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Speaker 2: The countdown is on to fight time.
Speaker 3: This is Big Fight Weekend. No. Here is your host, TJ. Lee.
Speaker 4: Well, we are ready to go with whatever this is
about to be with the Jake Paul Mike Tyson main
event and the MVP Promotions card on a Friday.
Speaker 3: Night at at and T Stadium in North Texas.
Speaker 4: We also have Latino Knights in Saudi Arabia of course,
with Zerdo Ramirez and Chris Billum Smith headlining Cruiserweight World
Unification title fin Another couple of title fights on that
card as well. We are all about the previewing on
the Big Fight Weekend preview. I am the somewhat competent host, TJ.
Speaker 3: Reeves. He is our insider man. Has he been hustling? Hello?
Speaker 4: Dan Rayfiel from the Fight, Freak Night, Substack a Big
Fight Weekend dot Com. Good to be with you, And
as we release this podcast Thursday night into Friday, we
are on the eve right now, but if they're hearing
us Friday morning, it's already fight day on the return
of Mike Tyson at fifty eight years old, ready to
get in the ring with Jake Paul.
Speaker 3: How are you?
Speaker 4: How are things? As we're counting down to fight time
coming up? As we release this.
Speaker 2: Um, like everybody else, I'm waiting to see what this
thing is gonna be. What can I say? I mean,
I'll tell you, I'll tell you what it is. Though
I know this it's a big deal. And I tell
you that because I've been doing more radio interviews and
requests from people for comments and talking about this fight
than I have been for any other fight a long time.
I've done radio interviews in the UK, Canada, a couple
places in the United States, Australia. There's people all around
the world that want to talk about this fight. So
say whatever you want about Jake Paul against Mike Tyson,
freak show, side show, real fight, fake fight, whatever you
want to call it. There's a lot of people that
are interested.
Speaker 4: There is definitely an audience and an appetite, So we're
going to talk about that more very intriguing co feature
fight that we will break down. As I mentioned the
card in Saudi Arabia Saturday afternoon US time from read
season the Latino Night, Oscar de la Hoya's Golden Boy
Promotions partnering up with that, We've got news. Dan has
pinned down the Bena Vetez match up with David Morrell.
Speaker 3: Stand by for that. How's that for a tee?
Speaker 4: Some great nostalgia on holy Field Bow one, and much
more plenty. By the way, I'm bowing to you already,
by the way, follow subscribe Apple Spreaker, Spotify give us
a five star review because I'm bowing to Rayfield. You
hustled and you saw your rabia. I don't know what
time you pulled it off because the time difference. What
are they six ahead of Eastern time right now? Thanks
seven to even ahead of Eastern time you pulled off
interviewing Chris Billum Smith and we put it up on
the podcast feed as it turns out for Thursday, uh
here midweek as he gets ready to fight Zerdo Ramirez.
Nice job with that we'll talk more about that in
and around the fight. But this is Rayfiel list. Is
why they got to be following and subscribing because you
needed no other prompt You got that notification that that
interview was there before we ever did this pod. If
you're following and subscribing, so jump in and follow and
subscribe and rate us and review us.
Speaker 2: I'll let them know. Normally when we do interviews, my
way of doing it that I if I could do
it my way every time is you do the interview
with the fighter or whoever is involved with whatever you're
ahead of, right, and you play the interview about you know,
on our show the Thursday into Friday, the week before
the fight, so it's time to breathe and it's not
h you know, at the last minute, and you know,
and that sort of thing. It has a little bit
of a shelf life with Billim Smith already being in
Saudi Arabia for the last you know, I guess a
couple of weeks and not able to schedule the previous
week and not getting really unfortunately any real response from
Team Zerdo, who I also look to talk to as well,
the folks that are working the promotion. Uh contacted me
and said, you know, do you want to talk to Chris.
I know it wasn't like my ideal time. I'm like, yeah,
let's do it. So we worked out the time. It
was like one morning a couple of few days ago,
and he was tremendous. He was a very very I'd
never spoken to him before. I'd watched a lot of
his fights obviously, and I've seen some interviews with him
on those broadcasts and a couple of YouTube things. But uh,
you know, he knew who I was. I knew who
he was. We had a really nice zoom, well spoken
guy and modest and just a very enjoyable guy to talk.
Speaker 4: I heard the interview on Thursday, and he was he
was insightful. I think he let it roll right off
his back a couple of times where you said, hey,
you keep being you know, counted out figuratively not literally
in the ring. You're an underdog again, and he said, hey,
I understand why. I understand people don't know enough about me,
and that I thought it was really cool where he
told you that he grew up as a football or
soccer fan, buying tickets season tickets to watch Bonermouth play
uh football or soccer, and then he got to headline
a championship fight card in that stadium.
Speaker 3: That's the ken.
Speaker 2: He's tough. He's got some unbelievable fans. I mean, you
know that that part of England where he's from, as
he said, not exactly a boxing hotbed, but he's like
a local legend and they really really support him. So
I imagine some of those fans that are that fanatical
about him have probably made the flight from England to
read to do the to be in attendance at the show.
And uh, you know, look, he's he seems like an
awfully good guy. I've known Zerto for many years in
an interview many times, also a good guy. And uh,
hopefully they put on a great fight, which we're gonna
talk about a little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well talk about that in a bit, all right,
So let's get to and I'm with you, there's intrigue whatever.
This is gonna be the good news, as you keep saying,
it's not a pay per view. If you have standard
Netflix that you subscribe to, you'll be able to see
this on Friday. So just as a pull a curtain back,
they're having the ceremonial way in tonight as we are
doing this, as we're taping this for Jake Paul and
Mike Tyson as well as Amanda Serrano, Katie Taylor, all
the undercard fights that are going on. Again, I rechecked
with not one Dan and you got sources too, but
two people that said this is nuts on the third
level tickets, the standing room only tickets. They have moved
a lot of tickets this week. I don't know what
kind of crowd is going to ultimately be there, but
I keep having a couple of people telling me, don't
be surprised if it is seventy five or eighty thousand
with the standing room only.
Speaker 3: Let's see, let's see what the truth are. Maybe they're lying.
I don't know, but go ahead.
Speaker 2: Talking to the folks that are putting on the event.
They and we'll see, I mean, the pictures won't lie.
There'll be at least sixty thousand people. They believe their
gate in terms of the ticket sales will exceed sixteen
million dollars. And why that's a big deal. Well, it's
a big deal no matter where you have a boxing event.
But the reality is that in the entire history of
boxing in the United States of America, there's never been
a gate sixteen million dollars or more outside of Las Vegas,
so this would be the largest gate ever for a
boxing event that didn't take place in Las Vegas in
terms of the United States. So that's pretty a big deal.
So when you to put it in perspective, when Canelo
fought Billy Joe Saunders at at and T Stadium, same
venue and they drew a crowd which broke the American
indoor record of seventy six thousand plus, which maybe this
Tyson and Jake Paul fight could potentially challenge the gate
for the fight. Though the ticket sales was like shy
of ten million, it was like in the nine plus million,
which is nothing to sneeze.
Speaker 3: That's STI not insignificant. Yeah, it's a big deal.
Speaker 2: You know, when Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield fought to
a draw in that terrible decision in their first fight
for the undisputed heavyweight title in New York City, Off
the top of my head, I want to say the
gate for that fight was somewhere This is nineteen ninety eight,
I believe, So it's you know, the dollars were significantly
big time back then. It would not seem that big now,
but it was maybe around like eleven million thereabouts for
that fight, and for this to do in that possibly
fifteen sixteen or more, that's a big deal. Whether you
whether you like the idea of a twenty seven year
older taking it out on a fifty eight year old
senior citizen, that's a different ball.
Speaker 4: Game, all right, And we'll get into that in a
couple of moments. And I'm fascinating by that stand and
I don't mean to go down the rabbit hole, but
Mike Tyson Michael Spinks in Atlantic City, it would be
more than that, is what you're telling me. And some
of the other big time fights, whether they be at the.
Speaker 2: If you have inflation, you might find one that's on
that level. But the thing about it is, at the
time that Tyson fought Michael Spinks, that was the biggest
money fight ever and then it was broken, and you know, broken,
and it's been broken and broken and broken. Now it's
going to be a long time till that record's broke
ever in terms of the biggest fight in history, in
terms of overall revenue, pay per view and gate which
is Mayweather versus Pakyaw, which generated like six hundred and
fifty million dollars in total, and the gate the tickets
house were like seventy five million dollars. So but nonetheless,
for a novice professional like Jake Paul and a man
in Tyson who is iconic but hasn't had a real
fight in nineteen years and five months. That's and he's
fifty eight years old, it is quite a testament to
their popularity.
Speaker 4: All right, So let's pick it up right on that
point you just touched on it, the age discrepancy, how
long Tyson has been out? Let me ask it this way,
and we'll get into the fight just a little bit,
because we're gonna break it down more on the bet
Us Show on Friday on what we think might happen
on fight day later on Friday.
Speaker 3: As you're hearing us on Friday at one.
Speaker 4: Eastern time, does it surprise you in the least, because
I am still surprised at this point that this was
allowed to go on, with the age discrepancy, with Tyson's
known hell problems. It just it does surprise me a
little bit that we've gotten here. It appears we've gotten
here to fight, and I it does surprise me in
the least. It's easy to say now if you were
to say, hey, I'm not surprised at all, But what
about you, what do you think?
Speaker 2: I'm not that surprised because A it's Texas, where you
know they pretty much approve anything. B. Tyson has taken
the requisite medical requirements, and from my understanding, is compared
to if it was just an like Jake Paul getting
a license in Texas is one thing who was fought
there before and no issues. He's twenty seven, he's a
young man, he's strong, obviously healthy in terms of Tyson.
