Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time.
Speaker 2: This is Big Fight Weekend. Now here is your host,
DJ Leaves. Well, you thought you got rid of us,
but it is a new year. Hello and welcome into
twenty twenty five and the Big Pipe. We can't preview.
But wait, wait a minute, do we have a fight
to preview this weekend? We've got to get creative on
the first show of twenty twenty five. Nonetheless, I am
the somewhat confident host. He is our insider, Big Dan Rayfield,
Fight Freaks United is the substack, the newsletter you should
be subscribing. You should be on that. Good to be
with you, Happy new year, my friend. We have survived,
Proof of Life, Proof of Life. We have survived the
holiday season, at least to this point. How are things again?
We gotta get a little creative here on the show
because we don't really have a fight this weekend to preview. Nonetheless,
good to be back with you.
Speaker 1: Back. We always have things to discuss previews or otherwise. Yeah,
howadays we are quiet low key. You know, I may
be in the minority about it, but I don't mind
there being a little bit of a lull in the
action boxing. Unlike every other sport in terms of the
major team sports, let's say, or even like the individual
sports a tennis, a golf, auto racing or whatever, they
have seasons. Boxing is the one sport there's really no
defined season. When I first started to cover boxing a
long time ago, as I entered my twenty sixth year
on the gig full time, there was like an unwritten
rule that when the second week of December past until
pretty much like the second, maybe even third week of January,
there was basically nothing there might be like the premiere
of say Friday Night Fights, there might be the New
Year's Eve events that would take place in Japan, but
pretty much there was nothing doing besides that. And it's
different now, but I'm not unhappy that there's a little
bit of a lull. Gives me a chance to write
the stories looking back on the year of the fights,
the boxing events throughout the count year. With discuss some
of this in the show Fighter of the Year, Fights
of the Year, et cetera. But we're gonna gear up again.
It'll be not too long before we're seeing some major fights.
Speaker 2: That is true, and you and I have talked about
this that at least in the United States there was
nothing really Christmas weekend, then the New Year's weekend, and
now this weekend. We had intended and by the way,
you need to be following, subscribing to the podcast feed,
give us the five star review, be sharing it out, etc.
We say that every time we do make the effort
to be here going into the weekend with a preview
and coming off the weekend with a recap. If you
enjoy that, help us out. So we did intend to
talk some on this pod about the Tuesday main event,
the WBA Junior bandamweight rematch with Puma, Fernando Martinez and Kazioka.
You and I even handicapped the fight last year on
the Friday bet Us show. And then we get to
New Year's Eve Traditional Boxing Big Fight Card night in Japan,
and we got no main event because Martinez was sick
and could not get better, could not get well enough.
And so that's going to lead our topic and discussion.
Fight didn't happen. What do we know about win and
if they will put this back on what do we.
Speaker 1: Know that was? That was a big disappointment because their
first fight that was in July was a tremendous fight.
It was a bona Fide Fight of the Year candidate.
It's it's not the winner, but it was a great,
great fight, a worthy candidate. They went to battle, both
guys fought very well. You know, Martinez was the clear winner.
He unified the two of the titles that the in
the junior bandeonweight division, and they were going to do
a rematch. He ended up giving up the IBF title
because they wanted them to do a mandatory that was
against an opponent that was not well known, and then
would pay him a tiny fraction of the money that
he was set to earn in the rematch to go
back to Japan from Argentina a to fi aoka again.
So he was down to the WBA belt that he
had won in their unification fight back in the summertime,
and all you know, during the week and h you know,
I hadn't heard about this total sort of closer to
the fight, but you know, he had made that long
trip from Argentina, and when he got to Japan, he
was suffering from effects of having like literally influenza, the
flu didn't show, didn't was not able to go to
the to the public workout, did not go to the
to the fight, week press conference. They were trying to,
you know, get to a point where least he could
make weight and feel okay, and in the end, it just,
you know, the body does not allowed to do that.
You know, when you're sick with the flu or even
just a bad cold, forget about getting in a ring
and fighting a guy for twelve rounds or less. You
don't even want to get out of your bed to
like get a drink or go to the bathroom or
answer the phone or answer the door or anything like that.
You just want to lay in bed and then put
a wash club over your head and just you know,
just die basically. And so he was not going to
be able to fight. So anyway, it's it was a
bummer because that was the last sort of it was
the last main event of the last part of the
of the year of any consequence for a last world
title fight that was supposed to take place on a
remash that was of a great first fight. So I
sort of felt like it was the kind of like
the apropos ending to what I considered a pretty lackluster
year overall in boxing, even though there was definitely some
high points of the year. But anyway, from what I've heard,
and I've not talked to the promoters, but this is
what I've just sort of heard through the grapevine, is
that they're hoping to reschedule this fight, probably within the
next month or so, maybe in February, and hopefully they'll
get it up.
Speaker 2: There had been some belief that it might be sooner
than that, with Martinez over in Japan already, but obviously
if he's had the flu, hasn't been able to train,
and probably lost some weight, lost significant weight. You would
think from doing that, there's no just as we are
doing this fluid here, there's no chance that you think
he stays there and they somehow figured out a couple
of weeks from now, this is probably at least a
month from what you're here.
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like that. And the reason I
say that in particular, it'd be one thing if they
were just postponing the entire event by a couple of weeks,
but they actually went through at the rest of the cart,
so there's no refunds I guess for the ticket buyers,
which means they're going to have to sell an arena again.
I'm gonna have to put together an undercard again. Because
the guys that were on the undercard in the first
place had their fights on New Year's East. So the
answer to that, I mean, I don't know the nuances
of how it necessarily works in Japan, but I would
be very surprised if they could just do that on
such you know, within a couple of weeks, when it's
not just the main event. You've got to put together
another handfors for the show, get an arena, sell tickets,
presumably promote the fight a little bit, you know, even
though people got the promotion from the fight that was postponed.
So you know, they'll they'll figure it out. I mean,
these are professional people that put these events on.
Speaker 2: It just occurred to me while we play amateur matchmakers.
Obviously in a ways Title Defense, which was supposed to
be Christmas Eve? What Sam Goodman is now? What January
twenty fourth, not this weekend? Three weeks away? Would there
be any chance they stick this on that card or
do you think they're going to stick to Hey, it's
a rematch. Ioka is very popular. This needs to be
a main event on its own thing.
Speaker 1: Again, I don't know the nuances of Japan's political stuff
that goes on there. But I would say virtually zero
chance of that happening. And I say that just based
on the knowledge that a Ioka and Martinez is a
significant title fight in Japan. It was a main event
the first time the rematch was anticipated, was going to
be a main event again and as a different promoter
and it's a different broadcaster.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 1: The chances are almost zero.
Speaker 2: This is why we have the Mighty One here to
set all of that straight. So we begin with that.
