Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big
Fight Weekend. Now here is your host, TJ. Leaves.
Speaker 2: Yes, Indeed, we get ready for a weekend that has
multiple main event fight cards in England, in California, in fact,
a couple of them in England, including one on Sunday.
Speaker 1: We're ready to preview that.
Speaker 2: We have some news to go over, some more heavyweight
nostalgia to go over. It is the Big Fight Weekend
Preview podcast. Welcome back in as we head into the
Easter holiday weekend. Good to be with Dan Rayfield. I'm
merely TJ.
Speaker 1: Reeves.
Speaker 2: Good to be back with you, although you and I
have already done this earlier in the week with a
special edition of the pod, The Fight Freaks Unite, a
special edition of the pod with Al Bernstein and Barry Tomkins,
and I got to say right off the top before
we get into the preview mode and the news accept
I have gotten some positive feedback, as we knew there
would be, from people that just thoroughly enjoyed hearing from
those guys. Or if you go on the YouTube page,
go on the Big Fight Weekend YouTube page, you can
see Al Bernstein and Barry Tompkins with us full length interview.
Speaker 3: And subscribe to the channel.
Speaker 1: Yes, subscribe to the YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: And Dan, I know you've gotten some positive feedback as well,
and rightfully so with those two Hall of Fame broadcasters.
And what an event to have been part of forty
years ago. Hagler hearns just one more time. We had
a thrill doing that. Yeah, if you've been under a
rock or in a cave and you're a fight fan
and you don't know that the fortieth anniversary was earlier
this week on April the fifteenth, on Tuesday, go back
and listen or go watch on the YouTube page.
Speaker 3: That was awes fun.
Speaker 4: I mean they were happy to do it. I mean,
I like you and I I don't think Ted, Barry
Tompkins and Albernstein get tired of talking about that. It's
not an albatross. It's a joy to be a part
of that kind of great historical event. You and I
were not part of the event. We were kids watching
it like everybody else. But they were their ringside in
the had the front seat as the best seat in
the house, as they say. So it was great to
talk to them. And you know, I've been friendly with
Barry and Al for you know, my whole career pretty much,
and they bring a I've found what interesting about it
was they brought different perspectives to the fight even though
they didn't work on the same broadcast. But they are
sitting probably a few feet away from each other, and
they've worked together through the years on ESPN and Showtime
and know each other for a decade. So it was
cool to talk to them about one of the great
fights in the history of boxhoe.
Speaker 2: So one other follow up is I had never I
went back and watched you and I joked and we
left that podcast, We're gonna go back and watch, all right.
So I went back and watched both calls of the fight,
Alan al Al Michaels and Al Bernstein and then Barry Tompkins,
Sugar Ray Leonard and Larry Merchant. I had never until
Wednesday of this week gone and found it.
Speaker 1: But it's there on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Go find the IFL TV broadcast with Reg Gut.
Speaker 3: Not IFL ITV or.
Speaker 1: ITV ITV ITV.
Speaker 3: With Reg Gridge.
Speaker 1: That's the YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: Okay, ITV does it even exist anymore? In the British
In the British television.
Speaker 4: ITV is a terrestrial station. It's like ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC.
Here in America. They used to show boxing matches all
the time.
Speaker 2: Okay for years and years zero, So obviously they showed
that fight in the middle of the night, I believe.
And they also prey what I've seen on YouTube is
like a package presentation that later has a preview on it.
It has the post fight interviews, it has a recap.
So I had never heard the Reg Gutridge call with
Donald the Cobra Curry. Although Gutridge talks like ninety eight
percent of the time, I don't think Donald Curry said
four sentences in the three rounds of the British call
of the fight, and Gutridge, just the same way as
Al Michaels and Barry Tompkins on the call, is just
losing his mind after a minute of the opening round,
as you would expect. So it was neat to go
back and sample that forty years later because I had
never seen that and never heard that on ITV.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the correction on that.
Speaker 2: And one other funny thing is they show the montage
of the celebrities Big Dan and one of the first
celebrities they show is Joan Rivers in the front row
of the Hagler Herns fight. And now after al Bernstein
told us that the late comedian and Joan Rivers has
now passed away too. But the late comedian Gary Shandling
was the opening act for Joan in the main comedy room.
Speaker 1: At Caesar's Palace. So Joan is sitting there.
Speaker 2: Joan had a longer amount of time because she was
going on second and it was Shandling, as al Bernstein told.
Speaker 1: Us, needed a quick fight because he was the opening act.
Speaker 2: So I cracked up when they showed that montage on
the ITV broadcast of her sitting there. They showed Muhammad
Ali being there in the stands but in the front
two or three rows of the celebrities.
Speaker 1: I laughed at all of that.
Speaker 2: So the reminiscing and to go back on all of
that is part of what we do here.
Speaker 1: We love that.
Speaker 2: We'll have some George Foreman Evander Holyfield nostalgia a little
bit later on the program. Thank you for finding us.
Make sure you rate us and review us. People, if
I mean, where are you at on the reviews? If
you enjoyed, if you enjoyed what you heard earlier this week,
give us a five star review and say so. We
had several people comment, by the way, on the YouTube
video how much they loved it. Do the same thing
with a five star review on Applespreaker, Spotify. That helps
us out on the podcast outlets. And by the way,
we should say upfront, due to scheduling for bet us
TV and their personnel being off for the Easter weekend,
there is no bet us TV Friday show that we
normally do, the live handicapping show, so this will have
to suffice Big Dan.
Speaker 1: This is the preview for the weekend.
Speaker 2: The same fights that we would have talked about on
that show, we're talking about it here on the program.
Shall we get underway and let's start with the Matchroom
desown Cards Saturday afternoon US time, Sheffield, England with Junior
Well to wait star at least in England. In Great Britain,
Dalton Smith, he is back in action with I have
to confess, I don't know Matthew Germaine.
Speaker 3: There's no reason why you would, Okay.
Speaker 2: So what about this main event? Is Germaine just there
as a as a guy As Dalton Smith tries to
move up towards maybe a title shot at.
Speaker 4: Do we think Matthew Germaine is there to give him
rounds to maybe test them, but not supposed to win.
Dalton Smith is already the mandatory challenger for the WBC
world title. He is going to fight Alberto Playo later
this year as long as both guys continue to win
and there's no injuries in that sort of thing, So
he is risking his position as the mandatory. He was officially,
you know, ordained the mandatory when the WBC had their
convention in Germany back in December, but he's not going
to sit around and wait. The mandatory was not one
thing I think a lot of folks who maybe listened
to the show, are you know, fans of boxing, don't
ever take time to read the rules and understand the
way the mandatory things work is just because you become
the mandatory does not mean that the fights due the
next minute. There's time frames in which mandatories are due.
So while Dalton Smith is the mandatory challenger, Playo is
not under any obligation to fight him like tomorrow, the
fight will be sometime later in the year. He had
the opportunity to to make a defense that happened not
that long ago, where he defeated by his split decision
sand Or Martin in his first defense. But again, Dalton
Smith is an excellent up and coming fighter. He's a
little older at twenty eight, but professionally has seventeen fights.
Had some injuries that kept him on the shelf a
little bit over the last couple of years, so he
needs the rounds.
Speaker 3: He needs to just stay sharp. That's what this fight is.
Speaker 4: He's going to probably fight Playo later in the year,
and so Matthew Jermaine is there to be a guy
to stand up, give him some competition, potentially give him
some rounds. But Jermaine is also I saw the photos,
Dalton Smith looks much much bigger than him. He's much younger.
