Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight Time. This is Big
Fight Weekend. Now here is your host, DJ Leaves all.
Speaker 2: Right, we get ready, believe it or not. For the
first weekend in August, there is is should I say,
decently significant card coming in Chicago. The Golden Boy Deson
main event has Oscar Duarte and we're going to talk
about that.
Speaker 1: We've got some news.
Speaker 2: We've also got a fight recap from the Japanese Card
Championship upset in Japan on Wednesday morning, US time. We're
going to go over all of it as part of
our coverage here on the Big Fight Weekend preview show
and on this podcast feed. I am merely the somewhat
capable host. Hello to our insider, Happy August Dan Rayfield.
Fight Weeks Unite is the substack and the newsletter. We
gotta be honest, we don't have a ton to preview
this weekend. We do have a fight card to preview.
Speaker 1: We've got a little bit of a recap, we got plenty,
we got a lot to go over.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, some deaths in boxing, which is a bit of
a downer, but you're gonna You're gonna give us some
good nostalgia on the different people that are.
Speaker 3: Involved, and then I've been right, nobies.
Speaker 2: I know it is a sobering thing to take a
look at. I mean, look, we'll digress for just a second.
By the way, subscribe and find us on the podcast
feed Applespreaker, Spotify. Also find the Big Fight Weekend YouTube page.
First mentioned that we are no longer doing the consistent
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Speaker 1: Engage with us there. You're not gonna miss out on Rayfiel.
We got podcast, we got YouTube. We got plenty of
takes on both.
Speaker 2: So help us out and follow and subscribe on YouTube.
Hit like hit subscribe. That will help us out as well.
But I mean, this was a sobering week with the
lunatic driving all the way across the country and shooting
up the office building on Park Avenue in Manhattan, New
York that houses the NFL and Big Dan. He intended
idiotically and insanely to go into the NFL offices with
an automatic weapon. So that has shaken, obviously the pro
football community to its core, which I am part of.
I'm part of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Radio broadcast. It
has just been another reminder of what kind of lunacy
can be out there when this guy drove all the
way from Las Vegas, Nevada for three straight days to
come shoot up an office building in New York with
complete innocent people and a New York City police officer,
et cetera. So it has been a week for sure.
Let's lighten it up. Let's talk some fights, shall we,
You and me. Let's begin with what happened to our
guy kin shiro Taji in the main event for the
unified flyweight title as Ricardo Sandoval gets off the canvas
and pulls the upset. So let's get to recapping.
Speaker 3: This was a dynamite card. This was one of the
teake In Promotions cards that normally we would have saw
on ESPM plus Breakfast in Boxing, at least here on
the East Coast in the United States. But because of
top Ranks SI expiration of their deal with ESPN, and
that was the conduit that they went through. It wasn't
on ESPN Plus, but his own acquired the rights and
did it in the United States and in the UK,
and so we could still watch a live which I did.
I did my normal routine. I didn't see the earlier
fights live. I got up, like as the co feature
was wrapping up the post fight interview, was able to
watch the full Taraji A. Sand the Bull fight live
in bed. Thank you very much. But this was a
hell And then I went back and watch the other
fights later, obviously, but this this was a highly entertaining
card and this made event was was really excellent. Taraji,
you know, he did lose it. It was a close decision.
I didn't look the final scores of this of this
particular fight was a split decision. One of the judges
that at one fourteen, one thirteen in favor of Taraji, reasonable.
One judge had at one fifteen, one to twelve in
favor of Sandibal reasonable. One judge had a won seventeen
to one ten in favor of Sandoval. Didn't really like
that one, but I can't but but put that aside.
I can't argue with Sandebal getting the decision. I mean, yeah,
he was traveling from the United States to fight in Japan,
in the home country of the champion who was a
popular figure there. But the judges, they got it right.
In the end, he did eke it out. I thought
it was close, but this was a hell of a fight,
and that he and he eked it out even though
he overcame a knockdown.
Speaker 2: All three, all three judges gave him the eleventh and
the twelfth round. I saw that when you shared the
cards out and the fight was clearly in the balance
on two of the cards, but that to matter one
it didn't end up mattering, but the other one. He
won the fight and kept it from being a split
decision loss or whatever by winning all those rounds on
all those cards.
Speaker 3: And he was able to overcome the fact that he
suffered a clean knockdown in round number five on a
very nice, real sharp right hand that landed right on
the button. Traji, you know, I thought he was hurt.
Speaker 1: I was watching.
Speaker 2: I mean, I thought he was hurt, and maybe Taraji
should have gone for it.
Speaker 1: More depress that didn't and he didn't. Did you think
he significantly hurt? Sand of all?
Speaker 3: After that, I didn't think he was that hurt on
the knockdown, and I thought I thought it was an
eye opener. Put it to you like that. In other words, Taraji,
I think he did go for it, but I think
he realized very quickly after the knockdown. That okay, I
need to break him up a little bit more. He's
not just gonna go out with one shot. He got caught.
I don't think he really saw the shot coming, and
it was a good shot. But the fact he was
able to overcome not only the knockdown in terms of
physically to maintain himself and keep himself together, but to
come back and then win rounds late and do the
job in you know, not only does he win the
WBA and the WBC Flyway titles, but he is a
very very rare in boxing history, a rare American flyweight champion.
Like I'm gonna go back, I gotta I should do.
I should have done a little research on it before
this show, but there aren't a lot. I mean, I
think of Mark Johnson. You got to go back into
like the late nineties, early two.
Speaker 2: Thousands, Sharp Johnson, right, and you attended a too sharp
Johnson fight.
Speaker 1: Always tell us that story as a former champions.
Speaker 2: Met Yeah, I've got to go back thirty years almost
for him.
Speaker 3: The very first world championship fight that I ever covered
was Amark Johnson Flyway title defense. He's obviously an American
from Washington, DC, actually lives probably twenty minutes from me.
You know, Danny Romero had a Flyway title back in
the day. This is in like the mid nineties, and
maybe I'm missing somebody, but I'm here's the point though,
it's extremely rare, and so for Sandoval, you know who's
a California fighter. You know boxes for Golden Boy Promotions.
You know, big underdog in this fight, it's a huge,
huge win. He's now twenty seven and two, but you know,
hadn't fought top, top guys. But I have to say,
and I'm not gonna I'm not detracting it any way
from what Sandival did, because it's hard to go on
the road. It's hard to come back from a knockdown,
it's hard to do what you did on the enemy
turf like that against your best opponent by far. But
to me, Karagi, this was always going to be the
so called trap fight. And I say that because earlier
this year he was in World War three hillatious, hillatious,
hillatious battle with a Koui in that unification fight that
he barely survived and took a tremendous amount of damage
in that fight. I mean I can't overestimate or or
underestimate I guess the amount of damage he took in
that fight. He was down, he rallied. We've discussed before
about the rarity of coming back and scoring a knockout,
a stoppage and a fight you're losing in the final
round of a world championship fight. That's what he did.
He stopped a Koui in the twelfth round with like,
you know, eighty nine seconds left in the fight. But
that fight took a tremendous amount out of him, and
so for him to come back again, not against you know,
a superstar opponent, but against you know, a good, solid professional.
But regardless of the opponent, he came back. I feel
like he came back too quickly. This fight was in
March against a Koui mid March. That was coming back
to end of July. You know, in America, guys would
have taken off a little bit more time. So while
I always like to see guys active, I'm also cognizant
of that. You know, in today's modern boxing, you know,
six months off after that kind of fight would not
be out of the realm. He came back even quicker
than That's only been about four months, so you know,
I feel like Standabal got him at the right time
if you ask me, you know, Taraji ain't getting any younger.
