Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big
Fight Weekend. Now here is your host, DJ Leaves.
Speaker 2: Well, here we go off the Thanksgiving holiday.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, did everybody get enough to eat? Welcome in.
Speaker 2: It is the Big Fight Weekend preview. I am the
somewhat competent host TJ.
Speaker 1: Reeves. He is our insider.
Speaker 2: Hello, Dan Rayfield from Fight Preach Unite his substack and
his email newsletter. You've been a busy dude this week
in and around the Thanksgiving holiday, including this upcoming February
read season card that is quickly filled out very interestingly.
We're gonna get into that a little bit. We've got
a flyweight main event battle in England to preview. We've
got e Manuel Navaratee on the pod. You interviewed him. Hello,
Hello there, my friend, it's good to be back with you.
Speaker 3: You here.
Speaker 1: No shortage of stuff going on right now.
Speaker 3: Oh say that's a pretty that's a lot of stuff, yeah,
the holiday weekend. And by the way, that doesn't include
some of the other news items that are nostalgia and
all the other good stuff.
Speaker 1: So this, I know, I must.
Speaker 3: Say so myself. This is a pretty loaded show. I'm
not sure it says, load as as that February twenty
second Rice he'son card they're working on. But it's a
pretty load.
Speaker 2: Good tease on that. This is just like Thanksgiving. We're
going back for seconds for third. Just loosen the belt.
Elastic elastic waistbands are also of good use right about now.
Thank you for finding us. Make sure you're following subscribing.
Excellent job by the way with Eric Gomez of Golden
boyl on our previous pod. Got a chance to hear
that you folks want to go back and hear that
with his thoughts not only on the Latino Night card,
but some of the future fights that.
Speaker 1: Are going to be coming up. Excellent work on that.
Speaker 2: So we typically preview going into the weekend, recap coming
off the weekend. It may vary because of the holidays,
but I know you savages love the fact that we're going.
Somebody sent me a message that's in the UK. That's
it is they have lunch with Rayfield on a regular basis,
not omitially not well right, but mainly you, not literally
lunch with you. But what this person says is they
take the pod to lunch frequently and listen over in
the UK for all the latest on the fights.
Speaker 3: So we like that having little fish and chips, maybe.
Speaker 2: Little fish and chips, little bangers and mash whatever they
got to have. I don't know any other British food
they might have, what is it Shepherd's pie. I don't
even know if that's British.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I digress, but anyway, thank you, follow, subscribe and rate
and review.
Speaker 1: That's what this person did.
Speaker 2: They did a review on Spotify saying they love the
pod Lunch with Rayfield.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a new segment on the show, so do that.
Speaker 2: It does help us out as we get ready to
close out the year and we've had we've had a ton,
we had a ton on this podcast, so.
Speaker 1: We love it all right.
Speaker 2: So before we get to the news, as you were
saying that riodd season February card, before we get to
Manuel navaraatee, what we the business of what we do
on the preview preview? We have one prominent, big time
worldwide fight card that's in Birmingham, England. Compelling contender matchup.
How do you like that for a phraseology. Let's go
have Sonny Edwards Gala Phi with some amateur background, little
drama maybe into this in the professional ranks. Edwards a
former world champion as well. All Right, your thoughts on
this for the main events Saturday afternoon US time, that
is on Dezone from England Saturday night primetime their time.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3: I guess as flyweight fights go, this is a good matchup.
This is interesting to me, This is meaningful. The winner
is going to be in a great position in the
weight class, and there's history between them in terms of
the British boxing scene. It's notable because of their background
that you alluded to. Galalia Phi is an Olympic gold
medalist from the twenty twenty Olympics, and it's kind of interesting. Okay,
So galalia Phi close to the fighting family and his
brothers Khalib gallaia Phi and his other brother they've all boxed. Also,
he's thirty one years old though as a flyweight, so
and he's only got he's eight to eight and oh
right now. He stayed amateur for a while and it
paid off because he did win the gold medal. Every
amateur fighters dream. But when you enter the professional ranks thing,
you're already like what twenty nine to thirty when he
entered the professionals in that weight class particularly, you got
to get the gear going. You can't really, you know,
sit around and take in four rounders and six runners.
You know, it's kind of you know, get get to
work immediately. So when he came into the professional ranks,
he immediately was like in, you know, ten round type
fights and fighting like legitimate guys. Now, Sonny Edwards is
a much more experienced pro, I said galass eight, and oh,
Sonny Edward is twenty one and one. He's been a
flyweight world champion. He's fought a lot of good opponents
through the years. But he's also younger, even though he's
a lot more experience. But the interesting thing to me
is while it was Galalia five that won the gold
medal in the twenty twenty Olympics, it was Sonny Edwards
who beat him when they fought one time as amateurs.
And they have massive amounts of experience with each other.
They both were on TEMG Great Britain. They've sparred with
each other a million rounds. They know each other well
and the one time they did get a real fight
going in the amateur ranks, it with Sonny that prevailed.
So you have the great amateur accolades of the Olympic
gold medal and the undefeated record as a professional. Uh
and being a little bit older against the younger man,
but who certainly got more aware in terms of the
pros because we've seen Sony get banged around in that loss,
and he took a couple of fights agohere he just
got destroyed by Bam Rodriguez and their flyweight unification. That
was in December of last year. So a lot on
the line. The guy that comes out of his fight
is gonna be right there. Obviously, the winner is gonna
have the interim WBC VACAN what is the vacant interim
WBC flyweight belt, put them in position to either be
elevated or get uh, you know, a title shot. But
the point is solid fight. If you're a flyweight fan,
I like the matchup and it's uh, I don't know
who to pick it when it comes to that, I
have to make a decision, I guess before we do
our bet us show. But so here's the other thing
about it though, So I mentioned you when when Sonny
Edwards fought Vam Rodriguez, Like I said, that was December
last ye, he got dominated. He got pummeled, he got
knocked out in the ninth round, and he got beat up,
he got busted up. It was a very rough, harsh,
more than your average boxing loss. It was a I
feel like maybe a very debilitating kind of loss. He
did come back in June and he defeated Adrian Kurriel,
who was the former titlelder in the one o eight
weight weight division. He went up to one twelve and
fought Sonny. Sonny dominated one every round basically or close
to it. Ended up winning by a technical decision because
of you know, I guess there was if I remember,
probably a headbut or something like that. He looked okay,
but carry all was in my opinion, even though he
had been a title er, not on the same level
as obviously Bam Rodriguez and even some of the other
guys that that Sonny Edwards has faced in his previous fights.
You know, for example, Marudi Mdalani, who he defeated in
a tremendous victory for him back you know, a couple
of years ago. The fight does not have any names
like Sonny Edwards on his record, I mean not even close.
I mean other than you know, he's got the gold
to hang around his neck. But you're probably never heard
of the guys he beat in the Olympics to get there,
because they haven't really done necessarily a lot in the
pro so far. But the guys he has been fighting mostly,
not all of them, but mostly I've been guys with
like pretty good records, guys who are like twenty one
and two or twenty one and one, uh, you know,
fifteen and three whatever. Like for a guy it's only
got eight fights, It's it's like he's fighting real guys.
So I find it to be a very fascinating matchup.
And to me, the question is because Sonny has sometimes
made boring fights, but he obviously made a really good
fight with Bam because Bam was chasing them and catching
up to him. Is who's gonna be who's gonna who's
gonna make this fight? Is there gonna be who's gonna
advance forward? Who's gonna make the other guy, you know,
try to counter him. I kind of get the feeling
that if it's gonna be a good fight, glawiaf is
gonna have to take the lead and make Sonny fight him.
But Sonny can you know, perhaps box him and you know,
move and not maybe make it. I'm not saying it's
gonna be like a terrible, boring fight, but maybe not
as well.
Speaker 2: Edwards is not a big puncher, and the problem that
he had is he couldn't keep Bam off of him,
and when Bam got in the kitchen, it was a
big It was a big problem. Can and I don't
know that you FI can take advantage of it the
same way Can Edwards move more and make it interesting.
Speaker 1: So we got a compelling main event.
Speaker 2: Here and again we'll we'll handicap it more on the
bet US Live show Friday off of Thanksgiving at one
Eastern time.
Speaker 3: One thing also, just real quick about it is we've
had this conversation and other fights in the past where
there's an amateur familiarity between the guns and sometimes you're likeeah,
it doesn't really mean maybe they felt once years and
years ago whatever. Now these guys did fight, and I'm
not saying that that means anything. But what may mean
something is the fact they've done countless rounds as members
of the Great Britain Amateur Squad. And it's not so
much that they had one fight against each other. They've
been in the ring with each other time and time again.
