Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big
Fight Weekend.
Speaker 2: Now here is your host, DJ Leaves. All right, we
get ready for a weekend that has a very interesting slate,
including a world title fight in my neck of the
woods in Florida and interesting fight in the boxer main
event in England. We've got one of the premiere personalities
in all of boxing. We're going to play part of
a conversation that Dan Rayfield had with Bob Aaron. We
got a lot news, nostalgia and morri It's the Big
Fight Weekend preview. Hello there, I am merely the somewhat
capable host TJ. Reeves. He is the insider, Dan Rayfield,
Big Fight Weekend dot Com, his fight Freaks Unite, substack,
busy program here with a lot going on. How you
feeling as we head towards the weekend here in October?
Speaker 1: I feel a lot better than my son, who has
no moon yet presently.
Speaker 2: Oh soarly in quarantine, Young Rayfield.
Speaker 1: Not so much a quarantine, but driving Dawn a little
nuts in the house while mine's gonna work.
Speaker 2: I understand. We got to get him feeling better, get
him on the meds. We got a lot to go over,
including a Japanese fight card that was on Monday. After
we released our weekend recap podcast. Dan's going to recap
it here in a moment. First follow, subscribe, Apple, Spreaker, Spotify,
give us a five star review if you love this.
We preview going into the weekend, we recap coming off
the weekend. Let me say up front, the full Bob
Aram interview is a lengthy one. You're not gonna hear
the whole interview on this podcast, but I pledge this
to the audience. This is what you got to subscribe,
be on the feed. We'll have the full interview up Saturday.
On this weekend. There's a tease you'll hear part of
it now, but you'll hear the full thing where Rayfield's
covering at all, including whether the Yankees are gonna win
the World Series. Is Aaron like the Yankees or not?
I don't even know pop quiz, Yeah.
Speaker 1: But he does.
Speaker 2: He does not deal with That's the only thing you
don't cover is.
Speaker 1: The Aaron's a die hard still to this even though
he lives in Las Vegas, hold season tickets to the
New York Football Giants, so he and I die on
the Giants every week.
Speaker 2: That is also not on the pod, but everything else
is basically fair game on that interview.
Speaker 1: And by the way, just in terms of that, Aaron,
we're gonna play a little bit about the Better BV
in the thoughts that fight as the promoter of h
are there Better bea But Bob and I spoke this
week on Wednesday for about an hour, wow, and we
chopped it up on everything. I had called him because
I wanted to talk a little bit about his thoughts
on Better Bevan, Bevol and UH and get his take
on on what's what was going on with that and
and Bevol's seeking a rematch and just just basically that.
And they'd also just formally announced. We've talked about it
several times on the pod, so we're not going to
really go over it again today, but we spoke a
bit about the December seventh card that they have official,
with the rematch being Navarette and Oscar Valdez as well
as the rematch between Raphael Espinoza and Robasi Ramire is
an excellent way for them to close out their American
fight cards for twenty twenty four. But it turned into
so and I figure we'll talk about a few other things.
So we went over everything that there is going on.
I'm just gonna they'll hear everything on the phone interview.
We're gonna go here a little bit, better be a
bovle on this show. But we're talked about I'm looking
at my list here better be of bevol We talked
about the whole fucked up thing with the zone and
the pay per view on on the undercad the undercard
being on pay per view, and he had similar thoughts
as I did about that.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: We discussed in in depth about what's going on with
Noia in a way in his situation. We talked about
him bringing in a way to the United States and
the prospect of a Junto Nakatani fight. We're gonna recap
Nakatani's win from a few days ago. Uh. We talked
about that December seventh card that they close out the
year with in the United States. Tremendous card of rematches.
Speaker 2: Come Upuri, we talk of course, it's.
Speaker 1: My next one on the list. We talked to her
usik To Bob will be going out to Fiuri usik
To in Saudi Arabia. We went over that. We talked
about uh the posts of the Jared Anderson devastating knockout
loss because he's with Top Rank when he got knocked
out by Martin McCauley. We talked about stuff related to
what are we going to see Christian Mobility against Heimi
Mangia in twenty twenty five. There's a tease because they're
working with them. We talked about what he thinks is
next for the unified middleweight title holder, janebec. We talked
about the rumors of Lomachenko's possible retirement. We talked about
the issues that he's having with Tafimo Lopez and his
contractual situation. We talked about the hometown debut and bringing
fighters to their hometown, particularly related to what's upcoming in
November with Keishaan Davis returning to have his first pro
fight and his first main event in Norfolk, Virginia. And
we talked about their outstanding documentary series of shows on
ESPN Plus called The Fight Life that's phenomenal, and we
also discussed in this was very interesting, the impending expiration
of Top Ranks agreement mid next year with ESPN and
what their plans are for broadcast. We covered a lot
of stuff.
Speaker 2: You talked about everything but the Yankees, the Giants, and
the presidential if you want that, go somewhere else. But
other than that, you and Bob Aaron covered it all
and we'll play part of that in a little bit.
So chronologically, we have this Japanese fight card that had
several world title fights on it, headlined by Nakatani's win
over this opponent, Chip Atana. If that's how you say it,
that the opponent from Thailand. Correct, So give me a
recap of that and the other fights because since last
week talked that happened on Monday in Japan. Go ahead
before we get in the preview mode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Nakatani was the main event. He was
defending the WBC Bantamway title. I mean, Nakatani is one
of the few fighters I'll wake up early to watch,
you know there when it comes to these Do you
know how much I love the Japanese card. We discussed
a million times and they have a lot of outstanding
talent right now in Japan. It's really, I think a
golden age of boxing in Japan. They've got numerous world champions,
lots of exciting fighters, fighters who are at a level
where they'll be able to compete. To me, anyway, it
seems with lots of other fighters from other parts of
the other parts of the world rather sometimes their past
history is showing that some of the Japanese champions haven't
traveled that well. I believe there's plenty of guys that
they have those champions that will do just fine against
anybody Europeans, Americans, Mexicans, you name it. But Na Katani
in a way, and I guess Taraji, I guess those
are the three guys that Rayfiel will wake up early
and watch any time. And Nakatani he's now twenty nine
to twenty two knockouts, and to me anyway, he's now
broken through as a top top ten type pound for
pound caliber fighter. And you know, he may not have
the big names on his resume, but if you watch him,
you know he's fucking good. And he took out Chip
Patana in pretty devastating fashion just to you know, drop
him a couple of times, a bunch of right hands
to the side of the head, you know, and he
can He's a south body. He can hit. He he seems
to me he hits very hard with both hands, a
good puncher, outstanding training team, you know, with Rudy Hernandez,
who he's been with for years, and he just looked
outstanding taking the guy apart. And there were some pressure,
I think on him because there's been so much conversation
about the prospect of him facing in a way in
a big super fight.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: In the interview that we referenced I did with Aaron
on Wednesday, he and I spent some time talking about
the you know what the what the game plan is
overall for in a way in the next two to
three fights, and the prospect of that mega fight with
Nakatani taking place in Japan sometime next probably like next summer.
Ish as long as you know, in a way continues
to win, but that's a huge fight. But na Katani
had to take care of his business before any of that,
and I would suspect he'll fight at least one more
time between now and then. Anyway, he's a pleasure to
watch and this was just another type of experience of
which just watch him absolutely pummel and destroy a guy.
