Speaker 1: Yes. Indeed, off of a weekend that has seen Carlos
Adams finally get back in the ring and defend his
WBC Middleweight championship, We're going to recap his victory. We're
going to talk about a couple of the undercard fights
with some up and comers. Also, the Pobox TV card
all the way out in California saw Lester Martinez victorious
and now he is in position as far as the
WBC is concerned, it's super middleweight by virtue of that win.
Recaps of all of that fight news and much more.
It is the Fight Freaks Unit recap. I am the
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the Big Fight Weekend YouTube page as well. Recap mode,
my friend, let's talk about Carlos Adamis's win over Austin
Ammo Williams, Orlando, Florida. I say to you again, I
was disappointed in all the march madness mayhem that I
could not get over there. That's only about an hour
twenty depending on traffic from where I Am. I could
not get over there. Saturday night. Adamas impressive from beginning
to end. I'm saying that early first round knockdown that
woke everything up. Williams got up, Williams faught on. Williams
fought valiantly. But really this was the night that Adamas
had been looking for. Dan pick it up from there
on his win.
Speaker 2: Well, it was a second round knockdown, but still, thank you,
thank you, still early knockdown. Look, this was a very
impressive performance. There were those who understandably gave Austin M. L.
Williams a good chance to win. They looked to the
fact that number one, Adamas had been out of the
ring for the better part of a year plus a
little longer, about thirteen fourteen months since his last fight.
That was the Shiraz fight. That was the draw that
a lot of people thought that Adamas deserved to win.
But nonetheless he hadn't box for over a year. And
you go back to what happened just seven weeks before
this fight took place, which was when they were supposed
to have this match on the undercard. Of course, Stevenson's
victory against Tiathimo Lopez at Madison Square Guard on January
thirty first, and you know, we can don't have to
rehash every detail, but the bottom line was that Damas
was having weight troubles. He had to go to the hospital,
got sick trying to do his weight cut, and the
fight got canceled. And there was a lot of questions
about his conditioning and his devotion to making Middleway, to
all those types of things. And in the meantime, they
did find an opponent for Austin Williams to fight on
literally like a day's notice. He went in a little
bit over the weight for obvious reasons because of the
short notice of the fight, but he did his job,
scored a knockdown, a one on one sided ten round
decision against you know, the credible professional Wind Trussan. So
now you go into the fight seven weeks later and
it's rescheduled that he hearn from matrim had promised him
that as soon as Adamas was able, they would reschedule
this as quickly as possible. He kept as ward they
did this, and so you go into the fight. You're like, okay,
he just had ten rounds against a decent opponent. He
won pretty handily. He got another guy that's had all
kinds of ailments in terms of making the weight and
the post a postponement of the fight for his issues
out of the ring for a year. There was a
lot of I don't know this for a fact, Chris
Mannic spoke about on the dessowned broadcast. I'd heard sort
of rumors about it, but I didn't know for sure.
But there was a lot of people thinking perhaps that
the damas went in with some type of arm injury
as well. Anyway, Yeah, that I'll tea. You're like, oh,
maybe there's a chance that Williams gets the upset. Nothing
could be further from the truth comb it, because Austin
Williams showed an enormous amount of grit and heart and
determination and I respect that, and every boxing fan should
respect the effort that this man gave to do everything
he could possibly do to try to win this fight
and to become the WBC midleweight world champion. So, you know, everybody,
you know, tip of the hat to the heart and
the grit that he showed. But he was completely outclassed,
one hundred percent outclassed.
Speaker 1: What do you like to say? There are levels to
this stuff? Is what the fighters always say. And that's
pretty much what a Damas said, and it looked at
as the fight more on in the first few rounds
levels to this, and a Damas looks like a championship
level the game. Amio Williams not a championship level fighter
at least at this point because he couldn't summon it.
Speaker 2: So to quote Carlos Adamis after the fight through the
translator to the interpreter, he's you know, he talked about
like why he thought he would dominate the fight. He said,
that's why I said it was going to be easy
work for me, and it was. With all due respect,
he's just not on my level. I'm there, he's there,
with all respect to him, and that's what happened, and
he's right. So a Damas went in there and he,
you know, as I wrote in my piece on substack,
he was wearing his waist you know, his on his
trunks on the waistband in the front where the word
destroy and on the back was the word demolished. Now
he didn't actually get the knockout, but otherwise he destroyed
and demolished Austin Williams.
Speaker 3: He won going away.
Speaker 2: You know, I had one eighteen to one oh nine,
as did one of the judges to other judges had
at won seventeen one oh nine. Part of the reason
for that, uh, was because he had appointed from him
a meaningless point in the twelfth round for a low
blow against Austin Williams.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, it was basically like anywhere from a shutout
to like ten rounds to two if you were being generous. Uh,
this was a one sided ask kicking that he was.
Of course, the second round knockdown, which was a clean,
clean shot right on the button.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: The fact that Williams even got up from that punch
and was able to carry on for the next ten rounds,
you know, shows you the type of determination.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, I've talked about this before. Sometimes the story
of the fight is the great performance from the winner,
But sometimes the story of the fight is the heart
and the grit that the loser shows and and the
story that they create. And I think this was the
kind of fight that actually has both of them.