And you know what, I know that the pros are different,
but the styles that they fight in have not really
changed a lot in my opinion, from those early days
to what they are now. That's what got them here.
It's not like suddenly one guy was a big puncher
and now became a boxer or vice versa. So they're definitely,
even if it's not exactly the same. When the bell
hits and they look at each other across the ring,
they're going to recognize things about the other guy. So
I find that to be interesting to see who's gonna
have maybe the better muscile memory, if you will, from
those sessions. And I'll just give gal Aya Fi a
credit for this. I was seeing some of the comments
that he made at the news conference when they went
out to start to promote the fight. And you know,
when guys start together, you always hear two sides of
the story. One guy says, I kicked his rear end
it was no contest. I beat him up. The other
guy says, I always talking about I dominated, and blah
blah blah. Everybody tries to make a big thing about it. Yeah,
Fiday got up and I'm not gonna sit there and
tell you, I'm not gonna bullshit you. I'm not going
to tell you, you know I beat him up or
this or that he said it was fifty to fifty.
We both had our moments, we both did well well enough,
so I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 3: We'll see if they do fifty to fifty in the
real five on Saturday.
Speaker 2: There's the biggest prominent main event that we have. So
we've done the preview portion of the obligation here and
again we'll talk more on the bet US show coming
Friday at one Eastern time on their platforms about that one,
and makes some handicapping predictions on that. Let's get to
what we have next, which is your recent conversation with
Emanuel Navarat who gets ready to defend his WBO Junior
lightweight title a rematch with the interim titleist, Oscar Valdez.
It's the top rank ESPN main event coming December seventh,
not this weekend, next weekend, And here is Big Dan's conversation.
Now through the translator, through the magic of the editing,
you'll hear the answers and the whole bit with the
vod cattle, Emanuel navorate here on the podcast.
Speaker 3: Well, it's my great pleasure to welcome to the podcast today.
It is none other than the WBO Junior Lightweight World
Champion Emmanuel Naverrette. Emmanuel, You're going to defend your title
against the interim title holder Oscar Valdez in a rematch
of what was a terrific fight the first time around.
You guys will square off on December seventh and Phoenix, Arizona.
It is the main event of the Top Rank on
ESPN card. I'm going to tell the folks here also
we have the outstanding Top Rank publicist Gabe Reeves will
do the translation. Emmanuel, thank you very much for joining
me today.
Speaker 4: Good morning, Thank you.
Speaker 3: So i'd like to start off Emmanuel, you defended the
title against Oscar back in August twenty twenty three. It
was a terrific fight. As I mentioned, you won a
clear decision in the fight, and I wonder when you
think about the rematch, how do you see it being
any different than the first one, if at all, as.
Speaker 4: Something will change, especially because of the fact that we
both crossed paths or fist before in this first fight,
and because of the experience of that first fight it
will change. We both know each other more. But I
think that's going to help us in the strategy in
our fight and hopefully things go in the best way possibly.
Speaker 3: Now Manuel, when you faced him the first time, a
lot of the fans, the media, even top rank they
were comparing it to what people were thinking about before
the fights between Eric Morales and Marco Antonio brand You know,
your your great countryman. Hall of Fame fighters even brought
those guys in to help promote the fight. They were ringside,
And I wonder for you, as the fighter, what was
it like for you to have, you know, your biggest
fight at that point, uh being discussed in the in
the in the in the same sort of conversation as
these great fights between Hall of famers like Morales Sombrera.
How to feel good? Okay some.
Speaker 4: Completely Yes, as a fighter, you don't really even dream
if something like that happened. And to be able to
have done that in my career is something that has
satisfied me. Is it achievement that has satisfied me so much?
And if it hadn't been for that, then at this
moment it would still be a kind of goal.
Speaker 3: That I would want to complete when you had h well.
After that, you had the terrific fight with Robson Consas.
Now you defended the title. You score two knockdowns in
the fight. They called it a majority draw. I wonder
how did you feel about your performance in that and
were you okay with the draw.
Speaker 4: It was a close fight, you know, and by by
a little I think it could have been in my
favor the decision, but it was a draw, and he's
a good fighter, and I'm not going to complain about
the decision. I think it could have been a better
fight because there were some issues in preparation, things that
complicated my performance. But I think that he could have
gone in my favor.
Speaker 3: So you had to you retain the title even though
it was a draw, and then you went up in
May to challenge the undefeated Denny's Brentchik for the vacant
w BO lightweight title. He ended up winning the split decision. Emmanuel,
And I wonder do you feel like something went wrong
for you in that fight? Was that he was too big?
H he seemed at be a little more technical maybe
in the way he boxed. Thing you did. Uh When
you look back at that fight, what was your sort
of takeaway from it, well.
Speaker 4: The style. His style was ended complicating, ended up complicating
the fight for me. It was a difficult fight against
Baron Shack. You know, he really didn't come to fight.
He came more to score points. So until in that respect,
it wasn't a fight.
Speaker 3: But this is boxing.
Speaker 4: It's no problem, and I'm okay with it, and I
just keep learning and getting better.
Speaker 3: Now, a lot of people thought, Emmanuel, that win or lose,
that you were going to stay a lightweight. Maybe it
was too hard to keep making one hundred and thirty pounds,
so obviously you still had the title at one hundred
and thirty. So I wonder what was the reason you
decided to return to the one thirty division, where Valdez
had ended up winning the interim title. Was that you
felt more comfortable in that division, you wanted the rematch
with Oscar who was obviously going to be your mandatory,
or did you just feel like, I'm still champed, so
I might as well defend my title, you know it.
Speaker 4: It's easy to go from one thirty five and then
go back to one thirty and to fight against Valdez,
who earned his opportunity for the world title by becoming
a mandatory challenger of the title of which I'm still
a champion. And so I also think people see an
attractive fight because I call him because it's for a rematch.
It's a rematch for this fight, and I think that
would have been a more attractive fight than, for example,
stay at one five finding against someone who's ranked at
number five or ten or eight. I think because of
that initial fight about Dez and the attraction has it
makes the more feasible. So it helped make that decision
for me. And I think, you know, I think it's
going to be a good fight. I think we figured
out a little bit a lot in the first fight,
and there's going to be a new strategy in the
second fight.
Speaker 3: When you did fight against Brentschick, you are attempting to
win a world title in the fourth way class. I wonder,
is that still a goal of yours to eventually go
back to lightweight and try to win yet another world championship.
Speaker 4: Yes, of course that is still a goal for a
firm goal for me given what happened, and sure, you know,
when we go back we can do something at one
hundred and thirty five in the future. But I have
to take my time. I had to do things calmly
and work better, and when that opportunity comes, we're going
to come with everything for that title in the fourth
weight class.
Speaker 3: So in the co feature, when you and Oscar have
the rematch, Top rank has an excellent undercard fight the
co feature, it's Rafael's Banosa. He's defending the WBO featherweight
title against the former title er Robesi Ramirez. It's a
rematch between those two guys also, and I've heard some
conversations that maybe the winners of the two fights could
fight each other, especially if it was Espinoza, who would
maybe look to move up to challenge the winner of
the fight between yourself and Oscar. I wonder is that
a fight that you would like to have against another
great Mexican warrior.
Speaker 4: Yes, it would be interesting. I think the most important
factor in that fight would be his height, mil Divino,
because he's very tall as a difficult he's also a
difficult boxer, and so it would be an important challenge
that I would love to see it and I would
see it that way as an obstacle to overcome, and
so I think the people would like that as well,
because if you know as a warrior, so it would
be an entertaining and an excellent fight.
Speaker 3: Rule. I agree with that for sure, Oscar Valdez. He
just has two losses. One was a decision in your
fight the first time around. The other was against chra
Course Stevenson, who was an outstanding boxer. He's always had
a great I wonder do you think that in the
rematch that you have a real chance to become the
first ever man to knock him out? And are you
expecting another great all out battle like you guys had
the first time.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm working really hard to go after him and
look for that knockout. And this is a good fighter
and he has a good chin. He can take a
lot of punishment, like everyone knows, and so it be difficult.
It would be taking on an important challenge, but we're
working hard for that. But also we're working so that
hopefully and principally it's a good fight. Now we can
also delivery great show off for the public and they
would all walk away from this fight.
