Speaker 1: Yes, off of a weekend that has seen me Manuel
nava Rote score another win over Oscar Valdez by a
body shot KO. It has seen a weird ending TKO
for Raphilspinoza in his rematch with robes C Ramirez to
retain the WBO featherweight title. We're ready to recap those fights.
Oh and Richardson Hitchens is a world champ as well,
after a junior welterweight title win that had kind of
an interesting set of scorecards by the way in Puerto Rico.
We're going to recap all of those fights. We've got
some news, We've got some nostalgia. You're locked in on
the Fight Freaks Unite recap podcast. I am the somewhat
capable host TJ Reeves. He is our insider. Fight Freaks
Unite is his substack. Hello, Dan Rayfield off the weekend
full disclosure, I am off of a buccaneer crazy win
over the Las Vegas Raiders. So but I'm back in
on the Sweet Science with you on a Sunday night.
Off of that love breaking it all down. There's a
lot to go over. How are things coming off the weekend?
Sunday night and a Monday.
Speaker 2: Things are good. Another Giants loss, we move one step
closer to the number one draft pick.
Speaker 1: Baby, the futility must mount to be able.
Speaker 2: To by the way, hey, the futility of a block
field goal.
Speaker 3: By the game time, the Raiders are neck and neck
going down the chuot right now with the Giants as
they lost today for the ninth time in a row.
Speaker 1: The Giants, it's what eight losses in a row. But anyway,
that's football. Let's talk a little sweet science. By the way,
radists review us. If you enjoy what we're doing. We're
going to be here folks, previewing going into the weekend,
recapping coming off the weekend. If you like it, help
us out. Give us a five star review. Take thirty seconds,
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We love the audience that continues to sustain. We've got
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locked in with us. Keep spreading the word. Dan does
a great job of promoting with his social media, his substack.
You can help us out as well. All right, let's
get into it. We were in Phoenix, we were in
Puerto Rico. You're gonna make me talk about Kubratt pooh
Lev winning in Bulgaria. We were global, we were global.
Speaker 2: This hold on, hold on, we did. We did do
some preview of it, so we got to.
Speaker 1: You made me bring it up in the preview. Now
you're making me bring it up in the recap. I'm
asking you what decade? What decade is this that we
care about Kubratt Poulelev. But we will mention it. Well,
all right, get it, We'll touch on it first.
Speaker 2: It's such anop.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that on my bingo card. I don't
need a lot of kup Brett Poulelev right now with
everything else I got, I haven't even gotten to the
holiday shopping yet. We need a little all right, Yeah,
a tad like the egg dog. Uh, let's talk top
rank ESPN show, Shall we first where Emanuel Navaraate does
get the win over Oscar Valdez. By the way, one
of us had that on the bet Us Boxing show.
You love to tout how how wrong I am about everything? Uh,
Navarat First.
Speaker 2: Of all, not just a blind squirrel again.
Speaker 1: I was texting with you, Nava Rotte's got the dad
Bob rockin the last two or three fights. Timothy Bradley
referred to it as the spare tire around the middle.
How does a junior lightweight have the spare tire? But
he does a little bit still, the dude can punch,
and Valdez found that out the hard way, multiple knockdowns,
eventually a body shot KO. He retains your thoughts on
the rematch in the main event in the top rank
show in Phoenix.
Speaker 2: I thought that that Emmanuel never at They fought a
very good fight. The thing about it was when I'm
watching the fight as it starts. You know, I've listened
to all the things that Oscar Valdez said in the
pre fight gold up to the fight. He needs to
fight a more intelligent fight. He allowed never to drag
him into the slug fist kind of battle when they
fought their first fight back at the end of two
thousand was twenty twenty August of twenty twenty three, the
first fight that they had, and you know, he made
the mistake of letting his emotions get the better of him.
Oscar can be a very intelligent fighter. You know, he's
a two time Olympian, a multi division world champion. He's
fought a lot of top guys. He's not, you know,
a dumb fighter or anything like that, but when he
gets hit, you know, the juices get flown. So he
felt like he's determined to box this fight more than normal.
Not to say he's not going to engage in making
an exciting fight, which is what he likes to do.
But when I saw him come out in the first round,
and I saw him go to the side, and I
saw him get the jab going a little bit, and
I saw him, you know, strategically clinch, not in a
bad way, but like I'm like, okay, he's really he's
not going to let himself get dragged into the battle.
He's going to be more intelligent in the way he fights.
And for like the first uh, you know, a couple
of minutes of the fight, I'm like, he's got you know,
he's got the right game plan. I'm sure that Eddie Renoso,
his trainer, has been drilling it with him for the
last two months. And then he got nailed with a
shot and the wheels started to come off right there,
I felt in the very first round. So you know,
I'm thinking, you know, not that I'm like rooting for
one guy or the other. But in my mind, if
I'm thinking about valdezl like, can he get it back
together and and and get back in to that envelope,
if you will, of the boxing mentality, and it never
really came to pass. So while that's happening and those
wheels are kind of coming off, Navarette is throwing bombs
with both hands. He always throws some weird angles. Dad
bought her otherwise drops him, you know in the first round,
which which caused him big problems. That was the first knockdown.
An Oscar has been on the floor before, but he's
never been really dominated. Even when he lost to Shakur Stevenson. Yeah,
he got out box, but he didn't get dominated. I mean,
you know, he thought a good fight, but he just
lost on points on. This was the first time I
feel like in Oscar's entire career, which has been a
long and distinguished career, I may add I mean, like
I mentioned, he's a two time Olympic fighter. He's won
titles at featherweight and jingior lightweight. The only losses he
had were to Chakor by the decision and the first
fight against never Atte. But this was the first time
I really felt like he was just totally kind of
blown out, like just routed in a sense, not only
on the points, because he was losing on the cards,
although he did against the court, but also physically dominated
Schakour didn't physically dominated him. And so he gets dropped
in the first round, and then he gets dropped in
the fourth round. And now he gets dropped with the
body shop perfect punch. He's throwing a left hook to
the head and at the same moment Neverette's delivering a
beautiful left hook to the body, right on the liver.
And he goes down and he can't beat the count
and he gots knocked out. And so it's a one
sided fight, a one sided loss. A great victory for
Never at Tay, a much easier victory than in the
first fight where he won a unanimous decision. But it
was a tough, hard, you know, difficult, highly physical fight,
despite him, you know, having to go twel rounds and
win on the cards. You know, maybe we underestimated never Atay.
Maybe oscar val does a little bit more past his
best than maybe we may have thought. But the bottom
line is for a guy in terms of Never who's
coming off of a loss at one hundred and thirty
five pounds of Dennis Barentchick where he was going for
a ton only fourth way class, a draw against Robinson
Konsasa where he did not look particularly good even though
he retained the title. He looked really good against Oscar Valdes.
Now he says that the surgically repaired right hand that
was not necessarily one hundred percent in those recent fights,
particularly against Barentchick. No problems, he said in the training camp,
and he never had any issues with the right hand.
He was able to use it at will, and obviously
he connected with a lot of them on top of
you know, in terms of hitting Oscar Valdez with it.
So look, it's a big win for noverret that he
can underestimate it and for Valdez, Look, he's still a
good fighter. But it's time to question. And I say
this because Oscar has been one of my favorite fighters
for a long time in terms of like watching him
fight just as a person. You know, he's not getting
any younger. He's thirty three years old. He's been in
war after war after war. It takes its toll. TJ.
He had a long and distinguished amateur career, and while
I still think he can compete at the top of
the division, it's very clear that the win against Liam
Wilson maybe covered some things up. That was his previous
victory that took place in Marshall last year. He was
coming off of a year year and a half layoff
as well, that maybe the time at the very top
has come to pass him by to a degree.
Speaker 1: And a lot of it had to do with the
guy across from him. You know, I thought, I thought
that Tim Bradley was bringing it up, and you could
hear it actually on the ESPN audio. He said, Man,
these punches from Navarata just sound different, the thud that's
on them, the power that's on them. And again credit
to Valdez, he took a lot of them. I credit
Navarata a lot. Can I just tell you, I thought
Oscar Valdez thought thought a dirty fight. Repeatedly he used
his head, he repeatedly used his forearm. He was repeatedly
holding Navarati around the head and being warned and turning
him around, et cetera. And Navorat didn't let that bother him.
In fact, Navarati kept sticking his glove out like, hey,
let's box and tap him on the glove and go
back to banging on him. So he didn't let that
bother him. I'm not making this guy out to be unbeatable,
but I mean he he has got a big time punch,
especially from the awkward angles with that left uppercut, and
he landed that sum in the fight, so it was impressive.
I thought it was an impressive performance by Navoraate that
he needed. I don't know what else he does from
here on out, but he clearly was better than Oscar
Valdez the other night. And I thought it was a
really good atmosphere, sold out arena with those two guys
throwing down and in the end the body shot gets
it done. Here's where I tu up. What do you
think is next? Do you think Navarrate stays and tries
to unify there? Do you think he tries to move
back up to lightweight, which didn't go so well, didn't
appear to be in great shape, had to had to
fight bigger fighter in Branchick. What do you think is
next for Nomal?
Speaker 2: There's no doubt that at some point in the near
future he will go back to lightweight. His goal if
you will is still to try to win a ton
on a fourth way class. It didn't work against Brench obviously,
he was still the champion at one thirty. So he
came back down and wait and made this fight with Valdez,
who while he was taking care of that opportunity, Valdez
had become the interim champion and it was still an
attractive remass. So they did the match. So when the
fight was over, he spoke about that he's going to
you know, he he's gonna stick around. He said, you know,
one or two more fights at one hundred and thirty
and then we'll see about one thirty five. So okay,
let's so that to me, that means twenty twenty five,
he's staying as a one hundred and thirty pounder. He'll
probably fight two times next year, all things are well,
no injuries. You know, let's not out of the realm.
He could get a third fight in depending on what
the opportunities to you know, top rank brings to him.
But let's go on the premise that like most of
the top level champs, they fight twice a year. That
tells me two fights at one hundred and thirty pounds
there's two, you know, the one obvious fight. I don't
I don't know what the what the plans are, you know,
he just fought, So they're not going to discuss just yet.
They'll enjoy the holidays and reconvene probably, you know, in
January at some point. But O'shaki Foster, who was the
WBC one hundred and thirty pound champion, who's also with
Top Rank. He was in their ringside. He was calling
Naverette out on his social media right after the fight.
That's a natural fight to make the unification. It's a
doable match or both with Top rank, it'd probably be
a good fight. Their styles probably seemed to blend nicely.
Neither guy, in my mind, has ever shown any sort
of a desire to duck a guy. They both want
to unify. So that's a fight that makes a lot
of sense beyond that. So while that maybe that could
happen in the next fight, obviously they're gonna have to
do the discussions and negotiape but the fact that they're
both with the same promoter is helpful beyond that, And
we're going to get to Rafael Spinoza's victory against Robes
Ramirez that took place in the co feature, so he
retained his featherweight title. There's been a lot of conversation
from top rank all along, especially if Navarette was the winner,
and if Spinoza was the winner that eventually not necessarily
in the next fight, although it could be in the
next fight that they might try to make Naverette against Espinoza.
