Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big
Fight Weekend. No, here is your host, DJ leaves. Well,
it has finally arrived. No, not just Christmas Orhanika or
festiv Us for the rest of us, but the heavyweight
title rematch. We can't call it the undisputed. Rayfield wants
me to say, lineal millennial heavyweight title rematch Alexander Usik
Tyson Fury about to happen. We're ready to preview that.
The entire card actually from Riad's season, some fight news,
some nostalgia, and much more. It is the Big Fight
Weekend preview. I am the somewhat capable host, TJ Reeves,
He's our insider. Hello, Dan Rayfield from his fight preaching
to night, substack and the newsletter. We're about to see
this again, and I think we are amped up on.
Is it gonna be any different this time? How we feeling,
first of all ready to get it all under way
here in a moment.
Speaker 2: I'm excited for the fight. Like I said, think, if
you're a diehard boxing fan, how could you not be
excited for not only the steaks at hand, with the
heavyweight championship, most of the belts, lineage rematch of a
great first fight.
Speaker 1: It's a big deal, a lot of history behind it,
and we saw these two guys in the summer, and hey,
we didn't have to wait a year, much less two
to get it right back in the ring. Money talks,
and they're going to make a bunch of it. By
the way, thank you for finding us. Speaking for Dan
and me, we'd like to make a little money off
the podcast. I'm just saying this holiday season, so rate
us and review us. Why don't you follow and subscribe
partake on Apples, Spreaker, Spotify help us out with that
if you enjoy the previews going into the weekend, the
recaps coming off the weekend. We still got to get
to fight of the year, knock out of the year,
fight term, maybe of the year, upset of the year.
We'll do that later on in the final few episodes
of this year. But we're almost done. We're almost done anyway,
follow and subscribe on the pod feed and you get
all kinds of content from us here, including interviews, etc.
So as we release this is Thursday night into Friday,
it is already middle of the night Saudi Arabia time.
So we're on to like the day before the fight,
as you're hearing this, and here we go with what
was an entertaining fight won by Alexander Usik the first
go around this summer, had Fury in serious trouble in
the ninth round of the fight, ends up winning the decision.
And now we're going to do part two. I always
like to ask you this whenever it's coming back around.
What do you foresee as different? What would make it different?
If Fury's gonna get his revenge? What are you angling for?
What are you looking for as we head to Saturday.
Speaker 2: Listen, these are older fighters. They've both been through big
time events. They've both been at the top against lots
of you know, a lot of big, big, big, high
profile type fights, and this fight is coming what seven
months They fought May eighteenth. In the first fight, it
was obviously, as you mentioned, it was a very close fighting,
split decision. Fury would have had a draw had he
not suffered the knock down in round nine, so they
were on even terms, even though you know, it seemed
pretty clear that he was sick, you know, finished pretty
strong in the fight. So what is going to be different?
I don't know if there's gonna be a lot different.
I just don't see one guy that's thirty six and
one guy that's thirty eight gonna do anything that's going
to be dramatically different. That's not to say they can't.
Maybe have you know, looked at the videos and with
their trainers and their teams, found a couple of things
to maybe refine or tweak or what have you. But
to think there's a wholestyale change coming for either guy,
it's not happening.
Speaker 1: Let me put one on a te and let you
hit it five hundred feet like Aaron Judge. You have
told the story on more than one occasion that you
were on scene ol on location for the rematch with
Deontay Wilder, which we'll talk a little more about in
the context of heavyweight title rematches, and Tyson Fury proclaimed
to all of you, he was proclaiming to anybody in
Vegas that would listen, like the hobos on the strip,
the show girls, anybody, that he was going to change
his approach and go right at Tyson or go right
at Deontay Wilder. And you have said to us, no,
you didn't believe him. A lot of people say he's
full of crap, he's telling us that, but he did
change so elaborate on that. Yeah, he did, And then
what do you think does he he wait here, does
it relate at all? Here?
Speaker 2: I don't know if it relates so much. I mean,
Deontay Wilder and alexand Ruster are such dramatically different fighters. Obviously,
if you're going to walk down and try to knock
out Deontay Wilder, you you can do it if you're
extremely careful about his right hand. The right hand was
one of the greatest one of the repens in boxing history,
but that was basically all that Deontay Wilder had. So
as long as Tyson Fury could confidently stay away from
the right hand, you know, or at least you know,
the the massive one. I mean, get hit with it, fine,
but you can't take even a one that's making, you know,
sixty percent without suffering some type of damage. He was
able to do that. Alexander Us is not that kind
of puncher, obviously, but he has so many more wrinkles
and so many more things he can do in his
game that you can't just look for one thing. So,
you know, do I think he's gonna just kind of
walk to usk and try to get him. He might,
but Usik is a good enough fighter in terms of
the way he moves to to not get involved with
that game. Now that all said, Tyson Fury, during the
course of the we lead up to this fight, has
said many times to those in the media, on the
on the podium, whatever you want to talk about, I'm
going and I'm knocking out now. He always says that.
But there might be something to that. You know, Usik
has typically not said virtually anything the entire promotion. He
didn't say much the last time around. You know, he
probably has said less over the course of his career
than certain fighters may have said in one big promotion.
Speaker 1: So especially especially Fury.
Speaker 2: Yes, so it's like, you don't, you don't really you know,
he's not a bad guy or anything like that, but
he just don't. You can't get anything from Usik almost ever,
whether it's this magnet to a fighter, even like go
to the smaller fights. I mean, I covered some of
his cruiserweight Championship fights over here in the United States.
And while a super nice guy and a quirky guy
and a funny guy, not one to talk much, you know,
even if you want to take into account that English
is not as fair as language. I don't know any
reporter that's not willing to talk to a fighter and
have somebody translate. And his English is good enough where
he understands what you're saying. He can speak to you
in some English also, it's you know, kind of that
triple G kind of like English where you can make
him out what he's saying. It's not maybe super in depth,
but it's good enough. And I always appreciate any fighter
that English is not their first language. It even makes
the attempt to speak to a media person in there
in English, so you know, he just doesn't give you anything.
Perry never, you know, rarely shuts the heck up. But
in this particular fight lead up, he's been pretty quiet.
He's he's It feels to me like Tyson Freer is
really super focused on this fight now, whether you believe
him or not. He has said that he hasn't spoken
to his wife or kids for three months. Seems a
bit excessive. I get your focus on the fight, but
I don't know if not talking to your wife or
multitude of children for three months is But that's his prerogative.
And he also was in a different situation because in
his entire career he's never entered a fight coming off
of a loss, correct, And so that is a big deal,
and not only a loss, but a loss where he
was at times physically manhandled by a smaller guy. So
the one thing and we'll find out at the weigh
in that people have brought up and has been a
topic of discussion, as Tyson Fury may and he suggested this,
we'll see if it plays out that similar to what
he did when he fought Deontay Wilder in the second fight,
he purposely added a little bit of bulk. He came
in about ten to twelve pounds thirteen pounds or so
heavier in their rematch than he did in the first fight.
He did the same thing when they fought the third time.
He fought it to weight that he fought at their rematch,
not to fight weight from the first fight. So he
may want to be a little heavier to maybe add
some power, a little better punch resistance because he was
so shaky there in the way going in the fight
the first time around. So that will know what we
see them at the weigh in. But to make it
a long story, shure, I just don't see there being
dramatic differences. These guys are gonna do what these guys do. Now.
Could Fury try to walk him down and get him
out maybe? Uh, you know, Alexander Usak, he's a master boxer,
but he also can stand and fight if necessary. And
by the way, just because Fury uh got you know,
the knockdown scored against him and USA got to win,
it doesn't mean that Usik didn't take some heavy shots.
I mean they were both pretty dinged up and you know,
pretty bruised up and uh, you know, definitely feeling the
pain in that fight. It's seven months later, we'll see.
To me, it's sort of like who recovered the best,
you know, who's uh, who's who's got a little more
spring in their step? And I just don't know. I
will say this, whatever happens in the fight on Saturday,
it is my belief that both of these guys as
as great a fighters as they have been. Uh, they're
on the back side. I mean they're they're in the
back nine. You know, they're they're coming to the clubhouse
pretty soon. This there. Their careers are not going on
for a long time after this, at least not at
the top level in my opinion.
Speaker 1: And again we'll handicap it more. First mention of the
bet US Boxing Show. I don't know what ray Feel's
going to take. He doesn't know what I'm going to take.