By the way that chip Atana may not be like
a well known guy, and he, you know, like many
of these Taigland feders, he has about three different names
he goes by. He's now seventy six wins and two
losses with fifty three knockouts, so in seventy nine professional
fights are seventy eight seventy eight pfeational fights, two losses
and the only time he ever got stopped was by
Nakatani So and he's not an old fighter. He's thirty
years old, so he's obviously been around for a long
time now. Obviously, like a lot of the Thailand fighters
he's faced just in recent fights. You know, guys with
records like three and ten, you know, and three and
oh as a guy with seventy five plus fights nine
and eight, they know, it's just the way they do
things in Thailand. They don't necessarily fight the big names
or the top guys, but they mix in the best
of their country and they fight for regional titles on
that sort of thing. But he did not travel all
that well. His one notable fight he had prior to this,
which was only other loss, because he go back to
twenty eighteen, he traveled to Tokyo also and he lost
a decision challenging to Kuma in a way for at
the time, what was the WBC's intern dantamway title and
he lost one seventeen to one eleven on all three scorecards.
So that can give you a frame of reference if
you're thinking na Katani and in a way and how
they matched up against the same opponent. Remember, there was
a lot of talk that before for Nakatani would fight
Noya in a way, he would fight Takuma in a
unification fight. And Theakuma lost on that Saturday card in
Tokyo or I guess on the Sunday card in Tokyo,
So that's out the window. But the point here is, uh,
the guy that that know that Takuma went the distance
with in a title fight of sorts. Uh, Nakatani absolutely
destroyed with devastating punches in the second in the you know,
in the sixth round for the only knockout loss of
the guy's career. So that was the main event of
the show and it was a great performance. And uh,
you know, we don't have to get spend a lot
of time on the rest of it, but just to
shoot down the list here he had at tension Nasakawa,
who's the kickboxer who everybody thinks is going to be
something excellent in the junior featherweight slash band to weight division.
He fought as abandonmweight in a regional title. He rolled
to a decision over a Jerwin a Celo. This was
an upset you had. Kosei Tanaka was defending the w
BOS Junior bantam white title, lost a split decision, but
a legit split decision against a fighter named fumalay Lela
Cafu from South Africa put on a tremendous performance in
a big win for him, him and his team. And
then you have the Nakatani stablemate also with Rudy Hernandez,
the trainer Anthony Olaskagua, who was making the first offense
of the WBO Flyway title that he had won on
one of these Japanese undercards back a couple of months ago,
and he took on the former one awaight title. There
Jonathan Gonzales, and you know, competitively, you're like, okay, this
could be a competitive fight. Alas Coaga, this tremendous offensive
fighter comes forward, likes to mix it up. Gonzales more
of a boxer, more of a slickster, more of a
guy that's gonna move. And you know see the style
clash there. Unfortunately, there was not a style clash. There
was a head clash in the first round, and Gonzalez
suffered a cut, and you know, he didn't really have
the body language it seemed like he wanted to continue.
He said he couldn't see, which is somewhat questionable, I believe,
and they ended up stopping the fight in round one
for a no contest because it happened before the four
rounds were completed. But the reality is, if you watch that,
I've seen a million guys get cut, and it was
round one. They never even are not they Gonzalez never
even seemed to even want to give his corner the
chance to see what they could do. It wasn't that
bad of a cut. It didn't seem like it was
going into his eye. And the commentators, you know, Christina
Poncher and Nico Ali Walsh who were calling the fight
for a top rank on ESPN Plus, who, by the way,
shout out to them, did a tremendous job of doing
all those fights on the two days, and they do
an excellent job whenever they're in the studio for that in.
Speaker 2: The middle of the night Pacific time zone, by the way, too.
Speaker 1: They did a really good job with that. But you know,
and and they're not ones to criticize now Nico, he's
a professional boxer and Christina has been covering sport for
a long time. But even they were like back and
forth on the Bronco like, does he want to be
a fighter? Gonzalez like this was he just didn't seem
like he wanted to be there. And it's a disappointment
because he's had other issues that have come up. So
I felt so bad for Alis Glauber. You put in
that hard camp. If you go in there and you
get a first roun knockout, great, But to have an
end like that on a headbut where the other guy
seems to just want a way out of the fight,
that's a little sketchy. You look questionable. So, you know,
Gonzalez I think needs to think about what he wants
to do with his rest of his career and they
hopefully can get als Kagua after that. I'm thinking maybe
they can get him back in on the in away
under card in December, get him back real quick, to
not let that training camp go to waste and get
the kid. You know, another guy that's coming to actually
fight him. So that was your Japanese card that ended,
by the way, that two day stretch where they had
you know, eight of the fights on ESPN plus seven
of them were world title fights with some of the
best out there in the in the in the Japanese
boxing community, and there was a whole bunch of good fights,
and I love those shows.
Speaker 2: Love that all right, it is a preview pod, So
let's get into the preview mode as we do this
Thursday evening into Friday morning. As we released the pod
overnight Thursday. The IBF Junior Middleweight world title fight Bakram
martaz Alaiev and Tim Zu happening in my part of
the world, Dan Rayphield regionally in Orlando, Florida. They had
the final press conference on Thursday for Bakrum making the
defense against Zoo, who when last we saw him, speaking
of nastiness, nasty cut still is the avatar by the way,
on your social media, I mean, are you just trying
to gross the public out? I mean, I know it's
Halloween coming out, but you know what.
Speaker 1: You listened back to the interview that I had with
Tim that we played on the podcast. You know, a
couple of shows ago, I actually mentioned to Tim that
I had his picture of him with the cut on
my social and he's kind of got a kick out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, so he has recovered surgically plastic surgery
from that, these guys get ready for a twelve round
bout that Let's be honest, I mean, Zoo derailed by
the gash on the head and the loss of Sebastian Fundora.
There were big things planned, and now this is a
big moment where he's got to get back a portion
of the title here and get back into those big
plans and into those big talks. Are they thought in
the preview mode coming up?
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a real critical fight for Tim Zoo
because the Fundora fight. I'm sure I'm not alone. I
felt like he was on his way to a crushing
knockout loss against Sebastian Vandora the way he dominated the first.
Speaker 2: Two knockout win you mean, I mean, yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 1: Knock that way exactly. And then unfortunately the cut happened. Then,
you know, and and Fandora had problems too with the nose,
and they both showed tremendous heart. It was a tremendous fight,
great fight. This was back in March. Can't can't really
afford two consecutive losses in these types of high stakes
fights without suffering some kind of consequences in terms of
your marketability, your earning power where you are on the card.
It's a very important fight for Tim Zuo, but I
think he's up for it. I mean, he sounded like
it when I talked to him. I've saw the body
language at the press conference, I must say, though. I
mean I watched the press conference on on the PBC's
YouTube channel, and let me tell you, I I think
I literally might have dozed off doing so. It was
I can only hope that the fight and I have
pretty high hopes that the fight's gonna be way better
than that press converence. Sometimes it's the opposite.
Speaker 2: We see them again language. We know that as a
as a Russian.
Speaker 1: But it's not even just that. It was the whole thing,
the undercart.
Speaker 2: But all right, so let's go on it like this.
What does this fight in your mind come down to? What? What?
What does Zoo have to do? Well? Will Handicap have
to fight and make picks on Friday on the US
Boxing show? Well, what's the rob here? What's the fight?
Come down to no.
Speaker 1: This comes down to man O Almano, I mean Mano
Amano toughness. You know who's gonna take it. Because these
guys are come forward fighters, they can slug it out.
I do think that Tim Zoo has got a little
more versatility and a little more skill, probably quicker. But
Bachram is no bum. He's he's heavy handed, He's got
some ability also, and he is undefeated as well, and
he's coming off you know, I won't say spectacular, but
a a really excellent performance. Remember he had been a
long time mandatory for Jamel Charlow and you know that
fight yet getting put off. They had a deal with PBC.
