Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big
Fight Weekend. Now here is your host, DJ Leaves. Well,
we do get ready for a very intriguing heavyweight showdown
at this for the IBF version of the heavyweight titleist.
Daniel Dubois is the IBF champ. We gotta keep reminding
ourselves of that. Anthony Joshua, the former two time unified champ,
battles him in an English main event. We're ready to
preview that. That entire card. Plus we got Friday Night
action involving contender himI Mongia in a super middleweight showdown
in Glendale, Arizona, the top rank ESPN card. We're ready
to talk about all of that in the preview mode.
I am the somewhat competent host TJ Reeves. Hello to
our insider fight Freakshew Night is his substack and newsletter,
a Big Fight Weekend insider as well. Hello Dan Raphael.
Good to be back with you off the Canello Weekend.
Speaker 2: You got back.
Speaker 1: We had you on the recap podcast. You got back safely.
You're getting ready to go again and we're right back
at it with a heavyweight showdown that Rich did in previewing.
We got some news, we got some nostalgia. We got
a bunch here. How are you feeling.
Speaker 2: I'm good. We got a good weekend. We got a
nice card on Friday night with the top rank Mongee card.
We'll discuss. We got a very good card with the Brits,
the red card at Wembley. They getting weight fights, So
what's there not to love?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got a lot to cover here on the
program news including wait a minute, the Giron and his
fight may not be in a country to be named,
It may actually be in the United States. Stay tuned
for that here a little bit. Make sure you're following,
make sure you're subscribing Apples, Preaker, Spotify. We come your
way twice, as we love to say, twice, the ray
Field twice, the Fund twice every weekend Preview mode Thursday
night into Friday, Recap Mode Sunday night into Monday. You
oftentimes get a lot of different interviews. Hopefully you were
on the podfeed our buddy David Payne over in England,
the boxing writer who has a great insight in nostalgia
on British heavy boxing. I put a podcast out dan
with him this week to give me some thoughts on
Joshua and Tyson Fury and what the state of the
heavyweight division is. So again you'll get interviews Dan's had
Canelo Alvarez on recently, et cetera, et cetera. If you're following,
if you're subscribing, rate us and review us as well,
those also help us out if you rate us and
review us. All right, let's get into it again. They
don't have to wait long as we released this Thursday
night into Friday. The ESPN Top Rank Show is actually
on Friday night in Glendale, Arizona. Haimi Mungia off the
loss to Canelo Alvarez, is back. I have to confess again,
I always do this. I rely on you. Eric Bazigian
is the opponent. I don't know a lot about him,
but clue me. Is he a big threat or not
to Mungia. We're about to find out here from Dan,
all right, what are your thoughts as he headlines this card, Mongia.
Speaker 2: I think this is a pretty reasonable fight. This is
a pretty solid fight when you think about the fact
that Monkey is coming off the loss to Canelo Alvarez,
or even though he lost a decision and he got
knocked down in the fourth round. He acquitted himself pretty well.
I don't think you can talk too negatively about what
Mungia did against Canelo. It was an entertaining fight, and
you know, he, I'm sure learned a lot in that experience.
I believe in terms of his popularity and his name recognition,
he's become bigger because that pay per view was successful
and it was a good fight. And again, even though
someone's gonna win, someone's gonna lose. But he certainly didn't
disgrace himself. He put up a heck of a fight,
and I think he's gonna get better. He's only twenty
seven years old, even though he's got a lot of
fights under his belt, but they're mostly and Hayes had
some very hard fights, but not too many, is the
way I look at it. So he's got a lot
of good years up that I think. And in terms
of Bainian, here's a fighter that's taking a step up
in competition. He's been a professional for this is his
eleventh year as a pro. He's thirty two to oh
to one, and he's faced them. Okay, guys, it's not
like he's never faced like you know, He's faced thirty
three stifts or anything like that. He has faced some
decent guys. We've you've heard me mentioned in Marcelo Cosarras,
who gave Billy Joe Sunners a very solid fight in
a close loss before he was stopped in that world
title fight. He also was the one that scored the
first ever knockdown against Edgar Berlanga. Anyway, he won a
ten round decision against him in twenty twenty two. He's
fought the slick Alantes Fox. He wanted a close decision
against him. That was another solid win. Ronald Ellis is
a good call, you know, I would say like between
contender and journeyman type of opponent. He has a win
over him, so it's not like he's never faced anybody.
He did. It did give me pause, to be quite honest, though.
In his most recent fight, which took place in May,
which is just a couple of days prior to win
a Mongea Fockingo, so they're on essentially the same schedule,
he scored a split draw against a fighter named Shaquille
Finn in Montreal, so you know, you gotta kind of
be concerned about that a little bit. But he's undefeated.
He's just he's in his twenties still. Also, he's fought
in the United States before. This will be his third
time fighting in the US, so that's not a huge,
you know, adjustment, let's say, even though most of his
fights have taken place in Canada. So I think this
is like a pretty reasonable fight. It's gonna be Mongy's
first fight with top rank. I think they have looking
in the future. If he wins, It's not like a guarantee,
but they have designs and maybe a mobility fight, which
would be a tremendous battle.
Speaker 1: Sign me up absolutely if that's in the offing, and
Mangia wins here signed me up for that. One.
Speaker 2: Another thing is it relates to monkey is he's back
now after two fights with Freddie Roach as his trainer.
He did the John Ryder fight with Freddy, which he
looked good in scored a knockout in that. He did
the Canelo Alvarez fight in with Freddie, which again even
though he lost. I didn't think he per formed badly
in that fight whatsoever. But for his own reasons that
are not quite clear to me, to be honest, he
has returned to Eric Morales as his trainer, who had
been with him for a number of fights prior to
that short stint with Freddie Roach. Eric has not yet
distinguished himself as a trainer, but we all know he
was an all time great fighter. They obviously get along
well with each other for them to get back together.
I think part of the reason, though, was because Eric
was running for a public office in Mexico and was
tied up for a while dealing with all that. But
they're back together, and you know, you got to be
if you're you know, if you're the if you're the fighter,
you got to be comfortable with the trainer. I don't
think it was anything against Freddy. I think you just
liked Eric's the work situation better. They trained in Big Bear,
they didn't train in Mexico for this fight. I expect
an explosive performance from Mongia. I think that I think
he's going to be better off that Canelo fight. I
think that Bazinian's got to be highly motivated. He knows
that he's going in the ring with a tough, good
quality guy, a former champ in the lower way class,
and it's his chance to shine now. If you pay
attention TJ to the various events that are on ESPN Plus.
Bizinian has been featured on a lot of those cards
that that top rank picks up from UH from Canada,
so he shouldn't be unfamiliar if you're a junkie and
you even watching those shows.
Speaker 1: So I rely on you, That's what I said. I
don't know a lot about him, but I know you would.
Speaker 2: We'll see what he brings to the table. But he
you know, he's uh, he's got pretty good he's got
pretty good size. He's six foot one, so he's gonna
be just a little bit taller than Mongia and Uh,
like I said, I expect a good fight now. Monkey
is gonna be the huge crowd, crowd favorite. They're fighting
in Glen Dellarzona's gonna be a big Mexican crowd obviously,
and there's a lot online for both these guys because
it's hard to get title fights now at the super
middleweight division because Canelo has got three belts and the
fourth belt is gonna be fought for the vacant title
coming up next month with Dan your boy William Skull
uh you know over there in Germany, and so uh,
the winner, though, you're gonna move into a good position,
whether it's gonna be a rematch with Canel, which seems
toult about. At some point those belts will become available,
and you want to make sure you're standing there in
front of the line.
Speaker 1: And as I've often said to you, kind of half
jokingly but half the truth, Mongee always makes great fights
because he gets people and he's easy to hit. So
so let's see if that changes or if that's not
the case. Uh here in this top rank main event
and when need to stress again that is a Friday night,
Friday night, as we release the podcast main event, Richard Torres,
the heavyweight, the up and coming former silver medalist from
the United States on the undercard, and one of the
Fernando Vargas sons, Emiliano Vargas, also on this under card.
Give me a little more real quick about both of them.
Speaker 2: Well, Richard Torres is the co feature, but that's because
the original co feature was supposed to have the one
hundred and thirty pound up and comer Andre Andres Quortees,
but he suffered an injury, so the Torres fight got
elevated from the opening fight on the car to the
co feature on the car. But even still, look, Richard
Torres has been a fun fighter to watch his development.
He's ten and oho ten knockouts. We all know he
was the silver medal winner for the United States in
the twenty twenty delayed Tokyo Olympics that actually took place
in twenty twenty one. He's been knocking everybody out, that's
the bottom line. He hasn't really been pushed too far.
He went five rounds in his last fight in is
Uh what was considered at that point a little bit
of a step up against the undefeated Brandon Moriy look
good in that fight. Now he's taking even a bigger
step and a bigger step up. He's fighting Joey Duaco.