That's part of the entry. We're not going to reveal
it here of the show live one Eastern time on
the bet US platforms including YouTube on Friday afternoon. One
more about this. Obviously, Usik won a rematch with Anthony Joshua.
That fight was about a year later, correct in the
chronology from when the eleven months a year something like
that back in what twenty twenty two, right that they thought.
Speaker 2: Well, the first first, the first fight between him and
Joshua was in September of twenty one, September second the
second fight was August of twenty two, so it was eleven.
Speaker 1: Eleven months, eleven months in between. But he clearly was
able to handle the second goal around with Anthony Joshua.
But that's second adjustments.
Speaker 2: But one thing that one thing about the second fight
between Usik and Joshua. Yes, Usik was the clear winner
of both fights, but Anthony Joshua fought way way better
in the second fight and it turned out to be
a split decision. Now I don't know that. I thought. Look,
when he went into the second fight, Anthony hired Robert
Garcia to be his trainer, and then he fired him
after that fight, and I never understood why, because obviously
I'm not there in the camp. But it felt to
me like he did far superior in the rematch under
Robert's guidance than he did in the first fight, and
it felt like they could maybe build on something. But
you know, that's up to the fighter to make the decision.
But so he learned and did much better against Alexander
Usik in the rematch. Fury doesn't have to do that
much better to get a win. He's just got to
stay on his feet basically, and they win one more
round and he can win the fight. So this is
you know, the odds are close. I mean, Husik is
this slight favorite, but it's a you know, this is
one of those fights where whatever the odds say, well,
like I said, you will talk about on the US show.
But anybody that thinks this is a route or a
blow out one way or the other, you know, I
guess that could happen. But I think realistically, going into
the fight. You know who knows. I mean. And listen,
here's the other thing about it. DJ. You know, in boxing,
if Fury is the winner and it's one and one,
you got to figure they're going to go for a
Chelasy fight. You know, Turkey's gonna want to see that again,
the fans are gonna want to see, but most notably,
he'll probably be willing to pay for it. And that's
our thing about this. Once, once this is over, whether
it's two fights or three fights, I mean, just in
the time they fought each other, these guys will have
made nine figures. Forget about all the major mega paydays
they career.
Speaker 1: The reports that I've seen is they are both guaranteed
guaranteed over fifty million, and we'll each and we'll probably
make north of that, significantly north of that, depending on
the pay per view in the UK and Europe especially. Look,
and we understand we've talked about this before. Just one
quick aside. It is a massive, massive college football and
NFL day on Saturday, and this fight is in the
late afternoon US time, So that's gonna hurt it from
that standpoint anyway. In America, Right in America, they're not
Americans to begin with. So I get that for the
sports fan in this country that might tune in for
a heavyweight title fight had not the football may be
going on, They're probably not going to get some of that.
But that doesn't mean that in Europe, in Saudi Arabia,
in the UK, et cetera, that this isn't significance. And
for what we do, this is mass significance. This is
massive significance. Is the heavyweight championship of the world. These
are the guys.
Speaker 2: But I'm here. Here's the thing. In the United States.
Other than for people like you, me and the diehards,
this fight is not even on the map, right it is.
I mean, and I don't like to say this because
I mean I can't wait to watch the fight and
all that, but it's really almost irrelevant. It's not being
covered in mainstream press, right. It's not on Sports Center.
I did get, you know, I did. This was kind
of surprising. I was kind of happy. I did do
a radio interview on Wednesday night on Houston Sports Radio
where they wanted to talk about the fight.
Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 2: Well, no, But the thing is, when there's major fights,
I always get calls from different radio stations around the
country to do hits on whatever the big fight is.
So I was a little I was pleasantly surprised that
they cared enough about this particular fight to do that.
But that's the only one. Now when Wilder in Fury
we're fighting in Las Vegas. Of course in the second fight,
you know, or even in the first fight in La
I was getting tons of those types of calls. So
it just shows you that here in America it's not relevant.
And also here's another factor. The fight is only available
on his own pay per view. It's not on ESPN
plus pay per view like the previous fight, and which
is surprising because Fury is co promoted by Top Rank
and that's their platform. It is not available on the
fight app or you know now troller TV as a
pay per view. It is not available on you know,
in demand on your regular dot com and there pp
dot com is their digital arm. And then the you know,
regular television like on your linear TV where you just
go on your pay per view channel and can buy
the fight. So the amount of places that you can
buy it is phenomenally limited. Of people that have the
zonne or that know about the zone is minuscule. In
this country, So in America. In America, I'm not talking
about the world. In America, the fight almost nobody knows
or cares.
Speaker 1: So to your point, we are traveling. We are traveling
as the Tampa Bay Buccaneer travel Party Sauday afternoon to Dallas.
I have two colleagues in Dallas sports media that are
going to meet up with me and several other guys.
And I said to one of them, with the places
we're looking at, will one of these places maybe have
the heavyweight title fight? Reply, there's a heavyweight title fight
this weekend, exactly point. And I checked with the other
one this morning and said, just out of curiosity, are
you aware of a big boxing match this weekend? He
has answered no. So that just tells you. And these
are sports media. Here's here's the about it.
Speaker 2: The silver lining is this, if you do want to
watch the fight, Turkey and the folks that make the
price of this event, it's a very reasonably priced pay
per when you compare it to most of the other
pay per views we see. It's thirty nine to ninety nine,
which is a big difference than eighty or ninety. That's
the first thing. The second thing is for most of
the pay per view events that dizone carries, you have
to subscribe to the zone and then you have to
buy the pay per view. In this particular case, and
I can't speak for other countries, but I know in
the United States you don't have to subscribe to the
zone to buy the fight. You can go on the
di zone website the one off. Okay, well hold on,
It's not quite as easy as like a PPV dot com.
You got to put in your information and you get
a seven day free trial that you have to then
cancel if you choose to do that, or you can
get de zone and watch for a month. But here
you can buy it without having a subscription that you
pay for.
Speaker 1: And here's what I don't know in all of this.
If you're a dizone subscriber, are you getting a discounted
pay per view? Because we'll see to me, they didn't
ask me. They didn't ask us. That is an insult
to the people that have been paying you all year
long that you don't get at least a little disc count.
I'm not saying that you have to get the thing
for nine to ninety five, but if I've been paying
you all year. Shouldn't I get a little bit of
a discount off of this ten percent, twenty percent off
of this because I've been good to you. That is
a moronic business plan to keep customers. Because once I
find out that I can buy a pay per view
without having to subscribe to you what you're offering to
other people? Why why am I continuing to subscribe, especially
in the lean months months?
Speaker 2: But there's not fight describing is because you're junking. You
want to watch Regis Prograde against Jack? I get it.
Are you gonna watch Bam Rodriguez and a drawn in
his doubleheader and those types of fights? So I get
it from both sides. But anyway, I'm just pointing out that, Okay,
if you want to find the fight, you at least
can do it without having had too much trouble to
do so, and the.
Speaker 1: Fight fans know where to find it. You're pointing that out,
all right? So plenty more on the history of the
rematch in a few moments. But there is an undercard
I would We're not gonna lie. We tell the truth here.
This is not a spectacularundercard. This is certainly nowhere near
what February is going to be obviously, I think.
Speaker 2: It's fair to say TJ that of the nine or
ten or so read season events that have happened thus
far or that are in the planning stages, it's a
great main event. We can't deny that. And it's not
like it's a horrible undercard or anything like that, but
it is, you know, being honest, it's it's the weakest
of the undercards that they've had. There's not even another
world title fight on the card, where in other shows
they've had, like you know, the one and the one
that's coming up in February is gonna have what six
or seven world title fights racked. And that's unfortunately because
the co feature was supposed to be Bowatchuck against Madrimov,
who both were in great, you know, competitive fights in
one hundred and fifty four pound world title bouts in
their previous fights, whereas Bohachuk lost the very close interim
title fight against Virgil Ortiz in in August, tremendous bat battle,
you know, obviously a candidate for fight of the year,
and Madiamov lost his title in a close call, not
a great fight, but a very competitive and close fight
against Terrence Crawford also in August, and so I thought
it was terrific that they're going to take these two
guys who are similar styles and both excellent fighters and
coming off fighting top guys and losing and not being discarded,
and they mashed them together. Unfortunately, mage them off with
Droop in the fight, claiming that there was bronchitis that
was gonna keeping out for a bit, couldn't train, so
they they kept bow Chuck on the card. So that's
a good thing. But they matched him up with Ishmael Davis,
who took this fight on like what two and a
half three weeks. Notice, you know, he's not a guy
that's a well known fighter. He's thirteen to one with
six knockouts. He's a UK fighter coming off of a
loss to Josh Kelly. Not a lot. If you take
a look at the record to speak of, there's like
literally not a single fight on it. I'm looking at
his record right now as we're talking here. You know,
his big win quote unquote big win was he has
a decision win over Troy Williamson, who's another British fighter.