The physical things that they asked him to do in
his tests that he had to take were what you
would call enhanced tests. In other words, he had to
go through a little bit more of a detailed battery
than your average boxer because of his age and because
of his length of time out of the ring. So again,
by all, they didn't give me those results, but what
they've told me is that, yeah, no, he did the
tests and there was no particular red flags and he's
good to go. So we'll see what happens now. I
will say this from looking at the photos. I saw
him like shirtless, standing at the at the scale and
that sort of thing. I mean, he looks strong and
in good condition. He looks fit, and it's not that
long ago where he boxed Roy Jones. Now granted that
was an exhibition and they weren't trying to go for
it and they were of similar ages and such, right,
so I feel like Tyson's in at least good condition
for a man that's fifty eight years old who hasn't
done this sport in anofficial basis anyway in quite a
long time. But more realistically, he was in the ring
against Roy Jones, although not an official fight. Listen, the
last time that Tyson had a real fight quote unquote
real fight was in two thousand and five, when Jake
Paul was eight years old. So that should tell you
the discrepancy. There's a thirty one year age difference between
these two men. I mean, that's pretty wild.
Speaker 4: And by the way, there's probably an argument that, as
Tyson was in his heyday in the late nineties, had
the Paul parents even met located at Jake's parents.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's how crazy it is. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I have to believe it's got maybe if
somebody else could come up with the one that I'm
not thinking about. But I have to believe that the
thirty one year age discrepancy between these two guys has
to be a record in boxing for.
Speaker 4: The most well, because there's some commissions to this point.
There's some commissions that don't let it go on if
it's even more than a ten year age discrepancy in
terms of like a forty plus year old, and are
they fighting another late thirties or forty year old as
opposed to fighting a twenty something year old, because I
remember they ran into this with one of these cards
where Antonio Tarvor Tarbor times shout out to him if
he hears this, he was trying to fight somebody. And
I want to say it was the Florida Commission that said, no,
you're in your late forties and who you're fighting is
in his late twenties and it's too big a discrepancy
and you're not fighting him, So that that would be
one hindrance.
Speaker 3: But go ahead.
Speaker 2: All the stuff going on with the commission that's been
dealt with. I mean, whether again I've said this a
thousand times, whether you like it or you don't like it.
This fight is happening. They've done what they need to
do with requirement wise, and what's going to be is
going to be. And if something bad happens, it's on
the commission, not on you, not on me, and not
anybody that's going to tune in. I mean, let's be honest,
there's a lot of people want to tune into this
not because they want to see a great boxing match.
They're looking for a train wreck. They want to see
a fucking disaster. I mean, I hope that doesn't happen
because I don't want to see a Tyson get hurt,
and I don't want to see Jake Paul get hurt.
I hope they give us an entertaining fight and whatever
the result is, there's a definitive winner of the fight,
and everybody you know, moves on with their life the
next day.
Speaker 4: And repeat and repeat again. They've modified the rules. Go
over it here for those that are not fully aware of.
Speaker 2: So okay, so it's an official fight they will count
on their records. It's an eight rounder. That's not unusual.
I mean for a main event, maybe it's slightly unusual,
but eight rounders and men's boxing is normal. Granted it's
not a ten or twelve. That's obviously a nod to
the experienced level of Paul in the age of Tyson.
I mean, most of Jake Paul's professional fights have been
eight rounders. He's only had actually one schedule ten round fight.
That was the fight against Nate Diaz that took place
also in Texas in twenty twenty three, a fight that
he won, you know, pretty convincingly, so he can go
to ten rounds if necessary. But they made an round fight.
But more significantly, they've dropped the time of rounds from
three minutes, which is standard, to two minutes. Clearly a
nod to the age of Tyson. That was probably something
that was required by the commission to a sanction it officially.
And they also went from the standard heavyweight gloves, which
in virtually every commission there is would be ten ounce gloves.
They've decided to do with the fourteen ounce gloves, which
would be more like the kind of gloves you would
spar in. You know, obviously means there's going to be
even though the gloves are heavier, theoretically they would do
less damaging to get hit because there's more padding on
the gloves, So I'm not sure who that necessarily helps,
because Jake's a really punch a really good puncher when
you'd watch him, not guys out. And obviously Tyson is
famous for being one of the biggest punchers in the
history of the heavyweight division, although he hasn't had the
opportunity to do that because he hasn't had fights that
were counting for the last twenty years almost. So I
feel like the fourteen ounce gloves thing, that's a wash.
It doesn't really I don't think that helps or hurts
either guy. The length of the rounds is I think
definitely a help for Tyson. You know, who's gassed after
you know, one three minute around, you know, back in
the day. I mean again, I come at this because
unlike most people who are probably going to tune in,
even if there are folks that remember the heyday of
Tyson the baddest man on the planet, big knockouts against
Burbick and Biggs and Tony Tubbs and you know, the
razor Ruddick in the first fight, and I mean you
can go on and on Selden and Frank Bruno twice,
et cetera. Even Clifford atn at the end of his
career in forty nine seconds. I covered Tyson at the
end of the career, and I was there ringside and
dealt with him a lot, was around him a lot
and covered those fights. And again I'm always as a
Tyson fan. But even in those days, Andrew Gallatta, you know,
two thousand, two thousand and one, two thousand and three,
all the way to the mcbriden oh five, Mike was
already a shot guy. He already didn't have the heart
to fight anymore. He already kept quitting, he already got
knocked out multiple times. And I'm just here to say
that twenty years later, it does get better, like you
don't get better now. He may have a better mindset now.
He made the point to me in our interview that
we played on the podcast a couple episodes ago that
at the time that he had fought Kevin McBride and
he retired on his stool, quit in that fight, and
then retired from boxing at the press converts and did
not come back for a real fight until the one
coming up, although he did have two exhibitions, one in
six and the Roy Jones won in twenty twenty. You know,
he said, and he remembered the conversation that we sat
there at the dais after the fight, and he went
on and on and on and out. He never wants
to put on gloves again, hates the smell of the gym,
has no has no heart for this anymore, doesn't love it,
hates it in fact, et cetera. And I asked him,
what change? He said, times change. I don't feel that
way anymore. Remember at that time he was doing cocaine. Yeah,
doing all kinds of drugs. He told you that.
Speaker 4: He said, I was heavy into drugs. I was heavy
into alcohol. That was my life.
Speaker 2: So I think now he's not doing cocaine, and I
don't think he's drinking. He smokes weed, but that's not
you know, like doing coke and getting liquored up all
the time. So his attitude, you know, as he said,
my relationship with myself is different, My relationship with God
is different. And so maybe he has some element of
hunger and a desire back. As he said, he wanted
to get out of his comfort zone a little bit.
And that's doing a boxing match for the first time
in twenty years. That's going to count against a young guy.
But even still. I just am a strong believer, having
washed and covered boxing for most of my life that
if you were a shot guy at thirty six, thirty five, right,
thirty seven, whatever he was thirty eight when he fought
McBride in The Last Fighter thirty seven, nineteen twenty years later,
you're not going to be better even if you if
you hadn't fought, and you know, if you had fought,
he won't be better. And now having all the time
away from the ring, he's not going to be better.
Speaker 4: Let me give you one reference point. And we were
talking about this, We've been talking about these different comebacks
and different guys. When he Vander Holyfield came back trying
to join in with all the different fighters and back
Tyson coming back having fought Roy Jones, some of the
others that want to fight, et cetera. Holy Field was training.
They put the videos out and he looked sharp, and
they showed him sparring and they showed him shadow boxing,
and when he got in the ring, it was what
Vitor bell fort is the guy's name, the former UFC
fighter Holyfield. I'm gonna stress it because it's audio was
in so lo motion. When the bell rang because it's
a totally different thing than shadow boxing.
Speaker 2: And training and more importantly.
Speaker 4: And you're fifty eight years old and you were done
twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: He got knocked the fuck out in the first round.
Speaker 4: Well correct, he got rocked, but he when the fight began,
you could tell he was a step or two behind
from being a step for two behind. And that's father time.
And so that's what you're saying. I don't know to
what extent that's gonna be with Tyson. I will tell
you this, it will surprise me greatly and we'll.
Speaker 3: Talk about it more on the bet Us Show.
Speaker 4: If we get to the back half of this fight,
for whatever reason, because of stamina, punching power, it will
surprise me. If we get to the back half of
this fight, that.
Speaker 2: Part of wellme in it round. So that's a rat.
Speaker 3: But still still I agree, I mean, just my thought.
Speaker 2: I just feel like Mike, you know, I'm not I'm
not disappointed that he's giving it a try. Number One,
he's being paid huge amounts of money, that's correct. You know,
he can say whatever he wants and the money's not
going to change his life. But I never knew Mike
Tyson to do boxing matches for free first of all.
Second of all, you know the money aside. I suspect
he'll try for a period of time, but he has
in his background, uh, several fights where he quit slat out.
And I'm not saying that to be insulting of Mike.
I'm a Tyson fan. He can't deny the facts and
the reality. And if the if the tough, If if
the going gets tough, Mike Tyson knows how to quit.
Now there's different ways he can quit. He quit against
Evander Holyfield by trying to bite his ear off. I'm
hopefully he won't try to bite off any part Jake
Jake Paul's body.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: But I believe strongly that there's a large group of
people who will be interested to tune into this fight
a because they have memories of the great Mike Tyson
in the heyday, which is a zillion years ago. And
then there's another group of people who just want to
just tune in for a train wreck, like you watch
a Robert like you'd be passing a car accident on
the highway.
Speaker 4: And look at the same reason they watch NASCAR, the
same reason they watch pro wresting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I got you.
Speaker 2: We're we're gonna see. I mean, the upset will be
if it turns out to just be a normal boxing
match and you know, attack the you know fight and loses.
Speaker 4: There's a real chance this is more on the bet
Us show with what we're going to handicap, that this
could be a very sloppy, boring fight too.
Speaker 3: We don't we don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I agree with that, because you
don't really see I have.
Speaker 4: I have been at two different Jake Paul fights in person,
have watched virtually all of them. He fights sloppily and
fights sloppy. There's a real chance this could be a
sloppy fight.
Speaker 2: But stoppy does not does not translate to not entertaining.
Speaker 4: I didn't say entertainment, I said sloppy. So let's see,
let's see.