Speaking of Japan, there was supposed to be a Ryan
Garcia whatever this was. He's got an injury, and you
have an update including it looks like Garcia is going
to be out for a little bit. Give us the
latest on that as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, So he was having this one hundred and fifty
three pound catch boxing exhibition with the kickboxing star Rukiya
and Po who. If you're an American boxing fan, when
you don't follow him as a kickboxer in Japan, you
know that he had an exhibition in twenty twenty four
against Manny Pakyao, who he beat like you know, a
red headed stepchild, as they say. And so they ended
up doing the match between him and Ryan Garcia, Ryan
Garcia playing it like, you know, he wants to avenge
Manny Pacyao. You know, take that for what it's worth.
But anyway, they had scheduled this as part of a
rising card that they do on New Year's Eve in Japan,
which is oftentimes sort of a mixture of whatever combat
sport events they do. Sometimes there is a boxing match,
it's MMA, maybe it's a kickboxing event. Anyway, they had
an event schedule for December thirty first, and it was
supposed to have that as the main event in a
boxing exhibition that it was actually gonna be here in
the United States on a fan MEO pay per view base,
and they had put on some other boxing exhibitions, including
Ryan's younger brother anyway, as well as the fights that
were real in terms of the other combat sports they
were putting out. Anyway, the card itself went forward, but
Ryan Garcia had to withdraw because in December he suffered
an injury to his right wrist. And during the broadcast
that they had of the card that went on in
its place, I guess Ryan was there and Ryan announced
during the interview when he talked to the folks that
were doing the broadcast that not only was he going
to be out because of the injury, you know, still
wasn't sure when they could reschedule that exhibition, but that
he was going to have surgery on that right risk
at some point. Now, remember, in terms of his professional
boxing career, he's already out at the minimum until April
because of the suspension from the New York State Athletic
Commission because of his positive drug test. So now he's
going to be out due to the surgery. And you know,
I don't know exactly when the surgery is going to
take place, but you got to figure if you're having
a surgery on your wrist, that's got to be at
least a couple of months of rehabilitation and letting things.
Speaker 2: You know a lot of orthopedists either, but we just
play them on the podcast, and I'm with you, I'm
not that's not something where he's going to be ready.
I'm just saying this, like March first, if he's having
this surgery, it's going to set him back.
Speaker 1: Listen, the bottom line is this, between the suspension that
doesn't end until April and the impending surgical procedure on
the right wrist, you've got to figure even if he
is good to go after the surgery and the risk
gets better on the normal timeframe. But whatever the doctor says,
and he is going to get the license back because
he does all the things that the commission asks him
to do. Then it comes to the point where are
they going to try to reschedule the exhibition? Is he
going to come back to the boxing ring in terms
of a real fight against an actual opponent. You know,
what does he want to do? I think it's going
to take a little bit of time. I mean, everything
that goes on with Ryan Garcia when you're scheduling one
of his events, you know, it's a drama show. It's
always a saga and a soap opera. Nothing is ever easy.
Ryan is an extraordinarily high maintenance athlete, and his whole
team can be so what high maintenance. There's always a
drama And so honestly, if you said to me, you
know TJ, you always asked me like on the rayfield meter, well,
the rayfield meter on this one, I would say, I
don't think we see Ryan. I don't think we see
him back in the ring probably till June, somewhere like
in that area.
Speaker 2: And at that point, why would he go fight this
unless it's ridiculous money versus having a legit fight, which
is a pathway to make more money, I would think.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind also that when this fight was supposed
to go forward on December thirty first, and I don't
think this had been quite clarified yet even and then
he ultimately pulled out because of the injury, so they
didn't have to continue to do the fight. But there
was an issue between him and Golden Boy because Golden
Boys is an exclusive promoter worldwide in any combat sport.
And even though this was not a Golden Boy event,
it was a fan Meo and Rizon event, they had,
I guess agreed to allow him to participate under certain terms,
but those terms had not been fully set in stone
and memorialized in a contract. So we're saying, hey, we're
not This fight's not happening yet because we haven't signed off.
And until Golden Boy signs off, there was never gonna
be an event unless it was gonna get into a
a protracted legal situation. So there's that element of it
about whether they were going to allow the fight to happen,
if they're gonna if he's gonna still go forward with
an exhibition. Obviously, Golden Boy is still gonna have to
sign off on it. If he doesn't go forward with
an exhibition and he comes back to boxing, he's gonna
have to sit with Golden Boy and work things out
for whatever the next fight's gonna be. Anyway, it'll be
a drama. I'm sure there'll be ups and downs and
twists and turns before we see Ryan Garcia back in
the ring. I'll say this, I mean, whatever the issue
has Alreadys had with all the craziness, you know, hopefully
he gets to risk taken care of it. It's not
an issue for him. I don't want to see the
guy injured.
Speaker 2: All right? Can I just one more and then we're
gonna get to what we're doing for the rest of
the pod, which is going over some of the year
end awards. Is the Devin Haney lawsuit still a thing
and still progressing as far as we know, because he
not only got the result overturned and Garcia suspended, but
he is suing. He's suing everybody but Santa Claus As
I like to say in the holiday season.
Speaker 1: It is still a thing in the lawsuit is still
in effect, and if I'm not mistaken, Ryan Garcia countersuit him.
I'm not sure exactly what the terms of that countersuiter,
but it like like these cases often happen, is they're
they're announced and they're dealt with, uh with fans there,
and then you get mired in the legal process and
these things take time to play out. I mean, it's
the kind of thing that could take It's not weeks
or months, frankly, it could be years even unless they
come to some kind of settlement. As far as I know,
there hasn't been any like actual hearings yet or anything.
This is just one of those things that's clogged up
in the legal system worse than you know you're plumbing
after Thanksgiving dinner.
Speaker 2: Thank you, and the lawyers are gonna get paid. There
will be lawyers, shall we move on?
Speaker 1: The lawyers are the ones that make up the best
of course.
Speaker 2: There will be lawyers, all right. So again with the
full understanding there is not a significant fight card worldwide
this weekend. We will I'll be talking here's a tease
on Sunday about the ji Opataiah cruiserweight title defense in Australia.
But that's not until next Wednesday, so babe, we gotta
have something for the Sunday show.
Speaker 1: So we were talking about this anyway, this is good stuff.
Speaker 2: This is good stuff coming here. But if you're wondering
about when are we talking about the Opatia title defense,
that's going to come on the weekend in what would
be the air Quotes Recap podcast, so stand by for that.
So this gives us the perfect opportunity to talk about
what you've been running about on the substack on the
Fight Freaks Unit substack, which is your fighter of the year,
your fight of the year, you're knock out of the year.
Let's get into some of this. Let's go over fighters
of the Year in the men's and women's category. Elaborate
here for the pod audience what you went with and why.
