Speaker 1: Well, well, well, been looking fullward to doing this on
the Fight Freaks Unite, a recap podcast. My goodness, do
we have a lot to discuss. I am the somewhat's
competent host TJ Reves, our insider. Fight Freaks Unite is
his substack. Why have you not subscribed? You got to
be on the substack on the newsletter because you get
all kinds of tremendous content, including recaps written on the substack.
He is Dan rayphiel A. Good to be back with
you on the pod. Sometimes, you know, I say this
all the time. Sometimes we gotta sell the show. Sometimes
the show sells itself. This one is selling itself, folks.
I'm just saying that in advance with the fights that
we had in the outcomes this weekend in Vegas and Albuquerque,
how are you? How are things?
Speaker 2: I'm good? What a good weekend this was we and you.
Speaker 1: Touched on it. You know, we got a couple of
competitive fights, while they may not be mega fights, huge
attention pay per view type fights, and lo and Behold
or tease Boachuk can for Fight of the Year. Lao's
knockout of Luis Alberto Lopez makes him a world champion
and a candidate for Knockout of the Year. It delivered
on both fronts and we're ready to recap those. Thank
you for finding us. This is the recap pod off
the weekend Sunday night into Monday. We also preview going
into the weekend twice the Fun with Dan Raypiel every week.
Preview Thursday night into Friday, recap coming off the weekend.
All right, So, by the way, rate us, review us
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ding later in the night on Sunday night or Monday morning,
some kind of flash, some kind of notification new pod
is up following subscribe. Okay, so full disclosure. I had
traveled to Cincinnati, the Queens City, for the Tampa Bay
Buccaneer preseason NFL football opener with the Bucks and the Bengals.
So I did my work duties on Saturday night, and
once those were over with, suddenly the Ortiz Boachuk fight
was in the ring, and almost the same time probably
about the eighth or the ninth round of that tremendous
fight that you're about to recap. The Lopez Lao Iba
featherweight title fight got underway, and in my case, I
was able to watch much more intention intently and closely
the Lopez lao fight. I have now relived Ortez and
Boachuk via highlights. My goodness, let's begin right there with
the Golden Boy main event. When I got Rayfield texting
me while I'm on the team bus headed to the
airplane with the Buccaneers about how great this fight was.
I knew it was and I was keeping up with
you on social media. Won a battle and Ortiz ends
up getting the narrow decision despite being knocked down twice.
What are your thoughts about that fight? And it's candadacy
for Fight of the year.
Speaker 2: It's it's it was. It was a tremendous fight. Not
as surprise, by the way, I mean all the conversation
not just between you and me, but lots of other
people that talk about such things or right about such things.
I couldn't find anybody that I saw, reporter, podcaster, YouTuber,
you know fan that was looking forward to watching the fight.
There was nobody that was involved in looking forward to
this fight. Didn't didn't think anything other than the fact
that it was going to be an action fight. Now,
did they think it was necessarily going to be the
fight of the year. Not necessarily, but it was a
tremendous fight. The expectations that I had, I think that
you had also were somewhat high, but to me, they
exceeded the expectations. We knew that these two guys were
come forward types of fighters, good chins, good power, you know,
in their prime, stepping up against their best opponent. You know,
I was all all geeked up for after hearing on
the podcast interview. We had a couple of shows ago
with Virgil artists who talked about how well they had
known each other because when they were both being trained
by many robolists, they sparred a ton of rounds together.
When he was getting ready for the Mean Machine edges
Kavelawski's fight, he had to Bocheck as his his main
sparring partner, and he talked about how this is just
gonna be violence. Basically there was he said, he literally
said one of the coats was there's not gonna be
any boxing and basically he was right. I mean, this
was just an old fashioned, you know, tear up as
they say, just forget the boxing, forget the science, forget
the skills. This is gonna be grit, violence, determination, art,
will big balls, whatever you want to say, Whoever wants
it more, whoever can take it and dish it. And
it was as close as it can be. And I
know there's some people that are, you know, because I
can't get through one fucking weekend DJ without somebody being
pissed off about a scoring. I'm so sick and fucking
tired of it. Like, can't we just watch the fights
and acknowledge that sometimes there's great matchups and they're just close,
and somebody's gonna win, somebody's gonna lose. And if you're
the guy that happens to be the loser in the fight,
you know, don't piss and moan about it. You made
a great fight. Sorry. Boachuk's career is not in any
way damaged by this loss, you know, does he take
a slight step back, Yeah, maybe for the next fight.
But though they're both winners, we're winners as fans. This
is this is going to elevate both of these men.
They're going to become bigger, more popular, and make better money.
Better to better to lose in a fight like that,
then win a fight that nobody gives a shit about.
Speaker 1: And by and by the way, a rematch, if it
does come about, is a very very intriguing rematch. Now
if it happens again, now I have to say that again,
wi Fi being what it was, I was not able
to stream this. I caught up because again I'm under
the bowels of the full disclosure, I'm under the bows
of the stadium. We don't have great WiFi. Whatever. I
caught up on the tweets, your tweet and many others
saying that's a first round knockdown. That's a first round
knockdown of boachuk on Orties, and that kind of set
the tone for what was going to happen. But pick
it up on that because it was not ruled a
knockdown right away, but then instant replay came into a
fact after the fact, so pick it.
Speaker 2: Up on that. Okay. So the first round, and this
was a very pivotal round, was other than that moment
when he got knocked down, which ultimately was ruled a knockdown,
but it was still a flash knockdown. He wasn't badly hurt,
he wasn't all over the place, his legs were fine.
It was the epitome of a flash knockdown. But accounts, however,
when it was not ruled a knockdown, originally by the referee,
Harvey Dock, who by the way, is one of the
very best referees in boxing, but not everybody is one
hundred percent, so he didn't rule it a knockdown. And
other than that very brief moment that he was on
the floor, and he didn't even stay down for more
than just like one than two seconds, basically he won
and kind of dominated the rest of the round. He
landed a lot of good shots, he forced moow and
shook back. He won the round handily other than the knockdown.
But when it wasn't called a knockdown, you have to
kind of obey with the referee ruled that he didn't
rule it a knockdown, so you're not going to give
him a ten eight round. So I scored a ten
to nine round in favor of Virgil of Artise, like
I think pretty much everybody must have done. Because it
was not a very complicated round to score. So right
off the bat, they're like, okay, you watch the replay, like, well,
they should have called it a knockdown. He hit him
with the right hand, wasn't a devastating shot, wasn't a
hurtful shot. But in the end he did land the
punch and the man touched the canvas, So that's a knockdown.
But they didn't rule it that. So I'm still ruling
my round ten to nine in favor of in favor
of virtual ortise. So now fast forward. I believe it
was after round number five. You could hear Harvey Doc say,
and they spoke about it on the on the on
the commentators that the commission had looked at the at
the video and ruled that it was in fact a knockdown,
and therefore they were they were reversing that score. So
now you got to kind of go back and rescore
year round. So you know, a knockdown is a pivotal
thing in any kind of boxing mask. So now I
have to go on mine. I'm literally scoring this on paper,
like I'm at my desk and I'm writing it down.
So I scratched and shit out and I'm writing ten
eight in favor of boat Choke on that and then
not to ten nine for Ortiz. So my maskt a
little fucked up because we've already had, you know, three
more rounds or four more rounds that have taken place.
But nonetheless I figured it out because I can add
ten to nine and ten and eights. So that changed
the scoring at that point. But again Virgil was still
pretty much winning the fight. Now it was putting that
the scoring, whatever situation was going on, with that one
particular moment in the first round, TJ. This was ball
so the wall, actually this was these guys are just
like a lashing each other with big punches I mean
from with both hands, uppercuts and body shots. I mean
just a tremendous barrage from both of these guys who
were really showing a massive amount of grit. I mean
the fact that they were able to both stand up,
and that Boatchuk never went down in Virgil. You know,
with his perfect record coming into this fight, he had
won every one of his fights all by knockout, and
Bochuk had only been the distance one time, had won
twenty three of his previous twenty four fights that were
victories by knockout. In the one fight that he lost
was also by a knockout on his feet, by the way,
against Brandon Adams, in a fight that Bochu was winning
until Adams pot him with a nasty left hook. Look,
this was a great fight, though, because they landed a
lot of punches. They combined for over fifteen hundred punches thrown.
This was not a waltz. This was not a boring fight.
This was tremendous. This was real grit and what I
kept thinking about TJ. And I actually thought about this
because I asked Virgil about this on the podcast. This
fight took place in the arena at the Mandalay Bay
in Las Vegas, which is one of the best arenas
that you can watch a fight, and they've been opened since,
I want to say, like nineteen ninety nine, and they've
done far fewer fights in recent years than they once
did before they had merged their companies with the MGM,
which now is putting all the fights pretty much at
the MGM Grand and in later years in the Tmobile Arena.