No one's going to confuse Joey Deweco with world champion.
He's got eleven losses, four draws, twenty eight wins. But
one thing about Joey Dewek wh I have seen fight
countless times on TV and in person. He's a rough,
tough dude. He takes a pretty good punch, and you
know he if you're not ready for Joey Duwaco, he'll
eat you alive, so to speak. You know, I always
felt like Joey Diweco could have been a serious challenger
for a title or win a world title if he
fought at cruiserweight. He elected to continue to fight at heavyweight.
That's his call. In THEOS eleven loss, He's only been
stopped three times. He has won seven out of his
last eight fights. He hasn't been stopped since Stephen Shaw,
who was undefeated heavyweight on the on the Rise, stopped
him in the eighth and final round back in twenty
twenty two. But generally speaking, he's showing a very very
good shin and listen, when you'll take a look at
the opposition that Richard Torres has faced so far as
a professional, there is zero question in my mind that is,
at least on paper anyway, one hundred percent of his
toughest fight. And as a matter of fact, the people
at top rank who make the matches, they want to
press him. They want they don't want to get a beat, obviously,
but they want to give him a rugged veteran who
can handle himself, who knows, uh, you know how to fight,
and Joey Doweco knows how to fight. And as a
matter of fact, and Joey Deweco's pre fight comments, his
his his uh attitude was look I know I'm here
to try to test this guy. He these fighters are
not stupid, they're aware why they're there. That doesn't mean
you're not going to try to win. You know, they're
going to try to go after it. I mean Richard Torres,
like I said, he's only been past three rounds two times.
Joey Deweco has gone deep into fights numerous times, so
he knows his job is to try to test the
young man and uh, and obviously to try to get
a victory in the process. But uh, this is a
very solid step up for where Richard Torres has been
so far, and now he's you know, taking a little
bit of a step up. In terms of Emiliano Vargas,
the undefeated fighter eleven and zero nine knockouts, just twenty
years old. DJ he remember and remember that every time
he watch his young kid fight. He of course is
one of the three fighting sons of the former two
times Drew or Middaway tight older Fernando Vargas, who makes
me feel old because I covered Fernando when he was
in his crime and his best, and I covered the
Trinidad fighter, and I covered the Oscar fight on other
fights as well. But This is a young guy in
Emiliano who looks the part. He's got the Hollywood movie
star looks, good looking kid, exciting fighting style, and again
he's taken a little bit of a step also, a
little bit of a step up. They're matching him up
with a fighter named Larry Friars, and you're not going
to know him. He's a journeymanish kind of guy. He's
got a bunch of loss about relative to the opposition
that Emiliano has faced so far in his early days
of his career. This is definitely a step up, and
that's really at that stage when you're a prospect, as
long as you're moving along, No one's expecting a twenty
year old fighter with that limited experience to be fighting
in a World championship fighter, fighting in an elimination fighter,
a top ten contender. You want to have increments of
fighting better opposition. Top rank is the best in the
business in my opinion, when it comes to having a
prospect and knowing how to move them, how to match them,
doing it at the right speed, not doing it too fast.
They're willing to take their time with guys, even if
they've got a lot of money into them. Vargas is
a fighter that needs to be babied for a little while,
but at some point they're going to realize that they
can move them quicker. And they've taken the step to
match Moobi Larry Friars, which is a reasonable opponent for
the stage of his career. So that's the opening fight
on the main broadcast, a eight rounder, the Richer Tourist
fight also as an eight rounder, and then the main
event between Mongie and Basili and that's a twelve rounder.
So I can't tell you that this is a superstar
started card that this is like, you know, should be
on pay per view or anything like that, but there's
a reason for all these fights to be happening, and
on paper, they all look pretty good for what they are.
Speaker 1: And by the way, with whatever service you have, they're
free to watch air quotes with ESPN, you don't have
to pay. Additionally, you're obviously paying to have some version
of ESPN. So we kind of like that for Friday Night.
Make it a point again as we release this podcast,
that's a Friday Night fight card, and now chronologically we
get into Saturday and the intrigue that is going to
be around Daniel Dubois and Anthony Joshua. This will come
from Wimbley Stadium in excess of ninety thousand, probably in
excess of ninety five thousand expectations.
Speaker 2: It's going to be scaled for ninety six thousand.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: They they yes, and it'll be sold out.
Speaker 1: And so they're they're gonna hold this thing and again
for Joshua a chance to reclaim a portion of the title.
Just go through this again because Dubois has gotten a
portion of the heavyweight title. Explained to them, how and
now that you have this matchup, that sets somebody up
in twenty twenty five for obviously bigger, bigger situations.
Speaker 2: So back in June, you know, Philip Herkovic had been
the mandatory for Alexander Usik's title and they had to
make a deal to to you know, before Tyson Fury. Well,
they stepped aside to allow Tyson Fury and Usk to
fight each other for undisputed. That took place in May,
and then come June, Usik was supposed to have vacated.
That was part of the deal when they did the
Fury deal. It didn't happen at that moment. They worked
out a little bit to extend the time period where
Usik could help could hold on to the IBF belt.
For whatever reason, the IBF then broke their rules as
we've discussed in the past, and they sanctioned the Hergovic
fight against Duwa, which was supposed to be for the
vacant title at that point, but they let it be
for the interim title and Philip Hergovich uh and and
uh Dubi had their fight. It was a good fight
and Duba was the winner by an eighth round knockout.
He was the underdog. Duba was the undefeated favorite in
that fight. Uh And then soon after that fight, finally
Usik did what he was supposed to have done earlier
and he vacated the title uh and And at that point,
Dubai was elevated. So he's got you know, in the
vernacular of the sport, we call it the he's got
a paper title whatever. He's the IBF champion, but we
all know that the real heavyweight champion of the world
is Alexander Usik. Based on that victory against Tyson Fury
and by the way, it is not in any way
TJ a knock on the matchup between Joshua du Wah
because title or no title, it's a tremendous matchup. However,
the fight is happening largely because of the belt there,
so if that is the impetus to make the match,
I'm I'm okay with it, even though I don't like
to see a guy like Usik, who's the best heavyweight
in the world right now, get stripped of a title.
Speaker 1: And by the way, we already saw Dubois fight Usick
and Usik knock him out and beat him. Whatever you
think of what this is or isn't, and by the way,
do it easily yes? And so now Dubois has since
won a fight where Herkovic had a bad cut, he
did knock him down, he did beat him, So he's
earned to whatever extent this opportunity with Joshua. Let me
couch it like this. I have. I talked about this
with David Pain. I've had this feeling for a couple
of weeks. I think this is fairly easy work for
Anthony Joshua on Saturday night in Wimbley. You want to
talk me out of that and think that Dubois may
really test him or have a chance to beat him,
or what is your thought? I know we have a
bet US boxing show looming where we're gonna make actual predictions.
But am I wrong to think that Joshua is the
much more skilled, much more tested fighter and should not
have a lot of difficulty here? Am I wrong to
think that?
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't disagree with that necessarily, I'm hesitant
to say it's easy work because Danga Duba. One thing
about him is he can punch, and in his recent
fights he has shown some resilience, which was a question
mark against him. You know, he showed a lot of
resilience in the fight against Herkovich, no question about that.
He showed a lot of resilience in the fight against
Jerald Miller, which was a good victory for him. That
was the previous fight that took place in December on
our favorite card, the Day of Reckoning. He did not
show resilience or balls or heart in the Usik fight.
So to me, it's about which Danga Dubois shows up.
I tend to think it's the latter, because I believe
that the victory over Hurgovic and the way he went
about it, coming after the way he went about to
fight against Cheryl Miller, has given this guy some confidence
that he may not have had before. So while I
definitely agree with you about Joshua being the better fighter,
I'm not necessarily willing to use the word easy in
my description of the fight. But that said, that said,
this is a good matchup. First of all, let's just
discuss this for a quick second. Now, we're going to
get to a little bit about this more and later
on in the show. It's twenty bucks on pay per view?
How do you beat that as a pay per view?
Because it's a deep card. We're gonna get into some
of the under cards, and we've just seen a lot
of high prices for some pay per view events. To
Canelo Alvarez fight last week, for example, if you bought that,
that was eighty nine to ninety nine, and most of
the pay per views that we see the PBC cards
are generally seventy five to eighty bucks. You know, when
Top Rank did one of their like say Heini Wilmachenko,
was like sixty five dollars. A lot of these cards
are higher priced. Turkey al Chic from Saudi Arabia, who
dictates these things, I guess, you know, found a moment
in his mind of clarity or something to that degree
and realize that, you know, we don't have to if
we want to get our tension on our events. You know,
even though we still need to make some revenue back,
we can be a little easier on the pocketbook of
the fan at large. And I think that most fans,
if you tell them it's eighty or ninety dollars, they're
much more willing to seek out ability to steal it.