You know he's with Main Events. They did step aside
deals multiple times. He fought on some of the PBC
undercards to keep active. He made good money doing so.
And when it finally came to do the fight, this
is post Charlowe's loss to Canelo, when he was supposed
to come back down to the junior midleweight division, the
DIBA finally scheduled they purstally because they were not able
to make the deal, which was kind of surprising given
the business that Main Events and PBC had been doing
to have him continue to lea step aside. But Charlotte
just you know, he didn't either didn't want to fight,
did have a big name, his opponent didn't wanted to
keep making that way. Whatever, it didn't come as a surprise,
and on the day the person he vacated, and so
Bachram then was the next up for the vacant title.
So he traveled to Germany to his opponent's home area
in Falconcy, Germany, and he put on an excellent performance.
He knocked out cul K in the eleventh round. It
was a hard hitting fight, but he dominated for the
most part, was way up on at least one score card.
The other ones were a little more generous, it seemed today,
but nonetheless it was a very definitive ending. He's a
good puncher. He is twenty two and zho with sixteen knockouts,
and so you ask about how the fight goes, I
believe these guys are going to be in the center
of the ring slugging it out. I mean, maybe Zoo
will try to employ some boxing ability, knowing that he's
going to be quicker and a little more skillful than
his opponent. But Bachram, the one thing he did say
through translator at the press conference, was about how he
just looks to being in the middle of the ringion
and you know, going at him, that he's not going
to run and hide, He's going to be there to
fight the guy. And that's what you want to see
and just for people realize and recognizes this. So far
since the union of PBC and Prime Video, every event
that they have done, which is not even that many,
they've all been pay per views. Tank Davis pay per views,
Cane paper views, Fundora Versus Zoo pay per view. It's
all been pay per view. This is the first finally,
almost a year after they announced their and their alignment together.
They did their announcement that they were making a deal
or that they had made a deal back in December
of last year, and now here we are in October
the following year, so it's ten months later and finally,
really eleven months, I guess they finally are doing a
non pay per view and that is the main event.
So this does not cost any extra money. You have
Prime Video, you get this fight on your Prime Video.
You also get the two undercards, two of the undercard,
two of the undercard fights. That's the excellent one fifty
four pound prospect Unstas against Johan Gonzalez, who's a good puncher,
and Caesar Matteo Tappy against injury Savedra that is a
middleweight fight. So I know those are not big names
of the two undercard fights I mentioned you, but they
seem to be good on paper in terms of what
they can produce action wise, but main event. Honestly, again,
the press conference might have been sleep inducing, but to
fight us up, I believe is going to be a
very fun, entertaining battle for.
Speaker 2: A host from your lips to what we see with
the fists. Because I am headed there my friend to
the carib Royale Casino and Resort in Orlando, again about
sixty seventy miles from me, so I will be ol
on location. You are frequently ol for us on the pod,
on the site, et cetera. I will be OL for
us and let's see if we get some action. Because
from my standpoint, I've watched Tim Zoo obviously from Australia
from Afar. How am I going to pass up the
opportunity to have the guy regionally close to me and
not make every effort it works with my schedule the
Buccaneers don't play on Sunday, they don't play the money
night football. I'm anxious to get over there and see
do these guys mix it up? Exactly what you said, yea,
the IBF one hundred and fifty four pound title, So
we're both intrigued by that, and again will handicap it
more on the bet US Live show one Eastern time,
but on on Friday.
Speaker 1: The other thing about it, by the way, is that
the winner of the fight is going to have a
lot of different opportunities, I believe because the one hundred
and fifty four pound way class has got a lot
of good, attractive fights in there. You know, I know
that Tim Zoo, if you go back a few months ago,
was originally supposed to fight Virgial Artis on the riann
season card that was going to that was in Los
Angeles where the main event was Terrence Crawford against Israel Majima,
but because the scalp laceration had not healed, he was
ruled out. So he has made a point that yeah,
if we can do it, I would love to fight
virgual Arties by Bakram Wins, maybe that would be a possibility.
You know, those sides can certainly do business with one another.
There's not a lot of you know, issues in terms
of the promotional stuff there. But you also have Fondora,
who's out there, who's going to be coming back. There's
a lot of conversations he's allowed. Now the they just
did the thing we talked about it where the the
order of a fight between Sebastian Fandora and Terrence Crawford.
They've made a deal and Crawford is doing whatever he's
gonna do, not really determined. But Fondora is gonna fight
an optional defense. He can't he's got to fight somebody
in the top fifteen, so that will rule out in
Aerol Spence fight. But who knows what his next fight's
gonna be, But it could be a Tim Zuo fight.
Speaker 2: Maybe they'll do a their rematch, right right.
Speaker 1: That's sitting out there, and so and then if you
go further down to the way class, there's other really
attractive fights. So this is a fight that's good on
its own, but should certainly lead the winner to something
even more interesting.
Speaker 2: I believe I like it. One other noteworthy fight card,
and that is the Boxer show in the UK that
will be Saturday afternoon US time, where Adam Azeem, hard
hitting junior welterweight, is fighting veteran O'Hara Davies. Tell me
more about besides what I just let it in with,
more about this bout and what we're looking forward to Saturday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, a Ziem is a prospect that
I've enjoyed, an excellent young fighter from England. He's only
twenty two years old. This fight will take place in
London and as you mentioned, it is the main event,
and that's the type of fan base and the backing
that Azeem has from Sky Sports in the UK. It's
obviously peacock here they simulcast the boxer shows. He was
supposed to fight Harlem eu Bank, who was the nephew
of Chris U Banks Senior, and they had announced it.
They faced him off in the ring back earlier in
the year, and for reasons that have never really been
made clear to me, it did not happen. I don't
know if there was I guess there was much of
be an injury or something like that, but they did
not reschedule it and instead, so Azeem has been out
of the ring since February, which is not a long stretch,
but for a young fighter like the way he had
been active, it seems a little bit longer than you
would have thought it would have been. Now, in Ohara Davies,
you got a guy who's coming off a absolutely one
sided first round knockout loss against Israel Barroso in a
fight that he was a heavy favorite to win. That
was in an interim title fight he had signed with
Golden Boy. I thought he's gonna do big things. He
was talking a lot of shit and it was over
and out one minute and fifty three seconds.
Speaker 2: I remember. The excuse is he said it was too
noisy in his hotel room in the casino and the oxygen.
I don't know that we've ever heard this. The oxygen
is somehow different because it's a casino and that affected him.
So this is whatever, whatever you buy on that for
him getting knocked out in one round less than one.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, the thing that's crazy is that Davies,
while he may not be like a super elite world
championship fighter for Zing, for Veroso, who's a good puncher,
but an old man as we all know, to knock
him that in one round was surprising. Only because even
when O'Hara Davies had lost previously, it was against the
best fighters out there. He got stopped in the seventh
round by Josh Taylor in twenty seventeen. Obviously, Josh went
on to become the undisputed champion in that weight class.
In twenty eighteen, he lost a close decision to Jack Catterall,
who is emerged as a guy that a lot of
people thought beat Josh Taylor in their first fight, did
beat him in the second fight, and is now on
his way to fight Regis Program, who you're going to
hear from in an interview coming up on our Sunday
Night podcast as he heads into that fight next week.
Right anyway, So Davies, though, my question is this you're
looking you see first round knockout loss to broso you're like,
is that what he is now or is that just
one of those things that happened. I mean, it always
rings in my mind. The legendary top rank matchmaker Bruce Trampler,
hall of famer, one of the guys in boxing who
I have as much respect for as anybody. His opinion.
