Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time.
Speaker 2: This is Big Fight Weekend. Now here is your host,
DJ Leaves. Well, we get ready for another weekend in January,
kind of a later weekend, but we aren't here in
the preview mode. We actually have a world title fight
to recap here in a couple of seconds, if we're
not all thoroughly screwed up from all of that. It
is the Big Fight Weekend Preview podcast. Hello there, I
am the somewhat capable host, TJ. Reeves. He is our
insider Dan Rayfield. Fight Freaks Unit is the substack, the newsletter.
You should be all over that. Good to be back
with you. We got some fight news. We've even got
some nostalgia. You're in northern Virginia. I'm in Florida, where
it's cold for us in northern Virginia. You've had snow,
but and you're kind of grumpy. I'm just gonna put
this out there as we released this Thursday night into Friday.
You're kind of grumpy about the snow situation.
Speaker 1: In that grumpy it's not even a bunch of snow.
The snow is, you know, it came to land on
everybody's grass and the yards and roads on Monday, and
it's been cold but cleared up. The problem is they
don't know how to remove snow. See, I'm a I'm
a Northerner at heart. I grew up in upstate New York,
where a foot of snow was not a big deal. Here,
you get three inches in the world comes to a
grinding hall. So the kids have been out of school
in our area for four days, oh finally, and that was.
Speaker 2: Only four days. Only four days they've been out this
week right.
Speaker 1: As bad as that is, that was on the back
end of a two week winter break. So now at
long last, on Friday, they're back in school, but starts
two hours late, and then they're back for two more
days of a weekend. So it's been so.
Speaker 2: Basically we're talking about seven hours or so of education
in your county over the last three weeks.
Speaker 1: It won't even be like because they'll be starting at
ten thirty tomorrow morning, five hours and they're out at
lake three thirty.
Speaker 2: All right, In any event, you have that going on again,
a tremendous horror in southern California. In all seriousness, Dan,
you are the same with me. We've been watching this
from a distance with horror in La County and the
fires and the thousands of people affected who have lost
their homes. Let me say again, thousands of people have
lost their homes, businesses. Speaking of schools, there have been
elementary schools, a couple of them in Pacific Palisades, California,
wiped out. And this I mean, as we do this
Thursday nine into Friday, this is not letting up, and
it is unfortunately apparently going to still go on into
Friday and maybe Saturday. So I've been an awful situation.
Speaker 1: I have been checking in on my boxing people. I
know a lot of people throughout the boxing industry and
the sport in southern California, and have checked in with
a bunch of people, and everybody has different levels of
issues obviously, but thankfully, nobody that I have been in
touch with, it's probably like ten people, a dozen people,
none of them thankfully have lost their homes that had
so a couple have been evacuated, and others are a
little concerned obviously because of maybe coming closer. But you know,
it's it's a rough situation.
Speaker 2: And let me say this, I have numerous media friends,
work colleagues, people that I know there are numerous ones
of them that have had to evacuate that live in
western La County, live near Santa Monica, live near Malibu,
et cetera. It's it's awful. It's you know, they're they're
leaving and evacuating, not knowing am I going to have
anything to come back to. And there's only so much
you can take with you, belongings that you can take
with you to try to leave during this so awful circumstance.
Our hearts go out to all of that. I'm just
gonna say, we don't have to get into a ten
minute political discussion. There needs to be a reckoning on
how this got as horrible as it got Monday to Tuesday,
Tuesday to Wednesday, and Wednesday to Thursday. And let's let's
see what gets done on that front. Okay. Other than that,
we'll try to cheer it up. We'll try to spice
it up. We talk to sweet Science. We do this
going into the weekend. We normally recap coming off the weekend. Okay,
full disclosure, there is a British fight card uh this
weekend with a main event of what callum give Me?
I can't keep my callum straight? This is the super middleweight.
It's Callum Simpson, right, which Calum is it Callum Simpson
And this is.
Speaker 1: The this is the boxer card that takes place on
Saturday for though it's on Sky Sports and Britain, it's
on Peakcock in the United States. Callum Simpson versus Steve Woodhall.
This is for Simpsons, British and Commonwealth titles at super middleweight.
And the co feature is the outstanding WBC Women's lightweight
Champion Carolyn Duwad defending her title against Jessica Kamara. We
will discuss that and handicap it on the US Boxing
Show Friday. We're going to get into the other side.
Speaker 2: Listen to the t's that's outstanding. It's Daniel dubois sister
by the way, So well, handicap those fights on Friday.
But look at this, all right, So we've been I've
been off kilter all week because on the recap podcast
we were previewing Opataia and his cruise away and then
and then we now have the result, and so now
we're on the preview podcast recapping White.
Speaker 1: Is Blackness the Recap podcast sort.
Speaker 2: Of in a way, all right, so Ji Opataia does
get his knockout. You and I are not surprised by that.
Most not surprised by that. He was heavily favored to
get the ko against David Naika, a new Zealander. These guys,
as we as we led into this, are familiar with
each other, had trained and sparred with each other. And
I will say I've I've rewatched the fight now. Opataia
did get the knockout. Naika caught him a couple of times,
so this was interesting. And then eventually a brutal knockout
after a knockdown, a brutal knockout where he had him
heard along the ropes and one more big booming left
laid Naika out face first, and it was scary for
a minute or two because he was down and not
moving for a while. All right, Dan, your thoughts in
the recap mode on the IBF Cruiserweight Champion to ding
his title a game with another rough knockout win for him.
Speaker 1: It was an excellent performance from Opataiya, obviously spectacular knockout.