At twenty dollars, most people are like, yeah, it's only
twenty bucks, that's really not that big of a deal.
So I do think the price impacts people's level of
sure desire to that that's the event.
Speaker 1: Well, and by the way, our sponsor PPV dot com
here you can purchase it through them. We encourage you
to do so. And we're gonna talk more with Mark
Bocardi at PPV dot com in a little while about
that very same point. You and Iron agreement. Mark is
in agreement that on some of these you set up
the bigger pay per view offering by exposing it to
more people here for the lesser price on this so
I kind of agree here, Let's get back to the
fans some because whether it's been the fury Usak pay
per view, the Saudi pay per views earlier in the year.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm gonna be.
Speaker 1: Soaking the fans seventy eighty ninety dollars at a time, Dan, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I'm gonna be interested to see how they price
the Usk and Fury rematch. Now, I don't know, are
they going to go back to that eighty dollars. Well,
I mean we'll see. But I mean, look, they did
a less her price when he did that Day of
Reckoning card. That was an excellent show. This is a
good show also at only twenty bucks, so I can't
complain about that. But in terms of the fight itself, look,
Joshua has found himself in a little bit of a renaissance,
if you know what I mean. So he had the
two very tough losses to Usik in twenty twenty one
in twenty twenty two, although, as I have said numerous times, CG.
I thought he fought way better in the rematch against Usik.
It just that he was in with a guy that
was just, you know, that much more skilled and just
had a better game plan, however you want to describe it.
You know, he looked okay when he came back against
Jermaine Franklin. He still got the clear victory, you know,
by a wide scorecard. He looked good and stopped Hellenius.
He totally took a part in dominated and knocked out
Auto Well and made him, you know, the corner call
to fight and then you know, I'm not sure how
much we can take away from it, but he absolutely
fucking destroyed Francis and guy devastating knockout. So he's got
the four wins in a row. And as you like
to talk about often activity, baby, this is a guy
who has now fought what four times since August of
twenty twenty two. That's very, very busy by heavy star standards.
And he's got another fight coming up. I mean it'll
be it'll be his fourth fight in literally eleven months,
because he fought Helenius in August of last year, Otto
and December, Naganu in March, and now in September he's
gonna fight Danga Duas. So eleven months and four fights.
You know, there's something to be said for that. You
stay sharp, you stay in shape, you're mentally there. You know,
you're in the public spotlight, you're selling tickets, you're selling
paper to you're making money, you're doing all the things
you know at a time when you know it's a
short career, you're you're making basically what I look at
Anthony Joshua right now at age thirty four, he's making
the most of it, and he knows damn well that
whatever happens if he wins the fight on Saturday against Agua,
he's gonna sit back and he's gonna see what occurs
on December twenty first, because either he's gonna either Fury's
going to regain the title, and then you can take
this to the bank. They're gonna make the Fury and
Joshuay match. It will be one of the biggest fights
in the history of boxing. And if Usak wins, there's
probably a pretty still good possibility they might make a
third fight with Usik, which I think would be less
interesting for the public, but still a pretty big fight
obviously if Joshua and him are fighting for undisputed yet
again with all the belts, But we'll see what happens
with that. But look, Joshua right now, he's living his
best life.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: He's winning, he's for a knockouts, he's making huge money,
he's putting on big events. And this is again when
we did the card back in August when Terrence Crawford
fought Israel Magmof that was the READ season, first ever
card in the United States, first ever card outside of
Saudi Arabia. This is now the second card outside of
Saudi Arabia. First that's taking place in the UK, and
I'm glad to see that. So, you know, it's all
well and good for them to do some of their
big fights in Riad that's their home. Obviously they're doing
better via b Boll they're doing the rematch with Usik
and Fury, but it's great to see them come to
America and do a big show like they did go
to the UK. Hopefully they'll be back to do another
big show or more in twenty twenty five in the
United States. So this is a good main event and
by the way, as far as British boxing, this is
as big as it gets for them other than the
Theory fight because he got a belt and it's going
to be a good, exciting fight, I have no doubt
about that.
Speaker 1: And it is going to captivate the weekend obviously in
the UK as boxing early.
Speaker 2: By the way, because in the United States. The card
starts eleven am Eastern time.
Speaker 1: That's early for some.
Speaker 2: Boxing.
Speaker 1: For most that's not that early. Eleven am Eastern, ten
am Central might be a little earlier, certainly, just your time.
Speaker 2: Z eight o'clock in the morning, if right, right?
Speaker 1: Uh, again, that's Saturday afternoon US time for the meat
of the card as it's going on. All right, So
again we'll handicap that fight on the bet US Boxing Show,
will handicap a couple of other fights on this card.
Very intriguing European middleweight title fight because I get to
see Hams of Charaz again against Tyler Denny. Tyler Denny
has the belt, but Hams a Charaz on the rise. Uh,
he's on this. We've got a light heavyweight interim title fight.
We've got Anthony Kasachi fighting Josh Warrington, which was a
title fight but now it's not a title fight.
Speaker 2: There's a lot.
Speaker 1: We'll start with Sharaz because that's the co feature apparently,
and then and then cascade from there because there's a
bevy of fights for nineteen ninety five US money here
on the on the pay per view.
Speaker 2: Here nineteen ninety nine. Le's let's two nineteen.
Speaker 1: Ninety nineteen ninety nine, how much would you pay? Would
you pay? Tween dollars and eighty three cents tax?
Speaker 2: So look, Tyler Denny, uh, you know, he he's kind
of not got the biggest name, not that the biggest reputation,
has you know, a couple of losses, but you know,
he scored a technical decision in his last fight in
the defense against Felix Cash, who was undefeated. I think
a lot of people thought that Cash would win that fight.
So he's you know, he's going into this fight against
Hiraz defending the European title yet again. But look, we
all know that in a in a otherwise pretty terrible
middleweight division, the Taraz is one of the bright lights.
Charas look good. He's twenty oh sixty ninecouts, big and tall,
long reach, good power. Has looked very impressive. Had an
excellent performance in an eleventh round knockout against Austin M.
L Williams, another undefeated up and comer in that weight
class in America, that was on the five on five
card back in June. He has a knockout in the
first round against Liam Williams, who was a good contender
for a long time. I mean, Sharaz has looked he's
looked like the real deal, you know, especially when you
compare it against what else is in the way class
seems to me. And also by the way, uh Turkey
Alshik named him like a Read Season ambassador. Clearly, everybody
that's involved with this event other than Tyler Denny wants
h hams of Sharaz to win the fight. Uh, and
he probably should. I mean, he's the I think he's
the favorite. He certainly should be. So that's that's the fight.
We're gonna see if he can emerge. Uh. And and
just add another significant point to his resume, which is
winning a European title against a pretty solid uh you know,
British opponent, and we'll see what he can do with that.
That's the co feature. Again, keep in mind when you
when we talk about these fights, it was purposely made
as a highly British centric card.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no doubt about that. With the other fights
that are on here, and uh that includes the Joshua
Boazi fight, which is for an end title And can
you explain to me besides it's just IBF things. I
thought this was a Kosachi title defense, but now it's not,
so what's going on with that as well?
Speaker 2: Well? On the car it's a defense for Kasachi if
you believe in the IBO, because he is also the
IBO title. We don't usually talk about the IBO, but
he does have that belt, that belt for whatever it's worth,
which in my opinion is not much. Nonetheless, that is
at stake in the fight. But in terms of the IBF,
he had a mandatory to do. The Saudis and those
involved went ahead and made the Warrington fight with Kasachi
without really consulting with the IBF. Remember, Kasachi scored one
of the biggest upsets of the year back in May
on the Fury and Usk undercard when he had the
knockout win against Joe Cordina to win the IVF title.
So they made the fight, and so the IBF they
could have really been hard asses and they could have
stripped them and you know, basically give them the finger
if they wanted to. What they said was, you know what,
this is a non title fight. It doesn't count as
an IBF fight. So here's the deal. Kasahi's the IBF
title holder at one hundred and thirty pounds. If he
loses the fight, the title becomes vacant Warrington doesn't win it,
So that's that's sort of the caveat there. So Warrington's
not fighting for the belt and Kasachi's I guess, kind
of defending it because if he wins the fight, he
still keeps the belt.
Speaker 1: But I just interject, what can I just interject on
the varying levels of stupidity that the stupidity of the
title is not on the line. It's a non title fight,
but if he loses, we're gonna vacate the title. That
I don't make stupidity stacked on top of stupidity. It's
a non title fight.
Speaker 2: Listen, the Idea's doing their rules, and that's what I said.