But when you think about this fight and its candidacy,
as you called it for Fight of the Year, I
started thinking about all the great fights that it took
place in that same ring or in that same venue
legendary fights. Now, this is maybe not on the level
of Diego Corrals, Jose Lewis Castillo number one, or the
first fight between Marco and Tonio Barrera and Eric Morales,
two of the most epic fights in the last say
thirty years or so. Same ring where Oscar de la
Joya had a huge fight in a great fight against
Fernando Vargas, And there's a whole ton of fights that
took place, but this fight was so good it does
take its place on that list that is high praise
and big guessing, so controversy aside, whatever, it was just
that kind of fight. It will be the kind of
fight years and years from now where you might not
remember who won the fight, like if you if you
went out and spoke to twenty big boy like real,
real legit diehard boxing fants. They all know that Barrera
and Morales had a fantastic trilogy, But I dare say
that if you pulled them not everybody would know off
the top of their head. I can't even remember sometimes
who won that fight, that first epic in Mandalay Bay.
It's kind of now Gaddy.
Speaker 1: They merged together a little bit. They meshed together after
you've had three of them, right.
Speaker 2: Because Gaddy Warded didn't take place at day. But like
the first fight, a lot of people forget did Gaddy win?
Did Ward win? I mean it just it doesn't matter
because the fight is what overtook the result. That's what
this was like.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm curious again because you're at a better advantage.
I knew what had happened when I came back and
saw the highlights after. As it was going along, fifth
round becomes seventh round becomes eighth or ninth round, easy
to say now. But as it was going along, did
you sense or Tease is going to wear him down
and get to him, which is what you thought when
we were talking on the bet Us show, Or did
you think he's in real jeopardy of losing here? This
can go either way? What were you thinking as we
progressed into the later rounds of the fight.
Speaker 2: So I thought the fight's on the table. This is
a hard, close, tough fight that every time Virgil landed
a big shot, You're like, oh, he's going to get
him out of there. And then Botchuk would come back
and he would land. You're like, oh, Virgil's in trouble
now because of the first round, changing of the scoring
of the knockdown. Now you get to the eighth round
and Boatchuck lands another shot. That's a left hook that
drops or tease. Again, not a hard punch, not a
devastating punch. He basically touched his gloves to the ground.
He wasn't even on the mat, but it counts as
a knockdown. So he's now taken two knockdowns that are
about as least violent a knockdown as you can get
in boxing. One where it's like a clearly a flash
knockdown he was not hurt at all in my opinion,
and the second one where he gets clipped but he
doesn't actually even go to the mat. He just touches
his gloves down and they ruled it a knockdown correctly,
but it still counts. So because of that fact, you're like, Okay,
he's in trouble on the cards, even though he still
seems to be imposing himself more physically on the opponent
than Boachuk was on him. Now here's where things get
a little bit nutty. Now the judges in the if
you take a look at the official scorecards, specifically in
the eighth round, because that was a round I'm looking
at the scorecard or the eighth round, all three judges
gave it to Bowachuk ten to eight. To my way
of thinking, and I didn't know this until after the
fight when I saw the scorecard. My thought was other
than the knockdown in that round, especially right after the knockdown,
because there was still a pretty good amount of time
left in the round, or Tease came back like a
house of fucking fire. Yes, was all over. Bochuk was
battering him in the round, was pounding him around, was
really really doing damage. And so to me, I didn't
do this. I scored at a ten eight round. But I
think any judge would have been within their rights to say,
you know what, he made enough of a comeback from
what was kind of a cheap knockdown to negate the
extra point and score a ten to nine round.
Speaker 1: And you often talk about this, and I love repeating this,
and I've talked about this on other shows with you
and have talked about this for decades of being a
fight fan. Nowhere is it written that because there is
in you're nodding while I'm saying it, because there is
a knockdown in a round that it has to be
a ten to eight round for the guy that scored
the knockdown. That is not in black and white. It
is subjective. So exactly what you said, something normally comes
into play.
Speaker 2: Normally it's going to be a ten eight round. And
by the way, like I said, the judges all scored
it that way. But if you were scoring at home,
you know, you know, in your own like I'm writing
it down like, and you did score that ten to nine.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that. So in
any event, after that happened, you know Robert Garcia, who
is now is you know he Virgil had been with
Robert then was with with the same team that Bochuk
was with Manny Robliss. Now then he was back with
Robert Garcia. But in the corner, you know, Garcia was
was doing what Garcia does. He's a great quarterman. He's
a great trainer, both in terms of his preparation his
guys and also the motivation during the course of the fight.
And if you take a look at the actual scorecards
after that eighth round, you know, Virgil looks like he's
in some trouble. You know, he's he's trailing on two
score cards seventy seven seventy three and seventy six seventy four,
and on another score card it's seventy five seventy five.
So now you have the ninth round comes about, and
that was after the ten eight round, and in the corner,
Garcia is like, look, we need these rounds, right, we
got to win.
Speaker 1: That important just so clarify for me too. They don't
know that he's behind.
Speaker 2: No, no, they don't.
Speaker 1: Just put together he's been knocked down a couple of
times and that's why they're urging him starting the ninth round.
We need these rounds go ahead.
Speaker 2: Correct. So he was giving him big time urgencies. So
in the in the ninth round, that that was you know,
Garcia's ten or in the quarter you could tell, like,
you know, he's a calm guy, but he raises his
voice and he lets you know there's urgency. And that's
what I think a good quarterman does. You don't want
to alarm your fighter too much, but you want to
make them damn sure that they know that you're serious
when they say the corner person says, you got to
win this round or we need this round, or whatever
the case may be. So the way that Virgil won
the fight, you asked me that I think he was
in trouble, and the answer is, of course, yes, I
thought he was in trouble. However, he's the one that
closed strong. All three judges gave Virgil Ortiz rounds ten,
eleven and twelve, as did I, and that is what
changed him from being down on the score cards on
two score cards to winning the fight close a majority
one thirteen, one thirteen on one scorecard, which is how
I actually ended up scoring the fight, and one fourteen
to one twelve on the other two score cards. So
I think it was you know, there was two clear
rounds because of the knockdowns, one of them which didn't
come till the fifth round, even though it happened in
the first where you're definitely giving Boachuck those rounds and
you should be giving them to him ten to eight,
even though I felt like you could have given the
eighth round ten to night. So that's in his favor,
and I thought that, frankly, in those last three rounds,
even though Virgil Ortiz did not score a knockdown, that
Boachuk was gassed.
Speaker 1: He had heart badly in the ninth. He had him
hurt badly in the ninth, and.
Speaker 2: Virgil had caught a second win and felt like because
in around six seven eight, he kind of felt like
Virgil is getting a little tired. He did get the
second win, partly I think because Garcia was given it
to him in the corner and he went out there
and did what championship level top fighters do, and that
is close the fucking show. Yeah, and that is what
he did because he was able to win those rounds
on all three scorecards and many other people who scored
I saw on social media and my own and that's
how he won. So when I hear all the negativity,
oh he got rob Boatchruk, it's the same shit that
we went through with Crawford and Madma. You don't get
any benefit because you're the champion in this case, the
interim champion. Particularly you know, Crawford was the favorite and
he was like the quote unquote hometown home, you know,
the house fighter if you will, with the Saudi's, and
Ortez was that guy in this fight, even though he
didn't have the belt. This was Golden Boys show. He's
the American. You know, he's the bigger star, quote unquote,
he's the guy with you know, the undefeated record, So
you know he's maybe gonna get a little bit of
that benefit of the doubt. But if you're in the
other court, you have to know that that is going
to happen, So you gotta be double on top of that.
Speaker 1: And the other thing we always talk about is if
you can end it, end it, And in that twelfth
round he had him heard again again. It's easy to
say after the fact all I thought he was going
to get him out of there. Did you think live
Ortiz is going to end all doubt and get him
out of there or you sense.
Speaker 2: That I didn't really sense that. Guys, I thought that
bouch hook. You know, he showed a big heart and
a good shin and I don't any I don't take
anything away from his performance. And like I said, I
scored the fight a draw, but I could if you
said to me, Okay, Raphael, you have it a draw,
but you gotta pick one guy to give it to
one or the other, I would have given it to
Ortiz because I felt like he might have done. If
I have to make the decision even though I've got
it even I'm gonna I'm gonna go in his favorite
based on the number of closer rounds, I thought, uh,
there was you know, I was mark shit on my paper,
like you know, close round or why, you know, big round.
I'd do my little uh you know, diagrams and shit
and I and I would have had Virgil potentially winning
another round on that. Uh. The the good thing is
there was no wacky outlier score like we always have
these fights, you know, where everybody thinks it's close, and
you know, one judge has it, you know, seven five,
and another judge has it seven five the other way,
and then there's one, you know scorecard that's like eleven
to one and you just want to, you know, just
kill yourself. And at least in this fight, he had
three you know, scorecards that mirrored one another the reality
of the fight. Even if you're a gigantic Boa Chook supporter,
you have to acknowledge this is a very close fight, yes,
and he just did not.