Naika should be commended for taking the fight on three
weeks notice. This was because of the mandatory opponent that
dropped out with an injury and Naika. You know, it
took a flyer. He was only ten to Oh they're
the same age, but he's got far less professional experience
than he can though had a big well. Opatai was
a big amateur also, Naika was a big amateur. He
had a bronze medal in the Olympic Games, the delayed
Tokyo Olympics that took place in twenty twenty one, and
he was still on the rise. Obviously, in a perfect world,
he wouldn't have taken this fight this early in his career.
But it's hard. When you get the offer, you get
a chance to fight for a major world title, obviously
you're going to get a much larger paycheck thing you
probably have been making in your previous fights. So they
took the gamble. I respect that, and it's sort of
the same thing that Opataia said after the fight. I
respect that what he did, and he didn't come to
mess around and to run and hide and not make
a fight. He came to fight the guy and it
was an outstanding first round where it was very close.
I probably the first round might have been able to
go either way, and it looked like Naika might be
in the fight and then you know, Opataia I basically
figured things out, and he mentioned he got hit with
some hard shots from Ka. The thing is, Jayapatia has
got an outstanding chin, and we've seen that before in
his first fight with Marius Bradust and one or two
other fights he has had, and he took whatever that
he can had to offer. And so if they're both
good punchers and one guy takes a lot better than
the other, you can pretty much figure out how it's
going to go. And so after round one, you know,
it was sort of like Obataia is breaking him down,
getting closer, hitting them with cleaner shots. The height advantage
that Nayka had he was about four and just taller
than Obadaia really didn't come into effect. That reach advantage
really didn't seem to make much of a difference, and
eventually it was all she wrote because he caught him
with some outstanding punches, a big upper cut and you know,
just heavy punches, and he put him down and you know,
he just wasn't you know, even if even though he
got up kind of quickly, it was pretty obvious though
that that fight had to be stopped. He was going
to get badly badly hurt and they had the American
a referee, David Fields, who good handling big guys. He
did a good job in that fight the way that
he stopped it, and look Opataia as expected, like you mentioned,
he gets the knockout win. I think Naika, yes, he
was down on the canvas for a couple of minutes.
He had to get some medical attentions. He didn't do
an interview after the fight. Obviously, he didn't go to
the press conference to my understanding, but he did post
on his Instagram today basically saying, like you know, I'm
still here. I'm gonna make another run. The job doesn't
end here. Congratulated Opatia said he fought a great fight.
Blah blah, you know, said all the right things. And
I hope that Naika comes back because he's interesting, he's
a good fighter. He just was in over his head
this early in his professional career against the guy that's
the very best in the weight class that you could
argue maybe he could inch his way on to the
bottom top ten of the pound for poundless potentially. And also,
you know, he didn't have the full training camp. I
mean you can say, yeah, okay, Nayika didn't have the
full camp, but neither did Opataia because he was switching opponents,
But he had been through a full camp even if
he was training for a different So, you know, I
think that even I'm glad Nayika was okay and he
didn't get badly hurt obviously, So if he can shake
off the physical aspects and put it behind him, I
think this could be a learning experience for him in
terms of realizing the level you got to be at
if you really want to be the top guy in
the division. I'm gona tell you right now, TJ. You know,
in the not too distant future that cruiserweight division is
going to open up a bit because guys like Opatai
and Zero, et cetera. They're gonna probably move up again
in a wait and so a guy like Nika, with
that experience and his obvious talent may be there to
sort of fill that void. But Opataia, man, he is
he's busy right now. Ever since he came back from
the jaw injury against Bratest in the first fight they had,
he's been active. He may not have been fighting the
top top guys, but he did beat Brightest, in a
second fight he fought Nayiki. He's been active on these
read season cards. I mean, he's fought quite a bit,
and they're they're lining other stuff up for him.
Speaker 2: This is the point in the proceedings where I tee
you up and say, what do you think is likely next?
You hinted before that maybe that named Zerto Ramirez in unification.
What's realistic for him in the next fight or this year?
What do you think?
Speaker 1: Well, I do think that the Zero fight is realistic.
I mean he said it after the fight. You know,
he basically looked into the camera on the you know,
the broadcast, and he says, you know, Zerto, I'm coming
for you. You know, basically like that, you know, in a
you know, funny, good nature kind of way. He wants
to fight for the other belts. Zerto has two of them.
He looked very good in Unifying in his previous fight
that took place in Riad on the Latino Night card
a couple of months ago. And that's a realistic possibility.
But it's one thing for OPATAI to say, that's what
I want. That's what Ramirez said after he defeated BILLM. Smith.
It's what Eddie Hearn and the rest of the Opataya
brain trust would like to do Mick Francis from Tasman
Fighters the co promoter. They want that fight. Also, Oscar
de la Hoya from Goldenway, he's the promoter for a zerto.
They want to do the fight. Turkey Afshik wants to
do the fight in terms of another unification. So that's
well and good, and I believe that fight could be
made actually rather easily relative to your typical big time
unification fight. But you can't just run over the rights
of a mandatory challenger. And Yunil Dordkos is the WBA
mandatory challenger. He is a former title holder. He's an
excellent fighter in his own right, and they made a
deal with him to step aside in order to allow
Zerdo Ramirez and Chris Bill and Smith to get their fight.
And the stipulation was he's next, So he's next until
further notice. Golden Boy has talked to their people about it,
but that's not to say for the right offer and
the right circumstance and the right scenario that he would
not step aside again. But I spoke to his people
actually a couple of days ago because I was curious
myself about how they were going to handle this, and
they're like, look, my guy's thirty eight years old. He's
got to get his opportunity. And we know we can't
sit around and there is no step aside at this
moment because we haven't been offered anything. So they'll listen.
So in the end, if Turkey wants to fight and
everybody involv wants to do the unification, they're going to
have to take care of Dordkos And that could be
a combination of financial riches as well as, you know,
keep him active so he doesn't just die on the vine.
