Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time.
Speaker 2: This is Big Fight Weekend now here is your host,
DJ Leaves.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not.
Speaker 2: It is the first weekend in December, the final month
of the year, and we've got action all over the
place from Phoenix to Puerto Rico and even Rayfield has
down on the list a Bulgarian heavyweight. About that we
shall discuss. It is the Big Fight Weekend preview podcast.
Speaker 1: Hello, I am the somewhat competent.
Speaker 2: Host, TJ Reeves. He is our insider. Fight Freaks United
is the substack and the newsletter. Hello Big Dan Rayfield,
who is very anxious to not only preview these fights
but also talk Hall of Fame Hall of Fame announcement
already for this week. How you feeling as we head
into the weekend? I cannot believe. I really can't believe
that we're almost to the end of twenty twenty four.
But here we go with the final month of the year.
Speaker 1: TJ.
Speaker 3: It happens every year, so what's sort to be surprised about?
Speaker 2: This is true, It's just a matter of how fast
we've kind of gone along.
Speaker 1: With this year. That's true. They said it wouldn't last.
Speaker 2: Here we are here. We are about to conclude a
third year together. Thank you for finding us. Make sure
you rate us in review us and a lot of
you have been doing that. Keep the ratings and reviews coming,
the five star reviews. Help take thirty seconds and do that.
That helps with the algorithms with everybody finding us, and
also follow and subscribe. We preview going into the weekend,
usually Thursday night into Friday. We recap Sunday and a Monday,
depending on schedules, etc. On how we get it done.
We've we've done a diligent job of that through the
first eleven months of the year and really the three
years that we've been doing this.
Speaker 1: So we keep it up. If you like it, say so.
We love that. And by the way, again give Dan.
Speaker 2: A subscription if you want the I mean tremendous stuff
I got to say on the substack about the Hall
of Fame and the end depth stuff I was reading
earlier today. Your Show and Tell is always tremendous with
your stuff besides social media, I love it and we
do nostalgia on these podcasts. So again, subscribe to his
Fight Freaks Unite substack. Am I done with the commercials?
Speaker 1: I think I am.
Speaker 2: We're let's get let's get into it where we've got
several interesting main event fights, really co mains event, if
you will, for the top rank show in Phoenix. All right,
you have previewed thoroughly through the voice of Emanuel Navarate,
this fight with Oscar Valdez. It is a rematch, it's
the WBO Junior Lightweight Championship, it's the top rank main
event in Phoenix. Here we go with fight weekend thoughts
on what's about to unfold here, we've been waiting a
little bit for this. It's now about it's now about
to happen.
Speaker 3: Well, I think what's going to unfold is violence. It's
gonna be violence. I mean, that's the end of the story.
Both of these fighters, of Valdez and Navarette, I've been
in bombs away kind of fights. Our first fight was
that kind of fight. Now, I've actually seen comments TJ
from folks who say, well, I really want to see
the rematch. I don't really need to see the rematch.
And I understand that the first fight, although a really good,
exciting fight, and maybe it didn't live up to being
the fight of the year. Maybe it didn't live up
to Barrera Morales, which is how was sort of positioned
and promoted, and both Baron Morales was there, were there
to be a part of the promotion. But it was
still one hell of a fight, and yeah, okay, and
Matt never Ate was the clear winner. There's nobody disputing that.
Even oscar val Does doesn't dispute that right. But the
reason it's happening is because never Ata, he moved up
to the one hundred and thirty five pound weight class,
got whipped by Denny's Barentchik in an attempt to win
the title of the WBO in that weight division and
try to become a four time or rather a four
division world champion.
Speaker 2: And we should add look slow and out of the
shape terrible, and I remember saying to you he should
go back down to one thirty get in shape.
Speaker 3: But the point of it is, though, when he took
the opportunity to try to go for the thirty five
pound title, at that point that title was not active
and so therefore the WBO allowed Oscarvella that does to
fight for the interim title. He looked really sharp and
good against Liam Wilson in a knockout victory that took
place in March. Now, remember Liam Wilson had given a
really hard, tough fight, you know against Neverette that was
like no joke of a fight.
Speaker 1: I mean he really needing knocking him down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it was if the guy that's got the
belt is moving up, having the guy that's been a
title holder in two weight divisions against the guy that
gave the champ a lot of troubles and Valdez who
gave him a tough fight in the first fight. They
matched up for the interim title, and I think most
people figured, you know what, win or lose, because Emmanuel
never write he's always got the issues making weight that
whatever happened, he was going to stay one hundred and
thirty five pounds. He was the favorite against Brentchick. He
lost a fight, and he decided, and I think the
right decision. He made the right decision to come back
to one thirty where he's probably better served. He also
can make a lot more money with the title in
that weight class, and he ken just fighting a regular
contender at one thirty five without a title fight, and
so it was the mandated fight. One thing I do
like about the WBO is when they do do an
interim title, which is not too often, but they try
to clean it up, you know, as soon as possible.
So all things considered, this is a very good rematch.
Two Mexican warriors. Two guys are gonna come to fight.
Can't imagine is being a bad fight. Uh, And we're
gonna find out what Naverette can do well. Listen, He's
not had the best to run recently. He's got a
loss to Barentchik, who was you know, a much better
than him on that night he had to draw against
contests out in the previous fight.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: And then before that was the Valdez fight. So he's
oh one and one in his previous two and Oscar Valdez,
although he did lose the fight against uh Navarette the
first time around, he looked really good in the Leam
Wilson fights. So I think this is a good fight.
I mean, I wouldn't sh be shocked if if Valdez
won the fight, and I wouldn't be shocked if Naverette
won the fight. But I know it will be a
good fight to watch and the winner, obviously he's gonna
have this title and is going to be a great
in a great position and you know, has a chance
I think in the future to maybe match up with
the winner of the undercard fight, which we'll talk about.
But I'm excited. I mean, look, I think it's a
good matchup. But I'm actually for me, this is the
action wise, probably the best fight of the weekend.
Speaker 2: And I always enjoy navaraate in the Baranchiic fight. Again,
he looks slow to me et cetera, But.
Speaker 3: I who's a scientistic kind of mover box.
Speaker 2: But I like Navarate throwing bombs. I like keep throwing
bombs from different angles. Let's see if we get back
to that. The only thing and I don't want to
go down a rabbit hole. We don't know this, and
we rarely say this, but he's had problems previously, by
his own admission, making one thirty. I wonder as we
go Thursday night into Friday, are we going to have
any weight drama here with him. We don't know that,
hopefully not reporting that. I'm just speculating that. You wonder
how hard it was for him to make one thirty.
I guess we're about to find out.
Speaker 1: Who knows?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, even when he's had the struggles,
he has still made it, and for Oscar Valdez it
shouldn't be any problem. He's he's in the perfect weight
class for his size. So look, I expect, I expect
a good, rugget, tough fight like we simply like we
typically will get between we got the first time, and
like we've seen in typical fights involving either Oscar Valdez
or a angel never at te they match up very
well together. And you know, I have to admit, I mean,
I can't help but be a fan of Oscar Valdezz
for a long time. He's as exciting a fighter, as
honest a fighter as you'll see in terms of the
way he goes about his business in the ring, just
trying to just push forward and win under any circumstances.
I've seen him with some brutal injury in the fight
against Scott Quigg that I covered. That was an amazing situation,
brought the bust of jaw. You know, tremendous amateur, two
time Mexican Olympian, being a good world champion in two
way classes and in terms of outside the ring, just
an extremely likable person his whole team and family. Just
a good dude.
Speaker 2: And again hear more from Navarat through the interpreter. You
talked with him one on one. That's on the pod
feed immediately before this podcast. If they want to hear
a few minutes of Emanuel navaraate chilled as you said.
He was in a reclining position when you were talking
to him a little bit there, but it was good stuff,
all right. So immediately preceding that fight is the cofeature
or if not, the co main event, and it is
the featherweight world title rematch for Rafael Espinosa who upset
Roba C. Ramirez. What a good distance back. Now they
finally get together for various reasons. This is taken a
little bit, but they now get together.
Speaker 1: For the rematch.
Speaker 2: When Ramirez was kind of a rising star for Top
Rank who had garnered a world title, made a defense
and then Esponosa upset him. Rematch time, Big Dan and
Phoenix on this card Saturday Night, give me a little more.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, without having to sell it because
no one's paying me to do so. I wish they
were clearly this could be the main event. I mean,
this is a great way for Top Rank to end
its year in terms of United States fights. They still
involved with the Tyson Fury fight a new sick. They're
still obviously involved with the in a way fight that
takes place Christmas Eve, but in terms of their their
domestic slate of fights on ESPN, this is the finale
of the year and for them to offer these two
rematch title fights is excellent because Ramirez against Espinoza certainly
could have could be the main event. The way it was, frankly,
the first time that they had a fight against each other,
that was one year ago when they fought the first
time around, it was almost one year to the day.
That took place on December ninth of twenty twenty three.
This will be on December seventh, twenty twenty four. They
originally contemplated doing a rematch in the summer, but the
way it was explained to me by top Rank was
it Espino's on his team. They wanted to have an
interim fight. They wanted to make one defense before they
agreed to do their rematch. So he fought and defeated
Sergio Chirino in the fourth round back in June, in
the same month you had Robas Ramirez. He got his
so called tune up fight. He won that fight, and
now it took a little while to get the rematch
all squared away, but it's done and it will take
place on Saturday. And you know, we have no idea
what to expect in this fight, Like we may not
know who's gonna win Valdez agan'st naverette, but we kind
of know the styles of what's going to happen. It's
gonna be probably an action tack fight. Not to say
that this won't be that, but I just have no
way to put my finger on this fight. And the
one thing about it is in terms of Robasi Ramirez,
a very talented fighter, two time gold medal winner for Cuba.
You know, one of the biggest accolades he had or
you know, coming out of the amateurs with all those
accolades that people thought stardom. You know, lost his pro
debut in a big upset and obviously lost the fight
against Espinosa. But even in fights he has won besides
when he won the title, he's been very inconsistent. It's
been maddening. You'll see him fight one time he looks
absolutely sensational, like he did against the Isaac Dogbay for example,
where when he went to Japan and defended the title
against Shimizu back you know, a July of twenty three.
And then there's other times where he just looks extremely
inconsistently look great against Abraham Nova, other fights he just
sort of looked he wins, but he looks like he's
going through the motion. So I don't know which guy's
showing up. And even though he fought his ass off
against Espinoza in a tremendous battle and ended up being
a majority decision one of the most dramatic, exciting fights
of twenty twenty three, both fighters were on the deck.
Speaker 2: Espinosa was in big trouble early in the fight and
you might have thought it was going to get stuck.