Speaker 1: And all three, as you said, all three judges in
complete concert on the final three rounds, they all gave
them to Ortiz. So there is where.
Speaker 2: By the way, yeah, I know we rip on judges
a lot, but the reality is uh. And again, every
judge has had a scorecard here or there that you
may want a question, but by but by in the
bigger picture of things, generally speaking, Max de Luca is
an excellent judge and has been for a long time.
David Sutherland, same thing again. You want to quibble and
find the score here there that you may, you know,
disagree with dramatically. Fair be it? You know, so be it.
Steve Weisfeld, I think, in my opinion, I've said this
for a long time, he's literally the best judge in boxing. Like,
there's rarely a scorecard from Weissfeld that I see that
that that makes me scratch my head, or that I
get upset about or whatever. I know. Steve Weisfeld, I've
known him for a very long time. He is as
good as it gets in judging. Uh. And so if
he tells me it's one fourteen, one twelve, I believe it.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know again, I had at the draw, but I can't.
You can sit with that. But the main thing, the
bigger picture, by the way, is great fucking fight. I mean,
we're gonna be talking about this fight, come de Let
me just make one other comment. By the way, Tom Loeffler,
who is the promoter for uh Seray Boachip, really pissed
me off today when I was reading social media and
Tom should fucking know better than this, but he just
wants to put you know, he wants to make it
like his guy got robbed. And he started giving the
line the same bullshit as Eddie Hearn gave, you know
in the Mage Mavn Crawford A you gotta take it
from the champ. No, you don't have to take it
from the champ. You gotta win seven fucking rounds or
the direct was the man the Matthew the more points.
And no, you don't get any kind of special treatment
because you come in with a belt, particularly an interim
belt number two, number three. This is the one that
really irritated me. Even Hearn didn't do this because he
didn't have anything to stand on when it came to that. Well,
take a look at Virgil's face. He's the one that's
all marked up. He's the one that's all busted up.
He's the one that had to go to the hospital.
So therefore we win. Now, fuck that, you don't do
that because you don't score because you have an ugly
face with a cut or because you have a bruise.
You score because you've gone twelve individual three minute segments
and you've given a score ten to nine, and to
eight and to seven, whatever the case may be. How
much damage you have on your face is not relevant
to the scoring. It's it's indicative that you've taken some shots,
but it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Have necessarily extreme the only qualifiers. If it's extreme, if
you've got a swollen, beat up face, bloody mouth, bloody nose,
and the other guy's unmarked, then I think a lot
of people reasonably look at that and go, hey, it's
pretty easy to tell you that mark was not the case.
That was not the case in this point.
Speaker 2: Even if that's the case, it could happen a messed
up I could happen with one punch that happened in
the fourth round, and you were given the scores appropriately
that because you caused that damage. But again, in this
particular case, you know, Virgil had a little little markings
on his face and a little bit of ruse, but
he was not damaged. I mean, yeah, he went to
the hospital because the commission wanted him to get checked out.
But the facial damage, to tell me that's how you
score a fight is absolutely ludicrous, all right, that is insane.
Speaker 1: So he's grappling at things. What is the likelihood that
we might see this again? And what would stand in
the way in your opinion? Because it was good enough
where I think the public would love to see it again.
But what stands in the way or might we see
it again?
Speaker 2: Look, I don't think it's going to be the next fight.
In fact, i'd be willing to wager won't be the
next fight. Now that said, there'll always be some kind
of demand on a fight like this to be a rematch.
So whether it's a couple of fights from now or
you know, a couple of years from now, these are
still dies that are still relatively you know, a younger
in their career. So yeah, I do think they'll there
probably is a good chance we'll see a rematch down
the line, But no chance in my opinion, is going
to be next. And that's mainly because number one, there's
gonna be a movement for other fights. Okay, so you know,
sitting this is the subplot here to this whole thing.
You got Oscar de Loy, who is Virgil's promoter. Their ringside,
he's sitting with Turkey al Chik from Saudi Rabi, who
has apparently stayed in the United States post the Crawford
Magrima fight for the for the next one week. And
you know, even before this fight took place, he spoke
about wanting to do some fights involving Virgil Ortiz, and
after his very public spat with Canelo Alvarez and Canelo
basically disrespecting Turkey and Turkey telling him, you know what,
I don't care. I don't want to do Crawford anymore.
You know, I'm taking my ball and going home. You're fired.
I quit. However you want to describe it. So now
the fight that Turkey says he wants to make, and
this was pending a victory by Virgil Ortiz, which he
obviously came away with, he wants to do Arrence Crawford
against Virgil Ortiz. Now, for my money, it may not
be as big of an event obviously if he was fighting,
if Crawford was fighting Canelavaras. But in terms of competition
excitement within the weight class, you can't tell me. Terence
Crawford against Virgil Ortiz wouldn't interest you, absolutely, So I
think there's a pretty decent chance that that could happen
if Turkey wants to do that fight. He's willing to
pay Parence Crawford a kind of money he commands, and
the same thing goes for a Golden boy in virgial Ortis.
I have no reason why that wouldn't happen. They're doing
business that in the United States, they're working with these
different promoters. That's a big time fight, you know, interim
title or whenever. That's you know, Virgil Ortiz in my mind.
You know, he even said on the podcast he doesn't
consider the interim title the real title. He actually made
one of the greatest sons I've ever heard from a
fighter in my twenty some years of writing about boxing.
When he called the interim title. He's like, you're not
You're not the real champion. He's like, you're the vice president, Yes,
the president, you're the vice president. So I thought that
was a great line. So he gets it, and I
guarantee you that if he got offered a Tyres Crawford fight,
he'd rather fight for the WBA title than worry about
whatever situation is with his intern Don give me.
Speaker 1: A quick take, because there's some that will say, hey,
he got in there with a real guy. The previous
two fights at one fifty four really didn't even last
that long. One of them was a questionable stoppage as well.
Now he got in there with a real guy and
his punching power is not the same. And then you
leap forward to how is he going to beat Terrence Crawford?
If that's the case, how concerned would you be right
now that Ortiz can punch hard enough to get Crawford's
attention and have a legit shot in that fight real quick?
Speaker 2: Well, I think that it's a real fight. I mean,
obviously Terrence Crawford is going to be the favorite. He's
going to be the favorite against anybody except maybe Canelo.
But remember this, Terrence Crawford was in his first fight
at junior middleweight. I mean, they're both guys that have
come up through the weight classes. Terence Crawford was a
champion at one thirty five. He was undisputed at one forty.
Virgil was a prospect at one forty. He became more
of a contender at one forty seven, where Terrence Crawford
moved up. Remember, Crawford's older than him by about a decade.
He's much further along in his career. But they both
have been in similar weight classes. So in my mind,
this is two really good junior middleweights who were probably
at their best so far at welterweight. So I mean,
I think that Vergil Ortiz, just because he didn't knock
out Bochuck, I don't think that doesn't mean he can't
knock out other junior middleweights. But again, Terrence Crawford's a
different story. He's not a guy that takes a ton
of clean punches, So you know, to me, it's not
about can get a knockout, it's about can get can
you win seven? Or and uh well, I would absolutely
look at Crawford as the favorite, because that's what you
do when a guy is pound for pound type of
a fighter. But anybody that would sleep on Virgil Ortiz
against Terrence Crawford is insane. In my opinion, It's a
winnable fight, it's a great matchup.
Speaker 1: So that's a tremendous one and Dance has put it
down the list, not necessarily that it is gonna win
Fight of the Year, but it definitely deserves to be
in the conversation.
Speaker 2: We still got a few months to go, you know,
we do, and I do think still by the way,
because of the because of the magnitude of the fight
and how good it was, that there's still be a
lot of people that will look at that great fight
between Alexander Husk and Tyson Fury. Of course, as as
a as a fight of the year.
Speaker 1: That's tough to talk right now at the moment. Uh okay,
so real quick the other two fights, then I want
to get to this Angelo Leo one punch booming KO
to win the ib featherweight title. Charles Conwell did not
take long body punch knockout over Kahari Gray and also
Kenneth Simms. I got an impressive showing a fifth round
KO as well. Tell me something about each of them
on the undercard.
Speaker 2: Well first and foremost, both of these guys you know
who are finally getting backed in the groove now that
they've signed with Golden Boy. This was Conwell's second fight
since he signed with Golden Boy after a long time
out of the ring because of different issues with promoters
and management and everything. Same thing with Sims. He was
with pbc'd been off fifteen months. This was his first
fight since he signed with Golden Boy. So it's good
to see these two guys get back and their and
they're still you know, on the younger side of things.