Dalton Smith is twenty eight years old. Matthew Germaine is
thirty five, a Canadian fighter with two losses, both by knockout.
Although he's on a pretty good winning streak. He hasn't
had a loss ince twenty twenty. He got stopped in
round seven by a solid fighter and eight heves Ulesses Junior.
But again, this is the opportunity to just take care
of business, to keep the chains moving and preserve the
mandatory status. He's gonna fight for the world title. He's
doing this fight in Sheffield. It is his hometown, Dalton
Smith is a very popular figure there and that's what
this is all about, all right.
Speaker 2: So again that will be the main event coming here
of this show. And then Josh Warrington is in the
co feature in a junior lightweight fight. Help me here
because I have a lot of things going on in
my life, teenage twin daughters. As we mentioned the Easter weekend,
I've just gotten done doing college basketball. Wasn't Josh Warrington
supposedly retiring or retired? Yes, sir, and is this the
latest eight hundred and ninety third example that fighters never retire?
Speaker 1: And here we go again. He's back.
Speaker 4: He's back, I mean, listen. He he suffered a close
but legit loss when he lost his title at featherweight
to Luis Alberta Lopez in his hometown of Leeds, England.
This is December of twenty twenty two, certainly a reasonable loss.
In his next fight, he was winning pretty candily against
Lee Wood. That was in October of twenty twenty three,
and Leewood ended up knocking him out in the seventh round.
So we put in a good performance but ultimately was
stopped at the end. The one that made a lot
of people question whether he should continue was in his
next fight, which was in September of last year, that
is when he moved up to one hundred and thirty pounds.
He fought Anthony Cassace, who at the time was the
IBF champion, but it was not an official world title
fight because the IBF win to prove it, so it
was for Kasachi's much lesser, fringier ibo belt whatever. But
in that particular fight, Kassachi basically clean Warrington's clock. I mean,
he won a pretty clear decision, like you know, nine
to three type scores. I think one of the judges
had a ten rounds to two. And so when the fight,
and he looked terrible in the fight, and when so
it was his third loss in a row. And so
when the fight was over, Warrington took off his gloves
and he did the old lay them down in the
in the in the ring, which is emblematic if I'm retired.
And then he said so after the fight, and now
not that long after the fight, and by the way,
you know, I can I can appreciate this because I
don't think any fighter, I don't care what the situation is,
you shouldn't be making that decision standing in the ring,
you know, a minute or two after you've lost a
tough fight. So he, you know, at the press conference
this week, you know, he was talking about how, look,
I made an impulsive decision. I went back in the gym.
I went back and I watched the fight, and I
still feel like I have the desire and the ability
to still give it another go. So he wants to
come back. He's taking this fight to see what he's got.
He's fighting in a fighter, no, not a great fighter,
not a top notch guy Asad Khan in a ten
round fight. Guy's got nineteen wins, six losses, in a draw.
He's coming off an eight round decision lost Michael Conlin,
who also was a guy that people thought Mike should
be calling it a day. So look, Warriton's gonna try
to give it another go. He's fighting at one thirty
now and we'll see. So, yes, it was a rass decision.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: The ultimately the retirement ended up lasting about five minutes.
I'm not mad at it. It is what it is.
Speaker 2: I just looked since February of twenty twenty one. The
man's record is one four and one with a couple
of knockout losses and God, as you mentioned, utterly dominated
the last time that he was out.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Warrington.
Speaker 4: Well he's only got he's only got the one then
one knockout loss and that well we'll go back to
twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: He got stopped by Laara.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: But again I.
Speaker 4: Explained, Lopez was legit close. Even though he lost lee Wood,
he was winning easily and they got caught knocked out.
Speaker 3: Happens.
Speaker 4: Kasach didn't get stopped, didn't didn't fight very well, and
so I didn't expect him to retire after the Cassachi
fight anyway. So in no way, shape or form, am
I surprised that he's going to try to give it
another go. Now, if you lose to this one, then
then you really have to assess because least we lose
to Lopez would and Casace, you're losing the pretty good guys.
I mean, Kasati was a huge upset, but even still,
Kasachi has shown himself to be pretty good. Post we
all knew Leewood was a good fighter. Lopez had a
really good Tyler Rain. So you know he's he's coming back.
I mean it is uh, it is the normal thing
in boxing.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: I don't like nobody's ever retired. That's the normal thing
in boxing, right, Yeah, nobody ever is. All right, So
let's move forward in the preview mode and talk the
Golden Boy to his own show Oceanside, California. That's where
Gabriella Fundora, the undisputed women's flyweight champ, will defend against
Marilyn Badillo. I'd love to say that we know a
lot about Marilynd Badillo, but this is the opponent. But
the one thing about Gabriella Fundora, she's been fairly active.
I know you're very high on her. You named her
your female Fighter of the Year.
Speaker 3: That wasn't the only one.
Speaker 2: And so now she is back and this is this
is what the second time in relative short order that
we're going to see her staying active.
Speaker 1: Go ahead.
Speaker 4: Yeah, She's the younger sister of Sebastian Whi. It's a
great story. I mean, family members being champions at the
same time is not normal. It doesn't happen. It's happened.
I mean, the Charlotte brothers held titles not only at
the same time, but actually in the same weight class
when they were both still in the junior middleweight division,
but it is highly unusual to have. Now you have
Sebastian Vandora as a unified champion at one hundred and
fifty four pounds, you have his younger sister. She's the
undisputed women's champion in the flyweight division, so that's a
pretty amazing accomplishment for the family. She's making her third
overall defense, her first defense of having all four belts,
because he did that in her last fight. She's undefeated.
She's only twenty two years old. She's one of the
youngest champions. She's the youngest. I think she's the youngest
champion in boxing male or female at the moment, because
the youngest champion in men's boxing is Brian Norman in
the welterweight division. He's twenty four years old. So she's
just a baby in the game. But obviously from my
boxing family. And as you mentioned, she's fighting Marilyn Bidio,
who is her IBF mandatory challenger. Bidillo is nineteen zh
to one from Mexico. I looked at her record and
I gotta be honest, I don't know a lot about her.
I don't recognize a lot of the record, but she
has won ten fights in a row, that is since
she had a six round split draw back in twenty nineteen.
So she's been active, and she has been on a
great winning streak, and so she's getting her opportunity. But
the difference between Fondora, in my opinion, compared to many
of the other women, even if their top contenders, is
that she's one of the few women that has legit power,
Like she stops girls, she knocks them down, she busts
them up. I mean, she's got like a wiry like
I'm not trying to be overly dramatic, but her build
as a female flyweight and her lankiness, it's hearn's ish
for a female in the small weight class. She obviously
is not that kind of puncher, but she is a
big hitter relative to her weight class. And that's one
of the reasons why not only is she really good
in terms of being a champion, but she's very good
in terms of her entertainment value. But she's headlining this
car to.
Speaker 2: Your point, in her last four fights, going back to
what October of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: I'm looking on the list here.
Speaker 2: Three of those four are knockout wins, including the most
recent defense last November against Gabrielle Alliance where she knocked
her out stopped her in the seventh round.
Speaker 3: That was to become the disputed channel.
Speaker 2: It's uncommon that women's fighters get a lot of knockouts.
Speaker 1: Some of them get some knockouts.
Speaker 2: But three wins in four we'll we'll take that and
we'll see if the power punching continues for Gabriella Flendora
in this defense coming up on Saturday Night. Anything else
on that or shall we move to the core co feature?
Speaker 4: Well, I was just gonna yeah, we can mention on
the co feature. I mean, that's the return of Charles Conwell.