Speaker 3: Will well, Emmanuel and Gabe. I have no doubt that
it's going to be another terrific fight. Thank you guys
very much for your time. Gabe, thank you for your
assistance and translating Emmanuel. Best of luck to you in
the fight. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Have a good day, you bet guys.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Interesting obviously he fought and beat Valdez and now is
moving back down and wait, I remember saying this to you.
He looked very sloppy, almost slower at lightweight. Maybe he's
going to be better for that reason. And I thought
it was interesting because we are going to talk Barrera
and Morales nostalgia another teams in a little bit that
you brought that up with him as well, that they
were around Valdez and Navarat for the first fight. So
there's a little nostalgic angle here too, because it's the
second fight for these guys, Navarat Valdez, right, final final
thought there on your conversation, he was.
Speaker 3: Very relaxed when I talked to me. I think he was.
I mean I was watching him on a zoom and
I think he was laying in a bit, to be
honest with you, were a couch and we're on a
three way.
Speaker 2: There's a reply, there's relax and then there's reclining in
the prone position.
Speaker 1: Talking to I like that.
Speaker 3: We're on like a three way zoom. So it was
me and and h Naverette having the conversation. But Gabe Rivas,
who does a great job from top rank translating for
the Spanish speaking fighters, does a tremendous job with it.
You know, he was the one that was being our
traffic cop, translating what I had to say and back
from what Viccaro had to say. But he was like
just he was just like, I don't know, He's just
like he looked like he just got a massager. He
woke up from it. Now he was engaging. People heard it,
but it was just funny to watch him do that.
But anyway, I thought it was really cool the homage,
if you will, that he paid. I want to ask
him about having the great Mexican warriors Morales and Marrera
part of the promotion for the first fight, and what
it meant to him to be positioned or mentioned in
the same kind of category as those two all time
greats who had legendary fights, because so many people thought
that the first fight between him and oscar was going
to be that level of fight. I may not lived
up to the ultimate Barrea Morales, but if you go
back and watch it, even though he won, you know,
pretty clear decision. That was a tremendous battle, and I
think he and everybody else expects this rematch to be
another superb fight.
Speaker 2: Looking forward to that that's coming now the seventh next
weekend on that top ranked card. Pretty good card on
that too. We'll preview that more next week. All right,
We got lots of news and then we've got some
nostalgia as well. Okay, so February twenty second, that's a
ways away from where we are right now. Very interesting
card is shaped up, and you were at the forefront
in breaking the story about the main event, about really
the two prominent comb and all the fights you broke.
But I mean these are we didn't know about these
fights for February twenty seconds. So until you started revealing
Daniel Dubois in a title defense better bbvol rematch, you
had Eric Gomez alluding to Virgil Ortiz and Boots in
Us maybe being a possibility. All right, So tell me
more on what you found out earlier in the week. No,
no Thanksgiving week off on the reporting from Big Dan.
Speaker 3: All right, so let do you want to go down
fight by fight because I'll just preface this and you you,
I think you know me well enough at this point
that I do not engage in a tremendous amount of
hype when it comes to like, oh, it's the best this,
or it's the greatest that, or it's a stacked card. Back.
I've made mockery of some of the pr folks and
some of the promoters when they tell me it's a
stacked card, and it like it's bullshit, you know what
I mean? I can truthfully say this is if it Again,
let's preface this by saying, these fights are all in
varying stages of being put together. They're not all done.
Is it possible that maybe one of them doesn't happen? Uh?
You know, of course that's boxing. But if it actually
goes down the way that the plans are of what
they're working to do, it is I don't know, if
I'm being exaggerat hed, it might be the deepest, best
card so far of the century. I don't know, is
that maybe? Well?
Speaker 2: I mean, we had we had some cards with the
read season, the Knockout Chaos, and I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 1: What was the other one? Uh not Ring of Fire,
but what was the other one.
Speaker 3: They had. The theory was sick one right had they
card in California in August with Terrence Crawford and magemub
was very right, right and the you know, if you're
well for British fans mostly, but.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna defer to you. I'm gonna defer to you
off the top of your head. In the last four
or five years, with the exception of the recent Saudi
cards lining them up, you obviously can't recollect one that
appears to be this deep.
Speaker 1: With this many world I should.
Speaker 3: To go back. I have to go back to the
card I have spoken about before. That was the Don
King card from Atlantic City, and I want to say
roughly five that had eight world title fights. The entire
card was eight world title fights, and it had multiple
undisputed title fights and tons of big names. Bernard Hopkins
in undisputed mindweight defense, you know heavyweight title fights, zab
Juden junior welterweight title fight, you know, a unification fight
in the one hundred and fifteen pound weight class, undisputed
welterweight title fight with my organ in space. There was
an eight, like I said, just a jam packed, tremendous
card that was an HBO pay per view that Don
King put on. Other than that, this is about as
good as I can So here's how so we'll go
through the fights in a second. But when I was
in the process of doing the reporting and people, I
don't think they understand quite what I do. It's not
like somebody calls me and says, hey, by the way,
here's the five fights that are on the show. You
get a bread crumb, you followed up and make a
couple of calls, and people you think might know, you
put it together and then you kind of use about it.
I was thinking, and I was talking to one of
the people that was one of the sources involved in this,
and I'm going through the different fights with them, and
you know, what's a loaded card when it takes a
little while to figure out what's the main event plan
because normally you would know, oh, yeah, that's the main event,
and then everything else falls out, you know, into place
when you have to try to have a conversation and
you can legitimately see like three different fights could theoretically
be the main event, right and quite literally with no
and again I'm not carrying anybody's water. All six fights
five that I think are closer than the six, but
the six that's also possible. We're literally all six fights
one hundred percent. In the older days of like our
HBO and showtime existence, or you know, even in today's
day where riad Season is not involved, it was just
a regular Golden Boy card or a top rank card
or a PBC card, what have you. Any of the
six fights could easily be the main event of the show.
So let's take it from the top. It is my understanding,
and again Turkey al Hikh, who is the mastermind of this,
who is putting the resources and the muscle behind it,
has the financial backing with his government and what he
has the ability to spend and do. So one thing
we know from Turkey is a couple of things. One
he is a legitimate massive boxing fan and two he
likes staff cards and his proof is in the track record,
because if you take a look at the reat season
cards that have taken place since their first one, which
was back in October of last year when Tyson Fury
had the fight with Frances Naganu, you know that he
is a man of his word. When he says I'm
putting on stack cars. This might be the best of
all of them. So again it's all a matter of
can they get it done. So Daniel Dubois, who is
the IBF heavyweight title holder, dubious his claim on that belt. However,
you see that because of the fact that Usaik, who
was on dispute, it had to give it up regardless
when he made his first defense, it was a massive
event in Britain back a couple of months, you know.
That was a September on the London react season at
Wimbley Stadium ninety plus thousand, ninety five, ninety eight whatever
it was, thousand people and he went in there and
absolutely destroyed, demolished and knocked out and obliterated Anthony Joshua
in a just a gargantuan upset and a huge victor.
So he's I again, Turkey can always change the order
of the fights, and he's done that before. But my
understanding is that Dua will headline this card against Joseph Parker,
who was a man who has earned the opportunity to
challenge for another heavyweight title. He has been winning on
read season cards. He's defeated Anthony, I mean Deontay Wilder,
he defeated who he beat does Angelais was another fighter
that he defeated. So he's he's got the you know,
he's got the what's the word I'm looking for that,
he's got the track record, he's proven himself in terms
of what he's been able to do, the.
Speaker 2: Recent cred the credibility that has him there, and he's
got an interim title if I'm not mistaken too.
Speaker 3: So right, he's a w Now, I don't think that
will necessarily be uh, that won't necessarily be at stake
because a the w BIL was pretty particular about that.
They're not going to let him like you, I don't
think anyway, Unifi you know, those those belts. But that's
not really even that relevant. The fact of the matter
is he has two big wins in his last two fights.
He beat Deonta and he beat Jang, and he deserves
this opportunity. And Dubois coming off of that type of
big win over Anthony Joshua certainly isn't you know, he's
the He's another guy that can sell and remember this
is pay per view and all that, probably and they're
gonna look for the British audience. Parker's well known in
the UK sponsor many times. He also has a fight
that he had with Anthony Joshua, he fought Joe Joyce,
and he's fought, uh, you know, several of the British fighters.