They're both excellent contenders in their weight class. Both of
them are ready as soon as they can get a
bigger fight to be in a involved in a world
title fighter, an eliminator, some name opponent. You know, you
don't have to baby them. I mean, these are very
good quality guys in terms of Conwell, twenty sixteen Olympian
moves to twenty to zero with fifteen knockouts, still only
twenty six years old. A really good strong, sturdy guy,
good puncher, and he, you know, Kierri Gray, no one
expecting anything. But as I've said to you numerous times,
if you're match with that type of opponent, then do
what you're supposed to do. Yep. And that's exactly what
Charles Conwell that he took him out with a big,
giant body shot in this ground. That was one of them.
That was as good a body shot as you're gonna see.
I mean, he got it. It was as you can
almost feel it like watching it on the screen like,
oh my god, what a shot. Uh, and he just
had him down and crumpled on the deck, you know. Great.
To his credit, he did get up to all fours,
but you know he was all done in the ref
counted him out, I mean, and he actually stayed down
for another couple of minutes. A lot of times, you know,
you see a guy he gets dropped here's ten and
then he jumps up on his feet like, you know,
pretending he was about to beat the count when you
know he maybe didn't really want to go on. In
this case, this was legit because the guy stayed down
on the mat for another couple of minutes after that fight.
So for conwell, you know, look he fights in that
junior midleweight division also, so he could absolutely be in
the same mix with all these these guys, and it's
a very deep weight class. I'm not saying he's gonna
get Terrence Crawford, but you know what they could do
him in Boachuk. That's a great fight. If Virgil Ortiz
won some of that, that's a good fight. If he
doesn't get a Crawford fighter doesn't do rematch, and there's
other people in that weight class. So good performance from Conwell.
Good to see him back. He just fought a few
months earlier, so it's a second fight in short order.
And in terms of Kenneth Sims, a fighter who I've
always been kind of high on. He's thirty years old
now from Chicago. Now he's twenty one two to one,
and this was one of those situations where Golden Boy
had signed him. They got him an opponent, that opponent
dropped out, they signed him with, they got another opponent
for him, that opponent fell out. On Friday, they brought
in Jonathan Romero, who has been training in Vegas on
less than twenty four hours notice, and so he had
been training for something else. I guess he already was
done in terms of his medicals, and the commission approved him.
He was fighting much heavier than he normally fights. This
was a guy I actually went back and looked this up.
In twenty thirteen, he pulled off a big uposite and
won the IBF title out one hundred and twenty two pounds.
I was at the fighting in Atlantic City, which I
didn't even realize how I went and looked up his record,
like shit, I was at that fight and when he
won the title, but he held it for like six
months and then he lost. But he came into this
fight he had lost three fights in a row by knockout,
all inside three rounds. So you're like, Okay, Sims is
coming off the layof, but he's a much better fight.
He's a much bigger fighter, not a big puncher, but
he's not gonna have much trouble with Jonathan Romero, who
you know basically is a guy that's done. But Romero,
even though he took an absolute fucking Shalaki, showed a
lot of heart, showed a lot of balls. They gotta
give him credit. You know, he could have he could
have been done after one round if you want to
know him what has set a boot, But he hung
in there. You know, after round four he was like
the corner was like we're gonna stop. He's like, give
me one more round, and he got his one more
round and he got his ask kick for another round
and then they finally waved it off. So kenn of Sims,
he got five rounds in off that long layoff and
now he's back in business. You know, props to Romero
for taking the beating, but this was a no hope
or type of fight. But the main thing here is
now Simms, who's in the junior welterweight division. He's the
mandatory in the WBA. That was a fight in his
previous fight that he had one fifteen months ago to
be to get that position, and it was a tremendous
fight if you remember, it was on showtime and kind
of stole the show that night, and they just put
on him in ackmandof put on just a wonderful fight.
And so now he's in great position. He's with Golden Boy,
they're in that weight class. So his thought after the
fight was, I want to fight either the winner of
the fight that's upcoming between Arnold Barbosa and Jose Ramirez.
That's a fight that hasn't been a formally announced but
is supposedly taking place in late September, and if not that,
he wants the mandatory, which would be against Jose Valenzuela,
who just won that belt in the Crawford Nagrumov undercard
the previous week out in LA when he bumped off
and won the decision against Isaac Cruz. So you know,
Kenneth Sims is in a great position. Another deep weight
class can can hang with anybody. I don't know if
he's gonna win the fights or he's gonna lose the fights,
but he'll be competitive against any one hundred and forty
pounds out there, and Golden Boy is gonna do you know,
I think a good fight for him. So he's in
a great spot. That was a good performance from him,
a good performance from Conwell. Golden Boy's getting sneaky deep
with their roster. Let me tell you that they're getting
They've got very solid guys.
Speaker 1: And again you qualified it. I mean they propped up
a guy that's been fighting in a much smaller way
to fight in this. He hung in, but SAMs gets
the winning now makes himself for real. Love Listen.
Speaker 2: I will say this, I'm not sure who specifically is responsible,
and I know it was a mismatch, but this guy
had been out of the ring for so long. This
was their first fight with him. You really want to
do right by your guy, you want to get him
in the ring. So I have to tip the cap
to everybody involved in Golden Boy, whether you like that
fact that he fought Romero or not, the fact they
were able to save this man's fight and get him
paid and get him in the ring for the first
time in fifteen months. They really went to the mat
to try to get that done. And let me tell
you something, I know this for a fact. To get
an opponent passed in one day and then the Vada
State Athletic Commission, that is not an easy task, correct.
So credit to the folks at Golden Boy forgetting their guy.
They're in the ring.
Speaker 1: Okay. So now as we progress along, we have the
ESPN top ranked main event, which you probably know by
now if you're listening to this podcast. Boom goes the
Dynamite with a booming left hand knock Out of the
Year candidate shot from Angelo Leo, who now captures the
IBF featherweight title with Luis Alberto Lopez. I know I've
said this a couple of times before. It's easy to
say after the fact, but I'm just giving you a peek.
I was leaving you alone because the Ortiz Boachuk fight
had ended, they had announced the decision, they're doing the interviews,
the Lao fight is going on, so I left you alone.
I had a couple of other people around me that
could see my phone where I'm watching the Lao or
Lopez fight, and they're asking me what's going on, and
I'm filling them in. This is the top rank ESPN
main event. The guy on the right has been an
Albuquerque is an Albuquerque native and is now backfighting at
home and he's going for a world title. And I
said to one of those guys, as God is my witness,
I said, he keeps catching Lopez with punches going in
and maybe can knock him out with a big shot.
That's the intrigue here. I said that to this guy.
This is probably like about five rounds in. Sure enough,
I'm battling through, getting off the bus, getting to the
airplane with the Buccaneers to fly back from Cincinnati, and
boom with the left hook, he lays out Luis Alberto Lopez.
Double impact again scary. He slammed his head on the
canvas and didn't move for two or three seconds. I
still don't know, because I've seen the replay over and
over again. Why did the referee feel the need to
count if any if anytime you just wanted to say
that's it, you could have said that's it. He's not
moving Dan after the shot.
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, So I actually when you when I first
saw that. I sort of agreed with you when I
went back when I was writing my article about the
fight and I rewatched it. I don't have a problem
with the referee giving them account because Lopez was moving.
I mean, he wasn't maybe more you know, like like
Tyson Fury when he got dropped by Wilder in the
first fight. He didn't move for like five six seconds.
Then he started to move and the end then got
right up right, So I mean, it wasn't that that
kind of situation. But but uh, Lopez, he did start to, uh,
you know, get off his back and kind of sit up.
Then he rolled over onto his you know, on his side,
ends up a ref game the opportunity ended up counting
him out. So I didn't really see that to be
a big problem in the end though, spectacular knockout, really
good fight, very close fight. But finally and and and
the ESPN crew spoke about this in in this fight,
they've spoken about and passed Lopez fights there one hundred
percent correct. We've all talked about it. When it comes
to Lopez, he's so unorthodox. He throws his punches in
weird ways, he doesn't keep his left hand side. It's
just like it's a disaster waiting to happen. And finally,
uh and and and Angelo Leo spoke about this after
the fight about out. They've been working on his hook
and working on his hook for a long long time,
and they made him pay because before the knockout occurred,
this was a very tight, closed fight. You had you
had going into round number ten. You had Angelo Leo
ahead eighty six to eighty five on two score cards.
You had Lopez up by the same score on the
other scorecards. So they're locked in a what at that
moment is looking like a split decision with still uh
you know, three rounds to go. And this was what
I thought was interesting when they were in the middle
of that round. This is just right before the knockout,
they were in a clinch and the referee broke them apart.
You know, they took a step back, and as soon
as the fight resumed, the very first punch that Leo
threw was the hook that connected, Like it was almost
like Lopez didn't even expect him to throw a shot
because they were just coming out of a break. They're
gonna kind of mess around a little bit and then
they're gonna get back in the action, but he didn't
waste any time. He literally threw the hook on the
first shot and caught him with his hands down clean
as a whistle and just absolutely fucking flattened them in
the center, basically.
Speaker 1: Always devastating on the point of the chin with a
big punch.