Speaker 1: He had him heard, he had him hurt in the
eighth round, he had him hurt in the eleventh round.
I thought in the final couple of rounds that he
might get the stoppage and then a Damas comfortably in
front was still pounding on him in the twelfth.
Speaker 2: Round too, and he listen Adamas early. He did have
one time where he landed. I think it was a
right hand on top of the head that kind of
buckled the Adamis's knees. But Adamas, you know, it's if
you look at their background, he has like two hundred
and fifty or something amateur fights. He was a top
amateur for the Dominican and Williams does not have nearly
that type of experience. He's just a better fighter, thicker, stronger.
I don't know if i'd say quicker, but like you said,
there's levels, and it showed if you thought that he
had a chance to win because of all the factors
that we discussed this a minute ago, you know it
was not relevant because he looked good and matter of fact,
it wasn't even I'm not I can't really speak about
what happened in terms of the waight in New York City,
but for this fight, he came in under one hundred
and sixty. He was like one sixty one fifty eight
in change. They actually are both under the limit. He
spoke about after the fight that you know, in the
right circumstance, not only can I fight anybody that want
to throw out me at middleweight, but I can go
down to one fifty four. I can fight with anybody
at one sixty eight, which opens up, of course, given
the terrible version of the middleweight division as it exists today,
if you're willing to fight top guys at fifty four
or at one sixty eight, it certainly should open up.
You know, a variety of different possibilities. You know PBC,
where he's with, they have involved in some of those
weight classes. Obviously at one fifty four. They got the
world title fight coming up next week with UH with
Keith Thurman challenging Sebashan Mendora. I mean, there's there's there's
a lot of if you're gonna go to fifty four,
if somebody would have the stones to get in the
ring with Carlos Damas, there's a lot of possibilities that
same thing. If he were to go to sixty eight,
guys can maybe look up to, you know, to look
to fight him also. But this, look, this was probably
the best performance that we've seen from from Carlos Damas.
I mean, even if you think he was the winner
in the Shiraz fight, it wasn't like this type of
you know, dominating lights out performance when he won the
fight against Carell Gachet. I mean, he won virtually every round,
but it was not anything very exciting. This was a
very entertaining fight to watch. A lot of that was
because of the heart that we talked about with relation
to the way that Emma Williams spot to fight. This
was h This was a dynamite performance. And I think
that even though we we we have mocked the middleway
division all ridiculously for a long time here on our
little show here, but if you take a look at
the weight class, I don't think there's any question right
now that even in a down time frame, he is
number one in that weight class because the other top
guys quote unquote. He got Jannebec, who's on ice because
of a suspension. He still has the WBO title, got
stripped to the IBF, but he ain't fighting for a
while Arislandi Laura, who's the WBA champion as now. To
his credit, he did sign to fight Janebec, which is
before that fight win he tested positive. But other than that,
he spent years at middleweight fighting absolute nobody's and PBC
has never shown an interest to make Odamis against Laura.
There would also be the issue they're both trained by
Ishmael Salaz. You know, he'd have to pick one guy
or the other. He got Jesus Ramus, who has an
interim belt at one sixty. He is the WBC's interim
champion also with PBC, but he's pretty much new to
the weight class. His victory to get that belt was
against Shane Moseley Junior, not exactly the superstar top contender,
and then if you go beyond that, it's still just
not a very good division. So you know, it's like
being the I don't know, being the top midget. I
guess I'd be a number one.
Speaker 1: That a weight or the or the best steak between
as I liked to joke, Morrison's Cafeteria which was always
big in the South, or Golden Corral or Ryan Steakhouse.
How good can I like to say?
Speaker 3: It's like being the heavyweight champ of the Mahamas?
Speaker 1: Yes, how good can it be? Okay? So stay tuned,
can Adama stay active? We keep talking about when you're
fighting once a year. That's another big thing. Does he
get back in the ring here in twenty twenty six,
you would hope. So in the fall, let's see against somebody.
Let me see.
Speaker 2: The thing also about this was he showed really a
good arsenal. His right hand was working as jad was
working through something.
Speaker 1: I say to you all the time. He's an outstanding
body puncher. He's as good as body puncher as you're
going to see at the championship level. There's a lot
to like, except you don't see it enough.
Speaker 2: So you wonder, also what did Williams? What will he
take from the loss?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: I thought that that he demonstrated humility, but also an
element of resoluteness, if you will. In the post fight
where you know, after all the chippy back in fourth
they had leading up to the fight, he gave him credit.
He's like, look, there were some things I was trying
to do. I couldn't get him done. He fought a
good fight, you know, good respect to him. Congratulations. I'm
going back to the gym to work on my craft
and then that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 2: The one thing about it was, and this was very evident,
and Kevin Cunningham, who was his amma, Williams's outstanding trainer,
you know, was begging him to not back up. Now
that's easier said than done, because if he didn't back up,
you know, there's a good chance he winds up flat
on his back.
Speaker 3: He also, I don't.