It's not like a terrible victory, but it's that's now
the co feature, and so you know, on a typical
Reann season card, if that was going to be on
the show, even as a late replacement, it'd be like
four or five six fights down the cart. Now the card,
the fight that on the undercard that does interest me
is the heavyweight fight between Moses E. Tama. Yeah, the
big British, undefeated southpaw who's only nineteen years old, who
is one of the best heavyweight prospects or prospects period
in boxing, big puncher ten and zero eight knockouts, coming
off a win against the older, faded but experienced a
former title challenger Marius Wak who we stopped in the
second round. That's more of a win. That's maybe in
the name only because Walk was pretty well passed his
best days back when they fought each other in July.
But his opponent for this fight, I think is definitely
a step up by far step up compared to the
types of opponents he's faced. He's fighting an Australian fighter
named Demsey McKeen, who's twenty two to one with fourteen knockouts,
who's a massive mountain of a man. If you will
a six foot six southpaw, you know, two hundred and
fifty ish pounds, just a big, strong guy and his
only loss was a pretty tough fight where he lost
and he got stopped in around twelve by Philip Perkovich,
who went on to you know, be in the interim
title fight and who was an undefeated guy, Olympian, et cetera.
And so this is a quantum step up, it seems
to me for Atama, because I'm not saying McKean is
like a superstar, top level contender, but he's no bump
based on what I have.
Speaker 1: Seen and in the recesses of my brain. Hasn't McKean
in the past been a sparring partner of Tyson Furies.
I think one point he was, so he's better known
in Australia. But this is interesting. This is an interesting
step up, and the heavyweights, the heavyweights were interested in.
They're trying to groom a Tama to take a step
or two and be relevant a year and a half,
two years from now, something like that. If that's case.
Anything else on the on the undercard here besides those two, well, one.
Speaker 2: Of the one of the fights that was on the
undercard was supposed to be the fight between the twenty
twenty is a junior featherweight. Junior junior featherweights between the
twenty twenty British Olympian Peter mcgrail, who was you know,
it was a hyped up prospect. He suffered an upset loss,
but he's come back and they were matching him up
with Dennis Can who was an undefeated fighter, the European
champion that weight class, and now that loom does like
a pretty interesting fight, I mean, especially for the Brits anyway.
But McCann came back with a positive VADA test, you know,
back several days ago, and I actually get Frank Warren
who made a comment that he didn't just test positive
for one substance, but it was multiple substances. They had
not identified what those substances were, but nonetheless he would
dropped from the fight, and so on short notice, they
brought in a replacement, a fighter named Rice Edwards who
was sixteen to zero with four knockouts, so they got
him still on the card against a still undefeated opponent,
but obviously not the level of opponent of a McCann,
not the stakes of a McCann fight, So that was
kind of a disappointment. But that at least McCann, at
least mcgrel still gets to stay on the show, so
that's a good thing. And they didn't find like just
a complete stiff form. They found like at least a
reputable opponent, right. And then the other fight that's on
the card that will definitely be of interest to some
people again heavyweight action, and it's the very popular and
exciting but very raw Johnny Fisher, a heavyweight who's got
a big time fan base, and they match him up
with the well traveled, let's be kind about it, the
lovable David Allen, who is probably at the end of
his career. He's probably gonna get knocked out in this fight,
but it'll probably be fun to watch while it gets
to that point. But David Allen is still probably a
step up for Johnny Fisher, who hasn't yet fought anybody
of consequence to fashion that lovely what twelve and oerd
record that he has, and we'll see, so that could
be like a fun kind of fight, you know in
recent times. Uh, he's you know, David Allen, He's he's
won two fights throw but against very low level like
opponents guys who are like one fighter he fought to
win was two wins and twenty five losses. The next
one was eight wins and fourteen losses. Prior to that,
he got stopped by Fraser Clark in the sixth round.
But he's fought some the guys when he stepped up.
He's lost to David Price, you know, guys like that,
Tony Yoka, he lost to Back a few years ago.
So it's a it's a but it's still it's still
a step up for for Johnny Fisher, who you know,
maybe he'll go somewhere, maybe he won't, but he's very
exciting and very cool, very good to watch.
Speaker 1: And just clarify again for the audience. The full what
we just laid out, the full five fights are on
the pay per view.
Speaker 2: No everything, everything is right, everything.
Speaker 1: So clarify when it begins us time and gets underway.
I believe I saw eleven am. Yeah, so they do
have breakfast breakfast with riad season again or brunch depends, so.
Speaker 2: It's at ten thirty am Eastern time. They have like
a thirty minute preview show and then from what I
am told, the name card or the fights rather will
begin at eleven am and they'll just roll out the
fights one at a time. Now, usually they show all
the fights on these read season cards, so I think
that will be the full show. So therefore you won't
expect to see the main event between Theory and Usik.
Probably tell no earlier than like five o'clock five thirty
Eastern times, something like that. And if you're on the
West coast, get the breakfast, get your coffee, get your.
Speaker 1: Get the breakfast, to do what you gotta do. And
they want the primetime British audience to be nine pm hour,
ten pm hour. They're five hours ahead of us. So
I'm with you, you're gonna you're gonna be a while.
Even if a couple of these in early, you're gonna
be a while before you get to Furick Fury and
Usik coming in the main event. All right, so before
we get to some news, this is interesting, our colleague
David Payne wrote for Big Fight Weekend dot com about
heavyweight title rematches. Notice the phrase that I'm using because
Rayfield's gone wit a minute, are we clarifying that it's
a heavyweight championship rematch. Yes, heavyweight championship rematch, And we
don't have to go down to a list. You don't
have to go down a list. He listed several, including
the bite night Holyfield Tyson rematch, including the aforementioned Fury
Wilder rematch, which you were at at ringside in Las Vegas.
He also went in the way back and mentioned Joe
Lewis Max Schmaling for the social reasons back in the
nineteen thirties and Lewis's resounding one round knockout.
Speaker 2: Now does that count though, because the first fight wasn't
a time a title fight?
Speaker 1: I get, well, yeah, the second fight was for a
title fight, but he counted it. So I'm just I'm
pointing that one out. So if I say to you,
give me a fa writ or two when I what
comes to mind immediately heavyweight title rematch? What immediately popped
into your head, like what we're about to have here
with Usik and Fury, the latest of the heavyweight title rematches,
Give me one or two.
Speaker 2: I mean, you got to think about in terms. I mean,
you have to think about Tyson Holyfield. But it was
the terrible fight because the only thing that was there
was it was it was a bad fight because nothing
really happened, and then Tyson bit off his ear and
it reining for everybody. So it was the most shocking.
It was the most famous or infamous, however you want
to describe it. But I don't know if I would
use that to say like that. I mean, it's most memorable,
I guess, but for all the wrong reasons in terms
of the actual fight. That was the reason that we
tune in for these things, I'd have to say in
terms of right off the top of my head, you know,
maybe because I watch it live when it happened and
it's of my era of being a boxing fan. Was
the rematch between a Vander Holyfield and Rigic Bow, which
also uh for a little extra bonus coverage included the
fan man and man.
Speaker 1: In the middle of the ring in like a ten
minute delay where holy Field where bo seemed to be winning,
and then holy Field after the delay, seemed to rally.
I just I'm can I just say this out loud?
I'm just wondering, now that you've said that, and we've
we've referenced Tyson and the ear bite, are we due
for something bizarre to happen just because every ten to
fifteen years something crazy like this happens. Are we do
I don't know, I just it just struck me if
something bizarre gonna happen in Usick Fury that I'm not
saying a fan on a paraglider coming landing in the ring, Well,
that can't happen because the fights, the fights indoors. Good
point on that, by the way.
