Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time.
Speaker 2: This is Big Fight Weekend.
Speaker 3: Now here is your host, DJ leaves Well, it is
a weekend that has a very intriguing junior wealthyweight showdown.
Somebody's gonna be very very much championship relevant when it's
all said and done. We think in Manchester, England, that's provided.
But it's not a draw here. I say that at
the beginning of the pod. It is the Big Fight
Weekend preview pod. It is Jack Catterall, Regis Progray in
that battle in the match room main event. We've got that.
We've got the former WBC Junior Lightweight champion on the pod.
One oh Shaki Foster talking with our Dan Rayfield, speaking
of our insider, Big Dan Rayfield. Good to be back
with you, as we had to, Dare I say it
the final weekend of October, my lord, Halloween about to
be here, November about to be here. It's crazy. Good
to be back with you, my friend.
Speaker 1: Yes, good to be back. Halloween is a big deal
in my house. Your kids are a little bit older,
but my son, it's still the big, big deal here.
Speaker 3: Well, see, here's what you have to look forward to,
because this was going on on Thursday night as we
tape this where my wife says, are you girls doing
anything for Halloween? And suddenly they start talking about costumes
and their friends, even though they are now juniors in
high school. So the procrastination has happened. I'm anxious to
hear about what young Rayfield will be for Halloween. You
never know. It could range from a superhero to my
dressing up is Mike Tyson, you know it's I don't know.
He might come black trunks, black shoes, no socks, with
a hacked out bath, towel over him and just come
to the door and look for some candy. But in
any event, thank you for finding us. Make sure you follow,
subscribe to this podcast, feed, rate us, and review us
the five star reviews do help. Take thirty seconds? Do
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tolerate me? We can and wet if you're the audience,
do that through all of the different podcast outlets. Again, Oh,
Shaki Foster coming up. We got some news. We got
some Evander Holyfield nostalgia, which just recently a birthday as
we were talking about on the last pod. But first
let's get into it. The Mattroom main event, Jack Catterwall,
Regis Progray. You interviewed Regis Progray. I hope they heard
it on the podcast feed. If they did not, it's
the previous pod where you went in depth with him.
All right, it's intriguing for the reason that I laid
out the winner. Very championship relevant again here at junior
welterweight at won forty yr. Thoughts going into this matchup
for Saturday afternoon US time, Saturday night in Manchester, England.
Speaker 1: Well, first and foremost, this was a fight that was
supposed to have happened already. I mean, they had a
fight date that was scheduled in the summer and it
was delayed because of an injury to Catterall that happened
about it, I guess what about a month or so
before the fight, so was postpone until this time frame.
Catroll had an injury that I'd deal with. I guess
nothing urgently seriously, but still unfortunate that both guys were
in the camps, had a pro opponent, so there's been
a little bit of a of a lag and a
weight to get to the match. And when I look
at the fight TJ, I think to myself. I mean,
these two guys have been, you know, near the top
of the one hundred and forty pounds way class for
the last several years. And even though it's not a
world title fight, I look at it a sort and
it's not like an official eliminator fight. It's not a
you know, it's not a world title fight, but it's
in essence it's like a de facto eliminator because the
guy that's the winner, presumably if it's definitive and there's
not a lot of controversy, and it turns out to
be like a decent fight that the winner is going
to put himself in a really good position, not officially
in terms of a saying thing about it to mandate
the fight, but the calls from the public to see
the winner against one of the champions in the division
will probably grow. So from that standpoint, it makes it important.
So they are the main event. They're fighting in Manchester
at the brand new co Op Live, which is the
new arena that they built a Manchester. Manchester is in
essence the hometown of Jack Cattrell. He comes from, you know,
about thirty minutes away from there, so it's going to
be a big crowd for him. Now, Regis has fought
in the UK before and is not at all worried
or scared or you know, shrinking from that moment of
being there. But of course I don't think he forgets
the fact that when he did fight there, you know,
a few years ago in the June it was a
world title unification fight, back when it was during the
Super six or whatever they call it, the World Boxing
I get that mixed up with the Showtime did their
Super six years ago. Yes, it was the World Boxing
Super Series, and he was in a unification bout in
that tournament and they fought to fight in London. He
fought against Josh Taylor. Now, grant that Josh is from Scotland,
not from England, but it was still obviously a big
time uh Josh Taylor crowd. It's you know, basically his
home country from that same but anyway, terrific fight lost
the majority of decision, and a lot of the conversation
after that fight was, you know, if that fights in
the United States or somewhere that's more of a neutral territory,
you know, there's a very good chance that Regis would
have been the one to get the hand raised that night,
and he hadn't lost a fight since then, you know,
that was in twenty nineteen, and then obviously he comes
off his then he didn't lose another fight, tell the
last fight. Now, That's that's the thing about this fight
with regis they're both talented guys okay, and they both
have shown world championship pedigree. Even though Caterreall's never had
a world title, A lot of people think he should
have been the undisputed champion when he had that very
controversial decision loss against against Josh Taylor in their first fight.
He obviously got the revenge in the last fight, but
the twenty twenty two fight that they had, which was
a split decision lost or undisputed, you know, was considered
in terms. I didn't really think it was as controversial
as some people made it out, but in the UK
it was like you'd thought it was Parnel Whitaker against
Julius Caesar Chavas in their draw. In any event, you know,
he's won his three fights since then, been a little
bit inactive because of all the stuff that went down
in that fight, the rescheduling elements that never happened, in
injuries and this and that anyway, they finally fought again
in May of this year, and Catterall won a decision
in that fight, so he got that revenge and you know,
couldn't get a world title fight in the next fight.
And with with pro Gray look at his best, he's
one of the more dynamic, one of the better one
hundred and forty pounders that we've seen over the last
few years. The problem is, and I think if you
really are truthfully yourself. As much as I like Regis
and respect him, he's a really great guy and uh
and just been a really fun guy to shooter.
Speaker 3: In the interview. When you ask questions, you get straight answers,
which we love in our business.
Speaker 1: But the thing is you have to okay, So let's
go back to November of twenty twenty two. He gets
an opportunity to fight for the vacant WBC title, and
he looks really good against Hosy's a paid a really
good fight. How it was Thanksgiving weekend. He stopped him
in the eleventh round of a fight that he was
clearly winning, even though it was a very good fight
to watch. He scores the knockout and it's like, all right,
Regis Prograde regains the title. He's a two time champion
and now let's see what he can do. So they
take him home to New Orleans in June of twenty
twenty three for his first defense of his second title reign.
He does win a split decision over a Puerto Rican
fighter named dan Alitos Area, and it was one of
the most futured offensive output performances maybe in recent boxing history.
There was, like, sir, I don't know if it was
records or close to records of you know, futility for
compy box from both guys. Just an absolutely dog shit
fight to watch. And Regis admits that he knows it
was terrible. He said it was a little bit because
of the distractions of fighting at home. Perhaps part of
that was true, but it can't be the only reason
you look like absolute, you know, just terrible in a
fight against I mean, Dan Alitos Area is not like
he's a bad fighter, but he was never considered like,
you know, this super elite contender and a good fighter,
but not not on the level of Regis program. But
you know what, Okay, fine, you want to you want
to take them all again. You know, everybody doesn't have
their perfect game on every night. So okay, he got
to win. You know the old saying TJ. You know,
win and look good the next time. I mean, you
hear that a lot and about right right, Okay, so
you can kind of give him a pas and that
shit happens. He looked great against pay Them, maybe not
so good against the RIA. And so he comes back
at the end of twenty twenty three in December and
a very heavily hyped up, popular fight that a lot
of people wanted to see. He goes to San Francisco,
the birth city of one Devin Haney, who was had
moved up from the lightweight division after vacating the undisputed title,
and he challenges Regius Progra for that title. Now, that
was a fight that I think was very interesting. A
lot of people were like, that's a good class of styles,
that could be a real interesting fight. They had a
lot of good back and forth lead up to the fight.
There was some good hype, and when they got in
the ring, Devin Haney made Regius Progra look like an amateur,
like he didn't belong in the ring. Now you want to,
you know, you say a guy wins the fight, you know,
it's a solid fight, it's a good fight, it's a postfight.
But one guy's declared winner. That's fine. This was not
competitive for one second of the fight. Devin Haney absolutely
destroyed Regius Progra from the standpoint of winning every single
round on the score cards. Nothing was even like that
close for you would say, well, you know what, that's
as questionable around. You know, we always talk about or
I always talk about the range of acceptable scores. You
know what, the range of acceptable scores in that fight
was twelve to zero.
Speaker 3: Twelve zero, or maybe eleven to one. No I would
even given eleven one.
Speaker 1: Somebody gave him one round, I would be okay. So
you know, by the way, by the way, in addition
to winning twelve rounds of zero, Devin Haney, who we
all know is a tremendous boxer but never been known
as the biggest puncher, scored a knockdown in the third
round and put.
Speaker 3: So you said a bunch there, But I want to
interject with what you're saying. So this is two straight
performances where he also looked good at all.