Perhaps that could mean, you know, putting him in like
a reasonable fight on the undercard, something along those lines.
Are paying for him to be on some other card
at another point. But I do think that fight can happen,
and I believe that the Door to Coast people will
play ball, but they're gonna have to get treated the
right way. You can't just run over their rights. So
I do think that can happen.
Speaker 2: All right. So that's the old Patia story in the.
Speaker 1: Cart, and let me say what I think about it.
What else, more so than just the notion that we
may see a Ramirez fight down the road.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Certainly, even if he does the mandatory zero, that could
take place sometime in like spring summer. I would still
leave open the possibility of the unification with Opataiya, you know,
in the fall. So I do think that one way
or the other, that fight probably does happen this year,
whether it's immediately next or maybe one more fight after
who knows, but more in the future. This was not
Opataia talking about this now. He has said that he
does intend at some point to be a heavyweight, and
I I don't know if you can think of a
cruiserweight champion at some point that was meaningful that didn't
go after a heavyweight career to try to become a
heavyweight champion, to do something in the heavyweight division where
you can eat more and you can make more money.
Of course, but Eddie Hearn, He's like basically saying, look,
ji Opataiah is humble enough to not talk about guys
like Alexander Hussa. He has unfinished business in the cruiserweights.
He wants to unify the belts there, which means fighting
Ramirez maybe then also fighting for the WBC title against
bad Du Jack whoever emerges with that belt from his
fight with Ryan Roziki, that's going to be coming up
as a mandatory. But at some point they want to
try to make that Alexander Usik fight, you know. And
I'm sure Eddie look a lot of its hype, and
I get that, saying like he thinks that the only
guy that can really give him a run for his
money in the cruiserweight division or the heavyweight division right
now is Giobatire. Remember Husks already beating Fury twice. He's
already beating Joshua twice, so again that's not immediate. But
Eddie's perspective was, hey, trust this is the quote that
he gave as part of the interview trust me in
twelve to eighteen months die Obataya against Alexander Usik is
an all time classic, and I must say, style wise,
it's a really interesting fight. I mean, they're both they're
bothweight camps.
Speaker 2: I understand, and he's got a java do. But I
ain't going along with it's gonna be an all time classic, I.
Speaker 1: Understand, but it would be a good fight. It would
be a good That's I don't believe that Obataia would
be outclassed by Osik.
Speaker 2: No. I mean he's got to put on more weight too,
So I don't know that much weight.
Speaker 1: He's already two hundred pounds. He doesn't, you know, put
on ten to fifteen pounds. You know, Usik goes about
two twenty. It's not he's not a huge heavyweight by
today's heavyweight standards. Why they're not that different?
Speaker 2: Stay tuned. More to come on what Opataiah does, including
staying active, which he has been on these read season cards.
All right, So on the co feature, Justice Hooney, the
Australian heavyweight, did blast out Sean pott Geater, the relatively
unknown South African it only fought in South Africa, and
whacked him out quickly. Rayfield was I not selling to you,
but I think won. He can punch, and obviously pot
Geter would agree with me right about now? All right,
tell me what you saw out of the co feature
and then obviously that segues into what's next for Hooney
and how quick can he move up maybe into a
contender status.
Speaker 1: I mean, Pocketer was just worse than I expected. Put
it like that. I mean, and I'm not knocking Hooney.
He looked really good. He did his job, but Pocketer
was he was a big disappointment. Not that he was
expected to do anything and win or anything like that,
but it was he just was wide open and basically
Whoney landed the right hand to the head and rocked
him and then left to a body and you know,
he put him in the ropes and he was just
teen off on him and at that point the rep's
gonna stop the fight every time. So that was a
TKO in the second round. And you know, again Whooney
has been active like Opa Ti. This was him coming back.
You know, it was a second fight in less than
a month. He had just fought on a car December eleventh,
so less than one month since his previous fight. He
said afterwards. He didn't get into details. He's dealing with
some kind of small injury, so he wants to get
back in the ring quickly, but it's going to be
a little bit of time, I guess, to heal up
from whatever his issue is. But right now, who is
he's not a contender yet. He's twelve and zero, but
he's still a little rough around the edges, if you
know what I mean. He needs some work. He's a
little bit raw. He there's no rush man. He's twenty
five years old. He he just needs the reps. He
needs the experience, and that's you know, never is that
more significant than when you're fighting in the heavyweight division.
He put you know, learn some of your craft a
little better and continue to hone your skills, continue to
get the reps, and that's the biggest thing. And if
he can stay active and fight you know, four, four
or five times even, and he'll get himself another half
a dozen fights or so at that point, maybe he'll
be ready for something bigger. Right now, he's not even
close to that level, but he's at least somebody to
keep an eye on. He has a good style to
watch if you're a fan. He seems to have an
enjoyable personality and hopefully he can you know, continue to develop.
I mean, I'll tell you one thing, TJ. The boxing
world can never have enough interesting heavyweights.
Speaker 2: And he's a big dude, and he's got a back
in the Brisbane Eastern Coast Beach area of Australia. So
what does that ultimately mean can he step up in
competition and succeed. We'll find out. We'll find out later
this year. In probably twenty twenty six or Justice Hooney,
remember that name, all right, So now we move to
some news, including an announcement. We still don't have a
lot in January, but we're finally bringing things together for February,
where we're going to have one interesting fight weekend after another.
So Top Rank officially announced the February fourteenth triple header
at the Madison Square Garden Theater, headlined by Keishawn Davis
going for a world title against Denny's Baranchik for the
WBO lightweight title. All right, and it also includes Xander
Zias and I saw the name Jared Anderson added to
this car too, So tell me more about all the
fights that they announced coming next month.
Speaker 1: So is Keishawn fighting Branschak challenging for the WBO lightweight title.