Actually was happy when I was in Vegas recently to
go and hang out and spend some time with Bruce
for a couple hours. Anyway, Bruce will talk to you
all the time about you know, you shouldn't really take
first round knockout wins or first round knockout losses all
that seriously, you know, generally speaking. And so I wonder
for a fighter like Davis who's shown the ability to
go deep into fights with the elite fighters, was that
a anomaly getting knocked out Barroso win in the first round.
Who is a good puncher, And how is Azeem going
to handle him? Is he taking him lightly because of that?
So I am intrigued from that stay.
Speaker 2: Was it the hotel oxygen? We're about to find out.
We're about to find out when Azem gets his hands
on him.
Speaker 1: I mean, say what you want. Azeem is eight eleven
and ohero with eight knockdouts, a tremendous young fighter on paper,
this does seem like this should be his most stiff test,
even if you can get past that first roun knackut.
You know, he does have the win against Poulsen where
he was the UH defended the European title. He beat
you know, Frank Pettigen, who had been in the ring
with some other good guys uh in a in winning
the European title, but other than that, the other fighters
on his record are there's nothing there. So I don't know, man,
I want to see can Azeem do do it, do
what Barroso did or even stop him at all?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 1: Or or if Davies is remotivated and and there's no
issues with the airflow you know going on this flight.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And again that will be on sky Sports in the
UK sorry night primetime. Peacock will stream it with the
deal with Boxer in the United States Saturday afternoon for
a zeem in O'Hara Davies. All right, So that leads
us now to your conversation with Bob Aram. Again, I
preface by saying it's not the entire thing. You're going
to hear a portion of Dan's lengthy conversation where specifically,
in this part they're talking about the undisputed light heavyweight
title win by Archer better Biev who Top Rank promotes.
You'll hear some of that part of the conversation than
Dan and I back on the other side again, the
full conversation coming this weekend. But here you go, Dan
with Bob Aram earlier this week.
Speaker 1: First and foremost, what did you think about the accomplishment
that better beev accomplished by unifying the four belt. That's
what he's wanted for a long time. It's what Bevo
has wanted, and your guy was able to get the
job done close as it was, I.
Speaker 4: Think it was a terrific battle between two really outstanding
light heavyweight fighters who had a different fight styles, and
that made it a really interesting fight to watch.
Speaker 1: So now, you usually travel for your big fights, but
you were not present because I know you were back
home observing the Jewish holidays when that was happening. So
I wonder, yeah, exactly, So I wonder as you instead
of in your usual spot at ringside, as you were
watching I'm sure on ESPN Plus, what was your perspective
on the rightful winner of the fight? Because to me, anyway,
I scored the fight a draw, but I could one
hundred percent see absolutely there be of winning by a
close decision. And likewise with if somebody wants to tell
me that they thought BiVO won by you know, a
seven to five kind of decision, what was your take
watching it live?
Speaker 3: Well, I you know, I thought Beta Beta won the fight.
I added.
Speaker 4: Seven five Beta be Of, particularly because you came on
in the late rounds to sweep the late rounds, which
he had to do to win the fight. I think
before people make any judgment about the fight, they should look.
Speaker 3: At the judges' scorecards.
Speaker 4: I mean, the three judges had ten rounds identical.
Speaker 3: In other words, there was no dispute.
Speaker 4: For ten as far as ten rounds were concerned, and
that came out six.
Speaker 3: For Better be Off for for bivil.
Speaker 4: Now, there were two rounds where the judges split, and
in those for those two rounds, one judge had it
all for Better be Off, two rounds for Better be Off,
one judge had it two rounds for bivol and the
American judge development had it one round each.
Speaker 3: So that's why you got scores of.
Speaker 4: A draw, seven five for Better be Off and eight
four for Better be Off. So again, it was a
very well judged fight. It wasn't judges being all over
the place. They saw at least ten rounds the same,
and I had Better be Of winning seven to five.
And I think that a lot of people viewing that
fight who claimed that bivol Ion were influenced by the
TV production which was done by dis own, even though
in the United States it was shown on.
Speaker 3: ESPN Plus, because if you.
Speaker 4: Looked at that between rounds, when they reviewed the highlights
of the previous rounds, overwhelmingly it.
Speaker 1: Was let's just call it very biviol friendly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was.
Speaker 4: Bevol friendly because Bev was a just zone fighter with
Eddie Earn and with.
Speaker 3: Vadim uh and Uh. I think that influenced a lot
of people.
Speaker 4: That being said, it was a very very close, very
well fought fight.
Speaker 1: So after the fight was over, because of the dispute,
if you will, by a lot of folks that thought
that he did win. And then I saw some comments
from Turkey al Chic saying, you know who I guess
has a relationship with both fighters. His opinion was that
Bevol won the fight by two rounds. He said there
needs to be a rematch. Both fighters seemed open to
the to the prospect when asked about it in their
postfight comments about doing another fight. What is your take
on the prospect of having this fight be an immediate
rematch whenever these guys are getting back in the ring
next year.
Speaker 4: Well, you see my friend Turkey Louis, did you see
who he was sitting next to at the fight.
Speaker 1: I did you want to tell us all about that?
Speaker 4: He was sitting next to Frank and Eddie exactly, and
so obviously they saw it for Bivol.
Speaker 3: Seven to five.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, Bob, I don't know. I don't
know if Frank had any dog in that fight.
Speaker 3: To tell you the truth, No, Frank paid everybody. The
money came through Frank, so again and and maybe.
Speaker 4: Whatever it was now Turkey, it was a you know,
a guy who loves boxing wants to see a rematch,
and I think the public would love.
Speaker 3: To see a rematch.
Speaker 4: But again, because the READ season ends in February, the
earliest state for a rematch would be next stock to open.
Speaker 1: Well, they did do some some READ fights that were
beyond that date, and they also did the fights that
were outside of the READ season in other locations.
Speaker 3: But that is not that is not what they're going
to do in the future.
Speaker 4: I think there was a lot of pushback on his
excellency for doing fights outside of Saudi Arabia and outside
of READ season. So I think going forward, you know,
in order to tap into the lodge.
Speaker 3: Budget that they will have, they will have to do.
Speaker 4: The fights in ri Odds season in Saudi Arabia, which
makes sense.
Speaker 3: So it may mean that each of these guys fight.
Speaker 4: One more time against other opponents, and then for October
of next year.
Speaker 3: They do their rematch.
Speaker 4: I think that is likely from a business standpoint, the
likeliest thing that will happen.
Speaker 2: All right, again, good stuff there from his perspective about
the better be of win, the potential rematch, et cetera.
I say again here the full conversation coming on this
podcast feed on Saturday, with all the topics that Dan
was running down earlier in the program, including the USIK
Thory two rematch, et cetera. All right, so you talked
with him about that, and now we know that Dmitri
Beevil has also written Everybody but the Easter Bunny saying hey,
I want the rematch. So we heard what Bob was
saying about it. What are your thoughts here on is
it realistic? What do you read the tea leaves here?
And you were talking to Bob Aaron about this, Well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in terms of what people did, it's then not
a surprise. I mean, there was some controversy obviously in
terms of the result, although honestly, maybe it's just me,
but I feel like this was a close fight and
one guy won the fight by you know, on one
scorecard and it was a majority of decision, and that's
not This was not like there was a scorecard that
was like one twenty to one oh eight or something
like that, and it was blasphemy in that fight that
was so close that have one scorecard come up eight
rounds to four is not ridiculous in my opinion, And
there are people whose opinions I respect who happen to
think it is, and I just don't agree with that.