Espinosa one million percent can fight as a junior lightweight.
He's like six foot one, He's a gigantic into one
massive featherweight. He he'd still be bigger than Everette probably
when they get up to that weight division. So that's
a that's a that's an interesting fight and uh, actually
it's funny. I did I'll shout him out. Uh. One
of our listeners, a guy named John Horton, had a
messaged me and was very interested in the prospect of seeing, uh,
you know, the fight between between Raphael Espinosa Navarette and
wanted to know if we know we were going to
talk about it, uh, to hear the thoughts about it.
I think it's a fascinating fight because he got two
guys that are big for their divisions. Obviously, if Espinoza
comes up he'd still be big in terms of his
stature in terms of one hundred and thirty pounder. Uh,
it's a makeable fight. It's an exciting fight. I'm sure
the Mexican fans would love that fight. It definitely has
action written all over it based on the Hey, those
two guys fight. Uh, it's the kind of match that
that could produce, you know, rematch trilogy type action. And
so to me, they're not willing, They're not I mean,
they're not looking to get away from guys. Never Atte
has made that pretty clear. Espinosa's talking about he wants
to be in Mexican legend. So to make the long
story short, the fights I would like to see that
seem doable, that seem logical, That probably fit the budget.
Also if you take that into account, and now I
don't know which order it would be in, but it
would be never at the against Espinosa at some point
in defense of the title, and a unification fight against
Oshaki Foster and then whatever happens whin loser and whatever,
then you maybe make your move up to one thirty
five and see what you can do up there like.
Speaker 1: That, What did you say the viewer listener's name is
John Hohrton. Is that what you said?
Speaker 2: That is correct?
Speaker 1: He asked, and you got you got the answer, John,
And now you need to rate us and review us
on the pod feed because you you served up a
question and it got answered right here on the Fight
Freaks Unit recap. You found that out. So that segues
right into Espinoza's win over Robas Ramirez. Now I got
to give full disclosure. It was a Mayhem Saturday night
for me with trying to get dinner. I got a
twin working and we're trying to get to her and
go see her because she works at the gelato place,
Rayfael's shoveling dessert, So we got some gelato. The college
football craziness is ending, and my man Rayfael is not
only texting me that Richard Hitchins has won, Richardson Hitchins
has won, but he's like crazy ending here with Espinoza
and Roba Si Ramirez with Robo C Ramirez mimicking somewhat
forty four years later, Roberto Duran with the nomas right
down to holding the glove up to say no, no,
I can't fight anymore, and the referee waves it off
all right. So we're roughly twenty four hours later as
you and I tape this. The complaint after the fight
was that he had been elbowed, he had double vision.
I went back on your tip. I went back and
rewatched the fifth round. I thought there was a glancing
elbow early on in the fifth round on the left
by Espinoza. ESPN found another incident in the fourth round
where he got brushed with an elbow in the eye.
What do you make of all of this, because clearly
it was a weird, kind of anti climactic moment where
Espinoza hits Ramirez in the rematch with a punch to
the eye and again it's bizarre, but he stuck the
glove up in the air, walking with his back turn
going no Mas, essentially, I can't fight anymore. What do
you make of it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I make of it exactly what you said.
He look, there was definitely some rough stuff. I don't
think the elbows were on purpose. It's just that Espinosa
has got such long arms. He's kind of gangly, and
you know, shit happens in a fight. And as a
matter of fact, there was one of those shots where
it almost felt like like Roba se Ramirez kind of
leaned into the punch or you know, that became an elbow,
So I know they had they were very compressed for
time as they're searching through the video to try to
find the elbow or a elbow, and in the production
they found that in the production truck for ESPN they
found the one, but it really looked of like a forearm,
not the kind of thing that's gonna break your orbit boner,
do that kind of damage. Oh so to give the
ending first. As it turned out, according to the top
rank folks, when Robasi was taken to the hospital after
the fight, he was diagnosed with a broken or a
fractured right orbital bone, So clearly there was an injury there.
I saw some other clips that people sent me, like
blurb like little blips of twenty second clips, fifteen second
clips on on social media that did show what seemed
to be a clear elbow that did land. One was
in the fifth round. Robasi was saying that it happened
earlier in the fight. He had told his corner, I
want to say after round number five, I guess, but
it happened earlier, and he was having double vision in
his right eye. He had complained to the referee about
the elbow. The referee, I guess, did kind of have
a talking to with Espinoza, but at that point, as
Robasi said, the damage was done. So the corner after
he was told, after they were told that I'm having
double vision, they were like, look, you know, let's give
it another round. He would if he can shake it
off or whatever. He came out for a round number six,
and within a few seconds Espino's stuffed the right hand
right down the middle, caught him on the eye, and
that was when he raised the glove and walked away.
And it looked very reminiscent of the way that Roberto
duran very famously uh said no moss and quit against
Sugar Ray Leonard. Now, the difference, of course, is that
now that the fight's over and he's been to the hospital,
Robeski Rimires had, based on the announcement from top rank,
a very legitimate and serious injury, a broken orbit, and
Roberto Durant had no such thing, and that and he
was just frustrated or whatever whatever story you choose to believe,
he had the shits or or he had just was frustrated, whatever.
But he did quit against Roberto Durant, and certainly in
a much higher profile fight than what was taking place
in against Ray Leonard in the in their in their uh,
in their in their second fight anyway. So I see
a lot of people who have a real heart on
for the work quit. The fact of the matter is
Robessi Rimirez did quit the fight. Now, I don't say
the work quit in that context to be like negative.
It's a factual statement that when you are doing an
activity and then you decide no longer to do it,
you have quit that activity. That doesn't mean it's not
appropriate or that it's not understood. That you can understand that.
In other words, I think a lot of people will
certainly understand a Robus Rimirez, you know, retiring from the fight,
pulling itself out of the fight, whatever other youth and
is that you want to use. So the word quit,
but it's understandable because he had obviously an injury, as
opposed to a Duran who was more frustrated than anything.
He just said, fuck this, I'm out of here, you know,
and look at and it just shows you how awesome
and great and legendary Berto Roberto durant Is, is that
you know, forty years later we can say in the
same breath, yeah he quit against Sugar Ray Leonard, but
he's still one of the greatest fighters in the history
of the sport period. Now in case of Robus Rima Is,
yeah he quit the fight. But again, I'm not going
to hold that against him for his life. I mean,
I wish him nothing but the best, hope he gets better,
but he's able to come back and and have a
good career going forward, however he wants to do it.
But you know, people got to get over to say
the word quit. It's what exactly what happened. He quit.
And by the way, when I say that, they're like, well,
what do you know. You're a writer, you've never been
in the ring. Yeah, you're fucking right. I've never been
in the ring because I choose not to fight. I'm
a writer, not a fighter. But when you take on
the job description of a boxer as a professional prize fighter,
that's I'm not saying you have to die in the ring,
and I don't want to see that. So I'm not
I'm not upset that I finish. Let me finish this
I'm not upset that Ramirez decided not to fight, but
when you are in that position, you are at a
higher standard as the fighter in the ring that you
are going to be judged based on your peers. And
I have seen plenty of times fighters fight through much
much worse than what Ramirez was going through. It doesn't
make him a bad guy, it doesn't make him wrong.
It just means that compared to others, that he's going
to have to take a little bit of the brunt
of that. I mean, and the story I saw Polymlanagi
fight through the bust at orbit Bone against Miguel Coto.
We've seen it plenty of times.
Speaker 1: Nay, oh yeah, and away against Nonito.
Speaker 2: I mean, that does happen, and not every prize fighter
is built the same. So I don't I don't disrespect
Robas's decision. He's got to do what's right for himself
because when it's all over, the only one that's gonna
give a damn about him is himself and his family.
I mean Israel, by the way, and this was done
on a night where they honored Israel Vaskiz's passing with
the ten bells who passed away a few days ago
because of his big heart. He actually literally lost an
eye because of boxing. So there's there's levels to the
threshold of what people are willing to put themselves.
Speaker 1: Let me put it to you this way. For whatever
his motivation is getting cracked with that right hand or whatever,
when you hold the glove up and say I don't
want to do this anymore. When you're not knocked down,
when you're not concussed, you have quit. You have decided.
Not in a negative way. He's quitting for no reason,
but you have decided. Check please, I am done for tonight.
That's exactly what he did, and the referee kind of
march right in immediately realized what he was doing and said, okay,
that's it. We're gonna wave it off. So if I mean,
I don't know what else you can call that is
my point.
Speaker 2: Exactly what else do you call it?
Speaker 1: He chose to pull the ejection handle and say, I'm
going to try to fight at another time whenever I
get recovered. Now, this leads us to the next point
that do we believe he will ever get in the
short term a third fight because of the circumstances of
this fight. Third fight with Espinoza because of the circumstances
of this fight. I'm sure that's what he wanted out
of this, but I don't know how realistic that is.
Speaker 2: What do you think, No, I think. I mean, look,
I think that it's absolutely possible for him to go
through his healing process, get better physically and mentally, and
hopefully come back and have a fruitful remainder of his career.
Now I have my doubts about that because the mentality
when times get tough, when and again, don't I don't
want to sound like I'm like in his body. I'm
not saying this is as a negative thing, but just
over the course of it. Forget about Robaesi Rimirez. It
could be any boxer once you've quit, once it becomes
easier to do in the future. We could talk about
Mike Tyson. Seen Mike Tyson quit more than one time.
I mean not because of an injury, but because he
just quit. That's not why Robes stopped fighting in this
particular bout. So can he get back to the level
he was at, That's questionable. We spoke about in the
pre fight how outstanding he could be at times, and
there were other times where even he was winning. He
was just looked really ragged and not so great and
highly inconsistent, is the way I posed it, whether it
was losing in his professional debut or you know, this
particular loss, or the loss that he suffered in the
first fight against Espinosa, when he was a heavy favorite
and was totally in control through like five or six rounds,
had knocked him down and then let it get away
from him, got dropped in the twelfth round. So, you know,
for his sake, I hope he can come back. But
in terms of what your question was about a third
fight with Espinosa, I would be really really surprised if
that ever happens. Number One, he wouldn't have earned it.