So when you think that the undisputed light heavyweight Championship
rematch between Better b b Ball is going to be
the co feature after they headlined to be the in
the undisputed fight that took place in October, that's a
big freaking car. And you know, right after that fight happened,
and better Be one what was you know, disputed by
many in terms of the outcome, a majority decision that
the rematch was something that be Ball immediately requested and
wanted and and turkeyosh said, look, I thought that Boble
won by two points and better Be. His position was,
if Turkey wants me to do the rematch, I'll do
the rematch. Well that's happening. And there was some discussion
maybe would have to wait till the beginning of the
next Raand season, but it's not gonna happen. They're gonna
end up doing it on this next Riant season card
in February. I am told that while it's not signed,
at least not you know, as of a day or
two ago when I was talking everybody, one hundred percent
the fighters agreed to. The money is agree to, which
is always the biggest thing, and this the you know,
everybody on both sides is making plans though this fight
is absolutely happening of every twenty second. So for this
to go as the co feature again, he could change
his mind, Turkey and make it the main event, I suppose.
But whatever order of the fights, to have this fight
on a card with Duba and Parker is astronomically a
big deal, tremendous, tremendous card right there.
Speaker 1: But like as we say, but wait, there's still more.
Speaker 3: And also just to be clear, we've seen like with
Usik and Fury when they had their undisputed title fight,
the rematch is not gonna have all the belts at say,
it is my understanding that when Better Beevan and people
will do the rematch all four belts in fact, we
will be at stake. So that's a little bit of
an added bonus, I guess to see that now moving
down there, and again I don't know the order of
the fights. I mean, these could all change, but I'll
just go to if this is my opinion of what
the next biggest fight is Virgil Orties against Bout Tennis.
You alluded to my interview with Eric Omas, who said
that's the two sides we're having that conversation. They were
hoping to get that done. Boots moving up from one
forty seven where he holds the IVF title to go
up to one hundred and fifty four to fight Virgil
Ortiz for his WBC interim belt. One of the best
fights you could probably make in the division, if not boxing,
in terms of two exciting, younger, undefeated guys who both
looking for that breakout type of fight against a bigger
name opponent. Now, Virgil is coming off that life in
depth battle against Boachuk where he got knocked down two
times and ended up scraping by with a win, first
time he ever had to go to the distance and Ennis.
While he won more handily in his last fight just
a few weeks ago, in the rematch with Chikazian, it
was not a great performance. He got hit quite a bit.
So both guys, although winning and exciting and people you
want to see back in the ring. I believe it's
fair to say that both have shown in their last
couple of fights their vulnerabilities and this is just as
good as a guess. I mean, for a fight like
this to be at least three fights down a show
is amazing. Yeah, so that's another fight again. I don't
know if it's done yet, but this is what they're
working on. And now further down the cart a fight
that we have spoken about that has been in the
offing for a little bit. Frank Warren, who is the
promoter of Hamsa Shiraz, who was a rehad season ambassador
and has been involved. You know, Turkey has taken him
under his wing, so to speak, and you know it
makes him an important part of that. They've been trying
to get him a title fight, and Frank has been
saying for a while, Amzi will fight very well titled.
It was just a matter which opponent with the belt
he was gonna fight.
Speaker 2: You were talking last week on the podcast that obviously
there was a lot of discussion going on because suddenly
they weren't gonna fight Jana back, and with your reporting
you led right to what it was going to be.
Speaker 1: And here it iss like.
Speaker 3: Though the Janabek fight had been ordered as a WBO mandatory,
he withdrew from the purse bid, not because he was
scared like some people that suggest that is absolutely ridiculous,
but because the other two champions in the weight class,
which were ARISONI Lara and Carlos A Damas from Again,
what I am told was not none of these fights
are easy to make, but they were more doable and
a little bit more smooth riding, let's say, to get there.
And so it was sort of like which PBC guy
that we end up going with. It has turned out
that it's going to be a Damas defending the WBC
title against Tarraz now even though he was the mandatory
in the fight was ordered in the WBO. Charras also
is sitting at the number one contender spot in the WBC,
so there's that. Also, It's not like he just is
not rated or anything like that. This is a very
legit fight. A Damas is a kind of a seen
some anonymity. He doesn't have a really big profile. You know.
He did get a win over a Terrell Gichet on
a recent PBC pay per view under card, but Charaz
is really the guy with the He's the money guy
right now in the division. Even though he doesn't have
a title and this is a really good matchup. He
just blew away Tyler Denny for the European title. Adamis
looked pretty good in his title victory, although not so exciting,
but him and Shiraz that sacks up as a very
interesting fight. And now we can go further down the card.
He had another quality heavyweight fight easily could be a
main event in my opinion. Two guys who've been winning
on these undercards are on these cards of the Ria season.
Have got Zilly Zang that we've mentioned before, the big
South Pop, big puncher, Chinese fighter. Uh been in the
ring with a lot of you guys. You know he
is beaten.
Speaker 2: Joe Joyce twice wipe Deontay Wilder recently.
Speaker 3: Absolutely yeah, no, no, he beat He beat up on
h On Wilder. That was that was just you know,
that was the knockout that more or less ended. I'm
not saying Deontay is never going to fight again, but
it certainly ended his days as a main event type fighter,
you know, top level heavyweight. That was the that was
the main event of the five versus five card back
in June, and the and his opponent is your boy
who's looked good on these Rihan cards. He's twenty five
and oh and he's got two big wins in a row.
He knocked out at the time who was an undefeated
fighter that was favored and he ruined him fourth round
knockout is my recollection against Arsenal and Beck Mackwadoff. That
was a tremendous victory for him. And then he came back.
That was in December of last year. And then he
came back and had what I think is even bigger
win against the undefeated Frank Sanchez, the you know, the
split Cuban southpaw that nobody ever wanted to fight, and
he took him out in seven round. So he's got
two knockouts against two guys that were undefeated. Both times.
I believe that your boy Cavill was the underdog and
so now he's putting on the line. He's putting on
the line against against Jang for big you know, it's
not like an official title, but it's big stakes because
the winner is clearly in a wonderful position. I mean,
he'll have three big wins in a row, your boy Cavil,
and if a Jang, he'll have another big win because
he just beat up on Deontay Wilder in the last fight.
That's tremendous.
Speaker 2: But what well way, But wait, that's apparently not it,
as we have something else that's on the radar. We
had heard about Shakur Stevenson maybe being on the read
season called what are you hearing here?
Speaker 3: Okay sold On. Originally, one of the fights that was
being planned for the show was going to be shak
Over in his mandatory of the WBC lightweight title against
Williams of Paida, who was the mandatory and if you remember,
they were supposed to have their their quote unquote tune
up fights and then Shaquor got injured and pulled out
because he was supposed to fight Coordina, but he couldn't
go through with it because of his medical issue. He
had a surgery on his I believe this is right
hand or something like that. Anyway, and then the Paida
had he took his tune up fight anyway, and on
the Latino Night card back, you know, a week or
two ago, he had that really excellent fight with Tevin Farmer.
He won the fight even though he got knocked down,
and he came out of that fight with a hand
injury that's going to keep him out for a couple
of months. So the prospect of that fight taking place
on February twenty second was out the window, which of
course still wanted to fight. They were still trying to
figure out if they get him on the show. At
one point I was told he's probably not going to
be on. But this kind of came out of it
came out of nowhere because he's been calling him out
for a little while, but now there was a real
movement to actually make the fight. An offer was sent
from the matchroom Chakor side to Golden Boy, who is
the promoter of Floyd Schofield, the undefeated lightweight up and
comer who's never fought on this level before, as good
as a prospect as he may be. And it appears
as though they're going to make the fight, because if
you read the fighters social media, they're like, we've agreed
to everything that we're doing the fight. I'm told one
hundred percent the offer was made and now we'll just
see if they can actually get it done. And like,
and when I say done, not what the fighter said,
I mean signed on a piece of paper, a contract.
But imagine if you add now against Scokefield, two young
undefeated guys who really want all the smoke. So that
so the kids say, I mean, and that's like the
sixth fight.
Speaker 1: We may I don't know what.
Speaker 2: We may have lost some people we got du Bois
Parker better be a bople allegedly all in this card
or ties innis Carlos, Adamis Hamsa Shiraz Kaba yell.
Speaker 1: And now you're telling me that.
Speaker 2: Shakur and Floyd Schofield is like a definite maybe for
fight number six, that is a And even if it's
not all six, let's say it's five of the six,
that's still a loaded card.
Speaker 1: I completely concur completely.
Speaker 3: So I mean, this may sound like kind of dopey,
and I don't want to like look a gift course
in the mouth, as they say, and say, you know,
I don't appreciate this. It's almost too much, you know,
I like to have. I mean, you want the fights
to have a chance to breathe on their own a
little bit and to get the publicity in the excitement level.
