaker 4: But that's what we're doing there.
Speaker 3: So we signed these guys and these guys will be
on Queens reshows in the US.
Speaker 2: Do you have an idea of when you'll do your
first American show and that's sort of where you'll do it.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure yet, but it'll probably be in the spring.
Speaker 2: I'll look forward to that. I mean, I've I've followed
Brandon Lee pretty much since he turned pro and uh,
you know I was there. You know, Nathan had his
h his second fight, you know, you were there also
the fight that he had on the Santa Monic up
here a few nights before the Terence Crawford Madromov card
that was the read season card in Los Angeles. He
looked good in that fight. So I'm looking forward to seeing.
H what you're gonna do with these guys? Is the
plan now to maybe sign a few more Americans if
it's guys that you think have the talent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I mean we don't want to overload it.
So if we want to, you know, what we want
to do is.
Speaker 4: Be able to know if we sign them and make
sure that we.
Speaker 3: Can service the contracts and give them the right files.
I bet it's not that once of quantity. It's about
quality and that's that's where we're at. And you know,
and I also want to do with some of that
SARTs bring over there. Let the American sim you know,
we've got fans other some France has manages fighters. He's
got Moses A. Tuma, who's an unbelievable teenage heavyweight project.
Yeah yeah, I mean this kid is unbelievable. I mean
he's very exciting. And then we've you know, he's got
he's got quite a few other fighters. Sat Young SAMs
is a good fighter. So we've got quite you know,
we've got quite a good group of fighters that I
feel that we can bring out there. They're excited. I'd
like to see Nick Bull make his debut there as well.
You know, He's They're guys that I know that you know,
boxing fans will take to because they're exciting.
Speaker 2: I'd have to think of if you're going to do
shows in America, you're going to need some kind of
outlet in terms of for a broadcast in America. I mean,
I know you've done shows in conjunction with Top Rank.
They've put some of your events, even if they weren't involved,
to work with you to bring the fight into ESPN Plus.
Are you is there some kind of broadcast deal brewing
for Queensbarry's shows in America or to have a deal
where we know we can see your shows regularly in
the United States.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, we're talking a moment for a couple of outlets,
and I think I hope by the end of the
year would be in a physician to announce who it's
going to be with and then we can go from now.
Speaker 2: Well look forward to it and don't worry. You can
always you always call me and drop the news. Frank,
we will do it.
Speaker 3: But we'll definitely be doing it, Dan, I mean that
that is going to happen.
Speaker 2: There you go. I look forward to that. Frank has
been very informative interview, very covered a lot of topics.
I appreciate your time very much. Thank you so much,
and good luck with what's coming up in your big
shows with Nick Ball coming up next week with obviously
what's going to go down in Rea December twenty first,
thank you very much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I appreciate it and look forward to seeing
you in the spring. It's not before.
Speaker 1: Excellent get there with mister Frank Warren and gave us
a lot, including the intriguing stuff about trying to do
events here in the United States of course, the partnership
with top Rank and with Bob Aram, etc. And Tyson
Fury fought here Before my final wrap up thoughts on
having talked to Frank Warren.
Speaker 2: Listen, it was interesting to hear his perspective on Dania
Dubois in that entire event and his future in the
fact of that he basically was the one guy that
never gave up on him after taking the loss to Joyce,
and the loss too was a very rough loss that
he had taken. Besides that, when he got knocked up
by Alexander Russik and all the controversy around that, He's
not really so much in a partnership with Top Rank.
They do co promote Tyson Fury together. But the interesting
thing is they're planning to come and doing events in America,
not necessarily with Top Ranks. He's gonna do their They're
gonna do events on their own. They don't have a
broadcaster specifically in America. I think that's part of it.
You heard me ask him a little bit about that.