There's a guy that's been in a lot of hard fights.
He's into his early thirties, and that may not sound old,
but when you're fighting as a flyweight or a juni flywaight,
that's ancient.
Speaker 2: Basically, his right eye was swelling badly from the middle
of the fight on, much like it was in the
Akui fight.
Speaker 3: It was Sandabal was all marked up. Also, he had
ruse under his eye and he had marks on his forehead.
I mean, this was a heavy hitting, a rough, tough fight.
But look, Sandabal with a huge victory. You got to
be happy for the kid. I mean, that's the lifetime
achievement right there, to not only win one of the belts,
but two of the belts, do it on the road,
do it in a hell of a fight on top
of what was an outstanding card, and then, uh, you know,
there'll be opportunities. Most likely, he's gonna probably wind up
going back to Japan because that's where the action is
in the flyweight division, in the smaller weight classes, as
where you can make money by going to places like Japan.
You know, we'll see what Golden Boy could offer him here.
I don't know if there's a rematch clause. I would
think there might be. This was not a mandatory fight.
If you take a look at the only other loss
that Taraji had suffered, if he go back to twenty
twenty one, this is when he was the WBC's junior
flyweight champion. He fought Masamichik Yabuki, his countryman, and he
got stopped in the tenth round of that fight. He
took an immediate rematch a few months later and he
scored a third round knockout to regain the title and
went on what has been an excellent run since then.
Because listen, Taraji has not you know, he may not
be everybody's on their tip of everybody's tongue if you're
a boxing van, but if you follow the sport, you
know this dude, and he's folled good guys. The rematch
with Yabuki that he scored the knockout, had a big
knockout against Kayagucci that was an outstanding with victory Olaskagua,
who went on to become a champion a former champion,
Hecki Butler, who was a good fighter for many years, Kenazalis.
He scored a close win against Rosales, who was a
former champion. Then the big, big comeback and great fight
against a Koui, which again for me, there's only two
fights that are in the conversation right now for literal
fight of the year for twenty twenty five. One of
them is Taraji Akui. One of them is Connor ben
and Chris Eubank. But it's gonna be one of those
two unless we see something, you know, big time in
the second half of the year. So I just say
props to Sandable and we'll see if they do a rematch.
But it was a hell of a fight. It was
a really a good way to end what I thought
was a great show.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Interesting that that was the upset in the main event.
Also in the co feature, bantamweight Antonio Vargas fought to
a drawl with Diigo Higa for the WBA bantamweight title. Again,
I must confess I did not see that. I've read
a couple of the recaps of that fight. What do
you want to say about that one?
Speaker 3: As it ends with another really good fight? I mean Vargas. Uh.
You know, he was an interim champion. He was elevated
when the full champion, Sitsumi was made champion in recess
because he had an eye injury he was dealing with,
so he kind of backed into to the full title.
But he embraced the trip. This is and he's not
a nobody. Antonio Vargas was a United States Olympian. I mean,
he comes with some credentials and he's done a good
job getting to this point. And he showed a lot
of grit because you know, he didn't maybe know it,
but he's down on the cards going into the twelfth round,
and he pulled out the draw because he scored a
knockdown in the last round. That's what got on the draw.
So he doesn't get the knockdown, he loses the title.
So that's a huge, huge thing, and you know he's like, well,
I guess it counts as a defense. It's not the
outcome I wanted. But at the end of the day,
when you're the champion and you get the draw, at
the very least you get to keep the belt, which
means he got another nice payday coming after that. So
he did retain the title. On the draw. He is
a guy who's now been in multiple draws. He's got
three draws in his records. It's a second draw in
a row. He had the draw with Satsumi when he challenged.
When Susumi he still had the title. So now this
is interesting. So while Vargas said he'd be willing to fight,
he get in a rematch. The real fight is against
assuming now's ASSUMEI, like I said, he was made champion
recess because of the eye injury, but apparently he is
healed and he got into the ring afterwards very respectfully.
He had his title belt, and he was the woman
that does the translation for a teaking who was very funny.
She's like, there's something weird going on in the WBA.
There's two title belts that are identical here in this ring.
Speaker 1: Because it's the WBA.
Speaker 3: This is me talking the WBA doing the WBA things
where there's multiple belts. So their perspective was we got
to unify the recess title and the actual title. So
I can't say for sure what the Japanese folks are
gonna do with taking promotions, but it seems to me
the bigger fight for both guys financially for Vargas. In
terms of what the level of the win would mean,
I would imagine that you'll take a rest, he'll come
back in next fight. He'll be back in Japan, probably
against Assumi, who will be out of recess, and they'll
have that fight and that'll be a heck of a fight.
So good job by Vargas. You know, another kind of
hard luck as draw for he got it was a
legit draw, like and there was not even like, it
wasn't a split draw, it wasn't majority. This was all
three judges had at one thirteen to one thirteen, so
everybody was on the same page. And he rescued the
title with the last round knockdown, so also dramatic, a
dramatic situation, and it was kind of a weird knockdown
because it was it was legit, but it wasn't like
a devastating knockdown. He didn't have him really badly hurt,
but it still counts. He get the extra point and
it was a It was another good fight, and again,
like I said, on an overall outstanding card. All right.
Speaker 2: Then the final fight of those cards of that card
and championship fights was Kazuki Takami winning the Junior Flyway
WBA title beating Eric Rosa.
Speaker 1: That was a technical knockout. Anything else, well.
Speaker 3: This was the opening. This was the first of the
three world title bouts. Then. Rosa has been a guy
that has been around for a while. He had had
a second tier WBA belt in the lower weight class,
but he got screwed around by your boy Neim Trong
for so long. We're not able to get that mandatory
done and blah blah blah. So he went up and
wait and he got the belt. There they were. These
guys are both undefeated, but they were very few professional fights.
Rosa was eight and oh coming into the fight and
Tokami was nine and o coming into the fight. But
that happens a lot when you're in the little, tiny,
little white classes. They move offully quickly, and uh, you know,
got to get the most out of their early part
of their careers. But to Kami was like a revelation.
Like Rosa, I mean, he may only have had eight fights,
but I've seen like probably you know, seven of them
going into this fight. I mean to me anyway, he
was pretty well known. Uh to Kami, I I only
had heard about had never seen before, and uh, he
he looks like a very another one of these Japan
has got so much talent right now. Uh, it's just ridiculous.
And he just a very dynamic fighter, exciting, good style
of watch and he just took a to Rosa, who
played it a little bit safe, I thought, and in
the end, you know, he got to win a well
deserved victory. He had him. He was pounding them around
in the tenth round and was just kind of out
of gas when the fight was stopped by the referee.
He had been down earlier in the round. Mark Nelson
was a referee, and he's a well known, you know,
top level world championship referee, so he had gotten the
knockdown earlier in the round, and later in the round
when he went down again, I'm not even sure if
they ruled it a knockdown, but he was so gassed
out and could barely like pull himself up off the
ropes that Mark Nelson just stop to fight, which you know,
there was a little bit of a protest from Rosa,
but I feel like it was kind of like a
half hearted protest, like it was a good stoppage, and
you know what, Takami if that's the kind of style
he's gonna fight, and you bring him on my TV screen,
on my computer screen any day a week, I'll watch
him all day.
Speaker 2: Long, breakfast in Japanese boxing for another week.
Speaker 3: That was hard. Just upset, Yeah, that I mean the
Kami from my way of thinking, was a mild upset Vargas.