There's so much on this potential card that I don't
even know where to begin with my excitement.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: And the other thing what you're saying is a perfect world,
you'd like to have like two or three of these
fights a couple of weeks later or a month later. Yes, Instead,
we're gonna get them all. It's like Thanksgiving at my
mother in law's. I got seventeen things that I can
eat from, and she's mad in a good way about
whatever I don't touch. It's kind of the same thing, exactly.
I feel like obligated to have seventeen little portions.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about it. It's gonna be one of those days
where you're gonna it's gonna be like an eight hour
boxing day of watching guys. I'm thinking about it from
my perspective also having to right the fights. And again
I'm not I'm not. I'm kind of half joking that serious.
I'm not unappreciative of the efforts to make this fight.
So you know, if Turkey is listening, I appreciate it,
and all the folks that are putting up the money
and the fighters are doing these fights, and for even
guys like a better be of an a Beevle to
potentially accept an undercard position after being the main event,
and the kind of all these guys, by the way,
have fought main event fights. I mean, Dubot and Parker
have been in main events. Do watch just fought in
front of like, you know, ninety plus thousand people, better
be a people have been plenty of main events. Virgelo
Ortis and Boots have both been main events. Adamis, I
guess hasn't been a main event, but Shiraz I think
maybe the same situation. But certainly Jang has been in
a main event, and certainly Shakur and Schofield have been
in their own main event.
Speaker 2: So this is, I mean, demonstrates one more time over
the last couple of years that Turkey Ala chic and
and the ri odd season and the money behind him
has cut through all of the bull crap, all the delays,
all of the stuff that if you have the money,
these guys will come together and will make fights and
we'll do deals.
Speaker 1: And here it is again.
Speaker 3: It happens if it all comes together. Yeah, And I'm
and I'm very confident, like even if all six don't happen,
at least three or four of them are going to happen.
Speaker 1: All right, It's still amazing, Hey tuned.
Speaker 3: And I don't want to hear anybody I've already seen
like wow, I mean it's a great car, But where's
Martin Becoley. Well, marmccoley is a tremendous guy you want
to see also, and there was the possibility.
Speaker 2: So we gotta have we got to have eleven fights,
then we gotta have a Bacoli fighting.
Speaker 1: And they were thinking he was.
Speaker 3: Going to be the guy to fight you know, Jang
possibly or or even Cobyo. But it's not happening, so
you know, I get it, but it's come on, that's
like saying like you know, I'm I don't understand like
that that mentality, like appreciate what there is. IS's I
much good stuff on there every single fight. By here's
the other thing about it, by the way, not one
of those fights that I just mentioned. Do I think
that the guy who is going to turn out to
be the betting favorite is the betting favorite by a ton?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The only one that I think might be a little
wider in terms of the odds probably would be Shitorn's Fofield.
And it's not a knock on Schofield. He just doesn't
have that level of experience. But I definitely appreciate, you know,
the youthful exuberance to go out there and at a
young age go after the big name and not dick
around and wait four years to try to have the
big fight.
Speaker 2: All right, A lot of great stuff with that. Some
other news from this week. You know, it's not every
day that we come across a social media post or
an email in the email box that says promoter wants
to respond to rumor, speculation, conjecture that our main event
was not on the up and up and may have
been staged, may have had something going on. But that's
exactly what Most Valuable Promotions did MVP earlier this week,
where where the conversation, the conjecture was out there that
there was somehow a clause in the contract for Jake
Paul and Mike Tyson. The ridiculous one that I heard
is that Tyson couldn't throw uppercuts in the fight contractually
can't throw an uppercut, and that somehow there was a
clause or an understanding. Nobody's going to try to knock
anybody down or out. So what do you make of that,
Dan Rayfield, that they had to they decided to address
it with a statement earlier this week saying this stuff
is not true, it's bs that under the legalities and
the Texas Boxing Commission, none of this happened. What about
addressing the rumors as they did this week, what do
you make of that?
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, and as MVP pointed out and
rightly so, wreaking a professional boxing match is against is
a federal crime in the United States, period. Like if
they find that out, you go to prison. Period. So
the notion here, here's what I'll say about that, was
the fight fixed in quote marks? Was it in quote marks? Yes,
by the matchmaking, not by the intent of the competitors
to not try or win. There's two ways to so
call fix a fight. One is to be doing illegal
things like we just mentioned and have clauses and contracts
and say you can't do this or we're not going
to try, and you purposely do things where you're not
going to try.
Speaker 1: To win predetermined outcome somehow somewhat.
Speaker 3: The other is when you make a match where you
do never know one hundred percent because anybody might land
the crazy punch or suffer an injury. There's that, but
you you put yourself in a position where you're very
confident in what the result is going to be. By
the match you make so And as I said a
thousand times leading up to this fight, you know you
know my love for Tyson the fighter. I mean, one
of the greats and one of the most exciting fighters
in the history of the sport, and a personality like
no other that we've seen for decades and decades and
decades of boxing. But the notion that in his physically
twenty seven year old Jake Paul, who may not be
a great fighter or a very experienced but was fighting regularly,
was fighting experienced combat athletes, even if they're former UFC fighters,
who's been getting into their reps, who was in good shape,
who is strong and hungry, is somehow gonna lose to
a fifty eight year old Mike Tyson who hasn't had
a real fight on nearly twenty years, who when he
had his last fight twenty years ago, even a few
fights before that twenty three twenty four years ago, was
completely shot, who's not lived as spartan life to be mild,
who's done every drug in the book, who's drank every
liquor in the book, who excess, who has not lived
a good life in that sense, And he'll be the
first to admit it was somehow going to turn back
the hands of time and go out there and beat
a young man like that, and it was painfully obvious
to everybody watching if they could watch through the buffering
of their netflixtreame that Tyson had any sembls of anything
left after out in the second round of the fight.
And so while Jake Paul admitted that he went easier
on and didn't try for the knockout because he didn't
feel like he wanted to hurt somebody that did.
Speaker 2: Was I didn't want to hurt somebody that didn't need
to get hurt, and that fueled a lot of this
that there must be something there. But again, I'll even
go a step further, the idiocy of that they would
put that in writing somehow with a clause in the contract,
which is what was out there all right. So I'm
just coming at it one more time from it's fascinating
that they would choose to address it and try to
quill it. There's a big word, well to quill it
and say everybody knock it off. This didn't happen, It
didn't exist, And like you said, it's felonious.
Speaker 3: It's a chatter got to be the chatter got to
be too intense, and some of the people that were
putting it forth were people who This was not just
idle chatter from you know, know nothings on social media.
This was Michael Irvin, for example, from you know, the
former Dallas Cowboy, who was saying things along those lines,
and other sports pundits who comment on sports all the time,
uh and do a good job but honestly don't know
anything about boxing. Who think they know and we're making
those types of comments, And I just felt that it
was wrong. I never in a million years thought it
was fixed, rigged, or anything other than an actual fight
where you knew the result because of the matchup that
was made. End of story. And frankly, Jake Paul had
he stepped on the gas and not let Tyson off
though he absolutely would have stopped him in my opinion,
and I only regret that I that I picked him
by a knockout all that way look over, you know.
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean that they had a stipulation where
Mike Tyson couldn't throw an upper cut at him.
Speaker 3: So they didn't need a stipulation. You want to know why,
because Mike Tyson. He couldn't throw up uppercut, not contractually
but physically.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Period.
Speaker 1: All right, so we gave that. We gave that a lot. Uh.
Speaker 2: They did respond, and there we go, and we'll see
what happens next with Jake Paul, where he goes lext.
Speaker 1: And what he does next.
Speaker 2: All right, what's up with Taya Fimo Lopez? He says,
now he's working with somebody else.
Speaker 1: What's the way?
Speaker 3: Interesting? All right? Go ahead, Well, you know his father
Ti Femo Singer has been his career long trainer, trained
him since day one, got him to a world title,
got him to two of the best wins in recent boxing,
which is his victory against against Vasili Lomachenko and his
victory against Josh Taylor, two huge wins. Wanted won a
Trainer of the Year award. But they have brought on
to and again we'll see how it actually pans out
when the fight happens. Who takes charge? Uh, they've brought
in and they're now working with Eddie Renoso. They had
been working with him informally, but now apparently they have
made it a more formal thing where he will be
in the court. It's not just we're gonna work in
the gym a little bit and get some tips, but
you're gonna be part of the team. And uh. Tifimo
Lopez had a picture on his social of his father
and himself and Eddie Renoso of course, who everybody knows
is the trainer and manager of Canelo Alvarez, among others,
and Eddie Renoso responding say, you know, let's get it
or something like that. So it seems like when Ti
Fimo does get back to action, probably sometime in this
you know, uh you know, springtime or so or late
late winter, that Eddie Renoso is going to be part
of that team. And I think that as long as
they can put the egos with the dad and and
and let Eddie does what he does best. I think
it's a great move because Eddie has proven himself to
be one of the top trainers in boxing. He's a
two time Trainer of the Year winner. Uh so he
got you know, as t Femo pointed, I got three
Eddie Futch Trainer of the Year award winners in my corner,
meaning my dad and Eddie twice. So I think it
can only help t Fimo as long as he allows
himself to uh to be coached and to learn and
that the father can, you know, put some of the
ego aside and step back and understand that Eddie. While
t FEMO showed himself to be a good trainer, that
Eddie it just probably knows a little bit more and
can bring something to the table to polish this one up.