Speaker 2: If proppy is to be expected when one guy hasn't
caught for twenty years and the other guy isn't a
refined fighter. But the main thing to me is are
we going to get entertainment value or are we going
to get a train wreck?
Speaker 3: Okay, so we gave you a lot on that again, if.
Speaker 2: You believe we're talking about a Mike yes.
Speaker 3: Once once I heard him with you on the pod.
Speaker 4: Like I said last week, I'm like, this is becoming
a reality, and now here we are to fight week.
He's really there and here we are. We have lived
long enough to see it. The Texas Commission, as you said,
is going to allow it and green light it, and
now it's going to happen. So all right, well, handicap
that more. Dare I say that the co feature fight
which we've been waiting for this rematch for a couple
of years now, and for various reasons, it hasn't happened
until now. I believe my opinion, this is the most
intriguing fight of the weekend, Amanda Serrano Katie Taylor for
a great first fight, undisputed belts on the line. I mean, again,
say what you want about women's boxing. I am the
most intrigued, is me saying this, and I want your
take and take off.
Speaker 3: I'm the most intrigued by.
Speaker 4: All of the fights, including Paul and Tyson, by this
fight by Serrano and Taylor. Go.
Speaker 2: I can understand that mentality. I'm not shocked to hear
you say that. I'm sure there's plenty of other folks
that have similar feelings about it. I'm interested in this
fight too. I mean, I'm interested in Tyson and Jake
Paul for different reasons. I'm certainly interested in the Zerdo
Bill and Smith unification fight. I'm interested in Oscar Colaso
against your boy, Nelmatrong unification fight that's on the same
card in Saudi.
Speaker 4: Excuse me, cep CP Freshmarch say it right, I got you.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of good fights this weekend, but yeah,
Serrano and Taylor is a high class fight. My perspective
has been in doing some of these different radio interviews.
I'll say it the same as I've said it on
those shows. I'll say it right now, is that if
you watch the Jake Paul Mike Tyson fight, we already
know it's not a pay per view, so that's a
good thing. And if in fact it does turn out
to be a train wreck or some kind of, you know,
forgettable type of situation, that the highlight is going to be,
We're going to see him haind to Serrano against Katie
Taylor in a rematch. They had a fantastic fight in
April of twenty twenty two, hugely popular fight sold out
Madison Square Guarden as the first ever women's boxers to
headline in that hallowed building, put on a fight for
the ages. It's you know, I think most people would say,
without even exaggerating, best women's fight we've ever seen in
the history of women's boxing. Katie Taylor, she retained anyway,
the undisputed women's lightweight title, super close split decision loss.
Katie Taylor was almost out of there in round five,
she survived Serrano. They went back and forth and then
all out war. It's been a long time coming to
get the rematch. At one point it was made and
then it was postponed because Katie had an injury, so
they cancel it and so instead what happened was Katie
ended up fighting moving up and wait and fighting shantel
camera and suffered a first loss. Challenging for the undisputed
junior alterweight title. They got the immediate match, and this
time around she won the close decision and got the
undisputed title. So now Serrano, who is still by the way,
the unified featherweight women's champs, shed she gave up one
of those belts because of her disagreements with the WBC
over the length of round she wants to go three
minutes in this fight. It will be two minutes because
obviously Katie is the champion and she got to dictate
some of those rules. In any event, they're fighting now
for her undisputed junior walterweight championship. It's as good of
a fight as you can have in women's boxing. There's
a story there, there's history between them. They're both respectful
of each other for sure, and they both know how
to fight their asses off. They're both going to be
in Hall of Fame someday, and this is in many ways,
I look at this fight as sort of like the
end of that era sort of because both of Katie
and Amanda are not there. You know, their best days
are probably past them. They're a little older at this point,
and they were able to create some huge interest in
women's boxing as the two main names over the last
few years. So even if they both go on to
continue their careers in big fights after this, it's more
down the backside of the mountain as opposed to still
in the upswing. But I suspect they're gonna put another
great fight. They've been tremendous during the build up to
the fight. They both look like they're in good shape.
They both are saying all the right things and you know,
and they usually don't disappoint. Katie's been in some unbelievable fights,
both Cameron fights, the first fight against against Amanda. A
man has been in a whole bunch of good fights.
One thing to remember TJ, by the way, also is this,
even though Amanda is moving up three weight classes from
featherweight to junior welterweight to try to take these belts,
she did fight back several years ago for a one
shot deal. She did fight in the one hundred and forty
pound division, and she actually won a world title and
then immediately vacated and went back down and wait, so
she won't be able to add another division to her
already record number of weight classes where she's won a title.
She's with the women's record holder seven different weight classes
that she has won titles in. But I see no
way that this fight can't be entertaining. I mean, whether
it goes one round or ten rounds.
Speaker 4: This is one of the rare times though, when I
get to say to brother Rayfield in the Big Fight
Weekend preview pod that I was in the arena the
last time that Serrano was in the ring, and she
dispatched Tampa's Stevie Morgan, who was anonymous going in and
almost is anonymous going right back out. With what Serrano
did inside of two rounds, inside of two two minute rounds,
I think we'll get a little more in this one.
You and I will handicap it further. I am genuinely intrigued,
and I don't know the answer which way you're gonna go.
I know which way I'm gonna go with this one.
And it might surprise some people as to the outcome.
Speaker 2: Though, you know, because number one Kate, like Amanda, when
the July fight was, when when Tyson and Jake were
postponed from July because of Tyson's ulcer. Remember, as you mentioned,
Stevie Morgan fought Amanda and and Uh Jake.
Speaker 4: Hastily, They hastily put the car together in Tampa, right.
Speaker 2: Right, so they moved the fight from AT and T Stadium.
They both fought. Jake fought the BKFC guy, Mike Perry.
Amanda knocked out Stevie Uh in that fight, and Katie
Taylor opted to not fight. She decided to off. So
while since the first out between them happened. Amanda has
fought what five times? Katie has only fought three times,
two brutally tough fights and one of them was a loss.
So and she's also at a little bit older than
Amanda Toronto. So I'm a little kind of like not
sure which way I'm thinking about because of the one
of the women has been more active and is a
little bit younger, but the other ones, she's coming up
in wait, and it's like, I got a lot of
feelings about this, but I really don't know what to
make of it.
Speaker 4: All Right, we'll handicap it a little more on the
bet Usoi What else on this MVP promotion's Netflix card?
Give me a couple more moments on it, and then
we're gonna move on to Saturday and the Latino Night
card for riadd season with the Cruiserweight Unification main event
with Zerdo and Billim Smith.
Speaker 3: What else from Friday Night? Real quick?
Speaker 2: Sure? I mean the Friday Night card. First of all,
all the preliminaries actually are not on Netflix, are on
the Netflix YouTube and also on the MVP YouTube. But
the main card is four fights, but we've talked about
the first two. The third one is also a notable fight,
which is the WBC's walterweight title holder, Mario Barrios, always
an exciting fighter from San Antonio, so who'll have Texas
in the house for him. He is making his first
defense against Albo Ramos. This is these are both PBC fighters,
and I like the fact that MVP was able to
go to PBC, which doesn't exactly have a ton of
dates going on, and we're able to make, you know,
an offer to get this done for their events. So
Barrios goes in there. You know, he looked pretty good
back in May when he fought on the Canelo Undercarney
defeated Fabian Madonna, the brother of Marcos Madonna, and you
know before that he had been or Dennis Ugast. Those
were interim title fights. But remember when Terence Crawford became
the undisputed champion and then obviously vacated and decided to
go up to one hundred fifty four pounds. Barrios did
not get a chance to fight Crawford, but he was
elevated from the interim champion to the regular champion. So
this is the first defense of that tentnle. Now, Ramos
is an experienced guy, he is the uncle of Jesus Ramos,
the excellent up and comer. But you know, he's not
exactly what I would look at as a legit top
type ten contender at this point in his career. Now,
he's been in some good fights, probably most notably gave
you or gave her Dennis Ugus a really close fight,
lost his split decision that was for at the time
a vacant title, and he has come you know, he
lost a couple of fights against Luke Santa Maria and
Cody Crowley, but he is coming off of a victory
that took place back in April of this year, and
so he's coming off that knockout victory. I know one
thing about Aba Ramos. Whatever you think about where he
is in terms of his either Lichigan, Dender this or that,
he always gives a great effort. So I suspect at
the end of the day, whatever happens, it will be
a highly entertaining fight as well. So you know, for
a third fight down the card that features Tyson, Jake
Paul and the great rematch between the women, this is
not a bad thing in my mind. So I hope
that the fans who watch on Netflix you know that
they tune in just not just for Tyson, that they
do tech checkout Barrios, that they do check out the
rematch between Taylor and Serrano.
Speaker 4: All good stuff. Okay, So that is the card in Texas.
Let's go halfway around the world from there to really
maybe more than that, to Saudi Arabia. And this is
the Golden Boy read seasoned des own card. It is
Latino night. It is Gilberto Zerto Ramirez. And even as
you joked with Chris Billem Smith, he's not Latino, He's English.
He is part of the main event for the WBA
WBO cruiserweight unification fight. Again, as we've detailed on this pod,
you talked to Bill Smith.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 4: I will say this, he is not the most technically
sound fighter. He is not the most quick lightning fighter.
But he's gutsy, he punches hard, he takes a good punch.
Speaker 3: I'm in. I'm in for this.
Speaker 4: It's an intriguing Saturday afternoon main event with Zerto Ramirez.
And part of my thinking is Zerto is a blown
up light heavyweight fighting at cruiserweight, and I don't know
if that shows up in this fight.
Speaker 3: BILLM.
Speaker 4: Smith said to you he's fighting a legit cruiserweight now
in fighting him and I am the bigger guy. I
thought that was interesting as well. Are your thoughts?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I agree with that. I mean the reality
is Chris bill and Smith has been a cruiserweight his
entire career. Zerdo Amirez has been a top notch fighter.
But he won his first title as a super middleweight,
moved up and won a bunch of fights all light heavyweight.