We've talked in the past about the let's call it
the sneaky depth, how good the one hundred and fifty
four pound weight classes, right, and a lot of times
you talk about one to fifty four and you talk
about the champion, you talk about Flendora, you know, you
talk about guys who are on the verge of that,
like whether it's Tim Zoo coming back and getting the win,
or it's Keith Thurman still around, you know, and there's
other fighters in that weight class that also sort of
peaked the interest of others. But one thing that doesn't
get mentioned a lot of times is Charles Conwell. Charles
Conwell has just sort of been below the the what's like,
he's been a kind of like a lower profile. He's
just waiting for the opportunity. He's undefeated, he was United
States Olympian, but he doesn't have it. He's not gotten
the sort of attention of like even like Bakram Martezelia,
who's the IBM champion because he gets a sensational knockout
against Tim Zoo. And then you have other guys like
Virgil Ortiz who gets a lot of attention, who's got
one of the intern belts, you know, even the young
yo Nstas who won an interim title in his most
recent fight. But Conwall sort of gets sort of like
the forgotten guy. But trust me when I tell you
he's a very talented fighter. Just a matter of time
until he gets his opportunity. I'd like to see him
step up and fight a little bit better of a
caliber opponent. I'm sure they don't have an easy time
matchmaking for him, but he's he's gotten his promotional, his
management stuff ironed out over the last you know, six
months or you know, a little less than a year.
Let's say he's with Golden Boy. Now he's fighting once again.
I believe this is going to be his third fight
since he went with Golden Boy.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 4: He's not taken out a guy that you would know
or care about, and or hey, Garcia Perez. But the
main thing is stay active. And I have to believe
that at some point, if he wins the fight and
he doesn't get injured, that at some point this year,
he's gonna step in with a real guy, you know.
I mentioned there also, Yeah, Boachik is in the weight class.
I mean, there's guys that they can match up with.
They obviously promote Virgil Artis. They can make that fight
if they wanted to. I think so he's definitely got
to watch in the weight class. And so to me,
it's not about if he wins the fight on Saturday,
it's how does he win? Does he make you want
to see him again by putting on some kind of
dynamic performance.
Speaker 2: Sure, and as you mentioned, it was promotional problems, right,
He didn't have a single fight in twenty twenty three,
and that was primarily promotional problems, not an injury, right.
Speaker 4: Well, part of that was his own fault because he
turned stuff down, So I mean, yeah, but he had
certain next to the bastions that were.
Speaker 2: Bounced into twenty twenty four in April a year ago,
and one by knockout. He's won three fights in a
row by knockout August and then December and now back
again in April. So this is somewhat active, be relevant,
and I'm with you if he's impressive in this, this
is a viable name for the next level. Whatever the
next level is a fight with Ortiz or another contender,
I'll say, a.
Speaker 4: Fight with any of the guys at fifty four. He's
you know as a top amateur and he's been a
good professional and he just got caught up with you know,
some issues as you mentioned, with the with the business
side of the things. It was never a matter of
his talent. He never had to my recollection, there was
no major injury that sidelined for any significant amount of time.
So he's back on track. Golden Boys doing their job.
They're they're keeping him, you know, busy ish. I mean,
he did get three fights in twenty twenty four, which
is great. Here he is now, you know, only four
months since his last fight back in the ring. So
I would hope that he could have three fights this year,
and hopefully at least one of them either the next
one or at the very least a one at the
later part of the year. Is hein is a legit
guy in an eliminator, maybe even a title fight depending
on what's available. But Donwell is definitely a guy to watch.
Speaker 1: All right, And as we like to say, but wait,
there's more.
Speaker 2: We have one more fight card of interest and that
will be on Sunday The Boxer car on Sky Sports
in the UK and.
Speaker 1: Triller TV Plus.
Speaker 2: If you have Triller TV Plus you can see it
in the United States. From Birmingham, England, the light heavyweight
Ben Whittaker will fight Liam Cameron in a rematch in
a ten round battle. Now Whittaker gets a lot of attention.
He's got potential. I have said this to you before,
having watched him a couple of times. He does an
awful lot of clowning around, show boding. You know, it's
one thing to kind of be flamboyant outside the ring,
but when we get into will we taking care of business?
Or is it a clown show? All right, So on
some level this is an opportunity, obviously, to get another win,
make yourself more relevant on the way up. For Whittaker,
what are your thoughts? Saturday afternoon in US time?
Speaker 4: He came into the into the pros off of the
Olympic medal in the twenty twenty Games with massive amounts
of hype, and it was ridiculous, honestly. And then he
started to fight, and he's you can tell by looking
at him, he's got a lot of ability. He's got
very fast hands, very quick feet, very technically skilled. But
he is a little bit of a mess in terms
of the outlandish, you know, drop your hands, take your
chin out, do the bullshit, you know, play to the crowd.
The histeronics just drive me absolutely fucking crazy. And so
half the people that watch him love it and can't
wait to see him knock the guy out or win
in a dazzling manner, and the other half of the
people probably want to see him get the knock the fee.
So that's that's He's a very polarizing figure. However, you
gotta get if you're gonna do with the nonsense that
he does high step and kind of try to embarrass
your opponent, which is kind of ridiculous because he was
doing that kind of shit against like, you know, low
level opponents. It's one thing you're doing that in the
ring against the champion or the top contender. When you're
doing it against a guy that's like thirteen and six
or ten and thirteen, ghet the fuck out of here,
you know what I mean. So I don't need that nonsense.
Now here's the problem with Ben Whittaker, who's only eight
oh to one by the way, with five knockouts, and
he's twenty seven years old. Tremendous amateur career. But in
his last fight in October, he fought an opponent named
Willam Cameron, which was a step up based if you
look at the other guys that Ben had been fighting
so far through his first several professionals.
Speaker 2: It just occurred to me, I know where you're going
with what happened in this fight.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, okay, Well they were in a fight where
Cameron was basically kicking his ass. If you ask me,
it was close on the cards. One of the judges
had a draw. Two of the judges had it split
by one point on for each guy. So you know
they're in they're in a tussle. As they say, it's
a ten round fight and it's even until it's even
up through through the sixth round. Well, Ben Whittaker and
the other guy, Liam Cameron, they got into a into
a clinch and and they fell out of the ring
and Ben whatever. Now, yes, Ben Whittaker heard his I'm
glad you studied for the podcast TJ.
Speaker 1: Well, no, I did not.
Speaker 2: I did not know why it was a technical draw,
but they ruled it a technical draw into Whittaker. And
now it just came back to me that the they
fell out of the ring and Whittaker couldn't continue.
Speaker 4: Whittaker could not continue. He hurt his leg, and there
was a lot of pressure to do. This was on
the undercard when better be a eevil in the first
fight back in the October of last year, so there
was a lot of pressure. You got to do the rematch.
They couldn't leave this one. They couldn't. Now, sometimes stuff
like that happens, like give you one example, when Robessi
Ramirez lost his professional debut, he ultimately won in a
rematch against the guy to clean up that disastrous mess.
Speaker 3: But he didn't do it.
Speaker 4: In the next fight, he has his debut, which is
a loss. He came back, he had two or three
fights and then he fought the rematch with Ben Whittaker.
They could not not go back into this, that's right away.
So that's what they're doing. So it may sound dramatic,
but Ben Whittaker better look fucking good or else, you
know what, he's just stock his way down and everybody's
He's got to do the job in this one. I
don't want to see the bullshit. Go out there, put
the nonsense aside, show the world your skills that we
know that you have, and do the job. And obviously
Cameron will come to try to do what he does,
but don't fall out of the ring and don't mess around.