Speaker 2: I'm also I mean it was it turned out not
to be a great fight. It was a great performance
you mentioned about, and I mean because I was there
covering it was the Tyson Fury Deontay Wildering MAT's where
he did walk him down and knock him out after
a draw. That was whoever you thought won the first
fight a very close competitive fight and certainly Theory got
knocked down twice in that particular fight. Uh, and that
was a memorable, memorable fight, you know, given Deontay his
first defeat and Fury winning, you know, he was the
lineal chamion, but he won the WBC title, so got
the belt back that he uh, you know, he didn't
have the belts at that period of time. I mean,
heavyweights have definitely made themselves through history to have you
know a bunch of different rematches. You know, there's again,
you know, Ali had his rematches the second fight with Fraser.
Wasn't a title fight? Good fight, Kenny Norton, you know,
three different times, you know, one of those things where
the heavyweights seemed to be the more memorable ones. I
guess if you will.
Speaker 1: We covered the Lenox Lewis, which I still maintain, and peeps,
you can you can weigh in. I don't know of
another situation. Yeah, we're at a heavyweight any title. Give
me a title fight that ended in a one punch
KO rockmand Ko ing Lewis, and then a year later
neither guy fights another fight in between and it ends
with the challenger getting his title back Lennox Lewis on
a one punch KO. A one punch KO that begot
a one punch.
Speaker 2: So again, that was not a great fight. I was
at the second Rockman Lewis covering that, and that was
obviously a massive fight at the time. Uh well, I said,
suffered that huge upset, came back and just you know,
got rid of Rockman with like you said, one massive
right hand and that was all she wrote. Again, not
a not a particularly memorable fight, but certainly a memorable knockout.
So when I talked about the memorable fight, I don't
count Bow I mean Holyfield and Tyson because of the
crazy shit that happened with the with the biting. But
in terms of just the combat and the competitiveness, Fury
against Wilder two was not competitive in that sense. We
just mentioned about what happened in terms of Tyson and Holyfield. Uh,
but but that fight, you know between Bow and Holyfield,
the rematch super super Rockman and Lewis. The rematch was
a great knockout, but not particularly competitive. So for me,
it's got to be the rematch with the holy Field
and Bow and then you're throw in the man for
a middle bonus action.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great stuff. All right, let's see what we're doing
for on this. We gave it plenty of time. Let's
get to some news and then we've got some nostalgia
to wrap it here for this weekend. All right, you've
been busy. They've not announced it yet, but you've got
deats on Keishawn Davis challenging for the WBO Lightweight Championship.
Give me more on when this is what's what's going on?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this fight has made this is going to happen.
It's not a surprise. We saw Keishan look spectacular in
his most recent fight in his Norfolk, Virginia homecoming, getting
rid of Gustavo Lamos very impressively. As he had said
prior to I think it was actually on the interview
that I did with him that was on our zoom.
I mean that I did with him on a zoom
that we played on our podcast, where he had said
that he and Denny's Barentchik had actually direct message each
other on I don't know if whatever platform they're on
social media without fighting each other. At some point he
was you know, Keishan is very highly ranked in the
various organizations, and now he's going to challenge Barentcheck for
the WBO lightweight title. That will take place on February fourteenth.
It will be the main event at the Madison Square
Garden Theater in New York City, and that's going to
be his big opportunity for Barentchik, it'll be his first
title defense. He won the title this past summer. He
had a good performance in a split decision against Emmanuel Nevverette,
who remember had went up from one hundred and thirty
to one hundred and thirty five the challenge for the title.
When he lost, He then made the decision to return
to one thirty where he still was the champion or
had his belt and defend that. But Brentchik will make
make the defense in this particular fight, and it's a
tough fight I think for both guys. I mean, Brentchick
is a very skillful fighter for you know, a former
you always are, the Olympian metalist that he got from Ukraine.
And Keishaan has looked tremendous in his last you know,
three or four fights pretty much since he's said that
he stopped smoking weed, you know during the training camps
and all the build up to a fight.
Speaker 1: He told you that, right, he told you that leading
up to that on the pod.
Speaker 2: He's really I think turned the corner in terms of
the way he acts, in terms of his professional approach
to his fights. He's obviously got the talent. That's not
to be you can't deny that. But anyway, that's that's
the fight. This is what Keishaan has wanted. He's been
pressing Top Rank for a while to move him quickly.
When when Navarette and Brentchick fought. Top Rank is not
like the promoter of record for Brentchick, but they do
have they did have the option on either his next
fighter's next two fights based on making the Navarette fight. Anyway,
so that fight will headline. That's a very interesting matchup.
And then the rest of the card, you're looking at
the popular Puerto Rican young fighter, undefeated rising contender Xander Zayas.
He will fight and this is actually a step buff
from Also again he's Xander's twenty to zero with twelve knockouts.
He's going to fight a much older fighter, a fighter
who is a decade older than as Xanders twenty two.
He's going to fight a fighter named Slawas Boehmer who's
thirty two from Germany, who's twenty to no with eleven knockouts.
But he's a talented guys boomer. If you ever watch him,
he can fight. So that that to me is a
step up for Xander. That's the co feature. It's going
to actually be from what I am told will be
a three fight main card. The opening of the three
fights will be Vito mil Nicki, who's from gonna have
fans there also because he comes from not too far
away in northern New Jersey. But anyway, he is moving
from junior middleweight up to middleweight. For this fight, he'll
take on the undefeated Irishman Connor Coyle, who is twenty
one to zher. And obviously, if Xander Zayis continues to
win and nol Nicky continues to win, it's pretty clear
the top rank has every intention at some point, maybe
at near the end of next year or you know,
in the summer whenever, but anyway to do a fight
once Xander anyway gets to middleweight, to do a fight
between nol Nicky and Zais. But they got to continue
to win their fights. And then what's also interesting I
reported about this. You know, they'll fill out the card
with other fights, but among the fighters whoill appear on
the preliminars, one of my favorite prospects in boxing is
a young fighter from the Dominican Republic, is a twenty
twenty olympian named Rojan Polanco. These books sensational in his
recent fights, he is fourteen to zero and then the
other one, and I'm sure this will help sell some tickets. Also,
if you remember Jan Male Lopez, a former featherweight and
your lightweight, World Junior featherweight and featherweight world champion, Puerto
Rican Olympian backup Mental. A month or two ago, Top
Ranks signed his son one they call him one Mita
and he was a twenty twenty four Puerto Rican Olympian.
He's a junior bandon. Wait, but anyway, they signed him
and he'll make his professional debut on this undercard. So
there's gonna be a lot of that's a lot of
interesting stuff between Xander and a step up fight obviously
the main event. Noil Nicki in a real fight, Polanco,
this young kid Wan meet the Lopez, plus whatever else
they put on there, a little bit for everybody. So
that's on February fourteenth, Happy Valentine's Day, Team.
Speaker 1: Jgo Valentine's Day Weekend. There's also news on ji Opataiah,
who is going back to Australia and defending his lineal
and IBF cruiseweight championship. We got an opponent switch because
of an injury. This is coming right after the new year.
Tell me more about what we know.
Speaker 2: Sure, So this is on January the eighth. It'll be
at the Zone stream. It's taking place in broad Beach, Australia,
which is like his home region, Obataia. You know he's
been fighting primarily ever since he when he won the
title against Myris Bradist in their first fight. He's taken
it on the road. He's been in the UK and
he's fought in Riyad. He's been a big part of
the riad season events. But this was the opportunity after
his most recent victory. They were going to bring him
home and he was going to take on his mandatory challenger,
a fighter named Hussein Sinkara. But Sinkara suffered a ligament
damage in his ankle. This is probably about, you know,
a week ago or so, so he withdrew from the fight.
So with a fight coming on Changar the eighth, they
needed to find a new opponent, and they had a
list of pretty good, credible guys. But what they decided
to go with was a young fighter, not young, but
young in his career in terms of his professional experience.
A twenty nine year old fighter same age as Opataia,
A fighter named David Nayika who was known in that
part of the world. He is from New Zealand. He
lives in Australia, but he was a twenty twenty Olympic
bronze medalist and he and Opatai have sparred a million
rounds together, and now they're going to fight each other
for real because they got him to take the match,
and that actually shapes up as a really interesting fight
because Nika has got a lot of people that think
he's going places. It may be a little too soon
for him against a fighter like Opatia that's like really
in his you know, getting into what I think is
like his best days right now, and you know, really
in his prime and fighting well and you know, really
a tough guy for anybody to handle in that weight class.