So as an example, like I have nothing but love
and respect for al Bernstein and Alan I had to
respectful a little back and forth on our social media
and he feels like that one sixteen one to twelve
card is shameful as the word he used, and I'm
just like, well, we're just gonna have to agree to disagree.
So again, I have nothing but ample respect for al Bernstein,
one of the great UH boxing announcers in the history
of the sport. But I don't feel like this is
one of those fights where you know, it has to
be like everybody's hair is on fire. But look a
lot of people felt like Beebell should have won the fight.
There's no other big mega fight in the weight class
for either guy at the moment, particularly if the mandatories
that are in the WBO are rather in the WBC
and the WBA, which is David Benevite's and David Morrell
are already set to fight each other in the early
part of next year, and Turkey wants to fight. The
two fighters seem to you know, the bi Boll and
his team definitely want to fight better. Be Able was like,
I'll do the fight if that's what they want and
what Turkey wants, and people hear from Aaron, you know,
he's they're not opposed on the top rank end of
doing the rematch as long as everything is done properly
in terms of the way the deal is, structure and
the money in the whole thing. Fine, So they're gonna
do this rematch now to make it so it could
still be for all the belts, because if you back
up to May, we saw Alexander Usk defeat Tyson Fury
for the undisprited heavyweight title and they had a rematch
clause where this fight doesn't but nonetheless they're scheduled do
their rematch in December, but it will not be for
undisputed status because of the fact that the IBF the
IBF things, and uh and it's not happening. And do
By ended up getting that belt and defending it against
Anthony Joshua. So they'll still fight for the three titles,
but Bovill and better be able what I guess want
it to be for all the belts, and uh, and
there's that situation. So they send off the attorney, Patrick English,
who I've known for my entire career, one of the
top boxing lawyers in the business for decades, way before
I was even involved in boxing, wrote a letter to
the organization president's copied that you know, copied the four
presidents on the on the letter, and they made their
case that they would like to have the order for
all the organizations to make it for that they approve
and order the rematch so it can be for all
the belts. As it turns out, one of the examples
he used in terms of the public outcry of the
reason to order a rematch was because of the draw
that took place in a vander Holyfield Lennox Lewis and
their first fight. Now this this result is not even
remotely in the same bratisphere of controversy. But he was
only making the point. And the reason I think he
used this particular fight is because Pat and to this
day still is the lawyer for Main Events, and they
represented Lennox Lewis that fight. So he was the one
that wrote to the organizations back then, the three organizations
at the time, to seek to get them to order
to approve anyway a rematch between Holyfield and Lennox Lewis.
And so he's now here doing this again on behalf
of Dimitri Bovil, and they in fact did that. They
have rules that allow that. Now what's interesting about it,
TJ is this, So I do think the rematch is
going to probably happen because I mentioned all the different
parties involved seem to be okay with it, and you know,
the mandatories, at least in some of the organizations are
not an issue. As it turned out, the letter that
Pat English wrote to the organizations about asking for this
rematch to be approved and ordered was on Wednesday. On Thursday,
the IBF, because the IBF does the IBF thing, they
ordered and sent a letter ordering better be as IBF
mandatory against a fighter named Michael Eifert who won a
title eliminator for the number one position in a victory,
an upset victory against the former champion Jean Pascal. He's
had one fight since then to stay busy. But now
now that the better b of in the B ball
fight was in the books, that the IBF ordered that mandatory,
apparently they are next up into the rotation system now.
Although they ordered the mandatory in my exchange with the IBF,
and they're very good about getting back to me about
this sort of thing. They said that, even though, and
they made a specific notation when they sent me back
the email about it, even though we have ordered better
b of an Eiford all paraphrase here, they're they're okay
to have the B ball team, you know, asked for
an exception obviously to do the rematch with people, and
they would certainly consider that. I think that's got a
good chance of getting approved, especially given the magnitude of
the fighting, all the things that have and by the way,
as pat English and the letter pointed out their past
history going back all those years ago. And I'm sure
there's other fights that we get come up with, but
certainly in the case of the Holy filled the Lewis
Fight Day allowed it also, so you know, I get
to wait and see sort of situation. But you know,
Bevoll's trying to like cover all his bases. It's one
thing for the rematch to happen. Nobody can stop that
from happening. If the sides agree to do it. It's
a matter will all the belts be And they're trying
to trying to get a situation where all the belts
will still be.
Speaker 2: Let's cut to it. You said it in a roundabout way,
but I'll say it directly. No one cares about better
be of defending all four belts against Michael Eifert. What
we care about is if Beevill wants the rematch, let's
see it again. Now, can we have good things? We'll
find out. We'll find out if we can have good now.
Speaker 1: One thing. One thing about it, and people can either
read my story on my sub sect that I wrote
about it on Wednesday night and that that was part
of what Aaron and I spoke about. His perspective is like, yeah,
well we're okay with the rematch, but he wasn't sure
about the timing because read season the festival runs from
October where just kicked off with this better be a
b Bole fight that took place last weekend, and it
ends that nobody kind of really knows, at least I've
looked up. It's like late February. Maybe it's March. But
the point is, once the festival is over, the amount
of events that the read season folks do in Saudi
Arabia anyway does slow down a little bit. Now they
are still doing other events that are not necessarily boxing related,
and they did obviously in their non set festival period
of time. They did the fight in La in August.
They then did the fight the month before their new
festival started in September, just last month with Joshua and Dubah.
Point being is that Bob was like, well, they're cutting back.
They want to do the bigger fights in Saudi Arabia,
so that may prevent the rematch from taking place until
this time next year to kick off the next read season.
And he suggested that if that is the case, maybe
we'll have to find a way to the guys have
interim fights if they don't want to wait for a
full year for the rematch. So he was putting out
there the possibility of there being interim bouts, at least
for his guy. Anyway, we'll see what the fighters thoughts
are about that. And you know what Turkey and the
Saudi's decide to do in terms of paying for it
and where they want to have it in the Saudi
do they would they do it in America or or
in the UK or somewhere else. So we'll see. But
I do suspect the rematch will happen. I do suspect
that the organizations, most of them, if not all of them,
will be on board with keeping all the belts intact
for that fight. And uh, we'll see it again.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: Let's stay with the news here, oh heavyweight news involving,
as you always say, my boy a, Jeet Kabayel and
Martin Bucoli, because apparently they may be fighting each other
to become the mandatory challenger for Daniel Dubois. What is
the latest with this?
Speaker 1: This is such a if it does actually happen, I
find this to be like a really cool fight, you know,
it's kind of like adding nowhere ish. But both guys
have been winning. Baccoley looked absolutely awesome destroying Jared Anderson.
He has fought on two consecutive read season cards, one
in Saudi one in La Your Boy. Cabell has also
fought his last couple of fights. He's got some good,
solid victories and has maintained his position. I mean, it's
just it's a very interesting matchup, and it just goes
to show you that the IBF, you know who I
always mock about doing IBF things. In this particular case,
it turns out Cabell and Cabiel and Bacoli are the
top two rated contenders in the IBF rankings. One and
two are vacant, which they often do, but these are
the next two guys they rank in at three and four.
I forget. I think it's Cabielli is three and Bacolis
four if my memory serves and he correct Anyway, as
I said, Cabiel also is coming off some good wins.
He knocked out Mac macdouf very impressively as an underdog
in the fourth round back in December. His next fight
had another solid win of knockout victory against the undefeated
Frank Sanchez. Also, I believe the underdog in that fight.