Go in there and get the w and if you
can knock him out, that's fine. And if Liam Cameron
can repeat what he did the first time around and
give Ben Whittaker absou hell, he may come out of
this with a huge ups.
Speaker 2: That way upset right, all right, And again Whittaker eight
oh and one with the technical well they ruled it
a technical draw, is what they ruled it after that
happened last October.
Speaker 4: So Cameron is he's got six losses, but he's never
been stopped, so that's uh, you know, I would think
that based on the way Ben has been a puncher
in terms of his professional career, not necessarily a big
one shot knockout artist or anything like that. And Cameron
seemingly very sturdy in his fights. You know, like when
he lost to Lyndon Arthur was probably the best guy
he thought. It was a split decision. In the fight
before Ben Whitaker, it went to distance, so you know,
he's he's he's showing the ability to go with guys,
you know, at a higher level, so you know, it's
it's it's sort of a I mean, I don't really
care for Ben's style in terms of the entertainment value,
but I understand why this fight is well shown this
weekend because he'd got a cake care of business.
Speaker 2: And he's got a little bit of a following obviously
in the UK. And again this will be Sunday afternoon
in the US, Sunday night in Birmingham, England for Ben
Whittaker and Liam Cameron. And the one thing I was
thinking of and then we're going to move on. Is
Nasimhmed had all the bravado, had all the showboating in
the ring and doing all the crazy stuff, but he
could hit like an anvil. And that's and that was
the other part. The other attraction was not only showboating,
but he was putting guys lights out with the way
he could punch.
Speaker 1: This guy.
Speaker 2: This guy is not that he hasn't demonstrated anything like that.
Speaker 4: So it is a Hall of Fame champions, one of
the grant punchers in the history of boxing. Yeah, so
I'd like prefer if we are going to confue our
relationship together TJ, to not ever use the word Ben
Wittiger and Nasima met.
Speaker 3: In the same stent. That's keep those two other than
the fact that they are British.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. All right, So that is Sunday.
All right, let's get to some news right about now.
You've been tooling around trying to figure out what's up
with Jesse Bam Rodriguez's next fight. In fact, you mentioned
this a couple of weeks ago, at least a couple
of weeks ago, and now you are reporting that it
looks like it's going to get done. For July for
Bam Rodriguez, who is the opponent. Is this unification that's
coming up as well? What's going on?
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is going to be a unification. They got
to get the deal, They got to get the you know,
the deal done. But absolutely this is something that uh
that Matchroom Boxing is working on trying to get it completed,
and I suspect that it's probably going to happen, and
that is a unification fight Bam. Of course as a
WBC's Junior bantamway champion, they are in the process of
putting together this fight against the WBO champion, fum Lele
Cafu from South Africa. So if you go back a
little bit, Kfu went to Japan and he won the
title in his last fight, but there were some conversations
that he would have a title defense against Roman Chocolate
Tito Gonzalez. They were talking and for whatever the reasons.
I never really quite understood what the exact reasons were,
but that the talks broke off. Mister Honda, who promotes
Roman Gonzalez, you know, that said that that for whatever reason,
it wasn't going to take place. And so when that occurred,
you had Colin Nathan, who was the manager and trainer
of CAFU, announce on their company's website and on social
media that although they didn't have an opponent yet, that
Kafu would have his next His first defense would be
back home in South Africa, and you know he'd let
details be known, you know, in this soon come. That
was back in March. Now fast forward to the fact
that you've got Eddie Hearn promising I'm going to get
Dam Rodriguez a unification fight. Well, if you take a
look at what's around in the way class BAM's got
the BC title. The WBA champion was for Nail Martinez.
There was maybe a dalliance with trying to make that.
But he's taken a lucrative rematch against Kazuto Ioka, who
he already defeated. They're going back into a rematch of
a tremendous battle. Their rematch is on May eleventh in Tokyo.
The IBF title is vacant because when the two guys
Willibaldo Garcia and Renee Calixto fought for that vacant title
back in December, it turned out to be a split raw,
so the IBF ordered the rematch. Now that rematch is
supposed to happen in May, probably May twenty third in Mexico,
so that title is not available, and that means if
you want to have a unification, the only other option
you have is the WBO title, which is held by CAFU.
So that's the fight they're trying to make, and I
see no reason why I won't get done because I
can tell you with one thousand percent certainty that no
matter who they could bring to South Africa to challenge him,
there's definitely a lot more money for him to go
in a unification in the United States than there is
to defend in South Africa, where unfortunately, the box economics
have been very poor in recent years, which is why
you don't see a lot of top cards in South
Africa like you did back in like the nineties and
into the early two thousands, where there was a lot
of good champions that were fighting and doing so at home.
So they're trying to get that wrapped up if it
does get done, which I suspect that it will. They're
looking at Dallas. I'm not sure what the venue has,
but Dallas, Texas, July nineteenth, to headline a Mattroum card
on his own.
Speaker 2: All right, so stay tuned on one of the more
exciting fighters. I was just in San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas.
Is Jesse Bam Rodriguez maybe fighting in Dallas for later
this summer. All right, we always love talking heavyweights. We're
going to have this with the nostalgia. What's going on
with Philip Hergovich and what might be next for him
here in particular as he angles and weights. I mean,
there's a lot of talk that it's going to be
Daniel Duba getting a rematch with Usik. So Hergovic now
is looking at what as a potential next fight at
this point.
Speaker 4: Okay, So the heard of the Usk and Dubois fight
is in the process of being made. It's not done.
They're they're dealing with the paper. There's a lot there's
as I've talked to people involved, and I am told
unequivocally that you know, certain outlets can write that the
deal is made, but it is one hundred percent not made.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: And there's still issues that are happening that they got
to deal with a bunch of stuff and it just
simply not it's not ready to be made yet. I mean,
they're they're trying to get it uh, they're trying to
get it all worked out, and that takes time, and
so we don't get done. I suspect it'll take place
in summer in Wembley Stadium. But in the meantime you
have coming up next week, the IBF will officially open
the timeframe for their mandatory, which is Derek Chesora, and
they'll order him to fight the winner of Usik and Duba,
which is kind of preposterous, but that's a that's that's
a rant for another day. That's the right, but that's
the IBF, as I like to say, doing IBM things.
So when I wrote about this the other day, the
mistake that people made because they're fucking idiots theyn't actually
read the words, is they're thinking, like, Okay, Hergovic and
Frank Sanchez are being ordered to fight an eliminator to
become the next IVF mandatory, and that is one hundred
percent accurate after the Jessaur mandatory. So that's where we're at.
So the Hergovic people and the Sanchez people are negotiating
a fight that would be a finally eliminator to be
the next mandatory after the Jasaurs situation is dealt with.
So it's a ways away, but that's a fight that's
being made and it probably will get done. I suspect
it will wind up on a Saudy a Rabi card
at some point later this year. And you know, there's
no hurry. Hergovic just fought a couple of weeks ago
and got a win over Joe Joyce. You've got Frank Sanchez,
who had suffered a loss. He had a knee injury
in that loss where he got stopped. He came back
in a fight that was not that long ago, just
a test andy out. He fought a regular like kind
of crappy opponent down in Mexico, was very low profile,
but he came out of it supposedly with his knee healthy,
and so he will look forward to this elimination fight
in the next fight.
Speaker 2: By one other footnote that we're also going to keep
track of here is remember Hergovic was supposed to have
fought Dubois in February as the co feature fight or
the co main event with the rematch of Better BV
and b BOL and Dubois suddenly was ill. Suddenly was
ill a couple of days before the fight and they
didn't have the fight. I'm not just outright dubious. I mean,
there was a lot of money on the line, there
was a lot of opportunity on the line. But suddenly
Dubois is now going to get a shot with Usik.