But what I found from the American point of view
is Frank is now signing American fighters, including Brandon Lee
for example. He also is starting to sign some non
Brits that are not Americans. He signed like, you know,
big time European heavyweight and all that. So they're making
moves beyond just their their typical bread and butter, which
is so I was in the UK. Obviously, they're heavily
involved with Read Season. Frank is the main promoter for
all of the read Season cards, and so you know
he is a force to be reckoned with right now
when the sport of boxing. He has been for decades,
as you know, and now it's even more so because
especially in the heavyweight division, because they promote a lot
of guys in the heavyweight division, not just Daniel de
wob but they're the promoter for Joyce and for Zilly Zang,
and they are heavily involved with Joseph Parker and I mean,
you name it, they got a lot of guys. I'd
actually have to give Frank a little bit of props
because I gave him every opportunity, every possibility to just
rip on Eddie Hearn for the way that his Queensberry
fighters have just pummeled the Matchrom fighters in these the
head fights, especially in the five line five, and you
know he kind of resisted that. So props to him
for taking the high road.
Speaker 1: Love all that again, an excellent job, and we appreciate
the Queensburry folks making him available and making that happen,
making the magic here on pod two pieces.
Speaker 2: Of this time, we just say this, that was Rafael
fucking badgerom.
Speaker 1: But they also found him for you and we made
it happen. We made it happen for you peeps. So
once again Radius in Reviews if you enjoy hearing this
kind of stuff and the quality of the conversations and
the entertainment, et cetera. Nostalgia time. As we released this
pod September twenty ninth, two thousand and one, twenty three
years ago on Sunday, as we released this into Monday,
but Sunday is the twenty third anniversary of Bernard Hopkins
beating Felix Trinidad by a knockout to win or to
become the undisputed middleweight champion. Madison Square Garden the site,
and obviously, if you know anything about September in two
thousand and one and New York, this is just a
couple of weeks after the horror of nine to eleven
and the terrorist attacks and the deaths in the World
Trade Center in New York City. You were there, and
you have on this rundown one of the most memory
nights of your career to be there for all of
those reasons that I just laid out. Tell me more.
Speaker 2: I mean, there have been so many big fights I
have covered, and this would have probably been a memorable
fight even had nine to eleven not occurred, obviously, But
when you take all of that that had been going
on in a couple of weeks prior to this fight,
and then all the drama of Hopkins leaving New York
to go home to Philadelphia, but Trinidad and Don King
staying in New York and you know, going to visit
the first responders to sort of help, you know, perk
them up a little bit, and being around all that,
you know, terrible tragedy, and then the fight getting rescheduled.
You know, remember you got to remember, nobody knew when
this fight was going to actually be rescheduled. The fight
was scheduled to take place on September fifteenth. My credential
that I still have still says no September fifteenth. They
didn't change the credentials. The poster still says September fifteenth.
The program still says September fifteenth. I think the tickets
were changed, at least some of them anyway. But the
point is it was almost like you're stuck in time.
You know, supposed to be on that date. As a
matter of fact, I was supposed to travel to New
York for this fight on September twelfth. Obviously, I didn't
go because if I was postponed, we were you know,
I was working at USA Today at the time, and
you know I had written stories about you know, this
was the biggest boxing event that was happening that was
postponed as where so you know, all sports basically in
the entire country were shut down, and you just didn't
know when it was gonna when it was gonna be rescheduled.
And listen, the memories I have of this are not
just about to fight and go into the arena. It
was just things like going to New York when it
was rescheduled to cover the fight. And when I traveled
to New York City for events, I take the Amtrak.
I take the train from Washington, DC to New York City,
and we get off the train in New York City.
You're in Penn Station, which is right underneath Madison Square Garden.
Typically the official fight hotel is one of those handful
of hotels that's right there when you walk out of
Penn Station. And so my memory and I will have
it in blate. It just entrenched my memory from now
until the day I die. Number one, you could still
smell the burning. I mean, you know, we're at We're
at seventh Avenue, uh, you know, thirty first, thirty second
street whatever where Penn Station is. You know, the World
Trade Center site is obviously many many blocks down further downtown,
but you know, you could just smell it in the air.
I can't even explain it, but you knew.