Not at all surprised. That's sort of been expected ever
since uh Kishan annihilated Gustavu Lamos in the recent fight
a few weeks ago. That was his first fight in Norfolk, Virginia,
which is Kishan's hometown, and so the anticipation was that
he would challenge for the title. He was highly ranked
by the IBF as well as by the WBO. They
went to WBO route. Remember Top Rank had has as
an option on Brentchick's next fight from the deal that
they had when he fought for the vacant title against
their guy, Emmanuel never Hate on a Top Rank show
when the Brunchack won that fight, and if you remember,
back before fought Gustavo Lamos, I had done an interview
with him and they played on our podcast. And one
of the things that Kishan mentioned to me in that interview,
which had not heard until he said it to me,
was that he and Denny's Branchak had been direct messaging
each other on their social media and talking about fighting
each other. So that was sort of the goal and
the plan all along that if he would get past
the Lamos fight, which he did in spectacular fashion, that
they would line up this title fight. So he's coming
to New York City and he's going to take on Branchick, who's,
you know, a dangerous guy. You know, he's kind of
like took him, you know, many years to be com
an overnight sensation up. That makes sense. He's nineteen to oh,
but he's not young. He's thirty six years old. He
was a silver medal winner for Ukraine in the twenty
twelve and a big so a long time ago, but
he was on the vaunted team that also included Alexander
Ustik and ves Aiolomachenko and Alexander Vodzik. I mean, that's
a tremendous group of four world champions together on that
same team. But obviously given the fact that Kishan is
the A side just based on him being an American, being
his promotion, him being the American. You know, he's a
decade plus younger and he's been looking spectacular. So Brent
chicks gonna have to do, you know, real work to
derail the Kishan Davis Express. So that's the main event day.
God Xander Zaias the junior middleweight who's obviously developed a
popularity in the New York area. In New York City
given his Puerto Rican heritage. He's fought there now, you
know several times. He'll be in the co feature against
the fighter from Germany. Thinks slawas Spammer Spohmer rather who's
also defeated. They're both twenty to oh. Zaias has twelve knockouts,
Spammer has eleven knockouts. He's a little bit older though
Zaias is only twenty two a Spawlmer is thirty two,
but it is seemingly on paper anyway, like a halfway
decent step off for Xander. And then you have in
the opening fight Vito Milnicky, who's got a fan base
in j New Jersey, who I'm sure will bring fans
with him to the Garden Theater. He is in a
fight on that against the Irish fighter Connor Coyle, who
is undefeated. And you look eventually and I don't think
it's gonna be necessarily next, but no Nicky is moving
up to middleweight for this fight. Xander is fighting at
dream middleweight. He's gonna be a middleweight soon enough at
some point. One of the things they're going to look
to do with top rank his match up Xander Zias
against Vito Milnicki, which will be a very good popular
fan fight for their fan bases, the Puerto Ricans and
the Jersey folks, and they come together at the Garden.
It'll be kind of a big fun, kind of a
big fun of them. So that's the co feature, and
Noil Nicky is the opening fight. And then as you mentioned,
they've got a bunch of interesting things on the preliminary card.
So if you looked at my recently published top fifteen
prospects of the year, led by the Prospect of the
Year Moses E. Tama. On that list are some other
top ranked prospects. One of them is the Dominican Republic
olympian from twenty twenty a welterweight, really been a junior
walter rate. Now he's gonna be fighting at the welterweight division,
who I think is tremendous, very exciting, Rohan Polanco. He's undefeated.
He's taken on a Puerto Rican fighter, John Carlos Torrez.
The number two prospect on my list was the lightweight
Abdullah Mason spectacular twenty twenty four with Moult you know,
knocked everybody out. Had that little issue in the last
fight he had where he got dropped twice in the
first round, but came back and knocked him out in
the second round. So Abdullah Mason will make his twenty
and twenty five debut on that card. He got the
olympian who was Keishawn's Olympic teammate. The welterweight Tiger Johnson
is on the card and also Nico Ali Walsh and
As I mentioned, Jared Anderson, he will be back, and
this was going to be his first fight obviously since
he got destroyed by Martin Bucoli. So we're gonna see
if Jared Anderson how he rebounds from a horrendous, horrendous loss.
Not that losing to Macoli so bad, but the way
that it happened. We've got the shit kicked out of him.
Speaker 2: And it's not only that. There have been question marks
about whether this guy really cares, is his heart really
in it, et cetera. So the first indication is apparently
he wants to try, But what is he going to
look like here? What kind of shape is he in?
Does he get rid of an opponent, a beatable opponent,
you'd have to think fairly quickly.
Speaker 1: Or they're matching. They're matching him. There's a reason why
he's not on the main cart. Okay, they're matching him
very very what's the word I'm.
Speaker 2: Looking for, strategically?
Speaker 1: Sure, so it's not like they're matching with a completely.
Speaker 2: He's not fighting a ring post, but it's close, is what.
Speaker 1: You're a fighter from Greece named Marios Kolias who's twelve
three and one with ten knockouts, who's thirty three years old.
This is supposed to be let's ease you back in,
Let's get you some confidence. Maybe you can go one
or two or three rounds and get rid of the guy.
But we want to you want to go through the
process of getting those hands wrapped and walking up the
steps and the bright lights and trying to deal with
the mental part of you know, I spent a lot
of years at ESPN and working with with Teddy Alice.
I've had many conversations with Teddy Alis over the years
about the mental part of of this situation with boxing.
And this is one of those situations where it's not
about necessarily the opponent, it's can I get over the
mental aspect of what's been going on? And so that's
what this is all about.
Speaker 2: All right. So there's the big UH and and.
Speaker 1: One more one more item from that, by the way,
The UH the twenty twenty four Puerto Rican Olympian who
was the son of Juan Male Lopez, who was a
former world champion in two way classes, who was with
top rank for many years and had a good run.