But unfortunately for him, when he got time to fight
for the title, he had to take on Dmitri BiVO,
so there was no cherry picking there. He fight one
of the very best, not only light heavyweights fighters in
the whole dance sport, and then when he went to cruiserweight,
I'm not gonna say he cherry picked his title, but
he kind of cherry picked his title. I mean he
fought against Arson Gula Marian who was a pretty decent
fighter but and was undefeated, but it not really ever
fought anybody, had come off a massively long layoff and
just got played with by zerdo Ameres, who won very easily.
That was his fight back on March thirtieth of this year,
so he's only had two fights in the cruiserweight division.
One was a catchweight of like whatever was one ninety
two against Joe Smith, who was really a light heavyweight
at the tail end of his career. And then the
Gulmarian fight, which was at the full weight of two
hundred but a guy that was coming off a long,
long layoff. So we know Zerdo is a capable fighter,
always got long reach. We know he's got good skills.
He's a southpaw, he's got a pretty decent handspeed, and
we've never seen him really badly hurt in a fight.
But now he's taken on a real cruiserweight, you know.
And the thing I like about Zerto from the standpoint
of his mentality is I mean, yeah, he's focused, I believe,
on this fight with Bill and the Smith, but what
his desires are is to go well beyond that. He
wants to move up and for what it's worth at
least in terms of the WBA and the WBC. He says,
I want to win the Bridgerway title and then I
want to go to heavyweight. You know, he's a big boy.
But billim Smith, lifelong cruiserweight. As I said, in terms
of his boxing career, you mentioned about how he you know,
he may not be the fanciest guy, he always strikes
me as the Quintines central fighter. And these are guys
I love because I've had this conversation before. If I
had my choice, you give me the guy with the
B talent, but the A work ethic and the heart,
I take him any day over the guy with the
A talent but the B work ethic and Bill Smith
definitely works his ass off. He's a guy that gets
the most out of whatever his ability is. Other guys wasted.
He's not a guy who's wasted one ounce of it.
Because the fact that he became a world champion in
the first place is probably a miracle to a lot
of people. He was looked at for most of his career.
It's like, you know, good British level fighter, maybe European
level fighter. Well, then he went in there and he
beat Lawrence Okoli, was undefeated, knocked him down three times
and won the title close but won it. As I
mentioned on the podcast to him, I say, a lot
of people thought your fight when you defended against Masterneck,
that he would have a hell of a chance to win.
What happened knocked him the fuck out in the eighth round,
and then he went in with the guy who beat
him back a few years ago, handed him his only
lost Richard Rieko Pore who dropped Chris pillm Smith, and
he was considered a top contender, was undefeated in a
mandatory that took place in June and he beat him,
and that was taken on Ramirez.
Speaker 3: Well, and an overachiever comes to mind as well. But hey,
all of.
Speaker 4: Those things lead you to this moment and unification with
Zerdo Ramirez, so that will be the main event again.
Will handicap that a little more on Friday's bet Us show.
So the undercard again is loaded with a lot of
Latino fighters out of the Golden Boys table. Some of
it you know, Keevin Farmer fighting Williams of Paeda for
example for the interim lightweight title, Jose Ramirez Arnold Barbosa.
And then we've got the strawweight unification that has Oscar
Colazzo out of Puerto Rico and CP freshmart Or, Niamtrong
the WBA Strawweight Champion, and Oscar de war Dam. And
this thing is loaded up on the the Go feature.
Speaker 2: So what stands out well in terms of the Ramirez
and Barboza fight. They're both guys who were quality in
the one hundred and forty pound way class. Ramirez is
the former unified title holder. They both were with Top
Rank for most of their careers, but they've been with
Golden Boy last couple of fights. This was actually a
fight the Top Rank had tried to make and they
were they couldn't get it done. Obviously, when you got
Turkey Yoshik's money, it can kind of smooth things over
and make that happen. So they're doing this fight. And
the thing that's interesting is when the fight was announced,
it was announced as a as a WBO welterweight eliminator,
and it was announced as a twelve rounder. But in reality,
and this was just kind of come to light this
week because it's typical Golden Boys shit. They always do
this with their fights. And I've gotten confirmation from Gustavo Olaveri,
who was the new WO president, that it is not
going to be an elimination fight. Is a normal ten
round fight. Now that doesn't detract from the interesting nature
of the fight, but it is not a mandatory where
the guy who wins gets the title fight. So it
is now a ten rounder, but it's still the co
feature based on the way that the card was announced.
But the Saudis being the Saudi's, you never know if
they're going to change the order at the last minute.
But nonetheless it's a good interesting fight. You know, both
guys have been quality. I think that both they'll also
have questions to answer because when you look at Jose
Ramirez in terms of his situation, he has the one
fight against Barthelemy that took place this year, and you know,
he won the decision pretty clearly, but he had been
off for a long time before that, and he's only
fought one time in twenty twenty two, one time in
twenty twenty three since he lost the title to Josh Taylor,
you know, and they're unification for undisputed. So he's kind
of had ups and downs where he's won, but he
hasn't maybe he looked so sharp and he's been kind
of inactive. Okay, so he comes in the ring. We
already know the talent he's got, but he's kind of
on the downside, it seems to me. And in terms
of Barboza, he's undefeated still thirty you know, with eleven knockouts.
Great record obviously, but you got to look back at
his fight that took place in April, which was his
second fight when he signed with Golden Boy. He had
a fight with them in January when he went when
he left Top Rank, but he fought the dude named
Sean McComb on the undercard when Hainy fought Ryan Garcia, right,
and he looked terrible in that fight, and he was
lucky to get out of New York City with a
split decision. I thought he lost to fight. A lot
of people thought he lost a fight. So you know,
he's got some proven to do. What seems to me,
but I think both these guys know what's that stake.
I mean, it may not be an official eliminator, but
I'd say the facto eliminator because the guy that wins
is going to be in a beautiful position to get
some kind of title opportunity. So that's the situation with
that fight. And the interesting thing also is you know
the action in that weight class. I mean, there's there's
lots of good fighters in and around one forty, so
they're going to put themselves in such a good position
that it's going to be almost inevitable that the winner
is going to get themselves some kind of big time fight. Now,
in terms of the next fight down the card, which
is a PETA against Tevin Farmer, this this is you know,
we don't know what's going to happen, but this fight
was made for one particular reason because the paida is
sitting there as the mandatory for the WBC champion, Chaquor Stevenson,
and that's the fight that's probably going to happen in
February if he wins. So they wanted him to fight
a southpaw like Chaquur. Now not to say that Tevin
Farmer and fight the same way, but at least they're
both left handed, so he gets that look, which is
important when matchmakers and promoters make these types of fights
and make these types of plans. Now, is a paida,
as you know, and I would think if you're die
hard enough to listen to our podcast, you know that
Williams of paid is a devastating puncher thirty one to
oh with twenty seven knockouts. A south paul who just
comes forward and throws like a bazillion punches around his
offense is his defense. Tevin Farmer totally opposite kind of style. Slickboxer,
not a big puncher. What a title at one hundred
and thirty pounds. You know, took a long way off,
but he's come back. He's had a couple of fights
to you know, a few fights actually in one hundred
and thirty five pound way class. He is coming off
of a loss, but he gave Raymond Moore a tie,
a good young up and coming contender, a really good fight.
Lost a close call, unanimous, but very close in that
fight that was back in July. But he's been active,
so at least he comes in with that situation and
he says, I'm going to upset the world. We'll see
what he can do. If he loses, Sipida probably moves
on to this sh Court fight. If Farmer wins, you know,
it is a huge thing. Now. The crazy thing about
this fight that we talked about, we'd have to get
into all the details. It's a ten round fight. Did
they know?
Speaker 3: I know where you're going going?
Speaker 2: I know? And after they signed for it, they were
offered the opportunity to do it for the interim title
because Shakur was out injured. So they were like, okay,
we'll do that, but Farmer refused what I was told
by his people to make it a twelve round fight
because he had already signed for a ten round fight
and the only way he would be willing to change
the number of rounds that they paid him more money,
and he was told there is no more money. So
they're doing this ridiculously as a ten round fight that
apparently is for the WBC interim title. I hope that's
another Golden Boy fuck up and it's not. But we'll
see on Saturday when they start announcing the fights. But
it is just a bizarre situation and it seems kind
of silly like and pointless. It would have to be
for an interim title because Shaquur and Zapeida, that's the
fight if.
Speaker 4: We're already supposed to fight. So Zupada is the clear
number one in the division and all the stuff. Why
do we have to call him the interim anything. He's
fighting Shakur next. We know that if everybody's healthy.
Speaker 2: It is what it is.
Speaker 4: And then the will handicap also the Oscar COLASO, CP
freshmart or Niamtrong, whichever you prefer, strawweight title fight. And
the thing about Klaso. He is a hard hitting Puerto
Rican who's now won two or three title fights defenses.
I'm intrigued a little bit by the little little guys
in this one.
Speaker 2: If you're a diehard, like this is the kind of
fight that I love. I just love this. You mentioned
Colaso top amateur. You know, it's twenty seven, which is
kind of old for a strawweight, but nonetheless, he doesn't
have a lot of pro fights. It's only going to
be his eleventh professional fight. He's got swagger, he's got power,
and he has a title. He was the fewest fights
ever for a Puerto Rican to win a world title,
and he's defended now a couple of times, so you
know he's on the upswing. But he's taken on a
guy that a lot of people don't know much about.
But he's a real solid guy. Deamtrong is twenty five
and ohero with nine knockouts from Thailand. He's thirty four,
which is kind of archaic for a strawweight, but he
doesn't have a ton of wear and tear on him.