I can't say an upset with the draw, but a
heck of a fight in the main event, a tremendous
fight and definitely an upset. I mean that what do
you want that's competitive fights? You may not have a
position for star names, but that was a really fun
show to watch.
Speaker 1: Ticket all right.
Speaker 2: As I mentioned, there's only really one prominent fight card
in the United States for this weekend.
Speaker 1: I'd said that.
Speaker 2: Aren't fight cards all over the globe, but that is
the Golden Boy Desonne card in Chicago. Oscar Duarte Kenneth
Simms junior. They are junior welterweights. We touched on this before,
but it is now fight week for them. Tell me
more about this contender battle that is going on at
one hundred and forty pounds in the preview mode.
Speaker 3: I have said this TJ from the moment, this fight
was made. I love this fight. I think it's a
tremendous matchup. I know it's not sexy names, and it's
not big world championship fight, and it's not pound for
pound stuff, but this is quality matchmaking. This is a
good fight. Two golden boy guys, both look going to
take the next step in the division one hundred and
forty pounds. Both guys have been involved in some significant
bouts relative to titles and names a face, but they
this is important for both of these guys. So it's
not like an official eliminator. I refer to it as
like the facto eliminator because the guy that wins is
definitely in position to fight for a title in my mind,
maybe not as a mandatory, but certainly somebody that one
of the guys with a belt may look to. You
know Duarte, we know a Mexican banger. He's twenty nine
and two with a draw, twenty three knockouts. He comes
to fight my man and most people. Unfortunately, he's probably
best known because back in twenty twenty three he got
stopped in the eighth round by Ryan Garcia. But he
has won three fights in a row since then, one
of them that he defeated was Achmadov. That was a
good win where he got a ten round victory. The
reason I mentioned Acmandoff is because that's a common opponent
that he has with Kenny Simms, and Simms had a
battle royale against Akmandoff, which I believe was like a
title eliminator in the WBA, and they went to absolute
freaking battle on showtime. This is back in May of
twenty twenty three. Spectacular fight. I had it on my
list of like it was in the top three or four,
let's say, or five of the fight of the year
for that calendar year of twenty twenty three. So they
both have the win against him, but good style matchup.
Like I said, one guy is the consonant Mexican slugger
brawler Nnis Simms is an American. He's a good boxer,
but he has no problem standing and fighting, which is
the kind of style that I like to watch. He's
twenty two, two in one with an eight knockouts, not
a big puncher, but he can definitely box out a
good amateur pedigree. And the thing that's interesting is that
I love the fact that Golden Boy is getting out
of its comfort zone, like they're so used to doing
their fights in southern California every single time. You know,
they've gone elsewhere here and there in recent times, like
they've gone to Vegas. They did there, Ryan Garcia, Devin
Hainey fight in New York. But most of the time
they're in they're either in Vegas that they're in California.
They're taking the fight to Chicago, which is a very
very good fight town, but has been so neglected for
years and years and years for this type of level
of a fight. I mean, I'll just put it in perspective,
like I've been covering boxing twenty five, twenty six years,
I've been to Chicago for boxing maybe like six times.
I mean, it's very rare because there just hasn't been
big type events. But the reason why they're doing this
in Chicago is Kenneth Simms is from Chicago. There you
go and but more also, but part of the equation
is that Duarte, who is a Mexican. People may not
realize this, but Chicago has a very good Mexican community.
Like they turn out their Mexican fan base. So you're
gonna have the Chicago fans who are gonna be rooting
for the local guy and Zim's. But I'm pretty sure
you'll see a smattering or a good group of the
Mexican community turnout for this fight. Also, which which matches
up well make it exciting. And I think I think
these guys are gonna put on a hell of a fight.
I mean, I'd be really disappointed in surprise if we're
back here taping our podcast night on Sunday night and somehow,
some way we're saying, now, this was a terrible fight.
I just don't see it. I don't know how that's
going to be the case.
Speaker 2: All right, And again, Sims lost to Samuel Taya and
has now since won nine fights in a row.
Speaker 1: Not all of them are household names.
Speaker 2: You did mention the ACMA Dolph win an A recently
won a decision with Kindo Castaneda back in February. So
this will be an intriguing I'll use the word intriguing
main event, co feature. I don't know if I'll use
the word intriguing. Who's got anything left? Regius Pro, Gray,
Jojo Diaz Junior welterweights And this is a fairly laid
ad in the last week or two to this card,
am I correct with Pro Gray uh and Diaz both
basically here almost at the end.
Speaker 1: Does anybody have.
Speaker 3: I mean, Golden Golden Boy probably knew they were going
to do the fight. It was just that they hadn't
announced it, I guess. But this is like the loser
leaves town kind of fight.
Speaker 1: Get a little Leafs Town match. I like it, Yes,
so so.
Speaker 3: Pro Gray is obviously the guy that's more conditioned for
this weight class. He's been fighting in the junior welterweight
division for a very long time. He is a former
champion in the weight class two times as a matter
of fact, and at one time was considered you know,
number one, two or three for a for a while
in the division. But he's coming off three really terrible
performances in a row. I mean when he won the
vacant WBC title looked really good. He got an eleventh
round knockout against Josees Paid, who's been in the ring
with everybody always give guys tough fights. That was back
in November of twenty twenty two, and since then it's
been all downhill. We've discus the hometown fight he had
in his next out June of twenty three against Dan
alitos Aia. He want to barely want a split decision.
Lookap in that fight, he blamed it on you know,
the hometown pressures and the distractions, and okay, some guys
don't thrive at home like others. You know why you
chalked it up till I had a bad night, even
though you got the win and you got out of
dodge and he got that split decision barely and he
had actually scored a knockdown in the fight. Now, Devin
Haney goes from being undisputed lightweight champion moves up to
one forty to challenge Progra for his title in the
one forty division. This is in December of twenty twenty three,
and Regis Prograd goes into the ring and loses every
single minute, every single second of the fight, gets dropped
in the third round and literally loses one hundred to
one hundred and twenty tow one hundred and seven and
all three scorecards. An absolutely future performance and a great
performance from Hane. At that point, you're like, man, pro Gray,
he might be done, but maybe you give him the
benefit of the doubt because Hany is a really good fighter,
and maybe the styles weren't right. He's a great boxer
and whatever. But then he goes to England and this
is back in October and he fights Jack Catterau, a
very winnable fight and he looks like trash again. And
yeah fight he loses a pretty clear decision, you know,
eight to four, uh, you know, nine to three types
of scores. He got knocked down twice in the ninth
round of that fight.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's keep it real.
Speaker 2: He doesn't look, he didn't look in these last two
fights like he has anything left. Oh, and that's what
he's got to dispel Saturday night, that does he have
anything left?
Speaker 3: Program look between Zuria, Haney and Catau. You know once
you know, okay, it happens twice. Three is like a trend.
So he's trending in the wrong direction. He is thirty
six years old. He's been in some hard fights. I mean,
if you go back, i mean the Josh Taylor fight
was life and death. He's been in some tough ones
through the years. So this is this is like a
do or die. In my mind, you can't beat Jojo Diaz.
You need to retire for really now. Joseph Diaz is
a disaster. Okay, Joseph Diaz for a little he was
an olympian, had a great amateur background. He won a
title at one hundred and thirty pounds, and then he
had all kinds of issues making weight, had a lot
of issues outside during had substance abuse issues, just just
a complete fucking mess. Went from being like, you know,
a nice, sweet guy, sweet kid, to a real fucking preck.