His son is going to be turning pro one meta
Lopez one meta Lopez de Jesus, who is a junior bantamwade.
He will have his professional debut. Top Rank has signed
him back, you know, a couple of months ago, and
now he's making his debut on this on this card.
So that's a lot of stuff, A good matchup in
the main event, some decent stuff on the regular card,
some interesting, not necessarily huge competition fights on the undercard,
the prelims, but certainly a lot of good names that
you're gonna want to check out if you're a fan
of several you know, some of my prospects, and the
return of Jared Anderson is gonna have a lot of
people interested to see what this man, how he's going
to handle coming off such a brutal rough loss to Bocoli.
Speaker 2: All right, interesting that there is some news from this week. Hey,
you love it when I do this. I thought Teya
Femo Lopez and Suprio Mattias were fighting coming up for
lopez is one hundred and forty pound crown. Didn't we
discuss that this was being finalized? Apparently not so final.
Speaker 1: I didn't say it was being finalized.
Speaker 2: No, I said, didn't we discussed? We did that this
was supposedly being finalized. I say again, it's not only
not so final, it's not happening. Correct.
Speaker 1: Correct. There is a big difference in quote being finalized
and many other ways that you could characterize a fight
being discussed in negotiations, discussing terms, blah blah blah. So
I don't know. I've been a journalist for my entire
My only real job I've ever had since you know, college,
has been a sports writer and learning about how to
write and how to phrase things and write things and
report things. Words matter. When you say being finalized, that
means they're changing the paperworker. They've got the terms agree to.
Speaker 2: But we always we always say this with free agent
contracts in team sports, we say this in any kind
of deals in business. Whenever you read or hear about
these deals, that means they have agreed. That means there
are there are a couple of things to work out,
but they have agreed. And obviously this didn't get to
the point where these.
Speaker 1: Two are, No, they never did. So here's what my
reporting tells. When I've talked to several people that have
been involved in this back and forth. So they started
to discuss this fight probably a month or month, maybe
five six weeks ago about doing Lopez in his first
fight in a while against Subrial Mattias, who was the
former IBF title holder but had come off you know,
I lost the belt. Toparo had come back and fought
in Puerto Rico, you know, in a lower level kind
of fight, got an early knockout, and and today the
truth if they had made Lopez and Ti Fimo against
Subril Mattias, I think that's a really good fight. Actually,
like that's a fun fight to watch now. They they
were talking about as a pay per view. I totally
disagree with that aspect of it, but that's a different matter.
The reality is, again from what I am told the
Mattias fight, Mattias side, rather Mattias and his team, his promoter,
his people, they had agreed to the terms of Top
Rank hadn't really necessarily signed a contract, but they were
on board and there was no issues there. All this
came down to what was going on between Top Rank
and Ti Fimo Lopez, and if you follow their up
and down relationships since he turned professional, you know, sometimes
they're they're lovey dovey and everything is perfect, and other
times they're at each other's you know, it's like, uh,
they're at each other's throats. It's like, you know, a
dysfunctional marriage perhaps, and this is that one of those
moments where it's dysfunctional Tifimo. You know, he says he
wanted to fight three times a year. He makes a
lot of big boasts in this and that, and then
they keep offering the fights against this guy. They offered
them against Josey Ramirez at the end of last year.
He said, I want to take the rest of the
year off. He offered they were offered to fight. Uh
Tfmo indicated he might be interested to fight at welterway
they were gonna they were ready willing able to match
him up with Brian Norman for the WBO Welterwey title
that would have taken place in the last fall. He
turned that down, and then that's his prerogative too. And
so now they're going to beef about this that top
rank if you if they'll tell you if you want
to take their word for it or not, that's your prerogative.
That the that the number that they offered to tia
Femo was well above his contractual minimum to fight Mattias.
So I'm not sure what he's upset about. But if
you follow so social media and you take a look
at the things that Timo has been posting, he's on
like this wild rant every five minutes. There's some you know,
he's dissing top rank about this or that, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, clarify if you know, because I thought I saw
somewhere he allegedly only has one fight left on the deal.
Is there still more than that?
Speaker 1: I will tell you there's more than that. I mean, okay,
so that's not even here nor there. The reality is
they're both in agreement. There's at least one fight left,
it seems to me. So I don't know. The main
upshot here is I'd like to see a ti Fimo
Lopez box. He's a talented young guy. It's a world champion.
He's in his prime in terms of making a legacy
and making money. He didn't, you know, in one of
his posts, he did indicate and I'm sure this is
part of his uh that's not related at the top rank,
but just his own emotional well being is he's going
through a divorce and it's still going to be final
in the next few weeks, is what he posted. This
was not in any of his posts but this is
my reporting, and this may also have something to do
with the craziness, is that he has been mad by
David mcwater for his entire career. But I am told
by multiple sources that that they have split, or that
t Femo has dropped him or dumped him, or is
just paying him off to be done with him, and
that Day's been showing up at his recent events just
to say face. But he's really got no say so
in the situation. And I've had a good relationship with
Dave for as long as I've known him and I
have met. I have called him on a multiple occasions.
I have texted him on a multiple occasions, and unlike normal,
he has never once gotten back to me. That is
completely an opposite kind of behavior that I'm used to.
So I'm not sure if it's because of that split
or whatever. But Dave has other fighters he manages too,
like Tiger Johnson, for example, who's going to be on
that upcoming February card. So the point here is this
between the divorce, the management situation, perhaps the coming to
an end of the contract, his own situation with you know,
what do you want to do? Fight? At one forty
fight at one forty seven. Whatever. His his aggravations are
about the money, even though Topprank says it's they're offering
him well above what his minimum is. Whether it'll be
on pay per view not on pay view. Obviously, he's
got a lot of stuff going on his mind, but
he doesn't make it easy because he comes off so
as so he's I like Tethmo when you just hang
out with him or interview Mr. I've snimmer sitting one
time at a hotel in southern California with him and
his mom and dad, you know, early morning one time
before going to an airport and shooting the shit with
them for like an hour. They're they're, they're they're kind
of a crazy group, but they are nice people generally.