And there there are some that were wondering even immediately,
was this suddenly a pullout at the last minute because
the Yusik people said, wait a minute, we would like
to fight you this summer.
Speaker 3: I totally get that.
Speaker 2: I understand, not saying there's any validity to it, because again,
he had trained the whole time.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: He had, He's there, he's on the cusp. They've been
promoting it.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 4: Plenty of times where guys play to fights for those reasons,
and maybe that maybe that did happen. I'm not I'm
not saying it didn't, but I do believe that it's
possible that two things can be true at the same time.
That that they were trying to make the Houston agreements.
But he also legit got sick. And the reason I
say that is because it's it's not usual where a
fight card of that magnitude the main Again, then guy
drops out like the week of the fight. It's you know,
and would do that on purpose two days before the fight,
and he didn't know they were gonna be able to
get a solid replacement in place for that. So, you know,
if it did happen, okay, fine, if it didn't, whatever,
it's a coincidence, so be it. The bottom line, though,
is the card still went through Uh in the last fight,
and he was going to get another title shot against Usick.
And even though he was terrible in the first fight
against Usick, where he lost basically every round, complained about
a low blow that was not a low blow, and
Uh and got knocked out because he quit on his
knee from a jab, at least he went out there
in his next three fights and got knockouts against good
opponents and and earned a shot. He knocked out Big
Baby Miller, right he knocked out obviously the third fight
of that that run, Uh, you know, well, he stopped
per Joshua, He got the cuts win against Argivich and
got the Intern belt, got elevated and had a spectacular
knockout against Joshua. He didn't just win three fights in
a row. It's like each fight was an increasing level
of impressiveness, right, so and I.
Speaker 2: And I misspoke. Let me clear it up and clean
it up. Du Bois beat Hergovic last June. Herkovic had
then bounced back and had beaten Joyce here recently. It
was Joseph Parker that was waiting to fight Dubois for
the world title, for the IBF world title and and
instead thought Martin Bokoli on a day and a half's notice.
Speaker 3: But another reason, the.
Speaker 4: Reason why I don't think that what happened was on purpose,
is because if they were gonna do that on purpose,
they'd have had the replacement in place more than a
day and a half and not hav them travel, you know,
and not know if you could even get there. That
that that post for when the fight was so.
Speaker 2: But my point is Hergovic was angling for a title
shot and now will fight Sanchez and he's still maybe
in the picture if he beat Sanchez.
Speaker 4: Uh Sanchez one of these guys that's been he's kind
of hot and cold. I mean, he's he ows his talent, right,
He's a from the Cuban national background. He had a
very good amateur career. He's a good fighter, he's got
great size and he's got good punching power. He's got
a good sort of temperament in the ring and a
likable guy. Not the most exciting guy in the world,
but he when he does decide to become offensive minded
in the ring, he can get you. He's twenty five
and one with the thirty two with the eighteen knockouts.
Now they say he's thirty two. I kind of think
he's probably like on thirty six. But that's besides the point.
Like a lot of Cuban fighters who back their age,
and the loss that he suffered in the in the
in the fight on the Fury Usk one undercard was
a forgivable loss when you look at what the guy's done.
He lost to her Boy by a stoppage Ajit Kabyol,
so that's not like he lost him a bum and
he hurt the knee in the in the in the fight,
So you know, I don't write him off. He's a
talented guy and Hergovich has shown his limitations. He's a
good fighter also, So to me, this is like two
guys if you were making a legit top ten twelve lists,
they're at that lower portion of that list wherever you
put them, and it's it's an opportunity to really take
a big step up.
Speaker 2: All right, So some heavyweight talk there also mourners Eddie
Hearn talking this week not surprising in the aftermath of
the Boots Ennis win impressively over Stanionis last weekend that
he is in talks whatever this means with top rank
with Bob aerram about a Brian Norman unification fight. Again,
we continue to wait and wonder is Innis instead going
to move up to junior middleweight?
Speaker 1: Is he going to hang in there?
Speaker 2: I mean, it seems they were talking about this fight before,
and Norman has won call us crazy. Norman has won
recently by knockout, and this is now won by knockout.
They both have world titles. This seems logical that it
could happen later this summer then against boxing.
Speaker 4: The reason why I think it is possible is because
Bob is interested in making the match. Eddie's interested to
make the match. The Brian Norman people they were fine
with making the match, and they were fine with going
to Philadelphi, which where Edie would like to have this
match sometime, as he phrased it in the aftermath of
Ennis and Stanionis back into the summer early fall. You know,
let's make it happen. With his quote, they were willing
to do that, they were about five hundred thousand dollars apart.
I suspect now, given that Norman looked good and got
some exposure with the last win, and that Boots looked
spectacular in the Stanionis win, they'll be a much bigger market.
There'll be more money from the zone. I think there'll
be more money in a gate, probably better money from
like your sponsorships. You can probably raise the ticket prices
a little bit in Philadelphia. My point is there's more
money in the pot now than there would have been
when they were talking about the fight for last Fall.
So if Ennis was willing to do it back then
and the Norman people are willing to do it back then,
and it was just a matter of the cash, that
should be easily overcome at this point. So it makes
an interesting matchup. And I will say this, I do
believe that Boots will stick around at welterweight for the
time being. And I say that for a couple of reasons. One,
the opportunity to further unify is obviously important. Two, he
can make really good money still in the welterweight division.
But most importantly, when he fought the Stanionis fight, he
didn't struggle the way he seemed to do for the
Chikazi fight, where he had said afterwards he was feeling
a little bit tight at that weight, he had trouble
making the weight. Well, it didn't show in the Stanionis
fight because he came in more than a half a
pound under the limit. So if you're really struggling, you're
not coming in half under the limit. You might be
coming in right at the limit, or maybe you're you know,
a fraction over and you need some of that extra
time at the way and to drop you know, a
half a pound or something like that. So I feel
like there's no question that for the right opportunity, he
absolutely can maintain at welterweight. For another, you know, a
couple of fights.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned. Can we have good things on boot Sennis
and maybe another time.
Speaker 4: By the way, it's not sad things. If he goes
to fifty four, there's gonna be a plethora of opportunity also.
Speaker 2: But again, I'm not going to go for five more minutes.
The whole thing was about not fighting Ortiz back in
February was that he was wanting to win welterweight titles.
Speaker 4: And then he did unify. Hopefully he can win another
one or get an opportunity.
Speaker 2: Speaking of a moving up, that's hams of Sharaz. The
latest is he's now going to fight after his draw
a fight he lost, the draw that they gave him
against Carlos Adamis in February on that same better be
a bevol rematch card in riodd that now Sharaz will
move up to super middleweight and he will do so
with a new trainer as well.
Speaker 1: Correct, he will.
Speaker 4: Be training now with Andy Lee, who is was a
former middleweight champion and a tremendous boxing mind. I've known
Andy Lee since he turned professional under the guidance of
the late great Emmanuel Stewart, who was his mentor, is
his trainer, his manager. He lived with Emmanuel for a
number of years in his home in Detroit. They were
very close and as I've said before, it gives me
great joy when I see Andy doing a good job
in terms of his training, because it keeps that great
legacy of the Kronk Gym and Emmanuels like you know
what you talk about in football and basketball. The coaching tree.