Number two, This was a clear loss. It wasn't like
there was something freaky that happened. The guy broke his
orbit bone and that was that. And on top of that,
I don't think there's any public demand for it. Now,
keep in mind one thing, by the way, when the
fight ended, it was ROBUSTI rivers. Now he didn't know
this at the time, but it just you can look
at the scorecard now. I actually have it posted in
my sub stack on the article about the fight. Robeski
Ramirez was actually ahead on two scorecards, but it was
very obvious that after about the fourth round the tide
was turning in a big way towards Rafael Espinoza. So
he's got options, as we mentioned, Maybe he'll go up
till one hundred and thirty and potentially fight Navarette, Maybe
he'll defend, you know, find some other good contender. There's
still plenty of good fighters in and around one hundred
and twenty six pounds. I know the top rank is
the promoter of Shushu Carrington, who was ringside. They'd like
to get him some kind of title shot. So there's
gonna be options for significant fights for Espinoza, but it
ain't going to be against Robesiramera in the third fight,
forget about it.
Speaker 1: And it will be up to him to get the
stink of what happened Saturday night in Phoenix off of
him himself. With that, all right, On the undercard, we
saw on knockouts for Lindelfo Delgado, Richard Torrez, and even
Giovanni Santion. It only took one round for his win
over Frederick Lawson. All Right, quick thoughts on any or
all of that To wrap up the top Rank show
Saturday Night.
Speaker 2: Well, in terms of Santion, I mean, he was coming
off of the loss. He had his first defeat, which
was kind of a little bit embarrassing for him because
he got knocked out in front of his hometown crowd
in San Diego. That was in the interim title fight
back in May for what was then the interim WBO
welterweight title. They got stopped in the tenth round. That
we all knew going into that fight that eventually, whoever
the winner of that fight was going to be elevated
to the fall title holder, because that was around the
period of time where Terrence Crawford was in the process
of vacating and moving up and getting the fight with
Mademo set up and everything. So that was a rough
night for him. Great for Norman obviously, but for Santian.
He loses in front of the hometown, he gets stopped
for the first time, he gets his undefeated record taken away,
he misses the chance to become a world champion, and
so this was sort of like, let's ease him back in.
He still has a good future in front of him.
It's just a one loss, and they matched him up
with a cadaver in Frederic Lawson. I mean, this was
as predicted. I don't know if I've necessarily thought it
would be one round, but I sure as heck didn't
think if put it like this, TJ, if this fight
was on our betting show, on the beat Us Show
and the over under will say, like, you know, two
and a half, I might have taken the under on
this fight. You know, Frederick Lawson has been a certain
personal journeyman for a long time, but we've seen him
get blitzed early in the past. So this was like
back on the horse. So good for Santiani's back. I
hope Frederick Lawson retires. I mean, he's had the issue
where they had a questionable brain scan when he got
stopped by Virgil Ortiz, et cetera. So that was that fight.
Richard Torres continues the evolution as the young heavyweight up
on comer. He you know, he scored to get another knockout.
You know, he's twelve and zero now with eleven knockouts.
He scored a third on knock out against Isaac Munyos,
who you know was not necessarily an imposing top level fighter,
but he had a good record eighteen one and one
and Torres. You know, he's he's a he's a project.
I can say that he's a wraw guy. There there's
a lot for him to still learn. But you can
just see he's getting better. He's he was in better shape.
I felt like the last couple of fights. I mean,
he feels like he's taking seriously. Good for him.
Speaker 1: We talked about he's personable. I loved interviewing him recently.
He's got a lot to him in terms of different
things that he wants to do with his life. He's
got a silver medal in the Olympics. One thing. I mean,
say what you want about level of competition. He's a
finisher and he did it again the other night. I
don't know how far he's gonna go. I defer to
you you've questioned whether he's big enough and strong enough
to be a heavyweight contender in the present day with
how big the heavyweights are, But you can't never knows
finishing people off right now.
Speaker 2: You just never knowing the heavyweight division until you get
that shouldn't tested and so far that hasn't happened, right So,
and I don't say this just about Richard or as
I say this about any young heavyweight that we see,
you enjoy the journey, See what happens, you know, see
if they can get over the get over the hump
that they have to get over when they get mashed
up with a real legitimate opponent. Some guys are able
to do that. Some guys are And I mean, I remember,
you know, we can talk about Olympians. When Anthony Joshua
was turning pro, nobody knew if he was gonna be anything.
When Deontay Wilder turn pro, you know, he went through
thirty plus fights where he never fought a single decent
guy until he fought for the world title the first
time and he and it was in with you a
prime Bermain Staverne, and he did very well in that
fight and won the decision. So we'll have to wait
and see. On Richard Torres. He seems like the kind
of guy where if it does come to the point
where he might be able to go for a world title.
He's kind of a tweeter, not a big heavyweight, but
certainly not making cruiserweight that he'd be like the poster
child of why they created a bridgerweight division. You know,
I could see that happening eventually at some point, you know,
but enjoy the journey. In terms of Lendafol Delgado, he
just continues to do his thing, a very exciting entertaining
Mexican fighters. Now twenty two to zero. Was sixteen, he
was a two thousand and six teen Mexican Olympian, and
I think if you take a look at the the
rest of his resume, you know he has not been
fighting a top opponents at this point, obviously, but at
least in Jackson Morenez, he's like a known guy. He
only had a couple three losses before against good opponents.
That was his fourth loss. He got stopped in the
fifth round by Delgado. Was a good performance, but he'd
been in the ring with good guys. He had lost
to people like a former world champion Richard Kome, Rolie
Romero had a title he lost to Frank Martin who
was an undefeated contender. Those are the types of guys
he's losing to. So if Lendolfo Dolgatto can add himself
to that list, like I felt like that was a
pretty good win for him. He did what he's supposed
to do. And I think twenty twenty five, because Dolgatto
is not exactly you know, mister young man, He's twenty
nine years old. It's time to make the move, I
think in twenty twenty twenty five, especially with the wealth
of talent at one hundred and forty pounds, I see
no reason why he won't either fight for a title,
perhaps a a vacant title, certainly fight a top opponent,
an eliminator, fight something that's higher stakes than these constant,
you know, preliminary typeouts on the top rank cards.
Speaker 1: All right, so that is that show in Phoenix. We
now go to the Richardson Hitchins win by decision over
Liam Parrow. Dan would like you to know that on
the bet Us show he called that one all the way,
nice job.
Speaker 2: I must keep plus money, by the way, plus Money's.
Speaker 1: Money on the decision. Very nice. Yes, And I must
confess again in all the mayhem, I did not see
this one. I did see the highlights. I read your
substack recap again. It was weird. There was not a
lot of atmosphere. I know that TV, that Dezone and
their broadcast did as best a job as they could
to darken the arena because I saw a couple of
social media videos from low level. There were a lot
of empty seats for that fight. I don't know how
big the crowd was earlier in the night, but there
are a lot of empty seats, not a lot of atmosphere,
and I'll just be honest from the highlights, not a
lot of thrilling action. But Hitchins clearly won the fight.
I thought everybody that you y else that watched this
in full thirty one and then the first cards read it,
it's one seventeen to one to eleven.
Speaker 2: Porro, We'll get to that.
Speaker 1: He We'll we go again with that. But your thoughts
on Hitchins now becoming the IBF Junior welterweight champion Salluray
night in Sam.
Speaker 2: Juan as I wrote about this fight, it was not
a thing of beauty. It is not a thing that
you were going to years now flock to YouTube on
the anniversary to rewatch it or anything like that. But
to Richardson Hitchins, it'll be a thing of beauty because
he won a world championship. Richards and Hitchins, this has
sort of been what a lot of people have expected
from him ever since he turned professional. He was a
top level amateur. He fought for Haiti and the Olympics
in twenty sixteen. That's his parents' home country. But he's
a New York kid and he was one of these
guys that came up and he was spoken about, and
Eddie her mentioned this in his post comments to our
buddy Chris Mannix. On the broadcast, he was mentioned in
the same sort of talent level conversations, you know, with
the Devin Haney, with Ti Fimo Lopez and Wish of
course Stevenson, like you know, those types of skills, that
type of pedigree from the Olympics and the amateurs. And
when he turned pro was with Mayweather Promotions. They did
a good job moving them along. And then when they
stopped doing a lot of shows, he was kind of
in a rut, didn't have They couldn't get him enough fights,
and you know, he kind of was forgotten about. He
became a free agent. Matchrom Boxing signed him and they've
done a good job with him. They've given him the
right fights. He's looked good in some of these events,
you know, where whether it was you know, pummeling John
Bowser who was undefeated and uh, you know, a fight
that probably could have been stopped many times, but went
the distance, you know, and then got him a couple
of other important fights. Jose Zapata, which was a former
world title challenger that has the name recognition. He not
in a great performance, but he won the elimination fight
that got him in this world title fight back in
April against Lamos, and so now he's built for the
moment he's in with Paro. Paro is off the big
upset of Sabril Mattias in Puerto Rico and Mattias's hometown
that took place back in you know, earlier part of
this year. And so Hitchins, though I always thoughts as
uh as as much of a of a of a
dog as they call it, as you know, a guy
that's gonna pressure you and is gonna go at you
the parro the way he fights, Hitchens was the skillful guy.
Now at the beginning of the fight, TJ. Because I
know you didn't see the full thing. For the first
four rounds, Richards and Hitchins looked terrible, Like I had
three to one after four, A lot of people had
it four to nothing after four. One of the judges
on the official cards had it for to nothing. The
two others had it three to one, but even with
the one round that he was given, he did not
look good. He goes back to the corner after the
fourth round and you know, his team was like, they
basically read him the freaking Riot Act. They're like, what
are you doing? You gotta we gotta get going. You know,
we could be They were honest with him. They were like,
we could be down for to nothing. And I thought
they did a good job of like going to the
whip early as they say, I mean, he was, he
was prodded. They didn't wait till like the sixth round,
the eighth round, the ninth round. They you know, his trainer,
a guy named Lenny Wilson, you know, said it perfect.
He didn't pull any punches, he didn't talk shit. He's like, dude,
you know what are you doing here? And I think
Richardson something like the light went off and he said,
He's like, yeah, I better get my shit together. And
from the fifth round on he pretty much dominated the fight.
I mean it was not pretty, it was kind of boring,
but it was highly effective. You know, he talked in
the pre fight, I'm gonna rumble with him. You know,
I can see myself getting a knockout. Well, that's all bullshit.
We knew that wasn't real. That was all about fantasy
and promotion. When richards and Hitchins. When Richardson Hitchins is
at his best, he's a pure boxer through and through,
with maybe a little bit of pop on the right hand,
but he's a boxer, and he was very effective with
his right hand. He was very effective with his jab
jab right hand. Most basic thing. And I say basic
not as a negative. It works, and if it works,
you do it. You dance with what got you there.
And that's what he did. He you know, he got
to the point where he was an undefeated contender, and
he danced with what got him to that position, which
was jab right hand, jab right hand, and do a
good job on defense, and exactly what he did, and
so he wins the fight. I had it one sixteen
to one twelve. And keep in mind I gave Parrow
four rounds, but I gave him three of the first
four rounds, which shows you that five to twelve, I
only gave him one round. Two of the official judges
also had it one sixteen to one twelve. And then
there's our good old friend Nelson Vasquez, who has turned
in one shitty scorecard after another during the court during
the course of his indistinguished career, and once again he
shits himself and turns in one seventeen to one eleven
in favor of Parrow.