But Nika is showing, uh that he's here to be
a real fighter. It's not like he's getting any younger
at twenty nine. It's not like he's twenty two when
they're throwing him in at twenty nine with the kind
of amateur background, he said, it seems like it's a
step up, but it doesn't seem like a completely unreasonable
step up. You don't have to have twenty or thirty
fights these days to fight for a world championship. So
anyway they're doing that fight, but for Australia, for New Zealand.
As Opati said, they had like a little press conference
the other day. The Polynesian community is like a big
freaking deal for that for that area of the world
to have this matchup, right.
Speaker 1: And again that'll be January the eighth. We've got time
to preview that here coming in and around the new
year for Opataia's title defense.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Also news on Jack Catterall and he and Arnold Barbose
look like they're going to get together. What's what's the
update on this as well?
Speaker 2: Well, this was a fight that was ordered back, you know,
a couple a few weeks ago for a WBO finally
eliminator for a Caterall to fight Barboza that would put
him in a position to be the mandatory for Tiafimo Lopez,
who was not only the WBO champion but also the
lineal champion. And if you remember when Barbosa fought on
the card also in Saudi Arabia, the Latino night that
was against Jose Ramirez, it was originally supposed to be
a twelve round eliminator, and he pushed back and was like, look,
I've already been paying fees for various fights, they haven't
given me the title shot, So we refused to do
it for an eliminator or for a twelve rounder, he
went out there and he won the fight, and then
afterwards in his interview he apologized. He said, look, I
hope the WBO will still give me the title shot,
and they did. But what they did do is they
formally said you can fight this guy in a final eliminator,
and I think that's good enough for him and his team.
So what they're going to do is do the fight.
So by all accounts, and I think Caterall posted this
on a social like he's already agreed to the terms
or maybe even signed something saying that he'll do the fight.
Golden Boy, which is the Barbosa promoter, there trying to
tidy things up. So because of that, both of the
camps Natroom Boxing and Golden Boy went to the to
the WBO. They asked for a delay in the purse
bid to tidy up the rest of the deal. They
gave them until, you know, another extra week or so
to do to do the negotiation. And it's again I've
said this many times, it's not Usually it's not, but
sometimes it is. But it's not always when they delay
a purse bid because there's an issue between the two promoters.
This is it can also be the issue between one
promoter and their boxer. And I'm not saying that Golden
Boy and Barbosa have an issue, but they just haven't
gotten their stuff done yet. So the Caterall team is
sitting waiting. Barbosa and Goldenboy are trying to tidy things
up and if it gets done like it's supposed to
get done, the fight will take place on February fifteenth.
It'll be on his own. It will take place in Manchester, England,
which is Caterall's backyard. He comes from a town, you know,
fifteen twenty minutes away from there, so it's going to
be his region and the winner will be in the
position to challenge Tia Fimo for the title or wherever
holds the title.
Speaker 1: And that's going to be that same weekend at the
Kishon Fight in the US on top rank. So we
got to we'll have an interesting weekend there for Valentine's weekend.
Speaker 2: Sure ll be on the Friday night Caterall that.
Speaker 1: Comes off, all right. Also, Angelo Leo, there's news about him.
Remember when last we saw him the booming knockout of
Luis Alberto Lopez to become the IBF featherweight champion. What
is the update and uh and whom is the fight
against for Leo's title defense.
Speaker 2: Well, like you said, he had that massive knock out
against Louis Suberto Lopez in the tenth round that took
place in August. He he lives in Vegas, Leo, but
he fought the fight in his hometown of Albuquerque. First time.
They have like a big fight there in several years.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And then when that was over, they were thinking, maybe
we'll do another fight in Albuquerque. Top rank is not
his promoter officially, but they have options on his next
two fights, and so they were talking things over. But
as it turned out, the IBF ordered the mandatory. The
mandatory is against Tomochi Camaito, who was a popular fighter
from Osaka, Japan, comes from the fighting Camada family. His
two brothers have also won world titles to Mochi himself
has been a world title holder in the past. But
that mandatory is ordered, and so instead of doing another
Albuquerque fight, they're gonna do the mandatory. And they were
offered to go to Osaka to do the fight. So
Angel Leo is gonna, you know, have gloves, will travel.
He told his hometown paper in albuquerqueh that the the
in the Albuquerque Journal that he said the fight was
supposed to be on March twenty second in Osaka. I
talked the Top Rank and they said, while they have
a deal in plays, even though it's not like signed yet,
the date was still somewhat up in the air. But
you got to figure it'll be in the you know,
in the first part of next year. But the point
is Angela Leo, after a resounding knockout of the ear
caliber kind of knockout against Lopez to win the title,
is going to get on that big bird plane and
fly to Japan and defend this title.
Speaker 1: And presumably get a nice payday to be able to
go do your shirt as well. That's the whole idea
behind that, all right, So keep us posted on when
they make that IBF Featherweight title fight, and then we
finish up with the recently concluded WBC convention. Are they
still there? Wait a minute, No, they're not. They were
in Hamburg, Germany, I think for most of December. I'm joking.
I did see Mauricio Suleiman standing between Tyson Fury and
Alexander Usik while they were squaring off on the podium
in Saudi Arabias. That indicates to me the convention is
finally over. Give me some.
Speaker 2: Not not that Maurcio sends me his itineraries, but I'm
pretty sure that Mrcio when the convention wrapped up, I'd
be a little surprised if he flew from Hamburg, Germany,
back to Mexico to turn around a couple of days
later and fly to Riann, Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: Sogically not on the itinerary, I agree with it.
Speaker 2: Presumably he either stayed in Germany or went elsewhere in
Europe and then made his way to Saudi Arabia for
the festivities for Fury versus Usik. But the WBC, first
of all, all the boxing conventions are interesting for different reasons.
Because one of the things in terms of if you're
a fan, and they gives you sort of the blueprint
for where they're going in their organization with their various titles.
But the WBC does a little more specific. I think
they throw the biggest convention. It's certainly got the most
star power in terms of the former champions and current
top fighters and dignitaries that show up. They're involved, you know,
they do. They have affiliations in well over one hundred
countries around the world. They have representatives that come from
all over the world to attend their conventions. They usually
put on a fight card associated with that event, which
they did also in Hamburg during that fight during that
convention week. But the thing that always I'm interested in
is when they do the mandatories and they set up
the eliminators, and you know, again it can change because
some fighters may opt to go in a different direction.
This is what they set out, what their agenda is,
but it's always very interesting. So they go through and
they do basically division by division, you know, and so
I guess some of the highlights, you know, looking at
it is for those who follow such things, so people
know like badud Jack, for example, he had been the
WC cruiserweight champion. He requested to be put in recess
quote unquote because he wanted to try to fight for
a bridgerweight title, which would give him, if he were
to win it, world titles on three weight classes. Because
he had been a cruiserweight champion and been a light
heavyweight champion, and that was looking to do a fight
and get another maybe a superman a weight where he
was where he won a title, regardless, he was looking
to do a bridge away title off the top head
escapes me what his divisions were. Nonetheless, the fight didn't happen,
and so at the convention he said he's coming back
to cruiserweight, and they reinstated him as their champion. Because
the guy that became the champion in his absence, Noel Mcallian,
is now on ice and you locked up in a
lawsuit with Don King. Anyway, a lot of different things
happen there, but the bottom line is Jack is back,
so to speak, and he's been ordered to make his
mandatory defense. And again they go down and they made
official confirmation, however you want to describe it, where they
basically made it one hundred percent that the winner of
the David Morrell David Bennavidias fight that takes place coming
up on February first, which is a fantastic fight just
on its own, but that winner, at least in the
WBC organization, will be the mandatory, not only will be
the interim champion of the WBC, will be officially the
mandatory because as I have said many times that a
lot of people kind of forget or don't realize that
just because you may have an interim title within that
organization does not make you the mandatory until they tell
you are the mandatory. So now they have said, in
writing an official resolution that the winner of that fight
is the mandatory. In the light heavyweight division, they made
the point that Canelo is in a voluntary period, which
was not a surprise, so he can pretty much at
least in terms of the WBC title. They can choose
who he wants within their ratings, you know, and they
also have some other champions that already set for fight,
so they didn't have to you know, that was not
a big thing. Like you already know Carlos Damas is
going to be fighting Hamza Shiraz, for example, to fend
the middleway title. They and they anyway, they continue to
go down the list. They made the point that Mario Barrios,
you know, he is in an optional period after his draw,
which is interesting because he's in conversations for possibly fighting
Connor Ben, which would be an optional defense, and so
on and so forth. They went on down the list.