He showed a ton of heart and came back and
dropped Robas Ramirez.
Speaker 3: Well, that was the drama of the fight, was that
knockdown in round twelve. So it turned out to me
majority decision. Without that knockdown, you know, you know, he
probably he loses the fight, or at least maybe it
turns out to be a drum right in any event,
he he uh, he scored that very dramatic knockdown. He
ends up winning the world title in a big upset.
Now he was twenty five and oh going into the fight,
But all twenty five and oh's are not created equal.
I mean, he was as unknown and as obscure as
there can be. Now that doesn't necessarily mean you're no good,
just means that nobody had ever saw him before, if
against anybody of any consequence. They hand picked him, you know,
he was with ZANDF for promotions. They went down the
they found a guy that was, you know, in the
lower part of the ratings, and they signed him up.
What was supposed to be, you know, a pretty straightforward
kind of victory against a hard charging kind of guy,
but he totally he totally turned the tables. And I mean,
for my money, in that particular fight, you have maybe
the upset of the year. You have one of the
fights of the year. You have like the emergence of
the year in terms of Espinosa making a name for himself.
And now we go into the rematch and the one
thing that is so stark about Espinosa is for a
guy that fights in the one hundred and twenty six
pound way class, dude, he's six foot one. I mean,
he's a monster. He's got longer each long arms, he's tall,
and you know he towers over not just against so
you know, he looked good against Cherino in the title defense.
He wiped him out in the fourth round and dropped
him like three times. But you know, it was pretty
clear that Chrino was not a very h skillful fight
or really had too much confidence going on. But Ramirez
a different ballgame. Now we'll see if for Robac, if
he learned his lesson from the first fight, if he
can make adjustments to that height and to the unusual
angles that that he was throwing with from the you know,
because Espinosa has got such long arms. But again, who
knows this one? To me? I think both these fights
are toss up fights where either guy can win for
a variety of reasons. We talked about, Yeah, I mean
love well, it's going to make it's going to make
our bet US show on Friday pretty interesting.
Speaker 2: Very nice plug Warnstern time on the bet US platforms
because I agree with you and it's just kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: And then we'll move on.
Speaker 2: You mentioned about Ramirez being you know, hot and cold
good one night. You've often talked about how he lost
the opening fight of his career in a four round
fight which was shocking what she did.
Speaker 3: What she did Avenge by the way, correct.
Speaker 1: But that still was surprising.
Speaker 2: But the first fight with Espinoza was kind of a
microcosm of his career in that he was very good
early in the fight and then what the heck happened
in the back half of the fight, including getting knocked down.
So there's some unknown here, uh, with him and how
he's going to handle a big guy fighting at one
twenty six, a big in terms of height and reach
at one twenty six, and uh, let's see what happens.
Speaker 3: But I think it's a really good double header. I'm
j one of the highest compliments that I can pay
to a boxing card is why I say to you,
this can easily have been like an HBO double header.
That's what this could be. That's the type of fight
it was.
Speaker 2: And this in this day and age, in this day
and age, it could easily be on pay per view
and it's not, and we're happy for that.
Speaker 3: When Top Rank was doing a business for many years
with HBO, this was exactly the kind of doubleheader they
would serve up. And so to me, two very interesting fights,
two very interesting rematches, two fights where I really couldn't
tell you for sure who wins the fight, and as
I mentioned, not completely out of the realm of possibility,
and that fact depending on if you know who the
winners are. I think there's a very good chance at
the winners of these two bouts at some point in
twenty twenty five fight each other, where the winner of
the fifth featherweight fight fights the winner of the thirty
pound fight for their their title.
Speaker 2: And by the way, good chance it's going to be
electric in the building because Phoenix is a great Mexican
American fight town with the Mexican fighters, and three of
the four have ties as Mexicans in this so it
should be loud and energy. From that, Let's see, let's
see what it looks like for the teacher.
Speaker 3: It starts late, so I'm gonna have to be up
late because the main event, the main car rather the
first two fights, the undercard co feature with Robasi and
Espinosa doesn't come on the air till ten thirty PM.
Speaker 2: So you understand the college football ESPN partnership, and that's
the recedence, and they're trying to push it a little back,
but still get some coffee, Big Dan, get some caffeine.
Speaker 1: I'm getting old, so I understand that hour right right now.
Speaker 2: I get ridiculed by my sixteen year old twins right now,
and I'm like, your father's not sixteen, your father's not
twenty six anymore on run around doing this stuff.
Speaker 3: That said, if my biggest complaint is it's at ten
thirty instead of maybe an hour earlier, I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: At you, oh you were always up for boxing after dark.
That was not on at.
Speaker 3: Six as a long time ago.
Speaker 1: No, it was a while ago, all right, But wait,
there's more.
Speaker 2: There's another world title fight, and this one on to
Zone the Matchroom de Zone show in San Juan, Puerto Rico,
where Australian Liam Parro. When last we saw him in
Puerto Rico, he pulled the upset of Supero Mattias. Why
not go to Puerto Rico and defend against Richardson Hitchins.
I'm half jokingly saying this. We'll get into the nuts
and bolt of the fight, but give me this one
more time. On why this is in Puerto Rico and
not say in the United States. Aparo has been saying
all week he wants to fight in Australia. Apparently there
wasn't enough, as you like to say, commercial value in
it being there. But Puerto Rico it's interesting, but go ahead.
Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, one thing about it is
they got a very heavily Puerto Rican flavored undercard, so
that will drop in a lot of the local folks
that are gonna come out to see the show in
San Juan and Puerto Rican fighters or otherwise. You know,
there's a great boxing culture in Puerto Rico. It's a
wonderful place to go to. Five been to Puerto Rico
for boxing part covered Miguel Cota fight. They're great fans,
great hospitality, very excited folks. So yeah, okay, fine, the
main event may not be Puerto Rican related, but the
Puerto Ricans they at least know Parro to some degree
because he did upset their hometown guy Mattias, who is
Puerto Rican when they fought to fight back in June
he won the title. So I think it's a map
that Matchroom Boxing has a good relationship with the folks
from Universal Promotions in Puerto Rico, and they decided this
was a fight to go. They weren't going to go
to Australia for different reasons. Hitchins is an American fighter
from New York has by background fought for the Haitian
Olympic team, but there was really no marketplace, I don't
think for this fight in the United States anyway, and
so they'll they'll put on a good card with a
bunch of Puerto Rican undercard fights and have the title fight. No,
for my purposes, there's gonna watch it on his own.
It's to me, it's irrelevant if the fights in Puerto Rico,
or it's in New York, if it's in California or
wherever it is, or Australia. But the main thing about
the fight is it is it should be a competitive fight.
I think it's a mandatory defense. Richardson Hitchin earned the
fight in the eliminator, where he beat Gustavo Lemos in
his last fight back in April at one. Obviously we
know Lemos went down to one thirty five in his
next fight and got destroyed by Keyshawn Davis. But nonetheless, Hitchins,
who was an Olympian, as I mentioned, undefeated, spent the
first several years of his career fighting under the Mayweather
Promotions banner. They were not keeping him busy enough. He
ended up signing with Matt Troum. They brought him along.
He's got some solid wins. He blew away he should
have been a knockout, but they didn't stop the fight.
But he won literally one hundred to eighty eight and
all three scorecards against John Bowser, who was undefeated and
some considered I'm a prospect. He whipped up on by
a shutout on two scorecards and gave up one round
on a third against the well traveled former title challenger
Jose Zapeta. Then he had to win clear but close
against Lamos, and now he gets the title fight against Liamparo.
They were talking about doing interim fights and then it
got to a certain point they're like, screw it, let's
just go right to the mandatory. And I'm glad they
did that. No reason to build that fight up. But Parro,
who's twenty five and zero with fifteen knockouts from Australia
in his prime, comes off his biggest win by far
and away against Sabrill Matias. But he showed something in
the previous fight where he got the knockout in the
six round against Montana Love. In the fight before that,
you had two really unknown undefeated Australians. He was taken
on his country and Brock Jarvis, a toss up fight
because no one knew either guy knocked him in the
first round.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I can add that I actually
saw Liam Paro in person on the Jake Paul Tyron
Woodley undercart in Tampa, and I didn't really you had
educated me a little bit about him.
Speaker 1: I didn't know a lot about him, and he almost
lost that night.
Speaker 2: He got a split decision in Tampa that night and
didn't look I watched some of the fight. I gotta
confess I did not intently watch the whole fight, but
he didn't look great that night. But man, he dominated
Mattias the Arena sat Stone silent. The last time we
saw Paro put it on him.
Speaker 3: The fight that you mentioned on the under part of
that Jake Paul fight when twenty twenty one, and around
this time in twenty twenty one, so three years ago,
he got knocked down in the first round. He was
taken on the undefeated Yomar Alamo, who has been in
the ring with some good opponents. So to me, and
I'm not I don't disrespect Limparo. Anybody that go out
there and beat Sabrial Mattias the way he did and
score a big knockout like he did against Montana Love,
you got to give him some credit. But I don't know.
I kind of feel like he's he's maybe a little overrated.
And I don't mean to say that like to be
a dick about it. I just like, like, if you
if you're gonna get the props, let me see you
do it again. Ok, you got. I can't I can't
take that away from you, the.
Speaker 1: Validation you're looking for. The validation.
Speaker 3: But if you go out there and you beat a
very solid, good quality amateur, outstanding boxer with some dog
in him in a Richardson Hitchins, like, I'll actually that'll
be impressed. Not that he's looking to impress Dan Rayfil.
He didn't give a fuck about me. I'm just saying
from my perspective, Uh, you know, let me see, let
me see it again, so like we'll see if Richard's
and Hitchin it has got the skills and is you know,
I think fearless in that sense, like if he can
take care of it. One thing a doubt Borrow is
if you if you went to Puerto Rican and beat
the Puerto Rican. He's not worried about going to Porto
Rican to fight the New Yorker. That's you know, that's
that's old hat.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 3: Although that said, I'm assuming given the fact that that
he's American and he comes from another his you know,
his family's from Haiti. The other guys from Australian beat
the hometown guy. I gotta figured that Hitchens is gonna
probably be the crowd favorite anyway. But Paros certainly doesn't
seem to give it dam because he's been traveling, you know,
for these fights. He's only had one fight in Australia
in the last few years. His last fight in Australia
was at Jarvis Fight. Before that, you know, since twenty one,
you know, his fights have been either in Puerto Rico
or in the United States. So look, it's it's a
it's a good title fight. Even though the two guys
are largely among the even the diehards, they're they're kind
of anonymous, they're not big names. It's not like a
sexy kind of fight. But if you follow it closely,
you know it's a nice matchup. It's a mandatory that
that it feels like Hitchens has actually earned the shot,
you know, by beating the types of guys that he
has in recent fights. And we'll see. And the thing
about it also is this the guy that wins. He's
in business. I mean Mattroom Boxing. You know, they work
with Jack Catterall in the way class, you know, even
though they don't promote him currently, but they've got a
relationship with them and Devin Haney, Like, there's gonna be
things that you can maybe do, you know, in a
good way with the winner. So it's important for the
title aspect. But obviously in boxing, we're always looking to
see what the big fight is and the winner fits
into a very stacked division. Maybe there could be a
unification fight with somebody, you know, that remains to be seen,
but there're definitely the opportunities for the winner.