Speaker 1: Which is the woman to say it on a Sunday night.
We doing here?
Speaker 2: Please say it? Give me one more time?
Speaker 1: What are we doing here?
Speaker 2: I mean there, I get close fights, and I understand
we can have differences of opinion about different things, and
we've all been there before. But other than him, even
the other judges didn't agree.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Morrow's family give him nine rounds.
Speaker 3: Leo.
Speaker 2: Liam Parro in his post fight interview never even made
a remote notion or commentary that he thought he won
the fight, much less by you know, six points. Liam
Paro was congratulations, he beat me, he won. He was
the better thing. I mean he didn't.
Speaker 1: You know what I keep saying, You're gonna have to
fire somebody. You've got to start taking action on. You're
never working a world title fight again. If this is
what you're doing, you're messing with people's livelihood at the
highest level. When you're turning in that ridiculous of a card.
It's one thing, if he had scored the fight like
one fifteen, one thirteen or.
Speaker 2: I mean, that would stuck, but that wouldn't be like
a draws hoerendous.
Speaker 1: But nine rounds out of that fight, no, so, and
there wasn't.
Speaker 2: Enough action to even warrant that because Liam Paro did
not throw or land a lot of punches. I mean,
and I'm not even you don't have to look at
the compy box stats and know that because you could
see the lack of the necks and activity just based
on your naked eye. I mean, so that is an
outlier of outline. And now on the on the silver
lining part of this TG, that's why we have three
judges and they're allowed to have disagreements. But thankfully the
two prevailed who are pretty much right on the money. So, uh,
that was a terrible card and he should have won
the title by yunanas. But in the end what matters
is for him he won the title, and so now
he's an undefeated fighter with a good future and still
young and fresh, and now he's looking for a big fight.
Now he was calling out his fellow Brooklyn fighter the
lineal and WBO Champion this way class, tu Fimo Lopez Uh,
saying that's a big fight in New York. Uh, While
I question that because I don't think Richards and Hitchins
has much of a following in New York. He hasn't
really been a ticket seller. Uh. And I don't think
you would be a particularly exciting fight based on the
style that he fought in that I just mentioned to you,
so and I and and even besides all that stuff,
t Fimo Lopez is not looking for Richards and Hitchins.
He's looking for guys like Jervonta Davis and Ryan and
the and the bigger names Ryan gar Is and you
know in the and the much bigger name opponents, Terrence Crawford.
He's been mentioning. So, you know, unless Matchroom Boxing came
to top rank in some form or fashion and made
some kind of outlandish offer, it's great to talk about,
but I see it as a highly unlikely fight that
that would take place, at least in the immediate future. Now,
if that's not to say, if Hitchens were to go
out and you know, make a statement statement and I'm
not just talking about beating apart, I mean, like a
real statement in terms of a knockout or against a
bigger name than Paro, no disrespect to Parrow, then maybe
you could you know, you know, finagle your way into
that kind of fight. So it's going to be very
interesting to see what they can do. Now. The good
thing is if you're a matchroom, you've got guys at
one hundred and forty pounds that you work with. There
the promoter of Jack Catterroll for example, that could be
a fight that they could potentially do. But I'd be
highly highly surprised if any time, certainly next year, much
less the next fight, that it would be some kind
of unification against the FEMA. But regardless, it was a
great win for Richards and Hitchins. He bought it, he
boxed a beautiful fight, like I said, maybe not the
most exciting thing, but extraordinarily effective. And look, Paro is
the kind of guy because of the pressure he applies
and uh and his willingness to fight anybody. You know,
big heart, just a good solid fighter, you know, decent power,
a good uh you know fan base behind him in Australia.
If he wherever to go fight there, he'll be back.
I mean, remember one thing, by the way, this was
a mandatory fight, and they tried to make other fights
before the mandatory to see if they could rum up
a bigger deal. There was a lot of conversation he
would fight like a George Cambosa's back in Australia. That
would have been a big fight there. But in the
end they decided let's just go for the mandatory now.
And you know, he may have cost himself that that
potentially a very big fight with Cambosas, so maybe they'll
get that going on down the road. Even if it's
not a title fight. I think that could still be
in the future for a paro still be a big
deal in Australia. But we'll see what he does next.
But look, it's you're waking up this morning, is Richards
and Hitchins. If you don't know what your next fight is,
who cares?
Speaker 1: You?
Speaker 2: Just know you got a nice pay day and you
won the world title, and that's a great thing for
any young fighter.
Speaker 1: Indeed, all right, one more recap and then we'll get
to the news, and that is Kubrat Poulev winning in
Bulgaria Saturday afternoon US time over Makmoud Char a decision
we did detail this going into the weekend a little bit,
all right, whatever you want to say. You went over
the reasons why you've done it in the past, and
you did it on Friday about why this fight was happening.
All right, So Poolev wins it, go ahead.
Speaker 2: Why do you hate this fight so much, by.
Speaker 1: The way, because I don't think that it's relevant to
anything at the higher level. It's part of the reason
why people's eyes glaze over about we're calling this a
regular title fight. So now Poolev's talking about how it's
great for Bulgaria that he's won a championship. It's not
a championship. He's not the WBA World champion. It's a ridiculous,
silly court thing. Now that you've got me cranked up,
it's a court thing that made this happen in the
first place.
Speaker 2: But the reality is this, and I do not endorse
secondary titles. You know, we've been over this chapter in
verse a thousand times. But he is at some point
they're gonna call the mandatory and he's gonna fight or
be ordered to fight the guy that has uh the
or the supertitle whatever. At the present moment, that is
Alexander Usik. It will be the winner of Tyson Fury
against Usik. Now I'm not saying that's happening next, but
he has some muscle because of that position. But putting
all that aside, just as a heavyweight fight, even if
there was no time. Now, the reason the fight happened
was because of the belt that was at stake. Don't
ever forget that. But when it did actually happen and
they rang the belt, this was actually for you know,
heavyweights of this level, uh, you know who are not
the A level contenders, but have experienced, are rugged, can
can crack a little bit, and have been in the
ring with good opposition. I mean, you can look down
the resumes of these guys. They face pretty good opposition,
you know, over over over a period of time. Certainly
Pool have his faced good guys who have fought Anthony Joshua.
We fought Vladimir Klitschkow, He's fought good opponents. You know,
Charge fought Batally clitsch Goo years ago. He fought a
couple other guys along the way. But anyway, this was
a good, fun heavyweight fight. They really got in there.
They showed heart. What they did show me anyway, is
even if you piss all over the title, which is fine,
I can't argue with that. They showed that in the
heavyweight division, which you always need good opponents because not
all these guys are fighting the A level guys every
time out, is that both of them, even even Shar
in a loss by a decision, showed that they can
be in the ring and hang with the top heavyweights
and make it fun you like. As I said to
somebody that was involved with Team Shar who I was
texting with earlier today, I said, Emanuel Schmack Mudchar may
have lost a fight, but what he did was he
kept himself in position to be a highly paid, well
compensated opponent for another good heavyweight. So it was worth watching.
It was a lot more entertaining than Paro versus Hitchins.
If you asked me, maybe not the same kind of
stakes in the in the situation, but by no means
this is a bad fight. And look, I have a
lot of respect who brought Poulev is an old warhorse.
The dude's forty three years old. He's been around forever.
I mean he's only got three losses. Klitch Goo in
a heavyweight championship fight, as I mentioned before, Joshua in
a heavyweight championship fight, and he lost a very disputed,
very close fight, a split decision in the other guy's
hometown to Derek Chasar back in twenty twenty two. And
he's fought for many, many years. I mean, and he's
got some good, solid wins. You know, he beat Jasour
in their first fight. He got a win granted a
faded former champ, Samuel Peter beat Huey Fury, you know,
Tyson's cousin. I mean, he's gotten some okay wins on
his record. Jerry Jerry Forrest, who was like a B
minus ish kind of CONTENDERCY plus kind of contender. So
he's fought some solid opposition through the years. And this
was a good fight. Okay. We don't have to spend
a lot more time. I'm just saying, there you go.
Speaker 1: You gave it the proper amount of time that you
wanted to give it. All right, Move on to the news,
and that includes Canelo Alvarez. He was talking to the media.
When was this a restaurant opening? It says on my rundown.
Were we invited to the restaurant opening? Did I miss that?
In my inbox. But he spoke to the media and
he mentioned the name Terrence Crawford, or at least somebody
asked him about Terrence Crawford. So elaborate please, Okay.
Speaker 2: So he was at I don't know if he's a
part owner or a friend of his the owner. He
went to a grand opening into Lavista, California of this
nice Mexican restaurant and they were they had like a
like I don't know if it was a red carpet.
I saw the video. And when he was going in,
he was talking about like what his favorite meal on
the menu was and all that kind of business. And
then he stopped and he and the reporters asked him
some questions, and obviously, you know, boxing and what his
future in the sport was came up, and so as
you if you back up, everybody knows if you paid
attention to Canelo, that Terrence Crawford has been calling him
out left and right for the last while, and Canelo
has rebuffed that has not shown any interest in it.
Crawford has aligned himself with Turkey al Sheep from Saudi Raby,
who put on his last fight over the summer against
Israel Majimov. Paid him a lot of money for the fight,
and and and Turkey has spoken a number of times
but he would like to make Canelo against Crawford. When
Canelo was getting ready to fight Edgar Berlanga in September,
there was the hole back and forth between the two
of them on social media because Turkey and their team
wanted him to commit to a Crawford fight in the
first part of next year, even before he had fought
Berlank and he just wasn't going to do that. He's like, look,
you know, I'm not I'm not doing that, and he
wouldn't meet with him, and it just became like a
whole thing, you know, two alpha personalities. You know, we're
not necessarily mixing all that. Well, So now we go
to this little media scrum and he starts talking and
he's asked about Crawford, He's asked about about doing business
with them, and you know, and he said, and he
was speaking in English, I never say no to business.
So if it's business for me, I'm open to talk
no matter what. And so that is like code for
if you, if you come to me in the appropriate way,
we can and sit and have a meeting and talk
about it. So I took that as a as a
you know, a sign of peace if you will, like, Okay,
you know what, we had our little bullshit back and forth,
but you know what, if you really want to do
real business with me, like you know how in.
Speaker 1: The Reeves world, I would classify that as He didn't
rule it out. He didn't say it was happening, but
he didn't rule it out. Now, I say to you,
on the Rayfield meter, is this a three? Is this
a five? Because I gotta be honest with you, and
I do not believe I'm alone. There are a great
many Terrence Craawford fighting at one sixty eight. I don't
have any interest. He's not a middleweight, he's not a
super middleweight. So as much as we're going to talk
about all of him moving up three more divisions from
where he was at welterweight when he torch Eryl Spence,
you and I were there in the T Mobile Center,
I don't know. But on the Rayfield meter, what's the realism?