Speaker 1: It's not just two bad performances. It's two of the
single worst offensive performances of a championship level fighter for
as long as I can think of. I mean, he
probably combined to land as many punches in those two
fights as some guys might land in five or six rounds.
Speaker 3: Right, So they were both bad. So I guess that
leads to the legitimate question and we're going to handicap
this for their first mention of the bet US Boxing
Show Friday at one Eastern time. But there's a real
concern of are these are his better days past him?
He's offensively, what does he still have in the tank here?
I think those are legitimate concerns going into this fight
with Catterall here that we may we may see something
similar where he doesn't have any offense again until we
see otherwise, until he gets otherwise.
Speaker 1: Look, he's thirty five years old. I mean, I don't
look at Regis's career and I look down the list
of opponents he's face and based on your average top
level guy, I don't look at Regis as a guy
that's you know, been beat up and taking tremendous punishment
and has lost miles off his career because he's been
in these knockdown, drag out fights, you know, he had
some tough fights. To Josh Taylor fight was a tough fight, Okay,
fair enough, but it's not like he's been in multiple
big time battle royales that type of thing. So from
from the standpoint of the wear and tear on his
body in terms of the fights themselves, I mean, he's
thirty five, so it's not like he's a young spring chicken.
But he shouldn't be, you know, totally washed up. But
the proof is in the output of what you see.
He just being honest. He looked horrible in the last
two fights. And if you lose to a Devin Hainey
who was a superior boxer, like, okay, I get it
that happens. But when you put it back to back
with a Zuria fight and the fact that it's not
that you lost to Hani, you didn't compete with Haney.
You look like your feet were in cement. Yeah, you
got knocked down by a non puncher. You lost every
single round. And when I say the range of acceptable
scores on that fight is twelfth to nothing, it ain't twelve.
It ain't eleven to one, it's twelfth to zero. There
was not a single round where.
Speaker 3: He admitted he admitted after that fight. He admitted to you,
Devin Haney was a lot better than he thought. And
I really wonder we don't know this. I really wonder
if tactically, because he admitted after the Zaia fight that
that tactically he hadn't watched him a lot and whatever,
And I don't know if tactically he had he had
figured out a lot to do with with Haney. And
there's another argument here that Jack Caterall is not as
talented as Devin Haney. He may be easier to hit
for that reason. So we got to see, we gotta see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, he's a he's for a guy that
hasn't won a world title, he's about as close as
a guest. I mean, he's twenty nine and one, with
the one loss being the controversial decision in the first
fight with Taylor. He's got the thirteen knockouts. It is
South Paul versus South Paw, so there won't be that
messy aspect of it. They're both lefties, so there's not
I don't anticipate there being like the kind of you know,
headbut situations you might see if it's a lefty versus alrighty,
I just think that Regis's uh, you know, I don't.
I haven't. You know, you'll tell me after the show
or in the morning when we have to do the
odds for the bet Us picks. But I'm not even
entirely sure what the odds are in this fight at
the moment. But I do know that if you take
a look at the at the recent Jack Catterall, since
the Tailor fight, he came you know, he came back
a year plus later and won a really future decision
over Daggrafoli in this toff, absolute waste of time fight.
He dominated, he won basically every round, but it was
you know, being asleep after about right then they put
him in the ring with the corpse of the poor
Halinaris and he didn't even stop him. Guy that's been
stopped numerous times. Not exactly a scintillating performance against Lenaris,
who then retired after that fight. And you know, I
love Lenari's He's been a you know, he's a top
fighter in the leleweight division. Firmber of years and one titles,
three with classes, and you know, was a top guy.
But at that stage he was archaic. And then finally
they were able to get the Taylor rematch, and I
think that Taylor was not what he was. He's he
had come off the loss to Tiathimo Lopez and had
not looked that good. So, you know, I'm not sure
what version of Josh Taylor Caterroll finally and legitimately beat
Like is it that both these guys may be on
the downside. So but at least it's an evenly matched fight.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Jack Cattrell has not taken We talked about how how
Regis hasn't taken like massive punishment. Catterall's taken even way
less than Regis has. But he's also four years younger,
He's thirty one years old. He's fighting in his hometown.
I just feel like Regis, you know, as much as
I like him, feel like he's fighting a major, major
uphill battle in this.
Speaker 3: Fight all right, and again will handicap it more at
one Eastern time on Friday, main event Matchroom Show Dezone, Manchester, England,
Saturday afternoon in the US Saturday night primetime, And that's
the primary fight card that we have this weekend that
we'll be talking about. Obviously, you're in the preview mode
and on that show tomorrow, so that leads us to
a conversation that you have had this week with Oshaki Foster.
Foster will attempt to regain his WBC Junior Lightweight title
coming up against Robeson Consasoo controversial decision back in July.
Immediate rematch here coming in October. We're intrigued. You don't
have to wait for fight week though. As I like
to say, you get that conversation right now about Foster,
that decision, loss, the motivation, the rematch, all of it
right now here on the preview pot.
Speaker 1: Well, it's my pleasure to welcome to our podcast this week.
It's the former WBC Junior Lightweight champ, Oshaki Foster and O'shaki.
Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for doing this.
We'll talk about your very significant rematch coming up.
Speaker 4: Hey, thank you for having me. Bro.
Speaker 1: You bet all right. We'll let the folks know you
have a rematch with Robson Coosasao, who came away with
a very controversial decision against you a few months ago
to take your title in the defense, and now you
got the order for the immediate rematch. You guys are
both with top rank. They were to put that fight together.
I think pretty easily. It seemed to me. Anyway, you
guys will get it on once again November two. It's
the main event of the Top Rank ESPN Plus card
at the Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York,
not far from where I grew up as a matter
of fact. So the first question I got to start
with you O'shaki is this when you fought him the
first time in July, you were making your third title defense.
You had looked good in your dramatic victory against Hernandez,
you had defeated Abraham Nova, seemed to be on a
very good role. You guys were the co feature that
night in Newark, New Jersey, when Chakorus Stevenson was in
the main event against Ardam Hartunian. You lost a split decision,
and the folks know to refresh your memory. One judge
had you winning one sixteen to one twelve, uh and
the two other judges had concerts I winning one sixteen
to one twelve and one fifteen one thirteen. My question is,
when they're reading the squarecards, did you feel like I
got this in the bag and were you surprised when
that was said it was going to be a split verdict.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I was telling my coaches right after the
bill round that you know, I made it look easy
and that, you know, I showed the world that you know,
I can box and I can make it look easy
if I want to. So yeah, when the square cards
came out, it was like I kind of talked. I
don't know, I kind of felt, I don't know, I
was I don't know. I couldn't understand it because I
was literally just telling them like, man, this was you know,
the good night easy work.
Speaker 4: Like woo woo, and then we.
Speaker 2: Lose the fight and it's like, yeah, it was crazy, man,
it was crazy.
Speaker 1: I mean I didn't attend the fight in person that time,
but I watched it like so many other boxing fans
and wrote about it afterwards. And I when I watch
fights like that, I scored them on paper or in
my computer as I'm watching, And I scored the fight
for you one eighteen to one ten. I thought maybe
there was maybe one round, maybe two that I could
have given the other way, So you still would have,
at least in my mind, one eight rounds to four.
So just how shocked were you, uh in when it happened?
I know you said you thought you won easily.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was unbelievable for me. I just it didn't
feel real. I ain't gonna lie.
Speaker 4: I didn't feel real.
Speaker 2: I kind of That's why I was just kind of
pacing around the ring. I was trying to understand, like
like you know where it came from, but.
Speaker 4: I don't know. It just feel crazy, man.
Speaker 1: Just well, I know you wanted a rematch, obviously, that
was something that you called for right away. As it
turned out to WBC, they ordered the immediate rematch, and
here you go, you've got it. But before that happened,
I know you wanted it, But were you a little
surprised or or how how much did you think that
you would actually get them to order it.
Speaker 2: I felt pretty good about the de Wie, I felt
pretty good.
Speaker 4: About them ordering it. Not gonna lie, I didn't have
no no.
Speaker 2: I felt I felt there was too much backlash, too much,
too much going on around the fight, that it had
to be a rematch. I was gonna put a stand
on the sport. But the only thing I didn't know
if if they was gonna try to run from the rematch,
if Mauricio didn't you're talking about, yeah, if he didn't
make it like force the rematch. I'm sure they would
have probably ran from the rematch.
Speaker 1: So when you wall put like that, since the fight happened,
have you gone back and rewatch it? I did once, okay,
So what do you see when you rewatch it? Do
you see, like how it's passible that they could give
him the scores that he could at least two of
the judges have him winning the fight.
Speaker 2: Nah, I seen him win in two rounds.
Speaker 4: I give him two rounds.
Speaker 2: I know it was around the fourth and probably somewhere
around the later round, but not not at all. I
thought it was a clean wash in the ring. And
when I watched it, Yeah, the most I could give
him was two rounds.
Speaker 1: So nothing that he gave you trouble with that you
could have seen that maybe somebody else was like, Okay,
he's doing very well in this particular facet of the fight,
so therefore maybe he can win some more rounds. Anything,
anything you gave you trouble with.
