Speaker 1: Well off of the first weekend in January that did
not have a notable main event fight anywhere per se.
We are here for the Fight Freaks Unit. Shall we
just call it podcast not the recap podcast? I am
the somewhat capable host. Happy New Year, one more time,
TJ Reeves. Hello, Dan Rayfiel, our insider. Fight Freaks Unit
is his substack. Subscribe in the new year. What's wrong
with you? People? Get on the substack, get on the newsletter.
We are here for you. We got World Cruiserweight champion
ji Opatiah defending his title midweek. Coming up some news,
Dan recapping a little more his end of the year awards,
some nostalgia. I'm in a particularly good mood. I don't
mind saying here on a Sunday night headed into Monday.
My Buccaneers have one on the final day of the
regular season. That means playoffs, playoffs, playoffs, and a playoff
check or maybe more coming our way. We're happy with
all of that, So I'm in a particular good mood.
Good to be with you, Dan Rayphiel. I am told
by you socked in with snow already, right armageddon.
Speaker 2: Snow yet No, No, We're taping this on Sunday night. It's
supposed to start later tonight. They've already canceled school on Monday.
They've already closed all the federal offices in Washington for Monday.
It's the first time I can remember when I open
up my weather app where I saw it said one
hundred percent chance of snow. Not actually it's ninety five.
It's a high probbability. This was one hundred percent. So
we're we're locked in for snow Mageddon. We got plenty
of hot coco materials there. But this is what's crazy, TJ.
This was supposed to be finally the end of the
two week winter break that my son has been on
from school, and now they're getting additional day because of
this chaos about to wat. It may even be closed
on Tuesday. It's as bad as they're saying.
Speaker 1: It's going by the way. Seventy five on Sunday in
Tampa seventy five again on Monday. We'll send some warm
thoughts your way while you have the snow, no matter
the wather, no matter the situation, We're glad that you're
with us. Make sure you're following subscribing on the podcast
feed again typically we would recap coming off the weekend,
right feeling O are good, but we can't recap what's
not there, So instead we're kind of looking ahead here
at the beginning to the Opataia world title fight in
Australia on Wednesday. Some news as I mentioned, and a
little more. So let's get into it. You and I
have already done this on the bet Us Boxing show
on Friday, but we're doing it for the podcast audience.
Here Opataia fighting a New Zealand fighter, David Naika, that
we don't know a ton about.
Speaker 2: You can speak for yourself there, am I friend, you.
Speaker 1: Know more about him than I do. This is Wednesday
night in Australia. This is Wednesday morning in the United States.
All right, let's get into it a little bit here,
kind of in the preview mode if I'm not off
kilter enough already with the Buccaneers celebrating, we're previewing coming
off the weekend. But rightfully so, this is a Wednesday
world title fight in broad Beach, Australia. Are I give
me a little more?
Speaker 2: Well, it's in Ji Opatia's home area and he's taking
on a Nika who was very familiar to him. I mean,
Naick is from New Zealand, but he has spent a
lot of time fighting and training in Australia. He was
a twenty twenty New Zealand Olympian obviously that took place
in twenty twenty one, so he's got vast amateur experience,
although Opataia of course has tremendous amateur and professional experience,
but he comes in as somewhat of a late replacement.
He was just put into this fight a couple of
weeks ago because the original fight that was supposed to
take place was Opataia taking on his mandatory challenger, Hussein Sinkara,
who is an older fighter with no particular resume to
speak of, who's twenty two to zero with eighteen knockouts,
a thirty nine year olds from Germany. But he suffered
ligament damage in one of his ankles and it's going
to sideline him for the next few months. So they
didn't want to not have the fight, so they went
and they went through their list and they found Naika
who was ready, willing and able to do this fight now.
And he and Opati have sparred countless rounds together, as
they both have said, and they both have a lot
of respect for each other. It's maybe coming a little
bit sooner than anybody in the career of Nyika would
have probably imagined that he only ten and zero with
nine knockouts. But he's also the same ages as Opatai.
They're both twenty nine, and he obviously had that big
amateur career, and so they're taking their chance. I mean,
he does have a good height advantage on Opataia, and
Nika goes about six foot six, Opataiah more closer to
about six foot two. He's got a long reach, and
like I said, he's experienced with him in terms of
sparring plenty of times, and in terms of his experience
as a pro. He's fought the guys you know that
you're kind of supposed to fight on the way up,
and done what he's supposed to do there. But he
still does not have, you know, anywhere close in the
kind of accomplishment or wins and competition that Opataia has,
I mean, just alone on the two fights against Myris Pratus,
which I really is calling card fights. Also to the
point where I think most people look at Opataia as
now the number one forget about the lineal title, but
just in terms of the ability the number one cruiserweight
in the division at the moment, you know, perhaps with
Zerdo Ramirez behind him, who has much fewer fights in
the division, although he has unified the titles by winning
the fight against Chris Bill and spent that long ago. Anyway,
this is to make a long story short about the
fight TJ to me anyway, and I think probably for
most boxing fans who are even remotely familiar with Naika
and Opatai for that matter, is that on paper anyway,
it's a much more interesting fight to me anyway than
it would have been if he was fighting the mandatory challenge.
So you know, and Opatai is one of the more
entertaining fighters in the sport to watch, whether who's fighting
is mandatory or he's fighting then egor whoever. So so
I'm excited about it from the standpoint that when you
can see a big, strong guy like that, that can
crack like him, that has the heart like him against
a very good up and coming fighter in the division
who is maybe not as professional experienced but has a
reason to be in the fight, you know, I'm in
for it. And again we don't get too many midweek fights.
I mean typically we do from Japan occasionally and occasionally
also from Australia. But in that moment in time when
it's the beginning of the year and there hasn't been
a significant fight, you know, in the past couple of
weeks since the Tyson Fury card against Alexander Usak and
their match, partly because the inn Away fight was postponed
and then there was no other and then of course
the the Fernando Martinez Ioka rematch was was also called
off because of the onus to Martinez. So there's been
a couple of weeks with nothing. So this may not
be the biggest fight of all time, but at least
there's something. And for that matter, throw in the fact
that the co feature on his own on this card
is Justice Hooney, the up and coming, undefeated Australian heavyweight
you know in action, so you know, it's all good.
Speaker 1: And on that again we handicap both of these fights.
Back on Friday, it is Sean Pott Geeter, who is
a South African has never fought outside of South Africa. Again,
some questions about Hooney on the way up as a prospect,
he does have wins. You swatted at me when I
said about knockout power. He does have knockouts in his
last two fights. How good was the competition, et cetera.