Speaker 2: That is the match Room de Zone main event in
Puerto Rico. I promise we're getting to the Hall of
Fame stuff in a few moments. This first, first, you
put this on the sheet earlier in the afternoon US
time from Bulgaria, the home of Kubrat Poulev Poohlev, makmud
Char Rayfield you want me to say it.
Speaker 1: What are we doing here?
Speaker 2: And why does it say on your rundown WBA regular
Heavyweight title.
Speaker 1: I remember vividly and you going on and on about it.
Speaker 2: A couple of years ago that they said they were
going to do away with all of this, and obviously
I will say it on the pod they were lying.
They continue to do these regular title fights, secondary title fights,
after they said they were going to get rid of them.
It's two years later, Dan, they okay, first of all,
they were lying about they weren't lying.
Speaker 3: But I don't need to defend the w b A,
who has been the target of my ire in a
major way.
Speaker 1: For I'm just having fun with you. Is it or
is it not?
Speaker 2: A secondary title fight for the w b A And
they or did they not say they were doing away
with them?
Speaker 3: So you're not listen. I don't want to argue with
you that they you're not characterizing the right way. They
have been getting rid of them. But ch has the title,
so their.
Speaker 1: Guys, what title?
Speaker 2: This is the whole thing with the lawsuit, and they
screwed up and they didn't make him right way.
Speaker 3: They took him out. They got rid of that belt
and to save themselves. Self preservation is an important factor
for anybody in life. They reinstated him when they lost
a lawsuit. Char got the belt back and now he's
defending against brat Pool, who's been a contender slash, you know,
secondary type of guy for a long time. Uh. You
know the thing about about about about poulev is his
losses have been what you could call good losses. I mean,
if there's such a thing, you know, he got he
was unfortunately on the wrong end of the knockout of
the year in twenty fourteen. That's when he challenged, but
Ladimir Klitschko was still, you know, the dominating unified champion
at that point. He then went to a bunch of
fights in a row. He then and during the pandemic
in the in front of like a thousand people instead
of fifty thousand people. He went to England to the
Wembley Arena, not the big stadium, and in under COVID rules,
you know, social distancing that in a mandatory fight he
got knocked out by Anthony Joshua in the ninth round,
and he then lost later in a very close fight
that really, frankly could have gone either way. It was
a split decision. He lost a split to Derek Tasa
back in the UK in twenty twenty three. So you
know he's been he's been in the ring with with
uh you know, with with good competition. You know, just
has the three losses. Like I think I said four
loss in four he's only got the three losses. He's
won two in a row. You know, he's older fighter,
he's in his forties, forty three years old, but he's
always in great shape. He's still a draw. You know,
we may joke around about it here in America, that's fine,
but if you go to Sofia, Bulgaria or anywhere in Bulgaria,
the guy's a fucking rocks. I'm not joking. I mean
he's a big deal over there. I mean they don't
have a lot of top superstar athletes you know that
come out of Bulgaria. So in Bulgaria, this is for
them again, this is in their country. This is a
big deal. This is like a big thing for them.
They're like, this is the heavyweight championship of the world.
Speaker 1: Now, char.
Speaker 3: Has been around forever. He's at injuries, he's at issues
with purspids and the WBA lawsuits, and all kinds of stuff.
He hasn't fought in twenty twenty two. You know, he's
only had three fights in twenty seventeen. You know, he
was the victim that got absolutely destroyed and bloodshed everywhere
when he lost in a WBC heavyweight title shot against
Italian Clitchco. You know, back in this was turned out
to be the final fight of itally Clitchko's career. As
a matter of fact, he was fighting against him. This
is you know, several years ago, you know whatever, Like
I said to you before we started taking this, that
fight by the way, all the way back in twenty twelve,
when I fought clitch Goo and suffered his first lesson,
got sliced up and knocked out in the fourth round.
Here's the thing, title or no title whatever. It shapes
up like a fun fight between two like second tier
type heavyweights that might put on a good fight, might
stink it out, who knows. It's on the zone. The
bottom line is the winner's gonna have the DBBA Regular
belt and is gonna be in position at some point
against the winner. Theoretically, anyway, against Fury and USIG number two,
I doubt it's happening anytime soon. But we'll see. But
there's always room in my life for a somewhat evenly
matched heavyweight fight. I'm okay with that. I can live
without the belt aspect of it, but we wouldn't be
talking to that's the belt wasn't there. We can make
fun of it.
Speaker 2: And that's again in the afternoon coming on to zone
from Bulgaria US time Saturday night. What are they ahead
like seven hours six or seven hours in Bulgaria for Saturday.
Speaker 1: So there you go with those.
Speaker 2: You know what I would of a homework assignment for you,
because you do this with your schedule and you can
probably easily find it in your database. Go back to
just this calendar year and see if there or not,
because I remember we talked about two or three of them.
I believe there at least two or three secondary WBA
title fights that they still had this year, and I
remember you.
Speaker 3: Had for for a long period of time, the WBA
literally had in the in there. Well, now they recognize
eighteen weight classes because they also recognized the bridger weights,
But prior to their recognition of the bridge weights, which
does not have a regular title holder, they used to
have like literally a secondary or an interim virtually every fight,
like for seventeen divisions. Every day they light had like
thirty eight champions quote unquote champions, and they've done actually,
and I've had this conversation privately with GILBERTA. Mendoza, who
is the president of the WBA. They are now down
to in there, and I'm looking at my chart here
because I keep track of this shit. As I say,
I keep track, so you don't have to. They have
a regular title holder in the heavyweight division, and that
is only because of the lawsuit. For whatever you think
about that, it's just a fact. They've got David Morrell
is the secondary title holder in the light heavyweight division,
which was a pissed me off because it was unnecessary.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, the secondary title fight. Thank you, I get it.
Speaker 3: They have an interim title holder with Caleb plant in
the super middleweight division. That's three like secondary irregulars. They
and then you have to go all the way down
to the one hundred and thirty pounds weight class where
Albert Begaziev, who was an Olympic medallist, who has the
interim title in the junior lightweight division, and they also
have an interim title holder in the junior bandamweight division
and that's it. They have only five non full titles
and two of them are regulars and the other three
are interims. So again I'm not excusing it, but it's
a thousand million times better than it once was. And
by the way, they have fewer non full champions than
the WBC does currently.
Speaker 1: Okay, so char who lev Dan will be on it.
We will.
Speaker 3: Let's relax about that. I'm not going to be on shit.
Speaker 2: Well no, but you'll at least pay attention to what
happens and we'll recap it, particularly if there's a spectacular knockout,
if there's something going on with that. I do know
what was going on on Thursday because I read my
Dan Rayphael Substack fight for each United Substack once again,
why are you not subscribing The Hall of Fame election
results announced Thursday, Manny Paciow, Hello.
Speaker 1: Not a surprise.
Speaker 2: He was on the ballot, had to be, as you said,
we don't know the official results, but I mean, how
is he not a unanimous first ballot Hall of Famer?
Speaker 3: Somebody that's an idiot? I mean, okay, fair enough, Dereketer
not unanimous?
Speaker 1: How is i agree, and sometimes you see it in
the NFL.
Speaker 2: Somebody is not going to vote for Tom Brady when
he's eligible in a couple of years. But in any event,
Paqio leads the class. You wrote a lot about this,
so encapsulate. How about that word for the preview, encapsulate
the Hall of Fame class including those out of the ring,
which is a couple of interesting names.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, Well, the marquis had first of all, just
so people understand, in the boxing Hall of Fame, there
are a number of different categories. There's the modern men,
which is the marquee category. That's the more recent active
who are now retired. It's a three year waiting period
for men's boxers. There's the same thing now for the
women's boxers, a category that was created about four years
ago for modern women's boxers. And then you have old timers,
which that says it all. You have non participants, which
is folks who are involved in boxing, a trainer, a referee,
you know, people that are involved, a promoter, a manager,
people are involved with the sport, but not the actual combatants.
Then you have a category called observers that would be
folks that are broadcasters, journalists, people along those lines, statisticians
just you know, different other things in boxing who are
not actually in the ring or part of the actual event.
And then you have besides old timers, there's pioneers which
are even way way older. That's you know, for the
historical folks to dissect and to look through. Anyway, there
were seven different categories that were voted on, but the
marquee category was the men's modern category, and that was
the one where Many Packau, who was among the four
newcomers on the ballot. The other newcomers where Sean Porter,
Luciambute and Mikey Garcia, and none of those three were elected,
which didn't surprise me. I didn't vote for either any
of them, not to diss them or disrespect them at all,
because they all were top notch guys in their day.
Just I think clear that based on my vote as
well as the rest of the the folks who vote,
and so people also know the voters are the members
of the Boxing Writers Association of which I'm a member,
as well as a quote unquote international panel of historians,
and so we all were on that same page because
those guys did not get in, but Many Packaw when
you look at the ballot when you first get it
is such a slam dunk first ballot guy. You don't
have to spend a lot of time studying the resume.
I covered all those fights, I know, many packs career. Intimately,
I was at virtually every single one. I think I
was at almost every single one of his United States
fights except me be you know, one or two at
the very beginning, but I was there for the first one.
And you know, covered some like twenty six many Paco fights.
I mean, you don't have to cover twenty six many
of Pacao fights at ringside to know that this is
a Hall of fame or eight weight classes he won
titles in. That's the all time record men or women
from flyweight one hundred and twelve pounds all the way
to junior middle eight one hundred and fifty four pounds.
And to be honest, if he had decided a campaign
in the junior bandonweight or the Bandam weight division, you're
looking at a guy that could have had world titles
and ten weight classes. You know, in a sport where
there are seventeen you know, mostly other than the bridger weights, whatever,
seventeen weight classes. So this is it not, and forget
about the number of titles, because it's about who you
beat to get the titles. Dude, do we really have
to go over this many Paco, who, by the way,
still looking, We're going to.
Speaker 2: Talk about one of the guys that he beat on
the Nostalge. You'll late in the show, but may very.
