Speaker 1: All right. I've been waiting to do this off the weekend,
off of two tremendously exciting endings in the two main
events on two different continents, one in Germany earlier in
the day US time, and one in Brooklyn, New York.
We're ready to recap the wins by Dalton Smith to
capture the WBC Junior Welterweight title and a Jeep Kabba Yell,
the rising heavyweight in the WBC rankings, retains his WBC
Interim Heavyweight title in a wild atmosphere, in a wild fight.
We're ready to recap all of that. Thank you for
finding us. It is the Fight Freaks Unit Recap. I
am the somewhat capable host TJ. Reeves. He is the
purveyor of the Fight Freaks Unite substack and newsletter. You
should be subscribed up. Hello Dan Raphael, good to be
back with you. Important pertinent item to get out of
the way off the top. Are you feeling any better
seventy two hours later? Because you were under the weather
playing a little hurt. What is the status right now?
What's the latest?
Speaker 2: Go a little bit under the weather, but what was that?
Speaker 1: The lootings cough drops have helped. They're not sponsoring the show,
but we're still saying.
Speaker 2: That subsided to a degree.
Speaker 1: But do you prefer flavored Nike will? They have different
flavors of Nike will. Do you prefer a certain flavor?
Or is Nike will not your friend for this right now?
Speaker 2: N not my thing. I take. I've taken like just
taking a little time in all here.
Speaker 1: And there, all right, not not not anything dramatic like that.
All right. I hope you do feel better, and I
hope everybody jumps aboard on the fight for each night,
substack in the new year, for all the intel, all
the info. The newsletter comes right in the inbox. By
the way, followers subscribe on the podfeed, Apple, Spreaker, Spotify.
The five star reviews helping Raphiel. I've seen a couple
of five star reviews come in Lady in January, but
we need more. Give us the five star reviews. Those
help also find the Big Fight Weekend YouTube page. Video
content that's there. We do a lot of stuff with
nostalgia that you will see with live showse in and
around bigger Fights, et cetera. Big Fight Weekend YouTube page.
All right, As I said at the top, I have
been anxious to talk to you about what we saw
on Saturday. Let's begin chronologically. Don't you want to begin
chronologically with what we saw in Germany? Do you want
to begin with the title fight first, because it's the
bigger deal with Dalton Smith's upset win over Superal Mattias.
Speaker 2: I know you, but I.
Speaker 1: Just I know you're a stickler for details. One happened
before the other one.
Speaker 2: We're gonna start with the big one, all right, So we'll.
Speaker 1: Start with a bigger one that was in the United States.
Although it did not have massive attendance, there was a
there was a roaring crowd in the Barkley Center for
this how many ever were there? And Dalton Smith of
England gets the knockout win in what was a slugfest.
That's the best way to describe what we saw.
Speaker 2: A lot of fans just in dressed up like empty seats.
Speaker 1: Yes, there's no doubt, but that did not Those are.
Speaker 2: Two separate things. Those are two separate right, Yeah. And
the terrible attendance and the ridiculous level of price on
the pay per view and all the negativity that's on
one side, it does not in any way whatsoever detract
from a superb action fight. If you were somebody that
decided to go or watch it on pay per view,
absolutely it was worth It was a hell of a fight.
Speaker 1: And so Dalton Smith gets the knockout, gets a technical knockout,
which we'll discuss in a few moments. But Mattias obviously game.
He only knows one way to fight, and maybe that
was to his detriment. What are your thoughts as Mattias
look like he was to me beginning to gain footing
in the fight, getting the better of Dalton Smith until
this is why boxing is different. Boom goes a dynamite
and it's over.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you the difference of opinions on this
fight are radical because I thought, first of all, very competitive,
very excellent fight, but that the guy that felt like
he was coming on, maybe taking over a little bit,
was Mattias. That was my perspective, That was the perspective
of twenty of other people who's.
Speaker 1: Typically you don't like it, Typically you don't like it.
When I agree with you, I agree with you. I
thought Mattias was coming on and then there wasn't a
fifth thing, even in the fifth round. Earlier, in the
fifth round, go ahead.
Speaker 2: So then there was others that were like that called
me a lot of filthy names because I had the
audacity to say that that that Mattias I felt was
like sort of breaking down Dalton Smith as it was
going on. But anyway, through five rounds, you know it
was it was a competitive more importantly if you decided
to buy the fight, you know, a very exciting fight,
lots of exchanges. Certainly, one thing is true, and this
is something even Dalton Smith spoke about, is that where
Dalton Smith is in there with a big puncher like Mattias, Uh,
you figure, because he's the boxer puncher so to speak,
in that equation, that he's going to use his legs
a little bit more. He's going to move around, as
Eddie Hearned described afterwards, maybe spin away a little bit
and uh and use some of the tricks of the
tr and not just stand and slug it out with
the slugger, which is usually a recipe for disaster. However,
Dalton Smith, as he admitted afterwards, he kind of got
dragged into the war and he ended up beating Surbril
Mattias at his own game, and his game is pressure, pressure,
and punching power and in the end when Dalton Smith
wasn't holding Mattias. And holding is a pain in the
neck and really annoying at times in boxing matches. I
say that as a person that covered way too many
John Ruiz fights. But the manner in which Dalton Smith
used holding was very strategic. I didn't feel like it
was taking away from the fight so much so the
way he he dealt with the holding, it was maybe
a little bit too much, but I understood it and
it worked because he would smother Mattias when he was
just starting to kind of get rolling, and he did
it in spots and it was very strategic, and again
he fought him in his own way. He got dragged
into that war and he had no problem punching back.
They had a lot of exchanges that were you hit me,
I hit you. And in the end in that fifth
round where I felt that in that fifth rown, Matias
was actually winning the fight, winning the round, I should say,
winning round five until Dalton Smith really kind of out
of nowhere, landed a couple of really hard right hands,
backed him up and then came over the top with
another right hand and put him on his ass and
he look he got up to credit to Mattias to
having the heart. But I thought the referee made the
right decision. He seemed a little bit out of it.
He was a little wobbly. He's had a little bit
of a vacant look in his face, and he waved
up the fight. And by the way, no protests from
Surbral Mattias.
Speaker 1: When the fight was stopped, he initially kind of stomped
his foot turned his back. I thought the only quivel
quibbl correct the way to describe it. The only quibble
I would have with Ricky Gonzalez, who's an excellent re referee,
is he didn't have Mattias put the gloves up or
say walk to me, in which we would have seen
the wobble. Now, you and I talk about this all
the time. With these stoppages, the referee is right there
looking right at the fighter. We are not more qualified
than the referee who's looking at the fighter's eyes and
looking at the body language. Like ninety nine times out
of a thousand, we're going to defer to the referee
looking at him. I thought there could have been an opportunity,
you know, to wipe the gloves, make sure, can he
go on or not and then let the thing continue.
And he didn't do that. He just waved it off
without saying put the gloves up or walk to me.