Speaker 2: Well, I'll put that all right. We have spoken before
about when Nanny Pacyall was a one hundred and thirty
pounder and he went up and he won the lightweight
belt against David Diaz and then jumped up two divisions
after that to fight Oscar de la Ya, which was
a fight that everybody thought was a death match. We
didn't know how badly shot Oscar was, but.
Speaker 1: We were talking about the anniversary this week exactly.
Speaker 2: So I think about any any great fighter, like a Crawford,
a pack Yeah, whoever, you always have to keep it
in the back of your mind that that they're not
regular fighters. That so the notion that Terrence Crawford would
move up that much weight, and again, he wouldn't necessarily
have to be at one sixty He could easily come in.
Let's say they made a fight with Canelo and they
signed it for a catchweight of like one sixty six,
let's say, And it wouldn't shock me if Crawford maybe
comes in at one sixty two or one sixty three.
I'm just making all this up, but so, yeah, I
get the fact that it's sort of unlikely. But if
you're a Canelo and you're looking at the landscape, and
we'd have to rehash this a million times fighting Morell
or Benevitez anytime soon, So put that out of your mind.
Those guys are fighting up at like heavyweight now anyway,
And if you look at the landscape of who is
an available opponent for Canelo that people would actually be
interested in, that can make him a big, giant pile
of money. Also, it's a very limited universe. Yeah, you
can fight the number one WBC contender, Chrishi Mabilly. That'd
be a fine fight, and there's a few other guys
in and around the way classes, but the fight that
would actually get the masses revved up, whether you like
the match or not, because there's always the what if.
Crawford the pound for pound king to some people, undisputed
welterweight champ, former undisputed junior welterweight champ, lightweight champ, now
currently a junior middleweight champ, a future Hall of Famer,
multi time Fighter of the Year. You know, one of
the best fighters of his generation. That's going to move
the needle for a lot of people. And if Canelo
is near the end of his career and he's looking
to make the biggest fight possible, and by the way,
you have somebody like Turkey alshk who's got a check
book with money to burn, that might be something that
would ultimately be attractive to fight. So I'm not going
to sit here and piss on the fight. I'm not
endorsing it. I desperately will.
Speaker 1: But December the eighth, bleeding into December the ninth, Monday,
give me a ray Field number. Is this a three
right now? Is this a five?
Speaker 2: I think it's a six and a half.
Speaker 1: It's a six and a half right now. Because here's
what I keep thinking that I got what you just said.
In boxing, it's about the money. He's got all the
accomplishment of the titles and the belts and the Linnial
and the championships and the awards and the adolation and
the future hall of fame. Resume that at this stage
of his career, it's how many stacks, how many piles
stacks of money can I get? And so Canelo has
always talked about how much he how he you know,
he loves the legacy and there's no doubt about that.
But he also loves the money, and he's talked about
that too. I don't blame them for that. He could
make astronomical amounts of money for a fight that a
lot of people would view as not all that threatening. Yeah,
Crawford has a different view. Crawford's like, I'm gonna kick
his motherfucking ass. No, he's a bad boy, Terrence Crawford.
I mean, he's not the He's Terres Carford, the kind
of guy. You know, let's be honest, Karence Crawford doesn't
command what Canelo commands without having another dance partner like Canelo.
So that's part of it.
Speaker 2: So I'm sure that if that actually was more motivated,
he's not gonna be in a position where it's like
a fight for parody. This is not Mayweather Pack, Yeah,
where they split the money evenly. This is we can
pay Canelo, you know whatever, you know, seventy million dollars
and we'll give Crawford, you know, twenty five million. And
it's still the most money that Crawford ever made by
a lot. I'm only making the point that he leaves
the door open a little bit, which was smart for
him to do, because that may give him the opportunity
to do that kind of fight. And I know, if
Turkey and they're planning to do other fights outside of
Saudi Arabia, obviously, if they do that fight, maybe they
would do that fight in America. It would really if
they actually did have that match, it would be unfortunate
if that was in Saudi Arabia. But nonetheless, see on
the ray field meter. I think it's a possibility. That's
all right now. Oh, by the way, the other thing
that he talked about in the scrum was after Tyson.
Speaker 1: The Green Chilies or no. No, he did not talk about.
Speaker 2: No, he talked about Jake Paul.
Speaker 1: Oh. Yeah, so that Jake.
Speaker 2: Paul's been calling out Canelo for the last couple of fights.
Speaker 1: And he he said in English, Spanish or otherwise.
Speaker 2: No, in English. So, just to back up, after Mike
Tyson and Jake Paul had their quote unquote fight a
few weeks ago, once again Jake was calling out Canelo
and uh, the weight disparity is is still a situation
they would have to deal with, obviously. But he was
asked about that, about what he saw in the Jake
Paul Tyson fight, and he basically said, I felt sorry
for what he saw because you know, Tyson's fifty eight
years old and you know, you know, but hey, that's
their business. They did that, fine, whatever, But I thought
about getting revenge for Tyson when I saw that fight,
when I saw what he called an injustice, so we'll see.
So he's left the door open for that too. Now.
I know again, boxing is showbiz also, and its business,
and I don't care what anybody says. If they could
do the big numbers and the big money they did
for Mike Tyson, who's you know, been retired for twenty
years and it's fifty eight years old, you can't tell
me that Jake Paul and his drawing power against Canelo Alvarez,
the number one start in boxing presently, who's still an
active fighter and brings that massive Mexican fan base and
as a reigning world champ, you can't tell me that
would not have huge implications. And by the way, if
Netflix put up you know, somewhere in the forty to
fifty sixty million dollar range whatever they paid for the
Mike Tyson fight, it would not in any way shock
me if they could do a Jake Paul Canelo fight
and also not have it as a pay per view
at that's my theory. And even if they did it
on paper, you would still be a fucking megafight. I
Don'm not saying I like it. I'm just giving you
the reality.
Speaker 1: You know the facts, all right, next up, a funny
thing happened on the way to Israel Madramov and Sergei
Bollachuk fighting. Madramov is allegedly ill and has withdrawn from
his fight with Bolachuk coming up here on the undercard
of Usik Fury two. I gotta say this, though it's
dripping with sarcasm on my rundown here, that you might
be a little how shall we say on a Sunday
night into Monday dubious that there's really an illness involved,
because we already know there's something else awaiting in February,
right for if we're a Virgil Ortiz fight. So tell
me more, Dan Raphael here on the news.
Speaker 2: I mean the fact that this look, I'm not gonna
make accusations that he's faking it earth and I real,
I mean whatever. I don't know the answer to that.
I would hope that it's not a fraud, but whatever,
I mean, stuff like that happens in boxing all the time.
So maybe he's really sick. Fine, if he has, you know,
I hope Badjabov heals up and gets better. Heck of
a fighter, you know, good guy. Whatever. However, when the
fight was made between him and boat Shook back, you know,
whenever that was a month or so ago, six weeks ago.
That was like, yeah, that's a good fight because you
had both guys same weight class, both guys come off
highly competitive losses to top notch opponents. You had Magium off,
you know, losing his belt on a competitive, close decision
against Terrence Crawford, that boat Shook losing his interim title
in a tremendous Fight of the Year contender against Virgil Ortiz,
who he had dropped twice in that fight. And I
liked the idea of two guys that stepped up to
fight top guys that gave good performances, that made good
fights whatever. That now they weren't going to be you know,
thrown overboard and like you lost and so you know,
you're gone. That they had an opportunity presented to them
to sort of regain their stature by fighting each other
in what appealed to many people as an outstanding matchup
by an exciting potential fight for high stakes. It was
going to be an official WBC finally eliminator, and obviously
both guys were going to get well compensated. It was
supposed to be the December twenty first co feature on
the card headlined by Tyson Fury and Alexander Usik So
as in as a fight on a on a undercart
of that magnitude of a fight, it was a great opportunity.
So lots of people are looking forward to the fight. Then,
of course you know the story. What last week they
announced Turkey did the February twenty second event that I
had been reporting on, as had others that that now
they had made when when they were looking for an
opponent virginal Ortis because tarn boutenis elected not to take
the fight, and they said, okay, well Mad's going to
take the fight. You're like, okay, does that mean he's
not going to fight Boichuk? And then it came to
came to light that no, he's going to try to
do both. He's going to fight the tough fight in December,
come back in February and fight Virgil Ortiz, back to
not only back to back tough fights, but back to
back top fights within a fairly short period of time,
which seemed illogical, particularly based on two factors. DJ One
absolutely he could was the fight in December, right, very
very toss up. This kind of fight. And two, even
if he wins the fight, the chances that he may
come out of the fight dinged up, not necessarily with
some serious injury, but like remember when they were supposed
to do Tyson Fury against Usik, and he took the
Naganu fight and he got the close decision, but he
got knocked down, he got caught. He was way too
dinged up and a little bit needed some time off
that he wasn't gonna be able to come back right
away and do the fight, you know, within what was it,
a couple of months later, So they ended up moving
you know, Usik in Fury the first fight, you know,
a couple of months down the road. So the fact
that now it was barely a week since they announced
that that he that Majimov would do Boachuk and then
look to do the Virgil Ortis fight on that big
mega cart in February. February twenty second, which absolutely jam
packed stacked card with the rematch between Better BV and
biebl and Anthony not Anthony Joshua, but Daniel Dubai rather
defending his IBF title against Joseph Parker. I mean, we
all kind of figured that at some point something's going
to happen that this is not going to actually take place,
And it didn't even take more than a week for
it to fall apart. So Majimov was announced by Turkey
that he's suffering from a cute bronchitis. He withdrew from
the December twenty one fight against Boachuk, and Bochuk will
stay on the card. He'll fight a British opponent named
Ishmael Davis. It will not be a WBC elimination fight,
I don't believe, and Majiamov will apparently rest up and
he'll up and be ready to go on February twenty second.
So now that fight between between Magiamov and Virgil seems
more locked in because he's not fighting a tough fight
in between a month earlier, and unfortunately, Boatchuk takes on
a rather anonymous opponent in the co feature of Ousik
and Fury. Now, the Riat season cards TJ have been
tremendous events in terms of the competition that they've seen
on these shows, the magnitude of the fights to even
kind of match ups, lots of great names, deep deep
undercards one after the other. But I think you know
it's fair to say that the and I understand the
main event on Usik Fury is obviously a huge fight,
you know, the unified heavyweight championship, and it's a very
expensive fight, even beyond the normal expensive fights that their
folks at read season have been doing. But this particular undercard,
especially losing out on that fight now, is clearly the
weakest of all of the events that they have done,
which is now you know, over ten and ten events
that they have put on. But hopefully Ishmael Davis, well,
we'll come to fight and give Boa Chuck some competition
and we'll see a good fight and and that Majamov
is good to go for a great matchup in February.
Speaker 1: All right, you gave it a long explanation. We're just
dubious that this is a cute bronchitas versus let's get
paid in sixty days for fighting Virgil Ortiz. And if
we're taking the risks, we're taking the risks in that fight.