Speaker 2: And I never really look, I mean angel Leo coming
into this fight, he only had eleven knockouts and twenty
four wins, so not knowing as a knockout puncher not
you know, and look, anybody can can can knock a
guy out of the guy doesn't see a shot. But
certainly the more known puncher in this fight and again
barely s barely a fifty percent knockout rate, was Lopez,
but he'd scored some spectacular knockouts. The Colin fight springs
to mind, and he was a big favorite in this fight,
but the unorthodox nature of the way he fights it
finally caught up to him and it was such a
brutal knockout like it makes you wonder does he ever
come back to this level again, Because they made mention
this on the broadcast and I was thinking about it also,
it was maybe not as harsh of a knockout. But
it was reminiscent in the fact that here was a
guy that had been a somewhat dominating champion and you
saw the knockout and you're like, this guy might be ruined.
And I was thinking about with Oscar Valdez knocked out
Miguel Burchelt in a similar sort of way, And just
by coincidence, it was Oscar Valdez who after the fight
was over and ESPN's cameras were in the dressing room
and they showed Lopez surrounded by his family. He was crying.
It was a you know, it was a really uncomfortable
scene to see he's with the family. But Oscar Valdez,
who I guess his friendly with Lopez, was there trying
to consul him about what had happened. But that's what
you know, you know, we say it all the time.
Sometimes you're the windshield and sometimes you're the bug, and this.
Speaker 1: Sport is different. It can be over in an instant,
and it was over right there, all right.
Speaker 2: So the first he looked by the way he's coming
into this fight, thinking, I mean, he's I mean, I
think he was focused on his opponent. It wasn't like
he was overlooking him. It was just that's how he fights,
in that unorthodox manner. But he was talking about, like
I'm going to get a unification against the winner of
the fight that's being planned for later this year, the
rematch between Rafael Espinoza and Robasi Ramirez in their WBO
featherweight title fight, an easy fight to make given their
top rank ties. He's thinking like, when THEI in away
goes to featherweight, I'm going to be there for him
with my belt to let him challenge me for the title,
make a big money fight in Japan. And he's got
grand plans and in an instant, they're gone because that
ain't happening now. He may ultimately get a fight like that,
but it's a long road back. And now angel Leo
slides right into that position. He was going after the
fight talking about how I want to get the unification.
I'd like to fight in a way.
Speaker 1: And off of that knockout, he's going to have some leverage.
That's for sure. So well right now in my mind,
and I was there for it. The Lucas body tremendous
one to two knockout of Ashton silv resonates to me
as the knockout of the year. Some will say, Anthony
Joshua folding Francis in Ghanu in half, and you're gonna
mention in Ghanu again a little bit later on here
in the podcast that one's going to get mentioned for
knockout of the year. Where does this Leayo? And maybe
you've got another one. Where does this Layo knockout rank?
Right now, sitting here in August for knockout of the year.
What do you think?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean my general rule of thumb, and I've
been picking knock out of the year since I started
working at USA today back in two thousand. I have
done a knockout of the ear every single year since,
you know, whether I was working there or I was
at ESPN or I'm doing my own thing, and my
thing first and foremost when I picked that is to
sheer violence of the knockout. Same thing I think about
when it's terms of the fight of the year is
forget about whether it's a club fight, it's a world
championship fight, it's the undisputed title fight, whatever is which
one made you jump out of your seat more, which
one was the more all my God type moment? And
even though This fight was for higher stakes because it
was for a world title. It was, you know, in
front of the hometown, and Lopez was a big favorite,
and he was also the guy that's been the road
warrior and here he is and the other guy's hometown
once again, that stakes were much beard in this fight.
But from the just pure violence element of it, I
still kind of guess I think I leaned towards the
body fight because that was just a I mean, this
was a rough heart. I mean, if you picked this one,
I'm not gonna argue with you. Okay, it's not like
I'm gonna I think you're crazy, But viscerally speaking for me,
I think I still lean a little bit towards watching
Ashton Silva get absolutely erased in that.
Speaker 1: Fight because he went down face for.
Speaker 2: They keep in mind, by the way, Ashton Silva had
won every single second of the fight until this. In
the fight between Lopez right and Leo, it can't come
as a complete utter shock because it wasn't even up fight.
They were both taking in shots, they were both competing,
they were both winning rounds, they were both landing punches
in the other one that I mentioned body and sylv
sylv had he was dominated, and that Healy made a
punch on the guy on the guy and suddenly.
Speaker 1: And look the Joshua kale I realized. For our friends
in the UK, they are much more partial to the
Joshua Ko. It happened in Saudi Arabia. But that's a
UK legendary heavyweight fighter right now in the modern era
who just splatted Francis and Ganu. So it'll be a
good debate. It'll be a good debate.
Speaker 2: I think it's safe to say whatever, whatever the results are, however,
whatever you may pick, or I may pick, or you know,
the Ring magazine may pick, or the Boxing Writers Association
of America may pick, or we don't pick a knock
out of your actually now they think about it. But
whatever outlet, you know, all the outlets picked their their
awards at the end of their websites and youtubes and whatever.
I think it's pretty safe to say that all three
of those knockouts you just mentioned are going to be
on the on those lists at the end of the year,
whatever happen. And that's whatever happens going forward.
Speaker 1: So Lao gets the big KO highlight moment for his
career for sure. All right, you know, yeah, and he
gets he gets a world title out of this, and this.
Speaker 2: This is a bigger win than he you know, back
when he won the WBO title at one hundred and
twenty two pounds was obviously a pretty big deal, but this,
to me is much bigger. That was a late replacement
fight because he was supposed to fight Fulton but he
had COVID. He ended up fighting the late sub Tremaine Williams,
who he easily outpointed, and then he had to give
Fulton the next shot and he lost a lopsided fight.
He's kind of lucky he didn't fight him for the
title in the first place, or we'd probably be talking
about a one time one division title holder. But this
was a bigger deal because it's a heavier weight. It
was it was against the guy that I think at
this point, coming into the fight, most people looked at
Lopez as probably the number one fighter in the way class. Granted,
featherweights had a lot of turnover and at the top
and guys who've moved up and et cetera. So you're
talking about a division you know where Ray Vargas who
was there but had lost, even though it was at
the heavier weight, you had Nick Ball who had just
you know, won a world title. Now now you have
Angelo Leo defeating Lopez for this title. And the other
title holder was what he got a Raphael Espinozo probably
the huge Upstez Ramirez. He got Brandon figurea of that
interim title. But I think because Lopez had made a
few defenses and had been more consistent, had been on
the road, that most people looked at that as like
he's the main guy right now in this way class.
Speaker 1: Not anymore, not anymore, not after that shot. Okay, Lyndolfo
Delgado on the undercard, tell me about him, and then
we've got one other fight to recap, and then we've
got some news and some Pernell Whittaker and heavyweight total nostalgia.
Go ahead.
Speaker 2: Lyndolfo Delgado is an interesting character here because I've never
really sort of been sure like how far he's gonna go.
He was an Olympian for Mexico in twenty sixteen. They've
got him to a record of twenty one and zero
now with fifteen knockouts, and he's been in some very exciting,
entertaining fights. But I've sort of never really sort of
believed in him as like, Okay, he's going to be
a world champion, but he's on the at this point.
He's whatever. I think is not relevant in terms of that,
because he's going to probably get a shot at some point.
He took out a very up in an opponent in
Brian Flores, fellow Mexican who was also undefeated going to
the fight, had one draw in his record. They put
on a very nice fight that wasn't like fight of
the year, but as an opening fight for the excellent
main event that we saw, they put on a pretty
good show. He got a knockdown in the third round
on a nice right hand. Flores kind of put himself
a little bit in a hole because he also got
a point deducted later in the fight. In the end, though,
it was a split decision, which I thought Delgado deserved.
He won ninety six, ninety two, ninety five, ninety three,
and then one of the judges on Floraes ninety six
to ninety two. But this is a good, solid victory
for him. It just keeps him undefeated and in the
one hundred and forty pound weight class, where there's a
lot of stuff going out. We were just talking about,
you know, earlier about Kenn the Simms in that weight class,
and and all the all the different guys in there
about whether it's Ramirez and Barbosa, and now obviously you
got ta Fimo lopezz with top rank is a champion.
I mean, there's there's good fighters in this weight class.
You know, we'll see what Devin Haney does moving forward.
Point is, you know you still got Real Valenzuela, you
got Pitt bull Crue. I mean, this is a very
loaded weight class, and I'm not saying Delgado is at
the top of that weight class, but these guys all
need opponents, and he's got aspirations also, So it doesn't
seem to me that it's an outland to think to
think he might land one of these types of fights.
You know, Top rank is good at making those kind
of matches, moving their guys along. So it was a
good victory for him. And by the way, Flores, who
I had not really seen much of prior to that fight,
he didn't fight a bad fight. You absolutely can. He
didn't like ruin his career. It's not like he's done.