Speaker 2: No, not really, I could have counted more, you know,
stuff like that, but nah, not really no.
Speaker 1: So the one thing that I see when I look
at it, so I don't like live and die let's
say by the CompuBox numbers, I know that they do
provide a guide to the fight. So when I look
at it, I see and these numbers are very stark.
You know, if you've ever taken a look at what
the numbers from your fight were, is that you threw
way fewer punches than he did, by by quite a bit,
like well over one hundred punches almost one hundred, like
almost two hundred punches less than he did. But you
land You were credited with landing like forty more punches
than he was. So you're landing more, but you're not
nearly as busy. But he's throwing way more but landing
a lot less. In fact, he landed at a historically
pour amount only eleven percent of his punches. But the
reason I'm saying this is because some judges might look
and be swayed by the activity, and another judge may
be swayed by the fact that you were landing more punches,
even if you know neither one of you were throwing
particularly devastating punches landing them anyway. So that leads me
to this, do you think that part of going into
the rematch that you need to at least ratchet up
your activity level in terms of your punch output to
make sure that that doesn't happen again.
Speaker 2: Uh, we ain't given away no game plans, but I
plan on. I plan on. I know what I need
to do. I understand what I need to do. Definitely
was easy, no matter how we judge seeing it, they
should have seen it as a unanimous decision. So I
shouldn't have to go in there and change everything up,
but I would. I would turn it up. It's okay.
I mean, I understand what I need to do.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And by the way, when I said I don't, I'm
not talking about some kind of like radical change. I
just mean being sort of a cognizant of the fact
that I might need to, like maybe be a little
bit more aggressive, maybe throw a few more punches, because
we've seen you do that. We saw that in the
Hernandez fight, for example. It's not like you're not capable
of doing that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, now, you're right.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's that's that's basically what it is.
Speaker 4: You know, we gotta turn it up.
Speaker 1: So and what would it mean to you to regain
the title? I mean, you know, I've talked to lots
of fighters in my day, and it's one thing. You know,
they win the title and you know they always talk
about it. You know, getting it's one thing, but keeping
it's tougher.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: And then if they lose it and get it back again,
they talk about how sweet it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, uh yeah, it's it's it's gonna be. I don't
know I'm gonna feel I'm gonna feel great. I'm I'm
I'm real anxious. I'm excited and uh man, when that
when that time come, I think I'm happy. I'm gonna
have more emotions than I did for the first go round.
Speaker 1: Well, I see you smiling. I can tell you're like
excited about it when you when I yeah, you really
pumped up for it. Yeah, you guys had a pretty
bad head butt there in the ninth round of the fight.
I left you guys both with cuts. It seemed to
me that yours was a bit worse than his.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: You kind of have to in the back of your
mind make sure that you are worry about making sure
the head don't get involved again.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and kind of when that happened, it was kind
of my fault too, the way I threw the right
hand and the way he like, I counted the right
hand and I pulled, but I kind of leaned over
to the left a little bit, so that's what kind
of made it. So, Yeah, I'm gonna be I'm definitely
gonna be mindful of his head because that was kind
of Yeah.
Speaker 1: Is it. It's all healed up though, No issues there
going into this fight with the cut.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, no no issues.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you guess not like you guys are waiting
a year to do the remat It's been like what
four months or so since the last fight, since July,
so it's not a long hasn't been a long wait,
I guess.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, I've always been interested in your backstory. I've
heard them talk about it on on on the broadcast
in the past. I've written a little bit about it
in the in the past about how you know, you
got in some trouble as a kid, you were in jail. Uh,
you had been a really good amateur boxer and and
and I guess the way the story goes that I
heard you tell me if I'm wrong here, that at
some point, you know, while you're doing your time, uh,
you were watching Terrence Crawford fight and we're inspired by
watching a Terrence Crawford fight, And as the story goes,
Oshaki Foster said, you know what, when I'm out of here,
which you know, I guess you didn't have a long
period of time left to do, uh that you were
gonna try to turn your life around and dedicate yourself
to boxing, seeing what what what Terrence Crawford had done.
Can you uh go a little bit more into that
story of what happened and what fight were you watching?
And like, I didn't know that you could watch like
HBO fights in jail.
Speaker 2: Oh actually it was uh it was so I was.
It's like the blocks. It's like a twelve man unit
and there no no no no guards in there. They come,
they come visit like every hour or two.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Some people know it's like you're in maximum security prison.
I don't think or anything like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I went in and I wasn't in the maximum security.
Speaker 4: But they got things.
Speaker 2: Called blocks, so you can go to population or you
can go to the blocks. And so the murders or
like as anything, agg they going to the blocks. You
know what I mean, you don't go to population. So
it ain't no security going none.
Speaker 4: Of that and that.
Speaker 2: But Anyways, we had a small a small like TV
where you can get like the basic channels, the basic
cable channels.
Speaker 4: He was fighting on ESPN that night. He was fighting
and Dono. He was fighting in DONO.
Speaker 1: That was not that was not Oh yeah, that was ESPN.
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so there was that was that fight.
Speaker 1: And so what was it? What was it about that that,
like just did you have like an epiphany like Okay,
I'm gonna change things when like when you saw him
win the Younger Speed of Championship.
Speaker 2: It was really just a mental thing at the time
because I hadn't been sinnised yet. I was still I
was in there, you know, I hadn't even bailed out
or nothing.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 2: I hadn't went to court and nothing. So I was
just put in my mind towards that and and and
kind of manifesting it in that way. I really didn't
have no no super plan. I was still locked up,
but I knew and the people around me that was
in the in the in the jails, in the jail
with me, they they was kind of like, you know,
they was kind of on my side with it too.
Like it was because I was still trying to do
a little boxing training in there, but it wasn't nothing major,
So it just gave me confidence being that me and
Terrence got a similar style, you know what I mean,
and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, when you look back, is that almost
like a I mean, listen, no one wants to be
in jail obviously, but looking back that if that puts
you on the straight and narrow path and help lead
you to where you are now in your career, A
guy that's uh, you know, stayed out of trouble. I
guess since you've come out, won a world championship, you know,
made some money, have opportunities. Uh is in the long run,
was it like a good thing? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: The last the last little sit I had in there
was definitely the eye opener because, like I said, I
hadn't been sinised yet and they didn't want to.
Speaker 4: They didn't want to let us bond out. So I
was just sitting.
Speaker 2: Sitting and you don't never know, you know what I mean,
You never know if you're gonna sit down and to
your sentences, so senate sentencing or what else.
Speaker 4: Whatever.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that opened my eyes. It just made me
be like, all right, you need to. You need to
go forward with it with the box and stuff and
try to If not, then you.
Speaker 4: Know what I mean, it's gonna go down here.
Speaker 1: And how long were you did you serve then? Because
of that in the first place.
Speaker 2: I was, I was only in there for that time,
for like five months, five six months, But soon as
I got out, I stayed on the friend couch and
then I moved straight to uh FEMA rooms in Houston,
and then we.
Speaker 4: Got it going.
Speaker 1: And that's when you went and turned it all over
the boxing and put your life into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, standing the female rooms because I had a friend
she could get FEMA rooms in her name. So I
was just staying in Houston and I just started going
to Main Street Boxing gym and it just feeling fail
in place everything.
Speaker 1: And so now, like we were talking about, you got
this important rematch with Conscious Out coming up. You have
opportunity to regain a portion of one hundred and thirty
pound title. And so my question then would be if
that happens and you're the winner of the fight, like
so many of us thought you won the first fight,
what what sort of fights after that are interested? I mean,
you're you're one hundred and thirty pound way class. Uh,
you know you're with top rank. They promote never at
the in Valdez who are fighting in a title fight.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: Later this year there's other talented fighters. Is it will
move up to one hundred and thirty five pounds where
there's also quality fighters. You know you're I don't know
if Loma Chenko is gonna fight again, but he's got
a belt, he's with top rank.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: You know what kind of things do you have in
your mind for your future if you regain this title?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Man, after we regained this title, I'm looking. I'm looking
for the winner of oscarbas never say that that would
be my first option. Anything outside of that, Loma any anything,
I'm I'm open for any of the big fights.
Speaker 4: I'm not I'm not picking and choosing whoever.
Speaker 2: Whoever it is. If it's a big fighters, we can
we can unify. I can go up and fight for
another title than either one.
Speaker 4: I'm cool with it.
Speaker 1: Well, I hope you're cool with it. Come up your
fight with your rematch with Robson Kontaso. Uh, coming up
on November two at the Turning Stone, because you know
on ESPN plus. Oh Shaky. I wish you the best
luck in the fight, and I really appreciate your time today.
Speaker 4: Hey, thank you brother, I appreciate.
Speaker 3: You having me so again, as we clarify that as
not this weekend, but next weekend at the Turning Stone
Resort in Verona, New York. Say the day, the date,
November second, November second, which is what three days before
the election.
Speaker 1: And also just so people know, this is an ESPN
Plus only show, not at ESPN Network show.