How about that.
Speaker 2: If you've got to take a risky fight, you take the.
Speaker 1: I'm with you on that. I one more note on
a prospect, and I have to confess I don't know
about Taromona Tiomona, an Australian Olympian until it's on my
rundown here a heavyweight Australian Olympian tell me more about
what's going on with him, and.
Speaker 2: There was very just a very interesting prospect kind of.
I won't say he stole the show at the Olympics
in terms of the super heavyweight division, but he has
a look to him, He's got a personality. He's obviously
strong like a bull. He made it to the quarterfinals
where his loss where he was eliminated from the Olympic Games,
was against Bakwa Jalla Love, who went on to become
a two time super heavyweight gold medal. So no shame
in that. But the thing is he was already four
and oh as a pro and as anybody that follows
the craziness of what goes on in the Olympic boxeror
amateur boxing is they now allow professionals to fight in
the Olympics. Jalla Love, who's won the two gold medals,
he's like fourteen to oh as a professional. Keishan Davis
fought in the Olympics before he when you know, he
already had a few fights under his belt before he
went to the Olympics, and then when he came out
went to top rank. So it's become more common over
the last couple of games. Anyway, But this was a
fighter that is now four to zero as a professional.
He's twenty six years old, still on a relatively young
age four heavyweights, great size, you know, like six four
sixty five, big strong guy. Anyway, he was a fighter
coming out of the Paris Olympics that a lot of
promoters that I don't know this for a fact, because
like I spoke to those promoters, but the scuttle butt
for the people I talked to in and around the game,
you know, when you asked about Olympic prospects, a lot
of folks were interested in procuring his name on a
contract as a you know, as to be their promoter,
because he is an interesting prospect. Anyway, he has signed
now with Mattroom Boxing, which obviously has signed and done
a lot of involvement in the heavyweight division, and he's
going to get his He's not turning pro because, like
I mentioned, he's had four professional fights going back to
twenty twenty. Then obviously took some time off to prepare
and compete in the Olylympics. But he's going to have
his first fight under this new deal which is with
Matrom Boxing, also going to be co promoted by gold
Star and Tasman Fighters, which is the Australian outfit that
is involved with people like Jai Opataia and others. Anyway,
he's going to have his first fight will take place
on the Monte Carlo card that Mattrom Boxing is going
to put on this coming Saturday, December fourteenth. So I
find that to be an interesting signing. He's a guy
that actually caught my attention when I was watching the
Olympic Games. And it's also interesting to me because if
you take a look at what's happened since the Paris
Olympics ended, there usually is like this rush of signings
two big promoters for the different metal winners and certainly
the American team and the British team and the prominent
type of countries that compete. Since Paris Olympics ended, man,
it has been I mean, there's been a couple of
signings here and there, but there's been very very little
in terms of the Olympic group of guys signing. Mattrium
signed another one of the British guys obviously they signed
Ramona from Australia, and I don't think any of the
American Olympians, which was a terrible team overall, has signed
with anybody men or women anyway. So he is one
of the more prominent guys to sign a pro contract
coming out of the Olympics. So it'd be interesting to
watch his development. So that's why I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1: Good enough, all right, nostalgia before we are done here
in December, and December eighth holds significance here in the
two thousands, not once, but twice. It was seventeen years ago,
December eighth of two thousand and seven that Floyd Mayweather
starched Ricky Hatton in the tenth round to retain his
lineal and WBC Welterweight championships. You have talked about this
previously on these pods and with the nostalgia about the
wildest fight week ever, with all the Brits and the
MGM running out of beer, what else do you want
to say about this? It was quite an event and
Floyd got the knockout, and you were there, and it
was now seventeen years ago that that fight took place.
Speaker 2: First of all the fact that it's that many years
ago still, but I always say that every you every week,
but this one particularly just kind of blows my mind
that it's been that long. Do you want me to sing?
Do you want me to sing?
Speaker 1: On the pody ahead? Sing it?
Speaker 2: There's only one Ricky had, One Ricky had Anyway, this
was a mega, mega, mega event. It may not have
set the all time pay per view record, but this
was a big mainstream fight. This got the you know,
this was in the in the early days of twenty
four to seven on HBO. They had kicked off the
series when he fought when Floyd fought Oscar de la Hoya,
which was a obviously humongous fight, but they did another
one of these series. This was a very big series.
You know, they would do numbers on twenty four to
seven that would sometimes do bigger numbers than some of
the fights, like the lesser live fights. They showed. That's
how big of a deal was. Look, Floyd was pound
for pound, he was undefeated. Ricky was the reigning junior
Welterway champion. He was undefeated. He was on a high
up on the pound for pound list. If you could
have pulled the upset, you know, a lot of people
would have put him number one on that pound for
pound list. It was a perfect storm. You had some
thirty thousand British that were estimated to have traveled from
the UK to Las Vegas for a fight by the way,
that took place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, which
when packed to the gills, might hold if you jammed
every nook and cranny of the room, it might have
eighteen thousand, you know, which is you know, even bigger
than most. And so obviously a lot of those came
to the to the Vegas and then that region just
a party and drink and hang out and just be
part of the festivities. And as you mentioned as the
urban legend is the MGM Grand, one of the largest
hotels in the world by the way, ran out of beer.
And so I have just vivid memories of a wild
fight week, as excitable as a group of people that
were in that casino during that week, as any fight
I have been.
Speaker 1: You told the story that it didn't matter what time
of day, and there's no clocks in the casinos. Obviously
we go over this all the time. Yeah, no matter
what time of day.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you a little bit about that whatever.
Speaker 1: There were people everywhere outside of all of the establishments,
if you will, drinking and going to drink and then
suddenly aggravated when there was no more drink suddenly.
Speaker 2: In particular, if you're all familiar with the MGM, if
you're in the front lobby at the check in desk
or the checkout desk, and you're facing it to the
left as you walk to the elevators to go up
to the guest rooms, there is what they call the
Lobby Bar, which is the bar in the lobby, and
it's a very popular hangout. Everybody kind of has gathered there,
you know, on the weekend nights that it's a pretty
pack place and so all week long. And I got
there earlier in the week that week for this particular fight,
it was like seven eight, nine deep to get something
to drink. And when you say twenty four hours a day,
I know that because I personally witnessed this at different times.
First of all, Billy right, Billy Graham, who was Ricky
Hatten's trainer at the time, would hold court there and
there'd be like a million people around him, like when
he wasn't busy with Ricky or you know, in the
gym or whatever. But the fact of the matter is
that the amount of people that were there again not
just at the you know, happy hour time or whenever anytime.
First of all, the Brits around a different time zone
on their body, so it was you know, at kind
of at seven o'clock in the morning for the Brits.
It's like lunchtime in England or you know, because it's
like what an eight hour time difference between Las Vegas
and London anyway, So I saw this early early in
the morning because I was gating up to go down
to the arena, because I was also not only was
I writing about the fight for ESPN dot com, I
was also on site to be a reporter for Sports Center.
So I was doing you know hits on Sports Center
every morning for their for the shows that were on,
you know, starting at like whatever six seven o'clock am
Eastern time. So I would come out of the elevator
and just for my amusements, I look at them. I
would like take you know, five steps to my to
the other direction. I would look in the bar. There'd
become million people there. So now I would go down.
I would do all my TV shit for like, you know,
a couple hours. I would be there for like you know,
probably an hour and a half doing back to back
shows or whatever. Anyway, i'd come back up and it
was still like that. I'd go back to my room
and I'd do a little work and I take a
little rest because I had gotten up so early. You
come down, maybe it's like lunchtime. There's like one o'clock,
it's still fucking packed. You go to the press room.
Now you come back here a room. Maybe it's like
four or five o'clock. You're gonna wash up, maybe do
a little more work, change for you know, later on,
you'll have dinner. Still pack. Four or five o'clock. You
come down, told, maybe go have dinner. Seven o'clock, seven thirty,
still fucking pack. Now you're out to eat or you're out.
You leave the the you leave the casino, you go
off the off the property to have you know, have
an evening out or whatever. You come back and there's
still like tenzillion people. And it was just amazing. Now,
one story I don't think I ever told. And this
actually when I mentioned to my wife, you know, I'm
gonna go tape the podcast, I said him By the way,
one of the ones the things we're gonna talk about
is seventeen years ago Ricky hatt versus Floyd Mayweather, and
my wife actually remembered this, and I had forgotten about
this completely until she mentioned it. So I've never told
this particular story. So the week of this fight, it
must have been like Thursday night, Friday night, I'm in
the casino and I run into Shelley Finkle, very famous
boxing manager, hall of Fame manager, one of the best
managers ever in the Hall of Fame himself. I've been
close to Shelley for twenty five years. He's managed any
number of all time great fighters, Evander Holyfield, Meldrick Taylor,
Fernando Vargas. You know, we could go down the line.
He's win with the Klitchkoe Brothers.
Speaker 1: He helped out Mike Tyson, Mike Tyson entanglement with Don King.
Speaker 2: He managed Deontay Wilder, still does for his entire career. Anyway,
So Shelley was at the fight and I run into
him on the casino floor and we're shooting the ship.
Now along comes out of nowhere, Ricky Hatton's mother and
Ricky Hatton's I think sister and other members of their
immediate crew, and she and she and Shelley knew each other,
and so she stopped and they set all to each other.
So Shelley, polite as he is, go and this. My
wife reminded me this because she told the punchline, and
I was like, I can't believe I forgot that. So
so Shelley Finkle introduces me to Ricky had his mother.
Now I had known Ricky Hatten's father because Ricky's father
was always around when Ricky was doing his fights, but
never I knew who his mother was, but I never
actually met her before. So Shelley goes to introduce me
to Ricky's mom. Now, Ricky's mom is lit up like
a fucking Christmas tree. I mean she's drunk. I mean
she has been definitely drinking for quite a lot. This
is would we run into each other. It's probably like
probably like ten o'clock at night in Vegas time. She's
in the bag, I mean, sticks deep, whatever. And so
Shelley goes to introduce us, and before he could even
finish his statement about this is you know Dan Rayfiel,
He's the boxing reporter for ESPN. Whatever, missus Hatten looks
at me and she goes, and I don't know how that.
I don't really have it. I don't do a good
British accent. OK, but I'm going to give you the line.
She goes, I know who he is. He's that big
fucking American writer who doesn't give my son a chance.
And so so the way I responded was I did
my and.
Speaker 1: Its right to meet you, Missus Hatton.
Speaker 2: Well, I did what's the character from Leave It to Beaver?
You know?
Speaker 1: Was it uh not Bee but Wally golly g Or
is it Eddie Haskell?
Speaker 2: I did exactly that. I did my best Eddie Haskell,
Like you said, Missus Beaver, I said, it's a pleasure
to meet you. Missus Hatten. I wish you's nothing but
the best. You're that big fucking American writer.