He got a tough, close loss to an undefeated olympian.
No reason why you know, go back in the gym,
work on your craft, and you know we'll hopefully see
him back in the ring in another solid matchup in
a few months.
Speaker 1: By one other fight that you have on our rundown,
it is the Fight Freaks Unit Recap podcast. After all,
that was the vacant IBF flyweight title from Friday night
in Mexico City, Mexico City, a zan for Promotions card
and on hell ayala is the winner. Rightfield goes deep, folks,
deep into the weeds to give you recaps an info.
Tell me more about this real quick from Friday.
Speaker 2: Well, probably it was not the deepest weekend of all time,
but this was an interesting fight. You have remember back
in December of last year, you had the very high
profile fightal list, as far as high profile can be
in the flyweight division. You had what was a very
anticipated fight between Jesse Bam Rodriguez and Sonny Edwards. They
were fighting in December to unify the WBO and the
IBF title and obviously Vam Rodriguez won the fight and
ultimately he vacated the titles and moved up and wait,
so this was the matchup that the IBF mandated between
Iala and a Filipino fighter named Dave Applelonario to fill
that vacancy, and they fought that fight in Mexico City.
It was on ESPN. It was a xand for Promotions
card and Zanfer works very closely with top Ranco over
the last number of decades, so they had this as
part of their ESPN plus offering. Uh. And it was
a fun fight, as you would expect when you see,
you know, a good raucous Mexican crowd. With the Mexican
flyweight they actually have developed a pretty good rivalry with
their Filipino counterpart. They put on a fun fight and
Ayala just beat the drum, beat the body like a
drum of this guy and ended up knocking him out
in the sixth round. But the body shots did it.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And you know what, fly weight is one of those
weight classes where traditionally there's h you know, it's kind
of like feast or famous. Sometimes there's lots of interesting
fights and sometimes there's not. But having Ayala in the
weight class uh from Mexico, in a weight class that
does not get a lot of love. The other ones
are guys that are based sometimes in Asia. In this case,
we saw Anthony alas Cagua win a title in the
in the recent pass on one of the cards in Japan,
he'll be fighting Jonathan Gonzalez in their mandatory. So there's
a little action in fly weights. But angel Ayala, he
deserves a little props. He put on a good fight,
He scored a nice knockout, was exciting, uh, and he
showed UH that the Mexican boxers learned how to throw
body punches from the crib.
Speaker 1: My goodness. All right, So lots of recaps, A little
bit of news here before we get to the nostalgia.
Tell me more. I know boxing scene is reporting this.
You've done some digging this weekend. What about Nonito Donair
and Chaco Latito Gonzalez. What are we hearing about that one?
I know you're all intrigued whenever we bring up those
two names.
Speaker 2: Look, I wrote in one of my random Thoughts columns
just a couple of weeks ago, like I want to
see this fight. It was like, give me this old
man fight. And the reason that came up was because
Chocolatito Gonzalez had come back after a long layoff. He
had fought the fight in Panama. He had looked pretty good.
In doing so, he'd gotten a win and I was like, okay,
he's back in action. He had moved up to banda
weaight not fully at bandeweight. The fight was at one
hundred and seventeen pounds, but he knocked out Robert Barrera
in the tenth round. This was back on July twelfth,
and so Nonino Donaire, although he's been out of the
ring for a bit and hadn't fought since July of
last year. The fight that we were at when he
fought on the undercart of Arrow Spence and Terrence Crawford
and lost the WBC Bantamway title by a decision to
Alexandro Santiago. But Donaire has maintained since then that he
did plan to not retire at that point. And so,
if you have the name recognition of a Donair, a
first ballot Hall of Famer, was one world titles in
multiple weight classes, and your Roman Chocolate Tito Gonzalez, and
you don't have any welld title fight teed up, but
you want to have a big fight, you want to
make some money, You want to put on a fight
that people are going to be interested in. You're also
a future Hall of famer who's won titles in a
multitude of weight classes. You're talking about two of the
best small weight fighters in the history of boxing, between
Nonito Donair and Roman Gonzales. Roman Gonzalez at one time
was considered the pound for pound number one. Nondo Donaire
is a guy that has been involved in a fight
of the year. He's been the fighter of the year.
I mean, this is a very decorated guy, a very
well liked fighter. Both of them have great reputations among
the media, among the fans, among boxing insiders, and you
know what, they're at the end of their careers. They're
in their twilight and if you're going to still fight,
at least do it against somebody that is of that stature,
that is worthy of you being in the ring with them,
that is also at least in your age group. So
you're not fighting you know, I don't want to see Gonzalez.
I don't want to see Donato fighting guys who are like,
you know, fifteen twenty years younger. There were some conversation
about maybe dam Rodriguez fighting against Roman Gonzalez, who are
close to each other, they spar together, they both are
with also teaking boxing. Mister Honda, as a certain lover
his fighters, does not love putting them in together. Maybe
for the money, for the right event, if they both
wanted it, he would do it. But I think he
would much rather do a Donair against Gonzales where it's
more evenly matched, because I think, honestly nothing against Roman,
who I absolutely adore, But at this moment in time,
you can't tell me if you're making Roman Gonzalez against
Bam Rodriguez that where Bam is at the moment, he's
not going to be a very heavy duty favorite. And
I don't need to see Roman get beat up at
the end of his career, right. But if you want
to make a fight between him and Dona Air where
at least it's like they're on even playing ground, where
they're about the same age, and they have about the
same amount of you know, mileage on that old dometer,
you know what, give me the old man fight unless
you can rise and get one more big win, and
you know what, I think a lot of fans would
love to see it. They're great names, they've been exciting fighters,
big punchers, you know, great ambassadors for the sport, Guys
with great reputations, outside the ring. Uh so you know
what if if they're talking, you know, that's a good thing.
I would love to see that fight. I think that's
a very doable, makeable fight. It's a fight that I
can't imagine that one of the broadcasters wouldn't have some
interest in. Certainly. Uh uh, you know, if you are
doing boxing broadcasting, why wouldn't you want to do that fight.
It's not it's not going to cost gazillions of dollars,
but you're definitely gonna get some eyeballs on that fight.
And they're legendary names. So that's a fight that's being
discussed and nod You know, Denair was on the record
saying that they're talking about new Yaks. So what happened
by the end of this year. I think there's a
very good chance that I would The only way I
think it maybe wouldn't is if somebody drops some kind
of world title fight. You know, in Roman Gonzalez's lap,
we have we have Bamar Riggaz or something else. All Right.
Speaker 1: I mentioned a few minutes ago Francis and Ganu. Francis
a gan who's on my rundown because he's returning to
mixed martial arts and he's uh and he's fighting what
Renon Ferreira in the Professional Fighters League? All right, so
what why is this on the rundown here for boxing
just because of the names, because of and Ferreira.
Speaker 2: No, because Nigan who had made his presence known in boxing.
Here's a guy that came into the sport in terms
of boxing as a professional as opposed to in MMA,
and in his pro debut almost or should have in
many people's viewpoint, defeated the then heavyweight champion Tyson Fury.
Turned out to be a split decision. He scored a
knockdown against the champ, you know, in a very shocking situation.
Was a huge event. And then after that he got
to fight with Anthony Joshua, as we discussed earlier, got splattered.
But here's a guy in his first two pro boxing
matches thought the two biggest names in the heavyweight division,
you know, probably could have won the first one, that
didn't win the second one, but made the decision to
return to mixed Mars Larks. Now he's no longer with
the with the UFC off it that's you know, that
was a story from before before he got to fight
with Tyson Ferry where he had didn't want to do
a new contract and he ended up getting stripped of
their title at evyweight and left to come to boxing.
But this is not a surprise. I mean there was
always the conversation when he signed with PFL that when
he was done with his dalliance with boxing, he would
go back to the PFL and take on their champion,
like you said, Raynon Ferra. But the reason that's on
the rundown is because I think boxing fans have a
healthy respect for Niganu what he tried to do. I
know he was a very appealing personality, and I know
we cover boxing, but you know what, anytime you see
a guy that fought the heavyweight champ the way he
did and then took on Anthony Joshua, it's not worth
a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1: Also have it there because maybe this is an indication
that he isn't going to try boxing anymore. He made
his money, he got splatted in the second fight, and
now whatever's left he's going to do what he has
been doing now that he made his bag. As the
kids like to say on the two heavyweight fights.
Speaker 2: I think it will depend on maybe how this fight goes.
That fight's supposed to be on October nineteenth. It's a
pay per view in the United States, so that'll be
on an ESPN Plus. But I will say this, I mean,
people can mock Niganu for what he did in boxing,
because he you know, he tried to do what he did.
I have a huge, healthy respect for Niganu first seeing
him not only take the opportunity to do that and
make a couple of big events, but take it seriously.
Put obviously in an excellent performance against Fury. Now I
mean we started, he took it.