To be quite honest with you, I got no love
for Joseph Diaz as the human being. I think he
was a bad guy. I don't wish bad on him.
I'm just being real. But he went on a brutal
skid there. He lost like what three in a row.
He got an easy win and then he lost another
three in a row. He's coming off a win where
he actually made the one hundred and thirty five pound
weight limit. He won an eight rounder. This is back
in June. But now he's going up to one forty
to fight Regis Progray. And to me, anyway, Diaz has
been long done. Abused himself way too much, didn't take
his training seriously. Loss to just you know, Jimoke type opponents.
One of the good opponents that he did lose to
and one of the things about Jojo Diaz is that
he was always whether he won or lost, always knowing
to have a great chin, just a really outstanding ability
to take the shot. Well, your boy Deuarte, he was
in the main event, knocked him out clean in the
in the ninth round. This is in April of twenty
twenty four. That's the only knockout loss that Jojo Diaz
has suffered in his career. And then he lost his
next fight, and then, like I said, he got to
win in June. So this is definitely the loser leaves
town like he is hanging on by a string. You know,
he is a a journeyman at this point. You know,
you can't take away the Olympic berth, you can't take
away the world title. But he's done absolutely nothing that
mattered since like two thousand.
Speaker 1: In a while.
Speaker 2: On the pod feed, what are we doing here? Co
features somebody somebody no problem.
Speaker 3: With the fight. I got no problem with the fight.
Speaker 2: I mean, somebody's got to get well here. Hopefully we
don't get a dull dance off. Nobody can land anything,
dear God, for ten rounds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe the guys are a little shotski and like
they're gonna have some trouble. But the other thing is
when guys are not what they were. And I'm gonna
use an extreme example when Muhammad Ali and Joe Fraser
fought to third. Both guys were shot and they couldn't
move anymore, and so they stood right in the set
of the ring. They beat the libait out of each
other and it turned out to be one of the
great And.
Speaker 1: Just compare the potential pro Gray Jojo fight.
Speaker 3: You miss what I said?
Speaker 1: No, I didn't miss what you said.
Speaker 3: Bring it up in the same example, an extreme example.
So maybe because both guys are not what they were
and can't move like they once did, they will stand
in the middle of the ring and slug it out,
knowing that their careers are on the line.
Speaker 1: All right. Maybe.
Speaker 2: Uh, there's also a heavyweight on this card in Joshua Edwards. Well,
tell me more about the fight that he has on
this Golden Boy dezzone Saturday night, Chicago.
Speaker 3: You know what, it's not so much about the matchup.
He's fighting guy named came in Audi. I don't know
anything about him. He's like four and one. I mean,
they just found him, I suppose. But the thing about
Joshua Edwards is he's three and oh with three knockouts,
and why he is notable. He's on the young side
as a heavyweight, twenty five years old from Houston. He
was the United States Olympian UH in the most recent
Olympic Games. And so when we talk about the lack
of American heavyweights, and we mainly focus on, you know,
a couple of guys that are there. Maybe you know,
there's Jared Anderson, whose star has dibbed in recent times.
You know, some of the guys that are that that
were there, that were contenders that maybe aren't necessarily going
to be come cham.
Speaker 2: Richard Torres is out there lurking as an unbeaten Torres
is the prospect.
Speaker 3: And in terms of like the contenders, like you know,
there's Jerald Miller and a couple other guys. Andy Ruiz
is still hanging around, even though he's not a young
guy anymore. But if you're looking for besides Torres on
the younger side, who might be able to make a splash,
who who's worth keeping an eye on, it's Joshua Edwards.
Like I said, Olympic pedigree signed with Golden Boy, going
into a fourth pro fight, twenty five years old, has
shown good punching power, seems to have good work ethic
by all accounts, and so again it's not about who
he's fighting. This is the very early days of his
pro career. He only turned professional back in April of
this year, so it's his FOURTS fight so far in
twenty twenty five. It's just I'm just putting it out
there if you're if you're looking for a heavyweight to follow,
who's American that might have a chance to do something.
I think Joshua Edwards might be her guy.
Speaker 2: All Right, stay tuned Saturday night onto his own. That's
the most prominent fight card that's out there. Will at
least have something to recap on on Sunday, coming off
the weekend going into Monday. All Right, fight news, And
it's been a rough week with deaths in the sport.
First of all, you and I have great affinity for
the eighties the nineties of the nostalgia and the name
Dwight Braxton which became the name Dwight Mohammed Kawi, and
he passed away earlier this week after a long illness.
Speaker 1: Let's begin with that.
Speaker 3: On Friday, Actually, Wes Yeah, he was seventy two years old.
And if you liked relentless action fighters who threw a
lot of punches, who didn't mind taking a couple of
shots to land their own, and Dwight Mohammed Kawie was
your guy. And he's got a fascinating backstory because here
is a man who was not an amateur boxer, who
was a guy that was like a lot of young guys,
got in trouble on the streets, got arrested, got sentenced
to prison for armed robbery, went away to Rahway State
Prison in New Jersey, where you know he was from
New Jersey. And in the prison they had a boxing
program and he learned a box and he did well.
And when he came out of prison, he was twenty
five years old, looking for a direction in his life,
probably hoping not to go back to the can and
turned professional. But had learned enough as a as a
prisoner and had shown toughness and I guess somebody saw
enough in him to have him turn pro and that's
what happened. He started.
Speaker 2: I can't remember off Tom did he fight on one
of those televised cards on NBC that they would have
at It was Rallway Prison right in New Jersey.
Speaker 3: He was not the prisoner at that time. He went
and fought James Scott, who was the prisoner.
Speaker 2: He went back to you are the wealth of nostalgia.
I thought that I remembered him fighting a fight in prison.
And again, for those that think that were making this
crap up, YouTube it up, go back and look at
it that they actually had Saturday US Network TV live
boxing from the prison and Kawee fought in one of
the fights. I think he was Dwight Braxton still at
that point.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, he didn't.
Speaker 1: It was wild.
Speaker 2: They're standing there with security guards obviously with shotguns standing
around the perimeter of everybody watching and all the prisoners,
it's wild, are all dressed the same, sitting like it's
a bad B movie and it's actually going on and
it's an actual fight. That's that's the environment that he
learned to box in.
Speaker 1: Is your point?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think I think, if I'm not mistaken,
that one of his uh, one of his one of
those fights might have even done an HBO, but definitely
on the networks. But the point is he fought at
back at the prison where he was had been an inmate. Uh.
But he started off his career like you know a
lot of guys, you know, you start off you see
guy that's won one and one and at least in
today's day in age, I'll give you pause and be like, okay,
well how far can the guy go? But he was
a guy, like I said, no amateur career. Uh, and
built himself up and you know, and didn't look like
you know. He was fighting in the light heavyweight division
at that time. He later fought as a cruiserweight and
as a heavyweight. But he was a stocky guy five
foot seven, you know, always undersize is usually compared to
his opponents. But heart of a line, big heart, you know,
maybe maybe small stature, but big heart.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: And then he had the big breakthrough where he beat
a couple of name guys, Mike Rossman who was a
former champion, the James Scott fight that I just mentioned,
who was the fight that took place in Rahway And.
Speaker 2: There was a year, what month and what year was that? Well,
we make ourselves fiel even older. It was something like this.
Speaker 3: No. No, those two fights I mentioned in between Rossman
and uh and Scott, those were in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1: Eighty one. My god.
Speaker 3: But the thing that was so crazy about the Scott
fight is Scott had been in prison and was ranked
by the WBA, and so he fought him in the
prison and you know.