He's coming off a really good win. When he went
in September, he traveled to Australia to fight in his
opponent's home area, Alex Winwood, who is a much younger guy,
an Olympic guy, and he won a decision on the
road that was very impressive, and now he's going in
a unification fight. Obviously he's making his biggest money that
I'm sure Turkey paid good money for this unification. Both
of these young guys, and both these guys are making
good money, really fascinating fight. The thing about in Neamtrong
that's people should also realize is that in the entire
sport of boxing, there is no fighter that it has
been a world champion that is currently active longer than
this guy in terms of on the calendar. He has
held this title for a number of years, and so
is there going to be a changing of the guard
in Colazo ascends to the top of the food chain
at one one oh five? Or uh does the Thailand fighter,
you know, bank another really good win and keep uh
keep hold of that position. Really, you know, they're fighting
on totally neutral territory, you know, because I always say
you gotta have a Straway title unification fight between a
Puerto Rican and a tie you do it in Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 4: You use it my material now of course you fight
it in the Saudi Arabia exactly.
Speaker 2: If you actually measured like the mileage.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know what off Top had, but
it seems like if I'm looking at a globe, like
it's probably around the same amount of time and space
and mileage from Thailand to Saudi Arabia as it would
be say from Puerto Rico UH to UH to Saudi Arabia.
They kind of like meet in the middle, really really
good matchup. And again this is like you know the
what one, two, three? This the fourth fight down the
cart that tells you the depth of the show. And
then they open up with Oscar Duarte, who was a
very exciting fighter. We know him probably because of his
knockout loss against Ryan Garcia, but he's a very entertaining fighter.
Twenty seven to two to one with mostly knockouts, twenty
two knockouts, still only twenty eight years old, coming off
a good victory where he stopped Joseph Diaz, who was
in a losing shriek but had never been stopped before.
I remember he was originally supposed to take on Kenneth
Sims in this fight who was That was a very
fascinating fight to me. But Kenny Simms suffered a knee
injury and so they replaced him with batier Akmindov, who
actually had a phenomenal fight with Kenny Simms on showtime
back about a year ago or so. So that's a
new opponent that's still a very interesting matchup. It's still
i think, again not big names, but I think probably
can provide real good quality entertainment value in the fight.
So that's that fight, and then they have another fight
that's the opener, which is not a big name fight.
That's the young Saudi Arabian fighter zi Ed Alnay who
was on the show. But really it's the Duarte Dochmindov,
the Strawwitt unifications, the paida Tevin Farmer in the lightweight fight,
Ramirez Barbosa at the one forty fight, and then of
course the unification also in the main event. So and
again DJ, let me tell you it's a free card,
and this is the I.
Speaker 4: Was just going there you would and I have done
this too long. They're not going to slip in the
nineteen ninety five pay per view Saturday morning, are they?
Speaker 3: Then again, it's his zone and you never know in
rio odd season.
Speaker 4: But this is supposed to be regular to zone with
your subscription and Clai.
Speaker 2: No no, no, no, no no no, it's regular to zone.
But you actually don't even need a subscription. They told me.
You can just go and like put your email and
log in and you can still get it now. But
more and more notably, you don't even have to worry
about the zone because this card is also available on
on Triller TV for free. It's available on the YouTube
channel of Golden Boy for free.
Speaker 3: It's on uh like all those things.
Speaker 2: It's it's on Pluto, I think, for free.
Speaker 4: Not the planet, but Pluto TV. CLI clarify what time?
Because of the long undercard, this is gonna get going
us time because again Saudi Arabia, what's seven hours ahead?
Speaker 2: But go ahead. The card starts with the zad Almey
fight at twelve pm Eastern time, so nine am Pacific.
Speaker 3: Get your lunch ready or your reckfast if you're get
your late.
Speaker 4: Breakfast ready at the West and get ready for an
onslaught of what six.
Speaker 2: J because that means Saturday night. There's you know you've
watched you you've you've probably watched Tyson and Jake Paul
that fight on Friday night? Right, you watch zerdo you
get up early on if you're on the West or
a noon time on the East, and you watched zero
and uh and BILLM. Smith and the Latino Night Card,
and you're done probably by you know, six in the
evening or so thereabouts seven o'clock, and then you got tonight.
You can have a little dinner, watch some college football
and uh and uh and no late night. And you know,
for me, who's gonna be writing these fights for U
A fight freaks to night. I won't have to worry
about doing this at two o'clock in the morning. I'm
thrilled about that.
Speaker 3: I understand that.
Speaker 4: All right, So all of that coming down on Saturday
from six a big weekend, Yes, uh, okay, some news
and some nostalgia because we've been here a little bit.
You have pinned it down for David Benaveta and I'm sorry, yes,
And David Morrell, tell me more about what you've learned
on when and where this is going to come down
in twenty twenty five, so.
Speaker 2: Really good light heavyweight fight. Benavidez is the interim champ
of the WBC. Morell is the regular title holder of
the WBA. They're both guys that were really made their
bones in the super middleweight division, but couldn't get Canelo
to fight them. They both moved up in their last fights.
If you remember, it was Benavide's who defeated Alexander Vojik,
the former light heavyweight champ, that was on the card
that they shared with Tank Davis and Frank Martin back
in June. You had in August Morell going up to
the one hundred and seventy five pil way class. He
defeated hot Rod on the Terence Crawford Madromov undercart in August,
and then if you also remember about about a month ago,
these two guys both went to their social media and
said we've agreed and we're fighting. And that's what PBC
confirmed to myself and I'm sure other reporters as well.
But the one factor that they didn't have in place
yet was the exact location or the exact date. I
was always told it was either going to be January
twenty fifth or early February, probably at the Timobile Arena,
and as it turns out, it will now be on
February first at the Team Mobile Arena. That is what
I am told by multiple sources that are involved with
this event. It will be a Prime Video PBC Prime
Video pay per view. Presumably they'll load up the undercard.
You know, there are fights that were supposed to be
ticketed for the Tank Davis Lamont roach fight that did
not happen in December, that maybe some of those fights
could end up on this card. I speak specifically of
Brandon Figueroa in the rematch against Stephen Fulton. Also, maybe
it winds up on the Tank fight when they end
up putting that on, probably in March. But anyway, February first,
David Morrell against David Benavidez. To me, anyway, probably the
best fight you can make in the light heavyweight division
that does not involve either Arthur beddor Viev or Dimitri Bivl.
I think it's a really interesting fight to young guys,
two guys on the upswing stills, two guys that are
you know, maybe not even in their primes totally just yet.
I mean, really good fight now. I know, neither guy
look great in their light heavyweight debut. TJ. David had
a lot of injuries and struggle with some physical things
going into that fight. The Morel fight, it was his
first fight in the way class, I'm convinced, and it
was the same for hot Rod his opponent. They fought
the fight in La on that night or that afternoon.
Really it was so hot during the day in the
ring and they were right in the sun at that time.
Then their fight fought that it was very bothersome. I
believe for Morel, you don't have to worry about the
sun in your eyes when you're in the T Mobile
arena where it's nice and cool. So point, I'm not
making an excuse. I just truly believe that the negativity
of way he fought that particular fight and maybe where
he didn't look awesome was a lot of it had
to do with a very difficult circumstance of massively hot
and the sun in your eyes the whole fight now,
and that's also why hot Rod, you know, maybe didn't
look so great either. I think it's a lot different
when you're fighting Benavide's and you're really up for the fight,
you know the type of guy in front of you,
and you don't have those other issues facing you. And
hopefully David has dealt with his physical issues, whether it
was the you know, I had a little bit of
a shoulder problem or a hand problem, but a tremendous
match up.
Speaker 4: All right, some other news this was interesting. The Ring,
the heralded ring magazine what's now the ring website has
now been purchased, speaking of read season by Turkey ala
K and purchasing it from Oscar de la Joya and
the entity that dal la Hoya and his others controlled.
So again, if you are a fight fan from years
gone by, you swore by the ring magazine, the actual
hard magazine with the photos, the fight recaps, because pre internet,
this is how you learned more about the sport. My
hand is up on doing that, So say a few
words here and then I want to tip the hat
to one of our colleagues who had a very compelling
commentary about this. You know where I'm going with Eric
Raskin and what he wrote. But go ahead, what are
your thoughts?
Speaker 2: I have a lot of mixed emotions about this. Number One,
Turkey al Chk bought the magazine. Oscar said it was
for ten million dollars, which is three million more that
Oscar paid for it when he bought it back in
the early two thousands. I actually went back and googled
my article. I wrote a piece for USA Today or
maybe it was ESPN at the time, forget where I
wrote it, but nonetheless I wrote about it. When Oscar
bought Ring magazine was like a big deal at the time,
and they never really were able to exploit the brand
in terms of the merchandise date. A lot of ideas,
a lot of plans. Some of it went through, some
of it didn't. An Oscar has been approached a number
of times through the years to sell it. At one
point when Turkey and he was asking me about buying it.
You know, I was told that, you know, Oscar really
doesn't want to sell. But the way Oscar said, look,
eventually I got an offer I couldn't refuse. You know,
ten million dollars for a media entity like that today
where the media is largely in the dumper. That's like
a gift from Heaven right there. I mean ten million
bucks for that, especially when you don't have a print
magazine anymore, right and you know you don't have the
mega traffic. I mean, that's an amazing deal for Oscar.
So you know, Turkey, though, has the resources. There's you know,
if you follow the minutia, there's been a tremendous amount
of stuff, you know, in the background where if the
Saudis are doing what they intend to do with boxing
and sort of do a takeover, there was a lot
of conversations that are gonna buy all the promoters and
this and that. You know, I don't necessarily buy that.
But what they were doing was, you know, either going
to create a website or some type of media outlet,
and that ultimately did not happen. And the way they're
now going to do that is through the Ring magazine,
which is obviously a lot more of a well known
brand than if they were starting something from scratch. So,
you know, I'm not gonna get into details because you know,
I don't I can't say for one hundred percent, but
I know some of my media colleagues who were approached,
you know, being honest, I was approached, had a conversation
with them. Has not gone anywhere. That's partly my decision. Nonetheless,
they're gonna go do their thing. I wish them luck.
I hope Turkey Alshic lives up to what he said
when he made his lengthy post that they will be independent.