Speaker 1: To say, you use the word. He took it much
more seriously than Fury obviously did in training and preparing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that that's one of the things, Like I
look at the way he thought Fury and the and
the posters of that fight. Part it was because of
his preparation and being ready for the fight, but you'd
be less than honest. He didn't say. Part it was
because Fury just did not take it seriously at all.
And uh, and he paid the price, even though he
ended up getting the victory. So anyway, I just thought
it was I thought it was interesting when that was
out out and let's be honest. Also, there's not a
lot of other big news this weekend other than the
actual results of the fight that we're talking about, so
we try to present a little cross section of what's
going on. But I'll tell you what, TJ. I'm I'm
gonna root for Niganu just as a like I don't
buy pay per views on MMA, I might actually buy
this just to see Nigano. I interviewed him when he
was getting ready for the for the Joshua fight, right
or maybe in the Fury fight, I forget which one
it was, but I found it to be an incredibly
appealing personality, very very likable. Seeing other interviews with him,
I don't know how you cannot respect them like this guy.
And also, I mean, it's not anything to do with
his return to the field of his sport, but it's
hard also not to have feelings about it because in
the time period since the Joshua loss and the announcing
this fight, you know, he had a very young, you know,
infant or toddler son that passed that died. I mean, yes,
that's a devastating situation for him to go through, and
so I just wish him nothing but the best. YEP.
Speaker 1: And he's a he is a legend from UFC. He's
up there in age, so there's I mean, there's a
big appeal if you're a mixed martial arts fan. There's
no doubt about him. Okay, nostalgia to wrap it up,
I do not I say this all the time. I
do not believe this one. I remember the Perneto Whittaker
ko that we're about to talk about, but this card
was thirty four years ago. Tonight, as we do the podcast,
August eleven, nineteen ninety, Parnell Whittaker one round destruction of
Juan Nazario. And it's not just that sweet Pee Whittaker
won the undisputed title, but there were a couple of
other prominent names that were also on this card as well.
August of nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: Do tell me more so, if this card was taking
place this weekend, it probably been like an eighty dollars
pay per view. That's what That's what happens in boxing
these days.
Speaker 1: Because we have eighty dollars pay per views with a
whole lot less than the names you're about to give go.
Speaker 2: That is correct. So basically this was a main events
they put on this triple header on HBO in in
Caesar's Tahoe in you know the resort up you know
in State Line, Nevada, Lake Tahoe and Prono Whittaker, who
the late great fighter Hall of Famer. I mean, anybody
that follows boxing or knows ing about Whitaker the exact
opposite of what you would refer to as a puncher.
I mean the slick, most you know, brilliant defense you
ever see this side of Willie Peppin and Floyd Mayweather.
I mean, just a brilliant, brilliant tactician. And the result
of this fight was utterly shocking. So by you know,
he comes into the fight as the WBC and the
IF champion in the lightweight division. Keep in mind this
is the three belt era one the Zario comes into
the to the fight as the WBA champion and their
meeting for the undisputed title. That's like a big deal, right,
I mean, that's that's uh correct, that's big stuff back then.
And I'll tell you how big it is is because
ever since Parnel Whittaker became the undisputed lightweight champion by
winning this fight, there hadn't been another lightweight champion three
belts or four belts since until Devin Haney did it
when he fought George Cambosis. That's a very long period
of time. Nonetheless, they went into this fight and you
figured it's going to be a boxing match. And the
shocker of all shockers is you have Pernel Whittaker, the
non puncher. Pernol Whitaker scores a first round knockout left
hand on the chin and the Zario I guess just
never saw the shot, and Parnel Whitaker, in the most
unlikely of fashion, becomes the undisputed champion. In his whole
entire career, Pernol Whittaker, I mean, he scored some knockouts,
but there's only two that are really kind of memorable.
One was this knockout because the stakes of becoming undisputed,
and the other one he got to fast forward a
number of years when he was in the welterweight division
and sort of winding down his career and he had
the gigantic fight title defense against Oscar de la Hoya
at stake and he's getting his rear end kick by
Diabelli s Artado and comes up clutch and scores a
knockout in the last round of the fight, which was
like an unheard of situation. I mean, so the two
big knockouts that he had, he scores a first round
knockout in that hur title knockout actually was in the
eleventh round. He was losing every round. Dala Hoya's ring
side watching his gigantic paid it and the title shot
go down the toilet and Paranel pulls it out with
the eleventh round KO. But the first round KO in
some ways was more impressive because he was still he
was in his prime at that point. He's going for undisputed, huge,
huge deal. So that was a very exciting knockout for Parnel,
not a guy known for those types of shots. Now
you mentioned the other guys on the cart, You've got
the late great Hector Camacho, who at the time was
thirty seven and zero. And now this was a time
when the WBO was a title, but nobody considered it
like the real title. Like they didn't even reference this
as a title fight on the broadcast. No, it wasn't
written like by that by any of the writers. It
was sort of just a third, second tier type belt. Nonetheless,
Camacho fat a fighter named Tony Baltazar defended that title
and won a twelve round decision. Not a particularly great fight,
great name obviously, but you know not it wasn't considered
at the time to be like an honest to goodness
world title fight because it just wasn't because nobody thought
about it was a low rent belt. But okay, he
was defending that belt and he won it. And now
you go to the other fight that was on the card.
We talk about big names. You have the main events staple,
which was Meldrick Taylor, and Meldrick Taylor had been one
of their great champions, Olympic gold medalists, had been you know,
one of the pound for pound guys, and dazzled been
on the networks on HBO. And the thing that was
not about this particular fight is that he's coming off
of the loss in fight number one against Chavez where
he got stopped with two seconds left in that very
famous fight, and they were this was sort of like
the beginning of trying to bring him back. He was
fighting now you count.
Speaker 1: Five versus what five months later after that dramatic, crazy
ending where he stopped in the last round.
Speaker 2: Correct, Well, the first fight was what February was six
months later.
Speaker 1: Right, he thought that March. They fought in March. They
fought in March of ninety after the Buster Douglas fight.
Speaker 2: Correct, Correct, because it was on Saint Patrick's Day weekend.
And now that was the loss. And now he's being
brought back in August.
Speaker 1: And by and by the way, just another little sidebar.
You look at Mildred Taylor's face and the bloody mouth
and the bloody nose, and you look at Chavez at
the end of that fight. That fight would to your
point what we're talking about earlier, that fight wouldn't lend
you to believe Taylor's won a decision. Of course, that's
a great example of it.
Speaker 2: Facial damage is nothing to do.
Speaker 1: It did not matter because Chavez got the stoppage. CONTROVERSI
as it was, I sidetracked. You continue on, Taylor's comeback
began right here.
Speaker 2: Go. Yeah, So he had fought the fight with Chavez
that was to unify two of the belts that wont Now,
because this was not a title fight, they weren't sure
where he was going. He's now fighting this fight about
one hundred and forty four pounds against a fighter named
Fremont who was a reputable type of opponent, kind of
journeyman ish but you know, had some losses, but a
sturdy guy. Anyway, Melgic won the ten round decision and
started like a short little I guess that was like
a big winning streak or anything like that. But as
they were trying to bring him back, and because remember
even though a lot of people look at the fight
against Meldric and Chavez say that's where Meldrick was done
and he was never the same again, which is arguably accurate.
But he did win another world title after that happened.
I mean, he you know, that's just the fact that
he did go on and win another championship. So he
went on a little bit of a winning streak here,
but not against the top top names. Although he did
beat like an undefeated Aaron Superman Davis, he did beat
an undefeated Luis Garcia like he wasn't just beating like nobody's.
He eventually won the WBA belt and then he petered
out a couple of years later when he got absolutely
destroyed by Terry Norris and Croissanto Espana. And that was
pretty much all she wrote. But this was for the
comeback after that legendary fight against Chavez in the loss,
this was the beginning of it. And like I said,
he got to win. It wasn't anything that you're going
to write home without, but he won pretty handily. You know,
it was a ten round in ninety seven to ninety
two on two scorecards, ninety eight ninety one on a third,
and people still at this point, you know, we look
back in the long view of history, but at the
time it was happening, there was lots of questions about
what is he going to have left And he won
the fight, and I think people thought, Okay, maybe he
can come back and you know, be a champion in
and do something, which he ultimately did win a belt,
but it was short lived. But the point here is
he got historical guys on the card. He got Whittaker
becoming the undisputed champ, he got Camacho who was still undefeated,
and he got Meldrech Taylor coming back after after the
legendary loss to Chavis.
Speaker 1: And by the way, on HBO premium cable, yes, but
not on a pay per view because it really didn't
exist in that form. It was more closed circuit. Pay
per view was just coming around in nineteen ninety you
got all three of those names that night thirty four
years ago. All right, move forward to two thousand and
six and Monday, August twelfth of two thousand and six,
you were ringside for a heavyweight title rematch and Oleg
moskaev ends up defeating Hassim Rockmand to win the WBC
Heavyweight Championship. What do we remember nostalgically about that night
in two thousand and six, eighteen years ago.