And uh, you know, I want t Themo to be
in the ring and be in a good spot. But
he's making it real difficult right now to to feel
bad or like him because he just he says and
types and crazy things.
Speaker 2: And and another part of this is at some at
some point you got to check yourself that, uh, the
sport doesn't revolve around him. Get back in the ring
and win another significant fight, so it'll all up. I mean,
it'll all benefit.
Speaker 1: Ever since he looked great against Josh Taylor to win
the WBO and the lineal title, he's had two fights
and he's looked bad in both of them. Fault is that?
Speaker 2: Is that all of our fault or his management or
his soon to be ex wife, or I thought I.
Speaker 1: Thought he lost. The fight against Jermaine Ortiz that was
in February of last year, was a terrible fight, but
I thought he lost. Then he fought Steve Claggett, who
was a rank journeyman. He won by shutout, but it
wasn't a particularly great performance. And going into that fight,
they had a portfolio of opponents that they offered to him,
and Steve Claggett stood out as the weakest of those
opponents they offered him, and he took the weakest one
and still looked pretty poor even though he won handley.
They offered him raymore Ataya, Kenneth Simms, Junior, Elvis Rodriguez.
He picked Claggett, so you know, and that's on top
of all the guys that he turned down. Remember at
September top rank, he's the one that said I want
to fight three times this year. So they cleared the
date in September, he was ready to go for the
main event on one of their ESPN shows, and when
he turned down that opportunity, they ended up putting Mikhaela
Mayer and Sandy Ryan in the main event that night,
and those two women made the hell of a fight.
Speaker 2: All right, So no Mattias against Lopez. We'll see what
happened for either one of those down the road and
what any new news is. Okay, the silly Loma Chenko,
we still don't know if he's going to continue to fight.
We do know this. The IBF says that for his
lightweight bout, that for his belt, that they're going to
have an interim title fight or they want to tell
me about Raymond Morotaya who you mentioned just a second ago,
and tell me about Abdelev abdelijev I, Abdeliav. Tell me
more about that opponent, and is this realistic to maybe
beat for the interim IBF title.
Speaker 1: This is definitely realistic because of the fact that Loma
who hasn't looked he won the IBF title when he
knocked out George Cambo was this last year. He looked
really good in that fight. He gets the belt back,
and he hasn't fought since he has contemplated retirement. Now
apparently he decided he was going to fight, but when
he was started to do some training, he had some
kind of back injury. And and from what top Rank
has said to me, the back injury is going to
keep even if he just he may still ultimately retire.
But even if he doesn't retire and he decides he
wants to come back, the back problem is going to
keep the sideline for an indefinite period of time. And
so even though the IBF has broken its rules in
recent times, they usually do stick by them. And the
one time that they do do an interim title, which
is the one that makes sense for any of the organizations,
is when the champion is going to be sidelined with
an injury right extended period of time.
Speaker 2: I just can I stop you. I just love the
build up. You realize what you just said. Even though
the IBF breaks their rules all the time.
Speaker 1: No all the time, not all the time, twice in
very significant port moments in the last year.
Speaker 2: Then you said in the next sentence, they do follow
them some of the time. It's just great, all right,
So they say that Murataia and this other opponent who's
from where? Where's the other opponent from?
Speaker 1: So zaarabd Alive as a Russian fighter whose only lost
in his career. He's won nine fights in a row.
The one time he lost he got knocked out by
Devin Haney when they were fighting for the interim WBC title,
and that was back in like what two thousand and
I don't know, I mean, it's several years ago. I
forget the exact moment, you know, exact year when that was.
But it's been a while. Point is, it's been at least,
you know, three four or five years, and he's won
nine fights in a row since then. So Marat Taya
is highly ranked. He was behind Kishan Davis, but Kishan
Davis is going to drop out of the IVF rankings
because he's fighting for the WBO title. So in the
in the IBF ratings, these are the two highest available
contenders in their rankings. And ab Delive, by the way,
has a couple of good wins. He's beaten. You know,
he did beat the Renn and stuff for Aylen Arris,
not exactly at that time wasn't so spectacular, but he
did stop him in the twelfth round, and that's that's
not a bad win for the guy, you know, and
he's fought the requisite types of guys. He's beaten some
undefeated guys and he's worked his way up those ratings,
so I can't even quire with that. It's not like
it's a terrible matchup. We've seen what Morataya can do.
We won three fights in twenty twenty four. He had
to win against Devin Farmer. And in terms of abd Alive,
he's been also busy. He beat the former title er Gutierres.
He knocked off the undefeated Roman Andre. That was a
good win for him, you know, Like I said, Horoy Lenaris,
I mean it wasn't like a prime guy, but the
former lightweight title holder, the jeans leteachin In, he defeated him,
so like it's an okay matchup. Anyway. The point here
is this his promoters, RCC Promotions from Russia. They put
up an announcement on their social media saying that they
were now in negotiations for this interim title fight. Top
Rank confirmed that said, yes, we are discussing that. If
they don't have a deal, but I think the day
was February fourth, that I was called, then they'll order
a purse bid, but I feel like they'll probably make
a deal for this, and that means that the winner
will be the interim IBF champion, And if Lomachenko decides
the fight, he'll be obligated to fight the winner of
this fight in his first fight back, and if he
doesn't and he retires or he vacates, then the winner
of this fight will become the IBF title holder. So
that will be the way that the division starts to
shake out a little bit more.