So we got we're gonna We're gonna get him in
the co feature. And again he is from Brisbane as well,
right in that region, so you should have a good
atmosphere in the arena for this co feature fight and
for the main event again on Wednesday morning, right, and
we'll see what whoon he does or doesn't do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And for Opataiya, it's you know, with all due
respect Anika, I can't say Opataia is over I don't
think he's overlooking him, but I think his handlers, his team,
they look at this as like, let's get through this
fight and then they've got their eye on bigger prizes
because they're involved with riand season Zerdo Ramirez won his
unification fight on riad season. Both of them have talked
about a unification fight. You know how much Turkey Alshik,
who runs the show with the Saudi Cards, has made
plenty of unification fights in the year plus that they've
been involved in big time boxing. It wouldn't surprise me
at all if at some point, perhaps the next fight,
maybe a little bit later into twenty twenty five, that
we see Opatai in Zerdo fight, you know, in a
three belt unification fight, and you know the fourth belt
is held by Bedu Jack who was just reinstated. He
could get involved in that makes Also he lives in
the Middle East at this point, so you know, there's
things that can happened in the cruiserweight division. And then
presumably whoever emerges from that group of fights, you know,
we'll see them go to the heavyweight division at some point.
Speaker 1: And again as we released this pod that will be
Wednesday morning, United States time, Wednesday night in Australia, we'll
see what happens there with Really that's the first world
championship fight of the calendar year in twenty twenty five.
On to some news news about Devin Haney, Hey, he
says he's going to be back, and there's also another
component that we tip the hat on with him and
drug testing. Explain more about what's up.
Speaker 2: So Devin, who as people know, is the former undisputed
lightweight champion, he is now the WBC's junior welterweight champion
in recess, as they say, because he asked them to
do that while he took a break and sort of
took stock of his career and life in the aftermath
of the situation with Ryan Garcia and having suffered, you know,
a pretty rough loss with the knockdowns, but then having
the result changed to a no contest because of Ryan
Garcia's multiple failed drug tests that put him on the
suspension list in the United States. So what Devin has
done in the last few days is on his social media,
without divulging any real details, said I'm back in March. Now.
He doesn't have a promoter. The rumors are that he'll
be doing some type of event with BLK Prime, which
is the same outfit where Terrence Crawford fought one fight
in the post of his exit from top rank before
he got involved with Turkey. So we'll see what comes
of that in March. But more notably in my mind
than that even is the announcement from Vada that he
has done something that is very rare in boxing. The
only one I know of that has done this is
Nondo Donair at one point signed up for a program
that will consist of the ability to be randomly tested
twenty four seven three sixty five. What people should understand
TJ is that virtually every single drug testing program related
to Vada is done either in conjunction with the WBC's
Clean Boxing program. You have to sign up to be
eligible to be in their rankings, and it's very very
poorly funded. The number of tests involved are very small amounts.
You know, there's the possibility that you could get tested,
but it's it's rare, unfortunately, but they the WC does
give an effort there, and Vada is the ones who
oversee that. This is also not a situation for most
fights that Involvada, where the testing program is done specifically
for that event. So the testing will start, you know
whatever it is two months beforehand, six weeks before and
extend you know to the post fight drug testing. This
is much better and different that Devin Haney is paying
out of his own pocket at his own expense, you know,
and it's to do a program of you know, the
gold level program if you will, for a one particular fight.
It might cost the athlete or wherever it's putting the bill.
It could cost maybe like forty or fifty thousand dollars.
So now we signed up to do it for the
entire year three hundred and sixty five days. The program
that he signed up for. It runs through January two,
twenty twenty six. So no matter what he does, anytime
of day or night through this next year, theoretically he
can be tested. He has to let them know where
he is. So if there's a tester that wants to
do something, and you know, that's not to say he's
gonna get tested like every day or every week, but
he knows in his mind that he's paying for the
fact that, you know, if he decides to make a
trip to New York City to go have some fun,
that that you know, Thursday morning, somebody can knock on
the hotel room door and say, I mean, let me
take your let me take your blooder, let me take
your piss. So uh, that is.
Speaker 1: So the only thing that strikes me, and I think
a lot of people are wondering this is is he
doing this to set the example that other fighters should
do this? I mean, what are you hoping to accomplish?
What's your opinion or maybe you've heard from his camp,
what is the motive behind me? Would pay for this
on his own?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I am not. First of all, Devin Kaney can
afford it. He's made millions of dollars over the last
few fights, so as as many fighters who should be
doing this have done. But I think it's to send
a signal, to send a sign that Devon is a
clean fighter. He's embraced testing, not just now but previously.
He did the testing for the Garcia fight, which is
how Garcia was caught. He did testing for the Lomachanko fight.
He did testing for both Cambosa's fights. I mean, Devin
Hainey has a long history of being willing and able
and ready to do drug testing on a random basis,
So I think he just wants to show that he's clean.
I think he's obviously knows in the back of his
mind that there are a lot of folks that think
that he was cheated in the in the sense of
the fact that r You know, say whatever you want
about the power of the Devin of the Brian Garcia
left hook that put Devin on his rear end three
times in their fight, but it really cast a pall
over that event. It was as a very good fight,
but the whole promotion was a ruin because of the
fact of Ryan's lunacy leading up to the fight, and
then the fact that he had the multiple test failures
post fight, and that's always a bad situation. So he
couldn't win the title because he came in overweight. He
wouldn't have had the title if he had come in
on weight, because even if he had won, it got
changed to an O contest, he got suspended. So in
the wake of that, I think Devin is doing a
great thing. I wish at all young you know, starfighters
at the top level would take that example to to
you know, to show that you're clean. And here's the thing, promoters, managers,
network folks, media people whoever. We can all bang our
heads and you know, sanctioning bodies whatever and talk about
we want clean testing or you know, clean athletes and
proper testing. So it's a fair playing field for all
of those involved. In the end, the only ones that
pay for if it's not is the athlete. So it's
on them to demand there's be clean opponents and the
clean testing and clean athletes in the sport. And so
they have to add some point taken upon themselves. I
can write a thousand columns a week TJ about it,
and it doesn't mean Dick as far as getting anything
actually done, and the sancte bodies can do whatever they
say they're gonna do, and the promoters can insist on
it and this, that and the other the commissions, but
the only ones that get hurt if an athlete is
not clean is the guy that's hitting him in the
face on the other side of the rank. And so
make it fair. So Devin Hainey is taking matters into
his own hands. I appreciate it, I respect it. And
he's saying, I am a clean athlete, and I'm putting
my money where my mouth is. I'm gonna spend it.
You can come and test me anytime you want, day
or night for the next one year, and I assume
that after January second, twenty twenty six, he can certainly
hurry up, you know, with no problem if there's no
testing issues along the way, And the other athletes should
take they take take that example, because again they're the
only ones that truly pay the price if their opponent
is dirty.
Speaker 1: Interesting, all right, So that's underway, and we'll see what
gets announced for him fighting in March. A little time
for that as the as the next bout for him.