Speaker 2: This was a pretty wild situation. Just remember, first of all,
if you go back that you were talking about the
rematch between Oleg Maskat and Rockman. Six seven years before
they had the rematch for the WBC heavyweight title, they
fought in a non title fight on HBO in Atlantic City,
in an excellent fight when these guys were both you know,
still up and coming type heavyweights, and spectacularly, absolutely spectacularly,
Olegg Maskave knocked Hassim Rockman out of the ring onto
the arena floor. He literally fell basically in Jim Lampley's lap,
right right next to his lap on the broadcast now position.
At ringside. There was a riot that ensued with people
throwing chairs and stuff. It was absolutely a wild scene.
But Rockman got knocked the fuck out of the ring.
Now years later, Rockman has the WBC heavyweight title and
they're doing this fight. He was with Top Rank at
the time when they're doing the rematch, and they're doing
this rematch at the Thomas and Max Center in Las Vegas.
I you know, I traveled for that fight, and it
was the way that the fight was promoted, which was
I think one of the more ingenious sort of it
didn't do very well on pay per view because it
was sort of rejected because they weren't big names, wasn't
really worthy of necessary pay per view. Was the dead
of summer. I remember being I literally remember like being
one hundred and fifteen degrees in Vegas that that week
being out there. But they titled the fight America's Last
Line of Defense, and the reason was because Rockman. You know,
remember now it's it's normal, but back then, if you
didn't have at least one of the heavyweight champions as
an American, it was like it was not even conceivable. Right,
The Americans had dominated the heavyweight division since boxing was
basically created, but to become more and more Eastern European dominated.
So going into this fight, now we're talking about the
four belt era, and Rockman has the WBC title. But
she got Sergei Layakovich from Delarus, who's got the WBO title.
He got Nikolai Valuev from Russia, who's got the WBA title.
He got the legendary great Ukrainian Vladimir Klitschko, who has
at that time the IBF title. So olegg Maski is
from Russia. And the thing is okay. If he loses Rockman,
he's the America's last line of defense for a heavyweight champion.
If if Rockman loses, all four heavyweight title bots are
now controlled by by fighters from former Soviet Republic, you know, countries,
Russia and the others I mentioned. It's like inconceivable, and
they put out a hell of a fight, by the way,
and like always, what happened is astin Rockman. Other than
the one time he knocked out Lennox Lewis to become
the champion, the legit champion, he couldn't close the show.
Bucker got knocked out, you know, in a fight he
should have won. That he was winning, and that's all
she wrote. He got knocked out in the in the
twelfth round. All you do was kind of hanging on.
He was a head on one scorecard, he had been
trailing on two others because he had been you'd been
kind of fading as the fight went on, and it
was It wasn't a spectaculary knockout the way it was
when he got knocked out of the ring in their
first fight, but it was a conclusive enough victory in
terms of the way the knocking occurred that you're like, okay,
MASKIV just got this guy's number, and just it just
showed once again that Rockman as likable the guy he was,
and as fun of a fighter as he was to watch.
He just other than that lennyx flwis fight could not
close the show. He was making a second defense of
the WBC belt, and you know, it was one of
those things, I mean, there was I remember there was
definitely a somewhat of a split among the ringside media
and the broadcaster of who was winning the fight. My
recollection is I had Rockman slightly ahead, others had MASKIV
slightly ahead. In the end, it really didn't turn out
to make one bit of difference because he got knocked out.
I do remember Bob Aram, who promoted the show, lamenting
on a number of occasions afterwards how much money he
lost in this event because they put it on HBO
pay per view and it did very very little in
terms of the business and was basically rejected. I think
they it did maybe like fifty thousand buys. It was
a fight that, you know, I think he he talked
about needing like probably over one hundred to break even,
and they just got clobbered on this fight. But it was,
you know, it was an exciting heavyweight title fight and
and Rockman got knocked that once again by Maskiff.
Speaker 1: So what you're telling me is even eighteen years ago,
there was understanding that not every fight belongs on pay
per view, and this is an example, and there's a
spectacular and there were.
Speaker 2: Some other there were some other decent names on the
Showy had David Diaz in an interim lightweight title fight
against Jose Armando Santa Cruz Romberdo Soda who was a
popular fighter for a while, and one titles and a
couple of weight classes, and a good fight against Ivan vae.
He had a young Mikey Garcia who was not known
at the time. He wasn't on the pay per view,
he was just deep on the undercart he was in
a second professional fight. You know, would go on and win,
you know, titles in like four different weight classes and
be involved in some very big fights. So you know,
that's why you always got to pay attention to these
undercards when you see these promoters put them on. Those
are the future guys in the main events.
Speaker 1: Love it some good nostalgia there, and whenever it's the heavyweights,
we always seem to care more about about them, that's
for sure. By the way, I'm looking at the Rayfield
social media and go check out the photo of the
Triple Hitter, not the Triple Header with Pernell Whittaker, Hector
Camacho and Mildred Taylor fight poster that you have in
the Rayfield Collection. We are never We're always unabashed in
our accolades for the Rayfield Collection to have a poster
of the Triple Hitter h I. T. T. E. R.
Marketing for the three fight card that was now thirty
four years ago Sunday Night, August the eleventh.
Speaker 2: By the way, back to the heavyweight fight, there was
a lot of conversation after MASKV defeated Rockman that they
would try to make a unification fight between mask and Klitchkow,
and for different reasons done ended up happening. But that
would have been like a pretty big deal at the time.
And one of the other things, by the way, dealing
with with MASKIV from my perspective as a reporter, was
always fun, is that he was managed by Dennis Rappaport,
who was one of the biggest looney tunes in the
history of boxing, probably most famous for managing Jerry Cooney
back in the day when he thought Larry Hols. I
did go and check out the HBO twenty what is it?
The HBO Legendary Knights documentary on that fight between Holmes
and Cooney. There's a bunch of stuff in there about
the kind of character that Dennis Rappaport was. I always
got along good with the guy. To me, he just
cracked me up every time I talked to him. He
was he was so over the top and everything. But
you know, when when maskave was going strong and he
was near the top and I was dealing with you know,
Dennis passed a few years ago, but when I would
deal with them, he had a lot of people hated
the guy and maybe not the most honest business guy,
but I didn't do business with him, you know, I
was dealing with him for stuff on his fighters and
the guys he worked with. I always enjoyed are back
and forth. He was a hilarious to deal with. I
always found him to be very amusing to me. And
you know, he was one of the guys that when
you talk about characters in boxing, Dennis Rappaport was a
character in boxing for sure.
Speaker 1: Nostalgia on top of the nostalgia, I love it so
a great action that we have recapped. Again. If you
enjoy this, make sure you're following, subscribing, rating, and reviewing
us on Apple's Preaker Spotify. We come your way twice
every week previewing going into the weekend, and you've been
listening here to the fight for each to night recap.
Other than that, we're ready for another week Christian Mobili
main event later this week. We look forward to that
super middleweight contend.
Speaker 2: Let me say one thing about that. Yeah, just so
we're on the record, we talked about how we all
thought that the fight between Virgil Ortiz and Sara Bochuk
would be a good, excellent, exciting action fight.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, I'm.
Speaker 2: Telling you right now Mabilly and Devin Schenko, and you
never know exactly what's gonna happen, but I'm pretty pretty
sure that that's gonna be.
Speaker 1: Don't seal up, don't seal up the envelope with your
fight of the year yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly saying we're gonna have a lot to talk about.
I think after that one, because Devaco is never in
a bad fight, but Billy is in good fights. They're
both strong, they both have chins. I think, uh, it's
it's a it's a very very solid fight.
Speaker 1: There's a tease for the preview pod later on in
the week as we come away with the Big Fight
weekend preview. By the way, as we escape here, one
of us had Angelo Leo plus three point fifty on
the bet Us Show on the money line, chu ching.
I don't get them all right, but that left hook.
If you had Leo to win, not even by knockout,
just to win, you were cashing three and a half
to one.
Speaker 2: So how I guess I had my good one the
previous week. I mean, I think you had a loss,
but we had Bacoli on the big upside.
Speaker 1: You had Bacoli on the money line. I had him
by decision. I didn't cash, so I cashed one. I
think it was plus one eighty plus one. Angratulations, we're giving.
We're giving some advice out on the bet Us Show,
and it came through with Angelo Leo. If you were
on him for.
Speaker 2: That knockout, that was a good pick.
Speaker 1: Listen, my friend, have a good week. We're back with
more later in the week in the preview mode. Thank you,
Dan Rayfield. Yes, sir, there is our insider. Go subscribe
to his Fight Preach to Night substack as well, and
get on the newsletter. Get all the info at all
the nostalgia news, previews, recaps, and much more historical perspective.
For now, we are good. I'm merely TJ Reeves on
the Fight Preach to Night Recap podcast