Speaker 1: Guess what, you know what? They held the fight and
Floyd put it on him, including uh knocking him out
with a check left hook.
Speaker 2: As I recall, well, it was a highlight reel knockout
TJ because he banged his head into the quarter post
and then fell backwards.
Speaker 1: Not good. I still I don't know that I've told this.
I still remember we were in Houston, Texas, Houston Hello,
with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers playing the Houston Texans the
next day in the NFL season a December of seven.
My twins not yet born till the next year. I
do the line of demarcation with the twins born eight. Uh.
And I remember in the establishment where I was the
roar that went up when Floyd landed that punch. Now,
tell me about the roar ring side, which is obviously
well multiply at times five.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that's the singing of though, where there's
only Ricky. When Ricky Hadden, you know, had taken place.
Other of Ricky's fights in the United States which I
had covered, he had obviously, you know, the first one
when he fought in Boston against uh Luis Calaso when
he had won the WBA welterweight title. He had fought
in Las Vegas against Jose Luis Castillo and uh and
another American fight that So the song was the song.
But these these guys with the with their instruments and
the singing followed him around and everywhere you went it
was there's only one Ricky Hadden. I mean, it was
almost like a home game. And yes, he was coming
from Britain to fight in America. UH, and Floyd had
his fans there also, but it was definitely a Ricky
hadten house in Floyd's not only his home country, but Floyd's.
You know, he lived and has lived for most of
his adult life in Las Vegas, so that was sort
of an eye opener. But here I must give Ricky
Hatton some credit and this number one, he didn't turn
down big fights because not only did he fight against Uh,
against Floyd, they were a massive, massive fight. He also
fought Manny Packyo on another massive fight. He did get
knocked out on both of those bouts, but he actually
did pretty well. People kind of forget that early on
in that fight he held his own with Floyd pretty well.
He did have a point deducted in the sixth round
because of hitting behind the head, but he got obviously
dropped and stopped. He got dropped twice in the tenth
round and obviously knocked out. UH. But that was a huge, huge,
huge fight. UH as as memorable just because of the
like the Brits always support their fighters and a lot
of them would make trips to America, whether it was
Ricky Hatton fights that I covered, or Joe Kalzaggi fights,
or Lenox Lewis fights or Prince Nasim Hahmed and others.
But Ricky was one of a kind. He You could
take the number of people that Lennox, kal Zagi, you know,
Amir Khan and uh and and all these guys drew
to America and rich. He was doubling that you could
combine him. I mean, that's the top star power that
he had. He was every man, he was beloved. But
this was they had done a big media tour. I
mean this and they're by the way, they were both
undefeated going into this fight. Tj A combined eighty one
and oh hello, and you know they're both in the
Hall of Fame now obviously. And the thing about also
Mayweather and I actually looked this up because and then
we're going to talk about this because I was trying
to remember, like how big of a favorite was made
whether to win. Yeah, he was the favorite. It was
only a two to one favorite in terms of the
betting gods. I mean, that's not astronomical in this type
of fight, when Floyd was already considered pound for pound,
but just a huge, huge event in Vegas, one of
the more memorable ones of all the many I have
covered at the MGM, And you know, it's it was
a different time, like that era is gone, and it's
like that was so exciting, especially when Ricky would come
to America, whether it was against Floyd or is against
Pacao or even some of the fights are a little
bit smaller than that, but this was huge. And as
my wife reminded me of when I met and shn
we be talking about this about Ricky Hatten's mom and
I'm meeting in her.
Speaker 1: The good news is that missus Hatton probably doesn't remember
much about that whole week or weekend, and probably didn't for.
Speaker 2: She was when I say, three sheets to the wind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, now let's move forward. Also on Sunday, December eighth,
five years to twelve years ago, December eighth of twenty twelve,
Juan Manuel Marquez and this is still known. I mean,
we've been talking a lot this weekend about the Hall
of Fame career of Manny Pacquiao, but this is one
of the moments. I don't know how much he actually
would physically remember about getting starched with the right hand
on the way in against Juan Manuel Marquees. You were there,
the knockout of the year, the fight of the year,
the fight of the decade. Rayfield there for Marquez is
one punch ko that laid many Pacquiao out face first.
All right, let's go back to what you recall about
that whole situation.
Speaker 2: Certainly the knockout is what everybody remembers, you know, big punch,
just as the round is about to end, and he
just man, he takes his like eye off it or
the foot off the gas. Here's the clapper and just
forgets about what's going on for a split second, and
here comes the gigantic overhand right on the button, face first,
out fucking cold, almost into the lap of then presidential
nominee for the Republican candidacy of Mitt Romney was sitting
ringside with his wife. Well, I guess the election had
just been over and he had lost the election, but
he was there ringside in Pacio. There's a famous picture
that where you see Romney is like in the shot
where Pacio is almost like in his lap, uh, you know,
sitting on the you know a s He's you want
me to.
Speaker 1: Say it, don't you. He's not getting up Jim. He's
not getting up Jim from Roy Jones.
Speaker 2: That's the famous call from on HBO on HBO pay
per view. So but so, like I said, the knockout
is what everybody remember. Now up, keep in mind this
is now their fourth meeting. Okay. The other three fights
that Pacquiao and Marquez had were all three superb outstanding fights.
First fight awesome, second fight tremendous, Third fight tremendous. Never
of the three fights was their definitive winner. The first
fight was ruled to draw, even though Manny had scored
three knockdowns against Marquees in the first round. Second fight
super close, Third fight super close for me, and I
was ringside for all four of their fights. I don't
have pak Ya winning any of them. I got Marquez
winning two or maybe three, and I got one of
them a draw. I mean they were close fights, but
Marquez came out on the short short end. So going
into the fourth fight, which was the only fight of
the four that was not for a major world title,
the first fight had been to unify well the featherweight
title that Marquez had and Pacya was delineal champion. Second
fight was for the one hundred and thirty pound title.
Third fight for the I believe it was the welterweight title.
But now in the fourth fight, they're not. None of
them have belts at this point, but it's still a
fight that people wanted to see. And the whole talking
point going in I remember this particular is going into
the fourth fight, is are we going to finally get
a definitive ending whoever the winner is, because there's no really,
uh you know, overall opinion from the fans and or
the media of who is the winner of these fights
because every one of them had some controversy attention then
based on those results, so you can't get a more
conclusive and clear cut outcome as a face first out
for the count, could you know the referee could have
Kenny Bayliss was the ref who's now just was elected
to the Hall of Fame also, so now I got
all three guys in the ring in the Hall of Fame,
Manypacyo Marquez en Bailess could accounted to one hundred because
he was out, So that was the definitive ending that
we all wanted whoever was going to be the winner.
Speaker 1: So now interesting that I'll prop our colleague Gail Falconfall.
She's told us this story before, and I can't remember
if I've repeated this to you, but through circumstances of
somebody being ill, she suddenly got called in San Diego.
It may have even dan been the morning of the
fight of we need somebody there to get the quotes
to file a story, and she was willing to get
to Las Vegas to be there. And the way that
she recalled it was she was in the overflow media
section and I believe she said that they were coming
towards her. Pacquiao was coming towards her, and she said
she thought he's dead, and he did not move. She
was legitimately not hyperbolic, scared he's dead. He's laying there
not moving. That was her reaction.
Speaker 2: You were closer, I didn't quite think that. But the
way that it was now where I was sitting, I
was at ringside, directly on the So the way that
they are set up, they're shooting the TV over hour backs.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're on the opposite side. If you saw
Meaw going away from you right right, you.
Speaker 2: See Mitt Romney, they're catching Pacyaw. I'm on the opposite
side of the ring. In the front row. Okay, so
they're as far away.
Speaker 1: Initially, could you tell that he had been laid out
or to take a second to register no? No, In
a minute that was a punch, no, no, face down,
you could tell.
Speaker 2: I've been to enough fights where a guy goes face first,
you know he's fucking knocked the fuck out. There was
no question that many had been knocked out. The question
was how devastating of a knockout was it. I mean,
I can remember instantaneously thinking, basically what Roy Jones said,
he ain't getting up. I wasn't thinking of Jim Lambley,
but I'm like, he's out. Uh. And that shocking. And
the reason why, what made it more shocking than just
the pure violence and esthetics of the KO was the
fact that leading up to this moment in the fight,
this is at the end of the sixth round, it
had already been in all out fucking war. I mean,
as good as their first three fights were, this is
as I said, this was the fight of the decade.
I don't even think it's Honestly, I don't think there's
another real candidate that could be the fight of the
decade other than this fight. Interesting because leading into this
sixth round knockout you already had. First of all, they
know each other, they've already had thirty six rounds together.
You have Manny Pacol, he gets knocked down in the
third round, he comes back, he knocks down Marquez in
the fifth round. Obviously you know Marquez knocked him on
in the sixth round. But before the knockout happened, Manny
pacl is absolutely about to obliterate on Manuel Marquez. Marquez
is bleeding, he's been damaged, he's been punched, he's been dropped,
and he is gunning for a stoppage. He is about
to stop Marquez and have the definitive ending that everybody
wanted to see whoever was the winner. And in an
instant Marquez, who was bloody and about to get stopped,
comes over the top with that shot when he lets
off the gas packel for just a split second after
he hears the clapper right at the end of the round,
and he gets knocked into oblivion. So I have said
this many times. Sometimes you're the windshield and sometimes you're
the bus. Can I use the example take Manny Pacyaw
knocking out Ricky Hadden on that night a devastating knockout
that went in Manny Packyoo's favor on this night. It
was exactly the same thing, but worse than phase first,
where he is the one getting nighed.
Speaker 1: Would you say, because he's now officially a Hall of Famer,
would you say that is the most shocking knockout of
your coverage of your career, just for the circumstance that
you just laid out that. It was shocking that in
one instance it completely one p eighty turned and ended
on that punch with what you just laid out.
Speaker 2: Now, I wasn't present when this happened, but I was
writing about boxing and obviously was watching it live on television.
I was rather shocked when out of nowhere, Hassim Rockman
knocked out Nux Louise to win this. Correct.
Speaker 1: Correct, you've told that story.
Speaker 2: Of course, in terms of fights, I've been ringside for Yeah.
When you see like arguably the number one fighter in
boxing pound for pound, who's about to stop his greatest rival,
who was also a clear and obvious Hall of Famer,
and in an instant ages when you think it's about
to be ended in the other this is not just
like he came back and he stopped the guy. This
is like he's about to get stopped himself, and he
turns it around and scores and not only stops him,
but one of the most pulverizing I mean, it's one
of the knockouts. Forget about the knock out of the year.
If you were to make a list of the most biggest, significant,
earth shattering, violent, whatever criteria you want to use, knockouts
in the history of boxing. Manny Pat you know, going
face first against Marquez in this fight is in the conversation,
is it? I mean, I don't know if it's.
Speaker 1: It's gotta be in the top five, if not in
the top two or three, if not number one, don't I.