He's been out of the ring about a year. I
had two more things real quick. And we've been talking
about Fernando Martinez being forced to vacate one of his
one hundred and fifteen pound titles, the IBF title. They
held a vacant title fight in Japan back last month,
and will Abaldo Garcia correct and his fellow Mexican Renee
Kliksto fought to a draw. And so now what is
the update. As expected, we got to have a winner, right,
we got to have a winner here they're going to
fight again.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I actually watched this fight on YouTube a
couple of days after the fact. There was actually a
pretty fun fight between Garcia and Clisto, very fun fight,
and it was a draw like like legitimately, so it
was a really close fight. I really couldn't argue. As
a matter of fact, the two fighters in the ring
afterwards didn't really seem to be two shocked by fights.
Our handlers were not totally shocked by It was a
good fight. And so what happened is in the last
couple of days, the IBF sent out the letter to
the two camps saying, Okay, you know you guys fought
to a draw. You're still the two highest ranked fighters
in in our one hundred fifteen pund rankings. So here's
the order to start negotiations. They have until January twentye
to make a deal for a rematch, or they'll have
a purse bid and we'll presumably, you know, see them
do it again. I would take issue Fernando Martinez wasn't
forced to give up the title like he did. He
did it of his own volition, but you know, understandably
because he was getting a much bigger fight and much
bigger money to have the rematch against Kazuto Ioka. So
Garcia and Calisto were the two beneficiaries of that. Garcia
was his mandatory challenger, and he elected to go forward
with the Ioka rematch instead, and Ioka, obviously and him
had their fight postpone. Hopefully they'll reschedule their fight at
some point, but a Garcian click so fought for that
vacant title. I put on a good fight, and you
know they'll do it again. I'm not really sure why
wound up in Japan exactly, but they're both from Mexico.
You'd like to see them at least if they're gonna
do the rematch. Fight to fight in Mexico or you know,
or at least somewhere in like say the southwest of
the United States where there's a Mexican crowd to appreciate
these two guys doing what they're gonna do.
Speaker 1: They're making too much sense, It would be.
Speaker 2: Too much reason. Reason, I guess is Kaligxto's he's a
Mexican fighter, but his promoter is Kmita Promotions from Japan,
And so it was on a card to day. Still,
it wasn't the Japanese crowd that was in attendance that
had no particular attachment to the belt.
Speaker 1: All right, and one more news item, and again we're
going to get to Dan rounding out the twenty twenty
four awards and a little nostalgia in a second premiere
Boxing Champions. Okay, this is interesting. It looks like they're
going to have a non pay per view and coming
fairly soon. Remember in twenty twenty four only one non
pay per view, and you had to wait all the
way until October when they had that one pay per view.
And I was at that martuzalaiav. Huge knockout of Tim
Zoo and Orlando Florid. All Right, so what's going on,
what's our what's our data, and what have you learned?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's the plan right now. They haven't
announce yet officially, but I am told by people that
are involved with the fighters that are on that are
supposed to be on this card. Uh that, And I
don't know where they're having it. I don't know if
they've even settled where they're gonna have the fight yet.
I know they've been going with the with the with
the Tim Zoo fight. They went to Orlando, the crib Roal.
It's a possibility they may go back there. Perhaps they'll
go elsewhere. But the most important thing is what are
the fights? And what I am told is that the
main event is supposed to be uh Elijah Garcia, who
is the you know, the rising junior middleweight slash middleweight
up and coming prospect who took a tough loss, but
a legit loss and a split decision to Cairo and
Davis that took place in June. I was actually at
that fight that was on the Tank Davis Frank Martin
undercard and uh, you know, took away Elijah Garcia's undefeated record. Uh.
He's made a few changes in his camp going into
this fight. He's now gonna work with the very renowned
trainer Bob Santos. Anyway, he's going to be mashed up
with Terrell Gichet, who's, you know, a tough veteran former
the United States Olympian, has lost pretty much when he
stepped up to the biggest names, including against Tim Zoo
for example. Uh, that's a that's a pretty stiff test
for Garcia in my mind, for a guy combing off
a loss who's still very young, like what is he
twenty twenty one years old something like that, So that
would be I guess the main event of this fight
that that this card that they're talking about doing, that
they're planning to do, and then another fight on the card.
And this is to me. We're gonna talk about some
prospects a little bit later, but one of the to me,
one of the best prospects in box right now. This
is the Cuban heavyweight named Danier Perow. His older brother,
Lennier Paro, also is an undefeated heavyweight, but he's already
into his thirties. Danier is I think viewed by most
people as the more the guy with the more upside,
the better prospect any event. He's ten and over eight knockouts.
He's gonna there's no opponent yet from what I understand,
but he's gonna be on this card also. And he
fought in the twenty twenty Olympics. He in the quarterfinals.
He actually lost to Richard Torres Junior, now the top
rank heavyweight prospect in Tokyo. This was in twenty twenty one,
obviously the delayed Olympics, and he's been a working on progress.
He's coming along, so, you know, maybe not too big,
huge fights, not pay per view, but this is what
we need. This is what you need to do to
keep your guys going. And it's a now time that PBC,
you know, get involved with some fights that are not
pay per view fights because the pay perviews they put
on have generally been excellent. It's the fact that there's
been such a lack of the non pay per view
fights other than that Timsee event, which took them from
the time their deal started all the way to almost
the end of the year in twenty twenty four. Now
it looks like they're gonna start off and I suspect
we'll see more of these non pay per view type fights.
Maybe not the highest level championship events like they were
doing when they were with Showtime, but it's still something
because you know what you tell me, Elijah Garcia is
fighting and an interesting heavyweight prospect is fighting, and I'm watching.
Speaker 1: All right. And that takes us to finishing out your
twenty twenty four awards, which again we've dissected Fight of
the Year, Fighter of the Year, knock Out of the Year.
What about the Dan Rayfield Round of the Year. Give
me a couple of them that stood out and why.
Speaker 2: Well, this is always an interesting category just because you know,
we see thousands of rounds in the course of a year.
Typically the round of the year is going to come
from one of the fights that's the fight of the year.
That's not a shock. So in this particular case, my
runner up fight of the year for the overall fights,
I picked Saray Boachuk against Virgil Ortiz, a tremendous battle
too top junior middleweight going at each other. It didn't
trump Usk and theory number one for a fight of
the year. But what I went and did was pick
the eighth round of their fight that took place in
August as the round of the year. And certainly that's
up for debate. There's other excellent rounds you could certainly
choose from for all kinds of different reasons. But what
happened in this particular round was when you remember in
the fight he knocked down Ortiz two times, he scored
one of those knockdowns where he hit him with a
shot and he made Virgil Ortiz touch his gloves to
the canvas, and so that made it interesting right away.