But I mean it's hard not to be skeptical because
the Saudis are not exactly the folks that are encouraging of,
you know, of a free press. Say, I mean, I
know it's boxing. It's not necessarily as serious, let's say,
as you know what goes on in politics and in
wars and other things around the world. But there will
be a lot of media people I hope that can
make a living now with this, and I hope they
make it proud. And one thing I love, say whatever
you want, is that Turkey plans to bring back the
print magazine, which has been sorely lacking for the last
couple of years. I have a certain love for the Ring.
I've got almost a complete collection in my Crazy Boxing
collection every Ring ever produced, most issues back you know,
to the nineteen twenties. I was one of my proudest
things in my career is to have written stories for
the Ring magazine that have had cover stories on the
Ring magazine print issue, you know a number of times
over the years, hard copy articles that I wrote for them,
for the folks that run it before Oscar sold it.
So I wish them great luck, and you know, it's
a legendary brand ben around since nineteen twenty two, and
I hope it reaches us the right resources in it
and make it bigger than it's been.
Speaker 4: I'm thrilled and shout out to our guy Doug Fisher,
who has fought the good fight for a lot of years,
a lot of a lot of battles to fight to
be the editor and keep that thing afloat.
Speaker 3: So there's two things. The first thing is.
Speaker 4: What you alluded to, is this going to become more
of a propaganda arm for read season? That's the concern. Yes,
they're saying up front, hey, it's going to be independent.
It's not going to be that. But as many have
pointed out, how critical, how independent and critical can they
really be of the owners who are involved in the sport.
It is a conflict on the surface, Just on the surface,
it looks like a conflict of are they going to
tell the truth if a fighter gets low balled or
something gets screwed up?
Speaker 3: Are they going to write the truth? Are they going
to tell the truth? That's a legit question.
Speaker 2: I'm absolutely willing to give them the benefit of the
doubt until proven otherwise. The same way, by the way
that I gave Oscar Delay and Golden Boy the benefit
of the doubt. When Golden Boy and Oscar purchased it,
you know, back in the two thousands, in two thousand
and seven, actually, so I was already at ESPN. He
bought it for seven million dollars and they did their
own thing. That's when they got rid of the staff
that was there and they hired Doug Fisher and a
bunch of other folks that we know. And look, if
it becomes just nothing more than a than a mouthpiece
for read season, is that gonna take us very long
to figure that out. That actually is what happens. They're
they're entitled to do that because I own it, But
it doesn't mean we have to pay it any attention.
Now besides the website and the name and the trademark
and that all that, what they've purchased is the brand.
They've purchased the rankings that have a recognition by a
lot of people, even if there may be different people
doing it. They purchased the titles. The Ring Magazine title
is a prestigious title. It's a beautiful belt. But they
give out to those champions and they get their archive.
They have an unbelievable photo archive and you know plenty
of things that go along with that. But you know,
is ten million dollars, does he ever make the money back?
I'm not sure that this already has so much care
about that.
Speaker 3: I don't think they care.
Speaker 4: You know, We'll say, and by the way, if I
am a world boxing organization, I'm a bit concerned here.
Because the Saudi's now have the ring title, then maybe
they start pushing that over the course of the next
six months, year, couple of years as being bigger than
some of these other belts. With the convoluted way that
they rank fighters and have title fights, that should be
concerning to them.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying on the front.
Speaker 2: End day that may be something in the longer run,
but at the moment, the reason I do not believe
that happens is because they have seven figure sponsorships with
the WBA and the WBC, So for the time being,
that's not going to be an issue.
Speaker 4: And kudos to our guy, Eric Raskin, who both of
you and I know you've known him much longer than me,
and I actually called him and he and I had
a great conversation and complimented him. Read his commentary on
boxing scene from a great perspective of having been an
editor at the Ring magazine and having worked there, and
you obviously have tremendous insight and have worked there too.
But I thought Eric did a great job of voicing
the concerns Villagerent, the apparent conflicts. And this is the
state of boxing media now, just in general, in total,
this is the state of boxing media. And is there
any independence and is there anybody willing to stand up
and pay for excellent coverage that's independent of anything else.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna tear it out that well.
Speaker 2: You may have called Eric, but I texted him first
of all, second of all, as it relates to independent
boxing media, and are people willing to pay my Dan
Rayfield fight, Preach Unite, Substack is independent. It's me, it's
my opinions. It's how I choose to cover things. And
there are people that are willing to pay. I wish
more people would be willing to pay. Go to Dan
Rayfield dot substack dot com. I cast you six dollars
a month for some independent pot That's what I'm doing
right now. I am a part of the battle.
Speaker 4: And by the way, you and I are partners and
have been now for two and a half years. They
said it wouldn't last. Here we are Big Fight Weekend.
The website is completely independent, this podcast is completely independent.
There's nobody telling you and I what we can't talk about,
what we can't criticize.
Speaker 3: And I think we have grabbed a.
Speaker 4: Real foothold with people because we tell it like it
is and we're not beholden no offense to anybody else
that was working for any entity with a podcast or
with a site from that entity trying to make a living.
But there is the appearance of, well, can you really
tell the truth.
Speaker 3: About Showtime Championship Boxing?
Speaker 4: Can you really tell the truth about Top Ranked Boxing,
or about Golden Boy Promotions, or about Mattroom Boxing if
you're involved with those entities and with those outlets. We
just point out to the public. I'm not saying that
we're better than everybody. We're just pointing out we're not
beholden to any of them with what we do.
Speaker 2: I dare say that anybody that has listened to this show,
even but one time, knows that we're not too worried
about criticizing or giving the.
Speaker 3: Including each other, including each other.
Speaker 4: It's well known that we can't have plastic silverware around
each other whenever we get together on this so good
stuff there on the ring. All right, another news item
and then let's get to the nostalgia, because there's a
lot of it. That news involves Connor Ben, it says
right here on my rundown, and I agree with you
not messing around trying to land a big fight. He's
hired Keith Connelly to co manage him. Tell the peeps
more about why that is significant for they currently disgraced
son of Nigel Bann.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, listen, we all know what Connor Ben has
done over the last couple of years. He's been in
the battle with the British regulators to deal with his
ped situation. Whatever you think about that. That that has
now apparently been closed and his provisional suspension was lifted.
U coont still has the opportunity to make an appeal.
They have I don't remember the exact cutoff, dy Dad.
From the time that the provisional was lift they had
three weeks to make their appeal. I think they got
another still about another two weeks or so to make
a decision on that. But it feels like this is
coming to an end, and there's a lot of big
fights in the offing for Connor Ben. One is obviously
rescheduling the U Bank fight against Schubangior, which was the
fight that was canceled during fight week when his positive
drug test came public and that has caused all this
aget over the last couple of years. But there's other
fights also. There's the possibility of him fighting Jeron Boots
Ennis for his wealthweight title. He was ringside in Philadelphia.
He's been calling out Mario Barrios. He wants the WBC belt.
That's one of the belts that his father had, Nigel
Ben back in the day, so he covers that belt.
Then there's also, as his team thinks, maybe not right away,
but in the future, major fights against the likes of
a Gervonte Davis or against a Ryan Garcia. He's in
that level of those types of types of fights that
can happen given his name and some of the notoriety
that surrounds him. But do you ask, why is it
big that he signed with Keith Connelly to be his
co manager, Because Conley is vastly experienced in terms of
making big deals for his fighters, and just to give
you a little bit of an idea. I mean, the
types of fighters that he has worked with and he's
gotten them massive paydays over the years is is you know,
it speaks for itself. I mean, he's the one that
negotiated the Edgar Berlanga fight against Kenelo Alvarez. He's the
one that engineered der Langa leaving top rank and working
that out so we could get the Canelo fight. The
money that he helped Danny Jacobs make in mega fights,
massive amounts of money against Kennati Glofkin and against Canelo,
plus other fights that he had on his own. He
got a gigantic deal for Philip Pergovich with the Saudis,
who had been making not nearly that kind of money
when he was in a very onerous contract with Washerman Boxing.
He made Sergei devron Chanko more money than any guy
ever maybe in the history of boxing. That was like
a fifteen to four type of record. He had Richard Kome,
who was a lightweight titled but made a lot of
good money against big name opponents. He did the same
thing with Adam Koonaki, a heavyweight who never got to
a world title fight, made millions and millions of dollars
with Conley working his deals out. He did similar with
Chris Aljery when he became his manager. He has Richardson Hitchins,
who was about to fight for a world title, got
him a good deal for that. So point is Connor
ben as a good team around him that he works
with Tony Simms and his son Charlie Simms who's the
other co manager, and their lawyer, Lee Mtaj. But they
bring in Connley to help them out. They're not messing around.
And so I fully expect to see Connor Benn assuming
that the issue of the PD thing is no longer
going to be a factor and the license is going
to be completely reinstated, and there won't be an appeal
by Yukont that he's going to get himself not only
in big fights, but he's going to make a huge
amount of money because Conley is a fucking you know,
he knows how to negotiate those types of fights.
Speaker 3: Great news.
Speaker 4: Now the nostalgia and here we go on the night
that we're doing this pod, releasing it Thursday night into Friday.
Is the thirty second anniversary November the thirteenth, nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 3: It was thirty two years ago.
Speaker 4: Actually, that would actually be yesterday, would be Wednesday, November thirteenth,
nineteen ninety two, Riddick Bo Evander Holyfield for the undisputed
heavy title, classic fight and Riddick Bo gets the win,
including an amazing eleventh and twelfth round of this one
in Las Vegas. All right, let's reminisce a little bit
in the first of what was a wild trilogy, as
it turned out for these guys. This was the first
of those fights thirty two years ago.
Speaker 2: What can you say? I think that if you take
a look at the history of boxing, you're talking about
trilogies other than maybe Ali and Fraser, which certainly is
the most well known and most famous. Obviously, that this
is the next one on the list. And if you
ask me, I don't know if I can say it's
better than Ali Fraser, but I do know this. If
you take a look at the three Ali Fraser fights,
the first fight is an awesome fight, the second fight
is extraordinarily forgettable, and the third fight is a legendary fight.
The thrill on Manila in Riddick Bow and a Vander Holyfield.