So these guys are on good role and they're clearly
emerging as among the top ten heavyweights, and so the
IBF offered them if they wanted to do it, and
they accepted that the position in the eliminator to do
an elimination doubt that would match the two together and
produce the next mandatory challenger for the IBF heavyweight tunnel.
Not that is of course, currently held by Dubi. He's
headed to her probably a February rematch with Day with
Anthony Joshua. But the point being in, you know, the
IBF is whatever whoever murders from those those fights that
fight with the IBF title is going to have to fight.
The winner of Bocoli against Caby. I'll have to fight happen.
So they've ordered the fight. Both guys that have expressed
their interest to be in it, they're both with the Saudi's.
I see absolutely no reason why this fight can't happen.
As a matter of fact that you know, they have
a time frame like every IBF order to make a
deal of they'll call a pursepit. But I have to
say TJ, given their association with the read season and
the amount of heavyweight fights that they put on these
big shows they do, and given the timing that we're
at not at all. Would not be a shock to
me whatsoever if in fact this fight was made and
it winds up as one of the undercard fights when
Dubois and Joshua probably meet again in February, and that
would be a dynamite undercard fight.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 1: You guys, by the way, who excuse me? Two guys
who a year ago were just sort of on the
periphery of heavyweight sort of situation. You know, I knew
who they were. I've seen them fight, but didn't really
necessarily consider them top contenders, even though they had nice records.
In the whole thing. It just goes to show you
what activity and a couple collid wins can do for
an the heavyweight division. You go from being nobody or
out on the on the on the outskirts of true contendership.
Now you're right there in the thicket things fighting each
other for the number one spot in one of the organizations.
Speaker 2: Well, and in Cobby Yelle's case, he hasn't correct me if
I'm wrong. I don't think he's ever fought in the
United States. He certainly isn't somebody that the US fight
fans know a lot about. But we absolutely know about.
Speaker 1: But mccoley's only fought the one fight in the United States.
Speaker 2: Still we absolutely know who he is after what he
did to Jared Anderson, is my point in August.
Speaker 1: I mean Sokabel. The thing about Cavil though, even though
he hasn't boxed in America, the reality is he's been
seen more in America on television slash. No, not on
his own, because he's not been on his own. But
there was a period of time where a top rank
was doing a lot of the fights that were involving
his promoter se s from Germany, and so there were
a there were a number of Kabiel fights that were
streamed on ESPN Plus, whereas Mccoli had never been seen.
I don't believe on American television until I seem to.
Speaker 2: Recall like a Monte Carlo Monte Carlo main event on
the Zone with Kabbayelle. But maybe I imagine that. I
don't know. But anyway, he's not a household name, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he might have been. He did fight Shasor over
there several years.
Speaker 2: He's been undefeated and let's see, let's see.
Speaker 1: Uh, it's a good it's a very interesting match. Butcle's
this big, strong dude who just ruined Anderson knocked him
out as a sturdy looks real sturdy. Tabiel has been
kind of an overachiever to I think, to the minds
of many still undefeated, been I think getting better. And
these guys are still in terms of heavyweights, you know,
they're not old, used up guys. They're in their thirty
they're in their early thirties, which is sort of where
heavyweights seem to kind of come into their own. In
terms of Kabiel's age, he's thirty two years old and
has looked as good as he's looked, you know, in
his whole career over the last couple of fights. And
in terms of Nikoli, he's also thirty two years old.
And again, I hope this fight happens, whether you know
it's it's the kind of thing where the title elimination
aspect of it helps facilitate the fight. So I know
I ripped the IBF on this and that, but this
is one of those instances where this is actually a
good thing.
Speaker 2: By one more IBF item, and that is you mentioned
Naoia in a way all the way back at the
beginning of the podcast that he is now supposed to
be fighting Sam Goodman. Do they have a deal yet,
are we looming again with a purse bid? And how
does mj Akmadaliev also factor into this?
Speaker 1: Okay? So on Tuesday of this week, the IBF sent
out the letter to the promoters of that are all
the registered promoters in the IBF, saying they had scheduled
a purse bid for the fight between In a Way
and the IBF mandatory, which is Sam Goodman from Ushia.
Obviously you know he's got all the belts. They scheduled
for October twenty ninth and sent it out and so
that made you think, oh, well, they must not have
a deal. There must be an issue, because for the
last however long, it's been sort of like an open
secret that yeah, they're the next fight's going to be
in a Way against Sam Goodman and they're wrapping that up.
So with the IBF again, they do IBF things and
they don't really pay attention sometimes what's going on. They
just have it in their calendar and they blast out
the letter. If they had bothered to make a phone
call to either of the sides, they would have found
out that, yeah, that's not one hundred percent done and
maybe the organizam, you know, the two sides could ask
for you know, another a couple of days extension or whatever.
Even though the purspid was ordered. George Rose from No
Limit Boxing, who is the promoter for Sam Goodman and
the folks at Top Rank who are the co promoter
of in a way, told me, I mean, they can
send out the letter, but we have a deal. Basically,
they said, I mean, okay, it's not one hundred percent signed,
still delivered. But both sides were like, yeah, we were good.
We're just wrapping things up. I talked to you know,
both of them and separately, and there's no issues. They're
just you know, it takes a little time to make
sure all the eyes are crossing, our eyes are dotted
and teaser crossed, and it takes some time. So that's
going to get done. So there's no issue there. He's
going to fight in a way. Sam Goodman is going
to be December twenty fourth, It's going to be in Tokyo.
It's going to be streamed on ESPN Plus early in
the morning on Christmas Eve, and for those of us
who were diehard junkie boxing fans, it'll be like Christmas morning,
as we'll get up early and watch the fight. Now,
when the order was made, you had the pushback from
mj Akmandaliev, who was the WBA mandatory challenger, and if
you remember TJ before In a Way fought TJ. Doheney
in his most recent title defense, the fight between in
a Way and Akmindalia was ordered. They sent a letter
and they scheduled the pursepid the whole nine yards, and
then the WBA basically sort of ignored it and forgot,
And I mean, I think they realized that there's a
lot more money in that, and they you know, basically
I felt like I'm watching like the Dallas Dream season
to date myself, Like they just ignored it, like Pam
Ewing woke up and like Bobby was alive.
Speaker 2: Like he's in the shower right, He's in the shower,
and what the heck's happening?
Speaker 1: I know. So they just completely ignored that. And when
the person when the pursepit letter went out from the
IBF the WBA, UH, the WBA was put unnoticed by Akhmedive,
who coincidentally also employs Pat English as their lawyer, and
he sent the WBA a letter basically saying, look, you know,
we don't want to threaten legal action, but we're doing
what we have to do to protect our client's rights.
And he is next up in the in the rotation.
He should be the next guy. You already ordered the fight,
and so sure, in a way could vacate the title.
We can't prevent him from fighting Sam Goodman, but you
know everybody is unnoticed that he shouldn't be fighting in
a WBA title defense, and uh, you know, we're gonna
protect our guys, right, So we'll see what happens with that,
because there's no doubt that in a way and Goodman
is going forward, whether it's with the WBA title at
stake or not, that remains to be seen. People will
hear my conversation about this topic with Aaron. We spent
a lot of time talking about the plants for anyway,
but just to give you an idea a little bit
about what he said. He says, you know, they're not
opposed to fighting Akmadaia, but they think it we'd better
serve to be the Vegas fight that they're planning for
in a way coming in the spring. We'll see what
happens with that. Anyway, that's the bottom line is in
a way and Goodman are going to fight Christmas Eve,
and whether it's for the BA tight or not, we'll
see what happens with this whole situation.