But what happened after that, there was still like a
cup over two minutes left in the round that Ortiz
was so pissed off and so annoyed and so irritated
because he actually complained about it to the ref even
though clearly he touched down and I'm sure if you
watch the replay, he knows that. But again he was
trying to make up for what had now become the
second knockdown of the fight, so he knows he's maybe
behind the eight ball, so to speak, into scoring, and
he just went absolutely crazy with the punches after this
and just attacked and pursued and stalked and really went
after Boatchuk and was throwing all kinds of just you know,
like windmill punches, like a looney tune but landing some
good shots also. I mean, he got really, really aggressive
and Bochuk took it everything he had, stood his ground
and threw a bunch of shots back. And so by
the time the round was coming to a close, these
two guys are just standing and trading tot to. I mean,
this was high level, supreme action that really made this
stand out as one of the best rounds of the
entire year. And then there were some other, you know,
good examples. I'll just go give you a couple. You
know we talked about in Fights of the Year, Derek
Tasaur's heavyweight slugg fest with Joe Joyce. That was a
very exciting fight that we kind of all expect it
was gonna be this kind of slobber knocker going into it.
And in the ninth round when Derek Tasa was all
over the place and you know, it was kind of
it seemed like he could go down at any given
moment because he was so wobbly, but still you know,
getting the job done. Out of nowhere, he landed the
right hand the knocked Joe Joys down and around where
he looked like he might be in some trouble so
that I picked us as like one of the When
Bam got dropped in the sixth round, it was kind
of similar to what happened in the Ortiz and the
boat Took fight. He was so annoyed and so mad,
uh and and figured he might be in a little
trouble because he's going to lose the round, and he
went star storming back on Estrada and they wound up
just trading toe to toe in that sixth round. So
that was exciting. You know, you can't you can't talk
about rounds of the year without talking about round number
nine of Usk and Fury number one. Of course, that's
the round where, uh, you know, it's a highly contested,
close fight and where Tyson Fury somehow managed to hang
on even though he looked like we was with literally
like one punch away from being not you know, stopped
knocked out by Alexander Russik. You know, he had been
called to knockdown against him because the ropes and up
pulled them up. He was literally bouncing off the ropes,
you know, and barely barely surviving. The referee Mark Nelson
giving him every opportunity to survive, which he did, and
that made it just an absolutely exhilarating round. So those
are your top ones, but I liked just the pure,
unadulterated action of what occurred in Ortiz bow Chuck. Round
number eight is my round of the year.
Speaker 1: Like that. All right, So now you're also gonna go
with trainer and manager of the years. Now, sometimes it
can be a combo for the for the lesser known fighters, etc.
But these are two different people most of the time.
All right, give me, give me a trainer and a
manager that stood out this year.
Speaker 2: And why Well, Robert Garcia is a candidate seemingly almost
every single year for a Trainer of the Year. He's
got always had a tremendous stable that you know, an
excellent gym filled with young contenders and prospects and champions
for years and years and years, and he has been
named in one various Trainer of the wards in the past.
To me, twenty twenty four, of all the great years
Robert Garcia has had, to me, this might be his
big ast year in terms of what he did over all.
First of all, this is a great stat and I
actually checked with Robert to double check this. His group
of guys went seventy wins and seven losses this year.
I mean, and that's all with different fighters, So he's
gonna obviously, you're always gonna have a couple of younger
guys where contenders lose if you're in the highest level fights.
But that that's the testament right there. So he was busy.
Seventy eight wins and seven.
Speaker 1: Line and a lot of trainers don't have twenty fights
in a year. Did you say seventy and seven seven
fights in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he's a busy He's a busy guy, you know.
And he's got his son, Robert Junior, the system and
others that are there with him, but Robert's the head
guy anyway, So that right off the bat. But his
number one fighter, Jesse Vam Rodriguez, was one of the
top fighters of the year, and obviously Robert gives credit
for his success to some degree. He went back down
to the junior vandamweight division. He had that great fight
against Wan Francisco Astraano that we talked about, won the
WBC belt back that he had previously vacated, won the
lineal title. He then defended it against Paedro Wavara. He
also led Jose Reo Valanzuelle in there. I believe it
was their first fight together to that split decision victory
against Isaac pittpull Cruz to win the WBA one hundred
and four pound title that was on the big card
that Saudi's you know, the reat season card in August
that was out in Los Angeles. So he gets Bam
Rodriguez to do what he did. He's got rail Gownzuella
to score that upset to win the world title of
the WBA in that situation, and that he also had
Virgil Ortiz who won three fights in twenty twenty four
including you know, arguably the round of the year and
and the runnerup Polease on my list, and some people
are gonna probably probably picked that as the fight of
the year between Ortiz and and Boachuk. So if you
had those three guys and do what they did and
Virgil Ortiz wins the Ingham title in the fight of
the year candidate, you know, Bam Rodriguez moves down and
wait wins three wins his fights, two fights, regains the belt,
and the Lenny wins the lineal title. And then you
also have the young fighter Jose Belon Zola with the
upset to win a world title. That's a big year,
no matter what you know. That's that's a huge year.
Now you throw into that he had Oscar Duarte who
came back, He had two big wins against Ko first
Man to stop Joe Joe Diaz. Then add that excellent
fight against Battier Akwandoff that took place on the Latino
Knight Riad card. And on top of that, he also
is the trainer of a prospect that has come to
the forefront in the twenty two year old featherweight Albert
Chop Chop Gonzalez, who won five fights under Robert Garcia
in twenty twenty four and looked so good in those
fights he got himself a promotional contract with Top Ray.
So to me, this was Robert Garcia's year. Now, the
other ones that you have to also tip your hat
to and give credit to are people like and this
guy gets no publicity at all, and that's Yuri Techanko,
who was the trainer of Alexander Usik, who obviously guided
him to back to back victories over Tyson Fury and
the undisputed Evyweight Championship. The Vassley underrated for decades practically,
Rudy Hernandez, who has had a big year with his
young guys in junto Nakatani winning the bantamwait title as
well as other defenses, and the young Anthony Olas Caago
who won the WBO Flyway title. And you also have
to give a tip of the hat to Freddie Fundora,
who is the trainer of his two children, Sebastian Fundor,
who became the unified junior middleweight Toile Older as well
as his daughter Gabriella Fundora, who became the undisputed women's
flyweight champion. So there was a lot of good candidates
in the Trainer of the Year. I just saw Robert.
All respect to the other guys that I mentioned, but
Robert just had one hell of a year. And in
terms of the Manager of the Year, this is the
same guy that I gave it to last year, and
that's Keith Connelly. And as I've stated before, and I
try to impress this upon my colleagues within the Boxing
Writers' Association of America that voting for the Trainer of
the Year has absolutely nothing to do with if your
guy wins or loses. Generally, it's about do you procure
your athlete the best deals possible and earn them the
most money for the fights that you agree on with
your promoter. And Connelly is an expert that he gets
his fighters paid period. They make tremendous amounts of money.