Speaker 2: Know if it was If there was a guy you
might suspect and have great conditioning, it might have been
at Damas given the weight situation what happened in January,
but it really seemed like it was Williams. It did
not have the conditioning that a Damas had because he
would come out and they made the point of this
on the broadcast. It was very evident if he watched
any of these middle rounds, he would have these great
bursts in the beginning of the round ten twenty thirty
seconds where he was all over him. Adamas would just
take whatever he had, was unfazed by anything, and then
he would kind of run out of gas and Adamas
would take over and beat the living shit out of
him for the remainder of the round. And you know,
to be able to keep your conditioning and the opponent
can can take your flurry at the start of around,
you know, you're a dead duck, and that's pretty much
what happened all right.
Speaker 1: Undercard of this, we were curious to see what would
happen with the Mari Jones, the junior middleweight prospect, and
so he ends up fighting a distance fight and then
our heavyweight Teamona Tarramona, who we were talking about. It
was over quickly, so give us the recap there of both.
Speaker 2: Well, Mari Jones was finding at home in Orlando, he
is from there. He is the twenty twenty four US
Olympic bronze medalist. He is the only American medalist that
kept the United States from a shutout in the Olympics
that recently took place. And they put him in with
a very experienced fighter in Christian Gomez, who was twenty
three six and one with twenty one knockouts coming in. Obviously,
that's a great amount of knockouts considering the number of wins,
although he hadn't really fought any top guys, so you're
going to kind of have to.
Speaker 3: Weigh the situation.
Speaker 2: But he was experienced, he had had a number of
ten round fights in his recent past. And here you
have young Jones, you know, even fighting somebody like Gomez
who's not a top level fighter. This was still by
every metric you could look at. We certainly had to
be considered a step up for Omari Jones. And in
his most recent fight in January, prior to this one,
he had gone the distance in six rounds. This was
his first scheduled eight rounder and he went to distance again,
So some might look at him be that was disappointing.
Gomez had been stopped twice previously in fights. Now he
couldn't get the knockout. But if he asked Jones, and
he was asked this by Mannix after the fight, he
said this was his best performance to date. He says,
I was in with a tough veteran guy who came
to fight.
Speaker 3: He got.
Speaker 2: You know, it went eight rounds, but he had been
in ten rounders and you know he won every single
round of the fight easily. Omari Jones did his job,
was absolutely perfection in the fight. He just could not
miss with it. Basically, Gomes had no idea how to
get inside against it. In the pre fight, Gomez spoke
about how his pathway to victory was I got to
get on the inside. He could not do so, and
as Omari Jones said afterwards, the jab was working great
I was tat doing him with it, basically, and you know,
if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So he took
that job, and he rode that for eight rounds and
he won eighty to seventy two one all three scorecards. Now,
it might not have been the most competitive or exciting fight,
but if you are a supporter of where Jones may
be added to, which is a world title, this was
a beautiful building block fight for him to get in
those valuable rounds against a tough, durable opponent, to perfect
your job or continue to perfect your jab, and to
win going away, and he'll be back, you know, probably
in the next couple of months. I mean, these are
the kinds of fights that years from now we're not
going to talk about and remember, but these are the
types of fights that build the foundation of a future champion.
So you have to look at it both from the
immediate satisfaction, maybe it wasn't anything spectacular, but in the
long run it could pay tremendous dividends when you have
this type of performance. So look the kids doing everything right,
what he's supposed to do. He's a hard worker, he's
twenty three, he's now six to oh, with four knockouts.
He's on his way to big things.
Speaker 3: It seems.
Speaker 2: If he can just keep performing in this matter and
come condition wise the way he's been showing up at
his fights, and keep a good atitude, he's got a
a lot of bright nights in front of him. I
think you mentioned about Taramona Tarramona, as I say, he
is so nice and name them twice, big strapping twenty
twenty four Olympian for Australia, great personality and big right hand,
big punching power. Taking on the well traveled journeyman Curtis Harper,
who now is nineteen thirteen with thirteen knockouts. He had
just fought by the Way three weeks ago and lost
an eight round decision. And he took this fight against
you know where he's a prohibitive underdog. As he said,
I got five kids, I got mouse to feed and
this is my job.
Speaker 3: So he took the fight.
Speaker 2: Probably got paid a lot more than he did for
the last loss that he took against Roney Hines back
eight weeks ago or three weeks ago, I should say,
And you know there was some thought that Okay, Tarremona's
you know, he came into the fight. This was also Tarramona.
Tarmona's first eight rounder. He came into the fight nine and.
Speaker 1: Was a scheduled eight rounder all right, was not even
close to a two rounder, as it turns out.
Speaker 2: So he came in nine to zero with nine knockouts.
He had never been past the full second round. There
was some thought that maybe, you know, given Curtis Harper's experience,
the caliber fighters he has faced, even with all those losses,
yes he had been stopped, you know a few times,
that maybe he could extend Tarramona into you know, round three,
maybe round four.
Speaker 3: Who knows. That was not to be.
Speaker 2: You know, he came out and just you know, started
winging these overhand rights. Tarramona, you know, was unmoved by
it at all. Took whatever there was and then you know,
started to back them up, landed a nice right hand
and put him in the ropes, and before you know it,
there comes a big right hand and it was a
clean and the beautiful thing about it was it was straight,
it was not looping, it was not off kilter. It
was right down the fucking pipe and right on the chin,
and it laid out Curtis Harper flat on his back.