The thing that was interesting besides all that, this was
one of the things I found very interesting. Besides just
ordering the mandatories. They go through and I'll talk about
who the eliminators are in the dandamweight division. We know
that Jesse Vam Rodriguez is the champion. He's coming off
that very impressive third round knockout against Pedro Givar that
took place in November on the Boutsennes Karen Chergazzi undercard,
So he's now in a position where he can have,
you know, do what he needs to do in terms
of having an optional fight. But while that's happening, they
also or you know, ordained or blessed or sanctioned however
you want to describe it, the eliminator fight that would
theoretically produce the mandatory. Now the fighters have to agree
to the fight. Again, I said, this is what the
WBC wants to happen, but it's a very interesting fight
if it does come off. They've ordered Andrew Maloney to
fight Roman Chocolatito Gonzalez in the eliminator, and the fight
that a lot of people have talked about would be
Choco Latito Gonzalez against Dam Rodriguez, So that theoretically is
one step closer to possibly happening. If you go away.
Speaker 1: A lot of people think I don't pay attention to you.
I pay attention to you. You are against Choco Latito
fighting Bam, just from the standpoint that you are concerned
that you know, Look, these fighters understand and there's risk
whenever there's involved. But he's an aged warrior and it
could be big trouble against a young, listen, brutalizing fighter
like Bam if that's what they're angling towards, and who
knows if that's what's ultimately going to happen the Chocolatito.
Speaker 2: I mean, both fighters have said they want it, I mean,
and mister Honda will not standing away with it, then
it can happen. I suppose the Roman Gonzalez of you know,
four or five years ago, in his best I'm not
gonna sit here and tell you he beats Jesse Rodriguez,
but it's a legit fight, fit to fight because you're
talking about, you know, one of the all time greats
against a guy that at least on the trajectory of
being an all time great in terms of those weight classes.
But Roman, who I love dearly as a human being
and as a fighter. You know, he's seen better days now.
He looked good in the fight. He had over the summer,
but it does concern me. I don't I don't want
to see him take the beat down just to give
Bam the big name on his Di reccord. But I
can't listen. Roman's a fighter, you know, you get paid
really well for the fight. It's not like he can't
handle himself. And if he wants to do the fight,
I mean, I'm not understand as And the other thing
that came out of the convention besides just the mandatories,
I mean, I think we mentioned this in a previous episode.
They did reelect Mauricio Suliman to a new four year
term to be president. This will be his third term
as president. They also made the announcement that Katie Taylor,
who has been the undisputed women's champion in the junior
welterweight division, she has finally vacated her lightweight title and
so they upgraded Carolyn Dubois, the outstanding British fighter, to
the full champion. I love it.
Speaker 1: And that is the sister of Daniel Dubois.
Speaker 2: That is correct, and she has a defense coming up
on one of the boxer cards in the next month
or so. This I love by the way they made
and the WBC has people that work beyond the scenes
to help boxers within their championships and their ratings and everything,
to set up financial plans for their careers to take
care of themselves when they're retired, because so many fighters,
unfortunately they make their money when they're fighting, or they
don't make that money to begin with them. When they're done,
they've got nothing left. So I thought this was a
great thing. They made an announcement and they we'll work
through the particulars in twenty twenty five and get everything
set up. But in twenty twenty six they have said
that no boxer will be eligible to fight for a
WBC title and they do not have a retirement savings
plan set up, and I guess the WBC will will
take a look at that.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: I think that's a that's a big thing, because that's
that's an important factor. So many of these fighters they
make big money or even small money, and when they're done,
they don't have nothing to they don't have a pot
to piss and so I think that's a great thing
that the WC is.
Speaker 1: I thought of this right when you're saying it that
it's one thing to have that noble idea, but you
also have to follow through with it's a retirement savings
plan that nobody else can steal from because they steal
from you every other way with getting to your money.
So for the fighter that you, we got to impress
upon you, the fighter, you are the only one that
has access to this. This is your retirement, your money.
Don't let your agent, don't let your bud your name.
You know you're that guy growing up. Don't let this
and that, because it's the same way they're always going
to take your money if you let them have access
to it.
Speaker 2: But it's in a retirement plan, which and I don't
know what their definition is, but if you have a
retirement plan, usually you can't touch it until you reach
a certain age. It accruise money and it will gain
interest in things like that, but you can't really, we
can't really take it out.
Speaker 1: Until Financial Advisor. For more on WEALTHYMA.
Speaker 2: They also they named Turkey Alchik the WBC Man of
the Year for his impact on boxing over the past
year and a half or so, which is I can't
even really argue with that. And then this is another
really cool thing that they announce that they're doing and
they're doing it. The WC in conjunction with Turkey is
they're creating something called the Boxing Grand Prix, which is
going to be a series of tournaments in four different
weight classes or prospects. But they're very specific. No more
than ten professional fights when you start the tournament, can't
be older when the tournament starts older than twenty six
one hundred and twenty eight boxers spread over four weight
classes featherweight, junior, welterweight, middleweight, and heavyweight that will take
place over the course of the year. The semi finals
and quarterfinals are eight round fights. Championship of the the
finals of these of these four different tournaments will be
ten rounds. So it's a way to sort of, you know,
kick start some prospects, you know, make uh, you know,
get some attention to some of the younger fighters that
you know, they don't necessarily to be like you know,
the kind of showbox is kind of kind of events
where you get a chance to maybe see the next generation,
but get.
Speaker 1: Soa incentivize them to be active and fight better fights.
So I agree, I agree that we win. We win
as fight fans to see some of them a little
active participating in a tournament that has a carrit financially
hanging out there for them.
Speaker 2: I know that the organizations they take their arrows from
a lot of us and the fans of the media.
WBC is no different. They've taken their their stuff. We've
been critical about franchise champions and all kinds of things
we can think of. But if you're honest, and if
you can't just spend your time ripping them for the
things you don't agree with, they do a lot of
good things. When you create a brand prix of boxing
like this, it's a good thing for the sport. When
you do a situation where you're trying to help the
financial future of the fighters by you know, having them
set up retirement plan, that's a good thing. They still
are the only organization that has any legitimate UH drug
testing beyond just whatever commission stands you know that says
you have to do now. It can be a lot better.
It's not often enough, it's not well funded like it
should be, but they at least make the effort and
they've actually caught some people. So it's a work in progress.
I'm only making the point that we can bitch and
moan about the interim champions and the franchise chaments and
all the bullshit that we see in fights that we
may not like or some quirky things and rankings and
all that. But you also got to give the props.
And when the BC puts on the convention, they do
a tremendous job and they come up with these types
of things that we're talking about, and I think it's
a it's a good thing for the sport overall. And
I don't think enough people they understand what the organizations do.
And it's also not just what I mentioned. They spend
copious hours h you know, dealing with the medical things
and and uh and organizational things to talk about medical
issues about you know, I know we see a lot
of issues, but they do take refereeing and judging seriously
where they do workshops and have you know, dis questions
about it and lectures and things like that, and those
are all helpful in the long run.
Speaker 1: One other request, and we have fun with all of this,
but some of this is semi serious too. If you
go back and watch the very end of the decision
announcement of Usik winning the undisputed heavyweight title, which again
catch me up that was the first time we had
had a four belt undisputed heavyweight champ ever, I'm correct, yes,
and the first time we had had an undisputed champ
since Lenox Lewis Wright win.
Speaker 2: This was the first This is the first undisputed heavyweight
champion since Lennox Lewis defeated e Vander Holyfield in the
rematch in nineteen ninety nine, okay, twenty five years.
Speaker 1: So we read the decision and Alexander Usik, so emotionally
after all that he's been through with war torn Ukraine
or whatever, is trying to celebrate and our man, Mauricio
Suliman is trying to tackle him in the seconds, within
three seconds of the verdict being announced, w to put
a WBC T shirt on him about being the WBC
World Champion, like we're doing some kind of internet getting promotion.
All I all I am saying is let the moment
breathe for like ten or fifteen seconds at least, and
then come over him and put the put the WBC
Green belt or a T shirt.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what though, if the trade off is
that Mauricio gets excited and wants to put the WBC
T shirt on the champ and because of that, we
also get fighters at have retirement plans.