Speaker 2: All right, and we're excited to see what Murtaya can
do as a possible champ down the road. One more
news item than some nostalgia. That is Oscar Duarte and
apparently Regis Progray in talks here in a contenda fight.
Give me more on this, including maybe when well.
Speaker 1: That is the case. Golden Boy Promotions and their president,
Oscar Eric Gomez rather and I discussed this fight. This
is something they are planning again, not done yet, but
they're hoping to wrap it up. If it is wrapped
up and done, the target is February fifteenth, be obviously
a dewed fight in Anaheim, California. Now, whether Anaheim, California
is going to be in position to host sporting events
even in the next month, that still remains to be
seen given what's happening with the fires. But when I
had this conversation about this is before the fire stuff started,
so obviously the location I guess could change, perhaps the date.
But anyway, regardless, Duarte and pro Grey are the combatants
that will if they make the deal, we'll do this fight. Now. Duarte,
he's only got you know, the one memorable loss was
obviously when he got knocked out. He's got two losses,
but the one that remembers is the one he got
stopped by Ryan Garcia. Now, since that fight happened, he's
looked pretty good. He's won, you know, his last couple
of fights. He had a really good fight against Battier Achmadov.
That was an action packed fight on that Latino Night
show that we've discussed from Saudi Arabia. Looked really good
in that fight, so that I thought that was an
outstanding fight in terms of Probray. Look, he's he's had
a rough go. I mean, he went from being like
a world champion in that weight class with the WBC title,
you know, in his second time with a belt in
the weight class, and now he's what one in three,
take it back, one and two in his last three,
and he's looked kind of bad in the two fights
he lost. He got absolutely shut out and spanked and
dropped by Devin Haney and lost the WBC title. And
then he came back and once again he looked pretty
bad in the loss against Jack Catterall that took place
back in October, after which he said he was into retirement.
Obviously that's not the case because it's not been very
long and now he's discussing this fight with Golden Boys.
So you know, Duarte is a strong, powerful guy, and
I think has actually gotten better in his last few fights.
He's kind of finding himself. And as much as I
liked Regis and as good of a fighter as he
has been, I'm just being honest. I mean, he' seen
better days. He is not what he was.
Speaker 2: Now, and he's and it's not like he's twenty seven
or twenty eight years old. He's what thirty four to thirty.
Speaker 1: Five At thirty five years old, he's.
Speaker 2: Thirty five years old, and he's personable. I mean, we
enjoyed him on the podcast when you had him on.
He's a straight shooter.
Speaker 1: Regis is a tremendous but there.
Speaker 2: Are legitimate questions where Haini beat the crepola out of
him later in his career, and now he lost the
Catterall fight, and we were saying at that time, is
he gonna continue to knock around and maybe be the
B side on some of these fights.
Speaker 1: I don't know he's the best out on this because
he's going to go to a Golden Boy event. Golden
Boy's not his quoter. They promote the warte. They were
looking for a reputable opponent, which which is what he
is basically right now. And this is the onus would
be on Regis to change the narrative. He's now a
well known opponent, the top guys at one hundred and forty.
Speaker 2: Yes, former world champion you know comes to the ring
and gets introduced as former world champions, two time world champion,
reagis prograde. But a lot of people are looking at
that going what's left, what's left in the tank?
Speaker 1: And I will say it's not just losing is fine,
losing happens, I get it. I don't even have a problem.
It's when you lose but you don't really compete and
you just look bad and you can't really put your
stuff together, have a impression every second of every round.
Speaker 2: You go back to that Zorilla fight in New Orleans
that he had like a year and a half ago.
He looked bad in the win. He did nothing in
the win. So there's legit concerns and maybe Regis is
going to answer that with his fists, with his with
his padded fists coming up. We'll see. I will further
say this, he's personable enough that he's maybe got a
second career doing some commentary, et cetera, as an analyst
or whatever. I just I don't know how long the
fight career rocks on. And we'll see if this Duarte
fights a reality and maybe you know what this is boxing,
maybe he wins, maybe pro Ray wins it, and then
he's back in the picture as a continuer. Who else
that's right, And so February potentially on that fight. Okay,
one more thing to do, and that is some nostalgia
before you and I are done heading into this weekend.
It was twenty three years ago Sunday, the twelfth January,
the twelfth of two thousand and two, one of your faves,
Hoopo Fridis was in action trying to unify the junior
lightweight world titles WBO and WBA, and he did so.
And this was a Showtime, a Big Time main event card.
It does not say on my rundown, however, that you
were there ringside early on in your career covering fights,
even though Popo is one of your guys. But what
do we recollect about this fight twenty three years ago?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was fighting Joel Casa Mayor, who's like a borderline.
They're both on the Hall of Fame ballot. I mean,
there's reasons that you could come up with the vote
for either guy. I consider them borderline. I did not
attend this fight. I was working at USA today at
that point. I don't remember why I wasn't there, but
I remember being really excited about this fight. This was
one of those kind of deals where Showtime had contracts
with both Popo as well as with castile Or. They
were both undefeated going into this fight. They were both
making defenses and they were looking to unify the titles. Again.
It had been built up for a while and you
got to Remember, let's put the division in perspective for
a quick sec In the early two thousands, the junior
lightweight division was absolutely tremendous. The top four guys were
all superb. You had the leader of the pack was
Floyd Mayweather. He had won the WBC title spectacularly in
a domination of Genera Hernandez and had been defending his
title regularly. You had the late Diego Corrals, a recent
elected to the Hall of Fame. He was the IBF champion.
He ended up giving up that belt because of the
IBF doing IBF things with their mandatory, so he fought
Floyd Mayweather. He lost that fight to Mayweather in a
spectacular performance from Floyd. I was present for that fight.