So you know, for Warrington, I mean, he's got to
be a little disappointed. You know, he's a two time
featherweight titleer. He was looking forward to an opportunity. I mean,
he can still win the IBO belt, I guess, but
that's not too much of a considered title and that's
but look, Warrington more important than Delts and all the
bullshit we're talking about with that stuff. He's got to
get his fucking career backing gear. Because the guy's a
lot two losses in a row. He got knocked out
by Lee Wood in the last fight back in October
of twenty twenty three, so he's coming off that eleven
a month playoff, and before that he lost the IBF
belt by majority decision which probably should have been unanimous
when Luis Alberto Lopez went to his hometown of Leeds,
England and beat him Karen Square. So Warrington's been somewhat inactive.
It's only he's only had one fight since the end
of twenty twenty two and he's got the two losses
in a row and he ain't getting any younger, and
he's been some rough, tough fights. But Kasachi has been
like a revelation, great story. Hard not to be happy
for a guy like that that's given zero chance basically
against Cordina and not only wins the fight but wipes
him out. So that was a big win for him,
and he's going to try to capitalize by getting a
good name like Warrington on his resume, whether it's for
an IBF title or not. You know, as long as
the winner of the fight title or no title is
going to get another big money, big opportunity type of
of a fight in their future.
Speaker 1: All right, fair enough? What else here? Biwoltzi and this
fight that's upcoming for the wbos keep me straight. The
WBO's vacant or is it the interim the interim light heavyweight.
Speaker 2: Vacant interim type.
Speaker 1: The vacant interim title for the WBO is on the line.
We both know that, and the fans know that Archer
better Biev has the full light heavyweight title for the
WBO and Willie Hutchinson's the opponent here. What about this matchup?
Speaker 2: So we'll go back before that. The next fight down
the card is supposed to be Josh Kelly, who was
a fifty four pound fighter that's come up to one sixty.
He was supposed to fight Liam Smith, good all British
fight that figured to be very action packed and maybe
not for any kind of world title or anything, but
certainly was going to put the winner in a great position.
Liam Smith came down with an illness, had to withdraw
from the fight and on like you know, four or
five days notice, they got another undefeated fighter from England
and Ishmiel Davis to fillin. So he's gonna fight Josh
Kelly in that fight, and so you know who that
knows when you're dealing with with late replacements. But at
least he's coming off of a solid win he fought
earlier this year, so he's not coming off like some
crazy long layo. And in terms of Josh Kelly, you
know a lot of people think he's going places. He's
got the one loss. He did look really good in
the last fight against not a big name, but he
knocked out a fighter named Placido Ramirez, which I actually
watched that fight on his own, and he looked very
sharp in that fight. So you know, he's got a chance.
With a nice win, he's gonna go places. Maybe they
can reschedule that Liam Smith fight at some other point.
The next fight that you mentioned is Dubwatsi and Willie
Hutchinson's fight. This is a good matchup. You mentioned it's
for the interim title. Now. The reason why that is
the case because the organizations like to do the things
that they do. But basically what they're doing is because
everybody's in waiting for the big one, the undisputed fight
between Better bvn bople The organizations are getting a little
antsy because their titles haven't been active, so they're allowing
some of these interim fights to let things kind of
shake out prior to the undisputed fight, and then once
that undisputified happened, there'll be more jockeying to see who
gets the next shot if they're going to strip a guy,
if it's gonna was going to become vacant. But in
terms of the fight itself, Watsi is undefeated, a former
Olympic medal winner from England, and he's coming off his
biggest win. Remember earlier this year, back in February, he
had the fight against his good pal Dan Aziz that
was a British and Commonwealth title fight had you know,
big stakes as he was undefeated. Blatsi was undefeated and
turned out to be an excellent fight. He scored a
knockdown against Aziz, two of them as a matter of fact,
in the eleventh round. He ended up winning, you know,
a pretty clear decision. And so now he comes off
that fight and he goes into the fight against Willie Hutchinson.
Now Hutchinson, he's got the one loss, but if you
talk to people in the know, they'll tell you he's
one of the greatest amateurs in the history of Scotland
and He's coming along nicely as a professional. A lot
of people, uh think he had the chance to be
a future champ. He was on the five on five
card also back in June he got the biggest win
of his career in a sort of like the young
guy against the veteran. He beat Craig Richards on a
decision in an excellent fight. And now he goes to
this fight against Blattie. This to MEDJ we'll talk about it,
I guess on our bet Us show. But you know,
I could see a thousand different ways this fight could go.
This is a very quality matchup. The winner this fight
is gonna put himself in a great position, you know,
in the light heavyweight division, right below the winner or
in perhaps even the loser of the undisputed fight. So
there's there's bragging rights in this fight. There's Blatzi's undefeated record,
there's the interim delt, there's obviously the chance to move
on to something bigger and better and stay in these
bigger money fights on these riad season cards. So there's
a lot of sake. It's England versus Scotland. I mean,
there's a lot of stuff going on in this one.
Speaker 1: All right, and one more fight is the Mark Chamberlain fight.
We don't want to leave that one out. That's also
part of this pay per view. Anything compelling about this.
Speaker 2: So this is Mark Chamberlain undefeated, sixteen to zero against
Josh Padley who's fourteen to oh but Padly is more,
you know, like more about the club level of a fighter.
Chamberlain has maybe a little bit of a notch ahead.
But the main thing that you should know about it
is this Mark Chamberlain is uh. He is the favorite
fighter of Turkey al Shikh. He is hand picked to
be on these cards both in Saudi Raby and this
card here in Wembley Stadium because he is Turkey's favorite fighter.
And although this is not official, I am told by
multiple sources that if Mark Chamberlain wins this fight and
all is well health wise, that he will be on
the Tyson Fury Alexander Usik two undercard and he will
be challenging Dennis Brenschik for the WBO title. So this
is a very fight. So Turkey is doing his thing
for his guy. There's a very like, very likely chance
that that that this fight with a victory. And by
the way, chamberlains looked really good in the recent fights
when he's fought on these read season cards. I mean,
you know, his last fight, he scored a spectacular first
round knockout. That was back in May. He fought on
the undercard. Also in his previous fight in Saudi Rabi
back in March of last year, that was a fourth
round knockout against Gavin Wynn. That was a very good
victory for him. And now he's going to a third
fight on one of the Riot of cards and he's
got a chance. I believe that, and I don't have
any reason to believe that my information is inaccurate that
he's got a title shot riding on this fight. It
may not be an official elimination, doubt, but he's got
the Brenchick fight right there in his palm of his hand.
Speaker 1: With a victory, there's a wink and a nod from
the guy that's paying the freight. So stand by for
Mark Chamberlain and Josh Padley. So it's like brunch in
the East Street. It wasn't surprise Saturday morning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're not surprising me at all. If if if
Chamberlain it comes out victorious, that in the ring after
the fight, we might see Turkey or somebody say that
you know, you know you're getting a title shot in
the next fight or something like that.
Speaker 1: All good on that. So we gave you lots on
the card itself. Let's give you more on how to
see it. And we've already made mention of this that
it's a lesser price, it's a better value for you
the fan. Let's talk about that more right now. As mentioned,
our friends at PPV dot com are in fact involved
with this. Anthony Joshua Daniel Dubois IBF now world time.
I'll fight Joshua looking to regain a portion of the
heavyweight title. Wimbley Stadium is going to have over ninety
thousand people. But if you can't be there in attendance,
the next best thing is to watch it through our
friends at PPV dot com. Hello Mark Bocardi with PPV
dot com. Good to have you back aboard. This is
two weeks in a row. Have you recovered from Canelo
weekend in Vegas with another emphatic win for him. I
know you were there when we talked to you last week.
All good coming off the Canelo week and now hit
it to the British heavyweights.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It was a wild week in Vegas.
You had two big events going on. You had the
UFC at the Sphere, which I was able to catch
part of, and then you had the big Canelo fight.
And you know, I tell you it almost I don't
want to say it doesn't matter who Canelo fights, because
clearly it matters, but the guy generates an enormous amount
of attention, excitement, patriotism amongst his fellow Mexicans. So anytime
Canelo fights, it doesn't matter if it's exciting in Vegas
because he draws such a great crowd.
Speaker 1: And I think it's fair to say he's arguably the
number one draw at least in North America. You can
make the argument now that we're going to segue to
England about you know what Tyson Fury means or what
Anthony Joshua means. But in terms of the entire country
of Mexico, this is national hero. We can't state that enough,
and he keeps delivering. So that was last weekend. We
now turn our attention to popular, prominent, former two time
unified heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and a matchup with his
countryman Daniel Dubois here, and this is gonna be fascinating
because especially if it's Joshua probably in the mix again
for maybe another shot at uh sick, don't know. But
if Tyson Fury wins the rematch, I mean you're in
prime position now for a Fury undisputed battle with Anthony Joshua.
That's really the subplot here, I believe. What do you think, Mark, Yeah, no,
I agree. I think gets a great time for heavyweight boxing.
You know, speaking of time, I wish that some of
these events took.
Speaker 3: Place at a better time for a US based audience
because some of the start times when they're overseas, when
they're in Wembley like this one will be, or when
they're in Saudi Arabia, it becomes more challenging to get
attention in the US for a you know, eleven am Eastern,
eight am Eastern start time. That's that's a bit of
a challenge. But I do think it is a very
important fight for the heavyweight division, and that's really what's
exciting to me about this fight. Yeah, the combatants, obviously,
it's exciting, and it will be at Wembley, right, talk
about excitement. My goodness, but for this the for this
division in this sport, which is the most important division
in the sport. This fight is going to determine a
lot over the next few years.
Speaker 1: And and the big thing is Anthony Joshua after the loss,
the second loss to Usik, has now scored victory after victory,
and the last three of them, by the way, by
knockout in a decisive fashion. So you've got some build
up here for this. And one of the big things
that we're talking about with PPV dot com, I mean,
number one, we always emphasize this. You don't need a
long term subscription, you don't have to worry about a
six month, much less one year commitment. But the price
point on this one for the consumer, I'm saying this,
and I see you nodding. It's much more reasonable here
after a year in which almost everything seems to be
eighty or ninety dollars for a boxing pay per view,
not the case with this one.
Speaker 2: Mark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's exactly right.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the big business news around this particular
fight is a price at nineteen ninety nine, as you said,
so fans have been clamoring for lower priced pay per views.
So now let's see what happens. Let's see if you know,
those fans who have been crying for lower priced pay
per views. I don't mean that negatively. They've been, you know,
demanding lower priced pay per views. Now there's one here,
so let's see what the business result is. But yeah,
I do find it fascinating. We've all been talked about
in the industry, is you know, talking to promoters about
trying to get lower price pay per views to make
it more enticing, maybe reduce the amount of piracy that
happens for a pay per view. So now that we
have it in front of us, we'll see what the
demand actually is.
Speaker 1: Sure, and I think for most fans they understand if
you're talking about the undisputed heavyweight championship that's going to
be priced differently, at Canelo fight, that's going to be
priced differently. This seems much more reasonable for the American
fight fan, which is primarily who we're catering to, to
be interested in this, because so many times the opposite
is true over in Britain in the UK, where their
pay per view is priced just like this nineteen ninety five,
twenty four to ninety five for their fight fans bring
more of them in what do I know? One thing
I do know is they're going to get a phenomenal
interactive experience with PPV dot com and our buddy Ryan O'Hara,
great boxing writer and insider. He's going to be in
the live chat. Correct follow up on that, on the
user experience that they're going to get and getting to
go back and forth with Ryan as the card unfolds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yes, Ryan will be our guest host
for the day. Ryan's hosted a few times for us.
He's excellent, gives great insight. We've gotten some incredible feedback
from our customers after Ryan has hosted events before, so
I think fans will be really happy. And yeah, like
you said, and your regular listeners have heard me say
this before, there's no subscription needed. You come in, you
buy this fight for nineteen ninety nine, no ongoing commitment,
just come back when you want and buy the next one.
Speaker 1: You're going to have a tremendous time. I will confess
to you I was watching in the live chat. I
even interacted with Jim Lampley and Lance Plugmyron Company during
the Canelo broadcast. It's a cool feature to get to
exchange back and forth with some of the insiders and
some of the great pundents, etc. Lampley obviously is a
tremendous voice and historian of the sport, so Ryan's going
to do a great job with that one more time.
This is Saturday afternoon. I know there's tons going on,
tons of college football, but if you're interested in Anthony
Joshua and Daniel Dubois a piece of the heavyweight title.
PPV dot com is where to get a hold of this.
No long term subscription needed. Just buy this event and
you have no further obligation and they're gonna have a blast.
Ten eighty p quality, the interaction that we're talking about,
are gonna have a blast on PPV dot com.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's all great. I mean, it's the best
way to watch. Eleven am Eastern is when this pay
per view card starts on Saturday. By the time the
main event goes on will probably be late afternoon East
Coast time, you know, four ish, but that'll be adjusted
as the fight goes on based on how long the
undercards go. But eleven am is the technical star time.
Main event time will be later in the late afternoon.
Speaker 1: Love it, Joshua du Bois Mark Bocardi, thank you, and
again we say to the fans, if you're getting this
pay per view this weekend, do it with our friends
at PPV dot com.
Speaker 2: You bet.
Speaker 1: Thanks DJ Again publicly thank you to PPV dot com.
They continue to sponsor us. I know they're involved with
you and your substack and your newsletter. We cannot encourage
the fans enough. Why go down the road of a
long term subscription when you can pay for what you
want with PPV dot com. Like we were just saying
with Mark there, including this one coming on Saturday night
in London, Saturday afternoon US time with the Joshua Dubois
main event. Shall we move on to.
Speaker 2: The news Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Oh look, Jeron Innies may actually be fighting for the
IBF title in the United States. When last we left
this soap opera, I thought it was murky and that
he might be having to fight in Germany or on
Pluto or somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Well, he'll be defending the IBF title, I guess against
his mandatory Karen chikanzi Ho. He already whipped up on
last year in a one sided shutout that was not
competitive even for two seconds, And we don't have to
realigate the whole thing about how matter In Boxing lost
the pursepit and you know they didn't make the Brian
Norman fight and all the other shit that goes along
with it. But the bottom line was that the German
promoter that promotes Takonzi in and has to give up
like sixty five percent of the money they won the
perstpit in a big upset. So now I am told
by those involved that even though the German promoter, that
is the folks that deal with Chikazi and that is
an outfit from Germany called P two M Box Promotion,
that they're in discussions with Mattrom Boxing about doing some
kind of deal that would then you know, either co
promoted or sell them the fight or whatever it is.
So Matchrom would take over the promotion of the event
and bring the fight to Philadelphia on November the ninth
to headline at his own card. And as I have
now dubbed it, Eddie Hearn from Matrom Boxing is looking
to do the Bam and the Boots and Bam Show.
You're gonna have Boots in the main event in his
hometown against Chakazin again. If they get this shit finalized,
and from my understanding, at least as we take this,
I'm not aware that it's done. And obviously they're a
little tied up this weekend given that they're involved with
the Wembley card and they're the promoter of Joshua and
others on the show. But if they can get that
worked out, that would be the main event and then
the other fight that would be on the card in
the co feature. And it's smart of Mattrum because if
you got a ship main event like Ennis against Chikazian,
at least give yourself a chance has to do some business,
at least in terms of getting people to watch it,
because you got your other top young American star besides Ennis,
and that's Jesse Bam Rodriguez, who was the WBC's junior
bantamweight champion, and they're matching him up with Pedro Givar,
who is the interim champion to fight in the co feature,
which is a pretty solid fight. And so that's not
so much a secret because when the WBC, they do
a press conference every week in Mexico City, and Guivara
was one of their guests at the press cards. He
basically with the WBC announced that he's going to be
fighting against Bam in this fight in November in Philadelphia,
and obviously they're not going to do Rodriguez against Guevara
as a main event in Philadelphia. I mean, it's there's
nothing wrong with the fight, but that's not you know,
in boxing, you're supposed to fish for the fish. Are
You're not gonna ri Philly? You do that in like
San Antonio is hometown, mate.
Speaker 1: But we pieced this together and ah, there's the co feature.
Speaker 2: But I have to tell you though I'm as a fan,
I mean, look, the main event, well we don't have
to you know, it stinks. Okay, fine, but from this
point of the star power, in terms of my interest
in the fighters as a as a reporter as also
as a fan, two of the fighters I'm most interested
in are Geron Boots Tennis and Jesse Vam Rodriguez. And
they get to two of these guys, you know, in
title defenses on the same card. And with Dan being
in like a pretty solid fight against Buavara, you know
who used to be a champion in one hundred and
eight pound weight, Cass has been on a pretty good
run now that he's in the Junior bandemweight division. That's
going to probably be a very fun, exciting fight. He's a,
you know, one of those all you know, a typical
Mexican warrior type fighters. So that's what they're looking to
do for that November card. To the extent that I
was actually thinking when I heard about this and was
writing a little bit about it in my newsletter the
other day, that I might, depending on what else is
going on, you know, maybe I make the trip to
Philly for the fight. It's going to be busy, because
I was also thinking I could jump on the train
or get in my car and drive three hours to
the south to go to Norfolk for the the Keshan
Davis event and the Brian Norgan fight. So we'll see
what I'm gonna do. And then the next week, of course,
is that Mike Tyson, Jake Paul craziness, So it could
be a little busy coming over.
Speaker 1: Will It will be a little bit a little crazy
on that. So I'm just curious on one thing, and
we don't have to go down a rabbit hole. Would
they be looking to pay Chickazian more as an incentive
to having fight in Philadelphia? Somehow, some way, Otherwise, why
would the promotion company that primarily is based in Europe
and in Germany not try to have this in Germany?
Or do they realize this is a total dud even
in Germany and we can't sell it. What's the dynamic there?
I'm genuinely curious.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but i'd be I just saint my
first rodeo of writing about the business of boxing. It's
about the money. It's always about the money. So one
would have to assume that that maybe Natch and regretted
what they did and is now going to have to
sweeten the pot to give Chakazi and his team, you know,
certain financial things, certain whatever perks, whatever it is to
entice them to be willing to fight in But.
Speaker 1: Clearly from a business standpoint, they have leverage match Room
to say, we're gonna put this thing in a place
where it's gonna make a ton of money and be
full because Boots has a following. What are you gonna
do put it in a place that has five hundred
or one thousand people to watch this in Germany or
two thousand people. I don't know. They're just going off
the top of my head. So I'm just trying to
understanding the dynamic works.
Speaker 2: The folks that run p P two M box Protion,
they're filthy rich. They did two million dollars plus on
this fight. They knew what they were doing and whether
they can exploit that to make that money back or not?
Right right, that's you know. I don't think they were
that concerned if they had to take a loss. But
I do think that they're gonna have some inducement again
if they can get the deal worked out where they
would come and do the fighting filing maybe who knows,
Maybe they'll get a piece of the gate. Maybe they'll
get you know, uh, they'll they'll get rights in their
own country to exploit the broadcast whatever. There's a lot
of ways to skin the cats, so to speak. So
we'll see. Again, it's not a done deal. But if
the if Matt, Troum and de Zonne get it the
way they want it, which seems to be at least
on course that take place, it would probably be Boots
against the Kazi and in Philly for the rematch that
nobody wants to see, and Bam against Jura, as I
like to call it, TJ. It's the Boots and Bam show.
Speaker 1: The Boots and Bam show for that one. All right,
we do know because this was announced. Speaking of the middleweights,
and we talked earlier about Hams of Shiraz kind of
moving up the ladder in the middleway division. Janebeca lim Knulei.
Janebec will be back defending only one of the titles
though against Mikhailovich Andre Mikhalovitch. And now instead of this
fight being in the United States, it's in Australia coming
in October. Again for the fans that may or may
not be keeping up with this crap, we do our best.
Dan does a great job of keeping us in line.
Janabek was to have defended both titles, correct the first
goal around back about a month or so ago, six
weeks or so July, so it's been longer than that.
But he was dehydrated, having trouble making weight, and so
now this is for only one of the belts. Correct
in Australia, go ahead.
Speaker 2: So here's the bottom line. We're supposed to be July
thirteenth in Vegas. As you mentioned, Jenebec could not make
the weight, was dehydrated, had to go to the hospital
and never even went to the way and the fight
was canceled. Like the day before the fight, they had
taken Mcalavich, he had flown and his team seven thousand
miles to basically sit there and you know, do an
interview on ESPN. Now supposedly they were paid part of
the purse for their trouble. And they went back and
Jenebec said he was not moving up. He was going
to remain at middleweight because the organizations, Remember they sent
a letter saying, you know, you got to let us
know what you're going to do. We need to see
a doctor's note to make sure it's safe that you
make the weight. The WBO went through the whole litany
of stuff, and then the IBF when he said I
was staying at this division. Remember this is an IBF mandatory,
wasn't a WBO mandatory. The IBF then ordered another perse
bid because they had made a deal. They ended up
doing the perse bid, and as we discussed before, in
one of the closest purs bids of all time, top
ranked bid three hundred and fifty thousand. They're the promoter
for Jenebec and the No Limit Boxing folks for the
promoter for Mikalovich to bid three hundred fifty one thousand dollars,
so as a thousand dollars difference that sends jenebec from
fighting on a top rank card in the United States
to Australia to fight on the The Australian promoter mckalvich
is from New Zealand, but he's fought in Australia. He's
basically the home fighter in this case. Now, as far
as the titles go, this is an IBF mandatory, so
that was what was being overseen by the purse bit.
My understanding is that the WBO would have sanctioned the fight,
but that the mcalovich people decided they didn't want to
do it for the for the WBO title. And I'm
gonna tell you why. If you're fighting, I see I'm
We're on a video, so I see you making a face.
You're confused because you don't know.
Speaker 1: Why would you not want two belts common sense.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you why. It's actually a very intelligent thing.
Number One, you're saving yourself three percent on your sanction face,
so the money is being saved, and when you're only
making your percentage of three hundred and fifty grand, that's
significant number. Two. In a unified fight with the IBF,
they wave the morning of the fight weight check. So
if it's a WBO and IBF, they wave the weight
check because the other organizations don't use the weight check.
But as an IBF only fight, that means that Genetek
is gonna have to weigh in on the morning of
the fight, and that's going to put him at a
disadvantage for a guy that couldn't make the weight to last.
They want to put as much pressure as possible, so
he has to be within ten pounds of one sixty
come the morning of the fight, So that's going to
meet a lot more added pressure on him in terms
of his physical well being. That's the reason why they're
doing that. They want to you.
Speaker 1: All the time. That's why you are who you are
because you hear that and you're explaining that. So that's
fascinating that it's only for one of the titles. There's
why please don't tell me. For the love of all
that's holy, has the WBO said if he loses, he
loses our title, even though the title's not on the line.
For God's sake, stupidity on top.
Speaker 2: Of stidy will, I will read it to you what
I wrote in my article. If Mikalovich wins, the WBO
belt will become vacant. If Alan Connolly wins, the title
will be still unified.
Speaker 1: That's life baby, all right, I say no more commentary
on that. I've already said it twice. Now let's move
on shows. That's October. That's October in Australia, Chobe.
Speaker 2: But by the way, this is a crazy thing. Here
we are on as we tape this on September nineteenth,
that's right. I announced this fight on on September eighteenth,
with the fight at self taking place October fourth. Everything
has been a rush job on this from the time
being when they did the purse but then they had
the fifteen days they get the contracts and I actually
spoke to some people involved on the genetics side. They've
been rushing to get all the visa shit done and
getting all the paperwork done.
Speaker 1: It's really cos theoretically you might want to be in
Australia like next week to get acclimated for a couple
of and that's forth. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Because it was a purse bid, No Limit Boxing is
under no obligation to pay for hotels more than three
days they're under no obligation to anything more than coach airfare.
They're on no obligation to do a lot of things.
Now they'll go. My understanding is that the management or
maybe even top ranked they may go a little bit
into their pocket to allow him to fly better accommodations,
to get there a little earlier. You know, that's not
going to cost that much money to go a higher
level of airfare, or you know, a couple actionized in
the hotel. You know, to make sure you're in a
better position. But that's what happens when you do a
purse bid, especially in the IBF, you're at the bare minimum.
That's why it's always better to make sure because you
get to extract perks. Right when you do a straight
deal on a perspse and this you sign a form contract,
there are no perks.
Speaker 1: And this is complicated by the fact that Australia is
fourteen thirteen fourteen hours different from the United States time,
so night is day and day is night, and you've
got to get there and act like a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: And I understanding is that Janebek has been training in Kazakhstan. Okay,
it's not as dramatic. But here's the thing. It's still
hard to get from fucking Kazakhstan to like Sydney, Australian.
Speaker 1: That's not sorry, Do they have a NonStop from pretty.
Speaker 2: Sure they don't. And the one thing you should know
though here in the United States, the fight will be
on ESPN plus place in normal evening time. I am
told they haven't announced the exact time, but it'll be
like an evening thing in Australia. But again similar, think
about it like we're watching an in a way fight.
It'll take place in the early morning hours.
Speaker 1: And we got breakfast and the IBF middleweight titles. What's
exactly all right? Good on the news on that one
and one more, Mario Barrios will defend the WBC welterway title.
And this is interesting. It's gonna be on the Tyson
Paul undercard already set up for at and T Stadium
in Arlington, correct, give me more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they're gonna do that show on the fifteenth
of November. And like whatever you think about the main event,
real fights, circus, craziness, nonsense, love it, hate it whatever,
between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. The undercard now has
two bonifide, you know, world title fights. Obviously, we got
the much anticipated rematch between Katie Taylor and the Man
in Toronto that was announced when the original main event
was announced. And now they have done a deal with
PBC to bring Mario Barrios and Able Ramos onto this
card for Barrios to make defense of the WBC welter
white belt. It's not the greatest matchup in the world.
Ramos a little bit long in the tooth, a little
you know, kind of falling into journeyman ish category. But
Barrios is a good young fighter, entertaining fighter, been looking good,
you know not. I mean, I've certainly seen the worst fights.
It does add a little bit of spice to the undercard.
He defended the interim title back in May on the
Canelo undercard when he defeated a Fabian Maydon remembered Crawford
had been made champion in recess and for whatever the
reason it was the WBC when he did that, they
didn't immediately elevate Brios from the interim to the full
so he defended the interim title and then it took
a couple of weeks after the Crawford announcement was made.
Crawford then obviously fought at one fifty four in August,
but it was within a week or two or three
that Barrios was elevated, so this will actually be his
first defense of the full title. And what's more notable
is that before uh this was made and after he
had fought Fabing may don It, there was a lot
of conversation in PBC Land that they were trying to
make a deal for Barrios to defend against Manny Pacya.
And then Manny Pacyall was going to come out of
the boxing retirement, always had a couple of exhibitions and
they were going to try to do a pay per
view sometime between then and the end of the year,
maybe early next year. And the timing was critical for Paqiao,
according to his team, because he's about to launch a
new campaign to try to regain his old Senate seat
that he had uh you know, he had deacated and
run in the Philippil things right, ran for president, did
not win that election. Now he was looking to be
re elected to the Senate seat. So when you're when
you're going through the campaign and going through all the
political stuff, you know that takes up a tremendous amount
of time. So his window to still have another boxing
match was really basically the end of this year, maybe
the very beginning of next year. But now that apparently
is not going to happen because the identity of theod
he wanted to fight was Barrioso. Baros has made this
deal to fight.
Speaker 1: Pacio doesn't need to be fighting. You and I agree
on that.
Speaker 2: Well, if you watch the exit and that he had
parrel not that long ago, he looked like seventy five
years old.
Speaker 1: You told me, And so Barrios part of that show
that's coming in November again. Tyson and Jake Paul were
on the field doing a face off pregame in Dallas
Cowboy jerseys prior to the Cowboys Saints game last Sunday.
That was interesting. Will we get to November fifteenth with that?
We'll see. But at least now we know we have
a couple of title fights that are going to be
part of that card. Hopefully we get to that. For
Jake Paul and for Mike Tyson, all right, nostalgia and
then we are good. All right? So it was what
let me do my math nineteen nineteen well, no women.
Fifteen years ago. Fifteen years ago, on this day, on
September the eighteenth, Thursday, as we released the podcast into
the weekend on to Friday, that Floyd Mayweather came out
of a two year retirement himself and wiped out Juan
Manuel Marquez. September eighteenth, two thousand and nine, Now fifteen
years ago. You were there that night for Floyd's performance.
What do you recollect?
Speaker 2: I recollect domination. A little less than two years in
December of seven, I just looked this up. He had
scored the spectacular knockout against Ricky Hatton in their big,
humongous mega fight. I remember how emotional Floyd got at
the postfight press converts and talked about how he was
going to retire. He actually did retire, and he came back.
That was December. He came back in September of the
following year, so not quite a two year layoff, and
in his first fight back, he fought Marquez. Now Marquez,
who's you know, an all time great Hall of Famer,
you know, won titles in multiple weight classes, has obviously
the great rivalry and massive knockout against Manny Pacya. Going
into this fight though again Mayweather, you know, there was
lots of questions, how is he going to look after
the long laugh a couple of years especially, you know,
when you're a rhythm fighter like Floyd was, where you
were lying your quickness and your speeding, your reflexes, that
that may not all be there after such a long laugh.
And even though Marquez was moving up in wait, he
was the the you know, he was the Ring magazine,
a linear lightweight champion at that time. I mean, he
was clearly the underdog. But Mayweather, again, there was a
lot of question marks about where he would be coming
back after the layoff. Remember, they had agreed to the
fight at one hundred and forty four pounds. Marquees had
never fought above lightweight, so even though it wasn't a
world title fight, it was still they still were fighting
within the welterweight division. They contracted at forty four, and
Floyd purposely came in at one forty six, so he
wasn't above the welterweight limit, but he was two pounds
heavier than what the contract was, and he paid Marquees.
You know, however, many hundreds of thousands of dollars of
what was in there I want to say it was
six hundred grand, like three hundred pounds or something like that,
that he ended up paying him for the privilege of
being two pounds above the contract weight. But he could
have been two pounds under He could have is three
hundred per pounds, so he paid him six hundred thousand.
Here's the reality. Though he could have been fucking on weight,
he could have been underweight, he could have been overweight.
Fucking Marquez did not stand a chance after You just
had to watch the begin the fight Floyd. If you
didn't know he had been off almost two years, you
would have never thought he had missed a day in
the gym. He scored a knockdown against Marquees in round two.
Not completely a shocker. If you take a look through
the history of Juan min Wal Marquesz's career has been
knocked down many times. But he got dropped and he
lost basically every single around my recollection, I'd have to
go back and look at it. I believe I scored
it a shutout, maybe eleven to one. I'm looking at
the score here. One judge did have it a shutout.
One judge had it eleven to one. One judge had
a tend to. You know, when you look back on
Floyd's career and you think about the dominating wins against
the caliber fighters that he fought. The Marquez fight, I mean,
the wait situation notwithstanding, got to go down as one
of the best and biggest wins of his career. Remember,
he was coming off Marquez. He had scored the spectacular
knockout of Juan Diaz in the Fight of the Year
in two thousand and nine. That was a title the
gave millennial title. He won some of the other belts
at WBA and the WBO that was vacant at that time,
and and Marquez was looking strong and then he lost
the fight to Floyd. He went back down the light
wait and he went on another great run where he
beat Wan Diez in the rematch. He had the big
win against Michael Cansidis. So if you'd take into account
when it happened, this was a really good win for
Floyd Mayweather. But I can vividly remember, like the the
the controversy in the in the animal and that what's
the word I'm looking for, Just the irritation by everybody
that he didn't make the weight and it was so
clearly obvious that he did it on purpose, just to
pay the money and to give himself an unfair advantage,
even though he had agreed to one forty four. But
it doesn't detract from the performance on the night of
the fight.
Speaker 1: And you bring up a great point. It's not like
he was overweight during it. He was within the welterweight limit.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't it wasn't a championship. I mean, you know,
Juan was the lightweight champ and Floyd didn't have the
claim to any of the belts because he was out
of the ring for almost two years, and it was
you know, it didn't have any of the titles.
Speaker 1: All right, So there was Mayweather on that night, which
again was fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2: I must I must interject, as you said, more so
than the fight itself, probably the single most memorable thing
about this entire fight, wasn't that stuff about the weight
wasn't about the fight itself. Was really about the twenty
four to seven and the revelation that Juanmanuel Marquez drank
his own drank, drank his own urine in preparation for advice.
Told me that was the legendary scene of him, of
him sitting down and then filming him drinking his own piss.
Speaker 1: Oh. Can you imagine being the film crew and the
producer watching him do that and going, we're gonna put
this in the show, and the prisoner's probably going, yeah,
we're gonna.
Speaker 2: Put this in the show. All of them twenty four
seven series they did for all the big HBO pay
per views in that era that started with the first
ever HBO twenty four to seven series that was related
to when Floyd fought Oscar. Probably the single most memorable
moment of any of those shows is Juan Daniel Marquez
sitting down in the locker room or after training and
taking out a nice glass and fucking drinking his piss.
Speaker 1: And now you've grossed us out for the final bit
of nostalgia.
Speaker 2: Before I would do it, he's the one that drank
is pissed, not me? All right? Uh So?
Speaker 1: Thirty nine years ago, Saturday September twenty one, nineteen eighty five,
a shocker of sorts in that Larry Holmes lost the
LINEAL and IBF heavyweight championships to Michael Spinks, thus denying
him Dan Rayphield a forty ninth consecutive win to begin
his career in matching Rocky Marciano to be forty nine
and zero as heavyweight champion of the world. Spinks beat
him in the forty ninth fight back in nineteen eighty
five by decision. A fight I still remember watching an
HBO fight back in the day because of all the
build up. I again say, the kids can go YouTube
it up again. The gen zers, the under thirty year
olds at all think that boxing. You laugh when I
say this began in two thousand and six. Go back
and watch this. The magnitude of this was massive. The
heavyweight champion of the world. We didn't know who Mike
Tyson was yet in the eighties, we barely knew who
he was. The magnitude of this was enormous because boxing
was so much more mainstream and the fact that he
was about to match Marciano and Michael Spinks moved up
from light heavyweight to beat him was a front page,
not just front page of the sports section, front page
of these old things kids that they used to have
called newspapers. It was on the front page. It was
It was the feature cover story in Sports Illustrated, the
lead story on ESPN, the biggest of big dealsj.
Speaker 2: Well back at five. Well, I date myself when I
tell you that, as much as I have adjusted obviously
to the use of the Internet, having now spent the
bulk of my boxing writing career on the Internet as
a writer, as a post of when I used to
work for USA today, I actually still get two newspapers,
hard actual physical page.
Speaker 1: You've mentioned that, Go ahead, elaborate again.
Speaker 2: No, I get USA Today still as a habit, and
my old my old stomping grounds. And I get the
Washington Post, which is now my hometown paper. And but
I do subscribe to the New York Times, and I
read that online. For whatever reason, I like reading the
Post in the paper and I and I read the
New York Times online and I read USA Today, you
know a little bit of both.
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep keep having fun. I'm gonna keep
having fun with the gen zers, with the young audience.
That here is is. He's talking about this thing that's
printed out on paper and they roll it up and
they throw it in your driveway at five throw away morning.
It's called a newspaper. That's what it used to be
a big deal.
Speaker 2: Since I'm a kid, I always love newspapers. I mean now,
one of my greatest joys in life was having my
first ever article published.
Speaker 1: The newspaper, the print, and now now it's the internet.
Speaker 2: But old habits diehard.
Speaker 1: All I'm saying is massive when this happened, Oh, huge
deal in the sports world and in the boxing world
when this happened. When Spainks beat him.
Speaker 2: So Sphinx was a sizeable underdog going into this fight.
Larry Holmes was a dominating champion. He had been the
WBC champ and then he become the IBF champ. But
he was the lineal and he had made a zillion
defenses and like you mentioned, he was trying to match
the It's not a record per se, but it was
a hallowed plateau, if you will, of what Mark Marciano
did to become forty nine to zero before he retired.
And he got right there on the press of busines
of forty eight. Oh and now he's fighting Michael Spink.
And Michael Spinx was a bad boy, not a heavyweight,
but Olympic gold medalist and was the devastating, dominating light
heavyweight champion. And in fact, when he won this fight,
a fight by the way, where one of the official
judges back in the day was the deer Departed. Former
unofficial HBO scorer was Harold Letterman was on this fight
and where Spinx won a very close decision.
Speaker 1: He was the actual judge.
Speaker 2: He was the actual judge, not judge right right, but anyway,
was a very close fight. A lot of people thought
that Larry eked it out, but but Michael got the decision.
But what the biggest thing about it was the historical
element of this fight was he became the first ever
remember boxing at this point, it's like over one hundred
years old. He's the first ever heavyweight ragning champion to
go in his next fight and move up to heavy
and win the heavyweight title. Others had tried and failed.
He did it. It was a big deal. You mentioned
it was on HBO. They did it at a place
in the outdoor stadium at a now long gone casino
that they tore down in years ago, the Riviera Hotel
and Casino, which did plenty of fights in the mid eighties,
some of the bigger fights. Don King promote a lot
of fights there. And the other revelation about this is
and it became a thing later because other fighters kind
of went by this blueprint. Roy Jones did it when
he moved up to fight John Ruiz in the heavyweight division.
They hired the fame nutritionist Mackie Sholstone yep, who was
known for what he would do is he would bring
the fighter up above the limit. I remember I knew
Macki for a long time. He worked with Bernard Hopkins
when Bernard moved up to fight Tarbus, so I got
to know him at the time of the Roy Jones
fight and the Hopkins fight. Interviewed Mackie several times and
have called on him for his you know, his commentary
at various times, not related to fights he was involve with.
But he was the one that became pretty famous by
working with Michael to get him in shape to become anyway,
because it's a big difference to going from one seventy five.
Now you're fighting a guy that's you know, in the
in the like low two twenties or so, and and
to do that. So, you know, they had this hole.
This was like part of the you talk about front
page news. There was tons of stuff about Mackie's you know,
he's given you know, spinks, you know, four or five
thousand calories a day, and how they're going to build
them up right then bring him back down a little
bit and you know how much carbohydrates he's happened and
how much you know, water weight he has. I mean,
it was very scientific the way they were going about
all this, and uh, you know, Michael became uh, you know,
looked apart, even though Larry was obviously bigger than him,
and they had like a big sell out crowd, a
big rating and hbo in Uh. In the end, Michael
Spinks went he tactical, kind of boring fight to be quiet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the title of the fighting is it was
a fifteen round fight still and he was fresh carrying
the extra weight, and he was better than than Holmes
down the stretch of the fight. I vividly remember that
part because there was so much debate. Barry Tompkins, Larry
Merchant were doing the fight. I'm trying to remember if
Sugar Ray Leonard was on the call. I'll have to
go back and rewatch. But there was great debate. Will
Michael Spinks wear down now with the extra weight in
the twelfth, the thirteenth, the fourteenth, the fifteenth round did
not happen, my friend, and for the other.
Speaker 2: And it got picked up the Ring Magazine and many
others picked it as the upset of the year. And then,
of course, the famous thing after the fight was when
Larry Holmes, you know, in a moment that he probably
later regretted. I think I've heard him say he regretted
the comment where he basically said, you know, there was
so much conversation about comparing him to Rocky Marciano where
he uttered the very famous line that Rocky couldn't carry
my jockstrap, and a lot of people, particularly in white America,
did not take very kindly to that particular comment, and
it kind of haunted Larry for a long time after that.
But he can't take anything away from Michael Sphinx. He
beat him that night, they had a rematch, he beat
him again, and then obviously not that long after that,
Spinks end up getting absolutely destroyed by Mike Tyson and
Larry Holmes got destroyed by Mike Tyson as well. So, uh,
this was what the Mike Tyson.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna ask you something. You and I have
never been over this. We did not rehearse this, but
I'm just curious what your opinion is. Probably want to
get out of here.
Speaker 2: We don't rehearse anything.
Speaker 1: I know, but I didn't go over this with you.
It's not on the rundown. I didn't tip you off
to this. I I wonder, I have wondered before, and
I wonder sitting here right now. If Larry Holmes wins
that fight with Michael Spinks and is forty nine and oh,
would you believe would you have thought? Do you believe
he fights one more time against somebody, gets to fifty
and oh, has his money, has nothing else to prove,
and says that's it?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Or do you think he would have soldiered on even
at fifty and oh and kept fighting?
Speaker 2: I have absolutely no doubt in my mind. If you
ever met Larry Holmes, thought Larry's Holmes, heard him speak
about it, know how much he liked to make money,
There is absolutely zero, zero percent mind in my mind
that he would have, you know, perhaps gone to fifty first.
They wouldn't have been a rematch with Spinx.
Speaker 1: Right, it would have been somebody wherever it was.
Speaker 2: But no, No, I mean, look after he lost the
second fight to Spinx, that's when he came back after
the long layoff, and he fought Tyson. But had he
beaten Spinx, I have no question he would have continued
to fight. Because that fight was in nineteen eighty five,
he would have theoretically gotten to fifteen oh. In I
guess it would have probably been eighty six because the
fight was Spinx. The second fight with Spinx was in
early eighty six, so that would have taken that place.
He'd have gotten to fifty oh. And then that was,
like I said, early eighty six. If you look at
rock at a Larry's career, he fought all the way
to two thousand and two. Now, maybe he would have
retired a little earlier, possibly, but there's no doubt one
to continue to fight.
Speaker 1: I trust your opinion, I trust your insight, but I
just wonder it would have been a different circumstance.
Speaker 2: I don't think it would have been. He would have
been you.
Speaker 1: Can walk around, where you can walk away.
Speaker 2: He would have maybe taken a softer touch to celebrate
maybe or something like that. But he would have kept
on fighting, no doubt about it. And even in his
later days, you know, he may not have won, but
he got other chances to fight. For the time he fought.
Tyson got beat later on you know, in like ninety five,
he got a chance to fight once again for the
WBC title, put in a good performance but didn't quite
get the job done, lost a close decision to Oliver
McCall and you know, and and continue to fight even
after that. So no doubt in my mind he would
have continued fighting after the SPANX fight had he won
that number forty nine and then fifty.
Speaker 1: I love the banter back and forth. All right, all
good stuff. We get ready for everything that's going to
happen Friday night in Glendale, Arizona, with the top rank
card in Jimi Mongia headlining and then the the Big
British card read season card that has the IBF Heavyweight Championship,
Anthony Joshua looking to regain a portion of the heavyweight
title and become a three time world champ here against
Daniel Dubois. Why don't we reconvene at one Eastern time
on the bet Us Boxing Show, young man, and we'll
handicap some of these fights and take your questions in
more live, YouTube and all the platforms of bet Us.
Look forward to that, and then whatever happens with the
action on the podcast feed, we'll come off the weekend
with a Fight Freaks Unit recap podcast as well. Are
we good? For now? Is it all said? Are we good?
Speaker 2: We are good?
Speaker 1: Love it. Thank you, Dan Rayfield. Thank you also to
Martin McCarty and our friends at PPV dot com. Use
them again for the one off purchase of the fight.
No long term subscription needed with our sponsor at PPV
dot com for keell me Yes Yes, excellent price point
there as well. For now, we are good. Enjoy the
weekend for Dan Rayfield. I'm TJ Reeves. This has been
the big fight weekend preview pot