Speaker 3: So that is coming now as we release this pod
in eight or nine days. All right, So again intrigue
on the rematch here again, though we were just talking
about this with the Catterall program fight. I don't know
what we're getting because neither guy was very good in
that first fight. Who's gonna step up and be good
in the rematch?
Speaker 1: Here? Yeah, I mean, look when they had the first fight,
the scorers, I mean I scored the fight pretty wide
in favor of O Shaki Foss. A lot of people did,
and so it was a little bit surprising not only
to see that Constile was the winner of the fight,
but that he won he won closely on the two
score cards. Foster one judge had him eight to four.
The other judge had it eight four for constant out win.
Seven to five are consts out, you know, and I
don't know what they were looking at. Most people thought
that that Oshaki won, but you're right, it was not
a very good fight. O. Shaki didn't help himself with
his lack of by his lack of let's call it
his activity level, let's say. And so that's how I
sort of looked at the fight that and I asked
him about this. You heard in the interview about the
fact that you again, compy box is a guide. It's
not the end all be all, but sometimes it provides
a stark illustration of the way a fight is going.
If you have Oshaki Foster in their fight and he's
throwing only four hundred and change for the entire fight,
and out of that he's landing a little over one
hundred punches, and you have consts Out, who's throwing you know,
more than seven hundred punches in the fight, but landing
you know, twenty five or thirty less than Foster. The
judges are faced with the decision, and you know, it's
what they're looking at, what their eyes catched. Either you're
scoring for the guy that's much more active throwing punches
but just not landing them, or the guy that's laying
actually a substantial amount more but way way fewer punches
being thrown. And I think that's where the where the fracture,
let's say, in the scoring was, is that one judge
did it in my opinion, the right way, which is
score the punches landed, not the punch is thrown. If
you throw a million punches, then nothing lands.
Speaker 3: Who cares effective aggressiveness right landing those shots anyway. But
the bigger the bigger thing is Foster, by his own admission,
has to has to be better at the end of
the fight. He was not good in the final round
of the fight. And if I'm not mistaken, Consasao clinched
it by winning the final round of the fight. So
that's just still yet another example. You cannot assume that
you've won it by decision fight the twelfth round.
Speaker 1: Dan, I don't think he assumed it. But the main
thing is you got to win the seven rounds. So
if it's seven rounds, if you win rounds one through
seven on the cards and you lose rounds, you know,
after that through the rest of the fight, you're still
going to get not you just don't know the score.
The reality is it was not a great fight. It
was a controversial, controversial decision. The WBC, in my opinion,
did the right thing by ordering the rematch. I don't
think that if they ordered if they hadn't ordered the rematch,
I'm pretty doubtful that he would have gotten the rematches.
He pointed out on that podcast interview that folks just
listened to and so Top Ranks got both guys and
they did the fight again, and so hopefully it lives.
It's a better uh entertainment value for those of us
who are watching, and that whatever happens, whether it's Consassa
or it's Foster, the guy that should get the win
gets it. And I always say in like a clean
manner where there's not a lot of hooting and hollered
after words about whether it's a controversy or it's this
or it's that. Uh, be the best man win.
Speaker 3: Like all that and again November two, next Saturday for
that matchup between consass Sound now is the champ and Foster.
Who's a great story. Let's even get his title back?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 3: Some news? Wait, wait a minute, wait, a minute, I
thought Tank Davis was fighting Lamont Roach December the fourteenth
in Houston, Texas. Ray Fields got on the rundown on
the lead, hold up, whoa Nelly? Hold up? That's a
Texas phrase.
Speaker 1: Woa Nelly your best Keith Jackson, Right.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, what's going on here? Maybe not happening.
Speaker 1: Well, let's clarify, you know. I put stuff on like
my Twitter feed, and people they don't read the full words.
They're like that fights off, the fights No, no, no, no,
the fight's not off. According to my sword, I spoke
to three different people who would be involved in this event,
all right, and they all acknowledge that the December fourteenth date,
while not dead, it still very well may happen on
December fourteenth. It's just not one hundred percent at this moment.
They one of the people said, it's about fifty to fifty.
But again, it's not because there's some kind of issue
holding up Tank with his team or with PBC or
with Roach, or some kind of controversy over the contract
or the money or whatever. That stuff apparently is all
dealt with and say and handle. There apparently is some
sort of issue related to their venue that and I
don't know what that detail is. I'm pretty good, but
I can't read people's minds and I don't know everything.
But there was some type of issue in terms of
the venue, which the Toyota Center where they're supposed to
be doing it. And now remember it was what a
week or so plus ago that you had Tank and
Roach and more significantly PBC in their folks Leonard Llerb
as well, putting out the graphic with the picture and
announcing the fight, you know, putting up the matchup, putting
up the location, you know, PBC on Prime all that
you pay per view, and that was the deal. Now
I had reported that the fight was made, which it
was it is, and the date and the location. Now,
one thing that you learn in my business is when
they tweet that stuff and the fighters making because the
fighters they love to make their own announcements. And then
usually what happens is they make that announcement and then
PBC puts it up and then either later that day,
maybe sometimes the next day or a couple of days later,
they service like the full press release they announced like
when the news conference is going to be. They prepare
all that business. And that hadn't happened. So when it
got and I was under the impression from people involved
that that announcement, in that press release and that scheduling
of the news conference was going to take place this
week when day or Thursday most likely. So it didn't
happen yesterday, I didn't think anything of it. And then
when it got to like today and I'm like, there's
still like nothing, you hear zero, it's chirp, chirp from
the from the crickets. I started to make a few
phone calls to my people, as they say, and where
I found out the reason why it hasn't been announced
and there has been no press conference and there has
been no a formal press conference done, and not only
a press conference, but because of the pay per view
nature of the fight, there was a good possibility they
were going to probably do more than one city on
this press conference, probably do Houston, where the fight's taking
place you want to sell tickets, but there was also
a pretty good chance they might do New York, which
you always kick off things. And because both of the
fighters are from the Washington, DC area, Lamart Roach is
from DC. Tank is from Baltimore, which is you know,
an hour or less away. Plus he's got a huge
fan base in the district as well, that they might
do some type of activity in Washington as well in
promotion of the fight. Well, none of that has been announced.
It's still not coming, and I come to find out
the reason why because they're dealing with whatever hiccup is
going on.
Speaker 3: So there's something there's such just clear there's something with
the arena and that date that is the herd of.
Speaker 1: The arena and the date. Maybe again, I don't know
the details. It could be something that they agreed to
in the contract. It could be a million things. But
the reality is the fight supposedly is still going to
take place in If it doesn't take place on the fourteenth,
they may end up pushing it into the January of
next year, because you're saying they're not going to move
the fight up earlier in the year because it's too
close to the date anyway.
Speaker 3: But the reason I bring that up is you talked
about them trying to have it potentially in the Washington
DC Capital Ie Arena if I have the sponsor name right,
the Downtown DC Arena, but they elected to not try
to make that happen. Around December twenty first the following week,
they elected instead to go the previous week, not be
on the same date as the USIK Fury rematch.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: Also one thing, so now I just I.
Speaker 3: Wonder aloud, are they looking for another venue? Maybe on
the fourteenth? Also, I don't know that. I just wonder
are they looking for the other venue? And then we'll
get the announcement of where that I.
Speaker 1: Have not heard if they are okay, But I'll say
this one of the reasons why they didn't do the
fight in Washington, other than you know, the fact that
there's another pay per view on that date. Perhaps some
people felt it was a little too close to Christmas
to get the money from the consumer. But I think
overriding all of that stuff is Tank Davis. For whatever reason,
I have not talked to him about this, so I
don't know if the answer. Hopefully, if the fight happens
and wherever it takes place, I'll ask him the question.
He wanted to fight in Houston. He's got I don't know,
family there, he's got friends there. He's wanted to fight there. Okay,
So when you're the star, you get to pick where
you fight. So that was part of it. And if
they can't make it work. They didn't. They couldn't make
it work. So you know, everybody needs to just sit tight.
I mean, it doesn't happen on the fourteenth, they'll probably
end up happening, you know, in the first part of
next year. But that would also mean other things get
moved around. Maybe they end up moving back to you know,
right now, it's been sort of penciled in David Benavidez
against David Morrell either January twenty fifth or that first
part of February. Now, if they decide the tank doesn't
fight on December fourteenth and they move out of the January,
that's a domino effect. Then it moves back Morell and
Benavide's and you know, we'll have to wait and say so.
But then again, you know, in the next couple of days,
maybe they get everything squared away and they're still a
fight on December fourteenth in Houston.
Speaker 3: It's quiet for the moment. Okay, next news item, I
got to say that I was entertained with this Alexander
Usik Tyson Fury to kickoff presser Wednesday in London. From
the jump, when Usik shows up in the hit Man
forty seven outfit. I even watched I don't know why,
I watched Timothy Olafant in the hit Man movie, the
original movie with the bald head, the black suit, the
red tie, the gloves and my man Usick's just a
couple of few a week before Halloween shows up in
the costume, and I love the part when he went
over to Fury. It had him autograph the color photo.
You saw this Rayfael of Usik popping him and Fury
went along with it, all right, So it was a
little it was interesting there with that. But what else?