And in the end, if it works, it'll make Eddie
look good. It'll make t FEMO Junior look good, and
it'll make Eddie, it'll make t FMO's senior look good
because it will have been something they all did together.
Because it's you know, when you have to manage all
those egos and they've all got him. It's not it's
not easy. But if you just remember that we're here
for the best interest of to make the career of
Tim Lopez Junior be the best that can be. I
think they can put together a good situation like that.
Speaker 2: All right, you've been busy, my lord, you got more here.
And this is involving Edgar Berlanga. What have you learned
about his next bout and win?
Speaker 3: So he has not fought since he lost a very
spirited and game effort against Canelo Alvarez where even though
he lost, which most people expected. He didn't get knocked out,
and he put up a really good spirited fight and
he did a lot better than most people thought. And
now it's time for him to play in the next fight.
So he's staying in the super middleweight division. And my
understanding is he is penciled in now for March eighth,
but what makes it a little bit more interesting and
no opponent yet. They'll figure something out. But you know,
he is Puerto Rican by his heritage, but he's not
born in Puerto Rico and he's not fought in Puerto Rico.
He's a as they called him, a new Eurekan. He's
a New Yorker from Brooklyn News Puerto Rican, but he's
very I've know he's been wanting to do this, to
have a fight in Puerto Rico. So Mattroom is going
to take him to Puerto Rico March ef if everything
goes to plan, and he will fight in Puerto Rico
for the first time and we'll see who the opponent is.
Mattroom is now, they just did a show in Puerto
Rico when sybral Matias lost the title to Liam Paro.
They're going back to Puerto Rico. Uh next week when
they have the Liam Paro defense against his mandatory Richardson Hitchins.
Because you know what I always say, GJ, if you
have a New york Er by Haitian descent against an Australian,
you gotta fight in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: You've been You've been using my material and I am flattered.
I love it. Yes, I agree.
Speaker 3: Is the imitation what the best form of letter anyway?
So this will be a fight where they actually have,
unlike the Paro and Hitchins fight another fighter at least
where they Puerto Rican heritage in the background for Edgar
to fight there. So look, I think it's this kind
of weird thing, like even though he suffered his first loss,
I think Edgar Berlanga gained more respect from the boxing
community and the fans and the media in the defeat
and the way he conducted it was.
Speaker 2: Certainly tough that night. Yeah, I mean, you can't say
a lot more. It's not like he was close to
winning or pulling the upset. I think, hey, maybe learned
some things I don't know. I think, isn't there a
legitimate argument and then we'll move on that Orlango was
propped up with all those first round knockouts, and you
can make the argument that maybe he was not great
to begin with. He was only good and a lot
of this has been puffed up and he's got to
demonstrate now post Canelo, can he be great? Listen to
me teasing ahead. Can he be great in the next
chapters of his career? And that will start in March
according to you.
Speaker 3: I think that despite the loss, because of the way
he fought, the way that he was brave, that he
didn't he got knocked down, but he got up, and
that he made it a good fight. I think he
this even in losing, like, I think he got confidence.
He's like, Okay, fine, I didn't win the fight, but
I just went twelve legit rounds, hard, tough, rownsy eye
loss with arguably the best fighter boxing or certainly in
the top five hold for pound, one of the all
times UTURE Hall of Famer, guy, unified world champ, the
class of the weight class for the last few years,
Like I hung even though I didn't win with the
great Canelo overs and that's going to give him, I
think some confidence coming up. If there's ever such a
thing as a good loss, that's what it was. He
went the distance, he put up a good fight, the
fans were entertained, and now it's time to begin to
come back and see if he can get himself back
in position.
Speaker 1: That will be in March.
Speaker 2: One more news item. We got some heavyweight drama away
from the ring.
Speaker 1: What a surprise. It involves your boy Jaryll J Miller.
Speaker 2: All right, so he was supposed to be involved with
a fight with Derek Jesra.
Speaker 1: That ain't happening now apparently. All right, what's the latest?
Speaker 3: So as I had reported, even though it hadn't been announced,
and this was a fun, interesting, like good fight. It
felt like they were going to do a Queensberry Promotions
cart in Manchester and the main event was going to
be the very popular, fan friendly British fighter Derek Cesra
coming near the finish line obviously, but says he wants
to get fifty fights. The mats him up with Jerald Miller,
another you know, crowd pleaser, another entertainer, not a great fighter,
but a guy that's shown some heart and you know,
I know we don't have to get into then the
new show of his past drug test situation. But since
he's come back from that you know, he had a
very uh uh a competitive but you know, a loss
where you hear and respect. I think a lot of
people in the way that he fought the fight when
he lost the fight, uh In Tremer with you, I
forget the opponent, Yeah, exactly, And that was a good fight.
He gave the Boston trouble even though he ended up
getting stopped. And then he had a draw in August
against Andy Ruiz, and there was a lot of people
thought that Jerald Miller deserved to win the fight anyway.
So Chiesa and Miller was like shaped up as like
the ultimate kind of heavyweight sloby knocker. Like it didn't
have huge necessary meaning, it wasn't pound for palent implications,
the guy that one wasn't getting a title shot in
the immediate future and anything like that. But just a
good crowd pleasing kind of fight would bring in a
good crowd, do a good audience, make some money and
everybody have a good time.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: And then Jeral Miller went on his Instagram, uh the
other day and he made a video saying the fight
was off not because just Sor didn't want to fight.
Sore is a good dude. He wanted to fight. I
want to fight, but he really ripped into his former
promoter Dmetris Salida and just had a lot of nasty
things and basically was like, look, you know, my contract
with him is up. But apparently Dmitri retained a first
and last in the in the agreement where he can
match whatever offer was, and supposedly they did that even
though they hadn't yet given him like an opponent, a
dat a number of dollars or the particulars. It was
explained to me like a poorly written agreement, which sometimes happens,
so you get into that gray region. The bottom line
is the fight wasn't happening, and even if they could
have overcome whatever the legalities were, Queensberry wanted to get
the fight announced and they're like, there's no special thing there.
They just moved on that main The A side was
chasare he's the guy for this particular promotion. So anyway,
that was off. And then the next day, which was
on Wednesday, they announced that he would in fact, and
I had heard that this was the backup plan in
case something happened and it comes to fruition, he will
fight Otto Wellen, who is obviously another you know, pretty
solid contender. Hasn't really done much lately. You know, he's
his big recent event. Anyway, he's got the twelve. He's
got two losses, one to Tyson Fury where he was
highly competitive and ripped open that terrible cut, which was
you know, a lineal title fight Tesison did not have
a belt at that time. And then a couple of
fights ago he got stopped by Anthony Joshua in a
pretty one sided fight where you know, retired on the
school that corner pulled him out. He's come back and
had one win since then. Anyway, that'll make a nice
main event. I think it would probably been more explosive.
He certainly a lot more trash talk leading up to
the fight between Jerald Miller and Jasa, the way that
those passing go at it.
Speaker 2: Auto all time trash talk between warch Sora and Big
Baby Miller, but not gonna happen.
Speaker 3: Otto was more of a gentleman. Otto was more of
a professional. From that standpoint. Otto is not a guy
that gets into it with the opponent outto is a
guy that puts his gloves on and goes to the
ring like a professional and tries to win the fight.
But still, you know, two solid names, two guys with
a vast experience, you know, the Auto Wallying team. They
jumped on this as soon as it was offered. There
was no hesitation on their behalf whatsoever. And it's certainly
a fight that I look at as a winnable fight
for either guy. Chisaura has been you know, around the
track a thousand times. He's coming to the end.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, Otto's a lot younger and a lot fresher.
We'll see should be you know again, is it the
biggest it's not. It's not a mega fight like what
we've seen on all these Rian season cards, but as
a as just a fun filled kind of mean event.