Speaker 1: Trying to work his way up to his title shot.
Speaker 3: So he gets so he gets those two big victories,
and that paved the way, you know, for him to
get the shot against Matthew Sad Muhammad, who was a
Hall of Famer who was the WBC light heavyweight champion.
They that was an HBO fight they fought at in Philadelphia,
and he when he won the title. I mean, it
was a great story. Sad. It was always in fucking
great fights. I mean, I mean, if you never saw that,
I mean, I'm not saying that's like an all time classic,
but it's worth watching. He stopped them in the tenth round.
This is December of eighty one. He wins a WBC
light heavyweight title. He takes one title defense a few
months later, and then later in eighty two, him and
Sod have a rematch and he knocks him out again
in the sixth round, and he made one more defense.
But then this was a huge deal. Now there had
not been an undisputed light heavyweight champion in terms of
the unification of the belts and forever of the two
beltyer we're talking about. This is nineteen eighty three. The
IBF has still not become into a fact yet. And
it was a huge deal. Michael Spinx was the was
the WBA champion. Yeah, WBA champion, and anyway, they did
a unification fight and it was a big, big deal
on HBO. Now, the fight itself, unfortunately not to be
a stinker. That's one where I would tell you not
to go YouTube it up. But Spinx ended up winning
the decision to become the undisputed champion in the light
heavyweight division at that point after Dwight Mohammad. Now he
had changed his name. Actually, it's interesting, when he was
fighting the Sphinx fight, he had already converted to Islam
and had changed his name to Dwight Mohammed Khahwei. But
as a favorite to the promotion, to help sell tickets
and the awareness, he was known to the public as
Dwight Braxton, so they referred to him and promoted the
fight as him being Dwight Braxton, just because that was
already that was important to the so after the fight
was over though, he then became you know, in terms
of his public persona, promotion, etc. He was now Dwight
Mohammed Kahwei. And you know, like a lot of guys,
they lose the light heavyweight. Cruiserweight was a new division.
He moved up to the cruiserweight division. He fought you know,
a handful of fights, but he went over to South
Africa and he won by eleventh round knockouts. This is
a fifteen rounder. Nineteen eighty five, he stops the South
African pet Krauss in South Africa to win. H win
the win one of the titles. Uh had a had
a non title fight and then uh, you know, Leon Spinks,
who had been the heavyweight champion was now fighting a cruiserway.
He absolutely beat the living shit out of him in
nineteen eighty six and retained the title. And then yeah
comes the Now he's still a WBA champion. Now they
called it the w BA. It wasn't really called cruiserweight
by the WBA. It was referred to in television shows.
If you saw a newspaper article, junior heavyweight is what
they called it. He gets the opportunity to go to Atlanta, Georgia,
live on absa wide world of sports, and the up
and coming undefeated eleven to zero Olympian Evander Holyfield big prospect,
is now challenging Dwight Muhammad Kahwei. A huge step off
for holy Field. And we've discussed this before.
Speaker 1: This this fight.
Speaker 3: This is arguably, in my opinion, there are there's a
lot of great cruiserweight fights that have happened in the
division's history since it was created in the eighties. The
two best fights in the division history for my money
are the first fight between Evander and Dwight Mohamed Kawei
and the and the fight which I was fortunate to
be ringside for, which was James Tony against Vasili Jiroff.
But Holyfield Kawe won a sick one of the last
great fifteen rounders. Holyfield wins a split decision. Phenomenal fight.
You can find it easily on YouTube. Just an outstanding battle.
Holyfield won the title. That was the first title of
Evander's career.
Speaker 2: The fight, as I like to say, on a bathroom rug,
toe to toe, no mystery, just brawling.
Speaker 3: Like I've heard stories from Holyfield about how dehydrated he was,
Like I forget what I was like. He went in
the ring, you know, at one weight, and when he
came out, he was like, you know, twelve pounds.
Speaker 2: Lazing hot in the summer in Atlanta, no air in
the Omni the arena where the Hawks played basketball.
Speaker 3: So wow. This is the moment in the podcast where
we we talking about Dwight, Momma and Kawei, where I
tell you that I have in my collection an immaculately
mint condition program from the first fight between Holyfield and
Kawe which is not an inexpensive program.
Speaker 1: How do you know?
Speaker 2: How do you how do you know that you have
that program? Because I have I'm joking with you, how
do you know that you have that program? The Dwight
Muhammad Kawe ev.
Speaker 3: I just can't fucking find it.
Speaker 2: You haven't been able to find it for how long?
Confess to the audience.
Speaker 3: The last when I looked for it was probably like
a year and a half, two years ago, and I
can't find it. So I'm in you know, you only
see what you see on the screen. I'm in my
office in my house. I know, I know, and I
have buy boxing shit.
Speaker 1: I went stacked stacked or boxes files.
Speaker 3: I got ship all over the place here and it's
actually not it's it's it's it's not organized, but it's
not messy. But the point is, somewhere in this room
is that program, and I will find it someday. But
it's a beautiful program. And Dwight Man mount Kawe was
in great fights. So he had a rematch with a
Vander seventeen months later. He lost by a knockout. Uh
And at that point, you know, he then moved up
to heavyweight. This was the comebacking George Foreman. He got
knocked out in the seventh round, and at that your life,
he's pretty much done. He got one more title shot
at the cruiserweight title back in eighty nine. He challenged
Robert Daniels, who was a middling champion. He actually fought
him to a split decision loss. That was his last
time he got a chance fight for attle. He still
fought a number of more times after that. You know,
he didn't retire till nineteen ninety eight, but you know,
it was pretty much after the George Foreman fight probably
that most people considered him done. But you know, for
a guy that had no amateur career, you know, he
reached the heights by beating guys like Sad Muhammad and
having some great battles and even you know the destruction
of Sphinx going to South Africa to win.
Speaker 1: As you laid out, he was a big deal.
Speaker 2: And you can't write the history of the eighties and
the light heavyweight division or the cruiserweight division without talking
about this guy.
Speaker 3: And he had a great nickname, the Camden buzzz Up.
Yes from Camden, New Jersey. And we know. One thing
I love about that is so Camden has produced some
fighters Jersey Joe Walcott. So one of the one of
the younger fighters of today is Raymond Ford, the junior
lightweight and tender former feather with that older and I
think it was on our podcast. I was doing an
interview with him. Maybe it was in person somewhere else,
but anyway, I remember talking about like going to following
the footsteps of the great fighters that have come from Camden,
and he actually knew the history in reference to White Mohammakahi,
and I found that to be heartwarming because a lot
of the younger fighters that I did, I talked to
and interview, they're very knowledgeable about what's happening now in
their own division and who they might want to fight,
But they often lacked the perspective of who came before them,
whether it's in their weight class or maybe from their hometown.
But I love the fact that ray For was well
aware of who' d white Mohammed KAUI.
Speaker 1: Was love that.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately we continue with the rips the next one. I
did not really know this name very much, but I
rely on you. Don Elbaum is the name a Hall
of Fame promoter and matchmaker. Tell us more about him,
educating me and the audience.
Speaker 3: If you stick around boxing long enough, you'lls inevitably you'll
hear somebody describe somebody as a boxing character like and
somebody that that just is I can't even describe it,
just has a lot of stories, might not, may have
a challenge with the truth at times.
Speaker 2: Ah different, funny maybe conniving.
Speaker 1: All the above never dun.
Speaker 3: The epitome of that guy. A boxing lifer. He had
a handful of amateur fights and he had a handful
of pro fights, but his real calling was matchmaking and promotion.