He was literally spread eagle. Referee of course waved it off.
It was at two minutes fifty nine seconds, so one
second shy of maybe getting to round number two and
that's all she wrote. I mean he's an exciting fighter
ten and know now with ten knockouts all within two rounds,
so you still want to see him extended, going to
do any fights a better caliber opponent. Even before this
fight happened, TJ, he was already scheduled for his next fight,
which is on the recently announced Matchroom card that's going
to be an Australia headlined by Sky Nicholson, that's on
April twenty knights, and he'll go home and have a
fight in Australia that fights in Melbourne. Still no opponent
yet for him.
Speaker 3: And just to put it.
Speaker 2: In sort of context, if you take a look at
the record of Curtis Harper, the types of guys he's
been knocked out by, Richard Torres Junior took care of him,
Abakadir Jalalov, the two time Olympic gold medal winner, a
Jillie Jang. I mean, these are the types of guys
that have stopped him. So that's pretty good company if
you're a teamone. I mean, we still don't know what
it's going to be like when he gets hit on
the chin, and that's the question mark for every single
heavyweight that ever put on gloves. But from an offensive
point of view, he's pretty fucking good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it was scary just for a second too,
because anybody that might thought that Harper was just there
to take a dive, did hit lay down, take the payday.
He slammed his head on the ground when he got
laid out, and the double impact is always very concerning,
and he didn't move for a couple seconds, and that's
why the referee just went ahead and said that's it.
This was not him a knockout.
Speaker 3: If they had jaga and he stepped out of the
ring ages, he gave an effort. But he is what
he is. I mean, he's a journeyman.
Speaker 1: Uh So Tarimona, Tarimonia will watch for things from him.
So all in all, good show in Orlando. Let's go
a long way on the same continent from Orlando to
San Bernardino, California, where Lester Martinez the Guatemalan does win
over Emanuel Aleem. Uh he gets the vacant WBC Interim
super Middleweight title by virtue of the win. Hard fought fight.
I must confess because of all the march madness, I've
only seen some of the clips and the highlights of
the fight.
Speaker 3: He didn't agree.
Speaker 1: You agree with the decision here on Martinez tough fight.
Elaine took some punishment in the fight. What do you
agree with the decision? Oh?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean it was it would not amount. Do
you agree with the decisions some matter?
Speaker 3: Do you agree? I think with the with the width
of the decision.
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: The scores are one twe eighteen to one, ten and
one nineteen to one, So that's you know, twelve zero,
eleven to one and ten to two and that's you know,
how many times did we discussed the range of acceptable scores?
One hundred percent? That was the range of acceptable scores. Look,
Lester Martinez was the favorite. You know, A Lien was
a tough guy and has some experience, but was again
there are levels, as we discussed in the previous fight,
he was outclassed. He gave a good effort and he
made some rounds competitive, but Lester Martinez just had too
much for him. It was never really I felt like
it never really broke out into the fight. It was
sort of like Martinez just took control right away and alien.
Like I said, he tried, but he never really showed
any moment where he thought, Okay, maybe he'll get back
into this thing and start winning rounds, or maybe you
get a knockdown or something like that. So he gets
into twelve rounds. Jew drew good crowd there in San Bernardino.
I guess they have a Guatemalan community in the region.
They clearly turned out for him. He wins this WBC
interim title. We discussed beforehand that it would have made
more sense had the WBC ordered the Billy who had
been elevated from the interim champion to the full champion
when Crawford retired to order the rematch against Lester Martinez
after the great fight that they had in a draw,
or in the same belt before he had been elevated.
That was, of course, back in September on the undercard
of Canelo versus Crawford. But now he's got the interim belt.
We'll see what they do. We've discussed about one sixty eight.
It's got a lot of possibilities. I'm not convinced that
now suddenly the WBS is going to order the rematch.
I will make a rematch. I think both guys can
go other directions and make good money. I'm still on
the on the on the on the on the level
where I think that in September, the next fight for
Canelo has a good chance to be against my Billy,
which means he's not fighting Lester Martinez in between, obviously,
But the main thing here is this. The belt is
meaningful because it will help him make money. It's a chip,
it's an economic chip, and he's a good fighter. He's
a quality contender in this weight class. Probox has done
a good job bringing him along.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: He's entertaining to watch. He does have some uh, some
swagger to him. I mean, there's nothing wrong with having
Lester Martinez part of my viewing.
Speaker 1: Heabit and give him credit the first ever. Well, I
mean he's not a full world champion, but as a
quasi interim vacant title belt there from Guatemala. We acknowledge that.
And you're anxious to talk a little bit because again
it didn't take long from one of your top prospects.
As you said, I got to you said to me
before I hit the record, but I got to talk
about my boy, Chop Chop, Albert Chop Chop Gonzales, a
featherweight into the night quickly for Brandon Chambers. Tell me more,
not only about the quick win, but about the future
for Chop Chop.