Whether he's fighting Miller or Otto, you know, two good names.
You know, you always need a good action in the
heavyweight division, and I think that's a decent matchup. I
think that Miller fight would have been more exciting. But
we'll see what Otto has got, you know, coming off
of his win against that nobody, but before that, the
loss against Uh, against Joshua but Chsaa, he's been giving
up on so many times. He's actually won a couple
of fights in a row against decent opponents, you know whatever.
So you know, we'll see, uh see if the old
man's got anything left. I mean, we'll see.
Speaker 2: And that leads us to the nostalgia. Now, we do
need to say to the peeps. Ray Phield was feeling
jilted off the weekend that you didn't get some nostalgia
off your chest because we had kind of pre arranged
because there wasn't a prominent, main event to recap, et cetera,
we went with the interviews.
Speaker 3: Oh you are a traveling chance to make up for it, right,
you travel that was your traveling with the football team.
Speaker 1: I understand.
Speaker 2: I was coming back with the Buccaneers from New York
and we didn't have a prominent fight.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: But man, there there are I mean, there's some interesting
things this week that's not even on your list, like
the No Moss fight Leonard Duran, like that's this week.
I even saw a replay of Larry Holmes destroying Marvis Fraser,
the son of Smoking Joe in one round. There's nostalgia
for that here recently.
Speaker 1: But what about that?
Speaker 2: Okay, So speaking of Larry Holmes, there's all kinds of
dripping nostalgia for November twenty sixth, nineteen eighty two, forty
two years ago, Tuesday, on the twenty sixth, earlier this week,
when Holmes beat Randall Tex Cobb. It was the ABC
Heavyweight Championship main event and the final time that Howard
Cosell called boxing on ABC. Because of how one sided
this fight became part of Larry Holmes's long run as
the heavyweight champ as well.
Speaker 1: What else here on the nostalgia so little.
Speaker 3: Twelve year old Rayfield, I remember watching some of this
fight back in the time. I mean, at that time,
I'm not like a die hard boxing ban but it
was Prime time ABC. You're flipping around the channels. It
was two guys are hit each other and you're like,
this is interesting. And I obviously I knew who Arry
Holmes was. I didn't. I had no idea who Randall
text Cob was. I wasn't that into it at the point,
but I watched, and I watched Larry Holmes deliver for
a fight that went throughout the distance, in this case
fifteen rounds. Back then in nineteen eighty two, one of
the most savage, ferocious, one sided ass kickings in the
history of boxing against a guy that got to have
one of the greatest things of all time, who just
took every lick in the world. It was. It was
a shutout on the scorecards. I think one judge gave
Cob one round like this is back in the days
of the fifteen rounders, so it was I'm looking up
the scores here. Two judges had it one fifty one
thirty five each, which is a shutout, and one judge
had it thirty six, which means somewhere along the way
I found one round to give to Randall t X Cob,
who spent a lot of time in that fight hitting
Larry Holmes's hand with his face.
Speaker 1: You've often said a magnet.
Speaker 2: His face was a magnet for that piston left jab
of Larry Holmes all night in this fight and the
right hands behind it. And it was obvious, and it
was obvious to co Sell. And that's what we're building
to that this is not going to change text. Cob
isn't fast enough, does it hit hard enough to do anything?
Round after round He's taking punishment from the jab from
the right hand, and I haven't used it in a while.
Howard's mentality just became, what are we doing? Here after
the ninth round, after the tenth round, after the eleventh round,
why are we still doing this?
Speaker 1: Pick it up.
Speaker 3: Let's just put it in perspective. Where we are here.
This is Larry making his thirteenth title defense. He's fought everybody.
He's coming off of a massive win in terms of
his legacy, in terms of his bank account, in terms
of his notoriety. He is coming off the very big
victory against Jerry Cooney. They're doing this fight on Primetime
ABC from the Astrodome in Houston, which was a big
deal back in the day. It doesn't exist anymore, but
was certainly a premier venue at the time. And Cobb
is certainly the underdog. But I don't think anybody figured
it's going to be the type of shalaking and like
you mentioned about co Seal so disgusted by how this
fight was going on, that just it got to a
point where Cobb is taking such a savage battering and
such a destruction that he's basically like mailing. He's just
not even really commenting on the fight action. He's just
ripping the fight.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's ripping the referee.
Speaker 3: So the referee was a man named Steve Crossing and
I don't remember what round it was, but it's an
amazing piece of audio. And I actually have it like
in my phone because I listened to it because it
just blows my mind.
Speaker 2: As you want me to do the impression and get
and grade me on the impression, because here's a thing.
I used to do co Cell impressions all the time
in the nineties on sports radio in Tampa Bay and
people got the reference and they laughed haha, and they
liked it music.
Speaker 1: Big.
Speaker 2: My problem is, Big Dan, we are thirty years on
and people don't get references to Howard Cosell anymore because
the younger crowd has no idea who we're talking about.
Speaker 3: And was as big of a sports personality, Yes he was.
He was Steven A. Smith plus give dayless us whoever
times ten.
Speaker 2: You know, like when you're when you're watching on on
your weekend football and you're watching now Tony Romo or
Tom Brady or Chris Collinsworth be the analyst on a game,
or you're watching a studio show with Charles Barkley on it.
Co Sell was that type of personality.
Speaker 3: So big when he did the fights, it was a
one man booth, and you know, we cared he didn't
have an analyst.
Speaker 1: He did, are you ready for my pression? I can
you get that quote right? I'm going to get it right. Watch.
Speaker 2: So I don't know what round it was, but it's
probably long about the thirteenth or the fourteenth round of
this fifteen round fight.
Speaker 1: And Cosell's had enough.
Speaker 2: He's mentioned it two or three times that the fight
should be over, and he finally says, here we come.
I've built it up for like ninety seconds. This referee
is an advertisement for the abolition of the very sport
in which he's participating, or something to that effect, and
I come close.
Speaker 3: He got does solid, but he said it's an He said,
does this referee not realize he is constructing an advertisement
for the abolition of the very sport in which he partakes.
Speaker 2: Or which is totally co sell because that's like a
multi syllavic phrase for all time where we would probably say,
do you do you realize?
Speaker 1: You joke? Referee? This fight should have been stopped. That's
what Cosell was saying.
Speaker 3: Yes, he was saying that the referee, by allowing the
fight to continue, is showing the powers that be why
boxing should be abolished, and Cosel was so disgusted by
how that went down, and he said many other things
as the fight war to the end that he quit.
He didn't quit ABC. He still continued to do other events.
He still did Monday night football and other things. But
he stopped doing boxing after, you know, a long run
of doing the biggest profile fights in the world. And
that was the end of the story at Coasel walked
away from boxing so disgusted. And there's a PostScript that's
very funny that you know, Holmes and Cosl always had
like their love hate, you know, a frenemy type relationship,
because Cosell did a bunch of Larry's fights, and I
guess at one point Holmes was told that what he
did the text cop that was the reason that Cosell
had quit doing boxing matches. And Larry's response to to
the comment was something the defect that if I eliminate
heart disease, if I walk on water, if I can
cure crippled children like I can't imagine a greater gift
to mankind. And he called getting rid of Kosel his
greatest accomplishment.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's tremendous on the back and forth
with that. I just remember, and people have to appreciate,
go back and just watch Cosell because he was so animated.
We know the famous down goes Fraser, Down goes Fraser
with George Foreman knocking him down. But he would have
back and forth with Muhammad Ali off the fights when
they were in the studio together or they were doing
different things together. That is just tremendous. He was a
larger than life boxing personality. And here he was on
network TV blasting the sport and blasting the referee for
allowing this to go on. And I do remember watching that,
and I remember all the controversy in and around that,
and people just have to appreciate how much more mainstream
boxing was network TV when there were fewer choices. Cable
was like almost brand new at that point, cable TV
in the early eighties.
Speaker 3: This was millions of tens of millions of people watching that.
Speaker 2: Correct, And when he essentially walked off the sport of boxing,
Cosel because they it was a huge deal in and
around that, and that was forty two years ago. Now
for Holmes and Randall Tech's cob how about that great
stuff on that in and around that time. All right, now,
let's fast forward now to two thousand and four. Let's
come forward twenty two years on Wednesday of this Thanksgiving week,
November twenty seventh, two thousand and four. You mentioned earlier
Marco Antonio Barrera and Eric Morales, and Barrera ends up
beating Morales in the third fight, the trilogy fight you
were there for this, tell me more about the trilogy
about that is now twenty years on.