He you know, if you look at the bio from
the Boxing Hall of Fame, he was inducted in twenty nineteen.
He had promoted. He started match making age fifteen, started promoting,
you know, at age eighteen. He did a lot of
shows in like Cleveland area, Ohio, Erie, Pennsylvania, Buffalo, New York,
you know that that part of the country. All in
all that, the Hall of Fame says he was the
matchmaker for around ten thousand fights, promoted over a thousand cards,
including during a five year stretch at the at the
Tropicana in Atlantic City. Remember in the nineteen eighties there
was thousands, zillions of cards in Atlantic City all the time.
He did about close to two hundred shows just at
the Tropicana over a five year period. And here and
then he also, like I said, promotion manager, advisor, you know,
jack of all trades, boxing lifer. But just to give
you an idea of the types of people that he
was involved with at one time or another, these are
fighters that either matched or promoted at one time or another,
Muhammad Ali, Sonny Listen, Floyd Patterson, Willie Pep, Aaron Pryor,
Roberto Durant or Sugar Ray Robinson, and then others who
were not necessarily Hall of Famers, Ernie Shavers, Nikolai valuevs.
Simon Brown, Tony Tubbs, Maurice Blocker, all guys you know
that were well known at their times, Lots of those
guys who had won titles. I came to know Don
at the early days of my time at USA today.
We're talking around two thousand and two thousand and one. Somehow,
some way he got my phone number. He used to
call me at the office at USA Today. And as
I wrote in the obituary, always had a grand plan,
always had a fight to sell, always had a story
to tell, and always had a twinkle in his eye.
And as I posted in my my story on social media,
I said, he had a million stories and some of
them were even true, Like he would tell you all
kinds of you took a minute to get there.
Speaker 2: And then you and then you take a second and go, okay,
all that's crap.
Speaker 3: But he was also the kind of guy that again
he would call me. This is back when he was
working with the VALUEV. This is before VALUEV the WBA
heavyweight Champion. He was really more of an idle curiosity
to a lot of people. Remember this is this is
pre YouTube. There was no real footage of the guy.
He was just got this reputations. There's this seven foot
two Russian. It was a heavyweight that's, you know, bigger
than Drego who was gonna be the next heavyweight champion.
And and he was helping uh to to carry him along.
And so he would call me to scuss VALUEV and
I was like, all I'd like to see the guy.
But Don was the kind of guy. He'd call me
like ten times in a week and then I wouldn't
here from him for like six months. And when he
would call you the next time, it was like nothing
ever happened. You just pick up where you left up.
I could have gone ten years without talking to the guy,
and you talk to me and be like nothing ever happened.
So that was that. Now he has two other important
aspects of his time in boxing besides what I was
just talking about, the fighters who worked with for better
or for worse. He brought Don King to boxing. Don
Albaum was doing shows in the Cleveland area where Don
was from, and Don was trying to get in with
Muhammad Ali. Don was out of prison. Don didn't know
a lot about boxing, but he was looking to do
some kind of actually a charitable thing with a hospital
a black hospital that was having financial problems. They were
going to put on an event to help raise money
to save the hospital. He wanted to do an exhibition
and bring Ali. And the way the story goes is
that he didn't do boxing in Cleveland, that he didn't
go through Don Elbaum, and so he got in touch
with Don Elbaum and Don brought him in and they
ended up doing the event. And so as he says,
you know, I brought Don King into boxing. You know,
I'm sorry. Maybe I'm not sorry, but that's that's how
Don became entrenched in the sport.
Speaker 1: And have him to blame or praise.
Speaker 3: So this is like nineteen seventy two, you know, he
facilitates this event with King. Two years later King is
fucking promoting the Rumble and the Jungle in that was
the way that went and the other thing that was notable,
And you can look on in his Twitter feed and
the great ring announcer Michael Buffer, you know, who had
never done a ring announcing thing in his entire life,
who was basically working as a model at that point. Yeah,
for some reason, this is like forty three years ago
this summer, Buffer said that Elbaum, who was doing all
these shows in Atlantic City, asked him to announce fighters
from a ring in a shopping center parking lot in
Atlantic City to help promote an upcoming event he had
at the Tropicana. And that was the very first time
the Buffer ever did any ring announcing. And as Michael said,
he didn't pay me anything but a compliment, but it
allowed me to go to the next gig and tell
them I had some experience. And then he got hired,
and ultimately Bob Aram hired him and he became the
ring announcer on the old top ranked ESPN series back
in the eighties, and Michael Buffer became one of the
most not one of the single famous ring announcer of
all time. So Lbaum gave us don King gave us
Michael Buffer all the fighters. I mentioned a lot of
great stories and you know, again described I many as
a run and esque character. But in my opinion, and
I didn't do business with the guy, but my interactions
with him through the years were always hilarious and fun
and pleasant. Are really well known to everybody within the business.
Colorful character, you know, and he would do promotions like
he won stage an event to let's determine who's the
world's worst boxer is and the loser has to retire.
He sold advertising on the souls of fighters shoes, so
what they got knocked out, people would see the advertisements.
He one time did an event where they had one
of the fighters on the card. They put him in
the ring before the show and he got married and
then a little later in the night he got you know,
he had his boxing match. Like those are the types
of crazy fucking things that he promoted and thought of,
and those were things that weren't done at that point.
And so again a boxing lifer from fifteen to ninety four,
he was in the business.
Speaker 1: Love it.
Speaker 2: And then unfortunately one more and that is famed trainer
Tommy Brooks, who worked with a lot of different fighters
and championship fighters, most notably near the end of the
career working with Mike Tyson. But say some more fill
in the blanks here on Tommy Brooks's passing.
Speaker 3: Well, Tommy is a guy who is in the New
Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame, but really should be at
the very very least should be on the International Boxing
Hall of Fame ballot, which he has not been on.
I'm hopeful that he will someday. I knew Tommy for
many years, hadn't talked to me in a few years.
Last time I spoke to Tommy, I was doing a
piece for the Ring magazine. They were doing a Mike
Tyson tribute issue, and my assignment for that piece was
to do like the tail end of Mike's career, like
they were broke up Tyson's career into different segments. I
was doing the post earbiting, which was sort of like
the end game of Tyson's career, of which I had covered,
And Tommy was Mike's trainer for six of those fights,
so I'd gotten to know Tommy pretty well during those years.
Tommy was in the room when I had that fateful
first ever interview that I've discussed with Tyson. Tommy was
in the limousine with me when I got thrown out
of that interview. Going back to the hotel, I had
a good relationship with Tommy. Tommy was an amateur boxer.
Tommy has two wins and the amateurs against Michael Spinks.
He beat him twice in significant tournaments in nineteen seventy five,
and then Michael Spinks went on in seventy six to
become the Olympic champion. Obviously, he went on to become
the light heavyweight world champion as a pro and the
heavyweight champion as a pro. But Tommy, he turned pro.