Speaker 2: I thought the decision is vindicated because Mattias didn't say
boo when he stopped it. He was fine, like, he
didn't make a there was We'll get to the Dicaboll
fight with me, but afterwards that's different. In this particular fight,
Mattias was done. He didn't. He didn't, he didn't complain,
he didn't make emotion, he didn't kind of you know,
push the referee off of him. He had nothing in
any way body, language wise, or otherwise to say anything
other than you know what, you saved me. Look, it
was a great victory for Dalton's myth because he is
a guy that has come from the UK traveled to
the Lions then if you will. I know it's not
Mattias's hometown New York, but it was certainly probably more
perto Ricans in the house then BRIT's there, although he
did have a nice little cheering crowd for him that
made the trip, or perhaps some folks that are from
Britain that live here in America, so he did bring
out some people, so that was good to see. And
you know, I know it's only January and it's not
going to stand up as a fight of the year
anything like that, but people remember this fight however, goes on.
Speaker 1: However, we're two weeks into the year. That's the fight
of the year right now January. And it will change.
There's anybody hearing more weekends coming up, so we know
it will change. But for right now, that was action packed.
Speaker 2: It was Smith's Smith is a guy that a lot
of people have fought a lot of for a long time.
He had a good amateur career and he's done it
the old fashioned way, the way a lot of the
British fighters have done in the past. He won the
various smaller belts English Title, et cetera. He went on,
he won the British title, he won the Commonwealth title,
he won the European title. That's the typical pathway. You
win the those three and then that sets you up
into a world championship opportunity. He became the WBC mandatory challenger.
He waited patiently, he did the jam, you know, the
job he had to do, win the fights along in
the way and when the opportunity came to get the
title fight, when when Natroom was outbid by about two
hundred thousand dollars on the purse bid. Remember this was
originally a fight that Turkey al Chika was going to
do back in one of the shows recently in Saudi
Arabia and the promoter wan Orango from Fresh Productions, which
was the promoter from Atias, for whatever reason, decided not
to go that route. And you know, in my opinion
made a dramatically terrible decision business wise to do what
he did in New York. But again that's got nothing
to do with the actual fight that took place. And
so Dalton Smith packed his bags, have gloves, will travel
and as Eddie said, Eddie's time in boxing, you know,
twenty some years best British road wind that he's ever
been a part of. And he's been a part of
some big ones. When when kell Brook traveled to California
and defeated Sean Porterfrery walterway title this was on neutral territory,
but it was still the British fighter had to travel.
This was and I was at this fight when Darren
Barker went to Atlantic City and pulled the upset against
Daniel Gale to win in Ittawate that Daniel Gale was
from Australia. They were off he fighting on HBO and
a neutral turf, but he put this ahead of that
because you're finding them. You know, a guy that a
lot of people said was a boogeyman, a two time champion,
a devastating puncher, and he beat him at his own game.
Speaker 1: A genuine emotion from Dalton Smith too. You saw tears.
He's on the ground, he's got his dad celebrating with
him at he hearn's jumping up and down in the
ring because he sees dollar signs. And I thought it
was really neat because he gave credit to Mauricio Suliman
and the WBC and said I've always wanted to win
one of these WBC Green Belts. And then he said
to his dad, I purposely did not get him a
holiday president a Christmas present. Here you go, here's your
Christmas presidentt the belt on dad and his sons with
fathers or those that have you know, their parents that
have children. That's a cool thing, I know, the genuine thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff in boxing now
with the entrance of ZUFA Boxing, and you know their
perspective of not dealing with sanction bodies and serch They're
entitled to do business how they choose to do so,
and they don't want to deal with them. They want
to have their own rankings, create their own titles and
all that. And you know that may work for some people,
and that's fine, and we'll see that what pans out.
I'm not knocking them, but whatever. However, I've been doing
this for a long time and I can tell you
that time and again, time and again, time and again,
every young fighter that you meet. Mostly I have heard
this a million times from people to have gone on
to become big time superstar champions. My dream is to
win fill in the belt. My dream is to be
I want the Green and Gold belt. I want to
be a WC champion. I've heard young Puerto Rican fighters say,
I want to be a WBO champion. I've heard the
kid from you know, New Jersey or New York or Connecticut.
My dream is to win the red and Gold belt.
I want to be the IBF champion, you know WBA title.
These young men and now women who grow up with
aspirations they see their heroes have held these belts. So
when Dalton Smith wins the WBC title, and that's a
dream of his, he's aware that Muhammad Ali was a
champion of the WBC, and Mike Tyson and Oscar de
la Hoya and Lennox Lewis, all these great fighters, Roberto
Duran and you name and and that. You can't replace that.
Speaker 1: Grevin Hagler a hundred.
Speaker 2: So that is anybody that comes into boxing to try
to create a title or some organization, you know, let
them have their their opportunity, to let them try, but
you can't replace the decades and decades and decades of
history that has become important within the confines of what
we consider the history of boxing. And you know, whether
you like it or not, the WBC is a major,
major part of it.
Speaker 1: One more and you'll love this because you and I
love the nostalgia, the indelible images of Buster Douglas's upset
in Mike Tyson. There's so many of them, but one
of the best ones is that interview with your friend,
longtime friend and colleague from HBO, Larry Merchant, where he says,
they say, go oh. He stops the interview because I've
got the WBC belt and and they're going, oh, and
they're gonna put the belt on his shoulder. He goes, no,
put the belt on me. Put the belt on me,
he says to Larry Merchant. And he gets the belt
on him, and he says, Larry, I've watched you guys
for years put the belt on fighters, and I've drag
exactly what you just said. I've dreamed of this to
be standing here right now as a world champion.
Speaker 2: Whether you're a heavyweight who just pulled up a huge
upset from Columbus, Ohio, yeah, you know thirty some years
ago or whatever it's been thirty six thirty six years ago,
or you're a young kid from Sheffield, England, one hundred
and forty pounder that comes to New York to do it.
They all have the same dreams and aspirations and and
you know what, he's now in a heavy and a
heavily populated division with m I'm.
Speaker 1: Not gonna let me say what's next for Dalton Smith
now he has won this.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean he's he's obviously you know they didn't
say this, but I know Eddie Hearn and the way
Matchrim does things well enough. Probably they'll go home to
Sheffield and bring a you know whatever. Now, I'm not
gonna fight a bump, but they'll bring a credible guy.
Although I believe that the WBC is going to order
the mandatory, uh, I'm not sure if add the opportunity
to do an optional Alberto Pueo, who is the former
champion that was defeated by Superal Mattias in the summer
to win the title. He is in that position, so
we'll see if they order that next.
Speaker 1: But so field is so convolution is how is the
guy that lost in his last fight still the mandatory
after that? I mean, that's just crazy. We don't deltigate it,
but that's crazy. But they'll You're right, he's gonna have
a jam packed arena in Sheffield and make a seven
figure payday. We know that his life has changed now
the Dalton Smith.
Speaker 2: Uh. So we'll see what they do. Hopefully he'll get
the opportunity to have an optional defense. They'll they'll bring
a big crowd. But other than whatever happens in the
immediate next fight, he has stamped himself as a significant
player in the weight class because he has the title,
because he's got the undefeated record, because he has a
fan base, because he's got a good personality, because he's
got a good style to watch, like he checks all
the boxing obviously very good. And he's in a weight
class that has some serious action. You got cha course
Stevenson moving up the challenge Tiafimo Lopez, who is the
WBO and the lineal champion. You have other quality fighters
in the way class. Those are you know, just two
of them. You obviously you know playos in the mix.