Speaker 2: Well, Chop Chop Gonzales. Albert Gonzalez trained by Robert Garcia,
but promoted by top rank. He's one of the best
prospects in boxing now. Probably a lot of people haven't
gotten a chance to see hi. Now, if they were
watching all those top rank undercards when they were all
streamed on ESPN Plus as part of their preliminaries, they
got a hefty dose of Albert Gonzalez. He's a very
good fighter in the he featherweight division. He is now,
excuse me, seventeen and ero with ten knockouts, only twenty
three years old out of Riverside, California. Just a guy
that seems like he's going to the top. I mean,
every time I've watched him, he's looked good. He's obviously
scored mostly in recent fights. Anyway, He's getting a lot
of knockouts. He's a good boxer. He's increasing his level
of opposition. You know here and there, you know, fighting
some okay guys and their braining along again very young.
At the end of the year in twenty twenty five,
when I did my prospect roundup like I do all
the time, I ranked them number seven. He's got a
chance to be maybe the prospect of the year with
a continued success this year, and he put the guy
out in like a minute and a half. I mean,
one thing about about his situation is when Top Rank
went from last July to just this the last few
days when they announced their Hisonne contract. We talked about
when we discussed that situation, a Top Rank had done
a pretty damn good job of keeping their young guys busy,
even some of their champions, by making deals with other
promoters and putting fighters in o their cards and buying
positions for their young fighters to fight on other cards.
So this is one of those situations where they had
him on this card with Probox. This was his actually
think about this now. From July until until now has
been about what seven eight months with no contract for
Top Break, but Albert Gonzalez this was his fourth fight
in that span of time, so they've done a tremendous
job of keeping the young men busy. They view him
as one of their top prospects. He's just another in
the pipeline of young fighters that top rank continues to
crank out by signing the right guys, by getting the reps,
by getting the right opponents, by having their outstanding matchmaking
courtesy of Brad Goodman, the Hall of Famer and his
his boss, another Hall of Famer, Bruce Trembler. And so
he's another guy to keep an eye and I suspect
that you know, he'll he'll spend the rest of this year,
you know, in those sort of learning, stepping up type
of mode, and then come next year, you know they'll
they'll they'll take the take the take the reins off,
I guess, and let him free and see what he
can do. But he's a very good prospect. It's good
to see him back in action on this card. And
it was an impressive performance against Brandon Schames got him
out of there, like I said, but I think it
was one minute, twenty seven seconds.
Speaker 1: Kudos to Chop Chop. One other recap go all the
way to.
Speaker 3: The UK, hold on before we get there.
Speaker 1: Oh we got something else too, And yes, and you
were telling me just before the show. There was an
update here on what was a scary situation on one
of the undercard female fights.
Speaker 2: Yes, so this was like way on the undercard. I
think it might have been the first fight of the show. Actually,
there was a junior bandonwait female boxing match. A woman
named Jocelyn Camarillo scored a first round knockout against a
woman named Isis Scio and it was a very very
very bad knockout. You don't usually see first round knockouts
that result in the fighter who's been knocked out being
taken out of the ring on the stretcher. That's what
happened to this young woman who I believe is only
nineteen years old. Yes, very very brutal knockout, and then
you know, the show goes on. You don't really hear
anything about it. So literally, like in the minutes before
we logged on to start taping our show today, I
got a press announcement for the folks at Probox who
put this card on, and I will read the statement
on behalf of CEO Gary Jonas and the entire Probox family.
We are praying for a speedy recovery for Isis SiO.
Miss s iiO is currently in a medically induced coma.
Our thoughts are with her and her family at this
very difficult time. Please join us in wishing for a
full recovery. So she's in the hospital. And when you
hear in medically induced coma, I have unfortunately covered these
types of stories many many times. That usually means that
you've had some type of bleeding on your brain. They
put you in the medically induced coma to help relieve
you know, usually their surgery involved, and they do it
to usually take a small part of your skull to
lift it to help the swelling. In other words, if
you have bleeding on the brain and your brain gets
a swell up, the skull is there. It's got to
have a place to go. And if you take a
small piece of the skull out, it gives a little
extra space for the swelling to happen, and then they
hope to reduce the swelling. That that's the general thing
about why fighters are put into medically induced coma. They
just hope that this young woman is okay. But that
was when you watch the knockout. I watched the UH.
I watched the UH and it was a very short fight.
So wasn't a lot to watch, but it was a rough,
rough ko you don't see, you know.
Speaker 1: It's a reminder of how scary and violent this sport
can be instantaneously, and so again awful. We'll we'll wait
for a further update on that, but there's the update
on Sunday.
Speaker 2: But the thing about also was the girl she was
fighting was five and are going into the fight, and
the young woman that's in the coma he was she
was one and three with now she's one and three
with two knockout losses. And I have to be honest,
when I was watching the fight, I'm like, you could
just tell literally from the opening bell that this is
just a blatant mismatch because I didn't, like, I'm looking
at at the woman, how she was moving, it was
like she didn't even know how to hold her hands
the right way as a professional boxer. So unfortunately it
seems like she may have paid the price. Hopefully she's okay.
Speaker 1: Though, okay, And so we come off of that and
actually we go over to the UK on Friday night
in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where Michael Conlin was in a
featherweight contender fight and was beaten again, this time by
an American not well known, Kevin Walsh. You're gonna educate
us more on him. He defeats Michael Conlin in Belfast,
and I mean, if it was not over before this,
I think it's probably gotta be over. Give me more
on what happened here with Kevin Walsh pulling the upset.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I didn't think he won the fight.