Speaker 3: Well come back at some point. But here's the reality,
Manny Pacyao has more big time wins than just about
anybody that you can think of. I mean, I'll even
say this, this may sound blasphemous to something. We talk
about Sugar Ray Leonard on this show all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we are.
Speaker 3: We are in the bag for Sugar Attlantero. We love
Sugar Letter, but his career obviously was cut short by
the injuries, in the layoffs with the retina and this
and that. In terms of big wins, many Pacio has
more big wins than just about anybody in modern body
by far and away. I mean, I'm not knocking beating
Herns and Duran and Benitez and Hagler. I mean those
are mega wins fair enough, But Manny Paco, are you
kidding me? This guy has checked this out in this
no particular order. He has knockout wins against Miguel CoA
Hall of Famer, Ricky Hat in the Hall of Famer.
He routed Antonio Margarito to win the set to establish
directord at eight weight classes when he obliterated him in
a decision and they should have stopped to fight about
five different times, and he messed up his eye for life.
He's two to one and one against Juan Manuel Marquez,
who's a Hall of Famer, in four great fights, legit
great fights. He has an easy role past Shane Mosley,
who is maybe not at his best but still beat
him easily. Uh the Hall of Famer. He has two
two wins against Marco Antonio Brera, including the knockout in
the first fight, which is really his breakout victory among
you know in the United States, you know, when he
beat him handily in the Alamo Dome. He has two
wins against one ridiculously heinous controversial loss against Tim Bradley,
also a Hall of Famer. By the way, He's two
and one against the great Eric Morales, Hall of Famer.
He has a knockout victory against the great Oscar de
la Hoya in a fight where he was a big underdog.
We'll get to that.
Speaker 1: We will further discuss on this pod.
Speaker 3: Sure so, and that's just like and then he has
led Wabba victory, which was an he won his junior
featherweight title of the first fight in the United States
where I was ringside for that fight, and We're all like,
who the hell is this guy? Even though I knew
who he was as a former flyweight champion, but he
took the fight on short notice and obliterated the guy
who was considered at that moment number one at one
hundred and twenty two pounds. Like he has, he beat
us so many top guys. I didn't even think about this. Also,
he beat Keith Thurman at age forty to become the
oldest welterweight world champion in the in boxing history. I mean,
he's got younger guys like Jesse Vargas. I mean, you know,
Brandon Rios, Chris Algeri. I mean, the number of many
of big names or former champions or top guys is
just ridiculous.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Obviously he does have the loss to Floyd Mayweather in
their ultimate Summit meeting. By the way, he's also not
only all those accolades. I just mentioned biggest fight in
boxing history in terms of money by a lot. In
terms of Mayweather pack Out, most people would say many
Packau is the greatest, not most. He is the greatest
Filipino fighter. He is the greatest Asian fighter. You can
argue he maybe in that he's in the conversation to
be the greatest Southo boxer. Here's a fighter that turned
professional at one hundred and sixty one hundred and six
pounds and won a title all the way up to
one fifty four, even though in that bout he only
weighed like one forty four. But he went from unknown,
from abject poverty on nobody to become a global icon
and generate hundreds of millions of dollars, make great fights,
bankaball box office superstar, many pay per views over him,
million buys and by the way, extremely charitable, humble, as
nice and kind of a guy as you can meet.
I've spent time with Manny Pakyo over the years. I've
gotten to know him, not like we're best friends, but
I've spent time in his you know, personally with him,
watch fights with him. I mean, just a wonderful human
being and became a politician in his country, was in
like their equivalent of the House of Representatives, was a
member of the of the Filipino Senate, lost in a
bid for the presidency. And here's the reality. He is
in his forties. He is looking to probably come back
and fight. And because they've lowered the threshold from five
years to three, it's going to be more commonplace to
see fighters fight after they've been elected. But Manny Pacio's
legacy is locked up. And by the way, in addition
to that, three times voted the Boxing Writers Association Fighter
of the Year two thousand and six, two thousand and eight,
two thousand and nine, and voted as the Fighter of
the decade. This guy is legacy. Like there's hall of fames,
and in every hall of fame, you got to figure
there's the best of the hall of famers and then
there's maybe the weakest of the whole hall of famers.
Manny Pacao is the upper tier, inner circle hall of famers.
He sits with the Robinson.
Speaker 2: You knew without us discussing this where I was going next.
He ought to have like his own wing in the
boxing Hall of Fame. I haven't been in it. On
how big it is, and how many wings they have,
and look, it's almost a disservice for what we're going
to talk about next. After that litany that you just
went down, you almost wonder, you know, is this a
year where he should have been the only modern man
to go in just because everything else is gonna pale?
Speaker 3: More than likely We have discussed this before. I love
the Hall of Fame. I revere the Hall of Fame.
I grew up near the Hall of Fame. I spent
time in the Hall of Fame. I visited there way
before I was a boxing writer, just to go because
I love boxing. I've gotten to know the folks that
run the Hall of Fame. I respect them, I love them.
It's a wonderful place. I wish every boxing fan you
go spend the weekend at Induction weekends in June. You'll
have a great time. The fighters are accessible, it's a
really cool thing to do. The memorabilia showed, the parade,
the inductions, the fistcasting, it's just a beautiful experience. My
one quarrel and I've had the very pleasant and not
like an argument, but the discussion with Ed Brophy, who
is the executive director of the Hall of Fame and
has been in that position for many, many years. They
do not base their elections on a vote threshold. In
other words, it's not like in the Baseball of Fame,
where you have to achieve seventy five percent of the vote.
Now just put it in perspective. In the boxing Hall
of Fame, it's not on the exact number. There are
about two hundred voters that cast ballots for the modern
men's category every year. They pick the top three vote getters,
or it could be more. If there are ties and
anybody that would achieve over eighty percent of the vote,
so automatically the top three are going to get in.
So it's I don't know the answer because they don't
tell us the totals, but one would assume that many
Pacio was a way in excess of the seventy five
percent that would be if it should.
Speaker 1: Have been unanimous, as we said at the beginning of
the conversation.
Speaker 3: But I'm making the point here that there are there
are years where I have zero dow out of my
mind that there has been a fighter who has been
elected to the Hall of Fame who may have gotten
less than fifty percent. Let's say so.
Speaker 2: He will the third, let's say, or the second most
vote getter that year, right, exactly.
Speaker 3: What Paw though, is among the inner circle, upper level,
superstar tier Hall of famers. Like I said in the
conversation with the Muhammad Alis and the Mayweathers and Joe
Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson and Agler and those types
of guys, Sugar Ray Leonard. Now, the next two fighters
that got into the Hall of Fame, one of them
I did vote for, and that is Michael Nunn, who
had not had a fight for like over twenty years.
I think it's been since his last fight. Michael not
Unfortunately for him, he got caught up in a drug
trafficking situation. He spent sixteen years in prison, yep. And
I think that might have been while he was kind
of largely forgotten. He never appeared on the ballot until
the last couple of years. I think maybe last year
was the first year. But he belongs in all fam mean,
putting aside whatever happened outside the ring, boxing, you know,
these are not saints. This is about fighting, and as
a fighter, he was a hell of a fighter. Slicks
south Paw, you know, good smile, good personality. Fought a
ton of fights on HBO and Showtime in the late
eighties to early nineties. He was on the Pownerful pound list.
He was the lineal champion in the middleweight division. He
was a lineal champion in the super middleweight division. He
had a very good run when he became the middleweight champion.
He knocked out then unbeaten Frank Tate, who if you remember,
was an Olympian, was a hell of a fighter. He
had beaten Michael Nunn in the amateur ranks twice out
of their three fights. So he avenged that in the pros,
so to speak, by getting this knockout win to get
the IBF title. And then he made five defenses, all
against good opponents. Jan Roll Dan who was in some
tremendous fights. He fought Hagler and Hearns and was, you know,
a rough, tough guy. Sambo Calumbay was a former champion.
Knocked him in the first round. That was picked as
the nineteen eighty nine Ring Magazine knock Out of the Year.
He beat Iran Barkley. Marlin Starling granted a faded version
of the Hall of Famer Donald Curry, but that is
some big time stuff. And when he finally lost the title,
he didn't lose to Obum, I mean he lost to
James Tony. He was in the Hall of Fame. Also
was a great fighter too, you know, you can tell
because the guys that trained him were top guys also who,
by the way, are in the Hall of Fame who
he joins his trainers, the great Angelo Dundee and also
our pal Joe Goosen. Yeah, that's pretty good company. And
then when he won the super middleweight title, he did
it against Victor Cordoba, made you know, four more defenses.
I mean, for that era, late eighties, early nineties, he
was all the famer. Yeah, all doubt about it, all right.
I had no problem with winning for him, and it
wasn't even you know, I spent a lot of time
thinking about it. But when I got the ballot, and
particularly compared to the other the ballot, just so people know,
it was forty two names on the ballot this year,
and of those forty two, pac Yo clearly obviously. And
then once you got to the next batch of guys.
To me anyway, Michael Munn was number two in terms
of the guys that I picked, and so he was
involved in. You know he got in now the third
one I got issues with. Let's be honest, Vinniezzians. Vinnie
Pez a popular fighter, exciting fighter, certainly gained a tremendous
amount of respect from the boxing world and I think
all the sports world went. Six weeks after he won
the WBA Junior Middleway title by knockout against Gilbert Delay,
he was in a very bad car crash. He broke
his neck. He wore the halo. People thought his career
was over right and he would never box again. And
because of the inner strength and drive and will of
this man, so you got to respect that. I do
respect it immensely. He overcame that he returned to the
ring when everybody thought his career was over. Fourteen months
later he was out after he broke the neck. But
the reality is, if that's your criteria for the Hall
of Fame, then fine, he's a Hall of Famer. But
if you go by what you've actually done in terms
of the wins and losses, and I don't take away
the great story of what he was able to accomplish,
you have to respect that. That's a huge thing. But
it's also about wins and losses. At the end of
the day, he won two major world titles in the
lightweight division and in the jingior middleweight division. He never
had a successful defense of either title, and in world
title fights he's two and six. And if you take
a look at the record, I mean, you know, he
lost to you know, good guys like Roger Mayweather at
that time. You know, the one title that he that
he won was against Delay, like I mentioned, the the
lightweight title, he beat Greg Halgan, we went too and
one against he lost it to Hagan in the media
rematch and then beat him after that in a trilogy
fight that was not for a title. And so you
really take a look at the record, you know, at
the end of his career and lost another super medal
title fight earlier than that, he got just annihilated by
Roy Jones. Just couldn't even touch him. His big wins
quote unquote big wins. If you consider them big wins,
it sounds like a great name. But if you take
a look at where he was in his career, this
was a long faded well past his prime, completely used
up Roberto Durant, who we did defeat two times. And
so Paz had had a great fan base in Rhode Island.