Speaker 1: And and a half weeks later, yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so now you walk into the Penn Station
where I'd been a million times, which is filled with
you know, uh, fast food joints and little shops and
and this and that and and and but on the
walls as you walk out to go to the escalator,
to go up to the to the to the tree level,
and again I'll never forget this, every single wall is
covered with the like eight and a half by eleven
sheets of paper of people posting about their missing loved
one who obviously had been killed in the World Trade Center,
but there was like three thousand people that died there.
And so the wall is covered with these leaflets for
as long as the eye could see. And even on
the streets and the you know, the telephone boosts which
still existed back then, and this and that. You just
they were everywhere. And so I'd say I can never
shake that memory of all those signs of people looking
for you know, their their husband, their brother, their sister,
their friend, whatever. And then when the fight came about.
Remember it was the first sporting event to take place
and I don't know if it was in the whole country,
but certainly in New York City of any kind of
consequence since since the nine to eleven had occurred, and
nobody knew how to react. Big crowd. Everybody's pumped up
for this fight. This was the culmination of the four
person middleway championship series that was meant to crown the
undisputed title that Don King and HBO and the Garden
put together. The backtrack, you had had Felix Trinidad, Bernard Hopkins,
Keith Holmes, and William Joppy were all in there. You
had Hopkins, Jopping, Holmes who had the three major middleweight belts.
Trinidad was the one hundred and fifty four pound unified
champ who was coming up in weight and this tournament
was really a vehicle for Felix Trinidad's star power. He
was the linchpin of this entire thing. They were talking
about how He's gonna win this undisputed ten and then
move up to light heavyweight and challenge Roy Jones. Remember
that now. Bernard Hopkins and Keith Holmes opened the tournament
in April of two thousand and Bernard Hopkins wins a
lopsided decision at the Madison Square Guard Theater to unify
the WBC and the IBF titles. And then a few
weeks later, Felix Trinidad, in the extraordinarily memorable night in
the main arena of Madison Square Garden laid a fucking
beat down and knocked out William Joppy to become a
champion in the middleway division to win the WBA title.
And now the final set for September between Felix Trinidad
and Bernard Hopkins. This is a huge suck, is a
big big deal, a major, major, major situation. And then
it got postponed as I said, And now the fight's happening,
and Felix Trinad, you know, I know that in the end,
Bernard Hopkins, you know, put him away. But Philix Trnad
was the big time favorite in this fight. And even
though Bernard Hopkins would go on to score other upsets
in his career, he had never done it yet, and
this was the first one where he goes in everything,
so you know, Philix Trean's gonna knock him out. Uh
And and Bernard Hopkins laid an absolute beating on him
and knocked him on the twelfth round. But to get
back to what I was saying about the atmosphere of
the crowd, I mean, it was a big Querto Rican crowd,
largely uh Phelix Trinidad's fans. But like I said, nobody
knew how to act. Everyone was happy to be back
in a fight, but there was so much sadness that
in just engulf of the arena, Like I still get
emotional when I think about it. When they played the
national anthem, the whole place was like in tears. I
mean we all cried. That was he just couldn't help it.
And then Trinidad comes into wearing the comes in wearing
the fire hat or rather I think it was the
was it the I can't remember it was the hat. Yeah,
he wore the hat, I mean, and and it was just, uh,
just a remarkable night, I mean, under under very unfortunate
and sad circumstances, but it stands out because of that.
Like I always kind of when people say, like, what's
the the biggest fire, the best atmosphere that you've been to.
I always take that fight and I put it to
the side in terms of the atmosphere, because while it
wasn't a great atmosphere from the standpoint of electricity, you know,
like Joppy versus Trinidad or other like Wembley when I
was there for Clitchko and Anthony Joshua, or you know,
some of the mega fights in Vegas with Oscar Pacy
er Floy things like that. The atmosphere of this was
just different, but absolutely unforgettable, as tension filled, as emotional
as anything, and not having anything to do with the fight.
It was about what is occurring, you know in New
York City, you know, a few blocks away where they're still,
you know, trying to put out the fires of the
smoldering World Trade Center and digging for bodies, you know,
several blocks away. So and then Bernard Hawkins turns in
an absolutely extraordinary performance and you know, I don't care.