Andy Lee is an important part of the Kronk Gym
and the Emmanuel Stewart Legacy and the trainer tree, and
Andy has shown himself to be one of the top
trainers in boxing. He's been a longtime assistant for Tyson Fury,
who is his cousin. He is also the current trainer
who's done a great job with Joseph Parker. He trains
Ben Whittaker, so we'll see if Andy can have a
big impact on what happens this weekend. He also trains
the Walter Wake contender Patty Donovan. He's worked with a
number of fighters. He just listen Andy Lee, and I'll
just you know, I'm in the tank for and He's
one of my favorite people in boxing. I've known him,
like I said, for many many years, just a class individual.
And now Shiraz I don't think it was a matter
because he got the draw in his comments. He made
a video that was posted on his Instagram about just
sort of needs to do something different, and he had
gone he had seen him in action with Team Fury.
But also more notably, he went and watched Andy train
on a session when he was working with Ben Whittaker
when he's getting ready for this Liam Cameron fight in
the last couple of weeks, and he liked what he saw,
sort of the back to basics.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Andy's not a guy that's like he's not You're not
gonna yell and screen. He's gonna tell you what he
wants to do. He's a calm ration, reason bull, you know,
even temper guy and just brings sort of a good
sort of air about things in the gym. And Sharaz,
I think like that, And I don't think it's anything
against I mean, he trained for many years with Ricky
Foiez from a Los Angeles and you know, sometimes these
relationships they run their course. I don't even think it's
like a negativity about Funias. I think it's a matter
of you know, Sharaz, I think he took Adamis a
little lightly. He was listening to his own hype, he
was reading his own clips. He was like the Read
Season ambassador. They're fighting in a Read Season card. He's
Frank Warren's guy. He was Frank Warren's you know event
with Read Season, He's supposed to win, and you forgot that.
You still got to go out there and do the work.
I don't blame that on the trainer, but Andy Lee.
I think anybody that would go with any Lee is
going to be you know, it's gonna be positive experience
for them.
Speaker 3: So good luck to Sharaz.
Speaker 4: We'll see what he can do at super middle and
I'll say this, there's good opponents. He's not getting a
shot at Canelo, but you know what match him up with.
Then he pick a guy, you know, among the top contenders.
Maybe see what happens. And Mongia comes past Sarase, there's
berlang Is out there looking for an opponent he got
you know, one of the Charlot's is going to be
finding out at super mintweight when he comes back. So
there's guys out there.
Speaker 1: Christian Mobilly another name.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Mibilly.
Speaker 4: Actually his his team just said today, as we do
in this on Thursday, they have a press conference coming
up next week where the're gonna announce his next fight
for which you're probably in Montreal, but it's not going
to be against the Hamsa Shraz but you know, you
never know, maybe later in the year.
Speaker 2: By one more note, we did talk about this coming
off the weekend that Keyshawn Davis you were reporting this
would be back in Norfolk in June, and Top Rank
did make it official and also made the co feature official,
and that and that co feature we did say, Hey,
Abdullah Mason has been active and he's going to be
right back again here on this June fight card. So
tell us more about the official announcement here real quick.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So they're having a press conference on Friday in
Norfolk to announce it to the local to local media
market with which is where a Keishan Davis is from.
That's on Friday, but he's gonna be fighting in with
Delos Santos, who won't be at the press conference. This
is just to sort of let the community know and
get the tickets on sale and that sort of thing,
and they'll probably sell that place out to Scope. He
sold it out for a non title fight against Gustavo
Lemos that took place in the fight prior to winning
the title against Barentik, so impressibly back you know, a
month or two ago. Anyway, he's fighting de Los Santos.
It's not a secret. This is a fight they've been
working on for a while. But now it's all all
said and done. His brothers Calvin Davis and Kean Davis
will also be on the undercard, as they have been
in the past. He will have his Olympic teammate, the
undefeated middleweight Troy Eisley. He will be on this card.
He is not from Norfolk, but he's from Alexandria, Virginia.
It's the few hours north actually the town next to
where I live. He'll be on the card. No opponent
it for him. And then the co feature is actually
a very interesting matchup. It's Abdullah Mason, who I knew
was going to be on this card. He's taken on
Jeremiah Nakatia and Jeremiah Nakatia may not be what he
was when he was at his absolute best, but this
is a real guy for him compared to the types
of opponents that Mason has faced, so he's taking a
step up. He's won three fights in a row and
he has the the very memorable knockout against Miguilbert Scheldt,
the former title holder, when he was sort of trying to,
you know, continue things, and was kind of a big
surprise when he got laid out the way he did.
He gave uh even though he lost in a shutout
one twenty to one oh seven to all three cards.
He actually had a few moments when he when he
boxed against Chaque Stevenson in twenty twenty one. That was
for an interim title in the featherway in the UH,
in the UH, in the one hundred and thirty pound
way class. But he's a veteran and and Mason has
never faced anybody at this remote level of experience, so uh,
you know, on the way up, it's uh, it's a
good thing for him. Now the bad news for him
is that when uh, when Nakatia fought the prospect Ernesto
Mercado in the end of twenty twenty three, he got
as the bridge say, sparked in the second round.
Speaker 1: You know, so sparked, not spanked. Interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And in the fight before that, he got sparked
by Raymond Maretaya. But again, for the level of where
Abdullah Mason is, it is not unreasonable from the face
that type of opponent. So after he got sparked by
Marti and Mercado, he has won three fights in a row,
not against elite fighters but guys with pretty decent records.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: And now we'll see if the young Mason. Can you know,
they'll be comparing it. We'll see, you know, how does
he do against a Nakatia the way that Muratai and
Mercado did at a time when Muratai and murkata were
both prospects. Abdulla Mason is eighteen and oh when Mercado,
I mean when Mercado fought against Nakatia, Mercado was twelve.
And oh when Maurtia fought against him, he was seventeen
and oh. So they're at that same stage of their
career where they're getting their first crack at like a
soul called name. And we'll see that Mason will take
care of him.
Speaker 1: But you got you with that.
Speaker 2: And by the way, kudos again to Keishn Davis because
I just looked he was in action last July. This
is if it does come off. Things can happen between
now in the first week in June. This is four
fights in less than a year. Stay active, stay relevant.
You've got a world title. Now you up your own
promotional value, your own interest, your dollar because you stay active.
Speaker 1: We love that.
Speaker 4: And and they're bringing him back home because Norfolk, you know,
as the kids say, showed out for him. When he
when he fought to fight in November or whenever, that
was at the fall against lamos Uh and then they
brought him to New York City for the title fight
where he looks vcacular and the absolutely annihilating Barentchik. And
so you know this is I mean, listen, I have
all the respect and well for what Top Rank has
done through their existence for sixty years, but in exactly
rocket science to say, I've got an excellent young champion
who just won a title in a in a great
market like New York City. Oh, let's take him back
home for the first offense where he already sold out
in a non title fight. They're gonna make this a bonanza.
He's gonna get the town excited. And when you go
to cities like Norfolk that are great cities but are
not major league cities. Let's say they don't have, you.
Speaker 1: Know, eight national teams, right, they might have like.
Speaker 4: They have minor league this and maybe a college team here.
But it happens a lot in boxing where if you
have a fighter like a Kishan the way Youngstown, Kelly Pavock,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: You go to recently Birmingham, Alabama with Deontay Wide.
Speaker 4: You go to those and I don't mean this in
Sulking like second tier cities just in terms of their population,
their media market, the lack of big time professional sports.
That boxer can become like a local franchise and and
people will turn out for him.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Again, I went to see Jermaine Taylor in a little rock, Arkansas.
He was like a franchise thereas is gonna be that
in Norfolk.