What else from the kickoff press conference that was in London?
Speaker 1: Well, and one thing, you know, Fury did actually show
some humility for a change, where he basically was like, look, Alexander,
he beat me on the night, and uh, I know
what I have to do it in terms of make
some adjustments to win it back. And you know, he
did what a lot of fighters did. He said it
was this was you know fate, or this was in
God's hands or whatever the case may be, that you
know that stuff's gonna happen. It's like, you know, preordained.
I don't personally subscribe to that, uh situation, but that's
what he believed so be it. But the sad part
about it was, besides the entertainment, the actual formal press
comms that I guess when he's when he met with
other members of the media, not necessarily for the cameras
and everything. He actually said that the night before he
fought against Alexander Usik back in May, that his wife
Paris now they have seven children together, but she was
pregnant for the eighth time with the child, and that
she was already six months along, not just like in
the first you know, a few weeks or first month
or two, that she had miscarried, and he he she
wasn't present in Reac, she was back home with the
kids while he was taking care of business obviously in
the fight, but that he said that he had some
sort of feeling that something was wrong when he talked
to her and he comes to find out that she
had miscarried, and as he made and you know, his
comments a paraphrase, basically like you know, at six months
when you miscarry, you miscarry, you have to give birth
to like basically a deceased. Horrible, It's not just like
when you're a couple of weeks and it's not a
formed baby, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So let's just be real for a second. It's as
still birth. You go through the birthing process and it's
a horrible, horrible thing. Wow.
Speaker 1: So I felt, I felt, you know, I felt real
terrible for for Feury. I mean, he's a human being.
He's got he's got several children. I mean he's a
doting father and all that. So you know, that's just
a terrible, terrible situation. I mean, he uh, you know,
he said that he that he you know, as he said,
it wasn't like a small miscarriage like at the very beginning,
like you have to this is his quote, you have
to physically give birth to a dead child on your
own while your host is in a foreign country. Yeah,
so he's you know, he was you know, uh, I
think he was kind of beating himself up a little bit,
maybe reflecting on that. You know, he couldn't be there
for his wife because he's there obviously in riad you know,
the night before this uh, this boxing event, so you
know that, you know, he didn't make excuses. Frankly, he
didn't say like that was why he lost the fight,
because he didn't even know Apparently the particulars until I
guess after the fight.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: But still, yeah, you got a feel for the anybody
that's a human being or anybody especially that's a that's
a parent. I mean, that's a rough way to go.
So hopefully they've dealt with that, and you know he
can obviously he's got his business to attend to with
the boxing match. So but that was not the kind
of thing you typically hear. He didn't say it, like
I said, at the actual podium when they were doing
the formal press cards, but when he met with some
of the media and the TV crews backstage where they
got some of their material, that's when when that came
up in the conversation. So, you know, unfortunately for the
Fury family.
Speaker 3: Well, and remember in and around the rematch with Deontay
Wilder the second fight, they had the infant that was
near death in the ICU that was going on. So
this is real life stuff here with the Fury family
and wow, wow on you sharing that with us on
that and uh, and again we're now within a couple
of months of this, you know, really getting ramped up
and happening with the rematch for the Unified no longer
the undisputed heavyweight title, three of the belts for the
rematch in Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: But and TJ the lineal time.
Speaker 3: And the lineal title, and I just say something real
quick and then we're gonna move on. I love. I mean,
Usik is refreshing with the humor, the costumes. Remember he
came to the wasn't at the first Fury fight. He
came as the Joker he was. He was dressed in
the Joker outfit, uh for that one. So he's always
clever with some of this stuff. I like personality for
these guys.
Speaker 1: Fury and Usik both have good personalities. Now, I don't
feel like everybody has sort of gotten the no Usick
in that manner just because there's a language barrier. He
doesn't speak the greatest English. You know, obviously he's from Ukraine,
so you know he's never gonna out talk a Tyson Fury.
But I've covered a number of his fights when he
far in the United States. I remember one year he
when he got the Fighter of the Year award at
the Boxing Writers Dinner. Uh, when he when he became
the undisputed cruiserweight champion. We were in I think we
were in New York for a Luma Chanko fight. Who's
his guy? And that is the same weekend as the dinner.
I think I'm thinking of the right one. But in anything,
we were staying at the same hotel and I rode
in the car. It was me, Usik's girlfriend or his wife,
I forget which it was at the time, his manager,
and the manager's girlfriend and the manager Egus Klemis, is translating,
and Usik and I are like talking to each other,
and he's making jokes the whole You know, we're stuck
in like New York City traffic, so what's like there
was no traffic, it's probably like a you know, three
or four minute car ride in traffic. We're probably stuck
in the car twenty five minutes a half an hour
getting to where we were going for the dinner. And so,
you know, I'm not saying like you're becoming the guy's
best buddy, but you're really getting insight to the man's
personality when you spend thirty minutes in a New York
City car like that, and the guy's telling jokes and
recounting funny story so he is hilarious. Actually when he
wants to do that. Yes, you ever see like training
videos he does the crazy dancing, and he's got just
a very wistful kind of personality and fury. Obviously, anybody
that's followed him for any measure time knows he's got
a gigantic personality.
Speaker 3: So came to the press conference for the Klitchkill fight
and the Batmobile as Batman. If I recall speak.
Speaker 1: So he can be outlandish and and and and should
talk and aggravate people also, but when he wants to
be in a in a good playful mood, theory can
do that also. And they they didn't quite do that
to the level. But yes, the signing of the picture
and with the costume, I mean there was you know,
you gotta I always look like this if you're if
you're the guy that's in the press cards and it's
your thing, you know, that's what you gotta You gotta a,
you gotta sell it and you should have fun. Right,
that's the time in the spotlight. You know, the fight
is the hard work. You know, the training camp is
the hard work. This is the time to enjoy and
promote it and and show your personality. Talk to the fans,
talk to the press, and get your point across and
sell your fight.
Speaker 3: Moving on with the news, we have a retirement announcement
as Sanisa super bad Estrata, the undisputed women's Strawway champion,
announced her retirement earlier this week at the age of
thirty two. She's also been doing some commentary work as
well for ESPN and Top Rank Boxing. So did that
catch you a little off guard? Did you been hearing that?
I mean, it's easy to say after the fact I've
been hearing that, But I think some people were maybe
a bit surprised to see that because she's undisputed and
maybe was gonna fight another time or two. But there
you go.
Speaker 1: I was a little surprised, not totally shocked, because I
heard you know, she's been dealing with a lot of
nagging injuries, and you know, she she she couldn't get that.
She was thinking like maybe the big fight for her,
if she was going to continue, would have been to
have a rematch against marlin A Sparza, which would have
been a big deal. She had gone up to flyweight
and fought her up there, but as Sparsa lost in
a title fight where she lost the UH the UH
to Atlanta is in a unified title fight, so that
that big fight went down the drain, which would have
been a big fight for her, and there was really
nothing else out there that really was motivating there. Plus,
like I said, the injuries, she's given twenty three years
of her life to it. You know, she just got
married over the summer. She married our good palate Chris Manner.
So they're newly about that, so you know, they they
have other plans perhaps, I mean, I mean, I'm not
I don't want to put words in Chris's mouth, but
not that we had like deep conversations about this. But
I don't think he loved the fact that she was
still fighting, you know what I mean. He knows he's
been around boxing a long time as a reporter. He
knows what kind of toll that it takes. So anyway,
the bottom line is, you added all together, she had
accomplished her goal, which is the first and foremost she'd
been dreaming and talking about being undisputed for a long time.
She did win titles in two weight classes. She was
also a champion in the one hundred and eight pound
weight class before she dropped down to strawweight, and she
ended up in twenty twenty two, she had signed with
Top Rank and they put her on the path to
get to the undisputed fight. And she's coming off of
her biggest and best fight where she in March of
this year, she had two of the titles. She outpointed
You'll Costa Vaye one of the top female boxers in
the world, and won the two titles that Vaya had
became undisputed. And now you're looking around, You're like, Okay,
I don't have a big fight. R My one obvious
opponent just lost and that kind of goes down the drain.
I just got married. Maybe I'm thinking about starting a family.
I got all these injuries. I've been doing this twenty
three years. I have other things I may be able
to do, whether it's commentary or other things, you know,
just in your life, and I don't. I don't have
that motivation. And if you don't have the motivation in anything,
it's not a good idea to do it, right. But
especially if it's a physical, tolling, taxing event like a
boxing match. Not to mention the fight itself, I don't
even think it's so much the fight. It's really the
training and then of course the preparation both physical and mental.
So you know, at the end of the day she retires,
she's only thirty two years old, so she's hopefully got
a long, fruitful and productive life ahead of her. She
finishes up her career if she is indeed retired for good.
And there's always the caveat no matter who you are,
if you retire in boxing, there's a chance you may
unretire at some point. But if she stays retired, she
is twenty six and oho with nine knockouts, a rare
boxer to retire as an undefeated champion. And I would
say if she stays retired, in three years, when the
Hall of Fame ballots come out, she'll be on that ballot,
and she would deserve it anyway. But given the lightness,
let's say, of the category right now, in terms of
bona fide candidates to be elected, I would have no
doubt in my mind that she would be elected on
the first ballot if you put her on the ballot
with the women that are on there currently that the
voting process for the coming election cycle is happening as
we speak. The ballots are due back by October thirty.