It could be twenty three years later, it could be
fifty three years later. I will never forget being there
and the emotions and the victory and the loss and
just I can't even explain it.
Speaker 1: I can tell, and you did a great job of
conveying all of that. And this makes me now want
to go YouTube that one up, as we like to say,
Hopkins and Trinidad, just to watch those anthems. I must
say it played out.
Speaker 2: Bernard Hopkins, the way he performed that night. You know,
if you don't think this man is one of the
all time greats, watch that fight. For him to perform
like that in that situation against that opponent. He you know,
Bernard Hopkins is an absolute stone cold legend period because
of that and many other fights, but that one. You know,
He's had a lot of big wins. He had a
lot of big wins in his career, no doubt about it.
But that is the defining victory of his career.
Speaker 1: Love it all right, So let's move forward, what six
more years to two thousand and seven. In the same day,
September the twenty ninth, which, as we released the podcast,
is now seventeen years ago. On Sunday Night, Kelly Pavlik,
speaking of middleweight's Kelly Pavlick, scores a dramatic seventh round
ko Jermaine Taylor and wins the lineal and unified middleweight titles.
This was in Atlantic City and you were right there
for that one. Six years later, moving forward from the
Hopkins win, what do you remember about that night in
Atlantic City in that fight.
Speaker 2: Well, remember the reason why Bernard Hopkins, or rather the
reason that Jermaine Taylor was the champion going into that
fight was because he had, you know, five years or
whatever after Bernard had defeated Trinidad to become on disputed
at middleweight. He's the one who dethroned Bernard Hopkins. In fact,
he beat him twice in post decisions in two thousand
and five to become the champion. And then later he's
facing Kelly Pavlick, who became his mandatory in the WBC
by winning in that really outstanding, super exciting, all out
slugfest against Edison Miranda on the undercart of one of
Jermaine Taylor's defenses against Corey Spinks in Memphis, Tennessee, which
I also was present at, and that set up this major,
major Atlantic City fight that was live on HBO. If
this fight was today, guarantee you'd be on pay per view.
We'd probably be looking at an eighty dollars pay per
view fight. Nonetheless, they put this fight at the Boardwalk Hall,
and I remember actually thinking about this ahead of time
when I knew that Steve Smoger, the late great referee,
was going to be the the ref for the fight.
You know, back in those days, it was sort of
like a joke, half serious, half joking. But if Smoger
was refing the main event, you knew you're probably gonna
have a good fight, because is the way he refereed fights.
If the two guys were there to fight, you know,
he wasn't going to get himself to involve. And that's
exactly what turned out. But I want to set this
up a little bit, so Jermaine had a big fan
base from Little Rock, Arkansas, but Kelly Pavlck's people from Youngstown, Ohio.
They came out and represented big time. And one thing
I remember, extremely vivid he was. On the morning of
the fight, I had like breakfast and coffee like I
don't know it was. I guess it was a Starbucks
or like a coffee shop on the boardwalk and I
was with Todd the Buff from Top Rank and Larry
Merchant from HBO. We walked into the Starbucks, and we
were like the only people in the entire place that
were not wearing the Ohio state red colors on our
shirts and pants and hats and sweatshirts and this and that.
I mean, it was a massive influx of people that
had made the trip from Ohio and from Youngstown who
were obviously all huge Ohio State fans. So everywhere you
looked on the boardwalk that weekend was all about the
Ohio state colors. So it was a huge expectations for
Kelly Pavlick going into that fight. It turned out to
be a classic fight, a tremendous battle, if I'm not mistaken.
The Ring magazine picked it as the fight of the
Year that year. I didn't necessarily agree with that, but
the point was, yeah they did. They did. I think
they did pick it as the fight of the year.
But it was a worthy fight. I mean, Pavlick was
in massive trouble in the second round. Jermaine Taylor knocked
him down. He got up, smoger let the fight go.
He came storming back, and he finally put Jermaine Taylor
away with a massive flurry of punches and just left
him like a heap but nothing in the corner, and
you know Smoger emphatically waving off the fight in the
seventh round. The place went absolutely fucking crazy. If you
go and watch the video, and I've done this today.