Speaker 3: So Barrera and Morales's legacy is glittering on both of
their careers. They're both Hall of famers. They both thought
tons of top guys were in some great, great fights, legit,
all time great fights. You know, you can go down
the line, whether it's Barrera's victory over Prince Nassim or
his incredible fight against Kennedy McKinney, and plenty of other fights.
And with Morales you can look at the at least
in terms of the excitement and the action and the
competitiveness of the first two fights he had with Pacyow
scoring the victory against the Prime Pacou in the first fight,
and you know other fights that he had as well,
but they will always be tied to the three fights
I had with each other. That's what they're most known for, rightfully.
So first fight in two thousand, which took place about
a month before I started my job. I had already
been hired to be the boxing reporter at USA today,
and I just remember sitting in my apartment floor, you know, thinking, boy,
if I had just started, like a month or two earlier,
i'd be at this fight. They put on the most
you know, one of the greatest fights in the history
of boxing in their first fight in February of two
thousand in a junior featherweight title unification fight. And actually,
this is an interesting factoid, by the way, about their trilogy.
If ought three times each in a successfully higher weight
class for a world title. So the first fight was
to unify junior featherweight titles, second fight was a featherweight
title fight. This third fight we're talking about was for
Eric Morales' WBC one hundred and thirty pound title. Was
the second title defense. So the first fight's legendary. Second
fight really good, but maybe not on the same level.
Like we've talked about before, there's always one of those
fights that may not be up to the same level
as the other ones. The second fight for these guys
was that although still a very good fight, and it
was the Barrera getting the victory to even the score
make it one one. So again, a couple of years
after that, they go and they do the third fight.
Thanksgetting weekend, they put on an absolute classic. Now it
doesn't get the respect of the first fight DJ and
I don't really understand why, because it is every bit
as good in my opinion. It was picked as the
two thousand and four BWAA, the Boxing Writers Association of
America Fight of the Year. It was picked as the
Ring Magazine Fight of the Year. Obviously I was still
working at this point. I am. I can't remember now
if I'm that es pan or USA. That's like that
gray area. But regardless wherever I was, I picked it
as the fight of the year. It was basically the
consensus fight of the year. I mean, everybody that was
doing list had it as the fight of the year.
The eleventh round the consensus round of the year. Yes,
just an amazing fight. I mean it was like they
had already done twenty four great rounds and this was
rounds twenty five to thirty six. I mean, just a tremendous,
tremendous fight. One of the crazy memories I have of
this by the way of being there wasn't so much
on fight night, is that because there was Thanksgiving, and
typically I didn't travel for thanks saving fights, even there
often seemed to be a fight on thanks I mean,
that was like the one holiday that we were into
when we celebrated, and I didn't go to the fights,
but for this one couldn't miss the trilogy. So a
couple of nights before the fight, Top Rank was the
promoter of the event, they had like a dinner for
the promotion, like the media and some of the HBO
executives in their company, and everybody got together at the
Wolfgang Punk, which is still there at the MGM, where
every time I go to a fight, me and the
fellows get together and we usually you know, have lunch
and dinner there at least once, sometimes twice, and on
like uh, I think it might have been on Thanksgiving
they had this thing at the at the Wolfgang Puck
and there was a bunch of us there at this dinner.
And my recollection is that Wolfgang Puck himself, the chef,
the famous chef who was friendly with Aaron was there
at the restaurant that night and came out and he
and their staff and I didn't know this, they sang
us Thanksgiving songs. It was one of the craziest things.
I it was just weird.
Speaker 1: I don't like that memory.
Speaker 3: And then a couple of nights later we saw one
of the most incredible fights you could ever wish for.
Speaker 1: And emphasize this.
Speaker 2: They hated each other, and that and that and that
really added to this trilogy fight.
Speaker 3: They get along okay now, and they've done events together,
such as promoting helping promote the fight between Oscar Valdez
and the Verette, the first one, and uh, and they're
chilled together. I don't know if they're going to be
best friends, but they've dined together.
Speaker 1: I guess that's I like to say with you and me.
Speaker 2: They won't go after each other with the plastic silver
where at least ya And they're around each other right now.
Speaker 3: Good. But during the course of the trilogy, it was
venomous hatred, like blood feud. And you know the thing was,
you know, they were both Mexican, but they came from
vastly different backgrounds that conflicted with each other. Barrera was
from an upper class, wealthier family. He was college uh,
I think he had gone he had gone to some
college or I certainly graduated high school. His you know,
his father and his mother were professionals. I think his
dad was a lawyer. They lived in the upper crust
uh section of Mexico City. And uh then you had
the Morales side, and he was from a poor family.
They grew up, you know, in h in a rough
neighborhood barrio of Tijuana, born above a gym basically where
the father had the gym. Uh and you know, was
considered what they called him in Mexico. He was an
quote unquote Indian.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know that was like a negative to assault.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: His his uh, his background of the Mexican people because obviously,
like any country, they have different levels of different kinds
of culture. So there was a real class distinction between them.
And that's one of the things that spilled over in
their feud. You know, even though you know, I had
to learn that by talking to some of the Mexican
reporters and publicists and stuff that worked to fight because
as a as a as a gringo, I didn't really
quite get it, but I came to understand that having
covered at least a second and third fight, and so yeah,
they went into that third fight where it was very,
very rough in terms of their getting along. They came
to blows at one of the press conferences. I don't
know if it was for the third fight of the
second fight, it was. It was a rough go. The
thing that was interesting though, is the fights were so intense,
but they didn't go right back into immediate rematches. First
fight two thousand, both guys cleaned themselves up and had
other fights, had the second fight in two thousand and two,
then they both had their run up other fights after that,
and then finally they reconvened for the third fight in
two thousand and four. But you know, Morales, he had
unified titles in the one thirty division, ultimately again IBF
doing IBF things. He ended up I don't know, vacating
or being shripped of the IBF title, probably for a
mandatory situation when he fought Brere and then this is
the thing about it, he loses Morales. He loses the
fight to Brera in this fantastic fight. By the way,
majority decision I certainly could have gone the way I
have the very lasting image in my mind when they
announced the final scores of Barrera parading around the ring
holding up three fingers like or holding up two fingers
like I got you twice, like it's now two to one.
Like he was basically you know, harassing or or getting
in Morales's face and kind of taunting him like, hey,
I got to win. I got the two fights. He
got to one. But the thing is the way that
what is Morales do? He didn't cry about it so
much in terms of like what he did in his
next move. He didn't sit around and take off ten
months or a year or sixteen months. This pint was October,
I mean, I'm sorry, November of two thousand and four.
He's back in the ring in March of five scores
one of the great wins of the era where he
legit beats on a decision and another fantastic fight Manny Pack, Yeah,
straight up beats him. And Barrera of course went on
and had you know a bunch of other big fights also.
I mean, so they survived their trilogy of these very violent,
very rough fights to go on and still register big
time glory beyond that, and it was you know, a
lot of times. These guys are kind of done after
those types of intense fights. So after he after he lost,
you know, like I said, Morales picks himself up and
he goes there and he gets the humongous win against
Manny and after Barrera beats him, he goes on and
he ends up unifying titles. He has the two fights
that were popular fights against Rocky Warres. Ultimately he lost
him on Manuel Marquezen to many packet on the rematch.
But you know, both those guys went on and had
other big time fights after that. I mean, it was
a testament to their greatness big time.
Speaker 2: And again we look forward to seeing are they going
to be around? They probably will. We'll see the Valdez
Navorate fighting. That ties us back to you talking to
e Manuel Navorate and now that will be fight week
next week for those guys. Again it is Sonny Edwards
and Galia Phi and the one prominent main event that
is coming up here on Saturday afternoon US time. We'll
handicap it on the bet US Boxing Show Friday at
one Eastern time. Excellent stuff here for the Thanksgiving holiday.
We gave you plenty to preview going into the weekend?
Anything else? Are we all good? Are we ready to
go for this weekend? Not too many weekends left in
twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: That's all right, We'll have plenty in twenty twenty five.
Oh yeah, see you on the US show on Friday.
Speaker 1: We look forward to a Dan Rayfield. Thank you for
everybody out there again. Follow, Subscribe, Apple, Spreaker, Spotify.
Speaker 2: We preview going into the weekend. We recap coming off
the weekend for Dan Rayfield.
Speaker 1: I'm TJ. Reeve.
Speaker 2: Thank you for being with us as part of your
Thanksgiving weekend.
Speaker 1: Here on the Big Fight Weekend Preview