Speaker 2: Another one Terrence Crawford building on the rebuilt in Omaha, Nebraska.
Speaker 3: And I saw first because I met ray Field.
Speaker 2: In the corn country in Omaha, Nebraska, so I went there.
Speaker 1: Thousand in the arena.
Speaker 4: Yeah absolutely, I mean, so this is the Keishaan Davis.
Uh is going to be doing that exact same blueprint
where he'll end up fighting other fights in New York.
I am sure he'll fight in Las Vegas. I am sure.
But Top Rank will always have the ability to go
home Uh in Norfolk, Virginia because TJ as they say,
there's no place like home. And I also will tell
you no doubt in my mind, I have talked to
Top Ranking about this. It's not for this coming fight,
but they will look to establish him in Washington, DC market,
which is like a three and a half hour drive
from Norfolk, and it's you know, it's in the same region.
It's a heavy African American community, it's got a great
boxing background, and it's another great metropolitan area not too
far from where he lives where they can establish him
world championship level events. Not to mention Troy Eisley if
he continues to develop, he comes from the DC area
because Alexandria, you know, is fifteen minutes from downtown Washington.
Speaker 2: All right, so that is coming in June for Keishaan Davis, right,
one more bit of business. And we did talk about
this with the passing of George Foreman a couple of
weeks ago, about how big an event it was during
his return when he fought Evander Holyfield. The anniversary of
that fight is now on Saturday, as we released this
Thursday night into Friday.
Speaker 1: April nineteenth, nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: One, thirty four years ago, Holyfield and Foreman for the
undisputed heavyweight championship. Again, to repeat, we can't emphasize enough
what a big deal and how mainstream the heavyweight title
still was back in this day. And so now we
reminisce again, and I know you've got the nostalgia about
TVKO and about Foreman on his return, you would have
gotten me. As I said before with the trivia question,
that Foreman had had what did you say, twenty five
twenty five comeback fights before he had this fight? Well,
well with holy.
Speaker 4: Field, it's you're close. When Big George came back, remember
he had been heavyweight champion. He had lost the title
to Muhammad Ali. He had still fought for a few
more years after that, and he ended up getting upset
in a fight against Jimmy JUNGK who was like a
QT boxer, and you know, he just out boxed George basically,
and he beat him that night. And afterwards George said
that he had seen like a vision from God or
spoke to God or something. In George was always a
spiritual kind of religious guy, and it basically in his mind,
he's like, you know, God told me I need to
change my ways. I need to do things different in
my life. He was twenty eight years old and he retired,
and he retired for ten years and he became an
ordained minister and he started to preach regular in his
church in Houston, and you know, George Foreman, the former
heavyweight champ, is now retired, and you know, go do
your thing. Well, you talk about guys who can't retire.
It was ten years later where George decided, you know what,
I need money and my church needs money. So he
ended his retirement and he came back. And you said
he fought twenty five times. It was actually he made
the comeback in eighty seven. And you can't understand how
big of a deal it was when he got the
title shot against holy Field, because when he came out
of retirement, it was national story because of who George
was and sort of the anomaly of a guy coming
out of retirement at his age after having spent ten
years in retirement, after having been the heavyweight champion. It
was considered though, despite the tremendous amount of attention, it
received absolutely comedic, farcical, ridiculous, absurd like it was a comedy.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 4: It was treated like this is the biggest fucking joke
in sports. And George was like, you know, rotund and
not in the greatest shape and not in fighting, absolute
fucking shmear opponents. And he was on TV on like
USA Network, and he was on ESPN, you know, the
Top rank boxing series, and he was drawing ratings. And
he also had sort of changed his personality because when
people at last saw Big George, he was this stoic, snarling,
kind of standoffish kind of guy. And now on the comeback,
he's eating hamburgers and he's smiling, and he's doing interviews
and he's friendly. And you know, whether it was an
act or that's just way he became in his ten
years as a minister, I can't tell you. But the
comeback was real. He won twenty four consecutive fights, including
a eye opening knockout against Jerry Cooney and in the
twenty fifth fight of his comeback in nineteen ninety one,
so he had you talk about activity TJ. From nineteen
eighty seventh to nineteen ninety one, twenty five fights, that's
the twenty fifth of which was this heavyweight championship fight
against Evander Holyfield for the undisputed title, and he was
as great as Holyfield was. It was Big George that
that was the story of the promotion. So, as you
mentioned TVKO, which was the name of what became HBO
pay per view, this is the first modern pay per
view fight where most people who watched it ordered it
off their box in their home or went to their
cable company and rented a boxer got a box to
buy the fight. And in that day when there was
maybe I don't know, ten or twelve or fourteen million
homes that were addressable and the fight did one point
four million buys, people that ran TVK on HBO thought
they had found a way to print ue and it
said massive, massive, massive bills.
Speaker 2: So you said that about this, and I will now
relate the story. I've told you this before, but I'll
repeat it for the audience here. I actually bought a
closed circuit ticket for that fight. I'm a junior in
college and Memphi, Tennessee. And Holyfield again was so mainstream
from having been in the Olympics, from having fought on
network TV with ABC. He's now beaten Buster Douglas and
is the undisputed.
Speaker 3: Champion and fought a lot of times on showtime.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so now we know who he is and
he's getting ready to fight Foreman coming up here. And
I bought a ticket, a hard probably fifteen dollars ticket.
It was something like that. I remember it being like
twelve to fifteen dollars and went to the old Cook
Convention Center in downtown Memphis, long before they built the
Palace Basketball Arena, the FedEx Forum that's been there for
about twenty years now, where the Memphis Grizzlies play, where
my Memphis Tigers in college play, and they have all
these concerts and this other stuff. This is the Cook
Convention Center. But Rayphiel, I'm telling you that night in
Memphis there had to be easily fifteen hundred, two thousand
people that were watching over the country on closed circuit. Now,
as I related to you, that the cable system where
I lived in Memphis did not have the pay per
view boxes, so if you wanted to see the fight,
you had to go buy the ticket. I bought the
ticket that night, and I still remember how competitive this
fight was. George took some monstrous shots from holy Field.
He fired back on holy Field. This was a very competitive,
legitimate fight, as much as a lot of people thought
it was going to be a.
Speaker 3: Farce, oh, no question.
Speaker 4: And the fact is, as George preached throughout the promotion,
while he was eating his hamburgers and you know, joking
around about that, talked about his catch thing was the
ages but a number. In other words, you know, I'm
doing this for all the forty year olds and the
fifty year olds and the six year olds to show
you that age is just a number against a man
who was fourteen years younger than him. They actually titled
the fight Battle of the Ages as a play on
the fact that there was such a large age gap
between Evander and Foreman. But as you said, Foreman, who
was much bigger than a Vander, but a lot slower
than a Vander, but a bigger puncher than a Vander.
They put in a very credible, excellent fighting heavyweight championship fight. Yes,
George was obviously the loser of the fight, but it's
worth watching. They never saw it's on YouTube. It's a
really outstanding fight. And also this was people were still
not one hundred percent sold on Evander. He had won
the title from Buster Douglas, who was you know, had
pulled off the massive upset against Tyson, but wasn't considered
like a great fighter, and so Holyfield dusted an out
of shape Buster for the title. So when he made
his first defense against holy against against Foreman, to many
people in the public, they knew that Vander was a
good fighter, but they really still questioned him because yeah,
he was champed. But look who we beat, Buster Douglas,
the out of shape guy who quote unquote got lucky
against Tyson. So there was that dynamic going on in
the fight. But they put on a really credible, entertaining fight.