Speaker 1: I'm okay with it, all right, Yeah, I'm with you
on that, and you can still socialize whether even though
he's a Dallas Cowboy fan. And by the way, by.
Speaker 2: The way, we're both miserable this season.
Speaker 1: I understand what. I am headed to Big d with
the Buccaneers against Mauricio Suleman's Dallas Cowboys this weekend. That's
where I'm going to be for this weekend, all right, nostalgia.
Speaker 2: And then just before we get to the nostalgia, this
year's end of the season in football is only about
one thing as a New York Football Giant fan, which
is get the number one pick. But I'm goin another
game the rest of the season.
Speaker 1: You guys tank, tank, all about it.
Speaker 2: Here's a sad thing. By the way, TJ. I don't
think we're tanking. I think we just stink unintentionally.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get there, all right, nostalgia time. It was
twenty seven years ago on Thursday, as we released this
Thursday Night into Friday, December nineteenth, nineteen ninety seven. And
I remember this because I was intrigued to see about
Prince Nasim Hahmed and that fight with Kevin Kelly on
HBO main event WBO Featherweight Title at the Garden. I
have seen that fight probably in Parder and Hole ten times,
and I even rewatched it earlier today because it was
out there on social media. Tremendous for a lot of reasons,
So big Dan pick it up from here. That was
twenty seven years ago, but it was tremendous, tremendous drama
because Hamed is down at the hands of Kevin Kelly
in this fight.
Speaker 2: This is such a great fight. It is so criminally
forgotten about by some people, so underrated by some It's
literally and I'm going to give the props to my
dear friend Larry Merchant, who always had the knack for
summing things up in the moment. He didn't need to
like like those of us, like our columnists or her
right where you think about it for a little while.
He's literally doing this on the spot in the ring,
you know, within a bin or two after the fight
or so he called this fight the Hagler hearns a
featherweight fighting, and that's exactly what this was. This and
the like you mentioned about the drama, and it was
not just about the pure violence and craziness of the
actual fight, it's everything that led up to it. Here
you have Prince Nasima, met massive star in England. He's
selling out arenas before they announced his opponent. Now, in
terms of the American audience, he'd been on Showtime a
couple of times, maybe three times. He'd been on ABC
on Wide World of Sports when they used to do
the afternoon shows. They bring in the fight from the
uk SO and he was getting a bit of a reputation.
But now HBO, which was obviously at that point here
in the late nineties, you know, they're the eight hundred
pound gorilla. They sign him to a massive contract and
they bring him to New York City to do his
American debut to defend the WBO featherweight title. They get
a New York featherweight, a former champion, still a good fighter,
Kevin Kelly Brash, talk your air off, you know, talk shit,
and you know every note come Ed's ability to talk
and promote to fight, and they just made magic in
the promotion and then in the ring. They liked each
other too, which is part of it. And they got
in there and they did battle, and before that could
even happen, though, it was all about the Prince not
seeing ringwalk. Now, everybody who knew anything about his ringwalks.
CD's outlandish, over the top productions of him coming in
with the music and the dancing and then he jumps,
you know, does the flip over the rope to come
into the actual ring. This ringwalk. I swear to god
he could look on the HBO broadcast on YouTube. It
had a last twelve minutes.
Speaker 1: He took awa. He took a week to get to
the ring. I believe.
Speaker 2: Again to quote Larry Merchant, I believe he said at
one point jokingly, I think this is the end of
civilization as we know it. And George Foreman, who was
still the commentator for HBO along with Larry Merchant and
Jim Lampley, you know, it just was tickled to death
with what he was saying. You thought this was like
the greatest show on earth. And so after all the hooplah,
You're coming to the other guy's hometown. They put up
bill boards like at the Lincoln Tunnel and all through
midtown Manhattan. Huge event, big coverage in the in the
note in the newspapers, and in the local press and
not to mention international in terms of sports and boxing.
Finally he gets his ass in the ring. Finally the
fight's gonna start ding ding, and within I don't know
a minute of the opening round of the fight. I
forget exactly when it happens.
Speaker 1: About a minute left in the first round.
Speaker 2: Yes, all I know is Kelly knocks him on his ass. Yes,
and you did all that talking and you're gonna get
knocked out in the first round. If you look at
you could pause the the video and take a look
at the faces of the people in those front rows.
The HBO executives. Frank Warren was his promoter at the time.
I mean, they're they're like, oh my god, this is
going to be a disaster. But Ahmed gets off the
deck and then he okay. So they score a total
of six knockdowns in four rounds. Both of the guys
were down three times a piece. The Prince is down
in the first round, the Prince is down in the
second round, Kevin is down in the second round. They're
down in the fourth round. But Kelly's down twice in
the fourth round, which is when the fight is over
and ended. An absolute shootout. He retains the title. There
was a lot of talk in the immediate aftermath of
a rematch which never actually took place. Kelly wanted it,
Ahmed said he would do it. I'm sure that HBO
would have been happy to televise it. It did not
come to pass because I frankly don't think that men
wanted to do that again. He was a tremendous puncher,
one of the great punchers in boxing history of cound
for pounds, certainly among featherweights, you know, up there with
Sandy Sadler and some of the other great punchers in
the featherweight division. But his problem was his defense was
not great. His balance was terrible, and so even though
Kelly didn't hit him like with massive, massive shots, he
was so off balance that he hit the deck.
Speaker 1: When you go back and watch two a couple of times,
two of the knockdowns he got caught and was off
balanced or not and put the glove down. And when
he put the glove down, that's a knockdown, and it
was correctly called a knockdown. That fourth round sequence where
he hit Kelly with a right hand that knocked him down,
and Kelly is clearly hurt he's up and he's wobbling,
and then Kelly's firing bombs back and he hit Jamed
and HMED's glove touches the ground and now we're counting
on Jhmed and Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant and George
Foreman are going crazy and then lo and behold is
As Kelly tries to move in to capitalize on the knockdown, bang,
he gets hit again with a hard left and that
was it because he tried to get up, he was
on a knee, tried to get up, he was wobbly.
It's done, and George Foreman very famously is yelling, the
Prince is for real, this guy is for real.
Speaker 2: With that the power, the power that the Prince had
was ridiculous. Now, the thing about this fight card was
if because the mean event was so spectacular, so spectacular,
like it's one of the I have to think about it,
but it's arguably one of the top two or three
four fights of the nineties. You know, off the top
of my head, you're talking about Buster douglasson Mike Tyson,
chobb Is, a Melder, Taylor, Ahmed and Kelly, Like those
are three fights that jump to mind in terms of
you were picking like the fight of the nineties. I
know the Ring Magazine, for example, I think picked Chobbs
and Meldric as the fight of the nineties, but this
was in that upper echelon for that whole decade. In
any event, the co feature on this card was another
tremendous fight that if it wasn't taking place on the
same night that Kelly and Ahmed went to war, I
think this fight would be maybe more talked about, maybe
more remembered. It was a junior featherweight world title fight
WBO Junior Featherweight title and another tremendous matchup. You had
the gold the Olympic medalist Kennedy McKinney taken on, then
the title holder Junior Jones.
Speaker 1: Say it the right way, Kennedy McKenny on poison Jones.
Speaker 2: Yes, anyway, but Jones who was a tremendous puncher and
McKenny was a good puncher. Jones is coming off his
back to back victories against Marco and Tonio Brera. And
remember Kennedy and McKinney had lost the all time classic
to Barrera. But now these guys are going at each
other and they put on a well of a fight,
tremendous McKinney's down in round three, Joneses down in round four,
and ended up being that Kenny and McKinney stop Junior
in the fourth round to win the title in what
was an upset. Now, both of these guys at one
time were considered like future opponents for Ahmed. He never
ended up fighting either one of them for different reasons.
But unto itself, this was a great co feature. That
was such a great night at the garden. I'm working
at the Presence on Bulletin as a sportswriter in Bingham
to New York, and that was one of those Saturday
nights where I'm working, you know, a night shift like
we typically did, taking high school scores and college scores
and all that. And I definitely made a point not
to find out the result of this fight. Had the
thing taping on the old VCR, and when I finally
got home from my ship being over in the newspaper office,
I lived about, you know, maybe a mile or so
if that from the office, I've somehow got away with
not knowing the result. Came into my apartment, immediately rewound
the tape and just watched it live without knowing the result.
Like a fucking two o'clock in the morning. There you go,
absolutely loving life because this was such a great fucking show.