Speaker 2: Good tease on that, and that leads us to a
couple of bits of nostalgia. So it was today October
seventeenth as we record this and release it into Friday
of twenty fifteen. Nine years ago, Vegue and Annie glove
Can Triple G wiped out David Lemieux and unified two
of the Middleway titles. Also Chaco Latito gun Zalez on
the undercard one Dan Rayfield ringside. For all of this,
what do you I always like to tee it up.
What do you remember about both of those?
Speaker 1: I remember there being a lot of excitement about this card.
This was on HBO pay per view Madison Square Garden,
and if you remember back at that time, Triple G,
you know, was in the midst of this tremendous knockout
streak where he was just destroying everybody and he was
having a hard time though getting the best fighters to
fight him. He was desperate to unify, you know, he
had the backing of HBO. He was becoming a huge
fan favorite, and they just could not get the top
guys to fight him. And to David, let me use credit.
He had won the IBF title in the middleweight division
of you know, four or five months earlier. He had
dropped a Hassan the damn I believe it was four times,
but won the decision, you know, and David was knocking
everybody out also, but he got this belt and he
didn't really hesitate. Instead of taking a soft touch and
trying to fight up in Canada in front of the hometown,
he took the absolute hardest fight you could possibly take,
and that was a unification on a pay per view
main event at the Garden, uh to unify the IVF
title and Triple G at the time was a WBA
champion and they made the match and he and Roman
gonzales I kind of referred to him back at the time,
they were like Batman and Robin. They were both with HBO,
they were both with Tom Loffler, the promoter. They were
both becoming fan favorites. It was like, you know, Triple
G as Batman, Roman Gonzalez is like Robin. They were
fighting on the same cards together. Was as exciting and
fun as anything in boxing. And they made the great
match between Roman and Brian Valoria, a very respected United
States Olympian, a former world champion who was still you know,
a very good fighter at that time. Uh, and they
made that match for Roman at the time was the
WBC flyweight and the lineal flyweight champion. You could trace
that lineage directly back to when Paco had become the
lineal flyweight champion back you know, many many years earlier.
And that was that was Those were the two main
fights on the card, and they had some other fights
on there also, but they just both you know, they
were competing against their opponents, but they were also competing
against each other for that pound for pound SATs. Even
though they were with the same network, the same promoter,
they were friendly with each other. I mean, they had
an ample respect for one another, and it was just
great fun to watch these guys do their things. So
you see Roman Gonzalez going there and just absolutely Roman,
by the way, was forty three and oh at the time,
Trubleg was thirty three, and oh at the time Roman
goes in there and just you know, takes apart a
very good fighter in Vloria was way ahead on the
scorecards and stopped him in the ninth round, had knocked
him down in the third round, and just put on
a masterclass performance that was brilliant of performance of boxing
and punching and aggression and skills and speed and everything
you want to see with a top prize fighter. And
then Glovekin in a very exciting fight, but very one sided.
He was up a shutout scorecard on all three cards
at the time. He stopped David Lemieux in the eighth round,
but he had knocked him down in the fifth round
and just laid a beating on him again in a
fun fight, but one sided, and it got to the
point where you're like, okay, well, who's pound for pound
at this point? I mean, they both were just devastating
against quality opponents on this night, and it was the
Garden Rock that night. Triple G fought there a few
different times, but this was this was super exciting and
it was it was a real pleasure. One thing I remember,
by the way, it's not related to the doubt itself,
but they had the promotion had brought in the great
Roberto Duran, who was a former middleweight champion to sort
of help promote the fight. Uh, And I think they
used him a little bit to speak to the Spanish
speaking fans in New York City to try to bring
in more people for pay per view, and also to
the garden. And I happened after I forget if it
was after the press comment or after the way, and
I was at the Fight Hotel, in the Fight Hotel,
which is no longer there anymore. They're changing it to
like I think they're making apartments out of it. It's
kind of disappointing. I've stayed there bazillions of times over
the years. But there was a restaurant called Niles that
was attached to the like the lobby of the hotel.
We used to hang after all the time, drinks after
the fight, maybe lunched once in a while. Anyway, I
spent an afternoon during that fight week, myself, Lance Pugmyer,
and one of the gals that was working for Golden
Boy Promotions. They were involved in that promotion, and she
spoke English and Spanish and she translated like we were
like United Nations in real time. And Lance Pugmyer, my
good friend, and myself and she and Roberto Durant sat
in that bar, and we spent like I spent the
whole afternoon with Roberto Durant. It was one of the
most fun you know, I were there. We were probably
there for like two three hours. I mean, just amazing.
Speaker 2: A number of stories probably totaled seventy five or maybe
from Roberto Durant.
Speaker 1: It was absolutely spectacular. I mean, I've always been a
Duran fan and always loved Duran, and to see him
and just spend that time with him and hear from him,
and you know, have a drink and have a little
I don't we have lunch or whatever, but just as
pleasant an experience as you can have in boxing. I mean,
I love the fights, but when I think back about
the things I've had a chance to do, when people
have got to meet in place, I've got to go,
like I think about shit like that. Oh yeah, I
was hanging out with Roberto Durant for like three hours
a New York restaurant having a drink or a couple
of drinks or three or four drinks.
Speaker 2: Reportedly did not say through the interpreter Dan who, No,
he did not say that just a just a great
just a great nostalgia. On top of the nostalgia from back.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you another funny thing about that when I
when I was talking to Duran.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't remember how the topic came up, but as
you know and everybody who listens, I'm a collector of stuff.
I've got a lot of Durance shit in my collection.
So I have a lot of pictures of my shit
on my phone. So I have like a ninth like
it's a very very hard to find in top condition.
It say it's Duran's rookie but it's from the Panini
sticker set from Italy, very very thin paper. I have
it graded by PSA. It's in a condition at PSA nine,
extremely rare in that top level condition, worth quite a
bit of money. And I had a picture of it
on my phone and I showed it to Duran and
I asked him, I said, you know, do you know
have you ever seen this? Do you understand this? Get
that this is your rookie cardem He's got cards throughout,
you know, other sets through the years. He had never
saw before, apparently, or so he said, and sort of
an amored by it. I was like, that's pretty cool,
Like I'm showing the great Duran this rookie.
Speaker 2: In translation, and you think you were offering it to
him for a because.
Speaker 1: I can have it, I can have it on me.
I just had the picture. But from like nineteen seventy two.
This is when Duran was a lightweight and was the
dominating figure in that division. It was amazing.
Speaker 2: As a collector, I even know the Spanish lingo. The
Spanish lingo would have been dome Ala, give it to me,
give it, give it to me.
Speaker 1: Now, as a collector geek and a boxing diehard and
a Duran fan, that was one of the coolest things I.
Speaker 2: Ever have to do, I love it all right. So
that was nine years ago. Let's move backwards to two
thousand and eight, on Friday October the eighteenth, where Bernard
Hopkins defeated Kelly Pavlik in a big upset that you
were also ringside for in Atlantic City. Tell me more
about that one real quick.
Speaker 1: Listen. The Hopkins continued to defy the odds against this
in his fight. There was many fights where you know,
people look back now and say, yeah, of course Hopkins
beat public. That's because they weren't there in two thousand
and eight. That's because they don't know anything about what
was happening at that time. As you like to say,
they became boxing fans in twenty twelve, That's exactly right.