First matter of fact, I just mailed my ballot back
yesterday on Wednesday of this week. She'll be in the
Hall of Fame someday. So she beat the top smaller
weight women of her time and made a fun style,
had a big personality, and you know, I say good
luck to her. She was a credit to the sport.
Speaker 3: And I enjoy again. You know, I'm a broadcaster and
I enjoy good broadcasting. Whatever. She and Christina pont Are
do an excellent job on calling the fights. Shout out
to them on.
Speaker 1: They do the international of the Proact. But something we
don't hear here in the States.
Speaker 3: Well, but sometimes we hear them on ESPN Plus on
different things.
Speaker 1: And I heard occasionally on the undercards.
Speaker 3: Yeah with Christina Poncher and shout out to them. And
you're right, sometimes there are other priorities once you've done
the boxing thing. I still remember the feature.
Speaker 1: Oh so, by the way, she had already beaten Marlin
Asparza in the first fight with a little controversy, but
once she lost, there was never going to be around.
Speaker 3: I loved on the feature that I saw before her
last fight here that turns out to maybe be her
last fight ever. That when she came into the gym
as a nine year old. The boxing coach said, get
out of here, go away. You don't need to be
in here. This is not a little girl's world or whatever.
And she was mad and she was crying, and then
she came back, and then I think he even kicked
her out again just to see, this is a nine
year old, you don't need to be in here. And
she just kept coming back and wanted to learn how
to fight. And like you said, it's been twenty three
years of doing that, you're ready to do something else.
I can't blame that. I understand that you're married, you
got other goals. I love it.
Speaker 1: The only thing I say about that is she finally
got to a point where she's undisputed. And again, if
she's not motivated, you know fine, I'm not ask her decision.
The reason why it would become as a surprise to
a lot of people is because she's at a point
now where while she's not making like millions of dollars
for her fights for women's boxing, she's making like half
a million.
Speaker 3: Dollars significant money.
Speaker 1: She's making really good money. I mean, yeah, she could
fight twice a year and make probably over a million dollars.
Speaker 3: But you answered it yourself. If the heart right here,
I'm pointing at my chest. If this is it anymore
and you want to do other things, then you don't
need to be in the ring either trying to throw
punches or get hit with punches. I would agree with
you on that. Absolutely, We agree on that a couple
more things. Okay, So Thursday night, US time, while we're
doing this podcast, they are making it official that Naoia
no they.
Speaker 1: They did it Wednesday night.
Speaker 3: Well they did it Wednesday night, I'm sorry, which was
earlier on Wednesday US time, that the Monster Naoia in
a way will now fight Sam Goodman, something you've been
talking about, and it will be Christmas Eve in Tokyo.
So tell me more about all of which this was
expected right against Sam Goodman as the as the next bout,
so go ahead.
Speaker 1: So they have the press cards. In a way, Inness
was there. Goodman was there on a big screen. You know,
he's from Australia. He had been in the ring with
in a way after one of his I forget which fight.
It was either the last fight or two fights ago.
Like knowing this fight was gonna is gonna probably take
place clearly the protests from Team mj acmadalia of as
the WBA mandatory they believe he is next. Obviously that
nothing's there is gonna happen. Seems to me the WBA
is not going to do anything about it. They'll maybe
have to force the acmcdalia of camp to sue them
if they desire to. I'm not sure they want to
get involved with that. In the podcast that I did,
the interview with Bob Aarin that folks can listen to
a couple of shows back we spoke about it. Bob's
perspective was instead of trying to sue us, they should
be trying to talk to us and negotiating a fight
for April when they plan to bring in a way
to the United States a fight in Las Vegas. But
first he's got to deal with Sam Goodman. Sam Goodman,
while not a superstar fighter, he's got some credentials. He
is nineteen and zero with eight knockouts. Like I said,
he's from Australia. You know, he's a younger fighter's only
twenty six years old. He has two wins on his
record that stand out a little bit, and that in
twenty twenty three he has a ten round decision victory
against TJ. Dohaneyho was a former title holder fighter that
Jah in a way knocked out in his most recent fight,
so they have that common opponent his fight after that
later in twenty twenty three. He fought four times in
twenty twenty three, but the second of his two of
his four fights in twenty twenty three was in Australia
on one of the undercards when I believe it was
when Cambosis and Haney had one of their fights. He
scored a very solid victory. It was a split decision,
but I mean I felt like he was clearly the
winner anyway, thought the undefeated ra east Alim who was
you know, as I take it back, it was the
Tim zu Ocampo undercard in Australia. In any event, that
was an IBF title eliminator. And also, not only is
Goodman the number one and mandatory in the IVF, he's
also the mandatory in the WBO. So this actually will
satisfy two of the four mandatories in one fight, and
in a way he's already done as WBC mandatory. A
couple of fights to go against Luis Near which was
the huge fight that had in the Tokyo Dome. So
since Tho's victories against Ohanian and Easalin, he also beat
Miguel Flores and then he's had a couple of maybe
a little bit lesser type fights that have been over
also in Australia and stayed busy waiting for this title shot.
Now he's got it and he's got to go face
the monster. And I don't care if you're Sam Goodman
or you know, whoever you are. Anybody in those weight
classes one hundred eighteen, one hundred and twenty two, even
one hundred and twenty six is going to have their
hands fall. Probably with Annoya in Away. He's one of
the best, if not the best fighter in boxing. They
made that official. But the key here is the plan
is fight Goodman fights from Australia, fight that fight on
Christmas Eve in Tokyo. Then if everything goes well, coming
to the United States for a fight in April, and
again if everything goes well, then now you go back
to Japan in the back end of the year, maybe
the late summer or the fall, and the plan if
they can square away the venue and get all that
stuff done because it's hard to get a date at
the Tokyo Dome. But they want to go there and
they want to do the Mega Showdown, which will be,
according to Bob Aram and I can't argue with them,
based on my knowledge of Japanese boxing history, maybe the
biggest fight in the history of Japan in terms of
an all Japanese fight, and that would be in a
way against Janto Nakatani, who would move up to challenge
him for the title. And if in Awe were to
if that plan were to unfold as I just mentioned
and in a way was successful and won that fight,
at that point, I think you'd obviously see in a way,
Uh move up probably to the featherweight division, which will
open up a whole new yep of possible opponents for
you know, for next year or for you know, twenty
twenty six, let's say so again, there's a lot to
go on between now and then. But first steps. First,
you got to take care of Sam Goodman, who is
going to be highly motivated for this fight. Because if
you can go and win against Ay in a way,
you have made your career for sure. So that's the plan.
And by the way, they didn't announce the opponent yet,
but the co feature when in a Way fights will
be the very interesting and entertaining Yoshiki Takai, who will
defend the w BO bantamway title. He has been fighting regularly.
He's only ten to zero. I think of his ten fights,
like five or six of them have been an in
a way undercards, so uh, this is not an unfamiliar
position for him to be on in a way undercards.
So they don't have an opponent yet, but that's the
other title fight on the card.
Speaker 3: And interesting again with the time difference US and Tokyo.
So that is Christmas Eve morning in the United States,
which is a Tuesday by the way, Ray Phil, I'm
just letting everybody knows, like Wednesday this year. So that's
and they do fight a lot on Monday night and
Tuesday night in Japan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, on ESPN Plus. If you're living in the United States,
like if you're on the East coast ryam the fights
well and where you are you're talking about the card
will probably be like around four in the morning or
three in the morning. Main event probably like you're on
six or.
Speaker 3: Some mony a time to go battle for the last
second gifts and the and the brawls and the different stores.
Speaker 1: And if you're on you know, and then obviously it's
it's it's middle of the night if you're in like
California on the West coast.
Speaker 4: Run.
Speaker 1: But you know, we you know how much we love
those Japanese cards.
Speaker 3: And breakfast and Japanese boxing in the US. We love it.
Speaker 1: What's better than that?
Speaker 3: All right? We like that one more news item than
some Evander Holyfield world title nostalgia. To wrap it up,
and this is WBO saying that they granted an extension
for Janebec and hams As Sharaz for a unified middleweight supremacy. Here,
I'm intrigued by this. Fine, what's the latest and what's
the new deadline here where they're trying to make this
or it could be a purse bid? What's up?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: I mean, when Janebec went to Australia and he retained
the title against Macalivich, there was that whole big to
do between his team and the WBO about how he
hadn't followed the rules and he might get stripped and
it weren't you know, it wasn't technically for the WBO
title and all that, and then they gave him like
the show cause why shouldn't we strip you. They decided
that they would allow him to keep the title because
Top Rank was his promoter. Made the point in the
case of the WBO that all that business was because
it was being run by the Mcalavich team, which had
won the purse bid. So just because the WBO rules
were not followed, that was really their thing, not our thing.