He was an exciting fighter, but the the accomplishments of
in the ring, and I'm not talking about coming back
from an incredible thing with the injury. It's it's it's very.
Speaker 2: Not enough meat on the bone for big damn. But
but it's not just me.
Speaker 3: I have to tell you just by the way, just
let me just be clear her. So when the results
were announced, I got text messages from other boxing writers
who I've known for many years.
Speaker 2: Mm hm.
Speaker 3: One of them was like, Vinnie Paz question, Mark, are
you fucking kidding me? Was one of them. Clearly a
person who is Hall of Fame voter, right, this is
that Hall of Fame voter who was like disgusted by that.
And the thing is, and it worked because Paz ran
essentially a campaign, and it worked because enough people voted
for him to get into Hall of Fame. So you know,
I can't knock that if the voters voted. I just
feel like sometimes people that vote are not as educated.
Speaker 2: And again the story Miles Teller played him in the
movie I Bleed for This in the movie.
Speaker 1: The story is a big story.
Speaker 2: But I understand I am very big and we don't
have to go for another fifteen message. I'm very big
that it's not the Hall of Fame of very good.
It's not even the hall of fame of good for
a long time. This is supposed to be in all
halls of fame, the best of the best in any sport.
And what you're saying is for what happened in the ring.
Is he one of the best of the best in
his era, in his divisions? And I think you made
a pretty good case right there. I do say so,
mister prosecutor.
Speaker 3: Myself world title fighting never was the fighter of the year,
never was in a fight of the year. I mean,
and I'm not I'm not trying to dump on him.
Here's the funny thing.
Speaker 1: Is it hall of fame worthy?
Speaker 3: You say no, that The crazy thing about it is
like before, like I.
Speaker 1: Got it this way? Can I put it another way?
Speaker 2: If you just put it as a blank resume, you
don't know who it is and you don't know about
the car accident. It's not the part of the n ring,
is it even? Is he even on the ballot? Is
that blank not not him? Is that blank resume on
the ballot? He's on the ballot because it's a heartwarming story,
a courageous story. Yeah, and then he pushed across here
in twenty twenty four, got in the hole.
Speaker 3: So when when when when I didn't vote for Vinnie
Pass in other years, like he and his publicists would
like torment me on social media ba and curse at
me and called me names and this and that. The
funny thing about is before that, like there were times
like I was like, I remember one time, very specific,
I was out of fight in Vegas and I was
at the Mandalay Bay and me and Max Kellerman and
Vinnie Paz and and the hooker that he was with
for the weekend. Literally no exaggeration, beautiful, big kits, the
whole nine. Anyway, by the way, Vegas, Yes, we were
in We were in the Mandalay Bay in the in
the what's what's I forget what it's called Avidellano, which
is like the hotel that's attached to it. It doesn't
have the slot machines and the casino and everything. Anyway,
we hung out for hours, We played pool, we heard stories,
We hung out at the bar. I mean, and Vinnie
is a great guy to just hang out with, even
though he was a wild man. If you go back
another time when uh, when there was one of the
Canelo fights that took place at the AT and T Stadium,
Golden Boy and Takat hired me to host like their
brief fight, like uh like question and answer Q and
a like a thing for their what they call their
Taka day chat talk or whatever it was. And so
I moderated a thing that was Oscar de la Jolla,
Bernard Hopkins, Larry Merchant and anyway, Vinnie Paz was part
of that that panel. We had a great time doing that.
So he's a great guy to hang out with. And
you know, even though he apparently hates my guts at
this point, but that's for being giving my honest opinion
that I just don't see it.
Speaker 2: I guess by extension he hates me too right about now.
But I mean we have we have our opinions, all right.
So we sufficiently covered the modern man. What else is
there of note? And I actually have a quick antidote
on one of the guys that got in the Hall
of Fame as a non participant, Go ahead, Big Dan.
Speaker 3: So in the old timer category, which speaks for itself,
it's Colombia's Rodrigo Valdez, former two time middleweight world champion,
was one of the best middleweights of the seventies. Had
two fights, although he lost against the great Carlos Monz,
own had the three fights series with Benny Briscoe where
he was able to win the world title. You know,
they have a lot of guys on that ball that
was Actually it's amazing to me actually because you could
vote for I think up to like three or maybe
it was five. I only used one of my votes
in that category and actually voted for Valdez, who I
have voted for in the past, and this year he
got in. So glad to see that based on the
guys that were he was competing against. And then that
was that category. And then you want to talk about
in the modern women's category, which I have a lot
of problems with and I've been very specific. Yeah, people
can read my piece about that.
Speaker 1: Folks, not that they're not deserving.
Speaker 2: You just think that they are doing too many of
them and running through fighters.
Speaker 3: No, I actually I actually think they're not deserving.
Speaker 2: They're not right, but they're running through too many fighters
that are now on a ballot that aren't Hall of
Fame worthy. Here we go again on you know, and
then you have I believe for that.
Speaker 3: So for the third year in a row, I sent
back my signed ballot blank. I didn't vote for anybody
in the women's category, and I voted for them in
the past. I voted for like Leay Lally and Christy Martin,
Lucia Reiker, and you know, plenty of the other women
that had been put in since the category was created
in twenty twenty. But the women who they're electing, now,
I'm not disrespecting their their service to the sport, or
their efforts or their you know what, their training or
whatever they did, but it's the the accomplishment in a
sport that's so it was such an its infancy. They
haven't There's really not there anything there that you never
even heard of the people that they fought. Frankly, it's
it's just bizarre to me. But nonetheless, the folks that
did get in the modern women's cutty, which by the way,
there must have been a tie among two of those
ladies or maybe all three, because it's supposed to be
you can vote for however many, but only two will
be elected. All three of them were elected, so it
just it just goes to show you. So the three
that were elected where Yessica shav Is from Mexico and
Sophie Mathis from France and Mary Joe Sanders from Detroit,
who incidentally you will know as an NFL guy. Her
father is. The four is the NFL Pro Football Hall
of Famer, Charlie Sanders, the NFL tight end plight for
the Detroit Lions in Hall of Fame from two uh
but she and again she got inlected Hall of Fame.
Chillie fought for five years from two thousand and three
to two thousand and eight. I mean, in baseball you
gotta fight. You got to play at least.
Speaker 2: Ten and the other and the other thing is is
the can can you write the history of the sport
and leave those people out and you're still good? That's
another question on Hall of Fame inductions.
Speaker 3: So so I don't even know what I don't even
know what to do. You want to And the thing
about the women's category.
Speaker 2: Is, I'll tell you what you're doing by doing it,
you're cheapening the induction. I'm just saying across the board,
in any Hall of fame, when you lower a standard
and put people in that have a borderline or maybe
not even a borderline case to be in the Hall
of Fame. You're cheaping it, cheapening it for the greats.
What are we gonna do when Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor,
I'm gonna get or up on the ballot when you're
doing this.
Speaker 3: Here's my perspective on it. When they created the category
in twenty twenty, I was really happy because the women
do deserve have a place in the Hall of Fame.
They compete, their athletes, they put on fights, they spill blood,
they give their best efforts, they win championships. Uh, and
they they're involved in these events. And so I've never
been anti having women in the Hall of Fame by
no means. That's why I just mentioned why I was
happy when they created it, and the and the top women,
uh that you know, let's call it. Since like the nineties,
Christy Martin or Lucia Ryker Leai ally all those top
women have now been elected and they've gotten the right
ones for the most part, in my opinion, then there's
a lull. Now women's boxing is obviously much bigger today
than it used to be, so when the time comes
and you feel or you see the other top women
of today start to retire and serve the eligibility Claressa
shields aman de Serrano, like you mentioned, Katie Taylor, Snisa
Estrada who just retired earlier this year. You know, Cecilia
Brecooster is on the verge of retirement. You know you
have and there's others. You have an excellent group of
Mikhaela Mayer who's now has just won another title. You
have a very good group of women that are worthy
and are going to be eligible. So my suggestion, and
I wrote this in my column about who I voted for,
is maybe they should back off the women's elections for
a little bit. Do it every other year, maybe only
have one get elected if you need to have somebody elected,
and then when a time and the population of candidates
is increased, then you can certainly raise I was just.
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking of this while you're saying this, that
it's almost like when Serrano gets there and goes and
walks around, she's gonna be going I'm not saying she
would say this, but it would be easy to go.
Speaker 1: I'm in the Hall of Fame with who Yeah, and when.
Speaker 2: Cecilia Breck, who's who spent ten years as welterweight world
champion for twenty five world title defenses, goes into the
Hall of Fame and she's walking around going, I'm in
the Hall of Fame with who who is this?
Speaker 1: Who is that?
Speaker 2: I'm joking like, they're also semi serious that. Yeah, that's
not the same thing.
Speaker 3: The women's category currently as a reach put a thing
like that. Yeah, So beyond that, now you have also
the non participants I mentioned you have. This is a noe.
This was one of those guys I marked off on
my ballot and took me two seconds. Kenny Bayliss, who
was for a period of time in the two thousands
and twenty tens, this singular best referee in boxing. And
you know, I mean people may have had issues with
certain fights here and there, like you do with any official,
but buy in marge. Henny Baylis a class guy, Yes,
a phenomenal referee, Calm, under pressure, poised, fair, uh you know,
stayed out of the way, moved well, didn't get in
everybody's way. And here's how you know how great a
referee he was because he caught ALLLL the big assignments
for a long period of time. Yes, you don't give
those big, mega pressure fights to just anybody. You have
to really be calm under pressure. This is in you know,
in that crucible TJ. The biggest fights in the world,
the highest stakes, the biggest spotlight, the highest pressure. Here
are just a smattering of the big fights he were.
Mayweather Pacya. You may have heard of that, the biggest
fight ever in terms of the attention and the money,
certainly of his time in thirty two years as a referee,
Mayweather Oscar de la Hoya A previous biggest fight of
all time financially. Oh, Mayweather versus Canelo Alvarez, you may
have heard of those guys. How about Canelo versus Triple
G number one? How about Manny Pacya, Miguel Coto, Manny
Pakiat Won, Manuel Marquez too, pack ere Ricky hen Bernard Hopkins,
de la Hoya, how about Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder too.
You go on and on and on and on. This
guy was involved in tons and I'm that's just like
scratching the service of the the biggest ones he did,
like Shakhor Stevenson against Oscar Valdez a unification, but his
last significant fight he worked was Dave David Benavitez against
Caleb Plant. I mean this, Kenny Bayless worked a million
fights and this is not a reason for the Hall
of Fame, just a a little fact tooke. He actually
was the referee and Floyd Maywether's professional debut about that.
So he gets in Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: Well, Kenny Bayliss well deserved and he's a great.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, so he gets in. And then you have you
have the cutman, Al Gavin who worked with Oscar de
la Hoya and Itali Klitch, gool Lennox, Lewis, Nicky Ward,
Junior Jones. He trained and cutman for Eric Harding, Kevin Kelly,
a lot of top guys. He died unfortunately back in four.
I got to know him a bit at the beginning
of my career. As sweet a guy as you could
ever come across from boxing. Uh always had time for everybody,
loved his fighters, loved to to make sure they were
taken care of in the fights with the cuts. Tremendous shop.
And the other one was another referee that also. You know,
there's been a bunch of referees that have gotten in
the Hall of Fame and this is a British referee. Yeah, no,
Harry Gibbs, he was involved with a huge amount. I
mean he may not have been the Kenny Baylis of
his day, but he was involved in you know, he
worked fights and he also acted as a judge also.
Besides he was more known as a referee, but in
terms of his judge, you know, he did fights with
going back to like Sugar, Ray, Robinson, Sonny Listen, Ken Buchanan,
Barry mcgig, a lot of top British fighters. He was
the referee when Muhammad Ali, Fad Bryan London, Joe Fraser
against Wilfredo gom Joe Fraser against Joe Bugner, Wilfredo Gomez
against Carlos Zerraate. He was a judge on Roberto Duran,
Sugar Ray, Leonard One, Chris Hubank, Nigel Ben Number two,
Chavez versus Camacho, Zuma, Nelson, Jeff Fannick. I mean, this
is a very well known experience and respected referee for
a very long time. Just so you put it in
context of the timing. He refereed from nineteen fifty eight
to nineteen eighty six, so he was involved with a
ton of those type of fights nineteen yeah, a lot
of big time fights, and then judged after he was
done refereeing, and then in the observer category. Ross Greenberg
from HBO I voted for steadfastly since he's been on
the ballot. It's well deserved. He was the executive producer
and later the president of HBO Sports And if you
ever watched HBO boxing, his hand prints, his footprints, his
ideas are all over that for you know for a
many many years. Did you like having an unofficial judge
and Harold Letterman, Well, he's the one that brought Harold
into HBO. Did you like having the ability to hear
what the trainers were saying in the corner? He's the
one that miked up the corners. Did you like having
copy box stats? He's the one that brought copybox in?
And on and on. He created the franchise of twenty
four to seven. He created or was you know, not
him alone, but a big part of the creation of
twenty four to seven of Legendary Knights. He's got a
show full of fifty six Emmy Awards, eight Pea Bodies.
One of the greatest sports producers in the history of
sports production in any sport. And then of course you
know the things he did as the present HBO Sports
And by the way, him and I did not always
see eye to eye. And when he became the president
of HBO Sports in two thousand, before he left HBO
in twenty eleven, we had a good relationship, but we
had a lot of scrapes. We a lot of ups
and downs, but one thing never wavered, and all that,
I have a mental respect for Ross Greenberg as a
person and as a as a visionary in terms of
making incredibly awesome television. I had the occasion to text
him earlier today congratulate him on his Hall of Fame induction,
and we had a nice text exchange. So I'm very
happy he belongs in there. So now he's in there,
his boss for many years, who he then replaced as
the president HBO Sports, Set Abraham, is in along with
lou Debella who also was involved with that group, and
others from HBO and their announced teams. Now, the next
one that needs to go in there is Mark Haffett.
I've been voting for him also, but Ros Greenberg belongs
in there. I'm happy he's in there. And the other.
The other one is my good pal Randy Gordon, who
was acted in a number of capacities as a broadcaster.
As a journalist, he was the editor in chief of
the Ring magazine. He's written a thousand things for Boxing Illustrated.
He's been a broadcaster on ESPN, USA Network, MSG Network
and then for a period of time. This is not
why he's in. From nineteen eighty eight to nineteen ninety five,
he was the chairman of the New York State Athletic Comission.
He's a tremendous boxing person. He now hosts a boxing
show called at the Fights on Serrius xmy with my
good pal Jerry Cooneyony Yep, yep. They've been awesome to
have me on as a guest many times. I love
Randy Gordon, so I was high texted with him. Also
congratulated him. So that's that's your non.
Speaker 1: You got to congratulate him quick.
Speaker 2: Randy Gordon's story because we're going to get to the
nostalgia in a few moments. Young TJ in Tampa when
the Tuesday night Fight series was going on in the
mid nineteen eighties and Randy Gordon was part of the commentary.
I had Actually he was at that time, I think
the editor of the Ring magazine as well, and he
had had written some stuff. I wrote to him and
told him what a boxing fan I was, and okay,
maybe he got the letter, maybe he didn't.
Speaker 1: And I came to Ringside.
Speaker 2: I don't know how I got ringside close enough to
be around him and medium, but I knew who he was.
I'd seen him on TV, I'd seen his picture. I'm
introducing myself to Randy Gordon as a middle school TJ.
This is probably nineteen eighty four eighty five. I'm fourteen
or fifteen years old. And he looks at me and
he says, you're the TJ from Tampa, Florida that wrote me.
I read your letter. He goes, I thought it was
an adult. He goes, this is crazy.
Speaker 1: And he's telling I think it was al Albert next
to him.
Speaker 2: He goes, this kid wrote me a letter about how
big a fan he is and that he wanted to
meet me, and now here he is in Tampa, and
I thought it was an adult.
Speaker 1: So it just it struck me. I haven't had a
chance to tell Randy that story.
Speaker 2: Forty years later that actually happened at the old Hyatt
downtown Tampa. They were always having Tuesday night fights because
your guy from top rank was the matchmaker for all
those fights. They would fight there like once every two months,
it seemed like. And Randy Gordon was on the commentary.
So I got to meet him. I got to talk
to him. He said, you keep being a fight fan.
He goes, I was just like you when I was
a kid. Keep being a fight fan. How about that
from forty years ago.
Speaker 3: You know, as he was saying to me when we
were texting, fifty seven years he's been involved in this
thing pretty much anyway.
Speaker 2: What was the quote about the phone call today from
the Hall of Famous today, right that they were revealing it.
What was his quote that's in your sub stack that
he had gotten phone calls from Bert Sugar and any
number of big time boxing dignitaries giving him different accolades.
Speaker 1: But the quote is from today.
Speaker 3: So as you like I said, he'd been the editor
in chief of The Ring magazine, put in place there
by Burke Sugar. So his quote was, I've got a
lot of great phone calls during my career from Burke
Sugar to be editor of The Ring, to the governor
of New York to become the Commisson of New York.
But this is the greatest boxing business call of my
entire life, talking about when Ed Brophy called him from
the Hall of Fame to tell him he'd been elected. So, look,
the Hall of Fame is meaningful to these people. It
is the charity on top of a long career. It's
a validation of everything that these folks have done and
worked for for all the years that they were involved,
whether you're a fighter or an observer or a non participant,
or a female boxer or what have you. And so
the reaction from these people year in and year out
is roughly the same that it's like they're they're elated,
they're overjoyed. I mean, I could, I didn't. The quote
was was service to the media. But in the terms
of like when Michael Munn gave his quote about it,
you know, especially for a guy that hasn't been in
the ring for you know, twenty years or so and
who did you know, sixteen years or so in prison,
but always you know, felt like he belonged in the
Hall of Fame in terms of what he accomplished and
he did, you know, he says He's been waiting on
this moment for a long time. You know, it's the
highest he said, this is the highest achievement a boxer
can have in the sport, and that is true. It's
it's bigger maybe to some people, than in a gold
medal in the Olympics. It's bigger than a world championship.
You go in.
Speaker 1: Forever, it's forever all time. Yes, So it's a cool thing,
you know.
Speaker 3: And like I said, I know that because I've attended
the induction ceremonies in the past. I've been there just
to go when I've covered fights at Turningstone Casino, which
is ten minutes down the road from the Hall of Fame.
As a matter of fact, now the actual induction ceremonies
take place in the in the Turning Stone as opposed
to outside the pavilion at the Hall of Fame. You know,
it's an awesome place to visit.
Speaker 1: Cool, all right. A couple more real quick things.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, you mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, that
the WBC had acknowledged this that Israel Vasquez was very
sick with cancer. He did die on Monday at just
forty six years of age. And we know about the
epic bouts with Rafael Marquez, which we've talked about over
the course of this year, some of those anniversaries coming around.
So just unfortunate, but not unexpected because he had been
very ill.
Speaker 3: Correct, Yeah, I mean he was only forty six years old.
And I wasn't sure when they announced the WBC did
that they had created a GoFundMe page to assist with
his situation. I wasn't sure if they were just announcing it.
And he had been sick for a long time, but
it was just becoming public or it was sort of
a thing that they found out late. And you know,
he went very quickly. My understanding is, you know, he
didn't find out about it a little bit earlier this year,
so it did still take him very very quickly. He
had he had a lot of issues though post boxing.
He had multiple scrolosis, He had lost his eye due
to surgery that from an eye injury that occurred in boxing,
and he just was not well in general. And uh,
you know, it's unfortunate, but you want to talk about
the ultimate warrior. He leaves behind a wife, two children,
and as as tremendous an action fighter who just gave
every ounce of what he had in the fights. It's
not just the Marquez fights that's that's the series of
fights that we most remember. But he had other you know,
colossal kind of collision fights. Also, go to watch the
first sight, which he lost, but he later in the
second fight. But watched the first fight that he had
against Oscar Lrios. You know, he was in some big
time action fights. He was a quint essential Mexican warrior.
You know, you know, throw three to you know, take
three to land one if you needed to. But the
Marquez fights, they will stay in the test of time.
They did fight four times. The fourth fight should never
have happened. Vasquez's way was way faded at that point.
He got blown out in three rounds. I wish that
fight would never would happen. It was a big payday
for him. But you know that's not I don't think
worth it. But the first three fights of that series
were absolutely incredible. The first fight was the fight of
the year, and that lasted about five months because then
the second fight happened within the same calendar year of
two thousand and seven. That was the fight of the
year in seven. The third fight was the fight of
the year and eight. That's the one where he won
by a split decision. Here's the thing, he he they
were all three of the first three fights were all
for the WBC Junior Featherwaight title of actually was the
lineal title. He got stopped on a nose injury where
he couldn't breathe in the first fight. He came back
and he scored a rousing knockout in the second fight,
and then the third fight was dead even unbelievable battle
at the uh. You know, the reason why a lot
of people call the arena there in Carson, California the
war Grounds is because of what they did there in
their first fight, in their third fight, That's where it
comes from. And the third fight is absolutely sensational. I
mean they're epic, epic battles and unfortunately, you know, the
fourth fight did happen and he ended up retiring. But
you want to watch a guy that just gives everything
of himself Israel Askuz is that guy. And also, by
the way, ask anybody and I actually had the occasion.