He had a middling career as a professional, but he
turned to training and he got as he said, this
is a quote from him talking about how he got
his you know, his knowledge about becoming a trainer. You
couldn't learned from better icons. And then he says, this
is his quote. I always say in boxing. He got
my AA and BA degrees from Archie Moore, I got
my MA from George Benton. I got my PhD from
Eddie Futch and Lou Duva taught me at a stand
up for by guy. So he worked with Archie Moore,
famous trainer and also all time great champion, George Benton,
who was you know, partners with Lou Duva on a
ton of guys. Eddie Fudge one of the great trainers
also of all time, and ultimately he married into the
Dua family boxing and royalty. He married Donna Duva, who
was the daughter of Lou Duva, the famous manager and
trainer who was so his brother in law was Dan Duva,
who founded main events, which was the nineteen eighties starting
when they founded a promotional powerhouse. His widow is Tommy's
sister in law, Kathy Duva still runs the company, so
he was involved in that family and worked with tons
of great fighters. Now he's most known probably because of
the six fights didn't with Tyson. But the interesting thing
is he trained was an assistant trainer or head trainer
with the vander Holyfield for many years before that. After
the earbiting fight with Tyson, he got hired by Tyson,
So he went from working holy Fields corner for the
ear biting fight and now he's working with the guy
that bit the guy's ear for the next six fights.
But him and Tommy had a good relationship. But here
are some other guys he worked with as a trainer.
I mean, all of these guys are Hall of famers.
Pernol Whittaker, Mike McCallum, Vladimir Klitchkow, Vitally Clitchkow, Vinnie Pazienza.
He also trained. They're not Hall of famers, but he
trained Freddie Pendleton and Charles Murray when they won world titles.
He worked with Larry Donald, Hassim Rockman, Uri Foreman, Samuel Peter,
Monty Barrett, Junior Jones. He was with Junior Jones when
he beat Barrera at Marco and Tony barrat twice. He
trained the light heavyweight Sean George, who ultimately married Tommy's daughter,
and as a trainer in his own right who trained
Zang Zule and some mothers. So, I mean, it was
like the boxing tentacles, you know what I mean? What
can I say? A tremendous boxing guy, uh served in
the Air Force, and a really good dude.
Speaker 2: You did a tremendous job with all three of those.
It's it's sad, but time does march on.
Speaker 3: And that because like I never knew Cowie, but I
knew Tommy for year. Yeah, and I used to I
talk to album all the time.
Speaker 2: You know, rip, rip to all of those. All right,
let's finish it up with a couple of news items.
The w UBC did do what we figured would happen,
which is they have stripped Francisco Rodriguez of the interim
flyweight title after his post fight positive drug test after
he beat the daylights out of Gallia Phi back last month.
Speaker 1: All right, not unexpected here?
Speaker 2: Where I mean, where do we go next with this
and the British the British Boxing Board have controlled it ruled.
Speaker 1: This is the WBC taking their action, but go ahead.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean the British Boxing Board. If you look
at the box wreck notation, he is on a temporary suspension.
But I think that's why they go through the process
of doing whatever their adjudication is going to wind up being.
The WBC says that they are changing the result of
the five fight to an ozer contest, which is all
well and good, but it doesn't really mean anything because,
as I've said many times, the sanctioning body controls the belt,
the sanctioning body controls the rankings, The sanctioning body is
in control of who can fight for their titles or
be involved in their rankings, et cetera. But it is
the regulatory agency in the area where the fight took
place to ask control over what the result of the
fight's going to be and if there's going to be
an actual suspension where you can't fight. So the WBC
did that. They said they're going to recommend to the
British Boxing Board to change it to a no contest.
They don't have to do that. The British Boxing board
probably will just do that unto themselves when they get
to it.
Speaker 2: And they already did that with the Mongia drug suspension, right,
the British Boxing Board Control already ruled that in no contest.
Speaker 1: Am I not right? Or am I not remembering? Recently?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure about that. I know they haven't done that.
Speaker 1: Maybe they haven't done it yet, but they've already.
Speaker 3: Done anything as far as if he's going to see
see suspend or not. But you gotta figure both Mogia
as well as UH, as well as Rodriguez ros right,
not sarassing won't get suspended, but Mogia will be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mangia right, But.
Speaker 3: Anyway, as far as UH, but they didn't really give
any other punishment. They ordered a rematch with you five,
which I thought was weird. And if the British Boxing
Board does what it's supposed to do, which is suspend
Rodriguez for an indefinite time or a year or two
years or whatever it's going to be, it's going to
render that ruling of a rematch irrelevant. They they if
you read the ruling that the WBC put out, it
bothers me because they said that he admitted the taking
and over the counter, uh, some type of like energy supplement.
But then on the label it listed two banned substances
and he took it anyway. But they say it was
by accident. He didn't do it on purpose. He wasn't
trying to get a boost. I'm like, can both at
the same time in that case. So the substance we
didn't know this originally when the when the announcement was
made of what he failed for. Uh, the the substance
was not public. They put this out the WBC in
their in their announcement of what they were doing. He
failed for something called heptomenol, which is a cardiac stimulant
that also increases coronary blood flow. If you want to
have stamina late in a boxing match, wouldn't you want
to ask a blood flow in your heart? I mean,
that seems pretty logical.
Speaker 2: And the other thing that I would be concerned about
is if you abuse that take it for a long time, that.
Speaker 1: Could kill you heart attack. You got to be careful.
That true.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't think about that.
Speaker 1: You're right, I mean, it's crazy, all right.
Speaker 2: So that's and by the way, I did look on
the fly while we're doing this, they did.
Speaker 1: Set for the.
Speaker 2: Ruling on on Mangia, but they haven't done anything with
the no contest, so it may take a little while
for the BBBOC to rule no contest. But he ain't
got the bell. What are the chances that it's going
to be a rematch. What are the chances that they
will have a remach?
Speaker 3: Well, w the BC ordered the rematch, and I guess
it could happen. But if the British Boxing words suspend,
spends them or suspend them for two years, like I
guess they could do a rematch, but I mean are
they going to be around in two years? I mean
who that knows. So to me, the the WBC order
was sort of a paper tiger because I don't think
it's going to come to pass because he should be suspended,
but I feel like the WBC went a bit light
on him. I mean, you know, they they they they
don't really And the thing that bothers me about the
WBC and when they deal with their drug testing. And
I'll praise them because they're the one organization that, even
though it's underfunded and not used enough, they do have
the Clean Boxing program which does at least do some
testing even if it's not enough. But they're the only
ones that do it. The problem is, if you actually
read the rules, they don't use the concept of strict
liability in those rules. The concept of strict liability is
regardless of how it got in your system, the mere
fact that it's in your system and you're in trouble.
But they are able to go because it says in
their rules that they don't adhere to the strict liability notion,
that they can determine if it's accidental. And if they
say it's accidentally, you get a slap on their so
and nothing happens. And okay, he did get stripped to
the belt, but other than that, it feels like it
was a slap on the wrist in my mind. So
I'm waiting what's really The belt was significant in one sense,
but what really is going to matter is what the
British Boxing Board of Control does.
Speaker 2: And like you said, you may mention of it a
couple of times during this part of the conversation. He
might get two years from them and Connor bind a reference. Essentially,
they froze him out whatever you want to call it,
for two years of being able to fight in Europe.
He got around it fighting in the US.
Speaker 3: But stay, that was a technicality, correct, But that was
really by the way, Just not to digress, but the
reason why Ben was able to fight in America was
on the technicality because there was the British Boxing Board
of Control's fault because when the Association of Boxing Commissions
went to the British Boxing or to get an update
on the case to determine whether or not they were
going to give him the license, the British Boxing Board
of Control never bothered to get back to the ABC
and their perspectives. We've asked multiple times. We're not just
gonna sit here and wait and let them ignore us.
So as far as we're concerned, he's good to go.
He can get a license if he applies.
Speaker 2: He's not in the US, but still he was prosen
out for a year in and around that time anyway,
and this.
Speaker 1: May be two years. All right.
Speaker 2: One more news item before we depart, and that is
Liam Parrow, who once held the IBF one hundred and
forty pound title, has now announced that he will move up.
He will not fight an eliminator that he was scheduled
to have. Give us the details on why he's moving
up to welterway.
Speaker 3: Well, the IBF had ordered the eliminator between him and
the Mexican on the field he did Olympian Lindelfhel Delgado,
which would have been a pretty good fight. And you know,
they had ordered that fight and he decided and that
would have been for the winner of that fight if
if it had happened, would have become the mandatory challenger
for the IBM champion, which is Richards and Hitchins. And
of course, if we go back to December of last year,
that is when Paro lost a split decision and the
bell to Richardson Hitchins, so would have been a rematch
had he defeated Delgado, but he decided. He announced this.
His promoter now is No Limit Boxing. They're one of
the big outfits in Australia promote Tim Zoo and Tim's
brother and some others. They did a boxing show on
Wednesday in Australia and on the broadcast he was sitting
in as one of the commentators and announced that he
was going to move up to the welterweight division and
not not obviously go through with this eliminator because he
you know, he had come back from the Hitchens fight.
He had won his most recent fight that took place
just a few weeks ago, back in June. And then
after that fight he didn announce that he had signed
with no limit. He had been remembered. He had been
with mattrom for a little while, and so they're trying
to figure out what he's gonna do. He wants to
go to one hundred and forty seven pounds, and he
started calling out you know, any champion. He's called out
Manny Pac Yell, and then he called out Keith Thurman.
Call that Keith Thurman said he would fight Keith Thurman
one hundred fifty pounds. Now Thurman, of course is looking
for a dance partner. He got some notoriety in Australia
when he went there and knocked out Brock Jarvis, which
was supposed to help facilitate a fight between Keith and
Tim Zoo. And then suddenly tim Zoo was taking the
rematch with Fondora, and so Thurman didn't get the fight.
So he's got the name recognition in Australia. And I mean,
to me, Keith doesn't have like And I saw Keith
and hung out with him a little bit when I
was in Vegas at the pac Yao fight and Keith's
sort of been lamenting, like you know, he's got he's
trying to get a fight, and so far nothing has
really happened at this point. So while perhaps Fondora might
give him a shot after having defeated Tim Zoo, which
wouldn't be so bad. He did put on a good
performance in the return Astralia for a change, he came
away not injured. It wasn't like he didn't fight because
he got hurt again. So he's looking for a fight
and he probably can make good money in Australia against
par and being honest, I mean nothing against Part was
a lot younger and fresher. But I feel like at
one hundred and fifty four pounds, or even if they
did it at one fifty, if Keith could make that weight,
I would still think that Keith would be a favorite
in that matchup. So we'll see if they can actually
make that happen. But well, he was very nice and
talking about pak Yea, what a legend he is and
how great he is, and you know, maybe Manny wants
to come back to Australia. Remember he got pretty much
robbed there in Brisbane against Jeff Horn in twenty seventeen,
and in the Paro comments, he's like, you know, I'm
sure he wants to try to get one back here
in Australia, so you know, I'd be happy to fight him,
would be exciting, blah blah blah. But when it came
to Thurman, he was ripping him, like, you know, he
doesn't he doesn't want me. You know. He says that
the team approached Thurman and he doesn't want it. Blah
blah blah. He says, you know he called him at Chouah,
I'll bark, no bite whatever, I'll go up ten pounds.
Speaker 2: Better watch my man one time, Thurman from Clearwater, Florida,
because he's a good talker and they may not actually fight,
but they'll have some great back and forth over social
media about who's well.
Speaker 3: I guess we'll see what happened with that. But look,
Paro's going to forty seven. At the very least, he
injects on former championship name into a weight class that
could use a little injection of talent after the the lead,
you know, after lots of guys have left their you know,
the previous year sort of dissipated, Crawford moving up, Spence
pretty much done, others, you know, Sean Porter retiring.
Speaker 1: And is moving up, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you bring a Paro in and he just
adds a little depth to a division. You know. We
just seem like Han's moved up, and Rosy Ramirez has
moved up, and ran Garcia has moved up. So there's
there's there's some new people happening in that division. Boots
Ennis has left, so Paro can come in and then
maybe join that party. It could make for a couple
of interesting matchups. Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing him against
Thurman at one fifty. They get a little spice going
on already.
Speaker 2: All right, Uh, Spice is the variety of life here.
Variety is the spy supply or something like that. On
the metaphor, I think we are good in the preview
mode again. The Duarte Simms headlining fight for Golden Boy
des Own is Saturday night in Chicago. That is the
most prominent card it's going to be going on. We'll
come back and do a recap pod. Should we let
them in on what else we have coming off the weekend?
Speaker 1: Shall we do that?
Speaker 2: How about Terrence Crawford, Bud Crawford, Dan Rayfield One on
one with Bud Crawford coming exclusively first on the Pod
Sunday night into Monday. It's why you got to be
following and subscribing. You'll hear from Terrence Crawford about the
upcoming matchup with Canelo Lalvarez. I'm not moving up on
all that weight, the fight being an Allegiant Stadium, the
home of the Las Vegas Raiders, and more.
Speaker 1: This was when we rejoined.
Speaker 2: I know you were looking forward to talking to him,
and you said to me, you don't say this all
the time. He was great. I'm not saying just Crawford.
I'm saying some of these interviews. You're like, I was
okay on this one. You said, hey, he was great.
We look forward to it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look at Crawford is not as he's
been the greatest interview, but I feel like, you know,
he's done a lot of them now, so once he's
gotten more used to it. I've always had a perfectly
good rapport with Crawford when I've talked to him, and
I feel like he was attentive and he was taking
it seriously. He was in a good mood, and he
was on time, and you know, there was a spring
and a step, if you will, and I thought he
was thoughtful with his answers. We had a nice discussion.
I was really happy with the way it came out.
And frankly, when I when I listened to what he
had to say, it made me. I mean, not that
I wasn't already interested in seeing the Canelo fight, you know,
even without having spoken to Terrence Crawford, but it made
me even more sort of interested in the match and
the types of things he's planning ondoing and how he
plans to attack him, and it was it was good
to talk to me. Headn't had a one on one
with Button a little bit, So I hope people tune
in and listen to it.
Speaker 2: We look forward to hearing from him here coming off
the weekend and again engage with us.
Speaker 1: Not only this.
Speaker 2: Podcast feed, Apple, Spreaker, Spotify, go find our YouTube page.
I will share with you that we have a preliminary
heads up, Yes, sir, we will do it with a
conversation with Todd Grisham of his own. He's on the
call with Sergio Moura and Chris Mannix. This weekend in Chicago. Grisham,
of course called the Alexander Ussik Tyson Fury Heavyweight Showdowns,
and it's called a lot of big prominent fights called
the Jake Paul Chavez card, not just that fight, etc.
You have a long relationship with him. We look forward
to talking with Todd Grisham live on the YouTube page
when we can make that happen, hopefully like midweek next week.
Stand by while we promote things. Get to the YouTube page, subscribe,
get the notification there, and stay engaged with us because
we're gonna have plenty more on the YouTube page and
the preview mode, the recap mode, etc.
Speaker 1: But we look forward to that as well. For now, though,
I think we are good. Are we not? Are we good?
With everything for the weekend?
Speaker 3: I think we're good?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: Fair enough again? Follow Subscribe, Apple, Spreaker, Spotify. You've been
with us here for Dan Rayfield.
Speaker 1: I'm TJ. Reeves on the Big Fight Weekend Preview