We were not in control of the event whatever. So
basically the WBO said, okay, fine, you want to keep
your title, and then they shoved them mandatory down the
stroad against us. You know who was about the toughest
fighter you could fight in the middle one.
Speaker 3: Well, like, we keep saying, that's a compelling.
Speaker 1: Fight, absolutely, so we went out on that.
Speaker 3: We get that.
Speaker 1: We like, yeah, for sure. So they gave them, you know,
the traditional length of time I think it was until like, uh,
you know, this week at some point to make their
deal or they would schedule a perspit and so Queensberry,
which is the promoter for Sharaz and Top Rank, which
obviously is a promoter for Jenebec. They they petitioned the
WBO to give them an extension on the negotiating period,
and the WBO said okay, And so they extended the
deadline for the deal before they would order our schedule
a perspit. So now the new date for them to
make a deal by is November fourth. Now, a lot
of times when promoters go to a sanction body and say, hey, listen,
could you give us another week or ten days or
whatever they ask for, usually it's seen a week or
two or ten days. It's typically because they'll tell the organization, look,
we're really close. We just need a few more days
to get our ducks in a row and to take
care of the business. That's not the case in this
time and in this particular case. So my understand is
it's not that they're unwilling or not interested to make
a deal. They're not going to sit and try to
talk about it and see what they can do. Is
that because everybody from both sides has been so busy
with other stuff, they literally just hadn't gotten to it yet.
So without you know, having gotten to it, they didn't
want to go into a person before they've even had
any real dialogue about what kind of deal points they
want to discuss. So because of that, they've asked for
this extra time, and so hopefully sometime, you know, between
now and November fourth, they'll find time to get together
the two teams and have a conversation about what their
expectations are, what kind of financial things are we talking about,
what date, where, blah blah blah. Presumably would be some
type of read Season card. Given Shiraz's as filiation and
the fact that he is a fighter that turkeyols Chik
personally appointed to be like quote unquote Read Season ambassador,
it is an excellent matchup. I mean, we talked many, many,
many times to EJ about how pretty poor the middleweight
division is right now.
Speaker 3: But if you can make a fast devoid thank you, yes,
of quality, can we have good things? Can we again fight?
Speaker 1: Happen?
Speaker 3: We want this fight.
Speaker 1: If you look at the landscape of the middleweight division currently,
Jannebec I think, you know, in a weak division, has
proven himself at this point just based on longevity, if
you will, in the manner which he's knocking guys out,
that he's probably the best guy in the middleweight division
at the moment who at least has a title. He's
got two of them, and the number one rising contender
most interesting fighter also, undefeed had been exciting been in
some you know, some solid fights. Just looked great against
Tyler Denny winning the European title on the Joshua Dania
Duois undercart. Anyway, Shira's challenging jennebec is an excellent matchup,
and I hope that they can Queensberry and top Rank
and get together and actually make this fight because it's
not the biggest fight of all time, but in the
middlewaight division, it's like the one thing you're like, yeah, okay,
I'm good with that. Let's see that. So hopefully they'll make.
Speaker 3: It like that. All right, one piece of business remains,
and that is nostalgia. And it was thirty four years
ago as we released the podcast. On Friday, October twenty five,
Night ninety the Real Deal, Evander Holyfield became the undisputed
heavyweight champion with one booming punch Big Dan over James
Buster Douglas, thus ending basically the seven or eight month
joy ride that Buster had been on. And he took
the joy ride way too literally without training nearly enough.
You know, we've talked about this before, but the circumstances
of this fight have always fascinated me because you had
lawsuits involved for Buster Douglas trying to get away from
Don King. It was basically compromise, agreed to, Okay, there's
gonna be this fight. We're gonna allow you to have
this fight Buster Douglas with holy Field and make mega
money and then supposedly, allegedly, Mike Tyson's gonna get to
fight Buster Douglas in the rematch or get to fight
Evander Holyfield, which didn't happen for forever. But a funny
thing happened on the way to Buster Douglas having a
long heavyweight title reign. It was over. It was over
in fact eight months.
Speaker 1: What was supposed to happen is Tyson was going to
Tokyo to pick up a quick like six million dollar
paycheck to knock out, you know, another stiff and Buster
Douglas not a stiff, but a guy that had no
chance against him in the minds of most people. He
had also gone to Japan previously and destroyed Tony Tubbs. Uh,
you know, and like what two rounds or whatever it was,
and uh, the Busser Douglas fight became like the ultimate pothole,
if you will like to tune up, you know, became
an ultimate disaster. And became the biggest upset in boxing.
So Evander Holyfield and Tyson, they had been fans had
been clamoring for that fight ever since the Vander had
come from Cruiser way into the heavyweight division. That was
the mega, mega mega fight. Obviously, as you mentioned, it
didn't happen, you know, until several years later, you know,
under many different circumstances. Uh. But when Buster knocked out Tyson,
that wrecked the prospect of the mega fight between Tyson
and Holyfield. But what it meant was that Buster Douglas
inherited Evander Holyfield as a mandatory challenger, which as as
much as the public wanted Tyson and Holyfill, you know,
it also was a mandatory. It was one of the
times where the mandatory was also the fight everybody wanted
to see. A lot of times in today's game that
does happen, but we also see a lot of times
where a mandatory is made and it's absolutely horrible. But
in this case, that wasn't the case. It was a
fight everybody wanted and it didn't happen. So now Buster
is going to defend the title against Vander Holyfield. Then Evander,
he would have loved the Tyson fight, but he said
many times, you know, I wanted to fight Mike Tyson,
but I really wanted to be heavyweight champ. That was
the bottom line. So in the end it was on
Set pay per view, which was the former name of
Showtime pay per view. And people in today's time of
boxing don't quite grasp this, but the casinos also served
as promoters. They were licensed, so sometimes, you know, Caesar's
Palace was the promoter. In this particular case, this fight
went to a pursepit, you know, and it's unusual for
a heavyweight title fight of this caliber with those names,
and Buster coming off what he did with Tyson, which
was the biggest thing in the world, and Holy filed
the number one contender, not just because some organizations said so,
but based on what he had been doing in terms
of the guys he'd beating. This fight went to a
purspit and the Mirage won. The purspit at the time
an all time record for a perspid thirty two point
one million dollars. Steve Wynn had opened up the Mirage,
and you know, it was a beautiful, new gleaming hotel
on the strip right next to what later became Mandala Bay.
Basically anyway, humongous fight. He got killed on it financially
in the end. But the fight did happen. As you mentioned.
October twenty fifth, nineteen ninety, I was in college. I
remember going to like a house party off campus, and
I was still living in the dorms.
Speaker 3: I was like, maybe I'm in I'm in college too,
and I will shout out my friend. My friend in Memphis,
Ray Glidewell, he had a pay perview box. We talk
about this all the time. He had a pay per
view box in the primitive days of pay perview in
October of nineteen ninety. So we went to his house
and split the money about four of us.
Speaker 1: And by the way, how much does the pay review
of like nineteen ninety nine or something.
Speaker 3: Well, I can't remember if it was more than like
twenty nine to ninety five. Again, these are nineteen ninety
prices for everything. And I want to say, was it
not It was not like a Saturday night. I want
to say it was like a weeknight, because they would
do that.
Speaker 1: It was definitely not a weeknight. I don't mean I can't.
Speaker 3: We'll double check, We'll double check. But I still remember
being at his place. And here's the thing I remember.
He had like an entertainment room. He had a pool too.
Speaker 1: You know what it was. It was a Thursday.
Speaker 3: It was a Thursday night. And I've mean.
Speaker 1: Let's just take recently we heard about Tiasimo Lopez bitching
and moaning like a baby. I don't want to fight
on that card that Top Ranks offered me that slot
because it's a Friday night. I'm a Saturday night fighter.
Right by the way, the undisputed heavyweight Championship of the
World was contested in this particular fight on a Thursday.
Speaker 3: On a Thursday night, on a Thursday. But what I
remember is I'm at Ray's house with my friends from
Memphis and we're shooting pool and we're watching the pay
per view undercard and we're having some food or whatever.
And I kid you not, after the boom goes the
dynamite moment, we went right back to like shooting pool
and having competition, having fun. That's what I remember, because
it was just such a non event that Holyfield. Lady
ma out And I know you've told the story, especially
at the way end. I'm teeing you up that at
the way in everybody suddenly had an indication this ain't
the Buster Douglas that was in.
Speaker 1: Sha because the rumors were that that Buster was in
the sauna ordering a room service. I mean, he was
in great, great condition for the Tyson fight. He was caught.
He looked strong and for the fight against holy Field.
He had partied and lived up his fifteen minutes of
fame for all those months leading into the holy Field fight,
and forgot that, besides, you know, taking the bows about
the big victory over Mike Tyson, that you still had
a train for a very dangerous, outstanding opponent in Evander Holyfield,
and he just was massively out of shape mentally, mentally
and physically. He looked like a you know, was a
I forget who called him like looked like a beached whale.
Speaker 3: Yes, and yes, when he got laid out, he.
Speaker 1: Weighed you know, he was a lot heavier for the Tyson,
for the for the Evander fight than he was for Tyson.