Kevin Wash, myself and a lot of people thought Michael
Colin deserved this victory. They called it a split decision,
so you know, which is surprising. Kevin Wash, you know
from Brockton, Massachusetts, the hometown of the legendary Rocky Marciano.
He got the split decision in Delfast, which is the
hometown of Michael Conlin. Michael Conlin is the two time
Irish Olympian, longtime top rank fighter, you know, fought for titles, hats,
ups and downs, famously in the Olympics, you know, giving
the finger to the members of the judging panel for
the outright robbery that they gave in that was later
found to be corrupt. In any event, He's had an
up and down career, but most recently he had won
a couple of fights in a row. This was following
the back to back losses to Luis Alberta Lopez at
one twenty six and then at one thirty to Jordan Gill,
two rough knockouts. But anyway, he was trying to make
another go at featherweight. Like I said, won the two
in a row. This was the third fight of the
supposed comeback. There was a lot of conversation that if
he had been successful, perhaps he'd be a summer opponent
for Shushu Carrington for the WBC title. This was a
WBC regional title fight, so I would have put the
winner in a good position to be in that to
be eligible for that type of fight. He loses a
split decision close. He won ninety seven ninety three on
one scorecard Kevin Walsh. They gave him ninety six to
ninety four on the other two. Now, like I said,
I thought that that Conlin was the winner of the fight.
Speaker 3: That said A.
Speaker 2: It was a shitty, shitty, shitty fucking fight to watch,
just a terrible fight, boring. You know, I'll never get
those forty minutes, but in my life, that's the first thing.
Speaker 1: Does Cole. I mean, let's just stop, right there. I mean,
this is not a championship level fighter he's fighting, So
does Conlin look done? Regardless of whether he got his
hand raised or not. The thing about watching the fight.
Speaker 2: After the fight was over, you know, you know he's
not an old fighter, but he's been around a long time,
both with the amateurs and pros. He's like thirty five
or thirty four. He announced his retirement, and you know,
I saw the video where that he was sitting on
a couch in his dressing room a lot of the
reporters around doing like his press conference. He was there
with his kids and I think his wife and you know,
other members of the team, and his perspective was and
I wrote a lot of the quotes in my story
about this. Basically he was like, look, you know, I've
been in this game a long time, and you know,
maybe the fight result was controversial whatever, but it's just
time for me to go. I want to walk away
with my health intact. You know, my family is good
and I'm done, and you know, I thought I got
the job done, but you know, if it's it's going
to be like that, then I really should walk away
because I got nothing else to prove.
Speaker 3: I had a good career.
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't reach my goal of winning a
world championship, but you know, such a life, so you know, look,
I had a blast covered a lot of Michael Commin fights,
interviewing him and knowing him over the years. For me,
I was in attendance at Madison Square Guards Theater for
his professional debut. It was one of the most electrifying
things ever last night that Connor McGregor came in my
face and tried being a boxing guy. So a lot
of good memories there.
Speaker 1: All right. So we'll see what Conlin ends up. You know,
if he stays retired, he could obviously be a commentator, promoters,
still be involved in the sport, trainer whatever, if he
still wants. We'll see what he ends up doing. And
a win for Kevin Walts there to go to Ireland
and get that victory. Okay, some news Big Dan, But
with Virgil Ortiz tied up legally right now with arbitration
in Oscar de la Joya and whether he's going to
get divorced or not from Golden Boy Promotions, it looks
like Jaron Innis is going to move on and the
name Xander Zaiaz, which had been out there before is
the unified junior middleway champ may be that next fight,
which is an intriguing fight. What do we know about
how realistic?
Speaker 2: This is real quick, It's very realistic. The two sides
are absolutely engaged in conversations. Todd above from Top Rank,
the president of Top Rank, said on Ario Hawani show
he was in New York for the press commerce wh
announced his own deal. He did Ariol's show. He spoke
about it specifically said they are talking about it.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Mattroom Boxing, which is the promoter for Bootsennas, has acknowledged
those negotiations when I asked them about it, So they
are talking.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: It would be targeted for June. I imagine if they
get it done, it would be probably the Puerto Rican
Parade Day weekend in Madison Square Guarden.
Speaker 3: Would be a huge event.
Speaker 2: And look that the reason why this is you can
write this down and pen in an ink for sure.
This is not a fight that Top Rank would be
on the top of its list to do. This is
this If it does happen, it's because Xander Zias is
pushing hard to get this fight. He wants to fight
a top opponent and we need more people like Xander Zias. Yes,
in this sport, he wants to test himself against the best.
And obviously, even though Botsennes is the interim title holder
and he is the unified champion, I don't think anybody
in their right mind would say that Jaron Boutsen is
not one of the very best UH junior middle eights
in the world. There's no question about that. And certainly
Xander's eyes in this fight in the defense in front
of a sort of a hometown crowd essentially, with the
Puerto Rican fans there, even though he's not from New York,
then he'll be the underdog. So if they get it done,
it'll be it'll be a big summer event. Obviously, it
will be one of the first events we see that
comes along as a byproduct of the top ranks moved
to the own. You know, a fight that is makeable,
I mean, any fight is makeable, but it's just it
becomes at least one less hassle when you're on the
same platform, I suppose. And so if this fight happens, uh,
you know, good for the fighters for making Obviously, if
Dron Boutennis is willing to fight version of Artis and
the other types of guys that he was talking about.
You know, Xander's I is a really good fighter also,
but I don't there's nothing that he would say, I'm
not going to fight that guy. Not only is it
a chance to to have a big event, but you
got a chance to win not only one belt, but
two belts because he is the unified champ. I mean
Zias again. To his credit, he won the belt, the
vacant WBO belt back in the final fight of the
top rank ESPN deal backen j in a pretty one
sided fight. But then in his first fight he said
I want to fight a real guy, and they fought
a boss Baru and a unification in Puerto Rico. That
was a fight where a lot of people thought brew
had a good chance to win the fight. And Zius
looked really sharp and look good in the fight, and
he won. And so now he's not wasting any time.
Let's bring on the next top.
Speaker 1: Gun and by the way, we win as the fans.
I want this kind of fight. My hand is up
and andis is a very talented fighter, and there's high stakes.
There's two world titles. We're going to talk a lot
later this week about Fondorra and Thurman and that's in
this same division. But yeah, on the heels of that fight,
let's get this fight and see what else is I'm.
Speaker 2: Not sure that it's in Xander Zius's mind, but it
is a part of it. If he goes and makes
the match within us, and he happens to lose the fight,
does that mean at age twenty three years old and
twenty three and one, with a loss of sudden of
his careers over him. That's the point. You can absolutely
come back and do big things from a loss.
Speaker 1: And by the way, we've lost our way presently. I'm
not saying you we've lost our way presently if we're
not going to have the young guys who are undefeated
be willing to fight each other until they're now twenty nine,
thirty or thirty one, so that everybody can stay undefeated
and not fight the best fighters just to have the
best fights.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. Here's the thing about this fight. You
can I mean, I'd have to go back and do
some research, but I can guarantee you the list is
not long. Then let's say in the last like five
or ten years, you're not going to find a lot
of world title fights between two guys that are in
their twenties who are both undefeated, and that's what this
would be because and.
Speaker 1: High level, championship level fight.
Speaker 3: That's my point. World test.
Speaker 2: So Zis is a unified team at age twenty three.
His opponent, if it is made, will be ns who
is twenty eight, also undefeated. They are a combined fifty
eight to zero. I mean that's that's pretty impressive. I mean,
let's get it on, baby.
Speaker 1: I like it. Speaking of de Zone, and we talked
a lot about the Top Ranked deal. Okay, reports are
out there that Golden Boy and Dezone have apparently agreed
and so now this is going to be the resumption
of their relationship with regular fights on the Zone. What
are you here, you're doing some reporting? Does it look
like they're going to be signed up along with Top Rank,
along with Mattroom, along with Queensbury under the same platform.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is likely what's going to happen. I don't
have a I have not been able to nail down. Yes,
this is a done deal, other than it is getting close,
perhaps it's already done. The Oscar de la Hoya from
Golden Boy has eluded on his social media that coming
Tuesday will be a big announcement. I'm assuming that is
what this is. Look all along, Golden Boy and the Zone,
despite all the issues and all the negativity related to
not being able to make the ortiz and in this
fight for different reasons, they always maintained that even though
the contract that expired on December thirty first, that they
were still discussions, deep discussions about trying to get something
worked out. You and I talked about some people I
feel like made the false I never did this, but
there was the false assumption that when Top Rank got
the deal done with his Zone somehow, that the Zone
was simply replacing the Golden Boy slot on their roster
with the Top Ranks fights. That was never the case
in my opinion, and it doesn't as seem as though
that is going to be what happens. They're just rolling
up all the big the big promoters and you know,
fight for fight, show for show. I feel like Golden
Boy has delivered quite a bit of value to the
Zone because their shows are entertaining.
Speaker 1: Mostly they have fought consistently. Yeah, that's the big thing.
They have been present and fought consistently regularly every thirty
forty five days. Yes, in a Golden Boy show or
pay per view.
Speaker 2: Yes, even with the contract expired, they were still doing business.
They were still trying to get this work. They get
a card one off in January. They just did the
recent show with Barbosa that was a second one off.
And so the fact that they're apparently able to get
this worked out and get it done. I don't know
what the terms are better or worse than previously, the
length of the agreement or whatever, but what in the
in the macro version of it, it means more Golden
Boy fights on to Zone now along with like you mentioned,
top Rank Queensberry, Frank Warren, and then you know, to
a smaller degree also you know the Salida promot, some
of the other They just did a deal with MF Pro,
which is the Sara Lens formerly Washerman Boxing. They put
on the Michael Collin card. They're the ones that are
putting on the upcoming event with the heavyweights between between
Derek Tassort and Deontay Wilder. So they're out there wrapping
a lot of folks up. So this will be just
another one of those deals.
Speaker 1: All right, A couple more because we've been here a minute.
Looks like Ryan Garcia is going to be back. We
already know that Devin Haney looks like he's fighting Roly Romero.