He's got a tremendous way of negotiating. He got Edgar Berlanga,
as the kids say, he jave the bag a ten
million dollar package to fight Canelo Alvarez, when a lot
of people said that he didn't deserve it. He you know,
was able to negotiate the exit from top rank. It
was all part of the plan he and I'll be honest,
probably a year and a half ago he said I'm
going to get my guy the Canelo fight. He got
his guy the Canelo fight. And then the other fighter
that he did huge business with was Philip Pargovic to anyway,
who Yes, he lost the fight against Dangu Dubois in
an outstanding fight, but he secured a fighter in Philip
Hoargovic who had never made more than like I guess
load maybe mid that most six figures, got him an
eight figure deal with three add season. They took one
fight at the end of last year, and then he
got him the big money for the Dubois fight this year.
And then it's not just that. You know, Richardson Hitchins,
who is now one of the junior welterweight champions, was
a guy that sort of was languishing with Mayweather Promotions.
He signed in this was in twenty twenty three, took
him to Matrium and put him in position this year,
or rather twenty twenty four to a force mandatory against
Liam Parrow when Liam could have done a different fight. Uh,
but there was a lot of stuff that went on
behind the scenes, the fight happened, his guy won the title.
And that's that's just three examples. And then on top
of that, he added Connor Benn, who's on the verge
of some mega paydays. And I believe one of the
reasons that Connor Ben decided to sign with Keith as
his co manager was he knows that Keith's reputation is
to go out there and secure his guys the most money.
When you're in a high stakes, big time negotiation, like
Connor Ben, isn't trying to get a deal done for
a Chris Ubank junior fight or the possibility of a
world title fight against Mario Barrios. You need somebody that
can be a shark in the in the negotiations and
and I don't say that as an insult. Conley gets
the job done. And so he's the manager of the year.
And it's not not an easy job. And you know,
there's other candidate. It's probably the best. Other one in
my mind, who was certainly eggis Cleaness. He is the
manager of the of the heavyweight champion, Alexander Usik, got
him paid a huge amount by the Saudi's as well.
He's the manager for jannebeck Al mccannoolly who's the unified
mid away to title holder, hasn't gotten him the big
paydays yet just because the opponents are not necessarily there.
Also the manager for Bakram Martazalev, who had a big
year or a big upset against Tim Zuo, made good
money there and also has been the long time, career
long manager for the Great Facility Lomachenko, who in two
thousand and twenty four weeks you know, captured yet another
lightweight world title. Still right now he's sort of figuring
out what he wants to do. But every time Alma
steps in the ring he gets paid quite a bit
of money also, and so I guess is out there
doing his job. But those are the two guys. But
to me, Conley was a slam dunk this year for
what he did.
Speaker 1: All right, bring it in. I was right around. I
guess claim us that night that martaz Alai have got
that knockout in Orlando, Florida of Tim Zuo, that shocker,
and he was smiling hear to hear that was a
huge upset. But I think we're both in agree. I
think everybody's in agreement, except for like Kimi Monkey is
our family.
Speaker 2: Let me just put it like this, This was the
of all the awards and honors that you could give
out as a boxing fan or a journalist. This is
the easiest one of the.
Speaker 1: Yes, Brunos Serrasse of France with the kale of Haimi
Mungia that is still resonating. That was a fight, obviously
late in the year. But to go all the way
to Tijuana, Mexico, having never fought outside of France, a
virtual unknown, if not a complete unknown, scores that not
one punch booming knockout of Mongia, that that has to
be the upset.
Speaker 2: Listen to you, kidd, here's the thing. He's like a
fifty to one underdog. Yes, he had a great record, Okay,
he was undefeated going into the fight, but he had
only had in his not including the fight against Mongia,
he had had fucked twenty seven times as a professional.
I think he was twenty five wins and two draws.
He had only scored four knockouts. Now the now Mongia
he's coming off. He had he had lost a very spirited,
excellent go at it against Canelo. Earlier in the year.
He had come back in his first fight with top
rank and he had scored a knockout against the unbeaten
a Indian, And they decided, let's get one more fight
in in twenty twenty four. They're picturing setting up some
big stuff. In twenty twenty five. They take him to
a stadium in his hometown of Tijuana, Mexico, where he
hadn't fought for the last few years. They bring in
I mean, let's just call it what it is. They
bring in the French pastry who's supposed to get run
over like he's you know, walking in traffic, and it's
supposed to be except it's supposed to be a perfunctory result.
It's not when monkey and knocks him out. I mean,
I'm sorry, it's not if mungkey and knock him out.
It's when does he knock him out? Big crowd, completely unknown,
It's it's supposed to be a splatter period, fight starts.
Mongy is winning every single second of a red. He
scores a knockdown. He's totally dominating. It's a matter of time.
And then, as you mentioned, Boom goes to dynamite and
with one shot that is all she wrote, and he
scores easily. The upset of the year. I mean, this
was a tremendous knockout in terms of the It wasn't
so much like the knockout of the year in terms
of the estenness. He didn't knock him out cold. Actually, Moongia,
you know we tried to get up. He just missed
missed the count. But this was as shocking of an
upset honestly.
Speaker 1: Get if I can say it is why we love
the sport. It's why you and I sit here and
do this religiously regularly. Is because anything can happen. We
often give the analogy the twenty eight point touchdown. The
nine point shot in basketball is one punch and boom baby.
Speaker 2: This was in the This was in the sixth round.
It was Pat Toby five to nothing on the cards.
And he'd won every second up till the knockout in
the in the in the sixth round, so that was it.
Now there was other good knockouts. I'll just mention a couple,
I mean not knockouts rather but upset upsets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that way, I you know you didn't refer to me.
I would go Dubois over Joshua as the runner up.
Dubois was about a I mean a Joshua about a
six to one favorite. And again I understand we have
a lot of fans in England and they believe that
should be the knockout of the year, the upset of
the year. It was truly shocking to watch him level
Anthony Joshua in the first round.
Speaker 2: Dan.
Speaker 1: It looked for a minute like Joshua might not get
out of the first round of that fight at Wembley.
No question, A great, Please, it's definitely an upset. Do
you have that as your runner up or what do
you have as a.
Speaker 2: I had that and people just so they know, you
can go on my sub stack and you can read
all my stories on the Fighter of the Year, Fight
of the Year, knock into the Year, all these other words,
women's fight and fighter, manager, trainer, all things we're talking
about right now. I did not have it as high
on my list as you just mentioned. I did not
have it number two. I had it number four, and
the fights I had it had and it was a
great upset. Don't get me wrong. It was a you know,
a special night for Daniel Dubois. But it can't be
considered that shocking. I say that because Joshua has been
knocked down and knocked out before, and Danga Dubi, whatever
you think about his ability, he is a tremendous puncher,
so he always had that chance of the lands that
is going to do some damage. So to me, the
one that was the biggest upset besides what happened with
Sarrase and Mangia, because this was another one. I don't
know what the exact odds were, but they had to
be humongous. This was a set up, kind of like
we're going to take care of business here and move
on to bigger and better things. And that was Anthony
Casace not only winning but dominating frankly against Joe Cordina
and knocking him out in their in their fight that
took place on one of the rias in Cartis. Kordina
was the one of the title holders at one hundred
and thirty pounds and he got dominated and stopped in
the fight. Now, it technically speaking was a non title
fight because the IBF was doing IBF things, but does
not change the fact that that Casace you know, did
the job in the fight in a big way. I
mean that was that. That was the I think much
more shocking because I don't think anybody it's Duba. Everybody
would say in the lead up to the fight, well,
he's got a puncher's chance, because he's a great puncher.
I don't think anybody was given number one. I'll think
they consider Casati that big of a puncher number one
and number two. The fact that he would not only
knock out Joe Cordina do so in fairly dominating fashion.
I think that was a big surprise to a lot
of people. By the way, that was actually he did
win the IBF title. I was thinking about the next
fight where he fought a Warrenton and it was deemed
a non title fight for lunatic reasons by the IBF. Nonetheless,
so he wins the title in a big upset. That
was again a handpick kind of opponent that in that
particular fight, and then the other ones I looked ahead
of it. I thought that Sebastian Fundora, who took the
fight against Tim Zuo on short notice when there was
a change in the card. Remember Keith Thurman suffered the
injury had to withdraw to keep the fight alive. Fundora,
they moved him up from the undercard into the main event.
Timzu was a huge favorite in that fight. Obviously, there
was a lot of circumstances with that, with the terrible,
terrible gash that that Fondora inflicted when they clanked head.
Uh you know, there in also no elbow. It was
elbow the elbow, and what the second end of the
second round and Zoo was, you know, a bloody mess,
arrested the flight. But Fendora was dealing with his own
problems because he had a broken nose. So I thought
when he won that fight close as could be, but
one that that was a huge upset. And then Dubile,
like you mentioned, there was an upset of the top
rank prospect where they had signed. They called him the
Kansas kid Alan Garcia. This was like a preliminary fight,
you know, buried on one of the ESPN plus hunder guards.
But he was in with just a regular guy. He
was being built up as a top prospect and a
and a potential sort of attraction. And he got knocked
out in the fifth round in a fight he was
winning against Ricardo Fernandez. That was a pretty big upset.
And uh, you know the fight that we picked that
a lot of people picked as the knockout of the
here Lucas's body against Ashton Silv. Ashton Silva was the MVP,
heavily hyped prospect that was supposed to you know, win
that fight, and he was dominating and all of a sudden,
out of nowhere, he gets, you know, knocked out into
another dimension. That was another massive, massive upset.
Speaker 1: Lots of good stuff on the upset. Sorry, a couple
more and then we've got some nostalgia and we're gone.
Good prospect. You're always proud of the prospect. Was it
a tough call twenty twenty four for you?
Speaker 2: I don't know if it was a tough call. I
think what really cemented for me was watching the heavyweight
Moses E. Tama do what he did against Demsey McKean,
and that was on December twenty first, So as you
get close to the end of the year, you're sort
of having your mind, you know, the top handful of guys,
but hadn't really made up that decision yet, and so
I expected him to beat dems McKean, but I didn't
think he'd wipe him out in the first round. McKeen
had gone, you know, into the late going a very tough, hard,
hotly contested although he was losing a fight against Philip Herkovic,
you know, when you know it was way more experienced
as a professional as an amateur, took him into round
twelve before Herkovic had gotten the knockout against him and
Hama you know, dropped them twice and completely dusted them.
And before that again, Marius Walk not a big, top
level opponent, but a guy with vast experience with fought
for the heavyweight title against Vladimir Klitschko and he cleaned
him out in two rounds. And it's heart to overlook him.
He's a south paw. But the thing that jumps to
you is he just turned twenty years old. He was
I believe still nineteen when that fight happened. I mean,
that is unusual. They're talking about him. Remember when Mike
Tyson became heavyweight champion, he was twenty years old, and
Atma was sort of on that sort of trajectory. Now,
he wasn't as active like an early young Tyson was.
And I'm not trying to compare them. I'm just talking
about specifically in terms of their age. But what really
made me think about it was so I'm watching in
my own eyes, right and I see what looks clearly
like a very talented young heavyweight. Doesn't take a lot
to make that assessment. But then you start listening to
what other people in the business have to say. Promoters
who don't promote him. You know, promoters who don't promote
other guys very rarely compliment the other guy's guy. And
he got other promoters complimenting a Tom. He got other
boxing die hard people in the business for decades, matchmakers
that I know, managers, I know, I talk to a
lot of people, and they'll all tell you this kid
has the potential be really something special. So I take
that into account. Also, not necessarily, like I'm quoting them
in a story. But when you talk to the people
I talk to on a regular basis and in separate conversations,
not like we're on like a conference call, and they're all,
you know, we're in the vacuum where the echo chamber.
They're all talking about what an amazing young talent this
guy is. And then you watch the way he goes
about his business, and the hand speed and the foot
speed is just tremendous, and so well, there's a lot
of good prospects in boxing, and there always is, and
when it gets to this time of year and we
were doing prospect lists and things, it always kind of
gives me, you know, hope for the future. So I
picked I picked Atama, I mean, and I'm always kind
of loath to pick the heavyweights. I've been burned a
few times on heavyweight picks, you know, picking Samuel Peter,
picking David Price, I mean, but you got to go
with what you see, and so he was one of them.
And then there's just you know, this is not necessarily
in order, and my story about all this is forthcoming
still in the next couple of days. But you can't
not be impressed by the young or I shouldn't say young.
He's twenty nine, but in terms of young, in terms
of his professional experience, and that's the Cuban lightweight Olympian
Olympic gold medals from twenty twenty Andy Cruz, who's four
and zero with Matrom, he ain't gonna be a prospect
at the end of twenty twenty five. He's gonna be
involved in some bigger fights. A good looking prospect for sure.
I've always ever since I first saw him, I think
four or five fights ago, jo Ennisty as the junior
middleweight that's trained by the Great Rodney Shields, also a
Cuban training but now based out of the Houston area.
He's looked out standing. He actually scored a very impressive
victory on the undercard of that Martazalev tim Zoo card
that we talked about a minute ago. Also an outstanding prospect,
you know, Ernesto Tito Markadov always found to be intriguing.
He's undefeated and he was sort of built by his
father on small cards. He didn't have a promoter. He
finally signed with Mattrom Boxing and got himself a big promoter.
Hasn't debuted yet for them. He was supposed to late
in the in twenty twenty four, but his opponent came
in like six and a half seven pounds overweight, so
he finally makes his Matchroom debut later in January. But
he's definitely a junior walterweight to keep an eye on.
And you can't talk about prospects without talking about a
couple of the top rank fighters, and that's Abdullah Mason,
the lightweight whose looks sensational. I had a little bit
he was like a top candidate, and I must be honest,
I was a little bit like Leary when I saw
him get dropped two times in the first round by
kind of a nobody opponent in his last fight. But
he's still got amazing handspeed and power, and they're still
very high on him. He definitely has got some potential,
also only nineteen years old. And then the other big
time prospect from top rank is the is Bruce Shues
Shoe Carrington, the featherweight who most recently looked good in
a victory they fought on the undercart of Mike Tyson
Jake Paul. I could go on for prospects DJ for
like an hour, but we don't have time for all.
Speaker 1: That understood, but still some good ones, some good ones
for sure. I'm curious on this biggest story because I
have one in my own mind. What would you say
is the biggest boxing story? And we could have you know,
you don't have a qualifier here on what what has
to be in the ingredient, So I'm just curious what
would you say.
Speaker 2: It's like pornography. I know when I see it as
one thing as the Supreme Work said, Yeah, the Supreme
that's true.
Speaker 1: That's true. It is a Supreme Court ruling, right the
people versus Larry Flint.
Speaker 2: I don't think this is hard. I think this is
actually easy to pick. The biggest story in boxing in
twenty twenty four is Read Season in turkeyof Zikh's domination
of the sport. I don't think it's.
Speaker 1: Gonna disagree with you in a second finish on Read Season, though,
you're talking about their infusion of money Moo Lob.
Speaker 2: Not just the money, it's the whole, the whole everything
they've done so their first event, they did two events
at the end of twenty twenty three. They kicked off
with Tyson Furies fight against Francis Nagano. Then they were
supposed to do a different fight, but they ended up
doing the Day of Reckoning card in its place, which
is a loaded show, so that was sort of just
kind of scratched in the service. In twenty twenty four,
they did another eight shows, six in read, two in
other locations. One was in Los Angeles with Crawford Magromov.
One was the Wembley card you mentioned with Anthony Joshua
and Daniel Dubois. They did that many shows. Every single
one of the cards was absolutely stacked, except maybe fi
at Usik Too, which still had fi at Usick Too
as the main event, but by and large they were
the most loaded cards there were. They even did the
one that was the non pay per view, which was
the Latino Knight, which was an outstanding show that had
two title unification fights. They delivered the Undisputed Heavyweight Championship
and the rematch. They delivered the Undisputed Light Heavyweight Championship
with Better Bvan b Bo, the rematches coming up in February,
and they delivered numerous top level fights and again the
cards very very deep. They didn't just give you one
or two fights. Every card had at least three, four
or five. You'd see like the fifth or sixth fight
down the card and you're like, how is that not
the co feature or the main event? So that was
huge and the amount of money they put in. They
also and this cannot be understated obviously, the money was
a massive part of it in boxing, which has been
fractured for the entire existence of the sport. Frankly, perky
al chic with the checkbook and the power of person,
got all the big promoters essentially to work together in
some fashion. He got Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn who
are now like best buddies who had never even spoken
to each other before all this started. They've working on
a regular base together, the five on five and all
the events they've done and been involved in. Not to
mention they've gotten involved with Top Rank, They've gotten involved
with Golden Boy, gold Star K two, and again not
that they're the best of buddies, but they had a
handful of PBC fighters that participated on the Los Angeles
card in August. So that has changed boxing in that manner.
And on top of that, by doing the big events
that they have done in riad it is in many ways,
and I'm not knocking them for this because the fighters
and the teams are going where the big fights can
be made. So it is a worldwide sport, but it's
damaged boxing in Britain and in America because London and
Vegas and New York and LA they're not the hotbeds
that they once were. There has not been many major
fights in New York. I mean there was what one
major fight in New York last year, and that was
Ryan Garcia against Devin Haney. Los Angeles still gets his
handful of fights, but there hasn't been any right other
than the Crawford fight, which they did, there.
Speaker 1: Hasn't been There hasn't been fight right.
Speaker 2: You know they did. There's been some fights out there
that were worth while for sure, but not regularly. And
and you know, Vegas again, it's had its share of
big fights, sure, but not like it was. I mean,
there was a time where I was going to Vegas,
like there was one year where I went to Vegas
like ten eleven times a year because there were so
many big fights in Vegas. Now I think I'm in
two thousand, and I'm traveling a little bit less now,
of course, but I think in twenty twenty five I
went to Vegas. Maybe like four times instead of like
eight or nine times. So anyway, I'm only making a
point that when you're tak into account the depth of
the cards, the names that they're doing, the level on,
the historical nature of the fights that the money they're spending,
the locations where these are taking place, and the fact
that they've got these folks all work together and there's
no let up in sight. That's to me, the hands
down story of the year. It has changed the paradigm
of the sport. And Turkey, on top of that, bought
the Ring magazine.
Speaker 1: He did, yes, and it is fascinating. On how long
the gravy train lasts? Is it indefinite? We shall see,
because clearly you've laid this out. This is common sense
anybody that knows anything about what's going on. They are
spending ridiculous money with no regard for whether or not
they make any in return. And again, how long does
that last? That remains to be seen, But they.
Speaker 2: I think the reason I think it goes on longer
than some people may have thought is because Turkey spent
like ten million out of his own pocket to buy
the Ring. Interesting, and you don't do that if you
don't plan on sticking around. Sure, so what you're saying
is number one.
Speaker 1: You actually made reference to it, that the chaos of
the week leading up to it and whether there would
be a fight. Then he's overweight for the fight, but
we're still gonna have the fight, and then blam, he
smashes Devin Haney who's down, and smashes him again, and
smashes him again and wins Garcia and then Ryan Garcia
fails pre fight and post fight drug test, gets himself suspended.
They get the result overturned. On appeal to me, if
I am thinking of one thing, that is the biggest
story that just came to mind right away, more so
than the usk undisputed win, which deserves credit for him
to be the fighter of the year and uh and
for that to be arguably the most significant it is
the most significant win of the y.
Speaker 2: I I mean, that was what one a few days
in the sport. This has changed the entire.
Speaker 1: I understand your argument on that, But if you're telling
me what the biggest story that week, that whole thing
it was an ongoing soap opera. And Garcia won the
fight and then got suspended for the positive drug test,
and then the the outcome got overturned. It was like
the young and the restless.
Speaker 2: I was to live. I'll respectfully and strongly disagree. That's
about that one.
Speaker 1: That's fine, healthy disagreement on those two. All right, let's
get to one piece of nostalgia to wrap it up. Here.
We've been without nostalgia. We're like addicts here. We got
to get this in. Uh. January the sixth is now
famous for other reasons, but it was famous in two
thousand and seven, eighteen years ago, coming on Monday for
Samuel Peter and James Tony in a heavyweight showdown. You
were there. Why is I have to confess, I don't
really know why is this so memorable in the nostalgia
go ahead?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, you have to think back to
what was going on at the time when this fight
took place. They had fought in their first fight, which
was a WBC final eliminator to produce the fighter that
was going to be the mandatory challenger for then the
WBC heavyweight champion, Oldleag Maskaev, and it was a highly
controversial decision, uh and they ended up having to do
a rematch. And so anytime that happens, when you're talking about,
you know, James Tony was is a big, big name. Obviously,
it was a split decision the first fight and Peter
had gotten the victory and they ordered the rematch. There
was a ton of controversy after that first fight. They
did the rematch. I tended the rematch. It was at
the heart. It was not too far from a year
at TJ in South Florida. They did the fight at
the hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida. Tremendous venue by
the way. It was a beautiful place to go to cover.
I've covered a few fights there. A really nice place. Anyway, Again,
this was to be the fight that would produce the
winner would go on to fight Ola Maskin for the
heavyweight title. And after a very close split decision victories
versus Sam Peter in this highly controversial first fight, he
goes in in the second fight that took place. Now,
the first fight was in September of six, so this
is only a few months later that they fight. The
rematch in January of two thousand and seven, and this
time Sam Peter, who was never a guy that was
always seemed to be in the best condition. Even though
he was very strong and powerful and a big knocko ours.
He got himself in probably the best condition he ever
was in his entire career, and he cleaned James Tony's clock. Now,
anybody that knows anything about James Tony is now currently
in the Hall of Fame, is known. Among many things,
He's known for us Ivan maybe one of the greatest
chins in the history of boxing, just you know, amazing chin.
Took a lot of punishment, unfortunately paying the price for
it in his retirement, but he hadn't been knocked down.
He got it all the way back into the nineties
when he had gotten dropped by Roy Jones in their
big showdown for the super middlewait title. Years and years later,
multiple weight classes later, he takes on Sam Peter. First
fight isn't budged. Second fight, James Tony gets knocked down,
legitimate knockdown and ends up losing basically every round. I
remember being there. I scored that fight a shutout. Two
of the judges gave it ten rounds to two for
Sam Peter. One of the judges gave it eleven rounds
to one, and Sam Peter looked absolutely spectacular. And James Tony,
who's the biggest sore loser among sword losers in boxing,
claimed he won the fight, claimed it was a trip
on the knockdown, all the nonsense in the bullshit, but
Stam Peter got himself in phenomenal.
Speaker 1: Was there a particularly large punch that can cuss Tony
that night to think that he won the fight if
what you're describing now.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's one thing if he wants to argue
the knockdown, which was sort of indisputable, to argue that
he won the fight as hilarious because he lost. I
mean generously, you might give him two or three rounds,
but in any event, he lost. And you know, James
was a good fighter at that time. Remember even as
a heavyweight, he had done you know, he got busted
for drugs after he won the WBA title against John
Ruiz and got stripped away from him like it never happened.
But he had defeated Evander Holyfield, and he had some
other good fights obviously, had become the cruiserweight champion, probably
one of the great cruisers, well not probably one of
the greatest cruiserweight fights of all time, and is very
resounding and superb victory against Vasili Jiroff also a fighter
actually happened to be at but anyway, so that was
the case. This was this was a very significant fight.
It headlined on Showtime this remastering James Tony and San
Peter and Samuel Peter ultimately did go on and win
the WBC time by knockout in the bull ring in Cancun, Mexico,
another fight that I covered and became at least briefly
the WBC Heavyweight champion before yielding that title when Vitali
Klitchko made his comeback after a long four years out
of the ring from retirement due to injuries. But for
a brief period there the two Tony fights in his
fight against Jimmie mclin and against OLDI Maskat. Samuel Peter
was one of the top two or three heavyweights in
the sport. And one of the most memorable things I
will add to this is, if you're familiar with those times,
the model and well known I guess reality TV at
the time, Anna Nicole Smith, playboy model et cetera, who
unfortunately died at the hard Rock Casino I guess a
few months later she was in a Tennis at Night TJ.
And one thing that always stands out to me was
during that particular card before the main event, and Anicole
Smith came to ringside as she was walking past the
media section to go to where her sa he was,
and she stopped in front of us. I was sitting
like in like the first row, and she stopped pretty
much right in front of me and the other guys
I was with, and she looked down. She's you know,
she was obviously a very attractive woman, and she looked
at us and kind of gave us the winkton Hi
you boys, and pretty much we all kind of lost
our concentration right.
Speaker 1: There, I was gonna say. And then she proceeded to
take a large step over all of your tongs wagging. Yes,
the former Playboy playmate, so you even wove in and
anna Nicole Smith to the nostalgia after making reference to
pornography as a matter of fact later on the program
in the Supreme Court, we have it all.
Speaker 2: You get it all on the pop of the program.
Speaker 1: All right, So again a reminder here, we previewed the
jy Opataia fight. We handicapped it, by the way, on
the bet Us Boxing Show. And it's not until Wednesdays
we released this podcast. It's Wednesday morning the United States.
Repeat for the audience here how they see it in
the Under States.
Speaker 2: It's on the zone, not just by the way, It's
not just on dis zone in the United States. It
is on his own I believe, worldwide, worldwide from Australia.
Speaker 1: From broad Beach, Australia. You always love my geography about
eight hour car ride to the northeast up.
Speaker 2: The coast from I don't even know if that's true.
Speaker 1: I am telling you. I looked it up. I don't
know if it comes down to how fast you drive.
Speaker 2: Why does anybody care how far it is from Sydney.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying it's I'm giving them an idea geographically
of where it is near Brisbane on the coast. And
again there's gonna be some sentiment for both Opataia and
Justice Hooney the heavyweight, because they're from that area. Let's
see if it's a loud environment or not for a
Wednesday night in Australia. So that that's coming. We gave
you some news, we gave you the End of the
Year Awards Part two and some nostalgia. Why don't we
regroup later in a week and we'll talk more about
what Opataiah does or doesn't do, and what Hooney does
or doesn't do.
Speaker 2: Later Onbelieva.
Speaker 1: We all good, damn right here, We are good. Thank
you for finding us again. Subscribe to the podcast feed, Apples, Freaker, Spotify,
give us ratings five star reviews always help for now.
We are finito here on the Fight Preach Unit podcast