But you know, it's one thing to be year, I guess.
But he didn't look like he'd put it on the right.
He had.
Speaker 3: He had the fifteen to twenty pounds spare tire, yeah, exactly,
and as you've told the story when he got up
on the scale at the way in go ahead.
Speaker 1: No, they I've heard. I've When I first started to
cover boxing, a lot of the guys I worked with
at ringside were veterans who had covered that fight and
other you know, fights of that ILK in that time,
and they talked about like the bee line to the
sportsbook to go bet on Holyfield when they saw how
bad that av I mean, how bad that Busser looked
at the at the weigh and then so in the end,
you know, remember Buster's two hundred and forty six pounds
for that fight and a sloppy two hundred and forty
six pounds a vander who you know was best known
before that as the cruiserweight undefeated champion. He's a svelt
and chiseled two hundred and eight pounds barely over the
heavyweight limit. You know, today we'd call him a bridgerweight
if he was fighting for the wbc A title. In
any event, he was still an outstanding fighter, and he
took him apart. I mean, he won the first two
rounds easily, and then Busterer did the cardinal sin where
he led with an upper cut. He got counter with
a massive right hand on the button.
Speaker 3: He led with an uppercut from like six feet.
Speaker 1: Away in slow motionless and this it by a mile
and boom, and Evander just came right over the top
of it, put him on the canvas and bust her.
You know, the famous scene of him laying there. I
think he thought he might be cut or bleeding from
his nose. He was rubbing his nose with his glove
and he wasn't alt cold or anything like that, but
he just never really tried to make the effort to
get up. And the Vander won the heavy White title.
And you know for Main Events, which was his promoter, Evander,
that was a massive moment for them. Now they had
promoted a lot of you know, good fighters and top fighters.
They were involved with a lot of big time fights.
They had signed most of the fighters off the Americans,
off the eighty four Olympic team, including Parnel Whittaker and
Melder Taylor and obviously Evander Holyfield. But and they had
success with some of those guys that had won titles
and were involved with a lot of TV fights. But
there's something special, on something different about the heavy White titles.
Have you ever looked back at the celebration in the ring.
You see obviously Holyfield ceate, but you see the late
Dan Duva who was the the was the head of
the company. He's the was the husband of Kathy Duva,
who now she's his widow. She now runs the company.
But you see the celebration, the sheer joy that Dan
Duva had in the ring with the whole team and
Lou Duva who was his father, who was one of
Evanders trainers. Uh, just just going absolutely crazy because that's
a huge moment. Shelley Finkle, the Hall of Fame manager,
was Evanders manager, also celebrating his first heavyweight champion. I
mean it was a you know, as they say, it
was a big fucking deal, and there was a huge deal,
and that it wasn't against Tyson really didn't matter to
them at that point because which.
Speaker 3: Part of that backdrop, and this is where you get
into the minutia of it. But it's also fascinating was
they broke the iron rain of Don King over the
heavyweight division and all the fighters and all the promotional dollars.
And that's part of what that celebration I'm sure was about.
Our guys. The champ, and now we're the shot callers.
We're in charge of what happens next. Because you.
Speaker 1: Tried to break the contract with him, and by the way.
Speaker 3: He successfully did break it that summer to be able
to have the fight, King was suing him and they
had to come to an agreement. And so King got
a portion of the money Buster's purse from the fight.
And you know who else, the former president who's on
the ballot, Donald Trump, he got a portion of the
money because he was supposed to promote the Tyson rematch,
which it turns out never happened with Buster Douglass.
Speaker 1: How about that I mentioned to you about the fact
that the Mirage, because you know, had won the purse
bit for like thirty two million in change. The second
place bidder was in fact Main Events, which was Buster's promoter,
and they'd been over twenty nine million dollars on the fight.
Speaker 3: That these are these are nineteen ninety dollars, So you
easily Douglas all that money in president.
Speaker 1: He made over twenty four million dollars in that fight.
So when he got knocked out, like he was set
for life basically with the twenty four million dollar winfall.
You know, as long as he didn't like live like
a moron. And but the fight did not do very
well in terms of what you know, for showtime. It
did like a millionaire on pay per view, but it
did not you know. And by the way, back then,
this fight, I want to say it was thirty five
bucks on pay per view. It was one of those
deals where it was a huge fight, but I guess
it wasn't as exciting to the public. Even though Busser
was like a you know, I had become like a
cult figure because of the victory. The matchup with holy
Field wasn't nearly a sexy as buster in the Tyson
rematch or holy Field against Tyson, And that was the
least of them was.
Speaker 3: That was six years later. We never got obviously Douglas
Tyson the rematch much less for the circumstances.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Douglas Reduglas retired after that, he didn't,
I mean, and then he came out of retirement. But
after they lost to Douglas, you know, Busser was sort
of like fell off the face of the earth. That
was in nineteen ninety He comes back now in nineteen
ninety six and has a handful of fights, you know,
to end his career. But you know, for six years
he was like six plus years, he's off the well.
Speaker 3: Remember the infamous Sports Illustrated article if you remember it
with him on the front page sitting on a mopad
and he looked like he was literally almost four hundred pounds. Yeah,
he was in health problems. It was horrible. Got back
into shape because of boxing. And let's say this, he
has continued to work with young fighters Boys and Girls
Club in Columbus, Ohio. I saw a new story about
this even like a year ago that he is still there,
still working with young fighters, giving of his time, giving
of money to the Boys and Girls Club of Columbus, Ohio.
So good on Buster Douglass in retirement.
Speaker 1: I never covered Buster's career when he was an active fighter.
I have had the occasion to meet Buster Douglas one
time before the first fight between Tyson Fury and Deontay
Wilder in Los Angeles showtime, and the promoters brought together
a whole bunch of past heavyweight greats and they had
like a like a they did like a roundtable and
people could ask questions. They helped promote the fight. Jim
Gray was like I think it was. Jim Gray was
partly one of the moderators that was and Buster was
there as one of the heavyweights that they invited. It
was also around the same time that he was helping
to mark and promote the documentary that ESPN had done
forty two to one, which was about his right obviously,
you know, gigantic ups it against Tyson. So I got
a chance to talk to Busser and meet him at
that event, you know, for a few minutes. Couldn't have
been more pleasant and nice. Understands. I mean, it took
him a while, I guess, to accept it, but that
he will be remembered as a one hit wonder, but
maybe the greatest one hit of all time in boxing history.
To be the like he some people would look back
and say, like, you know, I'm only remember for this
one thing, and it would be kind of disappointed and
depressed about it because it's just a fleeting moment in time.
But he understands and accepts that. And you know, he
was talking about like there's not a day that goes
by in his entire life since that day when he
toppled Mike Tyson. That does not come up in conversation,
and as he joked, as he joked with me, he
goes it comes up a lot more than my loss
to a Vander Holyfield.
Speaker 3: Well true, a lot of people don't even remember that
thirty four years later, but they obviously for all time
are remembering the upset of Tyson and the magnitude of
that great point, great nostalgia. Listen, it has been a
full show. We will reconvene another mention here for the
bet Us boxing show Friday at one Eastern time. Adjust
your time zone according.
Speaker 1: They forgot the most important thing, which is my son's
Halloween costume.
Speaker 3: Well, are you revealing it now or do you the audience?
It is settled. It's definite because remember he's a youngster,
he can make the last second switch. What's the update.
Speaker 1: Here's the reason why I know that it's settled because
my wife has gone ahead and purchased a couple of
small things that will assist the costume from from Amazon.
So once mom buys stuff, ain't no going back. He
understands that.
Speaker 3: Young Wayfield's Halloween costume shall.
Speaker 1: Be Doctor Seuss's the Lorax.
Speaker 3: Oh the lore as I like the Lorx, so we got.
Speaker 1: Like the the big fluffy like the yellow mustache, right,
and we got the orange shirt. And I actually should
have said to my wife, I'm gonna hit teach you up.
Maybe he can send us some RN shit from the Buccaneers.
Speaker 3: But we need to we need to Streamsicle weekend for
the Buccaneers.
Speaker 1: I didn't really know the but I've been, I've been.
It's been explained to me.
Speaker 3: So now I was always preferential to the cat and
the hat. In fact, while we totally digress, I have
frequently gone into my wife's elementary school classroom on Doctor
Seuss's birthday in March in the Cat and the Hat
hat and read the Cat and the Hat to the class.
Bravo to young Rayfield for being the lorax from Doctor
Seuss and the children's books for Halloween. We've covered it all.
Bet Us Boxing Show one Eastern Time. Will be back
to uh make some handicapping predictions on Jack Catterall, Regis
pro Gray fun full podcast that you heard from Oshaki
Foster on with us here his fight again next weekend
November two in the rematch with ponse Soal uh love it.
Dan Rayfield, We'll see you on the bet Us Show
full recap podcast Off the Weekend with whatever happens in
Catterall and pro Gray. Thank you, my friend there is
Dan Rayfield. I'm merely TJ Reeves follower. Subscribe to this feed, Apple, Spreaker, Spotify.
For now, we're good on the Big Fight weekend preview