I spent some time in the telephone earlier today with
Frank Espinosa. Frank Espinoza, who has a big fight for
his client, Oscar Valdez, as we talked about, he's the
manager of Oscar. They fight this weekend, but he also
was a longtime manager for Israel Vasquez. Uh and you know,
we reminisced them about Oscar, about an Oscar, about Israel's career.
Just an all around for as much ferocity and just
go kick your ass, attitude in the ring. Just a
total sweetheart outside the ring, like a lot of fighters are,
like they're not, you know, they won harm a fly
outside the ring.
Speaker 2: That was sort of like this almost become a different person.
Right when I stepped through the ropes right.
Speaker 3: Here the bell ring, he'll tear your fucking head off.
But when it's not going on, nice, relaxed chill. I
didn't get a chance for various reasons that I regret
did not cover in person anyway, the Marquez fights, But
I was not several of Israel Vasquez's other fights. He
was with Golden Boy for a long period of time.
He fought on a lot of the big undercards that
they did, so I was present for several of his fights.
Always a very exciting fighter, and you know, it's just
a real shame to pass that, you know, and finish
his career forty four and five with thirty two knockouts.
He has been on the Hall of Fame ballot. I
do think he is a reasonable candidate based on what's there,
particularly because his Dan's partner, who always two and two
against Raphael Marquez, is also in the Hall of Fame,
although he's there also because of a long bantamweight title reign.
But he just had some tremendous fights Ivan Hernandez, the
Oscar Larrios rematch where he smoked him in three rounds,
a dramatic victory knockout, which I was there for when
he knocked out Johnny Gonzalez in a title defense. That
was the fight right before he had the first fight
against Raphael Marquez. I mean, he was just in a
lot of great battles, and you know, it's a very
sad situation.
Speaker 2: Three time cancer unfortunately, just it continues, it continues and continues,
different situations. Awful hearing this is the same with a
forty six year old former champ and a great name
in the two thousands. All right, one more news item
and then the nostalgia and we'll go quickly through this.
That Turkey Ala chic and the read season. Folks have
now announced the full card coming for February twenty second.
We already knew about Better Be a Bevil rematch Dubois,
Joseph Parker, Shakur, Stevenson, Floyd Schofield now confirmed. We talked
a couple of times about Adamas and Hams as Sharaz
all right, fill out, and we also talked Jang and
Kaby Yell.
Speaker 1: But fill out a couple of the other part.
Speaker 2: My boy a g cabel a couple of other fights,
including Virgil Ortiz now has a new opponent and it's confirmed.
Speaker 1: So go through that real quick before the Nosalgia.
Speaker 3: So all those fights you mentioned, yes, I mean I
had reported those prior the the other than the Scofield
than Chakor fight, but the other ones I had reported.
Shakor member was looking at another opponent. They were hoping
there's a paid a fight could happen. He got injured
on the Latino night, but he still wanted to fight
on the show. Schofield, you gotta respect the the the
young guy going after a top name like that, even
though he doesn't have anything remotely at that level again
in his resume, but he wants the opportunity and he
basically I don't know what went on behind the scenes
in terms of how it got done, but he really
pressed Golden Boy big time to make the fight, and
they ultimately acquiesced and they made the fight. So that's
that's of all the fights on the card. While I'm
interested in that fight in terms of what the odds
will be, that's probably the longest odds fight because the
other ones are all pretty much even up. But the
two other fights that I didn't report on him because
they weren't done. I did report on Virgil Ortiz against
Boot Tennis. That fight was support agreed to. They were
exchanging the paperwork, and then there was the whole thing
about the weight. The the Virgil camp was given paperwork
that said one what are you talking about? It's one
fifty four. Ennis would not do the fight at one
fifty four now. And I'm not being emotional about this.
I'm just keeping it real. And I have nothing against
bout Tennis. He's a tremendous fighter. I like him on
a personal basis, good guy to interview, you know, pretty chill,
enjoy his fights. TJ. This is in my almost twenty
five years of covering professional boxing is as blatant as
a duck and a dodge as there has been flat out.
You can give me a thousand different things, this is
a duck. Two weeks beforehand, he was talking about I
want to go to one fifty four. I want to
fight the big names. I want to make big money.
This was a big name. This was a chance for
an interim title amount of money.
Speaker 2: Turkey revealed he talked to Ennis and Innis said I
want to fight at one fifty four with Ortiz, and
that's the reason why they put it in emotion then.
Speaker 3: Duck and what drives me crazy? True or even if
it's not true. He claimed he didn't know about it,
which I find to be a if you didn't know
about it, well either A you're.
Speaker 1: Covered it the other night.
Speaker 2: If I find out about it and you want to fight,
then say I want the fight or not a foreign
correct career?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: You got to pay attention to her. So anyway, so
and this is out, who knows what he's gonna do.
So they matched up Virgil Ortiz was Israel Majimov, who's
coming off of a competitive fight where he lost the
WBA title to Terrence Crawford in August. Now you might
look and when I first saw them, like, how can
that be?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Let's remember this fight cards notun till February twenty second.
On December twenty first, Israel Madjamov has a extremely difficult,
arguably fifty to fifty fight against Sir hey Boachuk was
coming off the Fight of the Year candidate, a very close,
razor close loss against Virgil Ortiz, who he knocked down
two times. And so here you have Israel Majamov's scheduling
a fight against Book on December twenty first, and his
team has the audacity to then sign for a fight
in February A. He could easily lose the fight, which
means it won't happen. And even if he does win
the fight, there's a very distinct possibility that that fight
ends with both guys coming out dinged up and injured
in some capacity that they wouldn't be ready for February. Now,
I don't know what the backup plan is, but I
am sure by those there is a backup plan in place.
They're just not saying who or what it is.
Speaker 2: And again Madromov, Bulletchuck is on the undercart of Usik
Fury two, so it aligns here. But you're right, I
mean something could happen here in o'chez's another opponent.
Speaker 3: True, but if Madromov wins the fight, which is who
knows if he does, and he's not injured and he
is fighting virgual Orties, it may not be as sexy
as the NS fight, but that a fight. So that
fight is I believe it when I see it. I
think Ortiz will stay in the card. I have a
very strong suspecially maybe fighting somebody else for the reasons
I just outlined. And then the other fight, this one
sort of came out of nowhere. Of being honest, I
had not heard anything about this fight. You have the
WBO's in term light heavyweight title holder who was waiting
for the opportunity because the big guys are fighting. The
main event is Joshua Bowatzi defending against a former BBA
title or Callum Smith. I suspect they were waiting for
Callum Smith to come back off of that loss to
better BF. He won on the undercart in the way
preliminaries like Deep Deep. I think it was the first
fight of the night on the Before the Bell show
when Galaii had the fight with Sonny Edwards that he
appeared on that show last week. So that's so if
you've got now that's kind of a surprise because Biwatzi
against Calum Smith in the UK if it happened instead
of in Saudi Arabia, that's like a big time main
event on Sky Sports and it could probably fill up
like an arena like the O Tour Manchester or wherever.
And here it's like the seventh fight down the show.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a stacked, stacked card that we keep talking about
for fIF We gotta wait till February though.
Speaker 3: But by the way, not only is the stacked card,
but Turkey has kept his word and saying he's reducing
pay per view prices. He says this card, I believe
he said it's like twenty five ninety nine or twenty
four ninety nine, something like that. Point is that card
for twenty five something dollars? That is absolutely amazing in
today's day and age.
Speaker 2: And on to the nostalgia. Now, my friend and I
don't I say this all the time. I had to
blink when I saw you put it on the nostalgia
that it has been twenty five years. But I do
remember this because I had had Winky Right Ronald Winky
Wright in the studio with me leading up with this
Fernando Vargas fight, and that was nineteen ninety nine, the.
Speaker 1: Y two K year.
Speaker 2: December, we were headed towards We thought like the dark
ages with the Internet's gonna collapse. Remember bank accounts are
going to freeze and whatever with Y two K. But
December fourth of nineteen ninety nine, Winky Wright fought Fernando
Vargas in an HBO main event, and Vargas retained his
title Rayhaield Wrights in a very close HBO fight. I
still believe to this day Winky was robbed. I think
Winky won that fight. But tell me what you remember
and what you wrot call about it on its twenty
fifth anniversary.
Speaker 3: This is a really good fight. I mean it's I
won't say it's a classic, but it's a heck of
a fight. This was a fight that was sort of
like a coming out party for Winky, who at that
point nowt Winky's in the Hall of Fame now well deserved.
But he lost this fight. As as you mentioned, it
was a majority decision. I also happened to think that
he was a rightful winner. Fernando, though at that time,
was the up and coming superstar. He had the IBF
one hundred and fifty four pound title. Winky was his
mandatory challenger, and he came and he and so nobody
really Winky was not a well known commodity. Even though
he's from Tampa Payint's Tampa Saint Pete area. He was
not a guy that had a big profile in the
United States. He had been fighting largely overseas. This was
like his first, like you know, big exposure fight on HBO,
and it was turned out to be a very good fight.
I thought he won. You thought he won. A lot
of people thought he won. What he did do even
if you if you didn't get to win, he did
end Fernando Vargas's knockout streak he had started his career.
You know, he was seventeen and o coming to this fight.
He had knocked out all his opponent. But this is
obviously if you look at for Anando Vargus who happens
to be on the Hall of Fame ballot. I've not
yet voted for him, nor do I think I ever
will not because I didn't think he was a heck
of a great fighter to watch. But again I don't
think he had necessarily the overall accomplishment, but he does
have two big wins. One of them is this Winkie
Right victory, whether you think it was close or otherwise.
And then he followed this fight up against Quarte, a
well respected guy who was a long time welterweight champ
who we defeated in a very clear decision, in a
good fight also, But this was like the classic kind
of HBO boxing. It for dark. They took a guy
and Vargus who was a rising star. They matched him
with a quality mandatory who went on to have several
fights on HBO, and they made themselves a very good fight.
And you know, I don't think a lot of people,
even if you thought he didn't win, Vargas certainly handled
himself well in the fight. He fought a very tricky
southpaw they had to fight. By the way, this was
not like in a big casino or in a big city.
They did this fight about it, I mean they found
it in a small casino in Lincoln City, Oregon, or
andok wins casino. Some casino put up a few dollars.
Speaker 1: And they rest there.
Speaker 2: I still remember hearing Winky talk about it a joke
with Dan Birmingham. They're like, if you knew what we
had to go through to get to that local town
and that little casino where HBO was going to have this,
it's fascinating because again there's no connection to Vargas being
from that area.
Speaker 1: Obviously Winky was from St.
Speaker 2: Pete, Florida, and they found that area to host a fight.
Speaker 3: What happens is a lot of these smaller casinos they
wanted to bring in events and get their publicity on
HBO and see their logo and get their name out there,
and so people.
Speaker 1: Could gamble, have people come there to gamble.
Speaker 3: They put up a site fee and they went there.
The promoter took the fight because neither guy at that
point was a big ticket seller. It was Vargas was
making his third defense. You know, he was known from HBO,
and he'd been in the Olympics and everything, had become
the youngest junior middleway champion in history. And just by
the way, as far as you and me thinking that
Winky run, I just looked this up. Our old pal,
the late great Harold Letterman, the unofficial judge in HBO.
He had Winky Wright winning this fight one fifteen to
one thirteen, So that tells you the kind of close
competitive fight it was. But in the end it didn't
end up hurting Winky Right too much because ultimately he
did get the opportunity against Sugar Shane Mosley. He became
the undisputed champion, made big money and put on some
big fights, beat Moseley twice, went on and beat Felix
Trinidad and had some other market tips for Fernando. You know,
he went on, like I mentioned, he had the quar
K fight. A couple of fights after that. He had
the massive fight against Felix Tito Trinida that we talked
about on the Last Best Show. Where was the anniversary?
Speaker 1: Just the anniversary, right right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, big fights against Oscar de la Joya, had two
fights against Sugar Shane Moley even though he lost, and
you know, he had a lot of big fights also.
So this is one of those like, oh wow, they
followed each other when it was not the names weren't
as big as they became. I guess is the point.
Speaker 2: Yep, And I don't again, I can't believe that's nineteen
ninety nine twenty five years ago. So advance forward nine
years to Friday, and that's December sixth of two thousand
and eight, sixteen years ago.
Speaker 1: One.
Speaker 2: Manny Pacquiao, who you spent a lot of time talking
about his whole Hall of Fame career, got the knockout
win over Oscar dala Hoya. All right, so tell me
more about what you remember about that night.
Speaker 3: This is the biggest win of Manny pac Yo's career,
first of all, in a career of all those big matchups,
big fights, big events that we spoke about, this is
the big one. This is I think this is the
defining victory of his career. This is as big as
it got for Manny. First of all, he was the underdog.
People thought he was gonna get I don't want to
hear the Monday morning quarterback. I know Oscar looked terrible
in the fight. He got beat up real bad, and
it was he was destroyed and stopped in the eighth
round in the corner, ended up stopping the fight. He
was the favorite, he was the bigger fighter. Many was
jumping up from lightweight to welterweight, even though they had
a catchweight of one forty five. I believe it was
or one forty six. The point here is this Manny
was in a situation where people thought he was going
to get killed, like the Filipino like politicians over there
were like begging him not to do the fight. They
didn't want the fight to happen. They were worried their
national hero was going to be like disabled in the
fight and putting the hospital in the fight. That's how
big of a deal it was. And I mean to
tell the backstory a little bit. I think I've told
this before. The way did this fight ultimately came to
be was the result of me having a conversation like
I always did with my good friend Larry Merchant, and
we would talk about just shoot the shit on different
things in the sport. And at one point we're having
a conversation and we were talking about what Oscar should
do next, which was the biggest star in boxing that time,
and he says he should fight Manny Pacyaw. I was like,
what are you a crazy old man? He's like, hear
me out, and he went on and explained to me
in detail about all the great fighters who had been
in smaller weight classes that jumped up considerable weight to
have big events and big fights. He made the case,
and you know, I just thought he was crazy, and
we moved on to the next topic and then I
started so whatever. That night, I'm literally I can still remember,
I'm like laying in bed thinking about this. I swear
to god. I called Larry back the next day. I said, Larry,
that was amazing. I thought about it overnight. I mean,
I'm paraphrasing what I said to him, but I was like,
can you say some of that stuff again. I'd like
to take some notes because I'd like to write a
column about this. And so we went through a bunch
of that stuff again and I took down some notes
on it, and I thanked him. And when we and
Larry had the conversations on a regular basis for years
and years and years and years. When we hung up
the phone, I called Bob Aram, who was Oscar's promoter
at that time at top right, I said, Bob, hear
me out. I was just talking to Larry Merchant. He's
got an idea for Oscar's fight next fight. What do
you think about this? And I told him, Manny pack yao.
And there were silence on the other end of the
phone and I didn't know if Bob was going to
scream at me like you're a fucking idiot, or he
was going to embrace it, or.
Speaker 2: Which has which by the way, has happened on one occasion,
but did not happen on this occasion.
Speaker 3: So he paused, and I mean it was probably just
a few seconds, but it felt like about ten minutes.
And he finally you could tell he was like his
mind was like processing this, he says, after like a
long like silence, he says, well, take it. Like he
realized what a fucking huge fight that could be. And
obviously he felt like Oscar could win the fight. Uh,
and would be you know the guy that to uh
or that that you know, the pacyw. I mean, I'm
sorry he was with Packy. He knew Pakyaw what he'd
been doing, and and even if he didn't win, it
was still such a great opportunity for such a big megafight.
It didn't happen immediately, but that that was in Bob's mind,
and and it became public with what I wrote about
it and on ESPN, and it became like a big thing.
If there was such a thing as as an idea
going viral, this is before social media. That was sort
of it. They called it like Larry called it like
like the dream kind of fight, and ultimately when they
titled the fight, they called it the dream fight or
the dream match or something like that because it was
Larry's dream. I'm not taking credit for the fight idea.
I'm just the guy that was the conduit and wrote
about it. But ultimately the fight did happen. Keep in mind,
Nanny in in two and eight, he had defeated Juan
Manuel Marquez in their rematch. This was at one hundred
and thirty pounds in a world title fight. He went
up in weight in his next fight and he took
on David Diaz, who was the WBC's champion at one
hundred and thirty five pounds, and he absolutely decimated DZ. Now.
When he went up, a lot of people were worried,
you know, man, he'd been a flyweight. Can he handle
the big guy at thirty five? And when he absolutely
destroyed David Diaz, now, it became a thought in many
people's minds that he could go up another weight division.
They didn't necessarily think one forty seven for de la Hoya,
but certainly the idea was there for one forty, but
he jumped up the two divisions and he absolutely shredded
Oscar in that fight with as I mentioned, you know,
and as one side of the fight as you could
possibly imagine. I mean, I can still hear Jim Lampley
call in the fight. You know, you know, you know
about how badly one of the lines in the fight was,
you know, Manny Packett was annihilating Oscar de la Hooya
and it was a tough call. Tony Weeks the referee,
as Lampley is explaining, saying what we're all thinking. You know,
there's a lot of money and a lot of a
lot of history in Oscar de la Hoy, a lot
of big fights, like he's got to make this decision
about whether to stop it. And eventually in the corner,
you know, Oscar kind of slumped over let his trainer,
who was Nacho Bearistein at the time, make that call.
As Larry Merchant said, as I remember him saying, you know,
death by a thousand left hands, because Many packedale it
was like annihilated him with his straight left hand, you know,
Many being a being a southpaw and just beat the
living shit out of Oscar, who ended up losing and
then several months later announced his retirement. Never actually did
come back, but that was the defining fight because that
was really the David Ds fight. Was a big win,
but you beat Oscar de Loye and then he went
in a row. He went back to one forty, he
blew away Ricky Hatten in the second round for the
lineal title at one forty, went back up to welterweight
at the end of nine and he knocked out in
a great fight against Miguel Coda to win the WBO
welterweight title. Then he beat Joshua Claudy, then he beat
Margarito fifty to fifty four pound title. Then he slaughtered
Chaine Mosey won.
Speaker 2: Year and a half year period is a Hall of
Fame career in and of itself there and then he.
Speaker 3: Then he lost to Tim Bradley in a bullshit call.
And then it was finally in now Till twenty twelve
where he got face planted by one Manuel Marquez in
their fourth fight, And even after that he came back
and beat Rios and Bradley again and Algery and then
finally came the big fight against Mayweather and even after
the Mayweather fight, he had some other big wins against
Bradley again and you know Broner and Thurman and Matisse.
But the Deloya fight was really what started the incredible
run and it was a huge event. Las Vegas was
on fire that week in terms of the star power
and the celebrities that showed up at that fight and
the I mean I can still like remember walking through
the casino like on like on the night before the fight,
and you could not go anywhere. It didn't matter what
corner of that casino or that that floor you're on.
People were talking about the fight. I mean, it's like
that for a lot of big fights today because I've
been there for so many. Of course, this one in
particular was the anticipation, even though a lot of people
thought it was a one sided fight, but you had
such star magnitude. Pacio was this rising star, super exciting.
Oscar was the king of pay per view, you know,
the face of boxing for the previous decade, and that
matchup was a hot fight, as they say, and it
turned out to be a devastation and you.
Speaker 2: Said it, you believe it's Pacquiao's greatest win, and you
went through the litany of all the fights. When you
were talking about his Hall of Fame induction, how about
that bringing full circle that almost to the day he
finds out he's going into the International Boxing Hall of
Fame Pacquiao and others. Wow, all right, it seems like
last week, but earlier in this podcast, we told you
we have got multiple world title fights, two of them
in Phoenix.
Speaker 1: We look forward to what's.
Speaker 2: Going to happen with Navarate Valdez and the rematch of
both rematches of robes C. Ramirez and Rafael Espinoza. That's
the top rank ESPN show. Simultaneous in Puerto Rico, Liam
Parro defending his one hundred and forty pound time title
as well against Richardson Hitchens. We'll handicap those fights on
the bet Us Boxing Show one Eastern time on Friday.
Come find us there and then whatever happens, Big Dan,
we're here with a recap podcast coming off the weekend.
Should be quite a weekend, including your heavyweight tilt there
with char and.
Speaker 1: Who Lev and whatever happens with that. I look forward
to all of it. Why don't we.
Speaker 2: Reconvene on the bet US Show coming up one Eastern
time on.
Speaker 3: Friday, sound good, that sounds good, and.
Speaker 2: Then a recap podcast here on this feet follow, subscribe,
rate US, review US, Apple, Sprinker, Spotify.
Speaker 1: We preview going into the weekend. Recap coming off a
weekend for Dan Rayfield.
Speaker 2: I'm TJ Reef. You've been part of the Big Fight
weekend preview pot