Here's the bottom line. Bernard Hopkins was the lineal light
heavyweight champion. He had taken apart, knocked down and dominated
in a big upset another upset of his which I
actually picked to tell the truth, against Antonio Tarvor. He
had had the previous huge upset when he won when
he became the undispeted middleway champion against Tito Trinidad in
a two thousand and one. And after he beat Tarvor,
he had fought Winky Wright, who had moved up to
fight him at one hundred and seventy pound catchweight. He
dominated him and won that decision. Then he suffered a
very very very close, controversial, this split decision loss to
Joel Kalzaggi that cost him the lineal light heavyweight title.
I was at that fight also at the Thomas and
Max Center in Las Vegas. I thought that Bernard Hopkins
won that fight. He could, and I've got nothing but
love for Joe Klsaggie, and Joe knows that. So coming
off of that loss, Bernard had been out of the ring,
not for a long period of time, but he was
very anxious to get back in there, not for a title,
and Kelly Pavlock, who was the Middleway champion, took to
fight with Bernard at one hundred and seventy pounds. This
was at a period of time. Remember we talked once,
not that long ago, about the Great Cold War between
Top Rank and Golden Boy, but this was a scenario.
Once they had made that global settlement of all the
lawsuits with Nanny Paco, it paved the way for plenty
of top ranked type fights against Golden Boy opponents. And
so this was that case. Bernard was with Golden Boy,
Kelly Pavock was with Top Rank, and they made this match.
It was a big HBO pay per view fight. They
did it at the Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, and Kelly
Pavlock was a huge favorite, even though he was moving
up to fight a bit heavier in weight against Bernard Hopkins,
who was considered old for years. I mean, when Bernard
fought Trinidad in two thousand and one, he was considered old.
What the hell do you think people thought of him.
Speaker 2: In seven years later at this point, right.
Speaker 1: Right, right, So Pavlick was the young guy was thirty
four and oh going into this fight, I mean there
was like he's the big favorite, even if he is
moving up a few pounds. You know, he had defeated
Jermaine Taylor in the two fights he had made one
defense and blitz Gary Lockett, a guy with just one
loss from the UK, and he was riding high on this.
This was just a few months after he had defeated Lockett.
And I can always remember, and this is not what
we're talking about in this fight, but I remember after
he defeated Gary Lockett, who was not a particularly big
name fighter. Myself and a bunch of the other writers
I remember, like Ron Borges and I think Tim Smith
and a bunch of us. We were at a there's
like I don't know, it's a burger place, like in
the Bally's casino, and we were there having some something
to eat after the fight, and Aaron was with us
hanging out, and I just remember Bob talking about how
Kelly if he was so excited Pablick, he looked good.
He had drawn a good crowd. It was a Johnny
Rockett's on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, and Bob was
like Pavlock. He's gonna be bigger than Hagler, better than that. O.
Now I didn't think that was down, but but Bob,
you know, look, he promoted all those Marvin Hagler fights,
so far be it for us? Maybe he uh, you know,
he was a little giddy after that knockout victory. Nonetheless,
they brought him back in the next fight against Bernard Hopkins.
And Bernard hopkinsn't just eke out a decision against Kelly Pavlock.
He took him to the fucking woodshed that night, and
even though it went twelve rounds, Bernard Hopkins won in
dominating fashion. You know, the scorecards were eleven rounds to one,
ten rounds to two, and as I joked at the time,
the one card that was seven rounds to three.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: You know that that judge needed an eye exam because
there ain't no way that Kelly Pavlock won even three
rounds of that fight. But whatever, Kelly Pavlock was completely
dominated and lost lopsided. And to Bernard's credit, you know,
they had had a kind of a spirited back and
forth leading up to that, as Bernard, you know, always
looking for that edge, looking for that uh something to
pick at.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: When the fight was over. The thing that was kind
of cool about it was that he went over to
Pablock and consoled him, and and and as Kelly recounting
and Bernard recounted later on, told him, look, keep your
head up, don't get depressed. You know, you learn from this,
go you know, go back to the gym. He got
nothing to be ashamed of him. He gave him like
the pep talk about that scenario, and it was a
great moment in Bernard Hopkins's career. I mean, that's one
of the signature victories. It will never top the Trinidad fight.
I'm not sure it tops the Antonio Tarver fight. But
for him to come off of a very disappointing, very
close loss against Joe cal Saggi and then defeat Pavlock.
He also had the you know, the win over Pascal.
You know, he just had one big win after another.
But this one was a big deal for Bernard Hopkins,
and frankly, it was somewhat devastating for Kelly Pavlock because
even though he still had the Middleway title post this fight,
because obviously it was over the weight and he did
go back down to one hundred and sixty and defend
the title two more times, but not against big names
Marco Antonio Rubio and Miguel Aspino. Then he took the
loss to Surgeon Martinez and his you know, he won
a couple of more few more fights, but his career
quorter petered out. This was like a big opportunity for
public and he just could not deal with b hop
the way other greats. By the way, but as I
mentioned Carver and Trinidad, Andy Hopkins is a Hall of
Fame Bernard Listen. I say this all the time. He
may not have been everybody's cup of tea in terms
of of his style that he fought in sometimes, but
I say this time and again, once you get past
the level of fighters like the Roy Jones and the
and the Floyd Mayweathers that I pack, yeah, even that
I covered in their best days, Bernard's the next best
guy in that list. Just a dominating fighter who knew
every you know, he wasn't a big puncher, wasn't the
fastest guy in the world, but the fucker could fight.
He had didn't get hit with a lot of clean punches,
he would win. He was pound for pound, maybe of
all time in terms of mind games, the way he
could play with his opponents and then around with them,
I mean, and this was one of those fights that
just to me was off the charts and Bernard showing
the the the difference between you know, his IQ as
a fighter and others. This would turn out to be
like a man and a boy.
Speaker 2: And that was sixteen years ago on Key Occlober the eighteenth.
By the way, a shout out, this is not on
your rundown. Thomas Reeves Senior retired from the church ministry
on October the eighteenth, twenty fifteen, nine years ago after
forty five years of service in the Baptist and Christian
Church ministry. My Yankee came Happy anniversary in retirement to
Grandpaul Reeves as he's known Thomas Reeves Senor. And yes,
I'll have him pray for your Yankees, thank you, and
pray for my Buccaneers. And God doesn't normally care about
the outcomes, but nonetheless it can't hurt to you know,
use some of that. Listen a full show here with
the previews with Bob Aram in part in full coming
later on the podcast feed. Follow and subscribe because you're
going to get an automatic reminder listen Bob Air. I'm
in full on Saturday.
Speaker 1: There is so much, so much stuff from Bob in
that podcast. I hope everybody listens. It's loaded with so
much good shit from the Bob Father. I can't wait
for everybody.
Speaker 2: Here and bye. And by the way, we will talk
more about it on the recap podcast. So after this
Bakroom Tim Zoo battle at Amazine headlining the boxer card
Bakram and Tim Zoo the PBC Amazon World Junior Middleweight
title fight, we'll recap those. We'll recap the Bob podcast
and much more on Sunday. Don't forget handicapping show bet
Us Boxing Show One Eastern Time A, just your times
on the recording in the one Eastern Time Friday. We
look forward to that, predictions, handicapping Live Q and A,
and more other than that, my friend, have a great weekend,
Dan Rayfield Sways, there you go. I am merely TJ Reeves.
Thank you for finding us. Follow Subscribe Apples, Spreaker, Spotify
on the Big Fight Weekend podcast, Bead, You've been listening
to the preview pot again Bob Aram's interview in full
up Saturday stand By for that coming next right here
on the feed.
Speaker 3: Bye.