You never see Al Hayman ringside for any fights anymore,
but back he was ringside for this fight. And the
look on his face when his guy Jermaine Taylor got
knocked out by Bob Arams guy Kelly Pavrick, you know,
is kind of told the story. But hugely exciting, tremendous fight.
And remember these were two young guys. These were guys
were undefeated. You know, You're like, these guys can be
around for a long time, dominating this division. You thought,
maybe we'll see a classic rivally they did fight a
rematch that was not even close to living up to
the bill of the of the first fight. It was
over the weight, which was part of the contract that
Jermaine had in terms of his ability to get a rematch.
I think he was still kind of struggling to make
the weight at that point. So the second fight, you know,
is not really as memorable in any way, shape or
for him. But the first fight, spectacular fight, just as
as good as against and you really thought, you know what,
maybe Pablic's going to be around for a long time.
You know, he made a couple of defenses, then he
ended up losing a non title fight to Hopkins and
he kind of petered out. He got knocked out or
not locked out, but he got cut up and lost
a decision and the title to Sergio Martinez not that
much longer after this, and Jermaine, you know, he he
had his own issues. He went into the Superman to
the Superman Away tournament, showed that his chin was very,
very terrible, and you know, after getting knocked out by
Kelly in the first fight, he went to distance with
him in the second fight. He then beat Jeff Lacy,
but then came the rough times, brutal knockout to Carl Frost,
brutal knockout to Abraham, and he was never the same.
So point is, at the moment that this fight happened
between Pablik and Taylor for the big middleweight prize, you're like,
these guys are gonna be at the top of the
heat for a long time, and that was a memorable fight,
but it was such a short lived time for those
two guys. After this fight, but the memory of that
first fight, spectacular fight, spectacular weekend, and just an all
time kind of memorable performance.
Speaker 1: Love the nostalgia and you were right there for both.
And I hope I think people do they appreciate this
and love this because you can relate on these anniversaries
of what was it like to be there? What do
you remember? Great stuff? All right, busy show.
Speaker 2: I gotta just I'm gonna say one more thing, by
the way, Yeah, I think this is the right fight.
It might have been a different fight, but my memory
serves coming back to from from the boardwalk hall. You
walk out, you leave the arena, you're on the boardwalk,
and you walk you know what would be the equivalent
of maybe two blocks or whatever, and you're at your hotel.
The two hotels had sponsored all those fights were Caesars
and and Balley's. They were very close to each other,
right next attached to each other, actually, So I remember
being in the casino, having gotten back to the hotel,
going up towards to go to my room, and kind
of trailing behind us was Public and his team. And
when they walked into the casino, like everybody stopped and
people just started to applaud him and his trainer Jack Low,
and people started a chanting the Champus here the Champus.
I mean, it was really a memorable kind of experience
that you see in those moments after one of these
huge wins of look.
Speaker 1: At you with bonus nostalgia on top of the nostalgia
that's very similar to your greetings when you show up
in the Atlantic City casinos. Exactly stand up and clap
that back when there was.
Speaker 2: Big fights in Atlantic Seat all the time. There hasn't
been a big fight in Atlantic City in ages. They
still have some fights there, but I haven't been there
for what I would consider a really big fight. You
got to go back to probably Bernard Hopkins's fight against
Sergey Kovlev, which is a number of years ago. I've
been there for other fights since, but nothing at the
top level.
Speaker 1: Outstanding stuff, my friend. Great get there with Frank Warren
and we conclude the month of September with this here
pod and get ready for a new month, a month
of October, and press on. Listen, everybody, have a great week, Dan,
have a great week. Great stuff here as always, Thank you,
We'll talk to you soon. On the preview pod.
Speaker 2: Sounds good to me.
Speaker 1: There is Dan Rayphiel. I'm merely TJ. Reeves follow We're
subscribe to this podcast feed. We come your way with
a preview going into the weekend Thursday night and to Friday.
We recap Sunday night into Monday, and we appreciate the
five star ratings and reviews. If you enjoy what we
are doing as part of the Fight Freaks Unite or
Recap podcast