Speaker 1: This is early days of the internet. Most people don't
have a cell phone at this point, so it's easier
to stay away when it really was that time.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was not like why I mean, people
had it, but it wasn't like.
Speaker 1: Yes, near, not near what it would become even a
couple of years later ninety nine, two thousand so. And
I still remember that's Hamed showing up right at the
at the news conference when Wes Cindy Klawford were Cindy Crawford.
He's going around because she was the hot model at
that time in the mid to late nineteen nineties. God,
and that is again YouTube that up the doubleheader. I
gotta go watch Memphis, Tennessee's Kennedy McKinney. I told you
the story before when they came and did the parade
in Memphis after he won the gold medal in Soul
in nineteen eighty eight. Young TJ was part of the
parade route that was coming by because it was coming
by my neighborhood where he was.
Speaker 2: This is such a great part. I just can't impress
upon you enough.
Speaker 1: If you never saw that, right, go check that out
from nineteen ninety seven, That was December nineteenth, nineteen ninety seven.
So move forward to the next year, same day, same day,
to December nineteenth of nineteen ninety eight, and that's Floyd
Mayweather with a wipeout knockout, also on HBO, and then
also a heavyweight co feature that you will also want
to pay tribute to. So tell me about the doubleheader
a year later, on the same day, on December nineteenth
of nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2: This is pretty boy, Floyd. This is not money Mayweather.
This is Floyd still has a young champion, still a
rising star, hasn't made the big money yet, hasn't been
the pound for pound king just yet. He has won
the WBC's one hundred and thirty pound title in October
of nineteen ninety eight. That was his eighth round stoppage
of Gennaro Hernandez, who retired after taking a beating on
the stool. The brother Rudy Hernandez, stopped the fight and
Floyd wins the title. This is Gennaro's final fight. Had
never lost in that weight class. Before only previous loss
had been to Oscar Delaway in the lightweight division. So
now Floyd is the champ and there's an opening on HBO.
I forget exactly the particulars, but the bottom line was
they were like, do you want to fight again before
the end of the year, and Floyd was like yeah,
and they brought him back, you know, less, like a
little over two months later, like nine weeks later.
Speaker 1: You know what that tells me on face value? Floyd
wasn't making that much in the title fights.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was making a couple He was making a
couple hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sixty days later, do you want another couple hundred grand? Yeah,
one of the couple hundred.
Speaker 2: But it was a great opportunity because Angel man Freddy,
who was a top contender who had had a series
of uh notable fights on HBO. This was a good,
uh consider a good test. Everybody thought man Freddy was
one of the top, you know, a couple of contenders
in the weight class. He talked a big game and
they made the match. And this was this took place
in uh what was the the Mikasuki Indian gamings at
the tribal casino in the outskirts of Miami. Yeah, in Florida,
and they I think it was like an a tent.
I don't even think they had like an actual uh
Per arena. Anyway, this was the main event that I
and Floyd Mayweather was in the match where a lot
of people thought Man Freddy might have a chance to
do some damage. He was considered a pretty good luncher,
but Floyd basically walked through him. This wee when Floyd,
you know, he went to distance with a lot of guys,
but at one hundred and thirty pounds. He also stopped
the share fighters also, and he put it on angel Manfreddi,
who complained about the stoppage. He was getting absolutely freaking
tattooed where he got stopped in the second round. So
that was for Floyd. Closed out a year where he
fought six times, seven times. He fought a bunch of
like you know fights in January, February, March, April he
fought four in a row. Then he stepped up a
couple months later in his first real quote unquote real
fight against a guy named Tony Pepp. Then got the
title fight against Gennaro and then fought angel Man Freddy,
so he closed out a year from where he went
from fighting just like regular fights, you know, an eight
rounder to now being in a championship fight and then
defending the title. This was a huge year for the
early part of Floyd's career. The man Freddie fig theory
was absolutely tremendous. And then he went on and had
a obviously a much longer rain in one hundred and
thirty pounds wake class, but the man Freddi win was
a big one. Now, the undercard from this fight was,
at the time, you're talking about two of the very
top heavyweight contenders in this sport. This is a big
time fight. This was an IBF heavyweight title the elimination fight,
so the winner is gonna get a championship fight. This
was the first fight between David Tua and Hassim Rockman,
and I find great irony in the fact that even
though David Tua stops Rockman in the tenth round, somewhat controversial,
a lot of people thought that Rockman could have gone on. Nonetheless, too,
it was a massive punch or against the knockout. They
ended up fighting many years later on another high stakes fight.
It turned out to be a draw, but the end
of the day, it was Rockman with a knockout loss
and a if he draw against Tua, who was the
guy that went on and became the heavyweight champion of
the world with the one punch knock that we talked
about against Lennox Lewis. But it was David Tua, who
had a series a bunch of top wins against all
kinds of top heavyweight contenders, who only got one ever
opportunity to fight for the title in his career. It
was against the prime Lennox Lewis, the first heavyweight title
fight that I ever covered in person at ringside, and
he got schooled by Lennox Lewis on that night in
two thousand and that was the only time he ever
ever fought for the title. But in this particular he
got the opportunity with a just a tremendous battle against
Rockman David Tua. You know, and I've said it before
on the show, I'm going to say it again for me,
at least of the last maybe thirty or forty years,
probably the best heavyweight that never got a world title.
Like if you went through all the top heavyweight contenders
of guys who didn't win belts or pieces of the
belt or the actual title whatever. He was the best
guy that never won a piece of the heavyweight title.
And there's a lot a lot of guys in my
opinion who are way worse than he was that ended
up getting pieces of the title. Matter of fact, he
knocked out a bunch of guys that went on to
win titles. Rockman, he knocked out Olagnaskea. He knocked out
John Ruiz in nineteen seconds. I mean, he had a
tremendous resume for a heavyweight contender at that time. But
this think about TJ. This would be pay per view
probably today, But back then this was HBO's norm a
heavyweight fight of significance between Rockman and Tua in the
co feature for the heavyweight eliminator, and then the rising
star Floyd Mayweather and his first defense at Win thirty
against the legit number one contender who had a big
following and a big name in angel Man Freddy. And
they put on a tremendous battle on both of those
fights in terms of just the excitement and the anticipation
for both matchups.
Speaker 1: Love it good, nostalgia and are we about to see
some memorable nostalgia for the lineal unified heavyweight title as
Alexander Usik and Tyson Fury square off again in Saudi
Arabia Saturday afternoon US time, Primetime in the UK middle
of the night. In read, why don't we reconvene you
and me on the bet Us Boxing Show one Eastern
Time on Friday and we shall handicap again, I say,
sincerely to the audience. I don't know as we put
the pod to bed what you're picking, and you don't
know what I'm picking. And we'll try to kind of
keep it quiet until right before showtime on what we're picking.
We got to tell each other what we're picking. When
we tell the bet Us people, it's impossible to stay
away from we don't do the beginning of the pre
show meeting with a blindfold on an airplace, Xam, we
got to know. But I don't know what you think,
and you hear and you don't know what I think.
And I can for one Eastern time.
Speaker 2: I let the folks know how that works is you
send me the up to date numbers and I give
you my picks us like an hour or two before
the show. That's right, I don't so you know my
picks at that.
Speaker 1: Moment because I want to tell them, right, I have
to feel that to bet us, right.
Speaker 2: So then the bet Us people are are producers that
do such a great job. They put together the graphic
and then they'll send out the message. So it's maybe
like I don't know half an hour twenty minutes before
the show where I actually see the graphic, So I
don't know.
Speaker 1: You frequently say what an idiot reeves is again when
you see that thirty minutes before the show. So yes,
so right now you don't know. But but on Friday,
one Eastern time, be with us because we'll be talking
more about this and the historical impact, et cetera. I
will pose this not only for the bet Us show,
but for the recapped pod that we're going to do
after this is over. If Usik wins, is it possible?
If not likely, he's done because what else is there
to do? We will ponder that he's got to win first.
Speaker 2: And if wins, do they fight a third fight?
Speaker 1: Well? Yeah, that's true too. All right, nice stuff here
on the preview pod. Let's reconvene, shall we one Eastern
time on the US Boxing Show And then a recap
pod on this podcast feed off the weekend Good that
was Good. There is Dan Rayfield. I'm merely TJ Reeves follow.
Subscribe to this feed, Apple, Spreaker, Spotify, rate us, and
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