You know, we'll see what Surbrial Matias does. Obviously is
not gonna be any kind of rematch. I think he
may perhaps try his hand at one hundred and forty seven,
which is there for guys to win titles because it's
not the deepest division. You have Richardson Hitchins, who was
an excellent champion with the IVF.
Speaker 1: Yeahs, and Hitchins is aligned with Matchroom, correct, is he not?
Speaker 2: Not not anymore? They were trying to work something out.
I'm not sure where that's going, all right, but Hitchins
is there with a belt. You have got Gary Antoine Russell,
he's got his mandatory with Heroca that's supposed to be next.
You got pitt Bull Cruise is still in that weight class.
The point is Lamont Roach is in that weight class. Now.
I mean, you got a lot of talented guys that
can Nixon match, and I think you know, after what
occurred on Saturday, Dalton Smith is going to be a
significant part of that discussion.
Speaker 1: I would say this too, because we love this. Mattias
is an all action fighter and I'm not saying it's next.
I'm saying somewhere down the road, you might do that
again in England or in Sheffield, and sign me up.
I would watch on the basis of what we saw
and can I add one more thing because we're going
to move on to the other card in a moment.
I enjoyed Corey Erdman and Raoul Marquez on the call.
I enjoy Raoul anyway, and we haven't had him on
the pod in a while as a former world champion.
And Raoul kept saying it kind of what you said
at the beginning here, Mattias is coming on. Mattias is
getting the better of Dalton Smith. I mean, let's don't
revise history because he got the knockout. He's bleeding from
the nose, he's bleeding with a cut over the eye.
I thought the upper cut was landing from Mattias. And
this is why we love boxing, because he did the
one to eighty change around with the two or three
big punches that ended the fight. This is why we looked.
Speaker 2: At If you look at the way the fight went, okay,
certainly Dalton Smith won the first round. That's not even
up for debate because Mattias literally didn't do anything, which
is not a surprise. He's typically been somewhat of a
slow starter during the course of his career. And if
you take a look around five, which is when the
knockout occurred, up until the point of the knockout, clearly,
at least in my mind, Mattias was winning that round.
So now you got to figure out, okay, what was
going on? You know in two, three, and fourth.
Speaker 1: I thought he won the fourth round and he cut
he cut Smith over the eye in the fourth round.
Matias he was come up.
Speaker 2: At the score cards. So one of the judges h
gave Mattias rounds two to three and four. That's a
little bit dicey. Perhaps another judge had given you know,
it made a two to one in favor of of
of Dalton Smith. After that, after that first round which
all three all three judges scored for appropriately for Mattias,
and then the other judge had it had given to
two rounds two and three to Dalton Smith. So going
into the knockout round he had a highly competitive close
fight thirty nine thirty seven on UH on two score
cards in favor of Dalton Smith and one thirty nine
to thirty seven in favor of Superal Mattias. And by
the way, when you're in round five, if it's gonna
go the distance, you still got more than half the
fight left. So all the people losing their minds over
saying who they thought was winning or whatever. You know,
I mean, he was a back and forth fight, I mean, entertaining,
you know, heck of a fight. But Don Smith tremendous
job props.
Speaker 1: To him, really good still him on the knockout win,
great story, and this.
Speaker 2: Was not really brought up much on the broadcast, if
at all. Frankly, even though he was allowed to fight,
you still know he had a a some amount of
ostring in the system. In the testing that took place.
It was within the levels allowable by New York State,
but there's some that still question whether he was, you know,
a clean fighter throughout his training camp, and that's a
fair question. And if he wasn't, he paid the price.
And even if he was, he got knocked out.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on to earlier in the day
and the Queensbury Design Show in Oberhausen, Germany were a
Jeekkabba Yell your books, Yes, Kaba Yell with a knockout
in a wild atmosphere again against Damien Niba Niba, a
Polish fighter based in New Jersey. And this was a
slug fest and Caba Yell got hit some but he
got the better of Niba here again a stoppage in
this case without a knockdown. In the end, he hurt him,
he staggered him. Niba did protest after the fight. But
it's a Tko Forkba Yell who's now won what five
or six fights in a row by knockout and retains
the WBC's interim heavyweight title. All right, give me your
thoughts on that main event, and then we'll talk a
little bit about the code feature as well, with the
young up and coming Cuban born fighter that also won.
But Kaba Yell did what he was supposed to do,
and he's speaking of large paydays. He's in position for
a larger or a large payday coming up.
Speaker 2: Oh, no doubt. And that was actually a six knockout
in a row. And we're going to get to the Horrify,
which technically was not the Cold Feature, although it was
the most significant gight. I think they just made the
German heavyweights the cold feature because they had more of
a local flavor to it. But nonetheless, in terms of look,
he's continued a good run. You know, it all started
in the three consecutive events he had or fight he
had on read season cards, beginning at the end of
twenty twenty three, when he scored a knockout against Arsenin
Beck Macmadou, who was favored by many people in that
he dusted him in the four rounds, came back and
knocked out the undefeated Frank Sanchez in seven rounds, and
mcmadou had also been undefeated, then took a part Zilly
Jang knocked himut in the sixth round he had, you know,
he had a loss or two, but certainly he was
a well known fighter. So that's three big wins in
a row. He won the interim belt in that title
in that fight against Zilly Jang, and they brought him
home to Germany and fought in Germany in a few years.
Queensberry is doing a very smart thing in my opinion,
So I get credit to Frank Warren and to his
son George Warren, who were looking at Germany as a
really underutilized market, where at one point in the nineties
and into like up to like Abound twenty Tenish was
extremely robust market, big TV ratings on multiple platforms, multiple channels,
I should say, big stadiums. You're talking about the Klitschko brothers, Darius, Mikolchewsky,
Arthur Goigorian, Felix Stern, Gratziana Raka, Johnny. I mean, they
had a lot of Henry Maska, they had a lot
of really popular fighters, and it's been very, very dormant
at the top level of championship boxing for a long time,
and they see a great opportunity with having a fighter
like Kabel who was a popular figure there. You know,
he's a friendly guy, he's got a good personality, got
a nice smile, fights his ass off and maybe they
can you know, and it showed. They went to a
thirteen thousand seed arena thereabouts sold it out. They were
tied into the date, which apparently meant there was other
arenas they could have potentially tried to go to, but
they were not available. So they would have liked to
do this in a larger arena. They settled for the
thirteen or twelve thousand seater because this was the date
they were tied into with his own. But they now
know because of the raucous crowd and the fact that
it's sold out pretty easily against an opponent that's not
a well known guy, right, they can really make Hay
and when they do his events, you watch the undercard,
they add a bunch of heavyweights and other Germans that
they're trying to bring along and can maybe make it
into another destination market.
Speaker 1: Before we get into the specific some whether you thought
the stoppage was justified because there was plenty of action.
Adam Smith said on the broadcast. I was watching the
full broadcast that he said, I've been coming to Germany
for the last three decades.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no. I got to relax with the
Adam Smith please, I.
Speaker 1: Got to give it to you. They'll like him, and
I realize he's there to hype it. But I've been
coming to Germany for the last three decades and this
is as electric as I have heard it. And I
don't know, I can't verify that it wasn't as electric.
Certainly when the Clitchkos are fighting in a stadium, that's different.
But there was an atmosphere.
Speaker 2: Oh you can tell you will.
Speaker 1: It was genuinely coming through on the broadcast. And then
they're slugging each other in the first round. Let's segue
that into the action.
Speaker 2: Well, just to back up about the atmosphere, George Warren,
who was Frank's son, appairently Frank was not able to
be there for whatever reason, but you know, George was
on hand or did a brief interview with The Zone
after the fight and talked about, you know, if we
we think we've got the guy to sort of bring
back the German market with Cabell uh and he you know,
and George has been around boxing for a number of years, uh,
you know, as his father sort of like chief lieutenant,
if you will, and in many ways running the day
to day business, and he's been in all those big
stadium fights that that Queensberry has been involved with, whether
it's Tyson Fury or whatever big events they have done
plenty of top fights, and he said that was the
best atmosphere he's ever been in the years, all of
his years in boxing, and uh, it was exactly that.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: Cabell Uh at this moment in time is without question
a top two or three heavyweight based on his recent
track record. Neiba was undefeated. Uh, he was good in
the first round. He looked very good in the first round.
He swelled up a little bit on on Cabialls e,
he cut him and dominated the first round. And but
the way caballs he explained, he guys, look, you know,
I hadn't fought for eleven months. I wasn't totally as
focused maybe as I should have been. And I got
back to the corner after round. And Caboll speaks English,
so he was telling this in English on the broadcast.
Yesters like, my coach is like, you know, what are
you doing? You know? He got to focus and you know,
and he went out there and he got a shit
together and he from there on pretty much dominated the fight.
But it was an excellent, fun heavyweight fight. Back and forth,
back and forth. You talk about the stoppage, I didn't
love it, but it was a matter of time, I
guess is the way I looked at it like he
had heard him real bad with.
Speaker 1: He clearly rocked him with a couple of rights. He
staggered him along the ropes. They He then staggered him
kind of towards the middle of the ring, and that's
where the referee waved and said, that's it without a knockdown.
Now remember the Matias one we're referencing. There was a
knockdown and the referee waved it off. Did you have
a problem with the stoppage?
Speaker 2: Like I said, I didn't love it, but there was
a big right hand. And look Mark Lyson, who was
the British referee that was handling the fight. He's had
his issues here and there. Some people made out of
liked how they were officiated, the fact that this is
a heavyweight championship fight of sorts. They're only in round three.
Nobody's been down. He hasn't been in any way in
my opinion, like badly staggered. You know, he took some shots, fine,
but it's professional heavyweight boxing. That's part of the game,
that's part of the job. That it probably should have
been allowed to continue, but I feel like it probably
would have not gone that much longer, if that makes sense.
So he did complain. Unlike unlike Mattias, who didn't even
say a word immediately when the referee stepped in and
stopped this fight, Neba was pissed off about it, and
you could tell he kind of like shrugged and like,
what the hell are you doing? But look, it's a
high pressure job. I'm not making excuses for anybody. They've
got to split second and make a decision, and so
I'm not gonna question this. I mean, he was probably
gonna get knocked out, and it is what it is,
and he was, and.
Speaker 1: The referee is right there looking at it and right
there seeing it. Well, we're watching on TV at a
at a great distance on a screen, so I.
Speaker 2: Think it's fair. It's fair for anybody to look at
that knockout and say, yeah, you know, it was premature.
But by the same token, it was not even in
the top thousand like premature stoppages I may have seen
in my life. It was just like it was on
the on the other side of like not great, but again,
what are you gonna do? It had been a fun
fight for three rounds. And here's the thing, though, that
was the final fight of the night. If you watch
the rest of the undercard, there were so many fucking
fucked up refereeing things that that that event that it
just seems like another thing to add to it, because
if you take a look at the undercard before this
fight took place, there was another I think this technically
was the co feature, was the fight between Uh Granite Shallah,
who was a German heavyweight and Peter Milas Uh. And
there was a knockout in the tenth round of this fight,
and and and I don't know the referees, a German referee.
Uh was one of the worst things I ever saw
in my life. They were like, what why are you
not stopping fight? Even the other opponent was like, dude,
what are you doing? Like finally, finally the the uh,
the the corner threw in the towel. But the guy
had been down. He was wobbling, he could barely move.
It was like like, we can't win. Like, on one hand,
that was way too late of a stoppage and to
the credit of the guy to show the heart to
stay up, but whatever, and then the other one the
other way around, where you're like, Okay, this probably should
have gotten longer. Here's like a happy media. One was
a horrible stoppage because it was so late. The other
one was your questioning because it was a little bit
too soon. But you know, I guess the aged old
adage and you know we all have our issues here
and there was stoppages. I guess in the end of
the day, it's one punch too soon to stop. It
is better than one punch too late.
Speaker 1: Agreed. Give me some more on YadA or Herrera winning
his fight.
Speaker 2: We're talking about what's next for kabyo baby.
Speaker 1: Oh well, well, but I mean with Kabiel, is it realistic?
I mean, he's gonna get a seven figure payday against
somebody you would think.
Speaker 2: Probably made close to seven figures yesterday.
Speaker 1: Right, So what do you think is next? Real quick?
And then we'll move around.
Speaker 2: He wants to fight who's sick? That's you know, they.
Speaker 1: Were realistically, that's not next.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, you said.
Speaker 1: Me on this pod and off this pod on four
different occasions. Usik's fighting Deontay Wilder. Usiks fighting Deontay.
Speaker 2: Wilder probably is, but that doesn't mean that Queensberry and
Gold stars fres Spencer Brown, who also works with Kabel,
can't try to make a run at him, all right,
And if there's enough money, you never know what the
decision is going to be, because I can tell you
right now, no matter what, if they were actually able
to corral Usik to do the fight and go to Germany,
and certainly Usik is a road where he's fought his
entire career on the road, that's not an issue. They
would fill up. A stadium would be very much like
the old Clitch Coode days, Cabiel against Usik. Pack a stadium.
You want to go to Berlin, you want to go
to Humburg, you want to go back to Oberhas and
pick whatever you know stadium you can find and they'll
put fifty sixty thousand.
Speaker 1: I was in the Bayern Munich Soccer Stadium with the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers playing the Seattle Seahawks, and that is
like a billion with a B dollar facility. Go have
it there. While we're just picking.
Speaker 2: Stadiums, it's not out of the realm of possibility that
with enough money they can perhaps lure him. But yeah,
I mean I still think he's gonna wind up. Uh
fighting against Wilder next. But keep in mind also, you know,
Usik has said time and again in recent months he's
gonna fight, you know, two or three or four more
times and then he's gonna call it a day. So
if he goes and he beats Deontay Wilder, you know,
Cabiol is still around, there's no reason that act fight
couldn't happen, you know, you know, one fight later, like
at the end of the year, let's say, so, certainly possiblity,
so he wants to us. But the more realistically, we
had a lot of other guys are on hand, you know,
trolling for the fight. You had Lawrence Sokoley, who's highly
rated in the WBC, who's part of Queensberry. He had
Philip Pargovic who was there looking for the fight. He
may not be signed to Queensberry, but he's WATS and
Queensberry guys they have a relationship. There's other fighters at
Queensberry Promotes. They promote Tony Yoka, they promote obviously Fabio Wardley,
who's the WBO champion. I saw some of Tabiel's postfight
press carts. He was asked about doing a fight against Wardley.
He was like Yeah, absolutely, I would take that fight.
So when you have a a delt like an interim
title of the WBC, and you have popularity and you
can sell tickets and you and you have a fun,
exciting style, and you are highly rated, and you're a
guy that can generate money, you're gonna have a pretty
I won't say easy, but you're gonna.
Speaker 1: Be Do have options, you have lucrative You have lucrative
options at this.
Speaker 2: Point, cabell is in a great position right now. That's
the bottom line.
Speaker 1: All right, about Herrera and the stoppage of Ricardo Nunez,
give me the thoughts in the recap mode.
Speaker 2: Herrera has been an excellent prospect. I had him at
the at the end of last round on my prospect list.
He only got to fight one time, you know, was
he was not very busy at all in twenty twenty five,
just the one fight. Part of it was injury. I
believe part of it was getting this title fight set up.
I'm not sure what the other issues were. In any event,
He's got a tremendous amount of talents. He's only twenty
three years old, Cuban southpaw, you know, really quick, wiry,
maybe not the greatest chin. He got dropped about twenty
seconds into the fight. Ricardo Nunez, who is known probably
best for getting destroyed in two rounds challenging Tank Davis
for a one hundred and thirty pounds title back a
few years ago. But he spot some good guys and
you know, generally lost when he stepped up to the
top level. But he had Herrera. Uh, he's a good puncher.
Had Herrara on the matt twenty seconds into the fight.
It wasn't a heavy knockdout, but it was a clear shot,
a good right hand. He shook it off, he got
back in the fight. It was competitive, but in the end,
Herrara just too young, too fast, too slick, uh, too south,
puntish and uh and too much of of of everything.
And he eventually and and her and he was just
wearing he was wearing down is out as that fight
went along, and eventually, you know, he caught him and
he stopped him. It was one of those kind of
knockouts where like he was definitely hurt. If that makes
like it wasn't like he was he wasn't out cold
or anything like that, but he was he was not
in great shape. I guess after the uh, after that
happened and you know, they they stopped the fight. I
mean it was uh, it was a good I guess
overall for a young kid like that to go in
with a good solid veteran who's got good power like
that to survive what he had to do. I feel
like he tired Nunya's out a little bit. Around the
fifth or sixth round. I felt like Nunya's was starting to,
you know, to really wear down, like the battery. If
you were playing a video game, you have the meter
like what your strength is. He was getting close to
the end there, and he hit him with like X.
Speaker 1: Or A seventeen times to get some charge back, to
get some energy back.
Speaker 2: He didn't have it, but he hit him with a
tremendous uh, a tremendous right hand and uh when he
had him on the ropes. The knockout itself was kind
of crazy because you don't see this a lot. He
had nailed him, and the referee, dang of Vanderwheel, who's
been around forever, went in to stop the fight, and
he was behind Herrera, so he went to kind of
pull him off to like intercede, and Herrera like, I
don't know, is it just in a matter of excitement,
you know, he kind of jerked and was excited, threw
his hands up and it kind of caught Van guard.
Speaker 1: And he knocked him and knocked him over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, toppled to the canvas. So at that moment I
wasn't entirely sure did he actually stopped the fight, and
you know, the referee kind of scrambled to his feet
and uh and walked over to the corner and waved
the fight off. So it was kind of an unusual
ending the way that happened. But it was a good
performance from Herrara, and because he was able to show
some forty two to get up and to survive and
to go on and wear the guy down and show
his great athleticism and also the punching power. That's a
nice win for a young kid like that. He wins
the interim title. We already discussed the nonsense of that
with what happened with Foster and Fulton from the preview podcast,
where it was first it was gonna be these guys,
then they let that fight be for the title, and
then O'shaki vacated after he beat Fulton, and so this
was back for that title. But the bottom line is
it puts Herrara in a good spot because if Shakur
win or lose against t Fimo decides to stay in
the heavier weight class, a good chance at Herrara will
be elevated by the WBC. Not one hundred percent, but
that would be a good likelihood. If not, he'll still
be in a top position within the WBC ratings, certainly
with the interim title. So and then you know there's
gonna be other opportunities for good fights, and he's a
very exciting young fighter.
Speaker 1: All right, So we gave you a good recap, so that,
by the way, you also wanted to make mention, because
we are a recap that there was a Friday night
show in Albuquerque, New Mexico paying tribute to the late
Hall of Famer Johnny Tapia with his promotion and his
sons both on the card making their professional debuts. Educate
the peeps more here go ahead.
Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't say it was necessarily a tribute, but
Tapia Promotions, which has been around since before Johnny died,
which is run by his widow, Teresa Tapia, who was
his manager for a long time, and is certainly an
experienced person within the boxing business. They put on some
of these club shows in Albuquerque in the Southwest. Anyway,
Johnny's two of his sons, Johnny Junior who's twenty five
and Nico who's twenty, had been boxing as amateurs and
they both made their professional debuts on the same card.
That was at a night club in Albuquerque, on a
card that Teresa was promoting on Friday night. And you know, look,
Johnny Tapia was a very popular fighter, a great fighter,
a Hall of Famer, one of my favorites, both as
a person as well as as a boxer. I thought
it was notable to, like, you know, not to spend
a lot of time on it that the two boys
turn pro and they got wins under dead. He's not
a surprise because obviously they're not gonna be that's super tough.
But Johnny Juwor is a jubni midlewight. He he got
a knockout, two knockdowns, and scored a first round knockout.
And then Nico, who was the younger one, who's only
twenty years old, he's a super mid ewight. He won,
he got a knockdown, he won a four round decision
by shoutout forty to thirty five on all three score cards.
You know, take it into account to one knockdown, and
we'll see how they do in their pro curse. But
I mean their dad was one of the one of
the best fighters of his day, obvious Hall of famer
and with a with a ton of big time fights.
And we'll see how the kids do.
Speaker 1: All right, some news and you were you were talking
to me before I hit the record button about I
believe the phrase you used one a mess on the
Virgil Ortiz jiron andis proposed a junior middleweight bout. I've
seen a lot of back and forth on social media,
including from Oscar deal La Joia. You've been doing some digging,
calling around, texting, trying to figure out what's going on here,
and you describe it to me as what a mess.
Speaker 2: If you ask Golden Boy, you know, anybody there will, they'll,
like you ask what's up with that? And they'll just
make a noise like, oh, like they just don't even
want to talk about it. They're so like dismayed and
just sort of depressed about the whole thing. You ask
the Virgil side, you ask like his manager Rick Marrigian,
and you know he just can you know, go off
on a on a on a rant about it match room.
You know, we've seen Eddie make his videos talking about it.
I know his own very much wants to fight. I
can tell you right now the date that's been penciled
in for this fight on March twenty eighth. The fight
may still happen, and I hope it does because it's
a tremendous matchup, but I'd be really surprised if they
can get the shit together by March twenty eight. That's
not a lot of time for a fight that they'd
be promoting as well.