That was a brilliant night I stole. All these years later,
I considered that to be Floyd's greatest ring performance in
all his fifty fights. How great that performance was. But
the other guys that were holding down the way class
were the other two champions who also were undefeated, and
that was Popo Frtis and Joel Casamayor. Casamira had ben
an Olympic gold medalist. Popa Fradis was an absolutely devastating
devastating puncher who was you know, was knocking everybody out.
And that was what was so amazing about this particular
fight with Casa Mayor is that, you know, he did
score a knockdown, but it was not about the power
in this particular fight. This was all about Popo's boxing
ability against a master boxer and Joel Casimeyor, and you know,
the puncher basically became the boxer and he won on
the science, not on the power. I mean, normally he
was just ruining guys with the devastating punching power. In
this particular fight, he had a box his way to
the decision and it was a really close fight, don't
make any mistake about it. It was one fourteen to
one twelve on all three scorecards. I thought, you know, again,
I am a huge Popo Fraidus fan, fair enough, but
I've done a good job I believe in separating my
fandom from the reality of the fight. You know, I'm
a huge Arturary fan, my all time favorite fighter. Never
for one minute that I really think he had a
chance to be Floyd Mayweather, you know what I mean.
I keep it real. And because of the fact that
it was a one to fourteen to one twelve scorecards.
One was Cassamayer had a point deducted in the sixth
round because he hit on the break, so that that
reduced that, you know, by one point. And then of
course the other was the knockdown. So if if without
the knockdown or the point deduction, it's a draw. But
Popo got the job done because he did get the knockdown.
And uh, again, it maybe wasn't the most exciting fight,
but it was sort of like a really good boxing
match between two high class, world class guys who were
at that point among the very elite in the way class.
They were certainly among the best fighters that were on showtime,
you know, when they were signing guys to their multi
fight contracts. I know a lot of people were pumped
up for this fight. It didn't necessarily do a huge,
huge crowd. They held it at the Cox Pavilion, which
is the small arena at the Thomas and Mack Center. Uh,
that's where I guess they have like the practice facility
of basketball for the UNLV basketball.
Speaker 2: Probably a couple of thousand seat venue at the most.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, I'll put it like that. The Cox Pavilion.
A lot of times when they would have major fights
at Thomas and Mack, that area would be where the
media room where the media center was right, so that
that's give you an indication. It's not like a huge thing,
but anyway, they held the fight there and uh it was.
It was a it was a really high class fight.
I love the fight, love Popo Cassimir uh it was
one of the top fighters. And both of them, by
the way, after this was over, they both went on
and won world titles in the lightweight division too. Fredis
moved up and Wait won a title. Casamra moved up
in Wait had a trilogy with with Diego Caralis, who
also obviously had the the memorable victory comeback victory against
Popa that we detailed about uh my interactions with him
in his hotel suite after the fight in My Cat.
But Fredis and and Carles, there was a handful of
fights that Showtime did back in those early two thousands
that they spend time building up that were big names
against each other in either unifications or significant role title
fights they took time to build up, like Jeff Lacy
against Joel kal Zaggi unified at Super mid Away. They
did that with this fight between Popo and Casimir to
unify the one hundred and thirty pound division. They did
the same thing when they got to the point where
they can finally get zab Judah and Costazu in the
ring together for the undisputed one hundred and forty pound title.
So they really took their time and they made a
series of fights and they got they ultimately did get
the payoff fight, and this was one of those fights,
and it was It was a brilliant performance from Popo
and again one of my all time favorite fighters. Popo
Fright has finished his career forty one wins and two losses.
He obviously got stopped as we know by corrals. He
had the stoppage loss against Juan Diaez, you know, near
the end of his career. He actually retired after that
for several years and then came back in that you know,
two or three comebacks after that, but only three more fights.
But here's the thing that is no question that this
is his biggest win by far.
Speaker 2: Twenty three years ago. We'll check it out. I might
need to dive into this because again we don't have
a big action weekend. I might have to dive into
this as well.
Speaker 1: It's worth watching, I mean, with the expectations you're going
to see against Barrios. In terms of the action fights,
Popa Barrios is a breathtaking, electrifying slug test Cassa Major
and Frantis is a really good technical boxing match that
did have elements of excitement and a lot of anticipation,
but really really good performance and I love the fight.
Speaker 2: All right, love it. There's some nostalgia to wrap up
the show, so again on the bet Us Boxing Show
coming Friday at one Eastern time, we will handicap the
boxer main event with Callum Simpson the super middleweight defending
his British title, as well as Caroline Dubois and the
women's lightweight world title fight sister of Daniel Dubois. We'll
do that at one Eastern time and we'll come back
off the weekend, recap those fights, look at some other
news and some other stuff, and then hopefully we get
back into the groove with some action. I'm just I'm
going to say one more time here, this is missed
opportunity as far as I'm concerned for somebody. Golden Boy
PBC top rank to have no show the weekend of
the fourth, the eleventh, the eighteenth, the twenty fifth, to
not have everything. I mean, I pointed out to you
off the air earlier this week that Golden Boy had
two January shows a year ago, had Virgil Ortiz early
in January, and then had Haimimongia later in January. Don't.
My only point is we got nothing right now, and
we should have something if you're a fight fan here
in January. For us to go on in the United
States business is, let's hope. So all right with that,
my friend, have a good weekend. I will talk to
you on the bet Us Boxing show coming Friday, one
Easter time.
Speaker 1: Dan Rayphield sounds good. TJ.
Speaker 2: There you go. Uh. By the way, follow subscribe on
his substack and to the newsletter. Follow and subscribe to us,
rate us and review us on Apple, Spreaker, Spotify. We
love that it helps us out. This is the Big
Fight Weekend Preview podcast.