All three fights are amazing. All three fights are action packed.
All three fights are massive battle royale type fights. The
first two for the heavyweight title. The third fight wasn't
for the title, but basically was the fight that most
people considered Holyfield on Bow one and two in the
weight class. You mentioned about the grade eleventh and twelfth.
He forgot about the fact that Riddick Bow almost had
Avander Holyfield out in the tenth round. That was the
spectacular round. It was picked as the round of the
year by the Ring magazine. I mean it was, I think,
I mean incredible fight. It was the fight of the
year for a lot of people in nineteen ninety two.
Just I mean, it's as good as it gets. In
heavyweight division, you had Riddick Bow who was hadn't yet
fought for the title, but was the clear and obvious
number one contender Holyfield that defended the undisputed former Olympian.
Speaker 4: Riddick Bow built up big time in the media when
the mainstream media cared tremendously about the heavyweights and about.
Speaker 2: Although it got stopped in the gold medal match by
a Lennic Lewis.
Speaker 4: But still he was built up and propped up and
this was his big moment to fight holy Field for
the undisputed title.
Speaker 2: Right, and holy Field was still considered to buy many
people to be sort of undersized, even though he had
defended the undisputed title in other defenses against George Foreman,
who was older, in a great fight against Larry Holmes,
obviously had defeated Riddick, had defeated rether Buster Douglas to
become the undisputed champion. But bo I think a lot
of people looked at Evanders record in terms of as
a heavyweight champion, even though he'd fought a lot of
good fighters and obviously had been the undisputed CHAMPI at cruiserweight.
But this was considered as a heavyweight champion with no
disrespect to guys like Larry Holmes and George Foreman. But
this was supposed to be, like, you know, the first
a real fight, because remember also he had defended the title.
Between the Homes and the Foreman fight, he had defended
against a late replacement Burt Cooper and almost got knocked
out by a journeyman kind of opponent. So his defenses
after Douglas were Foreman great fight, but against an old man,
Bert Cooper, who nearly knocked him out Larry Holmes, also
an much older fighter, and now he takes on the undefeated.
Riddick Bow was finally, you know, a real top level heavyweight,
a younger guy, number one contender, first real quote unquote
real guy in terms of his defenses at heavyweight. And
it was a phenomenal fight and Riddick Bow was able
to get the win and it wasn't even that close.
I mean, yes, it was competitive, but in terms of
the scoring, it was cleared away victory for Riddick Bow.
And then they put on, you know, two more barn
Burner type fights that followed that. But this first fight
is the crowning moment of Riddick Bow's career. He never
reached this level again. Obviously, he lost the title back
to holy Field when they met the second time, and
that was a you know, I don't know if it
was like that big of an upset, but he still
lost the title. And then of course when they had
the third fight, it wasn't for the title, even though
he knocked out of Andander Holyfield. So the first fight, though,
is is nothing more than a legendary fight. I mean,
there's no other way about it. And I think a
lot of people when they look at the trilogy, the
second fight, although a great fight, is remembered unfortunately more
because of the crazy.
Speaker 3: Fan man fan man in the middle of it.
Speaker 2: And the third fight that's the Caveman fight.
Speaker 4: But the interesting thing, by the way, about the fan
man aspect is, I believe Bo. We've talked about this
so many times that it's not the anniversary right now. We
won't spend long on it, but I think Bo was
winning the second fight, and then the fan man thing happens.
They have the delay and all the circus where it's
over by Bo's corner, and when they resume, Holyfield wins
a fight. My point is this, if that continues along
without the idiocy, without the fan man, do we ever
have a third fight? Does Bo go ahead and beat
him the second time and there's no need for a
third fight. I mean, it's not what happened. It's just
a what if.
Speaker 3: It's a what if. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And also about this fight, remember when this first fight
was over and Riddick had won the titles, Lennox Lewis,
who would become his mandatory challenger and obviously was his
rival from the amateurs and had been and had stopped
Riddick to win the gold medal in the Olympic Games.
Was there watching at ringside. He was involved with some
of the commentary on HBO's broadcasts. You know it was
a pay per view, but you know when they showed
the replay, him and bow almost got into it at
ringside after the fight. And it was only a couple
of weeks later, a month later where they held that
infamous press conference where Riddick Bow, in my opinion, made
the terrible decision that was probably not really his decision,
but more the decision of his anager, Rock Newman, where
he literally threw the WBC title in the trash can.
And he's never really lived that down because it was
very clear as day that as great of a fight
as he had done against Evander and to win the title,
which he deserved and became the undisputed champ, he was
ducking Lennox lewis no doubt about it. And it never happened,
unfortunately in the professional ranks, but it did happen as
the amateur gold medal match in the Olympics and rid
It got knocked out. But you can never take away
the night where he became the undisputed champion. It's one
of the all time greatest fights in boxing history, certainly
in the heavyweight division. As I mentioned, fight of the
Year had a Round of the Year, just an amazing battle,
and it led to two more phenomenal fights between Holyfield
and Bow, who, by the way, to this day are
still the closest to friends. Yes, and they became that
way through They weren't. They didn't know each other before
the trilogy. They became friends because of the trilogy. They
spend time I think living together at one point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Holyfield in recent years has been taking care of
Britick Bow literally helping pay bills, having him with him
in South Florida at his gym, training him, trying to
give him, you know, some something to look forward to,
et cetera. So yeah, they remained to this day as
age legendary fighters friends and holy Field helping out both.
All right, So move forward, what seventeen years to Thursday,
the day that we're releasing this November fourteenth, two thousand
and nine.
Speaker 3: Which is now fifteen years ago.
Speaker 4: You were ringside for Manny pacquiow Miguel Codo in what
was a battle that Paqui how eventually won. Moving up
to welter waite and winning the WBO world title. What
do you remember from ringside in Vegas, sir.
Speaker 2: Well, I can tell you that of every single fight
I have ever covered in my career, hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds of fights, I don't think there was ever
a fight that, at the time it was happening, I
was more looking forward to covering than this. I thought
this was going to be just an absolutely spectacular fight. Now,
it may not have turned out to be the greatest
fight in the history of boxing, but this is a
damn good fight between two great fighters, between two Hall
of famers. I mean, Coto's already in Hall of Fame, Pak.
He was on the ballot for the first time now,
and when the election results are announced in a few weeks,
I guarantee you he will be elected to the Hall
of Fame on the first ballot. This was this fight
at everything, two action fighters, two fighters that were proud warriors,
two guys that were willing to fight anybody. And in
Manny Pack, now you had a fighter who he was
going up in weight to the welterweight division to take
on Miguel Coto. Now, remember in his previous fight he
had fought Ricky Hatton and knocked him out badly in
the second round. His previous fight before that was the
one time he had fought at welterweight prior to the
Coda fight. But that was not a title fight. That
was when he talked. When he took on what became
clearly the much older and shot Oscar Deloya. We didn't
know it at the time, but he absolutely pulverized Deloy
and the corner stopped that after the eighth round. But
then he went back down to one forty knocked out Hatten.
Now he's going up and fighting a fresh prime welterweight
in Miguel Coto. Tremendous battle for the WBO title. And
it was a tremendous fight, I mean, and it was
a really excellent fight for the first say, like six rounds.
It was really really close on this workcards and a
very kind of even up kind of fight. But pack
how was that? This is Pete Paco, I mean, this
is the manny of of the legendary run you know
through the dale Away fight Hatton, et cetera. You know,
he had knocked Miguel down in the third round. He
knocked down again in the fourth round. And now suddenly
it's starting to get away from him, but he's still
hanging in there. But eventually Paco just the punching and
the and the blood and the and the and the
sort of messed up. The cuts on the face just
became a real problem and eventually he just could not
take it anymore. And when he went down, you know,
after in the twelfth round, it was over. I mean
they were looking to stop it after round eleven. Uh.
You know, Takoto's credit, he he uh, you know, he
went on with the fight. But this was this was
the the prime Manny. This was Manny had his best
among the you know, the two or three fights where
you look at and you and you're not sure you
can ever see a better many Pacau and uh, unfortunately
for me, Galkoto, Uh, you know, he goes down as
as a tremendous fighter that lost when he sometimes faced
the biggest and the best guys. Now, the thing about
this is I always think about the fact that this member,
this is Nanny, was doing his thing. But Miguel had
lost the first fight by knockout to Antonio Margarito in
two thousand and eight. In July of eight.
Speaker 3: He came back from the infamous fight I'm getting there.
Speaker 2: That was the fight where it became very clear to
many of us, myself included that because of what had
occurred when Margarito fought Shane Moseley, that he had fought
Miguel Coton got away with wearing loaded gloves. Miguel came
back from that very very rough, hard, brutal stoppage loss.
In the eleventh round, he defeated a little bit of
a softer touch in Michael Jennings. Then he gutted out
a tough, hard fight against Joshua Claudy, who was at
his best, and then he put him in the Many
Packet fight. And I always wonder as competitive as he
made against Manny for the first several rounds of that fight,
if he hadn't had what was taken out of him
by Antonio Margarito, I will go to my grave believing
partly rob Miguel Coto a part of his prime. What
the Codo Pacio fight may have been, it was a
tremendous fight, even with that having happened, if Miguel had
not had that taken out of him because of what
I believe were illegal gloves that many that Antonio Margarito
wore against him. I feel like maybe the Codo Pacio fight,
not saying that Nanny wouldn't have won the fight, but
I think it might have been a little bit of
a different way of him getting there. So even with
that situation, always in my mind, tremendous battle Coto with
the heart getting up in round three and four. Pakio
was in a tough fight. He'll tell you, if you
asked Manny to tell you what are his toughest fights,
I guarantee you'll tell you one of the toughest fights
he ever had was from Miguel Coto. I just loved
this fight. They called it firepower. I put up a
picture earlier of my poster, my credential. I remember in
the press room they were given out like little Chotsky's,
like they give out Pacio Coto branded like luggage tags
with the Filipino flag and the next and the Puerto
Rican fl Really cool. Just a big time fight week.