Speaker 1: Hang on, it's nine or ten weeks. What is so bad?
What is so damaged that it can't be worked out
in a week or two?
Speaker 2: Go ahead, Well, I don't have that long to work
it out, especially with all the stuff that has to
go on. But I'm just telling you.
Speaker 1: Day o hooly, Okay, let me I already I kind
of know part of the answer. Day Hollya says that
Virgil Ortiz should get the sixty percent of the sixty
forty split, and that's obviously one of the sticking points.
Speaker 2: Scott. Here's here's the issue, and Eddie has said this,
and it's not the first time, and my understanding is
that he's absolutely being truthful about this. However, many months ago,
and he talked about this in the video he did.
Eric Gomez, an Oscar de lawyer from Golden Boy, Eddie
Hearn from atrom Boxing, and executives from his own Two
specific executives sat in the room together and made a
deal for what their deal was not so much what
Oscar's deal would be with his fighter, not what Eddie's
deal would be with the Bootsennis, but how it was
going to work between the two companies. And they came
up with a deal, and now Oscar apparently is trying
to reneg on that. So the point was, was it
going to be sixty forty but the winner gets five percent?
Did they go fifty to fifty and the winner gets
an extra five percent? You know, in other words, it
would be at that point fifty five to forty five.
Now I like that concept because that brings prize fighting
back to the forefront. Yes, guys get paid a lot
of money and get their guarantees, but they put that
extra percentage up to go to the winner sort of
like to the winner go the spoils, and they're having
a lot of issues with that. Meanwhile, Oscar is still
unable to work out the final numbers with the Virgil
RTIs side. I feel, and this is my conjecture, I
don't know this for sure, but I've been around the
block a few times. If Oscar is trying to change
the structure of the deal with Mattroom to get a
larger percentage for their side, he wants to probably use
some of that money that would be extra for them
to go towards making virgil side hole. How they feel
like they need to be made whole, so he doesn't
have to reach into his own pocket. He'd rather reach
into Eddie Hern's pocket to pay Virgil the extra than
into his own pocket. So there's a lot of problems
with that, and a lot of people are pissed off
about it. They have promised this fight to a lot
of people. The Zone is putting extreme pressure on everybody
involved to get this fight done. Now. I don't know
this for a fact. There's been a lot of conjecture
that and this is not I'm not saying anything out
of turn here. Take a look at at the Zone schedule.
They got Matt Room fights scheduled over the next few months.
They got Frank Warren and Queensberry fight schedule over the
next few months. They've got Turkey, Uh, you know his
Ring magazine events scheduled. Uh. Golden Boy has a car
coming up on Friday night, the rematch between Alexis Roach
and Raoul Kurio. They have nothing else on this schedule.
My understanding is that Golden Boy their contract is up
and has not yet been formally renewed, and part of
the pressure to get the renewal is delivered, to deliver, deliver.
Why they would go to the mat over this one
particular bout, which is a great fight. I can't necessarily
answer that. But there's stuff going on that I'm not
necessarily aware of it. My radar is up in my nose.
Speaker 1: And you are the best at figuring out what's going on.
Two more points about this. The first point is, let's
revisit because we give our opinions on this, and we
got more opinions coming up when we talk about the
zoof of boxing stuff here in a few moments. We're
independent on this. We're not beholding anybody boots in us and.
Speaker 2: I'd like to be beholding to Looten scoff drops.
Speaker 1: Looten cough drops are good. I'd like to and you
might need one here in a minute. There is no
benefit of the doubt for Jeron Ennis in this argument,
because this fight could have happened last year and this
should not be lost on anybody. And he renigged, and
he went and changed the terms after they had been
agreed to, wanting the fight to be a welterweight fight,
and screwed all of that up. So I'm just going
to continue to remain consistent.
Speaker 2: That's fine, but again, don't have I'm just.
Speaker 1: Saying you don't have any benefit of the doubt that
negotiating is still going on because this could have been
a year ago and you screwed it up.
Speaker 2: But again, you can't just only look at it. At
some point, you got to move on. We understand that,
disagree that happened, and that was a problem, all right.
But as we speak now, it is my belief they
want this fight under.
Speaker 1: The because he's already moved up in Why do they
want this fight because it's lucrative. So my next question
is is Oscar looking for Turkey al chic who has
the bank roll every which direction to maybe come in
with more money and make this fight. That's conjecture, it's speculation,
but I.
Speaker 2: Don't think so, because right now Golden Boy is not
doing anything really with Turkey. There's certainly been a fracture
there in my opinion, for whatever the reasons are. And
so I think that the that the that the Virgil
team looks at it and they're like, well, Turkey or
whoever is paying all these guys a huge amount of money,
whether it's David Denavid's to go over to Saudi Arabia
or Noya in a way who had a huge payday
against a regular opponent, or what they're paying of course
Stevenson and Tiafimo to fight each other, and they're like, well,
we want it on that action also, uh, and Golden
Boy does not have that kind of money to spend
on the fight's. Turkey would, but he's not showed interest
in this fight once it wasn't happening under the schedule
that he wanted it to happen. And by the way,
when you're the buyer, whether you're Turkey Olseikh or your
Desne or you're whoever, you have the ability as the
buyer to put in your opinions about the way the
deal's going to go.
Speaker 1: And though you're paying the freight, I totally get it.
Speaker 2: The thing about it is not, in my opinion, it's
not that the money is not there to make the fight.
It's a matter of what's the equal what's the distribution
of the money. In other words, if you have a
pie and you know that everybody's going to eat from it,
it's how much does Virgil get to eat from it?
And how much does does does from it?
Speaker 1: One more because I just thought of this while we're talking.
This ain't the first rodeo with Oscar having problems with
his own fighter and trying to make them hold. This
is what caused the fracture with Canelo Alvarez ultimately led
to a divorce UH in legal proceedings because the judge's rule,
the arbitrator, whoever it was your deal with Canelos says
you're the one responsible for paying him. It's not you're
only responsible forgetting whatever you can get to pay him.
It says you're responsible for paying.
Speaker 2: Well, they're willing to, hey Virgil what he's owed uh
and even more than what his minimum is as I
understand it, but it's not as much more as they
want to make because they consider this a much more
dangerous fighting.
Speaker 1: I feel meter with a March twenty eighth date still
being ten weeks away, nine weeks away? Is it three
that it happens on that date? Is it a five?
Right now? Is put it on the number?
Speaker 2: I don't think the fight's happening on March twenty eighth,
so I put my on that date. I put it
as a zero. Maybe a wow. Now that's not to
say if they can get their shit together, perhaps it
ends up happening like in April or something like that.
But I don't believe it's happening in March. And maybe
me and by the March.
Speaker 1: And if I was wrong, okay, and the March twenty
eight date was to fight in the United States, it's
gonna fight in Sey, Okay, okay, take it all right,
all right?
Speaker 2: An aunt Turkey got nothing to do with that.
Speaker 1: Understand that. I just to know if, if potentially it
could be somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Is it that fight was set up like a T
mobile arena? Yeah, an MGM grand.