Speaker 1: Well, I feel like this year and it's like this
most year is actually in my experience, this is now
the I actually to me. Ask me about this early
today and I'll kind of figure it out. But the
awards I'm putting out this week between my own thing
I've done all the years I did it for ESPN
and the years I did it for USA. Today this
would be the twenty fifth set of my annual awards.
The first ones I did came in December of two thousand,
which was the end of the first year that I
had as the boxing reporter for USA Today, and in
most of those years, and I have kept my list
so whenever I post the article on my sub sect
now and even when I was at ESPN or USA Today,
you can see the complete list of my twenty five
years worth of picks. And if you go through and
you go those year by year, most years, not every year,
but most of the year. Most of the years, there's
been good candidates, but there's typically been one that stood
out that was the obvious sort of no brainer, where
it was not a complicated pick to make, and there
was not you know, there was a lot of good
candidates maybe, but there was one person that you know,
stood tall, let's say, And this was one of those years.
This was not a hard year, and now there were
some good candidates, had some big time accomplishments. Arthur better
Biev became the undisputed champion and also pummeled Callum Smith
in a very good victory. You had Daniel Dubois, the
heavyweight who obviously had a big year culminated with his
uh Well before the culmination, he had scored the upset
knockout against Philip Hervitch to become the IBFS interim heavyweight
title holder. Then he destroyed Anthony Joshua to defend that
title which he had been elevated to. I also thought
as a good candidate was Gilberto Zerdo Ramirez, who in
his first full year as a cruiserweight scored, you know,
two significant wins. He won the w b A title
and then he looked and that was like basically a
shutout against Gula Marian and then he went to Saudi
Arabia on their Latino night that took place a couple
of months ago, and he looked spectacular and just beat
down Chris Bild and spent to unify the titles. Bam
Rodriguez was a guy that had a big year. He
went down, returned to the junior bandonweight division and scored
a spectacular victory and a terrific fight against the future
Hall of Famer at Wan Francisco Estrada, and then as
his encore, fought on the boots and his cart and
scored a resounding knockout against Pedro Guavar, who was the
interim title holder. I loved Oscar Colazo, the Puerto Rican
straweight who fought three times in the year defended the title,
but also on that same Latino night in a very
impressive victory against ne Amtrong who at the time TJ
and we talked about this in the lead up. Yeap
not only an undefeated fighter, but the fighter who was
the longest reigning male champion in boxing and held his
title since twenty sixteen. And Kalaso went in there and
just beat him down after a couple of rounds again things,
you know, getting used to things, and also unified the
titles in the straweight division. So those are all good candidates.
I even give it up to Jonto Nakatani, who also
fought three times. He went up to the bandamweight division,
scored a big knockout and defended the title two times,
and you know, probably the most exciting Japanese fighter out
there out there except for in a way, and he
also had himself one heck of a year. But you
notice the guy I didn't mention is the guy that
I gave it to, because I don't think it was
even close in terms of who should actually get it
and that's the heavyweight champ of the world. That's Alexander Usik,
who was the underdog when he fought Tyson Fury in
May for them to unify the four titles. He won
that fight. He almost stopped Tyson Fury in the ninth round,
and he became the first undisputed heavyweight champion in twenty
five years, the first ever undisputed heavyweight champion in terms
of having an era with four belts. And it was
a tremendous fight. And then he was forced basically to
do the fight again on the contract. I mean when
I say forced, that was the contractual thing. But it
was such a good fight. I think if they had
done it again just on their own, it wouldn't have
been met with resistance from the public anyway. In the
rematch that took place just two weeks ago, he scored
another victory against Tyson Fury. So you go in there,
you become the undisputed heavyweight champ, and then you beat
the guy again. Two good close fights. I think there's
your Fighter of the Year. So I gave it to
Alexander Ussik.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you did not in all of that mention,
the name Canelo Alvarez, which he did have two wins
over Haimi Mungia and over Edgar Berlanga and also Naoya
in a way did have two wins. Didn't get the
third fight with Goodman, but he actually got knocked down
in the first of those two title defenses by Louise Nery,
got up and got the win. I mean, I don't
disagree with you. I take Usik for the historical significance
and the fact that he beat Fury twice in the
same year. I agree with you he's the fight of
the year. Now, as I love to do. Let me
pose the hypothetical. Had Fury one and we have a
split of their two fights, would you have maybe slid
in a way in what would you have done hypothetically
if both guys had won and lost against each other,
Fury and Usik. I'm just curious.
Speaker 1: When I do my list, I can put as many
people that I want. I mean, I try not to
go over to understand. So I think I had six candidates,
you know, a winner plus five additional fighters, and so
you know, if they had split the fights, neither one
of them would have made it. Frankly, Fiery or Usik,
because it's it is rare to have a guy on
that list that has a loss. It's not it's not.
I think the people went back and read every article
I ever wrote about fight a Fighter of the Year.
There has been at least a time or two where
a guy might have made the list who had a loss,
depending on the on the victories that they had, you know,
besides that or subsequent to the loss. Uh. So I don't.
I probably wouldn't have put Usiker fear on there, and
but I don't think I would have slid in a
way or or Canelo on there. And look, they're both
great fighters, They've both been Fighter of the Year in
the past, they're both going to the Hall of Fame,
and they both scored Uh you know, both were active
in terms of your average boxing superstar by fighting two
times in the year, but neither one of them fought
a truly significant opponent. They they basically kept the chains moving.
They won fights against you know, solid contender types, but
nothing that was going to put them in a pantheon
where they're gonna get some hardware out of it unless
it was just an absolute terrible year. So again, I don't.
I don't have a problem with Canelo defeating h Berlanga
and Mongia, both you know, solid contenders, both were undefeated,
and he took care of them in you know, a
pretty good spash. Neither didn't get a knockout against either guy,
but still won by a landslide. And in terms of
in a way, look, Neary was a good opponent because
of the the the notoriety he had in Japan, but
I didn't consider him to be that much of a threat.
And Dohaney I didn't consider a threat at all, and he,
you know, he got knocked down against Deary. So again,
in a way, got two and zero on the air
and scored a pair of victories and actually got what
two knockouts in those fights. But to me, that was
not a Fighter of the Year camp a fight fighter
of the year campaign. So again they're both on my
pound for pound list, very very high, but in terms
of the Fighter of the year recognition, no shot to
me anyway, No matter what happened with some of the
other guys in my list, up, they're making my list.
Speaker 2: And as I said to you, I agree with you
on Usik for winning those two historically significant fights, the
most historical significant fight in twenty five years, as you mentioned,
was the first one. That's probably good enough. Even if
he only fought one time and not had the rematch,
that's probably enough.
Speaker 1: I think you're about that. And by the way, just
one thing about Usik also, and this is at least
in my time of doing Fighters of the Year in
twenty five versions of them, he's the first guy to
win that. There's been multiple fighters that have won the
award twice, but no one's ever been that in terms
of because they're undisputed in two different divisions. And when
I say that, I mean at cruiserweight and heavyweight, I
mean Crawford has done it, you know that type of thing.
But you know, Usik was the consensus Fighter of the
Year in twenty eighteen when he won the Cruiserweight tournament.
And while I haven't seen every single person's list or
outlets list that they've put out at the end of
twenty twenty four, the ones I have seen, I haven't
seen anybody not pick Alexander Usik. I'll be interested to see,
Like the Ring Magazine is going to do their awards
ceremony coming up in a week or so. Turkey al Sheik,
who bought the magazine doing some kind of like an
awards show. I guess, and I believe I saw. I
forget the date, but it's in January anyway. I'm pretty
sure Usk's going to be their fighter there also. But
you know, I don't I don't know how you can.
Who else do you pick if you don't make the
argument if you can and I'm not saying that you
are arguing right, not me, but if you were going
to play the Devil's advocate, who would you pick? If
it wasn't Alexander Russik.
Speaker 2: Probably the only other one would be in a way
that would probably be the only other one. And we
discussed that and discussed why. So we covered that, and
I'm with you. I think it's too sick as well.
I show Female Fighter of the Year while we progress
down the list here a little bit. I think I
think I have a good idea. I've read that. I've
read it also on the sub stack as well, So
go ahead and give me Female Fighter of the Year.
Speaker 1: Female Fighter of the Year was again this was you know,
I haven't done that many female fighters in the year. This
is only maybe like the third or fourth year I've
done it. Because there hasn't really been a need before,
but now he got so much good competition among the
women and emerging fighters. Who are you know, making season
and then partaking in important and significant fights. This was, again,
unlike a similar to what I mentioned about the men,
not all that hard to me. I mean, you could
you could pick a Katie Taylor who won the rematch
against Amanda Serrano, and I certainly thought that was a
fantastic fight, but a lot of people thought she lost
the fight and then deserved the win. And there was
other women that did a lot of good work. Natasha
Jonas had some big wins, Mikaela Mayer, she lost to Jonas,
but came back and got a big win against Sandy
Ryan at the end of the year. But to me,
this was a really easy one. Frankly, this was Gabriella
Fondora's year. Not only was she winning all of her fights,
she fought three times she won by knockout in some
of those fights. She looks very, very good, and she
did something no one has ever done before. She became
a four belt undisputed women's champion, which has happened in
terms of Katie Taylor, but she was the one who
was the youngest to do it. She became the undisputed
flyweight champion. She defended her title early in the year,
and then and she and then later in the year
when she became undisputed, she fought in a fight where
her oponent, Atlantis, was the she had she had the
other three belts, and she scored two knockdowns against her
and forced her corror to throw in the towel in
the tenth round. You know, a lot of times we
talk about in women's box we don't see a lot knockcouts, right,
Gabrielle Fandora has been scoring some knockouts, so she's looked
good doing that. She made history. So I'll give you
a little bit of the of the history that she
made beside just doing a big accomplishment to be coming
in undisputed champion, first undisputed women's flyweight champion period, the
youngest undisputed champion in any weight class in the four
belt era, men or women, because she's ever have the
four belt era, which is not that long. But the
point is she's only she's only twenty two years old,
so that makes sure the youngest and uh, it takes
two on this particular aspect. But when she became the
undisputed flyweight women's champ, she joined her brother Sebastian Ferndora,
who's the unified title holder in the junior middleweight division,
to be the first brother and sister to hold world
titles simultaneously. Now we've seen brothers do that, for example,
the Charlote brothers hill titles simultaneously. Matter of fact, at
first they held them simultaneously in the same weight class
because they each had a piece of the Germidaway title.
But you have now a brother and a sister who
are who have done and actually on top of that,
they're both unified because some nationals got two belts and
she's got all four belts. So to me, that was
not a very difficult pick. The ones that I looked
at as the serious challengers, if you will, the runners
up as I call them, Natasha Jonas, who I mentioned
Sanisi Estrada, she just fought the one time, but it
was a huge victory to defeat yo Costa Vaye to
become the undisputed women's shralweight champion. Then she retired undefeated,
and you also had Sky Nicholson, the Australian undefeated a
former olympian who won the vacant WBC title and then
made two defenses and then all three of her fight
she won by you know, basically shut out or close
to shutout decisions. But Fondora she it was a big
year for.
Speaker 2: All right. So that's interesting more so than Katie Taylor
in the huge fight with Amanda Serrano that took place
on the Mike Tyson Jake Paul undercard in the AT
and T Stadium. Although I have a feeling that we're
going to talk about that right now, why don't we
stay with the ladies. Is that the fight of the
year for Dan Rayfield twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Four, that my match, I think that'll be the fight
of the decade, I mean, or the fight of the century.
That was I know that their first fight when Katie
and the Manda fought each other in Madison Square Garden
in April of twenty twenty two. At the time, that
was Amanda moving up from the featherweight division to challenge Katie,
who at that time was the undisputed lightweight channel And
we don't have to rehash what happened there, but they
put on a sensational all action just incredible battle for
the ages, and it was a popular fight. It did
a big business. They sold out the Garden, had a
big viewership around the world, and it was just a
spectacular event. It lifted women's boxing as a whole. It
was lifted all of boxing, frankly, as all women's It
was such a well received, such a fantastic fight, two
very respectful women, two women that just go in there
and fight their hearts out. There was nothing not to
like about that. And you had not only a great fight,
but you had the great Irish fans of New York
supporting Katie. You had the great Puerto Rican fans of
New York supporting Amanda. You had, you know, the promotion.
You got Jake Paul on one side with a man.
You got Eddie Hurd on the other side with Katie.
You know, those guys can talk like anything. So it
just made for a great event. Now they try to
do the rematch, and you know, it didn't happen right
away for different reasons. Amanda, they had made the fight,
and Amanda, if you recall, she got injured and so
in order to save her date, Katie Taylor ended up
moving up in Wait and challenging Shantel Cameron for the
undisputed title in the Junior about the Right division, and
she lost, and so they went through their situation where
they had two fights and she regained the title in
what I picked as the twenty twenty three fight of
the year, when they had Chantell Katie rematching Katie won
by the swimits of margins. It was there. Both were
very close, outstanding fights. Finally, they make the rematch with Serrano,
and once again it gets postponed, not because of anything
that happened with them, but because it was supposed to
be on the Jake Paul Mike Tyson onder card, and
when Mike Tyson had his medical issues and the fight
was postponed from July, the whole card was postponed. So
rather than have the rematch in July, Katie and demanded
we had to wait even a little longer. They didn't
get in the ring again until November. And when they
got in the ring, I gotta be honest, I think
they put on a better fight than the first one.
As crazy as that may sound to some people, this
was just a first of all, a riveting fight to watch.
And the thing about it that in my mind sort
of almost made it better than the first fight. They're
both great fights. Is you already are watching or at
least I was. I can't speak to everybody, because there
was million, tens of millions of people that were watching
this fight on Netflix. It generated an audience in the
United States alone of an average over the course of
the fight forty seven million people. That makes it the
most viewed women's boxing match of all time. It makes
it the most viewed women's sports event in United States history.
So and those people were treated to an unbelievable fight. Now,
for a section of those people, like myself, like you
and many other die hard boxing fans, we watched that
fight already with the knowledge of what had occurred in
the first fight, which.
Speaker 2: Do you remember, If I can interject, I told the
guys that I was around watching the fight with. I said,
you're gonna stop what you're doing, stop all the chit chat.
You're gonna want to be locked in here. And they're like, oh,
the women's fight. A couple of them knew a little
bit about Amanda Serrano, et cetera, and by the third
round they were on their feet yelling and hollering. Where
we were watching the fight, and frankly, it was a
better fight, more action packed fight than the main event
Paul and Mike Tyson. I'm not revealing an Einstein theory
theorem there on. I'm with you. It had drama too
with Serrano with the ripped open Is it going to
stop the fight or not? She's bleeding profusely, She's fighting
on tremendous fight.
Speaker 1: But I was gonna say, though about when you watch it,
when you already know about the first fight. Yeah, you
have sort of a context of what the second fight's
happening in and that makes it much better because you
know the history. Now keep in mind, also what made
the second fight in my mind even more interesting was
because Amanda had moved up from featherweight to lightweight, two
weight classes to fight her in the first fight. Now
she took a tune up fight at one hundred and
forty ish, not even all the way up at one
hundred and forty, but she's basically moving up now three
weight classes to fight her in the third fight. I mean,
I mean in the rematch rather and again close, super
close fight, much more action, much more blood. The numbers. Again,
we talk about copy box sometimes and I know that
does not necessarily hold the end all be all of
what happens in the fight. But I can tell you
one thing you know as well as I do, that
women's boxing matches they fight two minute rounds, not three
minute rounds. And that makes even more impressive when you
look at what they did in terms of the statistical
breakdown of the fight. They were throwing crazy numbers of punches.
I'll give you one example, the seventh round, which was
just mind boggling by all, I mean, even compared to
the other great rounds in this fight. These two women
landed and it's two minutes, it ain't three minutes. That's
a huge difference. That's, you know, not to be a mathematician.
That's a third less of a round.
Speaker 2: Public school math.
Speaker 1: I love it, Yes, I know, I did, okay in
my math. They landed eighty nine of one hundred and
seventy six punches in two minutes, according.
Speaker 2: To between the two of them.
Speaker 1: Yes, the creach is insane and that was like that
round it Now, that was the high water mark of
the fight. But they had a bunch of rounds where
they were landing like crazy on that and as you mentioned,
h Serrano was cut by the head butt. She's cut
again by another head butt, and I was kind of
grossed out. I mean, it was one of the worst
custom I was.
Speaker 2: Going and she was right eyes.
Speaker 1: Talking about stopping it in the corner. At one point
She's like, we're not doing that. The doctor, you know,
examine it. They let it go anyway. It just the drama,
the heart, the will, the knowledge of what we had
seen two and a half years earlier in their first fight,
the audience, the spectacle of Cowboy Stadium. I mean, all
due respect to Madison Square Garden in the you know,
twenty thousand or so they had there, I'm not sure
you can compare that to at and T Stadium with
almost seventy five thousand people there and tens of millions
of people watching all over the globe. So to me,
that was the no brainer fight of the year for
the women, and there was really Honestly, there were some
other good fights, and I'll give you a couple of them,
but nothing that came close to that. The other ones
I identified that I thought were worthy of, like Honora mentioned,
and that was Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan, who had
that excellent welterweight fight with the craziness of Sandy Ryan
being accosted outside her hotel and having paint thrown at her.
Not that that was the fight, but I'm just setting
the age of what was going on. And also another
ext and fight this is Winis Strada. As I mentioned earlier,
she defeated you Costavayi by a unanimous decision to become
the undisputed Shrolwey champion. That was a real feud kind
of fight, and it was a very very good battle
between two women that you could see both of them
being on the pound for pound top ten lists, and
the Strada got the job done and then as I mentioned,
retired undefeated. But there was nothing that I saw that
came even close to what Katy Taylor and Amanda Toronto did.
Speaker 2: Just a enough fight and you've already broached it that
the Usik Fury fight, for the significance the Usik win
the four belts, that that is the fight, and I
agree with you, that's got to be the fight of
the year, just the historical significance uh and Usik's lineage,
as well as the cruiserweight undisputed champion, Fury as the
guy really building up to that having beaten Deontay Wilder,
and yeah, so that's the fight of the year, we
would agree. So I'm just curious, what did you seriously
consider along with that? What other one or two fights
did you seriously can con fighting?
Speaker 1: You know, they're they're like I said to you before
about the fighter of the year, were oftentimes it's a
it's a slam dunk, that's a no brainer, which was
that I thought the case this year and pick an
Usik in terms of the fight of the year. A
lot of times it is also a no brainer. Like
it didn't take a lot in my mind back in
the day to pick like Diego Corrales against the Jose
Luis Castillo fight one, or you know, Mickey Ward, Arturo
Gotti three or fights like that, I mean, or with
a Vasquez Marquz fights. You can just go down the
year by your list. Uh, this year, I don't know
if it was a slam dunk that it was going
to be fury Usk, But in the end, my analysis was, yeah,
that's absolutely the fight of the year. So yeah, I
did pick that. So I never really considered another one
to be number one. When I actually sat down and
made my list and started to actually think about it.
But there were a number of other good, excellent fights,
and so I did my top ten, but I definitely
picked usk In Fury as number one. Now some of
the now, just to clarify, I'll give them metric because
some people have a different, uh sort of thought process
about what constitutes a fight of the year. For me,
it's it's like it's like a good recipe, like you
take a little bit of this, a little bit of that,
but the most important thing is the action. Is it
a great fight to watch? Is it an entertaining fight?
That's that's number one? And Fury definitely and Usik in
the first fight it definitely was that. But then also
to a lesser extent, but still part of the equation.
It doesn't have to be if the fight's so overwhelmingly
ridiculously violent, and also you're comparing it to the other
fights that took place in that calendar year, but significance
as part of it, maybe the backdrop of the atmosphere
of the promotion, all the things that go into it.
The character is involved in it. So to me, it
wasn't difficult to pick Fury Usic, especially when you compared
it to the other competition that it did have this year.
So my number two pick and I ranked these you
can read my article I ranked them in order.
Speaker 2: Is.
Speaker 1: I picked the Virgil Ortis Sarah Boatschuk fight that took
place on August tenth at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas,
that I picked as number two because that was it
fit the bill in terms of just the unmitigated violence
and action and back fourth between those two guys Number one,
number two. It was for some stakes, maybe not the
undisputed heavyweight championship, but there was the position as a
top contender in the germid Away division. The WBC's interim
Jermid Away title was at stake. I'm not saying that's,
you know, a big boy debt, but it's something that
these two men wanted to have and it was certainly
going to set the winner up for something pretty pretty
darn big. And they put on just a tremendous fight.
So that was a terrific fight. It was close or
he's got off the deck from two knockdowns. So another
part of any kind of fight is drama. Drama, So
when I picked Usik Fury, there's the drama of the
ninth round where Usak almost comes within a whisker of
knocking Fury out, but the bell rang. If there's a
few more seconds, he might have got him out of there.
Mark Nelson, who was the referee in that fight, gave
him every benefit to continue to go. And anyway, in
Ortiz and Bochu, there was those two knockdowns, a flash
knockdown in round one that was actually originally ruled a
slip a change to a knockdown when they examined the replay.
They changed a couple of rounds later. And there was
another round where he got dropped clean uh put it.
He didn't get dropped like flat on his back, but
he got hit. And I think it was the eighth round.
He put his gloves on the canvas to keep him
from falling on his face. So that I picked his
number two. And I'll just run through a couple of
other ones. And these were all had excellent action, had
stakes and had you know, enthrawling, sort of like you
would want to watch them again on YouTube or you know,
on your device or whatever. A fight that I'm in
love with and I've watched it several times, A tremendous
fight that was the vacant WBA featherweight title fight. It
took place on March third at the Turning Stone Casino
in Verona, York. It was an a top rank event
on I believe it was only on ESPN Plus as
opposed to also on the network. And that was Raymond
Ford in a last second knockout of odebac Comotov. Yeah,
and I'll tell you it was sad about that. Now.
First of all, it was a terrific fight all the
way through. That's the first thing. And this is a
great one of the great stats you can think of
in the entire history. Stopped him with seven seconds left
in the fight. Ode back Kolmotov had a knee injury
and he was fading and four corners tell him, you
have to get the you know, you got to get
this guy. Uh, you know, we got to win the
last round, get a knockout, and you know, do it
for you the way I remember. And I went back
and I got the quote for the story that his
trainer's comb do it for your family, do it for everybody.
You know, you got to finish strong. I mean that,
and then he's yelling at that him basically got the
job done with seven seconds left and here's not only
does he win the world title, he does it in
the fashion that is extremely rare in the history of boxing. TJ.
Think about all the world championship fights in the history
of boxing.
Speaker 2: It's thousands, thousands, thousands and thousands.
Speaker 1: In the entire history of world championship fights. And then
I will give credit to my dear friend Steve Farhood
uh the great UH former ring magazine editor and everybody's
a favorite showbox UH commentator and an unofficial score back
in the day on showtime. Anyway, this is his stat uh.
He became the fifteenth fighter in the history of world
title bouts to trail going into the last round and
score a knockout to win, highly highly unusual in boxing. Yeah,
we did that.
Speaker 2: We did talk about that at the time, and it's
a it's it's an interesting list.
Speaker 1: I all like Shaggy Foster against uh Rockey Hernandez was one.
Speaker 2: That was late last year, right, but one that always
the one that has always come to mind for me
is Mike Weaver and Big John Tate of Knoxville, Tennessee.
Were Weaver, if I'm not mistaken, lost virtually every round
of the previous fourteen. He may have hurt Tate in
the fourteenth round to win in and then he timber
faced first knocked him out in the fifteenth and final
round while hopelessly behind on the scorecards. But yeah, it's
a rare thing.
Speaker 1: And that was a culmination of what already was a
turrific fight like Tate and Weaver as just one existed, right,
not a great fight, no, no, a one sided beating
basically until the last moment. Solomotov and Ford was a
terrific fight, but Ford was clearly losing the fight and
he scored the dramatic knockout. Uh to already a tremendous fight.
So that was another one. And then I'll just well
a couple others here. This was one of those early
morning risers for those of us in the United States
on ESPN plus January twenty third, so a full year later.
Basically it's still held up as my number four. And
that was a fight took place in Osaka, Japan. This
was Canciro Taraji defending his WBC WBA Junior Flyway titles
against Carlos Canazalez, who just got robbed in Thailand last
week in the in the chance to win the vacant
Junior Flyway title, and that had been vacated once Taraji
moved up in Wait. But anyway, this was a really outstanding,
all action fight. Taraji eked out a majority decision, legit.
So but they just there's certain fights, especially in these
little weight classes, where you watch them. I swear to God,
you'd like you're watching a video game. Or it's like
if you're watching it like on a on a DVR
or Kevin forbids a VCR for kids who don't know,
it'd be like you're watching it on fast forward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, they just put on a remarkable back and forth.
So now that's one hundred eight pounds. Now let's go
up about another one hundred and twenty pounds. We'll get
to the heavyweight to the big boys. And as we
talked that in the lead up, I had hope, I
had dreams that this would be just a all out,
just fucking slaber knocker of a heavyweight battle between two
guys who had great hearts and a lot of us
still driving them but even though they were no longer
where they once were, And that was the heavyweight fight
that kind of came out of nowhere. When they matched
up Derek Chesaora the old Warhorse against Joe Joyce July
twenty seventh in London. Chessaura hugely popular British fighter. Joyce
not as popular, but still, you know, closer to his
prime anyway than Chasaura. And what do they do, TJ.
They put on a fucking slabery knocker and they beat
the living dogshit out of each other. The great line
from Chessaura in the pre fight going into that was,
you know, talking about how great it's going to be
a great fight because neither one of them goes backwards,
and as she sort of said, so, what I'm thinking
is that by the time we finished, someone's gonna have
a less brain. So I was left in their brain.
And by the way, after they got finished braining each
other for ten rounds, that's exactly what it was like.
Jo Sora, you know, was wobbly for a round after
round in the late going, couldn't barely stand, but he
found a way to get through it and out of
nowhere he scores a knockdown against Joe Joyce with the
right hand in the ninth round and he ends up
winning the fight. It was a very fierce highly contested,
outstanding battle. Just uh you know you like heavyweights, you know,
go find that on YouTuber Dezonne whoever you want to
watch her actually might have been ESPN plus, but just
an awesome fight for heavyweight's just a lot of fun,
a lot of action.
Speaker 2: Right, So you went over fight of the Year and
you also morphed it into knockouts.
Speaker 1: Well, no, that wasn't about the knockout.
Speaker 2: That was about understand I understand, but that one ended
in a in a in a t.
Speaker 1: J ALRIGHTNA give me throw I'm not gonna go into details.
I'll throw you. A couple more top fights we mentioned
Fernando Martinez first fight against Ioka, right, another heavyweight fight
that ended in a dr Fabio Wardley Fraser Clark one.
Remember in the second fight, Warley knocked him out in
the first round. That was on a read season card.
Another fight that sort of I think gets kind of
lost in the in the shuffle. It was an undercard fight.
This was when Arthur better Be fought the fight I
mentioned earlier against Callum Smith. On that undercard, you had
Jason Maloney defending his bantamweight title against Soowel Sanchez in
just an all out freaking war of wars, a tremendous fight,
and Mario Barrios albo Ramos, they fought a tremendous battle
to a draw on the undercard of Tyson and j Paul.
This was the fight that was before Amanda Serrano and
Katie Taylor. So while the main event between Paul and
Tyson might not have been as satisfying as many would
have liked to see it, certainly those two undercard fights
were terrific. And I thought Daniel Dubois in his bloody
victory against Philip Perkovich, stopped him on cuts. That was
a tremendous battle for the eight rounds of that fight
lasted in their interiment.
Speaker 2: Like and Robbins, you're up to thirty one fights of.
Speaker 1: The year, I had ten fights. Ten fights.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, but the fight of the year, I
agree with you going back fundamentally has to be the
Usk win over Fury for all of the different grama.
All right, so for knockout of the year, you and
I are actually going to disagree here on the knockout
of the year. Let's wrap it here on the pod
with what your knockout in wine. Then I'll give you mine,
go ahead.
Speaker 1: I want to hear yours first. You always let me
go first.
Speaker 2: Listen to you turning over a new leaf in twenty
twenty five. You care about what I have to say first.
I love this. I'm gonna go Angelo Leo knocking out
Luis Alberto Lopez with boom goes the Dynamite. He returns
to Albuquerque, his hometown, even though he's been primarily living
and training in Las Vegas for several years, and delivered
a one hitter quitter bomb left hook to win a
world title. I'm gonna go with that one for the
knockout of the year. That that's the one that I
remember and in terms of significance the most, that's what
I would choose to do.
Speaker 1: Now, there's nothing there's I can't I can't argue with that.
I mean, again, this is all mostly opinion, obviously, I mean,
especially when there's nothing that stands out so dramatically above
all else. And I'll just use my Keralus Castillo example.
If you were picking a fighter a Fight of the
Year in two thousand and five, and you didn't pick
Corrals Casillo, then you should go jump in the traffics
in jail, go go go to jail. You know, just
don't even bother watching boxing anymore.
Speaker 2: And fine, and we should say that the criteria I
used significance was a world title fight and dramatic, out
of nowhere booming knockout.
Speaker 1: That's what like like esthetically pleasing.
Speaker 2: Yes, so that's what I started knockout.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, if you look at my
past knockouts of the Year list, you will see that, Yes,
while significance is certainly important, there are a number of
knockouts over the years that were not dramatically, uh, that
were not overwhelmingly significant in terms of like world titles,
but they were just so esthetically pleasing you couldn't take
your eyes off it. I'm going to give you a
few from years past to kind of jogumentry. People can
YouTube him up. The first round knockout on Showbox between
Alan Green and Jaydon Codrington, spectacular knockout heavyweight Calvin Brock
one hitter, quitter as you say, against Zuri Lawrence. I
was actually ringside for that fight that sounded like a
bomb went off. An ESPN fight between Darnell the dingling
Man Wilson and Emmanuel and Nwodo in the eleventh round
in two thousand and seven. I'm looking at my list,
so I'm not pulling this one out of my brain.
Just an unbelievable knockout. How about Edison Miranda against David
Banks when he knocked Banks out and he was out cold,
like doing a teeter totter between the ropes. I mean,
my point here is this, This is the one category
where I believe anyway that the significance is not necessarily
as important as the esthetics of the knockout, the crowd
pleasing nature of the knockout. So for me, this is
one of those years. I totally get what you're saying
about Leo knocking out Lopez, partly because of the significance,
but I went with the one that to me anyway,
was number one completely out of nowhere and number two
as violent, as resounding, as nasty, and as just punishing
and esthetically pleasing as any knockout. You'll see that I
actually felt really bad for the man that was on
the other end of this, and that was the fight
that was on the undercard of when Jake Paul thought
Mike Perry, and that was the lightweight undefeated Canadian Lucas
body in the massive four punch combination to put Ashton
Sill of the MVP promoted Prospect out so cold. It
was just he wondered for the man's health.
Speaker 2: I have said this when we've brought this up in advance.
We talked about on the US Show. I was in
the arena, yeah, Tampa, and it was crazy out of nowhere.
Having been there, I begin the significance of that fight.
It is a devastating knockout, but it was not for
a world title. That's the litmus test that I would
come here.
Speaker 1: It too.
Speaker 2: There the brush, the shock, and then the roar from
some of the crowd when sylv went face first. I
still hear that in my BA not first.
Speaker 1: Not moving number one right, number two. Also, we have
to put in perspective. It wasn't just he got knocked
out fast first in the fights over he got knocked
out in the fights over face first. He had won
every single second of the fight before the fight ended,
and that was the sixth round I believe it was.
And then he put him out and.
Speaker 2: Look, Jake Paul, Amanda Amanda Serrano was coming out next,
and Jake Paul talked about this, and so did Amanda Serrano.
After the fight, they're in the back watching and they're horrified.
He's their guy in the promotion and he is laid
out and there was serious concern for him and they
took him to the hospital obviously after that, I'm with you.
I'm with you that that deserves to be right there
at the top.
Speaker 1: This goes to another level because I don't know about you,
but I have heard, certainly the ring announcer make announcements
of results of the fights. However, many fights I've watched
thousands and thousands and thousands of times, I've never quite
heard this. When Ashton Silvas is knocked out cold and
they're getting it out of the ring and you don't know,
you know, if he's injured, The're gonna obviously take him
to the hospital for evaluation to make sure he's okay.
They're ring. And I have this as the exact quote
because I put it in my article. He told the crowd,
we asked you please to extend your thoughts and prayers
to H two O Silver and may God restore him
h O being his nickname. Yes, I've never heard that's
that that almost give you like a lump in your
throat that's how bad he might.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was interesting when he did that in
the arena as well. That's Joe Martinez, by the way,
or to him the tip of the hat. He's primarily
known for doing the Golden Boys shows, but he was
there for the m v P pay per view that night.
But yeah, it was that devastating of a knockout.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and Solava hasn't foughts. Incented and obviously Body
came back and he won. Also on the undercard when
Jake Paul and Mike Tyson fought. I got a few
others to give you, but when you mentioned Leo and
Leo and Uh and Lopez, for me, I had that
number five on my list just for perspective's sake. My
next two were the concept that I talked about often
in boxing, where sometimes you're the windshield and sometimes you're
the bug. And this was uh Daniel Dubois making Anthony
Joshua the bug when he knocked him out devastatingly so
in the fifth round in the Big Wimbley Read season
card back in September, a devastating right hand on the button.
You know you got Anthony Josuer already been down a
few times in the fight. He starts to get to
Danga Dubas finally hurts him a little bit, is going
for another right hand and Daniel Diboi's right hand got
there first and put Yep put Joshua on his face
and the yes, he's trying to get up and his
leg is in the air and he falls down. I mean,
he was all discombined by spectacular knock and that was
for me.
Speaker 2: The Britch would argue with us and fight us. That's
the knockout of the year for them. I understand the
historical significance for them, especially with that being at Wimbley
and man he laid him out, there's no doubt.
Speaker 1: But when you're the windshield. It was when he knocked
out Francis Naganu spectactually in the second round back in March.
So he is a guy on my list who's the
winner of a spectacular knockout in my number three knockout
and the loser by devastating knockout in my number two knockout.
Because when he put frances Nagano away, I mean France
Nagano didn't know what the mention he was in. That
was such a spectacular.
Speaker 2: Hold him in half with the right hand, and the.
Speaker 1: Shots that we're talking about, these are big head shots,
big like you know, knock your head off, knock your
block offf type of knockouts. But I'm always gained for
a good body shot knockout too. We can't ever forget
about them. So you got to take a look at
what Jesse Daan Rodriguez did against the future Hall of
Famer Jan Francisco Estrada. Juana Strada had knocked him down
earlier in the fight, and Rodriguez had put him down
earlier in the fight, but he finished him and it
was a terrific fight on a big body shot left
just writhing on the mat, you know, pinpoint, the classic
left hook to the liver. And then I had Leo
and and Louis Alberto Lopez after that, and I'll just
fire a couple more. I know you loved in a
way as a candidate for Fighter of the Year, I
didn't have that opinion, but I did think strongly of
his knockout against Luise Neary, the way he put him
away in the sixth round with that nice series of
punches that left him basically like leaning against our ropes
with his arm over the over the bottom rope and
basically out on his well, I'm not on his feet,
he was on his rear end, and the ref stopping
the fight because he was going another dimension. Also, and
by the way, how can we forget about the unknown
French Pastry Brunos Serrace who goes in there and absolutely
annihilates Imean Mongie a down punch loss every round and
just knocks him out. And I also, this was a
fight I was ringside for a tremendous knockout, a blistering knockout.
Was Tank Davis's one ring appearance this year back in June,
putting away Frank Martin devastating fashion, another sensational knockout, and
because of the way that it happened, maybe aesthetically it
wasn't the greatest knockout, but the significance historically because of
what the stat I mentioned earlier, was when Ford stopped
Komatov to rally from that big deficit, not a big deficit,
but enough where he needed the knockout to win the
fight and to become a guy. Only the fifteenth time
in the history of boxing to get a knockout in
the last round of a title fight. To rally and
win the title. So I thought that was enough to
make my list. And then again I talk about a
body shot. We had the Strada getting knocked out by
Jesse Bam Rodriguez. But if you go back to July
in Tokyo, Junto Nakatani, who was one of my candidates
for Fighter of the Year, he put away Vincent Astralabbio
with just a gut shot and it was such a
brutal shot that a belly that astral Lobbyo actually got
up and realized that was a bad idea and dropped
back down again. And what's counted out? I mean it
was like he didn't realize how bad the pain was
until he got up, and then he like just winced
and dropped down again and all she wrote over and
out in like, you know, two and a half minut
of the first round. A lot of good knockouts this
year and there and by the way, we could probably
have made a list that goes fifteen or twenty, but
you got to draw the line somewhere.
Speaker 2: I agree. All right, listen, we did well here on
this pod. A tease again that we'll have some more
here in terms of Round of the Year. And much
more a trainer of the year, upset of the year,
those kind of things. I think we know what the
upset of the year is. You just made reference to
it right at the end of the year with Haimi
Mungia crashing down in Tijuana. We'll do that on the
show coming off the weekend. So again I say to
the audience that that's where we'll also preview the ji
Opataiah cruiserweight title defense that is coming Wednesday morning in
the United States Wednesday night in Australia. We'll do that
on Sunday. Other than that, we've done a bunch here
and they need to get on your substack and read
more about what you have been talking about here with
fighter fight and knockout of the year, what else? What
else here? And closed against we headed the first weekend
of twenty twenty five. Anything else.
Speaker 1: Now, it's gonna be another quiet weekend. I mean there's
not much going on. I mean nothing this weekend in
terms of fights. The next fight. Put it like this
on the calendar that I keep, the schedule that I
update every single day. There are some small club shows
scattered around the world, obviously, which I don't necessarily lost
every single boxing but in the calendar. But the next
fight of any merit anywhere in the world is not
until that card that we're going to discuss, which is
the Opataia title defense. And as a matter of fact,
you know, we talked about before how Opataia was originally
supposed to fight his mandatory from Germany, whose name escapes
me at the moment. But nonetheless they actually made a
better fight for him because when his opponent fell out
with an injury, they still wanted to keep that date,
so they ended up finding another opponent. They match him
up with, like a guy that he knows well from
sparring with each other. But this was David Niyika, who
was an Olympian in twenty twenty, who is one of
the better up and coming younger fighters, and he embraced us.
He doesn't have as much experience as Opataia, and we'll
get to that and we do the full of you.
But I feel like they made a better fight between
Opataia and Niki than if he had fought the mandatory.
So even though I love Opataiah in terms of entertainment value,
I'm much more interested in seeing him fight this opponent
than I was when he was fighting the mandatory.
Speaker 2: Love it all right, So we'll do all of that
on the weekend on Sunday night leading into Monday. In
the meantime, you need to wish my Buccaneers. Well, your
giants are like Shamou. They're in the tank trying to
get the number one.
Speaker 1: They're not in the tank trying to get number one.
They that up. You're getting eat well, I know they
won game well, they went from number one. Now they're
lucky if they draft fifth. They might even drop to
eight if they end up beating the Eagles. We're not
going to play another starters.
Speaker 2: This is angering you on that. Just root for my
Buccaneers to make the playoffs because the two words playoff
checks come into play, which we like in the Reeves
Household with the teenage twins. So that's coming on Sunday,
and then you and I will pick back up on
some of these different year end awards and preview the
Opataia If sound good?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: Again? The bet Us Boxing Show is also on Friday
at one Eastern time. The preview handicapping show. We will
be handicapping the Opataia fight on their platform on YouTube,
their social media etc. Friday, one Eastern time. Look forward
to that, and then we're off the weekend here with
a recap that doesn't really have a fight to recap, well,
recap some of those other categories of fights of the year.
For now, we're good for Dan Rayfield. I'm TJ. Reeves.
Thank you for being with us here on the podcast feed.
It's the big fight we can preview