That was when there was still a lot of boxing
media also, so all the newspapers were there and there
was just I mean, I just remember like everybody was
at this fight. Such an exciting fight, on paper, everybody
was pumped up for this fight. I've said to Todd
the buff from top rank, they were at the promoters
many times through the years that of all the fights
I have ever covered in boxing, this one fight was
one of the fights I look forward to, probably more
than any other I ever covered.
Speaker 4: Yep, and you said that here's and that's high praise,
high praise from one Dan Rivet. One more bit of nostalgia,
and I just happened to stumble on this and the unfortunate,
horrible anniversary was on Wednesday, November thirteenth of nineteen eighty two,
so ten years before Holyfield bow is you know where
I'm going? The Boom Boom man Siniduku Kim fight National
TV on CBS in the afternoon, where Mancini scored a
fourteenth round TKO devastating knock down.
Speaker 3: The fight stopped and.
Speaker 4: Kim eventually carried out of the ring and passed away
a couple of days later. The vivid memory I have Rayphiel,
I don't know where I was and why I wasn't
watching the fight because I was a little TJ, a
little fight fan.
Speaker 3: But when we came back in and turned the TV.
Speaker 4: On there's no cable in my house in that day,
turned it on and turned it over.
Speaker 3: I went, oh, the fight is over, because.
Speaker 4: They're interviewing Boom Boom Mansini in the ring and the
hair on the back of my neck is standing up
right now. I have since seen something in the last
day or two where somebody had the full post fight
feed included. I don't know how they got this, including
no commercials where CBS is panicked and freaked out because
Tim Ryan is in the ring, the legendary commentator trying
to interview Boom Boom Mancini. They actually dan have the
interview on the PA at the outdoor Caesar's Palace arena
where the crowd can hear the interview. Because Boom Boom
was such a tremendous pop culture figure, boxing much more mainstream,
the crowd wanted to hear the interview. He's trying to
interview Boom Boom and Tim Ryan stops the interview and says,
I'm being told that Duku Kim is seriously injured. They
are taking him out of the ring. We're gonna take
a break here on CBS. In the middle of the interview,
they stop, They go to the commercial this person has
video of them. During the commercial where Tim Ryan is saying,
do you still want me to do the interview? I
need to talk to New York. Do you still want
me to do the interview? Yes, he's been carried out
of the ring. You can hear this. It's spooky. They're
talking back and forth and he's saying, yes, he's been
carried out of the ring. Okay, I'll do the interview.
They come back from commercial and they say, Ray, congratulations,
I know we have concern for Douku Kim and they're
showing the video ray feel of them carrying him from
the ring. It's just eerie and spooky to relive that.
And I saw that because I remember it being twelve
years old that that's all I saw was the very
end after the fight and the interview that I just
described to you. And Mancini says to this day, to
peak speaking of things, she never overcame. He said, I
was never the same after that. He went to Korea
for the funeral of Duku Kim, felt horrible, donated money
to them because Duku Kim didn't make a lot of
money that day for that world title fight was a
virtual unknown from Korea.
Speaker 3: So there you go.
Speaker 2: There are few things about that. Number One, he didn't
make shit for that fight. He made twenty thousand dollars
was his purse. The Ray made a couple hundred grand,
which was good money back then, and Kim made twenty
thousand dollars as an unknown, you know, ridiculous mandatory challenger
in the WBA. Surprise, surprise, the WBA was doing WBA
things even back in nineteen eighty two. I remember watching
this fight vividly. I sat at the kitchen table in
the house that my mother still lives in where I
grew up. I watched it on a black and white
television and watched this fight. Was mesmerized by this fight
was a amazing battle before the tragic situation happened. And
you know I won't it's always I remember specifically watching
this fight. Now, will you talk about what happened with Kim?
He did, in fact, and very tragically die four days
after this fight in Las Vegas at the hospital. When
this was happening, there was no sports center, there was
no cable television, Smart TV's internet service where you could
see and follow what's happening. So what I remember many
days later was getting as I subscribed to Sports Illustrated
as a kid. I didn't know that Kim had died
until I got to Sports Illustrated, on which it said
something like death in the desert or something like that
was the headline with a picture of Mancini and Kim
in the ring. And I remember getting that issue with
the magazine and thinking, oh, my god, the fighter died
in the I mean, that was the first time in
my life. Nineteen and so I'm twelve years old. It's
November of two, nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 4: I were both basically the same age, were both basically
in the fifth or sixth It's great, you're trying to
process this exactly.
Speaker 2: So I had turned twelve years old, you know, a
few months earlier, and it's the first time I ever
sort of thought to me and I had not like
I was a die hard boxing camp, but I'd watched
a lot of fights up to that point. But it
was like the first time that I had like the
bell went off or the light went off, and you're like, wow,
you know, these guys when they box, they can maybe die.
I mean, it was like a it's like a moment
of reckoning in your life. If that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was as a kid, even.
Speaker 2: A very tragic situation. Now, I actually, you know, in
the course of my collecting days, have obtained the program
and the poster for this fight. I put up a
picture of the poster, not because I'm a ghoul, but
because it is a historic fight. Number one, Ray as
a Hall of Famer number two. It was a great
fight despite the tragic ending. But also the reason why
it has so much significance within boxing is because it
was in the aftermath of this particular fight. Now, it
was not the first time any boxer had ever died
from a ring injury on for it. You know, that
had happened before, unfortunately, but this particular because it was
live on national television in the United States at a
time when boxing was such a big deal. That within
like a couple of weeks after the fight, even though
it wasn't a WBC fight, this was a WBA lightweight
title fight, the WBC immediately ordered world title fights to
be reduced from fifteen rounds to twelve rounds. That was
this was a direct relation to what occurred between Mancini
and Kim, and the other sanctioning bodies followed suit, So
it didn't happen immediately. So there were still some other
fifteen rounders that took place after this, but by and large,
by the end of eighty too, there were no more,
you know, very few anyway, fifteen rounders. But this was
the fight that really started that happening. Now many years later,
as a boxing writer, you know, I got to meet
and got to know and still talk to sometimes, was
on his radio show, has spent time with ray Mancini
through the years. What an unbelievably nice guy. Sure, I mean,
I don't talk about this particular fight, but clearly had
an impact. Our friend, the great Mark Kriegel has written
a book about ray Mansteney's life. He covers us this
fight in this situation, you know, the good Sun covers it,
you know, quite a bit in the book, and you
know that's definitely worth reading. But this is a historic
fight for the for the all the reason, the aline
world title fight of a hall of famer situation that
occurred unfortunately with the tragic death, all the things that
went on in terms of boxing as a sport because
of this fight, in terms of reducing it, and you
talk about it being on national television on CBS. How
about this. This tells you how busy. Top rank was.
Top Rank was Ray Mansenies promoter. They put this fight
on at Caesar's Palace. Their whole team had come from Miami,
Florida the day before where they were doing Alexis Arguayo
versus Aaron Pryor the night before in Miami, so they
had in the evening of the previous night was Arguayo
prior one. The next afternoon in Las Vegas they were
doing nan Ceni came met season crazy.
Speaker 4: How crazy is that one on HBO even twenty four
hours apart?
Speaker 3: As you mentioned, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, I'm assuming like some of their team was in
Florida at the one fight, some of their team was
in Vegas at the other site. But the fact is
they were putting in these two very significant fights, you know,
within Leston twenty four hours.
Speaker 4: And we can't say enough that again, you had Muhammad Ali,
you had Sugar Ray Leonard, but Boom Boom Mancini was
immensely popular. They had done a made for TV movie
about him while he's still active in and around this
time like eighty one or eighty two, about the story
with he and his dad and winning the world title
in the whole thing. And we're big on making movies
right after something had happened, like weeks after it happened,
or months after it happened, like the eighty Olympic hockey
team or whatever. He was that mainstream pop culture popular.
And again that was forty two years ago that this
happened with the death the ring death of Duku Kim
and Boom Boom Mancini.
Speaker 2: And by the way, wow, you talk about the popularity
of Mancini and this just will just this one small
part of it. The great musician Warren Zevon wrote a
song about ray Mancini about getting home to watch the
Ray Mancini fight. That means he's immortalized in a famous song,
and that doesn't happen to a lot of boxing these days.
Speaker 4: Right, So again that was forty two Wow, that's and
that and and and you connected it because we did
talk our Guayo prior on the previous pod and nostalgia.
It's connected two days, not even twenty four full hours apart.
Our Guayo prior won and then Mansini and Dooku cam
right after it.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna quote from the for
the Lauren Zevon song, the chorus of that, I won't
sing it, but I will quote it. Hurry home early,
Hurry on home, Boom boom, Mansini's fighting Bobby Chacone's that's.
Speaker 3: The chorus sign from the song. We love it all right.
Speaker 4: And I don't know if they're gonna write any songs
or any stanzas about Mike Tyson and Jake Paul. That's
how we began things here. That's coming up tonight Friday night.
As we released this pod Thursday into Friday. We'll handicap
it more on the bet Us Boxing Show, including Amanda Serrano,
Katie Taylor, The Saturday Read Season, Latino Night Card that
has Zerdo Ramirez and Chris billum Smith. That comes your
way Saturday afternoon US time, Saturday night, late night in
Saudi Arabia. Handicap that fight as well, Big preview stuff,
news nostalgia here, Chris Billum Smith in his own words
on the previous podcast right on this feed here, Mike
Tyson in his own words earlier this week we put
it up as a standalone this podcast feed. Get you
ready for all the weekend action. Have we done all
the damage we can do for a preview. I think
we have Dan Rayfield.
Speaker 3: Will be good.
Speaker 2: I think we're good.
Speaker 3: I think we are good as well. Nice job.
Speaker 4: See you on the bet US Show on their platforms
and their YouTube page. Coming up at one Eastern time
on Friday. My friend, thank you, there is Dan Rayfield.
I'm merely TJ. Reeves follower. Subscribe on this podcast feed.
We preview going into the weekend. We recap coming off
the weekend. Thank you for being with us on the
Big Fight Weekend Preview