Speaker 1: And by the way, it's a fight that a lot
of the boxing fans won and would pay pay per
view prices for We.
Speaker 2: Know, by the way, it's not it's not even a secret.
I mean, Mattroom Boxing had already I think a month
and a half ago or whenever, two meetings ago for
the Navada Commission, had already put in a request for
that date with the commission. It was for that fight.
All right, see if they can get their shirt.
Speaker 1: Let's see it.
Speaker 2: Let's see what happens everything around.
Speaker 1: You put it at zero. You put it at zero
for March twenty eighth, maybe in April, maybe later, one,
maybe a one. Let's see. Okay. So next is Zoofa Boxing.
They've got an upcoming card on Paramount Plus. That's their
new outlet for what they're doing. Their first card is
coming in a couple of weeks, and Dana White was
on an interview prominently with stephen A Smith talking about
that card. So fill in the audience. If they don't
know here, then we'll make a couple of comments.
Speaker 2: Go ahead. So this this was kind of a kind
of a weird thing, I guess. So stephen A has
his YouTube channel. Besides all the other things he does
on First Take and other things, he's involved in and
he had Dana White on his show just the other day,
and it wasn't just about Zoofa boxing. This was a
wide ranging interview. I watched the whole thing. It was
like forty two minutes or something like that, and they
spoke about the upcoming UFC events. UFC has an event
at Team Overena which is the night after the ZUFO
boxing debut, which is on the twenty third. They have
a huge card. I don't know. I'm not digging to
the UFC, so I can't tell you the magnetude of
the show. But with that Team overene you gotta figure
it's a big.
Speaker 1: It's a big show. Yeah, I'm following up with the UFC.
People that I know know that it's a big show
to start off their relationship with Paramount Plus.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, so that's on the twenty fourth. And so anyway,
this interview was on Friday, and as they're going through
the topics, they're talking about the UFC stuff. They're talking
about UFC's big, a seven billion dollar plus deal that
they did with Paramount Plus. They talked about boxing, just
Dana's entrance into boxing in general. They talked a little
bit about the zoofa event. They spent a lot of
time talking about Dana White's personal relationship with Donald Trump.
In any event, the entirety of the parts spent on
the debut card at a forty two minute interview was like,
I don't know if it was like maybe it was
two minutes if that, And he didn't even say the
complete names. Now, I had heard that this fight was made,
but didn't have it one hundred percent, so I didn't
write it at the time. But he confirmed it obviously,
he said the names Ocampo and Callum. He's talking about
Callum Walsh, who is a fighter that we've seen. He
fought on the undercard of Canelo and Crawford. He's tied
to three sixty Promotions Tom Walfler, who has a deal
with UFC Fight Pass, where the boxing events that Tom
has promoted are on UFC Fight Pass. Dana has been
quoted numerous times in the past about that he's a
fan of Calum Walsh, so the fact that Callum Walsh
is associated now with ZUFA Boxing is not at all surprised.
Tom Waffler is working with ZUPA Boxing with his experience,
so that's not a surprise, and they went and got
Carlos Ocampo to be the opponent. Now, Carlos so Caampo
is a regular kind of guy. I was at his
fight back a few years ago when he lenge Errol
Spence for the welterweight title.
Speaker 1: Did you use the word challenged? The fight lasted like
a minute and a half.
Speaker 2: He was the challenger. How about that? And this was
in Firstco Texas. I went down to cover that fight. Yep.
He got absolutely destroyed in the forests, and every other
time he's fought a good opponent he's lost. Also, he
got beat easily by Sebastian Fandora. That was when he
was now at that point he moved up to jumiorm middleweight.
That was not a very good performance either. So he
also got knocked out by Tim Zoo that was one
round and went around exactly. That was for the interim
belt at Jinger middleweight. So now they've made this as
the main event for their first Zooper boxing show. So
I get that they like Callum Walsh. I'm not really
sure why they did this main event. It's sort of indicative,
at least at the moment, the kind of guys that
they're signing. But Dana did make the point in the interview,
and I believe him. Obviously, if you come into boxing,
you're limited to buy the available of what the boxes are.
They're out there. So they've signed or doing business with
the guys that they can work with, and they're going
to probably have to do some of these types of shows.
They may not be spectacular events. They haven't announced the
full show yet, it's two weeks away. They've done zero
promotion for this kickoff event. That's clearly by design because
the people that work with DZUFA and UFC and Dana
obviously know how to do pr They've done it for UFC.
This is not an accident that they haven't done any promotion.
So maybe they're purposely trying to start slow. But I
can guarantee you that when major fighters become available on
the market, they're gonna have their say and they're gonna
be able to perhaps sign some of these guys, you know,
whether like, for example, Bam Rodriguez is currently a free
agent from Matchroom Boxing. I think they're still talking to
them about it. But if would it surprise anybody if
they made a run at a guy like Bam, If
for no other reason to try to raise what what
matchrom has to pay for. You know, everything they're gonna
do is gonna be for a reason. So, you know,
what's the old saying, Things aren't always what they see.
So they may be starting out with Callum Walsh against
Carloso Campo, which your average boxing fan that might know
who these guys are would sort of look at to say,
that's just nothing much kind of fight. But again it's
it's fight one for what is a long term plan.
So I reserve judgment until I see everything kind of
come into the picture in a vacuum justice one fight. Ah,
I could take it or leave it whatever.
Speaker 1: There's nothing there, there's nothing there. Oh, Campo likely gets
knocked out quickly in this well.
Speaker 2: In the bigger but in the bigger picture, uh, they
they have a big, bigger idea of what they're doing.
I can guarantee you, I promise you that Dana White
and Nick con and the people involved in this, they
did not get into this business Turkey al shehk as well,
who's funding this endeavor. They did not get into this
to deliver regularly for the long term. Callum Walsh versus
Carloso Campbo caliber main events of I guarantee.
Speaker 1: That what they desire to do with trying to do
revolutionize this and have their own rankings and have their
own belt and get everybody to come along. What they
want to do and what they're actually going to be
able to do, you know this are there are two
different things.
Speaker 2: So, but they also say also have to I think
start perhaps slightly slowly because remember the the the the
the legislation they're trying to change has not yet been changed.
They still have to go through the congressional process. That's
probably still at least you know, a few weeks or
a couple of months or however along away. That's the
first thing. And uh, I also listened to what Dana
said beyond just this particular ZUFA cart where he said, uh,
he was talking about the sanctioning bodies, and I thought
Stephen A did a very good interview with him in
terms of the teps of questions he was asking and
Dana White and I quote, I'm going to get rid
of the sanctioning organizations. Let's see if he can try,
and many have tried, and many offense. Right. So while
I don't ever underestimate data, White about anything. Ut rid
of the saying about is probably luck.
Speaker 1: Because the free market, and in places like Europe and
Japan and Mexico and Australia, the free market that has
nothing to do with what.
Speaker 2: As I mentioned to you, I know the money is
always important, but you still can't take away separated by
thirty six years, Buster Douglas telling you telling Larry Merchan
how much he wanted them to wrap the WBC belt
around his waist, and Dalton Smith essentially crying because they
gave him a WC belt and that since he was
six years old.
Speaker 1: There you go. One more point on this and we're
obviously moving on. We spent some time on this, and
this will get illuminated over and over and over again.
When Dana White built the Empire with UFC, he saw
an opportunity where nothing was organized on a national scale,
much less a global scale, and organized it first and
set up the system with his salary cap on how
to pay the fighters for the better part of fifty
years of modern boxing. Lucrat is of multi multi tens
of millions of dollars to the winners. The system has
already been set up, and it's set up globally everywhere
for the free market for these guys to go and
fight in different places. He's not setting up something to
even compete with that right now, not in the next year.
Speaker 2: But that's in the short term. But remember, if you
take a look at what's going on, Zoofa has this
big deal with Paramount. They're the only American promoter with
a real deal. We all know that Top Rank has
no deal at the moment. I just told you about
my thoughts on Golden Boy. I'm not sure they haven't
presently with his own perhaps it will be renewed, and
the only other major American promoter would be TGB SLASH PBC,
who are on Prime Video. But everybody knows poradically that's
it's not a right speed driven deal. It's large, and
they aren't fighting regularly enough half a dozen shows here,
which is not enough to sustain. So if they choke
off those outlets and they become the ones with the
money that have a real rights fee, then they'll probably
attract some of the better fighters when they become for agents.
And keep in mind, if those other entities I mentioned
can't make it without having without they don't have rights deals.
A lot of their top fighters are gonna come out
of contract or they're gonna have to get released because
they won't be able to keep up with their obligations.
Speaker 1: All good points on the high finance. Stay tuned. None
of it will be decided between now and like Tuesday.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Uh, you have found out some intel on Zerto Ramirez
because it's there's been some back and forth about whether
coming off shoulder surgery he would have a fight or
not and then fight David Benavitez in May for the
cruiserweight unification fight Cinco Demio weekend. What's the latest, sir.
Speaker 2: So the latest is Zerto, who has two of the
cruiserweight titles. The discussion was that he was going to
probably come back and fight in interim slash tune up, you know,
shake off the surgery. See how I'm doing type of situation.
On the card that Golden Boy is promoting on January sixteenth,
which is headlined by Alexis Rocha in the rematch against
Raoul Kurio. It always sort of seemed over the last
few weeks that was gonna probably be unlikely. So while
it doesn't come as a surprise, I did speak to
Eric Gomes from Goldenway, who said, in fact, he is
not fighting on that date. The quote was, he obviously
is not fighting next week. He has decided to go
straight to the Benavidias fight. They have a deal already
done for that fight to be May second in Las Vegas,
and so that will be the fight. And one thing
that I find interesting is even though okay, the fight
doesn't get announced yet, because it's obviously still several months away,
it's always been sort of phrase to me, it's gonna
be some type of joint event between Golden Boy and PBC.
Obviously they have Golden Boy as the promoter for Ramirez
and PBC are the ones that are involved with David Benavide's,
but nobody's saying it's the Zone. It's a pretty good
chance that winds up, as if the Zone and then
don't make a new deal, it'll wind up being a
Prime Video event. Because whatever you think about whatever the
minutia is of the PBC and Prime Video agreement, they
still have the agreement in place, and they're still doing
pay per view events with the backing of Prime Video.
So regardless of what the outlet is and regardless of
who's showing who's not. I just know that zerdo Overmeirez
against David Benavidez is a very interesting fight and I
look forward to seeing it. And I'm actually glad that
zerdo Ameres did not take a town enough fight, because
that's a recipe for disaster. Let's just get the big fight,
you know, he doesn't. He won't even have been out
of the ring for a year when he comes back
in May. It'll be eleven months. Totally normal, unfortunately in
this day and age. And uh, let's see the big winner.
Speaker 1: All right. And one more quick note here too, as
it relates to the the IBF and Lewis Crocker and
the proposed fight that he was. He looking to have
another optional fight and to fight Patty Donovan, right or
not necessarily, but it's not gonna happen. Apparently No.
Speaker 2: Crocker defeated Paddy Donovan in their rematch to win the title,
so coming off of that victory, he wanted his first
defense to be a different, to be a fight, not
to mandatory something else. So and the reason why I
find this interesting is because match Room Boxing had already
made a deal. It was done pending the IBF's approval.
Because they knew the mandatory was due, but they thought
they could go to the IBF pay the twenty thousand
dollars fee non refundable fee to get them to look
at it and to give them the exception. They had
a deal done for him to have a rematch with
ConA Walker was going to be April eighteenth or April
twenty fifth in Belfast, which is Lewis, Crocker's hometown. Would
have been a big time fight for them, would add
a big crowd. And the IBF took a look at it,
and I got a copy of the letter and they said,
well they took the twenty grand which is non refundable.
It's quite a racket, the IBF doing IBF things. And
they said, no, take a hike. We're going to order
the mandatory, which is not due yet, but it's about
to become due on the thirteenth. So whatever the date,
what's today's David, We're taking.
Speaker 1: This so manator.
Speaker 2: The mandatory becomes due on Tuesday, at which point the
IBF will send the letter and say you are here
by you know, team Crocker and team Liam Paro are
due to start negotiating.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: The reason why this is interesting is because Paro was
supposed to fight on the sixteenth in Australia. His opponent
got ill, Paddy Donovan and pulled out of the fight. Now,
the way the IBF works is if they can arrange
an eliminator within the timeframe, they'll go forward and do
the eliminator. But when the clock runs out and there
hasn't been an elimination fight that has taken place, the
guy that's the highest rated guy automatically becomes the mandatory.
So because Donovan pulled out and there's not enough time
to make a new eliminator, the clock is going to
run out on Tuesday, and Paro's gonna get the mandatory spot.
I know it's fucked up, but it doesn't make a
lot of sense. I'm just telling you. I'm the guy
that plays the game of Monopoly and actually reads the
fucking box top for the directions. Okay, so I'm just
telling you.
Speaker 1: To endlessly about that, and I get that. But then
these organizations also do step aside deals and don't follow
their own rules.
Speaker 2: But again, do whatever this is going to happen on
the thirteenth, They're going to send a letter and they're
going to order Crocker to fight Liam Paro, and so
he's not going to get the big Belfast fight that
they hope to make, which frankly would have been a
bigger money fight probably for everybody involved than Paro at
least coming up and we shall see. So I thought
it was interesting. It just shows you the way that
the minutia of the way the organizations operate, where they
just basically once the illness occurred, they can just run
the clock out and he's gonna have to fight Paro.
Speaker 1: Okay, stay tuned for that. With that, I believe that's
a full recap podh a whole lot more TJ. Yeah, well,
we gave about all that we could give here for
this edition. We look forward to January progressing. Look forward
to you feeling better again. They need to follow subscribe
on Apple's Preaker, Spotify to the pod feed here. Also
get on the sub stack in New Year, the Fight, Preach, Unite,
substack and newsletter anything else.
Speaker 2: Don't we good?
Speaker 1: We're ready for the week.
Speaker 2: I am ready for the week, my friend.
Speaker 1: We love it. There goes big Dan Rayphiel. We thank
you for being with us as we recapped all the action.
We'll be back later in the week with a preview
of the upcoming action this weekend. Another fight news as well.
You've been with us on the Fight Freak to Night
Recap podcast