Speaker 2: Don't know if does it trump Buster Douglas knocking out Tyson?
Does it trump you know, Muhammad Ali knocking out George Foreman?
I mean those it's but it's in that historical you know, neighborhood, right,
I mean. And so just a remarkable promotion, a remarkable fight,
a historical fight, and and absolutely unforgettable ending just imprinted
in my brain because I can when I think about it,
and I don't even have words to express it, like
I can still in my mind feel the energy and
just sort of like the just the electricity of the moment.
And that's even before, Like I didn't hear Roy Jones
saying he's not getting up Jim when I get home
from the fight. Now I go back and I review
the broadcast and then you hear you get excited all
over again because you see from a different perspective and
you hear what the commentators were seeing. But I knew
right away sitting there along with my other rings psyche
colleagues that a You've just seen the kind of knockout
that you're not necessarily going to see ever again, and
in terms of the context of the historical nature of
the fight, and then it's placed in history because you know,
you're seeing two all time greats do their thing. You know,
it's the fourth fight. I had the great fortune of
having been a ringside for the previous three fights, and
so to see the series close out like this was like,
you know, kind of mind blowing. So I'm always going
to have a soft spot in my heart for the
four fight series between Pacio and Marques. I mean, you know,
I considered a real privilege to have been able to
be at all four of them. But to be at
this one in particular was just off the charts, I mean,
just a great fight and a sick ending. And the
thing about it is, to Manny Pacio's credit, where a
lot of people, i mean, if you listen to the broadcast,
they're talking about lake how you know many packa may
never fight again after that kind of knockout. I mean
it had it was that devastating of a loss. Manny
Pacyo actually is one of the few fighters in boxing
that not only overcame that kind of devastating knockout, but
came back and won some other significant fights and ultimately
found his way into the Mega fight against Floyd maybether
Not meanwhile, marquees his next fight, he lost to Timothy Bradley,
you know, ten months later, and you know, he went
on on some other fights also, he only fought actually
two more times. He fought the Bradley fight, and then
he fought the Mike Alverado fight, which he won, and
then because of a knee injury, he retired. So this
was really, you know, in any ways, the end of
Marquez's as the top top.
Speaker 1: But if you're gonna have a moment, oh yeah, oh
my God, is that a moment and it's it's still
an internet meme to this day. Incredible and that was
twelve years ago.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go back and watch that again after we're done,
because I have a less while.
Speaker 1: All Right, one more thing and then we're gonna get
out of here. Happy birthday also on December the eighth,
to Bob Aram who turned ninety three years young on Sunday.
How about that for the long time top rank boxing
Ubah who.
Speaker 2: Promoted many paco against one Manuel Marquez, all.
Speaker 1: Four of them, among dozens of other fighters and fights
that he's promoted over the past what six seven decades
of doing that?
Speaker 2: If I'd say dozens, it's really like hundreds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, amazing career for Bob. Did you reach out to
him earlier today and giving the MBD? Giv him the emoji,
give him the birthday kick emoji?
Speaker 2: What'd you do? Bob was in Phoenix for his boxing
event on Saturday night with Emmanuel never Ata in Oscar Valdez,
and he had actually mentioned this to me recently when
I spoke to him that he was going to celebrate
his birthday in Phoenix. They were having like some of
some of his family members had made the trip. I
don't know if he was doing in Phoenix or he
was going back to Vegas. I think he was telling
me he was going to be in Phoenix, that they
were having like some kind of lunch gathering in a small,
you know, intimate celebration. But I did text Bob Happy
Birthday earlier in the day. And you know, ninety three
and still going to all the fights, still sitting the
ring side, still showing up, still doing the business, still
talking about the future, still talking about other big things
he wants to other fights he wants to make. I
mean I remember years ago, like you know, maybe when
Bob was in his eighties or whatever, and people let
you know, Boby going to retire, and it was like
laughable because Bob Aaron was never going to retire. He's going.
If he retired, I think he would have died years
ago out of boredom of not doing the boxing business,
which has been his life for you know, over sixty years.
I mean, he promoted his first fight in nineteen sixty six,
you know, it was a Muhammad Ali World Championship fight
in Canada when he fought George and he is promoted
pretty much every big name you could think of between
now and then been you know, all due respect to
Don King to me anyway, I think he's the greatest
promoter of all time. And the difference between him and
Don is that Don was a larger than life character
and obviously he could get could shout the word from
the rooftops, and you know, people knew who he was
with the crazy hair and the big bellowing voice. But
Don was more about Don. Don promoted himself more than
his fights and his fighters. Bob was never the guy
that did that. Bob promoted you know, he could say
and talk with anybody also, but he was more about
the fighters and the fights and the events than himself
being front center. In other words, if you take a
look at the last you know, fifteen years, maybe longer,
you might see Bob in some way in pictures and
this and that, but you don't see Bob butt in.
He keeps a little bit more of a low profile
at his events. He handles the business. He's got a staff.
They run it like a machine. But I say this,
Bob Aaron again, I've known Bob for twenty five years.
Is forget about boxing. He's one of the smartest, savviest
people I've ever met in boxing or out of boxing,
just just really has a way about him. Can be
extremely kind and generous and funny, but can also stab
you in the heart. You know, if if you, if
you it if needed, I mean I don't. I don't
mean that as an insult. I mean that's he runs
a business. It's it's you don't survive at the top
of the roughest boxing business. There is the sport of
boxing as cutthroat as anything in the history of the world.
You don't stay top of the food chain for sixty
five years without having balls and backing money and and
and ability to sell and to convince people, but also
to to listen to younger people and take their ideas.
One thing that's awesome about Bob because that he may
be ninety three years old, but he still thinks about things.
He still has ideas, but he doesn't think he knows everything.
Has he surrounded himself with an outstanding group of younger people, staff,
people who bring to him ideas. Now he granted he
has stepped away from running the day to day business.
He's not immersed in the minutia of every single nook
and cranny like he was for decades. But that is
a testament to his management style that he has hired
good people to surround himself with they can do that
for him. He has the final say if he wants it.
It's his company. He owns the majority of the of
the firm, but he listens to his people. I'm talking
about people like his steps on Todd the buff and
the lawyer Jeremy Kogel, and Brad Jacobs who's the COEO.
And Carl Moretti who's the vice president, his matchmakers, Brad
Goodman and Bruce Tramper. I mean, he's got a tremendous
staff of folks that work for him. But Bob is
to me, he's the goat when it comes to promoters.
I'll just say that Bob over the years now, but
I'll say this also, we may have had some terrible
moments together, some really terrible moments, but in the totality,
out of one hundred percent of the time I've been
around Bob or covered him, or been with him or
talk to him or whatever you want to call it,
the bad times have been absolutely horrendous, but that's a
very small amount of the overall thing. Like I would
say like ninety five plus percent of my involvement or
conversations or dealings with or whatever have been perfectly nice,
pleasant and fun frankly with the small percentage that have
been very hael and poor.
Speaker 1: So again, it's amazing. Ninety three Don King is what
also ninety three rivals adversaries and they're they're the same age.
They've made it to their nineties and this is remarkable.
I'm not trying to start a death pool here on
the Fight Preach U Night Recap podcast, but you start
going down a list of William Shatner, Captain Kirk is
like ninety two or ninety three. Barbara Eden Genie from
I Dream of Genie, the famous show in the sixties
and the seventies, is ninety three years old. Clint Eastwood
is ninety the famous actor director is ninety three years old. You,
I mean, it's just amazing. Have a contemplate making it
to ninety ninety two, ninety three. How about to bring
it back to football as we began. Marv Levy, the
famous Buffalo Bill's coach where they lost the four Super Bowls.
He's ninety nine years old and still I mean, it's incredible.
Ray Field to contemplate being ninety something years old and
still functioning like these people are.
Speaker 2: My dear friend Larry Merchant also was ninety three years old.
Speaker 1: It's incredible.
Speaker 2: And I listened when I was in Los Angeles in
August at the at the Terrence Crawford MAGMUV Card. One
of the best parts of that trip was getting a
chance to watch the fight in the press box, sit
next to Larry and chop out. I talked to Larry,
you know still, but we hadn't seen each other in
a while, So yeah, I mean, these these folks may
be older, but if you talk to Bob, you know,
if you talk to Larry like, they'll still you know,
don You'll they'll still rattle off. You know, they still
have their their marbles and their memories and they're smarts.
But Bob is one of the smartest, savviest people I
have ever known period. I mean, what else can I say?
And he's a brilliant promoter and the track record of
top Rank speaks for itself. Like I said, been around
since the late sixties. I guess it changed the name
a few years after it was founded. But the point
is nineteen sixty.
Speaker 1: Watch I'm gonna blow you away. You and I are
the same age. We're both fifty four years old. We
would turn ninety three in twenty sixty three. Brother, think
about how on the Moon? As I like to say,
how on Pluto twenty sixty three seems like it is?
And Bob Barram's ninety three years out talking.
Speaker 2: About the changes in the boxing business, Yes, just since
he started in nineteen sixty six when he was a
younger guy.
Speaker 1: I remember fights and fights primarily on black and white TV,
closed circuit if it was a big event. Forget about
color TV, forget about pay per view, forget about the
Internet and an app. Forget about any of that.
Speaker 2: So that's the thing he started when it was a
closed circuit or television black and white. Then it moved
to more close circuit cable television, pay per view. Now
of course he's involved with streaming. Look the fights that
Top Rank does, Yes, most of them are on ESPN
the network, but they're all on ESPN plus the app.
I mean that is the Internet did not exist. I
mean there was no viral videos, there was no social media.
I mean, do you had to get the word out
the way that you got the word out, which is
through newspapers and through radio interviews and some stuff on television,
magazines and newspapers and that sort of old school media.
And Bob is one of the things that has set
him apart I think from a Don King and others,
is that he was willing to change with the times, yep,
and to embrace those technologies. And that is a reason
why Top Rank has been as successful as it is.
To me, again, I don't have to kiss Bob's ass.
It's the most successful boxing promotion company in the history
of boxing, and honestly, I don't even think it's close.
Speaker 1: Happy birthday, Bob Aaron, all right, that will close it
out here again, lots of recapping of the top ranked
card and the knockouts by Navorate and Espinoza, the win
by Richardson Hitchens, the news, the nostalgia. I think we're good.
I think we're ready to get get underway with another way.
Only three weeks left in this year, by the way,
and we're pushing towards the Usik Fury rematch in a
couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: Heijit. That makes me think I got to start thinking
more and more particular about I mean there's still some
things to happen, but Fighter of the Year, Fight of
the Year, knock out.
Speaker 1: We got to start roll calling that a little bit
later on here in this month. Start getting it together,
my friend, have a good week. We appreciate it, Dan Rayphiel,
are you too, TJ. There is our insider Fight Freaks
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What it's all about for Dan Rayphiel, I'm merely TJ Reeves.
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