So if Garcia is fighting this summer, I'm saying this,
it's not likely. Devin Haty, what are you hearing about
when and who the opponent might be for Garcia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it definitely won't be a fight with Devin
Haney unless something goes sideways with the finalizing of the
deal with Roly Romero, because that would be a fight
that takes place in May. It would be highly unlikely
that you'd see them come back in July for the fight.
And the reason I say July is because I spoke
to Guadelupe Valencia, who is Ryan Garcia's manager and attorney.
And remember and he had the victory against Brios in
February he won the WBC title. Was a brilliant performance
on Ryan after a lot of problems over the last
couple of years. He did injure his right hand in
the fight, and there was a lot of question marks
about like, well, how bad is it is it gonna,
you know, keep him out of the of the ring
for a while as it turnout, it was as as Guadeloupe. Then,
Lensi has said to me that this was just a
couple of days ago. The hand is much better. It
was a sprain. Luckily he just had arrested and he'll
start a full camp at the beginning of May, and
the plan is to come back in mid July and
be the headliner of a Ring magazine card that they'll
do obviously with de z Own and Golden Boy I
guess involved as well. Who the opponent will be not determined,
but it certainly ain't gonna be Devin Haney. That's a
fight that will still be there. That's a fight that
makes a lot of sense at some point, given all
the controversy from the first fight. But if he's out
there doing the Roly Romero fight, there are plenty of
welterweights that they can find to fight Ryan Garcia, you know,
who's got a big name in a certain level of popularity.
I don't think expected they'll put him in with like
the number one contender, but they there's fights they can
make for him and just put on a nice cart
a nice event and build towards the you know, not
too long of a build, doesn't need that long of
a build, but towards the eventual rematch against against.
Speaker 1: Say, yeah, there'll be a lot of intrigue around that.
One other note, and this was announced right by match
Room that Ben Whittaker's back and we don't got to
wait long. It's only going to be a few weeks
from now, right that the light heavyweight in England is back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Ben Whitaker, the light heavyweight, top prospect,
the Olympic British Olympic silver medal winner from twenty twenty.
Spent his career so far with Boxer ended up when
that when their deal with Sky ended, his contract end
that he signed with Matchroom. He's had one fight with
them since he started with them. That was a pretty
uh you know, highlight reel first round knockout and a
lot of people are like, well, where is he know,
it's been a couple of months, why what's going on?
So he posted a video or he did a video
that Matchroom posted to their social where he was out
there doing some roadwork saying listen it just four weeks
out of April eighteenth, Liverpool, England.
Speaker 3: He's back in action.
Speaker 2: They'll fight on the undercard the main event that night
in Liverpool, which is Callum Smith's hometown, where Callum will
defend the WBO's interim light heavyweight title against David Morel
which is a really good fight, and Ben Whittaker will
appear on that card. No opponent yet, but honestly, it's
not so much about the opponents, about getting Ben Whittaker
back and back in action. And remember when they did
the fight at the end of last year in November,
when he scored that big knockout against Gavazi, they were
talking about, Okay, we got the first one out of
the way with our new deal with the Mattrium, and
twenty twenty six is the year to really shine, to
take a big step up, to put together some activity,
to fight three or four times and really make a
run towards the top of the rankings. So we'll see
what kind of opponent they get for him for April eighteenth,
and if he can continue to develop and to bring
some excitement and put some rear ends and seats and look,
he's a polarizing figure. A lot of people that tune
in for Ben Whittaker want to see him win. A
lot of people that tune in for Ben Whittaker wanted
to see you get his head knocked off. But you know,
whatever it is, as long as they're out there watching,
you can go a long way. He does have the talent.
There's no doubt. He's fast, he's got punching power. I've
said this numerous times when we've discussed his fights. I'd
like them to see him tone down the hot dog
aspect of it just a little bit. You can still
be entertaining, you can still put on a show, but
you don't have to be as wildly ridiculous as he
is sometimes. But the bottom line is he's a top prospect.
As I mentioned about Chop Chop Gonzales, Dan Witticker was
also among my top handful of prospects in boxing. A
really good athlete and he's a good boxer. He just
has to rain things in a little bit and get
the reps. I mean, he's not young, he is twenty
eight years old, but he's only got eleven pro fights
and he hasn't had the caliber of opposition that you
need to get into the bigger fights. So that's what
this year is supposed to be about. So hopefully he
gets a halfway decent opponent for April eighteenth, then we
see him in a good fight on this undercard.
Speaker 1: So we'd like to say, get some relish, get some
mustard on that hot dog, and let's see him actually
fight and do some things in the ring. Besides all
the hot dogging for Ben Whittaker, stay tuned with all
of that. I think we got a full show here
on the recap, sir. We look forward to everything that's
going to go on with Sebastian Fundora and Keith Thurman
fight week and a lot more for this week. Moses
Etama is back in England. The heavyweight read up on
Dan substack It is the fight Preach Unite a substack
and newsletter. Congrats to your duke, Blue Devils moving on
in the NCAA tournament. We got all the basketball mayhem
going on. Great time of the year, great month of
the year, Big Dan, have a good week. Love this
stuff with the recap, Thank you, sir.
Speaker 3: All right, TJ, have a good week.
Speaker 1: This off there goes Big Dan. Rayhaiel, I'm merely TJ
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