It did humongous business. As I mentioned, Vander was the winner,
and George you know, didn't give up after that. I mean,
he could have just called it a day, said, I
did my twenty fifth fight after my comeback, I made
good money. I can go back in the retire. But
he kept at it and you know, even took another
loss later to Tommy Morrison. I kept at it and
not that long after got the shot against Michael Moore
and regained the title. But this was the fight of
all the fights in his comeback in terms of you
want to have an exciting fight, this is the best
one of all those George Foreman comeback fights. Because the
Michael Moore fight, although an unbelievable and legendary ending the
way that Big George regained the title, the fight itself
was really not much to write about home about because
George was getting as kick for the fight a little
bit different. In this fight against Evander, he had gone
not only as I mentioned to you, it was this
twenty fifth fight, the twenty four comeback fights that he
had prior to fighting for the title TJ twenty four
and oh with twenty three knockouts. So George had proven something.
Grant that a lot of those were lesser guys, but
there were some names mixed in the Bert Coopers and
like I said, you know the Cooney, Faded Cooney White,
Muhammed Kawei. He was also a faded fighter that's now
in the Hall of Fame who had given holy Field
a great fight in their first fight. This was a
big promotion HBO involvement. Like I said, uh, Top Rank
and Main Events were two of the top promoters in
the game. This was a co promotion because Top Rank
worked with George and Holyfield had been with Main Events
for his whole career at to that point and just
did a huge amount of business. And it was great
fun and it was a real I was in college
TJ when this fight happened, as were you, and I
was working at the college newspaper, and if I had to,
like say, I think it might be the very first
boxing article I ever wrote, because I remember in our
school I used to write like a weekly column in
the sports section of our school paper. And I wrote
a piece about this fight. And I think that might
be literally the first boxing story I ever wrote in
my life.
Speaker 2: You better have it in the Rayfield collection. Do you
not have a copy of that school paper? Come on,
we gotta see that college.
Speaker 3: I probably do, but I couldn't lay my hands on
it in five minutes.
Speaker 2: You got to you gotta start the search. Start the search,
called the dogs, get the lights going, I wrote.
Speaker 4: I wrote a weekly i'm in the school paper called
the Final Word, and I wrote a piece about Holyfield
in foremant in the school paper.
Speaker 3: And now you're gonna make it.
Speaker 1: You love to squat me.
Speaker 2: There's no such thing as a final word with you.
There's just a whole bunch of words. And then you
eventually get stopped. At some point. You're gonna go You're
gonna go find that. Now you're gonna go drive yourself
crazy to go find you. But I can vividly remember,
even now as we sit here thirty four years later,
being in the Cook Convention Center in downtown Memphis. I
had a college, a college buddy of mine. He and
I went and bought tickets and the roaring that was
going on. I'll tell you what else I remember in
this fire and you can go back and watch this.
They had an incident in the boardwalk hall where somebody
set off some kind of a smoke bomb, a firework
or smoke bomb during the fight, and so there was
some talk, are they gonna stop the fight for a
little bit because the smoke is filling the arena?
Speaker 1: Is the arena on fire? Lynn Berman was.
Speaker 2: The the he's the answer to the tribute question. He's
the guy on the play by play, and he even
said back.
Speaker 4: Of the play by play of the TV back in
those days, similar to what happened with UH with UH
with the what do you call it? When we talked
about it hurts right. They had the HBO crew there also,
so they also played the replay the week later with
their normal crew.
Speaker 2: Okay, so Lynn Berman's even saying on that TVKO call,
we are you know, we're told this the building is
not on fire, although there's smoke in that massive boardwalk
hall where Jaron and has just fought. Last weekend, so
many great world title fights that were there. I was
just there back in March. It's a cavernous, massive place.
But that that's actually go back find the easter egg.
Speaker 1: Go back.
Speaker 2: In the middle of the fight, there's you know, somebody
set off some kind of fireworks.
Speaker 3: I looked this up. Also, we talk about how big
the fight was.
Speaker 4: Evander, who had made you know, good money obviously for
the title fight against Buster. He was guaranteed twenty million
dollars for this fight, and Big George, who had been
fighting for relatively modest fees during the comeback. As you know,
we increased were time. But you know, it wasn't like
when he came out of retirement he was being paid
millions of dollars. He was fighting for a chump change.
But for this fight he hit the big time. He
made twelve point five million.
Speaker 2: Well, and the part of that is because Buster Douglass
had gotten such a massive payday to fight holy Field
back the previous year.
Speaker 3: The previous George is forty.
Speaker 4: Two years old at this point, I mean, and he
still ended up winning.
Speaker 2: And I'm telling you kids, I've I've rewatched it before,
but I still remember from that night he gets blasted
by holy Field on more than a few occasions, three
or four occasions, and he's firing right back. It is
an action. The whole fight is an action packed. We're
not making it out to be Hagler, Hearns or gotty
Ward or something like that, but it's an entertaining fight.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's not a joke.
Speaker 4: So then there was drama because of all the things
that led up to him. He always had to always
keep in mind as you're watching it that George was
forty two and had been champion, you know, seventeen years
or so ago. I mean, it was like another multiple
generations of boxing had passed and he's still back in
the things. And by the way, one of the reasons
why when you talk about the eras of heavyweights, I
don't think it's any question that. You know, most boxing
fans can't agree on anything, but one thing most boxing
fans will agree in is that the greatest era of
heavyweight boxing was the nineteen seventies, led by of course,
Ali Fraser, Forman Norton and plenty of other great contenders
and champions. The next greatest era in boxing, in my opinion,
is the nineteen nineties, and that was Tyson Holyfield, Lennox Lewis,
Tommy Morrison, Razor Roddick, Riddick Bow and plenty of others.
But one of the reasons it gets that label is
then you insert Big George in his second act and
that was a huge aspect of that era. It was
a phenomenal era for heavyweight boxing and this fight is
part of that.
Speaker 1: Well said, there's the last word on that. By the way,
there you go all right with that?
Speaker 2: Well done again, I repeat here at the end of
the pod.
Speaker 1: We said it earlier.
Speaker 2: There is not a bet US Boxing show for Friday.
That is due to them being off for the holiday weekend,
the bet US producer's production company, etc. So this will
have to suffice for your preview. We gave you plenty
on the three main event fight cards, with Dalton Smith
headlining the junior welterweight main event in Sheffield, England, Saturday
afternoon US time on his own for Matchroom. Gabriella Fondora's
women's flyweight title fight is Saturday night in California the
Golden Boy Dezone show, and then the Boxer Sky Sports
Triller TV Plus in the US card is Sunday afternoon
with Ben Whitaker. Watch those fights you and I will
come off the weekend, we'll recap those and we'll get
ready for what will be the final week in April.
Believe it or not, coming off the weekend with the
recap pot anything else.
Speaker 1: Are we good? I believe we're good.
Speaker 3: Good, We're good.
Speaker 1: I think we're good for another edition.
Speaker 2: Thank you for finding us, Follow, subscribe to this feed, Apples, Preaker,
Spotify again.
Speaker 1: Engage with the previous.
Speaker 2: Pod as well, and also on the YouTube page on
the Hagler Hearns remembrance.
Speaker 1: Forty years later, it is somebody Fastic with.
Speaker 2: Al Bernstein and with Barry Tompkins joining us at link
sharing stories stuff that we didn't even know in that interview.
Go find it on YouTube, Subscribe to the YouTube channel,
and follow and subscribe here now for Dan Rayphel, I'm
merely TJ Reach. Have a great weekend, Happy Easter. Everybody
will come to you off the Easter weekend here as
part of the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed