Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big
Fight Weekend. No, here is your host TJ Leaves. Well,
we get ready for the first weekend of April and
a whole bunch of fights all over the glow actually
coming up for this weekend to preview from Australia to
Las Vegas, Kazakhstan, anyone, Manchester, England. Hello, we will have
it all with a bunch of different fight are King?
I could be it would be normally Houston, Hello, but
for TJ, it's San Antonio.
Speaker 2: Hello. But do you think are our listeners underlake or
do you have a clue who you're No chance?
Speaker 1: No chance on Larry King with all of the kids, Keepsie,
New York. Hello, Uh, good to be with you on
the Big Fight Weekend preview podcast. Yes, I am mostly
packed and headed to San Antonio, Texas for the basketball
men's Final four. Someone's Duke Blue Devil's Rayphael's Dukes in
the final four against Husha. You want to confirm for
the record you did not go to Duke. You've explained
before why you have allegiance to Duke. They have not
won a national title? Have they won a national title
since your son Jesse was born that he may have
been won. Yeah, twenty fifteen, correct, chance to get another
one here for Duke of course, Florida, Auburn and my
part of the world. The Gators are going crazy. Florida,
Auburn and Houston are the other teams a knowledge?
Speaker 2: Just to be clear, I am not I don't have
to rehash the story, but I am not a Dandwagon
Duke fan. I've been a Duke fan since like the
I understand nineteen eighty six or eighty seven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, going way back, all right. So in any event,
this year is a boxing podcast. We got a lot
to preview. We got Giron boots and is on the
podcast coming up as well with Dan in advance of
his unified Walter wait a showdown with a Montestaniona stand
by for that a little bit later on. And we're
about to be on the latest anniversary of Sugar Ray
Leonard and Marvin Hagler with a twist when Rayfield and
I discuss it coming up later on in the pod.
As always, thank you for finding us. We preview going
into the weekend, We recap coming off the weekend twice,
the Rayfield twice. The fun is we like to say,
make sure you rate us in review us if you
enjoy what's going on here on the reviews. We did
have did some reviews I did. I did peruse the
reviews at the end of March, and we had a
couple We could use a couple more. I love the
split back and forth where people love me as the
host with you, and then other people hate me because
I interrupt you and I talk too much. So I'm
doing my job, I guess, because I'm fifty to fifty
down the middle.
Speaker 2: The one you got to worry about is me.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. You have much love for me because
I'm going to get you Duke paraphernalia if they win
the national title rites and understood premise. All right, so
thank you for finding us. Let's get into it, Rayfield,
where do you want to begin? We got fight cards
everywhere besides Peoria El Hello, how about Newcastle, Australia. Tim Zuo,
who you just recently talked to on this year podcast feed,
is back in the ring fighting American Joey Spencer. This
is Sunday afternoon in Australia's Saturday night US time on
the PBC on Prime Card. Again. They can go back
and hear Tim and his own words on the previous pod.
We put it up as a standalone. All right, he's back,
he's in the ring. Let's get in the preview mode.
I guess I come at it like this question marks
about Zoo off the knockout question marks as a whole
about Joey Spencer. So what are your thoughts this is?
Speaker 2: You know, I hate to say like it's a must win,
but you know, if Tim Zoo wants to continue as
a top dog, as a a side, as a star fighter,
as a guy that can be considered in world championship
level events, you gotta win this fight because A he's
coming off two losses in a row, and B he's
fighting a guy that is not on his level. In
my opinion, no offense to Joey Spencer. So forgivable loss
against Sebastian Frondora late replacement fight. You know, Sebastian moved
up from the undercard a totally different style to adjust
to a guy from originally scheduled to fight Keith Thurman.
To go to a guy like Sebastian Frondora, who was
like seventeen feet taller than Keith Thurman, and you know,
it's an adjustment for Ferndora, but not in terms of
the size and shape of the opponent. And then of
course they had the horrendous gash in his scalp. That
was massive bloodshed for the entire fight. So he still
made it a competitive fight. He lost only a split decision.
You know, I kind of throw that out the window.
So you know, and as I've said many times, I
felt like he was on the verge of stopping Fondora
before the cut happened. So you put that aside. It's
a forgivable kind of loss. What are you going to
do when he showed a warrior spirit. All that comes
back in October against Burke Baker Martazalev's challenging him for
the IBF title at one hundred and fifty four pounds
and gets fucking annihilated yep, in a very big shocking situation. Now,
Baker Matazel is a good fighter. He had gone over,
you know, he'd gone to his opponent's home turf in
Germany and cole K Jack col Kay's homery knocked him
out won the belt that was vacant, has a good
amateur background, has a good record, He's undefeated. He was
twenty two and oh going into the fight, has good power,
look strong. I saw that a cal K fight. He
had been fighting on some PBC undercards. He had fought
on one of Tim's under cards. As a matter of fact,
he had met each other. You know, It's not like
he was unfamiliar with him and he just got his
revent kicked over the place. I mean it was I
was there.
Speaker 1: There was shocking. It was shocking.
Speaker 2: So he gets dropped three times in round in round
two and gets knocked down again in the third round.
Now the good news is, if you're Tim is the
silver lining is you showed the warrior heart. You got
up all the times he was getting up when he's
you know, suffered the last knockdown, and then the referee
obviously stopped to fight. Not like it was a bad
stoppage or anything, but you know, he wanted to continue.
He got clipped and as he said to me in
the podcast, which folks can listen do, we just got caught.
You know, he he was over anxious. I think, as
he said, he admitted that he might have overlood him
a little bit. He said, I thought it was going
to knock him out and you know the first time
I touched him, knock him out one side of two
rounds and said he was the one that got knocked
out inside three rounds. That was a horrendous loss. Not
because he lost the fight, the way that he lost
was horrendous. The mentality that he took into the fight
was horrendous. If you want to be a top boxing
world chamber, you cannot go in the fight against anybody,
but especially somebody that's undefeated, that's got good power, that
you're that has a title and anyway overlooked that person,
knowing what's at stake and what you have in front
of you. So that was, hopefully for his sake, a
learning lesson. Now, I did pose the point to him
in our interview, which again folks can listen to and
maybe this may me a positive motivation for him. His
father the great Causes. It was a Hall of Famer,
Hall of Fame, first ballot Hall of Famer, former undisputed
junior welterweight world champ. He had held the IBF title
at one hundred and forty pounds and was a you know,
a guy on the big time rise. He was connected
to a possible fight with Oscar de la Hoya and
all that he was fighting on HBO and he got
his clock cleaned by Vince Phillips and a giant upset
and lost that title. However, he rebounded from that and
went on to score his biggest wins of his career,
become the undisputed champion and become a Hall of Famer.
So if Tim Zoo can take anything from what happened
against Parta's layoff, maybe he can get it together and
do what his dad did, which is shake off the
losses that he took in the last two fights and
go on to have you know, that type of career.
He's not like an old fighter. You know, he's just
thirty years old. He should have, you know, several more
years left in front him if he just chooses to
do so. And so now it's all about can I
get rid of Spencer? Set up the We've discussed the
bigger business down the road. The Keith Thurman is through
his comeback fight scored a win by knockout in Australia.
That's the plan for PBC that they would fight each
other later this year. If Tim comes out successful, no injuries,
that is a tremendous battle just onto itself would be
rescheduling what occurred in last year when Thurman got injured
and Fandora stepped in. And then obviously if he wins,
you know, that opens up the door for other things,
whether it's a rematch against Fondora or other you know,
good quality opponents at one fifty four. But Spencer, look,
he's got nothing to lose here. He's the guy that
no one gives a chance to. He's the guy that was,
in my opinion, badly exposed when he got knocked out
by Jesus Ramos. He got a ton of hype by PBC.
They kept calling him prospect of the Year for PBC.
It felt like about ten years in a row. It
was probably only like two years in a row, right,
But he never deserved that in the first place. And
I'm not knocking the kid. I'm sure he trains hard
and wants to be a top fighter, but I just
never saw it. I mean, they gave him every opportunity
in the world. They put him on a million of
their primetime shows and plumb slots. He didn't deserve it.
He never really impressed. He did suffer the loss. To
his credit, he's bounced back. He's won three fights in
a row since that knockout loss against Jesus Ramos, and
he's playing with house money here. He's gonna go on
the road, He's gonna go to a show. He even
puts up a good fight and has a moment. It's
gonna be good for his career if he wins.
Speaker 1: I let's be honest, you expect it. It's expected that
Zoo is gonna beat him, and beat him easily. Let's
see if Spencer has something to say.
Speaker 2: That's when it comes to by the way, about it
is they've been bitching and moaning about the judging that
that Spencer because the the Australian regulators did not deem
this like a top level fight. I think that's probably
because of Spencer as the opponent. They didn't have to
have a a mix of judges, so they had as
signed I believe two Australian judges and the Spencer team
kind of flipped out about that and threatened to walk
and this and that. They finally got that situated, so
there will be a mix of judges, uh, not just
Australian judges. And so therefore the fight is is gonna
happen if there's a big I got you.
Speaker 1: If there's a big time Uh well, look, if there's
a name fighter that's fighting in the United States that
is not fighting in a world title type situation, you
would suspect even if the fight, if the fighter he's
fighting is from somewhere else, it would be three American
judges more than likely, maybe one would be different. That's
not uncommon. It's not even if it's not any of that,
you're going to Australia.
Speaker 2: Where's your thing about it? TJ. That's the kind of
shit that has to get situated before you even sign
the contract. That's right, that's something that's on your mind.
So you're a thousand percent right. Not a title fight
of any kind for any organization, regional or otherwise. It's
just a regular fight. It's like you said, if you
went to Vegas and you're an American, you're finding a
guy from Canada or Mexico or Japan, whatever the commission
assigned judges. You're gonna wind up with a probably you know.
Speaker 1: Two Americans and maybe one more or three Americans.
Speaker 2: You probably wind up with three Americans. They'll have the
regular Las Vegas panel. Maybe they bring in like the
New Jersey or California or something like that. They bring
in a white felt, they bring in a trailer wherever.
But you're not gonna get special treatment like that, so
you know, the Spencer people should have just figured that out.
Speaker 1: But and again we clarify Saturday night it is not
a pay per view. If you're on Amazon Prime, you
get the fight PBC on Prime. Sorry night, now, full disclosure,
I'm tied up with the basketball Final Four. You're also
going to be watching Duke unless you're gonna time displays
in the college basketball going on. But again this is
Sunday afternoon in Australia, but Saturday night, late night, find
it on Amazon Prime anything else, Just.
Speaker 2: So people know. Originally when this was announced, they're gonna
and they're gonna show undercard fights that are not for
our market. It's not a big guild. These are mostly
Australian fights, but there will be multiple fights on the
on the on the stream on Prime. But the stream
will start at ten o'clock Eastern time. When they originally
announced it, it was nine o'clock Eastern time, but for
whatever the reasons are, they shifted that by one hour.
Speaker 1: So I'll keep them on I'll tell you what. One
big reason is college basketball Final Four and someone's Duke
Blue Devils, which they didn't know at the time, but
they are in the game going on at the same time,
so stay tuned. It's not the only reason, but that's
another reason. Put it on after it's in Australia Sunday afternoon.
All right, shall we move on because we have a
bevy of fights before we get to Boots in US,
Let's move to Las Vegas. Speaking of Las Vegas and
Richard Torres, the up and coming United States heavyweight undefeated
on the rise, will fight Guido Vianello in the ESPN
Top one main event of ESPNN Plus. We should qualify
ESPN Plus for Saturday night. So give me a little
more because we have begun to pick up the interest
in Richard Torres. He's taken another step here against a
big Italian former Olympian, So pick it up from there
on that fight in this car, I.
Speaker 2: Really like this fight. I mean it may not be
a world title fight, it may not be hugely hyped.
I mean it's not got a tremendous amount of attention,
but if you like heavyweights, this is going to be
a fun fight. I have no doubt in my mind
about this now. The level of slaber knockishness that we'll see,
I think I just made up a word.
Speaker 1: DoD dam DoD king words slaber knocker ish. Okay, keep going.
Speaker 2: That remains to be seen, but I have very little
doubt that this is going to be a fun fight
for as long as it goes. Look, we've seen Richard
Torres develop from his professional debut. He's twelve and zero
eleven knockouts. He won the silver medal in the Olympic
Games in the delayed twenty twenty Games it took place
in twenty twenty one. He's a puncher, he has no
problem mixing it up. He's been blowing guys out and
he has been gradually, ever so slightly. They've been very
careful with him, and I understand that because matchmaking is
a fine art. Top rank has, in my opinion, the
best matchmaker in the game. And that said, with no
offense to any other matchmaker, but when you deal with
Bruce Trampler and Brad Goodman, those guys know their shit
better than anybody in my opinion, so they have done
a great job bringing Richard Torres along they're matching them
with the right guys. He's knocking guys out, even guys
that they thought would get rounds in, which is their
aim early in a young fighters curse to get them rounds.
He's been knocking most of them out and doing so
generally early. He did go into the eighth round against
Curtis Harper, for example, before he stopped him. But he's
been a dominating fighter. The only time he didn't get
a knockout, which was kind of he got robbed of
the knockout was when they called a d Q against
Joey Deweco a couple of fights ago because Diweco kept
spitting out his mouthpiece and not doing that because and
partly he was getting it punched out of his face.
Speaker 1: Exactly so, and.
Speaker 2: By all rights, Joe Torres should be not only undfeed,
but you'd have a perfect knockout record. But nonetheless, this
is a definite step up, you know, from the Deuecos
and Brandon Moore, who was undefeated, guys like that, even
a Curtis Harper, who has got a bad record but
is a very tough journeyman type of opponent. So Vannello
he matches him for the amateur accolades, even though he
didn't win a medal, but he had that big amateur career.
And you know, Guido's got some hard luck losses on
his record. He lost a very close split decision to
Faa Jagua, who's now, you know, fighting in a fight
over in Saudi Arabia against Martin mccoley coming up. He
has won one fight since then. The previous time he
had the loss was to Jonathan Rice. That was a
very unfortunate situation. He was winning that fight easily and
he suffered a cut and the referee stopped the fight
in the seventh round. So yeah, it goes down as
a knockout loss. But you know, it wasn't like he
was being dominated. He didn't get knocked out out. So
his record is a little deceiving in my opinion. But
he's a big, tall guy. You know, he goes six
foot six. He's going to be taller than Richard Torres,
who is not nearly as big. It's like four it's difference.
He's six foot two. It's a fascinating kind of fight
and I think it's gonna be very exciting. Now southpaw style.
We'll see how Guido deals with that because Richard is
a lefty. But I think these guys are gonna go
for it. And look, if you're top rank, I think
wants Richard Torres to win the fight. He's the prospect
more so than Guido at this stage of the game,
because Guido's thirty years old already and Richard's still a
young guy. But whatever, this is gonna be a fun fight,
I think, and may the best man win, but a
good heavyweight fight you can't go.
Speaker 1: And Vanello lives in Vegas, which you alluded to as well,
and trains in Vegas. Now, so let's see, let's and
again and again a step up for toys and what
about the undercard? Real Quick on the top rank ESPN
Plus show.
Speaker 2: So that's that's the main event. The undercard again is
not again not star studded, but the co feature is
actually a I find it to be an intriguing fight.
You have the undefeated Mexican olympian who's a good brawler
but also can box a little bit, and that's Lindulfo Delgado,
who's been in a bunch of good fights since he's
been a professional. He's been sort of climbing up the rankings,
and he's taken on Elvis Rodriguez, who is a guy
that's got a ton of hype, which I personally have
never really seen and I've kind of been critical. But
he's trained by my boy Freddie Roach, who sees a
lot in him, and you know, he had a good
amateur background. Also, he's just got the one loss that
was a very close decision, a majority against Kenneth Sims,
who has established himself as a quality contender in the
one hundred and forty pound way class. So this is
sort of like Top Ranks version of and they do
this from time to time, and it is kind of
similar to what's going on in the main event. It's like,
we've spent a lot of time, we spent a lot
of money, we spent a lot of resources building these
guys up. Although Elvis Rodriguez left Top rank for a
little bit, was with PBC, and then when that was
over he came back to top rank, they resigned him.
But the point here is that these are two guys
that have been with the company, who've been developed by
the company, and it's sort of like, okay, guys, time
the shit or get off the pot, and the winner
of the fight will take a very big step forward,
and the loser, not like their careers over obviously, but
is going to take a definite step backwards.
Speaker 1: There's some stakes here. There are some stakes.
Speaker 2: So it's not like an official eliminator or anything like that,
but in one sense, it's an eliminator perhaps in terms
of if you're going to keep your contract with top
rank number one and number two. If you win, you're
going to be in position for good fights because top
ranks got guys in the one hundred and forty town
Way class also, and it's a talent rich division and
you know, we'll see so's it's kind of interesting. And
then the other undercard fight that is, at least in
my opinion, that is interesting. It's not so much that
the reason is not so much the opponent. It's that
Abdulla Mason is back in action and we all know
that he's one of the best prospects in boxing. He's
a lightweight seventeen to zero with fifteen knockouts. You know,
he's coming off you know, a whole bunch of knockouts
in a row and had a very exciting fight in
the one where he did get knocked down a couple
of times two fights ago, but he survived, and he
came back and destroyed his opponent. Came back after that
in February, destroyed Manual Hims and now he's back in action.
So they're building him up. You know, he's, if he
continues his pathway clearly going to be if youture world
title challengers. So those are the main three fights, but
I'm really interested in the heavyweight main event.
Speaker 1: All right, let's continue again. Boots Ennis coming up here
on the pod with Dan. But wait, there's more. All right,
So we've been in Australia, we've been in Las Vegas
previewing the action. Now let's go to Kazakhstan, shall we?
And janebec Alum Knulei will defend his his two middleweight titles.
All right, I'm gonna try the name again.
Speaker 2: No, I don't even know how to say this.
Speaker 1: Annuel is it in Gama Singue? We'll missing way. We'll
try that Annuel and got missing way something like that.
What do we know about this opponent? Is he any
thread at all against janebec at one sixty in this
title defense in Kazakhstan Saturday.
Speaker 2: He's fourteen and oh with nine knockouts. He is born
in Congo. He is based in France, right just you
know where he's from. I guess you know where he's lived,
you know, growing up. And I looked over his record
when they announced the match in the first and I
wrote a little bit about janebec having this fight, which,
by the way, Janebek, as you know, is with Top Rank.
He has never fought a professional fight in his home country,
or at least not since the very you know. I
take that back. He's had his first two professional fights
in his home country. This will be his homecoming as
a world champion. He hasn't fought there again since his
first two pro fights in twenty sixteen, in twenty seventeen,
so that was something he wanted to do. So there
was a promotion company that came to Top Rank and
was going to do an event there and they were
to work out a deal to have Janebec go and
have the fight in the main event and have a
homecoming fight. So Top Ranks involved in that sense, and
therefore will also be on ESPN Plus from Kazakhstan, as
you mentioned. So in terms of the opponent, though not
a lot to look at on the record, I was
saying when I first wrote about this fight, when it
was made, I was looking at the record, and I mean,
I've heard of a couple of guys, but nobody that
stands out is like, Okay, that's a top solid contender.
So to me, like he's completely a blank slate as
far as I can tell. I mean, there's not a
lot on the record. He's fought, you know, guys like
eight and forty with five draws, but he's also fought
you know, a guy like Fedor Kazarian who's like twenty
two and oh, so you know, but his last fight
was against a guy twelve thirty two and two, so
go figure, and he stopped that guy in the third
round of only a scheduled six runner. This will be
his first twelve rounder for what it's worth. And Jannebec
obviously is now a season professional world champion, he's a
unified title holder, he was an Olympian just on the surface,
and it's his homecoming for all those reasons. Obviously he's
going to be the heavy favorite. How the opponent operates, though,
I have no idea, and I'd be bullshitting you if
I said I did it right right, So, but janebec
goes home. You know, he's coming off the domination of
Mikalovich that he did in Australia that was back in October,
so he's not coming off of a long layoff. If
you if you follow Janebek on social media, like every
thirty seconds, he's like, who's gonna fight me?
Speaker 3: I want to?
Speaker 2: You know, I want to. I want all the belts,
blah blah blah. Whoever's running his Twitter account. In any event,
you know it's the homecoming. He is a unified middleweight champion.
I think at this point, if you take a look
at the division, which we've discussed many times as being
pretty quote unquote berefed of top names, he's probably.
Speaker 1: Love squeezing the word score in with Beraft about the
middleweight division. I love it. I love devoid too. It's bereft.
It's devoid of names.
Speaker 2: So the biggest names you got the Okay so Jenabex,
the WBO and the IBF title holder Arislandi Laura, who's
been holding the WBA title hostage for the last few years,
who has fought absolutely the worst opposition you could fight
at middleweight, don't I don't view Danny Garcia who was
his last one as a bad fighter, but he was
way out of his weight class, so that was ridiculous.
So and then you have Carlos Adamis, who was the
WBC champion. He just had to draw against Shiraz the
fight he's probably deserved to win. Sharraz disappointed in that fight.
He was the guy that was making a lot of noise.
He's now apparently gonna move up to super middleweight, so
you know, and l O is long gone from middleweight,
Triple G is retired. I mean, it's just it's woeful
right now in terms of big names. So by process
of elimination, and Jannibeck is the number one.
Speaker 1: Guy right now, and we should clarify because I did
look it up. Kazakhstown is nine hours ahead of Eastern time,
so I'm just doing the math on Saturday. This is
going to be middle of the afternoon Saturday, if they're
fighting in a normal time, right early afternoon US time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't have the time off the top of
my head in there, but yeah, it's it's not going
to conflict with the evening show that of course doing so.
Speaker 1: And then also on the undercard is jalaalof the big
heavyweight as well, and you're intrigued to see him while
we're in the preview mormenting while we're here, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean sock back there. Baker Deer Javalov was
the two time super heavyweight gold medalist when he won
the gold medal in the most recent Olympic in the
twenty twenty. In the twenty twenty one Olympics that were
supposed to be in twenty twenty, he defeated Richard Torres
in the final and actually defeated Richard Torres twice in
the amateurs, once by massive knockout, and then in the
gold medal match he he won a decision that was
much more competitive. Uh. And then he went back to
the Olympics and won the second gold medal in a
row in Paris. And so he hasn't had a professional
fight in a little bit. He was supposed to fight
on a card a few months ago. He had some
kind of illness or something and ended up canceling that fight.
So this is his return to professional boxing. He is
fourteen and zero with fourteen knockouts. Big massive south puff
from Uzbekistan, not fighting a big name that I could
even pronounce. The name of so let's just call it another.
Speaker 1: Try ehoor Chevan duskef Sky. I think that's it, and
I have no idea. I mean, there's more consonants there.
There's there a white can deal with on wheel of fortune.
Speaker 2: Brother very well said, here's what we'll call him when
this is over with another jalla lov knockout.
Speaker 1: And Jallalaalov is an enormous human being, like good luck
ihor fighting a grizzly bear. He's not seven ft seven.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sorry, like that six foot I got
basketball in my mind. Teach six foot seven out pot
with tremendous punching power and all the amateur experience you
could want. I mean he he could compete probably right
now with any heavyweight.
Speaker 1: In that season or monstrously sized. Not yao ming, but
he's monstrously sized, look out.
Speaker 3: But thing.
Speaker 1: So that's that's earlier in the day on ESPN Plus.
But wait, there's more. Now you said slobber knocker ish
earlier on the Torres heavyweight main event. Now we got
Joe Joyce and Philip Hergovich for our fans in Britain
and in Europe, they're intrigued by this Saturday afternoon US
time and Saturday night in Manchester, England on the Zone
as Frank Warren has begun his new relationship by the way,
with Queensberry Promotions and to Zone. I have one fundamental question.
I put it right to you, mighty one. I don't
know that Joe Joyce has anything left. We're about to
find out. Go ahead, No, this is uh.
Speaker 2: Well, like you mentioned, it's the Frank's recent shows have
been on the Zonne, but this is officially the first
one as part of the exclusive contract where all of
their Queensberry events will be on his own for the
next few years. So that's a big deal for Queensberry
and it's another addition to the stable for his owne
because now they have on contracts with Matt Room, Golden
Boy and now Frank Warren, and they've also been doing
business with some smaller promoters Dimitri Salita's company, et cetera.
But in terms of this main event, remember was supposed
to be Joe Joyce against Dylan White, which were two
sort of long in the tooth type heavyweights, but both
still with aspirations, both who have made a series of
good fights through their careers, and so there's some intrigued there.
You know, two Brits that were you know, kind of
have never fought each other, so there was definitely the
idea that this would be a fun fight. Dylan White
got to pull out with some type of I guess
a hand injury. That was a couple of weeks ago.
And Philip Herkovich, who has not fought since he got
stop on cuts against Daniel Dubat and what was a
tremendous battle in Saudi Arabia that was back in June.
That was for the interim IBF heavyweight title. He was
ready to return. They were looking for a fight for
him and he agreed to take this fight on I
guess it was about what two two weeks notice three
weeks notice something like that, maybe two weeks. Anyway, it's
a great safe because in my mind it's more meaningful
because no offense to White, but but Hergovich still has
more of a chance to do something at the at
the championship level. So even though he takes the fight
on kind of short notice, relatively speaking, I still look
at him if he's got anything. It's not so much
physical to me, it's about his mental state of mind
in terms of the way Hurgovich. He's an emotional kind
of guy when it comes to his career. If he
can keep himself under control, I think that he should
beat Joe Joyce.
Speaker 1: But we should we should touch on this. It's been
what about three years ago that his father passed away,
Herkovic's father, who was his trainer forever, and he was
out of the ring for like over six months because
of that, and you you really wonder is he ever
going to be the same fighter here. We're gonna we're
gonna find out he can get back in the picture
a win here and maybe one more winning. He's looking
at a title shot. I'm saying that, Yeah, I know
he's intrigue.
Speaker 2: He's definitely in the picture. A couple of things. These
are both very very experienced fighters. They've faced some good
opposition as professionals. You know, like I said, he already
thought he fought uh he lost obviously to Duboi. He
also fought against Zilli Jang, who has two wins by
knockout against Joe Joyce. They've mixed with good company. Joe
Joyce has fought some good opponents as well. He has
a win over Dubois. So there's a lot of stuff
terms of like looking at who they face and the
level of opponents. But here's the other thing. A I
said it out the Richard Torrez fight against against Guido Vannelle,
I called it possible slobberknockers. I have very little doubt
that this is going to be just whoever. You know,
someone's probably gonna be laying on the deck when this
one's over with.
Speaker 1: As I like to say, there is no mystery here
on what we're getting. And Uh again, I don't know
what Joyce has left after what Jasro was doing to him,
hammering him and Rudge and Jang knocked him out twice,
so I don't know what's.
Speaker 2: Go Dubois had a really gave gave, gave Hergebek a
really really rough night, and yes he got stopped on
the cuts, but that was a highly physical, highly grueling fight.
The other interesting aspect of the fight between Joyce and
Uh and Hergovic is that they have fought each other
before in twenty thirteen, it's a long time ago, in
the World Series of Boxing, which was sort of that
quasi professional, quasi amateur outfit. He lost a split decision
a five rounder in Joe Joyce, I should say, won
that fight against Hergovic in the in that quasi amateur
outfit I have. I've watched that fight, it's on YouTube.
It was close, but definitely Joyce deserved the victory. It
was a split decision, nonetheless than a five rounder, So
they have familiarity from that standpoint. Obviously it's a long
time ago, but I'm sure Hergovic, when you lose, especially
at that level when he won an Olympic medal, you
don't you don't forget those types of losses. So it's
not like they go into each other in the ring
with each other being completely unfamiliar. So there's a lot
of stuff going on in that fight, and I feel
like that's going to be a pretty damn good heavyweight fight.
Speaker 1: Hey, did we cover most of the globe Australia, Las Vegas, Kazakhstan,
and Manchester, England with four different sets of main event
fights and fight cards? Why don't we do this? Jaron
boots innis coming next weekend in Atlantic City to fight Stanionis.
But before we even get to that fight week, you're
gonna hear from him right now before the welterweight title showdown.
Here's Boots Ennis with Dan.
Speaker 2: Well, it's my pleasure to welcome to the show this
week to the podcast. It is the IBF Welterweight Champ
of the World, Jaron Bootsennis, Boots, thanks for doing this.
You've got a very big fight coming up. I would
say we'll talk about this, the biggest of your career.
You'll square off against Amontes Stanionis to unify your IBF
title with his WBA welterweight title April twelfth. It's the
mattrom Boxing main event live on the Jones at the
Boardwalk Call in Atlantic City, not too far from your
hometown in Philadelphia. So welcome to the show. Uh, and
answer that question, is this do you think this is
by far the biggest fight of your career?
Speaker 3: Honestly, we don't know.
Speaker 4: We'll you know, we'll see you on you know, on
finite but but you know, citations wise, yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, because you gotta belt, I gotta built. But
you know, as style war as we all know, you know.
Speaker 2: Well, you have been calling out for unification fight for
quite some time, ever since you uh picked up the
title that you have at the moment. Is this uh?
Speaker 3: Is it? Uh?
Speaker 2: It's been a long trek to get there. How are
you feeling now that you finally have at least one
of these unification fights that you've been asking for for
such a while.
Speaker 4: I feel great, you know, to be able to have,
you know, finally get what I want, you know, and
that's unifications and not fighting these these are other guys
and things like that. So I mean, you know, I'm
excited to be able to to fight for unification, and I.
Speaker 3: Say, show the world I'm the best in the world.
Speaker 2: When you and your team, when you and your father
and everybody looks over Standiona's checks out the video. Maybe
you've seen him fight, you know, in person in the past. However,
it may be what do you see in his style
that that makes him appealing for your style?
Speaker 4: I mean, I mean we see we see a lot,
you know, he you know, he hit a good fight
and things like that. But there's nothing we've never seen before.
He come forward, no pressure, He come forward with pressure,
tried jam tat, throw a lot of punches.
Speaker 3: You know, we've seen all that before. Ain't nothing we've
never seen before.
Speaker 4: So you know, I'm re excited and uh, we can't wait,
you know, already ready to make a big steament on
next send of it.
Speaker 2: You're coming off of your your last fight in the
mandatory rematch against current Chikazi in which was a fight
that I don't think you wanted. I don't think anybody wanted,
but because of the IBF situation, he wound up as
the fight you kind of had to take, and you
had you had beat him so easily in your first fight,
which was for an interim title back in twenty twenty three.
How annoyed? How annoyed were you that you were sort
of forced into that fight if you wanted to maintain
your title. It's one thing boats to have a mandatory.
It's a hard thing to have a mandatory not that
long after you already kicked the guys are not that
long ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's very hard.
Speaker 4: You know, it's it's frustrating, but you know, in the day,
it is boxing. You gotta do what you gotta do.
You know, you put them in front of me. I
gotta fight him, and I gotta beat him, So That's
what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 2: He seemed to give you at least a little bit
of a more competition in the second fight, change things
up a little bit, didn't run the way he did
the first time, actually did stand for for for time
for times during that match and fight. You uh you
yourself kind of were critical of your own performance when
it was over. Were you were you a little disappointed
in that particular not the result because you won the fight,
but just in the way that you boxed.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, I mean, uh, you know it's it's definitely
not not disappointment. I know better than things like that.
And it's it's it's hard to fight guys like that,
you know. You know, like let me just say, I
beat him already and you know I already kind of
like didn't want to want to fight out was wheus.
Speaker 3: To fight him. So you know, today is a boxing you.
Speaker 4: Live and you learnt you got you gotta you gotta
push through it, you know, and uh you know it
it made me actually a better better fighter.
Speaker 3: And and uh and take you know two things differently
in camp.
Speaker 2: You know, before you had the rematch, I mean, the
one way that you could have not had to fight
him at least right away to keep your title was
under IBF rules because the mandatory was due. You could
have done the unification fight. And obviously you guys Eddie
Hearn and your team at Mattroom and your your side
of the uh of the Alleger had conversations about the
possibility of a unification with Brian Norman and it did
not come about because you guys were a little part
on the money. I wonder were how disappointed were you
about that? That here On the one hand, you're like, well,
maybe I'm gonna get the unification I've wanted, uh and
then obviously it fell apart and the alternative was you
having to fight the mandatory again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's it's very it's very disappointing.
Speaker 4: But at the end of the day, we're here now,
I got my unification, you know, and I'm ready to
put it over next year.
Speaker 3: I'm ready to should run the best in the world.
I guess I'm not to stay honest.
Speaker 2: Brian Norman did come back from his own injury that
he had and he did fight just recently against Derek Wavis.
He got a third round knockout. You know, look really good, uh,
you know, blowing him away. Obviously not a top level
opponent like if he was fighting one of the other champions.
But if you if you take care of your business,
like I know you expect to do against Danionis and
you unify. Is that a fight you want to revisit
before you go to one fifty four and try to
continue to unify the welterweight division.
Speaker 3: My mean phobus right.
Speaker 4: Now is a Manchester owness.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Once I handle business next Saury Day and uh should
a world around the best in the world, we'll figure
it out.
Speaker 3: You will figure out what we're gonna do from there,
you know. But like my mean phobus right now.
Speaker 4: I'm I ain't really worrying about nobody else outside of Montes,
Stay honest. I'm locked in on him and uh, once
i'm Victoria's you know, uh, next hey Day and we'll
take it from there.
Speaker 3: You know, we'll see from there.
Speaker 2: Well, I certainly understand that attitude of being locked in,
especially on an undefeated champion that you gotta fight. Uh,
but I do want to ask you about all the
things that went into before this guy on which was
the conversations. Uh, you know, you know what happened with
you know, you were tied to the fight potentially going
over to Saudi Arabia that would have been this past
February against Virgil Ortiz, that would have been a heck
of a fight, be a great fight, you know, in
the future, I would imagine. I just like to hear
from your perspective what exactly happened in your mind, because
it seemed like that fight was the deal made. Everybody
seemed to be excited. Turkey al Shehkh was into the fight.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And then it came time to get it done done
and it was a difference over what the weight was.
Where he was at fifty four, you were at forty seven.
You had said maybe I'll move up to fifty four
after the Chikazian fight, and then when he got the paperwork,
it said forty seven No a no go for him.
What what was your what was your side of that situation?
Speaker 1: Good?
Speaker 3: It is. Uh, I'm a one forty one, you know,
and that's that's the way that I'm at right now.
Speaker 4: So you know, there was a lot of confusion and
mishands going on, but it's out of you know, and
uh day I'm at one free and I'm I'm like,
you know, on freezing right now at the moment, and
I'm I'm getting here to collect these boats, unify and
uh uh you know, at.
Speaker 3: Tray to get the other chambers as well.
Speaker 2: So you know I'm done here for them, Okay, I
mean I just was asking that because it always seemed
to me anyway that it was contemplated at one along
because of his way and because of your comments after
the h the recent fight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if I.
Speaker 4: That's like, that's like me telling you I might come
to a party if I don't show up, I said,
I said, Mike, might you know, like I said before,
I feel like I got unfinished visions at one forty seven.
I can't I can't just leave a division without without
no accomplishing what I want to accomplished, you know, and
things like that. And I said, like I said, I
never I never fought for a war title. I'm a
one forty seven champion. I got the IVY, but I
never fort for the boat. The boat was given to me.
So you know, I feel like I feel like I'm
finally getting what I want and now everything like rolling,
everything like perfect timing, you know, and things like that.
Speaker 2: So I was finally going to one I was gonna
ask you about that because you know, obviously you've already
shown yourself to uh to be maybe already people some
people think you're number one, at one and forty seven,
there are other champions, but like you said, you won
the interim belt when you fought to Chikazian, but not
the full belt. That was you know, not your fault
because the champion was Terrence Craford. He was moving up
to another way class and vacated, so you took over
that mantle. Uh So this, this would be the first
time to win real, a real full title if you
will in the ring exactly.
Speaker 4: And im and I'm gonna be able to take it
from a champion. So this I'm this my first time
fighting for about you know, like I said, I'm excited
this I finally getting what I won. And like I said,
I can't leave one forty seven and go to fifty
four and and but what I and I can't leave
forty seven without you know, handling my business. And then
once I handle my business at forty seven, then I
go to fifty four head right now seven?
Speaker 2: Uh well, it seems like if you do take out
of your business that you're talking about, that the future
is immensely bright, whether you're fighting at forty seven or
at one fifty four. I wanted to ask you about this,
and it's not. It's lots of fans talk about this,
but it was Turkey al Chic that put this out
there and posted to a social media not that long
ago where obviously you have this fight coming up, but
he has a big show he's doing in Times Square
in May. Ryan Garcia and Devin Haney are on that car.
Tiafimo Lopez is on that card, and we all know
the deal. If Tiafimo wins, and if if Garcia and
Hainey both win, they're going to have a rematch in
the fall. He would like to have you fight tia
Fimo on that same card if Tiafimo also wins. I
just wondered your thoughts about that.
Speaker 3: I mean, he a good fighters, you know, you know
all a great fighters. You know that's a good card.
Speaker 4: Hey, Well, like I said for you, I'm I'm like,
I'm doubting on one one goal right now and that's
becoming even if bringing at thirty b Built Home and
then the ring magasine Bill Hayes say, I belt about
nobody else ouse Saturday. You know, like we didn't talk
about day right now now then a hand.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you then about standing on us in
terms of the way the schedules have gone. Uh, I
wonder if you know, you you have fought, you know,
as boxing goes today regularly. You fought two times in
twenty twenty three, you fought two times in twenty twenty four,
and so you've been you know, act what what goes
for active these days? He has been very inactive though
he's just had one fight. He's coming off of your
layoff when he fights you for the unification, but he's
only had one fight in three years. When he gets
in the ring with you, I wonder if you think
that that is a significant advantage for you, and just
in terms of the you know, the roster, the the
timing and all the things that are go into preparing
for a significant fight. It's hard enough to fight boots
enis no matter what a boots and that's been active
and you're coming off a long lay off. That seems
to be a kind of a tough hill to climb,
you know.
Speaker 3: What I mean. Uh, that's a lot of things that's
gonna play the part. You know.
Speaker 4: Uh, this fight is gonna be It's gonna be me,
you know, doing what I'm gonna do to him. It's
gonna be the crowd. You know, like I said before,
he he fought on big cars, but he never was
like the meaning of it or so every time he
thought it was no crowds and that stuff and things
like that. You know, Like I said, he a great fighter,
but a lot of things are gonna play a faker,
uh into this. The crowd, you know, fight week, the media,
all the you know, cameras and all that stuff being around.
All this stuff gonna hit the tool. And then once
he finally get in the ring with me, he gonna
be like, I think that's switch gonna.
Speaker 3: Hit like like damn, I'm finally in the ring with
which is like.
Speaker 4: They're gonna go and see what it feels like, you know.
And uh I heard I heard him talking and things
like that, saying this and saying that.
Speaker 3: But you know, we I can't wait. I'm excited, I'm prepared,
I'm ready to handle business.
Speaker 2: Well, I want to wrap up with this. You mentioned
about the crowd. The fight's taking place at Boardwalk Calls
a very hallowed, very famous arena for lots of things,
but boxing is hosted some huge fights of the years,
big mega fights, Mike Tyson, Arturo Gotti, Bernard Hopkins of
Vladimir Klitschko, Miguel Coto, Kelly Pavlck, and Jermaine Taylor. I mean,
I could I've covered so many of those fights that
can go on and on, but this is as crazy
as it sounds. And I actually had to go look
this up because just to make sure. This is going
to be the first fight they've had in the main
arena at Boardwalk. All they've had so I'm in the
upstairs arena over the last several years. But it's the
first really big championship fight card in the main arena
since Bernard Hopkins and Sergey Kovo have fought in a
light heavyweight unification fight back in twenty fourteen. That is
a long time ago, Boots, I saw. I wondered, just
from your point of view, how does it feel to
be like the main guy bringing boxing, big time boxing
back to this great old arena that is so close
to your hometown of Philly.
Speaker 3: It's phenomenal, you know, I guess say, I ee.
Speaker 4: In the little room roman Ve, you know, so like
this is gonna be you know, I had a couple
of legendary you know fights, you know in La City,
and I'm excited to be able to do it in
a big arena, the bigger arena, you know, and Floyd
for Deer before Goutti. There a lot of I think
Mickey Ward and Garrity for dere you know, a lot
of a lot of legendary fights been you know, been
held at this arena. And I'm I'm ready to depend
on the legendary performance, you know, come come next Saturday.
So I think it's it's my turn.
Speaker 3: Everything.
Speaker 4: Like I'm saying, I feel like everything just felt right
in a place, perfect time, and uh, I feel like
we're gonna have a legendary night, you know, next heur day.
Speaker 3: I'm ready to show up.
Speaker 2: Did you ever as a younger guy go to any
of those fights at Boardwalk Calls Young as a kid? Maybe?
Speaker 4: Uh, every fight that I went as a kid was
at this the smaller one, the smaller venue.
Speaker 2: So you're gonna be in Boardwalk Calls Maine Arena for
the first time as a as as a fighter in
the ring, as even though you've been there as a spectator.
But upstairs, Yeah, yeah, it's my.
Speaker 4: First time being in a bigger the bigger room, you know,
and uh, I'm excited, Like like I said, before a
lot of legends came through, you know, and I'm ready
to I'm ready to state my uh my legacy, my
my legendary performance on April, so you know already for
my legendary performance in a borough go well.
Speaker 2: I certainly wish you the best luck in doing so.
It's gonna be a big night for you, a big
night for boxing, a big night for STADIONUS as well. So, Boots,
I wish you the best luck. And I really appreciate
you doing this today. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Thank you appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And again Ennis has been clamoring to collect belts. Here
this is a shot at unification. We know that in
his general area of Atlantic City should have a big
crowd for Boots and us. It's set up for him.
What other thoughts do you have after talking to him
as you did, Dan Rayphield.
Speaker 2: Good fight. Listen. In the history of boxing, there hasn't
really been that many welterweight unification fights. I mean, it's
it's it's such a storied sort of traditional division. There
have only been a handful. There's been, like, you know,
maybe a dozen or so. I mean some of them
are super famously know Mayweather, Pac Yao and Spence and Crawford,
things like that Trinidad in Oscar. But so this is
one of the those types of fights where you just
don't see in this weight class too many unification fights.
But you know, it is a good matchup. They come
in this fight undefeated. Both guys are looking to continue
to make their name. It is for the Ring Magazine title,
so you know, too many people, the winner of this
fight will be the man in the division that is
sort of not had the man ever since Crawford left
after he defeated Errol Spence. So this is sort of
the one that picks up that slack. Stanionis has been
woefully inactive. I mean, he's one of the worst defenders
of all. It's not his fault, it's just he had layoffs.
He had the you know problems because of there was
the whole thing that happened with him in Virgil Ortiz
where one guy got sick and he got an appendectomy.
Then Rabel got sick again with his blood disorder and
all that anyway, so that he lost a lot of
time with that. So he comes into this fight off,
you know, a year layoff, but he's only had one
fight in three years, so who knows how he's going
to perform. At least Ennis he's had by our normal standards,
as we talked about in the interview, two fights last year,
two fights in twenty three, you know, so that's active
by today's standards. But this is a good fight. This
is a big time matchup. Like I said, they're both undefeated, TJ.
The crazy thing to me is this Boardwalk Hall, which
has hosted any number of mega fights and huge names
over the years. You know, that's the place where Mike
Tyson fought many times. That's where Arturro Gotti made a
second home and had a whole series of fights to
the last nine fights.
Speaker 1: I was just there three weeks ago. We keep talking
about the nostalgia of this place exactly.
Speaker 2: And well, you were there for basketball, but in terms
of boxing, you know, Floyd Mayweather fought there against Gotti,
Klitchco fought there Miguel Coto on one of the great
Middleway Championship fights ever between.
Speaker 1: Kelly just talked about Foreman holy Field in the Boardwalk Hall.
Speaker 2: So anyway, here's the thing. Bernard Hopkins fought there. There
hasn't been a fight in the main arena now in
the Boardwalk Hall too, if the listeners are not familiar.
There's the main arena, which is like the you know,
fifteen thousand seater or whatever it holds, and then upstairs
you take out like a flight of stairs or an
escalator or element upstairs, and there's another room that holds
about what three three and a half four thousand that
most kind of similar like if you're at Madison Square
Guard and there's the downstairs theater which holds about five thousand,
go upstairs to the main Madison Square Guard holds twenty thousand. So,
but the main arena at Boardwalk Hall has not hosted
a boxing event since twenty fourteen, when Bert Hopkins that's
get COVID have fought in a light head the league.
Speaker 1: It's been that long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they're going there obviously because Boots is from
nearby Philadelphia. He'll draw a crowd. He's drawn crowds his
last couple of fights in Philly. It's probably you know,
they they probably getting some uh you know, it was
sort of a to a pee stanionis Wu and they
mightn't have to actually fighting in his hometown, although close enough,
but anyway, it should be a pretty decent crowd on
the boardwalk. You know, Atlantic City has really fallen off
in terms of the heyday of boxing, but this is
one of those kind of fights that can maybe bring
it back a little bit.
Speaker 1: I will tell you this. They have cleaned a lot
of it up, literally brightened it up. The casinos are back,
and they're maybe trying to get back into the swing
of it within us and maybe a couple of other
Philadelphia or New Jersey area fighters. It doesn't know, they
don't They didn't share their plans with me.
Speaker 2: But the thing about Atlantic City is the big fights
never mattered if the guy was from Philly or Atlantic City.
I mean, Miguel Coto was a Puerto Rican. Vladimir Klitschko
was from Ukraine. You know Kelly Pavlick. I still remember
going to the arena when Kelly Pavlock fought Jermain Taylor,
and it was like a sea of of the Kelly
Pavlock fans that had traveled from Youngstown. Everywhere you went,
everybody was dressed up in the Ohio state. So you know,
you don't have to be from the region. It doesn't
hurt in terms of if you're a Bernard Hopkins bringing
people in or you know, if you are a gad
who was making his home in New Jersey, or you
know you're a be hop from Philly, that's made. That's
that makes sense. But anyway, this should be a very
interesting fight. Bliss Boots can make a name for himself
bigger because he's been you know, a lot of people
in down on it because of what happened with the
Artis situation, with that fight falling out because they were
not going on the same weight situation.
Speaker 1: The bottom line is if he wins this fight. They
were trying to make the Brian Norman fight before. We
talked about it at last weekend and Norman won his
fight by knockout cal Us Crazy Laula's crazy. It's set
up now for another unification fight next with Norman if
you want to make that fight for Boot sentence, but
take care of this first and again that's next week.
We'll preview that more next week and the fight next weekend.
Nice get there with Bootsentnace and we think the match
room people as well. All Right, some news and then
we're getting to Sugar Ray, Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Nostalgia and
the anniversary coming this week. But first some news, and
that is PBC on Prime making the announcement on Wednesday
that Caleb Plant is back this is non pay per
view now to defend his interim super middleweight title. And
oh look, it's Jamal Charlow who is back after yet
another layoff. Jamal Charlow has literally had one fight in
almost four years or maybe more. All right, so here's
the announcement. I don't know how many people are amped
about either one of these names, but PBC's got them
a dat and got them fights.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, Dan, well listen. I think that people will
be happy to see these guys back in their ring.
Kayla Plant has been uh, you know, in a bunch
of interesting fights. Charlot when he's active and he's fighting,
which has been a while, he's been in some good fights.
But the big thing about this one is and and
and they I'm glad that PBC did this. They didn't
kind of beat around the bush because the matchups themselves
are not overwhelming. Let's just be honest about that. We
keep it real. But it's also made very clear when
they made their announcement that this is what they're doing.
And then we're putting them together because they've had all
kinds of bad blood with each other. They almost gotten
they almost got into a fight that'd be separated. They've been,
you know, all over each other on social media, back
and forth. You know, Kayla Plant would get into a
fight with anybody on social media, if you could say,
with Charlot, but they bring in particular with each other,
have needled each other for the last couple of years.
This has been a long time.
Speaker 1: Weren't they throwing punches at each other in the tunnel
at the T Mobile Arena before, like uh, one of
one of the other people I forget in pay per
view that it wasn't even their fight. They had an
they had an undercard preliminary fight on a on a
fight card in the tunnel of the team allbiles.
Speaker 2: It was just kind of a mess. But the fact
is they've wanted to fight each other. So you can't.
You can't ask Charlotte come off an eighteen month layoff
and get in the ring with Kayleb Plant. I mean,
I don't think that's anything that you want. You want
to see him in a good spot. So hopefully, look
it's not pay per view like you said. I mean,
when they fight each other. It's gonna be a pay
per view obviously, but the main thing is they're getting
in the ring. There is the regular schedule coming of
non pay per view fights. As I've said all along,
it's taken them a while why, I don't know the
exact reason, but they're here now. Cost Tim zu we
got this fight coming up in May. They did the
one that was just recent with Fondora. They did the
Tim Zoo fight at the end of last year when
he got knocked out by martazeleevf And so there's gonna
be others, I think, as I am told, coming June July. Anyway,
in terms of this matchup, you've got cayleb Plant taking
on the very tough Armando Razendez, who's probably best known
for a really good performance at a knockout against Jared
Hurd that was a couple of fights ago. You have,
so that's that's Caleb's assignment. And then you have Charlow.
He's come in again, I think against a pretty soft
opponent in Thomas Lamana. Yeah, you know, let's last time
he was in a fight against a known opponent. He
got stopped in the first round by Arizlonti, Lara.
Speaker 1: Laura Laura knocked him out with one punch against Cornflake Lamana.
Speaker 2: So he has won like nine fights in a row.
But it's their nine opponents nine right, yeah, exactly. But anyway,
if they take care of their business, they're gonna.
Speaker 1: Fight each other, right, Rayfield, I always have fun with
you Bay in Las Vegas. If you had to bet
one hundred dollars that Jamal Charlow makes it to May
thirty first in this fight, which way would you bet?
We are six or seven weeks away? Does he make
it to May thirty first and make it to this
fight card? He's he's pulled out of fights, he's had
alcohol problems, he's had arrests. Is he gonna make it
to May thirty first? Stay tuned?
Speaker 2: I think yes in this case. All right, maybe I'm
just being uh being off. I have a positive mindset today,
all right.
Speaker 1: I like that because Duke's playing in the Final four
this weekend. You got a positive nine set about that
your Yankees are hitting home runs. It's gonna be positive for.
Speaker 2: The sake of Jamal's career and his life. I hope
he's good to go, because when he is in the
right frame of mind, and he's not dealing with all
kinds of issues, and he's got his life under control.
He is a heck of a fighter, and so is
his brother, but they just have had so many issues.
It's unfortunate to watch it unfold like that. But he
ain't getting any younger, and it's not something.
Speaker 1: And probably needs the money. We often talk about that,
all right, Moving on most valuable promotions, Jake Paul's outfit
has announced now that they've signed Alicia Bomgardner. She's going
to make a mandatory defense. Tell me about the opponent
and when is the fight and where? Give me the
Give me the lowdown on Alicia Bomgardner's return again. She's
been under drug suspension as well.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, well that she was never actually suspended, I guess.
But nonetheless, she has a fight coming back. She did
fight back in October. This will be her next fight
since then. She is still the undisputed champion. Whatever was
the situation with that drug situation from her fight in
Detroit that took place a while back. In any event,
I made a mistake when I told you that she
was a mandatory. She is out the mandatory.
Speaker 1: What she is is.
Speaker 2: The opponent is a woman named Jennifer Morand who was
twelve and zero with one knockout. She is from Spain.
She's actually the wva's interim featherweight titlelder. She's moving up
to challenge Alisha one hundred and thirty pounds, so I
thought she was the thirty pound interim champion. My mistake there. Nonetheless,
Bomb Garner getting back in action for this fight. It
will take place on the undercard when Katie Taylor and
Amanda Serrano have their third fight. That's in July July
eleventh to be specific, at Madison Square Guard And as
soon as that she was signed with MVP back you
know what about a week or two ago. In absolutely
zero shock whatsoever. I mean, I sort of had known
this ahead of time, that it wasn't definite, but it
was like, that's what we're gonna If we can get
this wrapped up, we're putting her on that undercard, which
makes all the sense in the world. The MVP, of
course a women's card for that event. Alicia is one
of the best women's boxers out there. She's the undisputed
champion at one thirty and as I said to you,
when we talked about the signing, she if she wins
the fight on this card against Miranda, obviously, if she's
at one thirty and Serrano is the unified champ at
one twenty six, but she's going up to one forty
to challenge Taylor, and Taylor's at one forty has been
a champion also at one thirty five, Bombgarner fits in
the picture to fight the winner or the loser for
that matter, however it goes. You know, so if if
Serrano were to were to win, I means she could
challenge her at one forty or you know, if Katie
she can move up. If Serrano loses and she's still
back at featherweight, she could probably still you know, jump
up the four pounds to one thirty and challenge Bombgarner.
Point is, if you're MVP, you've got now three of
the best women in boxing, all under your under your
promotional banner, and they're fighting at twenty six.
Speaker 1: And then we'll be honest. We talked about this and
we'll talk about them when we can. Told her this
is going to be a massive event in the summer
with these two fighting a third time. Taylor and Serrano
in Madison Square Garden, which they sold out as a
headlining fight back three years ago. So for Bombgarner to
be part of that card and an option for the winner,
that's a significant deal in this the chess moves that
are being made well, by.
Speaker 2: The way, Besides just the fact that Serrano and Katie
sold out the Garden for the first fight, the rematch
was on the undercard of Mike Tyson Jake Paul, which
did tens of millions of viewers around the world on
Netflix and was in front of a crowd of like
seventy thousand or whatever it was at at and T Stadium.
So the Garden will be sold out in Bombgarner as
the co feature will have and that's also going to
be on Netflix. We'll have by far and away, by multiples.
I couldn't even count her biggest exposure ever. Her biggest
fight before this one was her victory against MICHAELA. Mayer
by split decision back in twenty twenty two. That was
a one hundred and thirty pound unification fight on her
way to becoming the undisputed champion. That was a pretty
good fight and it had wide exposure on ESPN in
the United States or ESPN Plus and you know, I
guess it was on what Sky channel in the United.
Speaker 1: Because they fought in the UK in the middle of
the afternoon.
Speaker 2: You know, Netflix is going to blow right both of
those numbers. So she's in a wonderful position to get
a fight on this card and to not only get
that opportunity but set herself up to be definitely one
hundred in the picture for whoever it merges from the
main event.
Speaker 1: One more news item, and that is Noayoya in a
Way have they officially engraved the Japanese Boxer of the
Year as just the Naoya in a Way award because
he accepted his seventh consecutive Japanese Boxer of the Year
award this week. But the interesting thing is he was
at the ceremony with Junto Nakatani, and so it's not
hard to put the pieces together here. That's a fight
down the road in the future that everybody's interested in.
They were together in Japan. Rayphael is all over all
the news all over the globe, including who's having the
chicken dinner at an award ceremony in Japan together? And
in this case it's the monster and Nakatani.
Speaker 2: This is a fight that will be when it happens,
and I hope it happens, and it probably will happen.
I'm not like Japanese boxing expert, but I know enough
and I know people that are in the boxing business
from Japan. This is, if it happens, will be the
most significant, biggest, most hyped up fight in the history
of Japan boxing. In terms of two Japanese boxers fighting
each other. They are both tremendous fighters in a way
of course, is you know, at worst, like the third
best fighter in the world power for pound, probably on
a lot of people's minds one or two. He and
Nakatani are the two best fighters in Japan presently if
you ask me, no doubt about it. Now, this was
a matchup that's been discussed. I went back and I
remember if an interview I had with Bob Aram at
the end of last year, Bob and Top Rank they
are the co promoter in a way and of Nakatani,
and so they're they're heavily involved in those plans. They
were talking about maybe doing Nakatani moving up to one
twenty two to fight in a way sometime this year,
maybe in the summer. That is not going to happen.
For one of the main reasons was because they just
they want to do the fight at the Tokyo Don't
which is a huge stadium obviously in Tokyo where Tyson
fought a couple of times, where in a way fought
Luis Neary. They had a huge crowd there. It's a
hard building to get. I mean, they've got professional baseball
the plays there, and they've got other activities that take
place there on a regular basis. So then you also
had the situation within a way, having mandatories to deal
with and wanting to maintain the title, wanting to come
back to the United States, also dealing with the Saudi's
because he's got a thing with riad season where he's
supposed to fight at the end of the year. Anyway,
long story short, that fight's not happening in twenty twenty
four because in a way, fought in January. He's got
the fight coming up in May in Las Vegas. He's
got the September fight back in Japan. If he wins
against Acmadalia, and if that's okay and he's not injured,
no issues, he's supposed to be going to fight at
the end of the year in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, you
got knakatan He's been knocking everybody out. He just come
off of defense a few weeks ago against Kwaar. He's
gonna fight probably at least one more time, maybe twice
more this year. But of all that transpires and their
winners and they're good to go, then Nakatani's moving up
to one twenty two, which is it's not a matter
of if he moves up. It's just a matter of
when he moves up. And it's similar in terms of
in a way, it's not if he'll move the federally,
it's when. So it strikes me that if they get
through all this stuff I just mentioned and they fight
each other in the first fight of next year, at
that point they'll have plenty of time that I get
a date for the Tokyo Dome. That will be a
gargantuan fight. But the reason I'm setting all this up
is because at this dinner where they were at this
awards galap that's put on every year by the Japanese
Boxing Comision, where in a way was voted once again
the Japanese boxer of the year. When he got up
to make his remarks accepting the award, he said, he
challenged Nakatani was sitting and you know it was there
also said, and this was remarks that were translated from Japanese,
let's let's explode Japanese boxing at the Tokyo Dome next year,
Knakatani got up, went over to in a way, shook
his hand and took pictures together, and he said, let's
do it. So the two fighters are on board. They
share a promotional outfit who was already talked about doing
the fight. It's a it's just a massive event for
the country of Japan. It's a great fight for boxing.
It's a great fight in the ring. Two talented punchers,
two fearless guys. Two guys have been fighting good competition.
They're not worried about, you know, losing their zero if
they lose. It's a legacy kind of fight. It's, you know,
in a way, is already going to be a Hall
of famer. Nakatani is making his case. Obviously he wins.
That's a humongous thing. I just adored this fight. I
know I've said in the past my preference would be
to see na Katani against Bam Rodriguez first. But I
can't be upset about the prospect of a fight between Nakatani.
In a way, it's an awesome fight if it happens.
Speaker 1: And I said chicken dinner, maybe it was eel, maybe
it was sushi. I don't know what they served at
the fighter.
Speaker 2: I didn't I didn't get the menu.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Bud, you did get the translation. So
good on staying on that about the monster and Nakatani
likely next year in the Tokyo Dome.
Speaker 2: What an awesome fucking time.
Speaker 3: I'm with you.
Speaker 1: We got time to ramp up.
Speaker 2: If I'm ever gonna make a trip to Japan, that
might be the one I might sing it right now,
says to me. My son says. My son is very
interested to travel, and he said to me on a
multiple of occasions he wants to go to Japan. That
might be the one.
Speaker 1: I have to go to Rayfield and Rayfield headed to
the Tokyo Dome. Stay tuned on that, all right. One
piece of business left, and that is nostalgia. It is
this weekend, on Final four weekend that is now going
to be the thirty A thirty eighth Rayfield Anniversary April sixth,
nineteen eighty seven of Sugar Ray Leonard's monumental upset of
Marvin Hagler to win the middleweight world title coming out
of a long retirement. You and I are obviously long
in the bag for Sugar Ray Leonard. We talked about this.
It's well known. You and I likewise believe that, even
though some think it's controversial, he won this fight. It's
amazing to go back and relive the nostalgia. All right,
So give a little bit of background, and then I'm
going to pose something that you and I are going
to debate that's a little different beyond this fight. But
let's go back in time to after again. We're coming
up on the fortieth anniversary of Hagler. Hearns by the way,
that's happened. Marvin is taking a year off. He actually
had an injury. He's beaten John the Beast Mugabi in
nineteen eighty six. This is his next fight and it
turns out to be his final fight of his career.
Wax nostalgic about Sugar Ray Leonard. Marvelous Marvin Hagler.
Speaker 2: First of all, great fight, one of the biggest events
in the history of boxing. I mean, it was the fight.
It was the culmination of the four Kings that they
had been fighting each other. I mean, yes, there was
other fights that followed, you know, certainly the Duran Leonard
was a Duran Leonard three. And if I'm not mistaken,
Leonard versus.
Speaker 1: Up that after that one ride, right that the both came.
One came in eighty nine and the other one came
in nineteen ninety, I believe, right.
Speaker 2: So so the Four Kings nine fights were not totally
over yet because, like I said, Ray still had other fights,
but this was really the last of the new fights
that had to happen, uh for for that, you know,
for uh, for the the round robin to be complete.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: And there had been so much conversation about this fight
for years. Hagler wanted it and Ray kept kind of
playing around with him, and they talked about this fight
for years and years, I mean, as a matter of fact.
And when Sugar Ray Leonard first won the wealthweight title
against Benitez in nineteen was it in nineteen seventy nine, right,
it was Marvin Hagler in the first fight against Antifarmo
on the undercard where he fought for the middleweight title
for the first time. I got a draw. So they
were featured on ABC and Hagler was the co feature
and Ray was the main event, and that was a
thought even back in nineteen seventy nine and down the
road they would fight each other and once.
Speaker 1: What we should also point out is Ray was such
a megastar. When you go back and watch the documentary
that Showtime did the four part documentary on the Four Kings,
Ray Leonard as a brand new world champion fighting for
a world championship that night made like five times or
maybe even seven or eight times the money that Marvin
Hagler made him. What Hagler understood is I got to
find a way to get in the ring with Ray
Leonard to make serious, significant money. And the chase began
in seventy nine, nineteen seventy ninety.
Speaker 2: Took years when Ray was off in his retirement. Marvin
did great because he had the Duran fight. He had
a huge money fight against right against Tommy Hearns. But
the thing about it is so just put it in
perspective about the length of time that Ray had been
out of the ring. He wins the undisputed. He becomes
the undisputed welterweight champion against Tommy Hearns in eighty one,
and their fantastic, legendary first fight stops him in the
fourteenth round. He then has one defense against Bruce Finch
in early nineteen eighty two. He has the retina injury.
He retires. That's in like February of eighty two. He
comes out of retirement May of eighty four, two years
plus he's been out of the ring. He fights Kevin
Howard in a non title fight, just a ten rounder.
He gets knocked down. He looks atrocious. He's like, okay,
he's done. He goes back in the retirement, so he's
he's looked bad. Even though he got the win ninth
round knockout against Howard May of eighty four. Retired, now
done right, people are still clamoring for the fight. He
comes out of retirement and for the fight against Hagler.
So from May of eighty four last time he's in
the ring to April of eighty seven, so almost you know,
it's three years. Yes, he's been out of the ring,
and he it's not like he was active before that.
And he's also by the way moving up to weight divisions.
Marvin Hagler, meanwhile, is like the dominating middleweight champion of
the world, the badass of badass. He's been in the
war with Hearns, He's been in a lot of tough fights,
but he's still a dominating Champion's making his twelfth defense.
He had the fight with Mugabi. You mentioned that sugar RYE.
Leonard's that ring side for that fight. As the legend goes,
and by the way, I've said this a thousand times.
If you want to know the history of not only
this fight, but the Four Kings in general, do yourself
a favor and go and buy the great George Kimball
book called The Four Kings, and it recounts all this
stuff I'm talking about. I've read the book a thousand times.
Ray was sitting their ringside at the Hagler Mgabi fight,
and it was there where he decided that he so
called saw something, if you will, and now was the
time to strike and to end the retirement and fight
the guy.
Speaker 1: So whatever he tell you what he saw, if I
can interject, he saw him in a war with Tommy Hearns,
and that Mugabi fight was a war because mcgaby took
all of his best shots and was firing back on him.
But again, it's remarkable, and you and I can be
considered biased. He comes out of a three year retirement
against a guy that most people believed was indestructible as
the Middleway champ and Sugar Ray Leonard out Box Team
out at Fox Team and beat him.
Speaker 2: First of all, I am not biased because I'm a
huge Marvin Hagler fan also, so I love both of
them dearly. So when I say I think that Ray
won the fight, I don't say that with any shred
of bias towards Ray over Hagler because I adore both
of them. But look, I've watched that fight numerous times.
It was a masterful performance. Ray was very intelligent in
the way it was negotiated. It was a twelve round fight,
not a fifteen round fight. Ray had, you know, got
the size of the ring he wanted a little bit
larger than not it was within regulation, but you know,
I think it was a little bit bigger. But as
he got everything that he wanted and Hager just wanted
to fight and so but Ray was a you know,
Ray was a very shrewd business person, very calculated in
the way he did his deals in many ways reminiscent
of the way that Mayweather did his deals. But you know,
he always got the results in soded Floyd. So it
was a fantastic fight. He had a great game plan.
But the thing that people have to remember is coming
off of that layoff, coming off of how horrible he
looked against Howard, people thought he was going to die
in the ring. I mean, the only thing I can
think of in my time of covering boxing that had
the similar thought from media and fans, but the script
was completely flipped was when Oscar de la Hoya fought
Nanny Packyow. When that fight got made, that was a
death match. Oscar was gonna literally kill Paki in the ring.
There was like a movement in the Philippines to like
not let him fight the fight Pacyao because they didn't
want their national treasure to be mortally wounded. Okay, I'm
not joking when I say that, right, So I understand
how that goes. And obviously pak Ya went in the
ring and absolutely annihilated Oscar and sent him to retirement. Now,
Ray did not annihilate Marvin Hagler Marvin was in the fight,
but it was a close fight, and but he won
seven rounds. I've scored that fight ten thousand times. I
come up with the same score every single time. I
actually TJ this may not be a popular opinion. I
don't think it's that hard to a fight to score
to be quite hot.
Speaker 1: Well, especially especially when the fight begins with Leonard being
busier connecting with the lead right hand connecting with the jab,
and even on the announced team gil Clancy is filling
in on the HBO call I don't remember that with
h yeah, with Barry Tompkins, and Gil Clamsey is the
one saying to Barry Tompkins, I don't understand what Marvin
is doing here. He is giving away round after round
at the beginning of the fight, like in the fourth round.
That's what Gil Clancy says on the PLAYBOFF.
Speaker 2: Now, so Marvin, you know, he did lose I think
easily the first four rounds and and then you know, okay,
you can make that up obviously, but he didn't exactly
look like, you know, he was gonna go out there
and knock him out or anything like that. Never came
really close to knocking him out. And sugar Ray. Leonard
had the master game plan. He won the event. Now
people will say a lot of people were sort of
swayed because Marvin was supposed to knock him out so early.
And when you look up and it's like the sixth round,
the seventh round, the eighth round, and Ray still not
only standing there, but he's actually doing pretty well. You
maybe you're a biased to lean towards him. And they
had the whole thing where, you know, he had told
his quarterman, Angelo Dundee, when we get you know, and
he had one of his guys in the corner when
we get to thirty seconds left, you know, shout it
out or hit the do something. So I know they
had come up with a plan. So we know there's
about thirty seconds to go in the round, and then
he would really turn it on and the judges, and
that's not unusual the judges.
Speaker 1: He got that from Muhammad Ali and Dundee helped work
with him on the last impression with the judges. And
you saw Leonard put together flurry after flurry at the
end of rounds doing that, and he just.
Speaker 2: Did a brilliant job. And Hagler had been a little
diminished by what had occurred in the Mogabi fight and
maybe some other tough fights before that, but the fact
that Ray could get himself in that kind of condition
and come back after that kind of layoff, take the
punches that he took from Marvin and outbox this man.
It is truly one of the I mean, I'm not
saying it's the greatest fight in the history of the world,
but in terms of my personal enjoyment of a fight,
the event, the action, the story, the rivalry, how long
it took to get the controversy, everything about this fight.
I absolutely love. I love it, love what I love.
Speaker 1: And the hair of the back of my neck is
stand up right now, because again I'm unabashed. I was
such a sugar Ray Leonard fan before I became a
media member. I was never a Marvin Hagler fan. And again,
you got to appreciate people, because we've talked about this before.
This is not on pay per view. It didn't exist really.
It was satellite TV, ballrooms, theaters, movie theaters, go close circuit,
go buy go, buy a ticket and go watch the
closed circuit of the fight and then later watch the
HBO replay. But I still remember hearing on the radio
that night. I'm up late night as a junior in
high school that Sugar Ray Leonard breaking news. You know,
a couple of quick sentences, Sugar Ray Leonard has won
the world middleweight title fight with Marvin Hagler, and I
like screamed out in my house running around with no
video and ESPN's kind of in its primitive games.
Speaker 2: They're showing the photos.
Speaker 1: They're showing the still photos the whole bit. Way what
a moment in between rounds. Go back and watch this,
peeps at the end of the eleventh round, which I
believe Sugar Ray Leonard wins the eleventh round of the fight.
They can since they've won the fight. In the corner
they if he can last the twelfth round, they've won
the fight. And Richard Steele comes over as the referee
and says, last round of the fight, and Angelo Dundee says,
you bet new world champion and right here and Leonard
let's go off the stool and puts his hands up,
and everybody's going crazy because the mentality was we're gonna
win this fight right here on.
Speaker 2: Decision outdoor Caesar's y Vegas, huge event. Uh, they made
crazy amounts of money for this fight for the times.
I mean the amount of money was just gigantic. Ah It, No,
there's no fight that even compares in this day and
age to this kind of fight. I understand that we've
seen big meg events, and I obviously covered fights like
Mayweather pack Ow and I mean that was obviously gargantuan,
but this was just off the charts.
Speaker 1: I mean, this scene was so much more mainstream. This
is a front page of the newspapers, lead story on
the national news.
Speaker 2: The first of all, people should also know this was
no Saturday night fight like we're used today, like a
Monday or Tuesday night in Vegas. I mean, I remember
when I was getting ready, I was I was I'll
digress for a quick minute, when when Oscar de la
Hoya was getting ready to fight Bernard Hopkins and Oscar
was fighting him and was at the time it was
going to be the first ever four belt unification fight
at middleweight, And I was working at USA Today and
I was writing an extensive piece about this event before
I was going to travel to Vegas the fight, and
we were talking about this with my editor, like what
is it compared to? And there was a lot of
similarities between that match and Ray against Hagler, where Hopkins
was like the Hagler figure, the guy that had never
gotten the respect, who had come up the hard way,
who had to make his name by fighting some guys
that had come up in wait that were bigger stars
like Hearns, like Leonard, the same way Hopkins had done
against guys like Trinidad. And now he was fighting Oscar
and obviously Bernard Hopkins's idol was Marvin Hagler. That was
well established. Anyhow, So as I'm doing my research, I'm
preparing to write the piece, and I've done the interviews
with Oscar, and I've done the interviews with, you know,
with Bob Aram who was the promoter of both fights
between Hopkins and Packett as well as Hagler and Leonard
and I and I'd to also talk to Bernard. Anyway,
I was going through the USA Today like our library,
like looking at the not that i was looking on
the microfilm or whatever it was, and I'm reading some
of the real time accounts that were in the newspaper
at USA Today of their coverage of Hagler versus Leonard.
Not only was it on the front page, they actually
sent multiple writers to cover the fight. Now, I worked
for USA Today for five years and covered boxing, and
I covered a shitload of fights. And I don't know
if maybe but one time, and I don't remember what
might have been an Oscar fight that my colleague, one
of the columnists they had sent to cover the fight
with me and I did the main stuff and he
wrote a couple of comps. But that just shows you
how big it was that and it wasn't as USA Today,
the AP, the New York Times, all the big papers
in the whole country, La Times, you name it. They
didn't just send a writer, they sent a whole team
of people. This was on the same level as a
Super Bowl, as the World Series, as the Olympics. That's
how fucking big this was.
Speaker 1: It was a big deal, there is no doubt. And
it was now good Lord thirty eight years ago and
Marvin Hagler never fought again as Sugar Ray Leonard won
that night. Leonard did fight on, as you mentioned, including
fighting Duran a third time, including rematching Thomas Hearns and
then fighting and we've talked about the anniversaries of these fights,
fighting a couple of fights with Terry Norris, and Hector
Camacho that he should not have fought such as life
as he fought on. But Hagler never fought again.
Speaker 2: What did you want to debate? You want to say,
you want a debate.
Speaker 1: Quick debate. We've never debated this, you and me? Okay,
who do you hold responsible that we didn't see this again?
Leonard or Hagler? Did? I believe that if Hagler had
some time to stew and had gotten the right financial offer,
he would have done it. Ray was always elusive with
rematches after he won the fight. He took forever to
give Roberto Duran and Tommy Hearns rematches years, years and
years and years. So I kind of hold Ray a
little more responsible that this never happened again. Do you disagree?
Speaker 2: I totally disagree. And I say that because A Bob
Aram offered the Marvin the rematch and he didn't want it.
And uh Seth Abraham, who was the at the time,
the boss of HBO Sports, who was obviously very involved
in making these matches and you know, dealing with everything
related to pay per view and their broadcasts and all that,
had been told that Marvin had told him that I'm
not fighting again. I'm done now. They made an offer.
He said, no, Marvin, if you if you go by
the the legend as it goes, never put gloves on again.
He took the gloves off that night, left the ring,
and never put boxing gloves on his hands ever again
for the rest.
Speaker 3: Of his life.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, he passed away, you know, a couple of years ago.
But uh, you know, Aaron says it never happened. Ray
was willing to fight him, supposedly according to Ray and
his team, and uh and Seth said that because Marvin
uh not only felt he got robbed the fight and
it was never going to fight again. He never did,
and he said there was The quote from Seth was
something to the extent of, you know, we had conversations,
but there was never like an actual negotiation. It was
sort of like, are you before you can negotiate, you
got to find out that two sides are interested, so
that that conversation occurred about are you interested? And the
answer they came up with his note.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Marvin disappeared basically from public life.
He met his second wife, married her, and moved to
Italy and was not even living in the United States.
Speaker 2: He didn't really disappeared from public life in America for
the most part, but he started acting in movies in Italy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he was I mean, he was not around
the big fights. He was not ever fighting again, and
he did not he The.
Speaker 2: One thing he did do was every year he was
always a guest at the Hall of Fame. He would
always make the trip back to Canistota for the inductions.
Were always one of the more popular figures. And I've
said this before, I was one of the greatest things
I ever got to do in my careers. When I
was working at ESPN years ago and I was covering
Bernard Hopkins against Winkie Wright. I was out in Las
Vegas for the week to cover the fight, but I
was also we were doing I guess there must have
not been a lot going on at that time because
they had we had a sports center crew to cover
the fight. I was there with my boy Brian Kenny,
who was doing you know, he was our host and
I was like the second guy. But they brought in
for those few days, brought in Marvin Hagler to be
like our third guy. So I had the most awesome time.
I spent like, you know, three days doing TV stuff
with Marvin Hagler and hanging out with him at events,
you know, and sitting in the arena watching the wigh
in and doing this and that. That was one of
the joys of my life was to meet Marvin Hagler
and hang out with him like that. What a great
what a great time.
Speaker 1: Brockton, Massachusetts. He actually was born in Newark, New Jersey,
but then adopted adopted in Brockton, Massachusetts. Marvin Hagler Sugar
Ray Leonard nearly forty years old. By the way, we're
coming up in about a week on the fortieth of
Hagler hearns. Get ready for that. That was two years earlier.
Fight with that full show, my friend the service, work
with Boots in plenty of previews. My god fights everywhere
from Australia to Vegas, to Kazakhstan and to England. All
this weekend we will do our best to recap this.
I don't know what kind of mood you're gonna be
in after the Duke game on Saturday night with Houston.
I like your Blue Devils to win this game. Stay tuned.
I will be in San Antonio at the Alamo Dome,
Remember the Alamo. I will be there and then when
the college basketball is done Saturday night, when all the
fights are done Saturday, you and I will reconvene at
some point off the weekend for the fight Freakching and
I recap podcast. My friend you just made.
Speaker 2: I got one thing I must add. It's not boxing related,
but I've covered several fights in San Antonio through the years,
and the one thing that blew my mind is the
first time I went to San Antonio. Like everybody, you
gotta go see the Alamo, right because remember the Alamo
the most striking thing in the history of the world
to me, somebody who has been all over the United
States and even some international places. And I've tried to
do some non boxing things when you're there, tour around,
see the sights and stuff like that, because you're you
got the opportunity while you're there if you can squeeze
it in is going with some of the guys I
was with to the Alamo. Yep, A it like is
the size of like a fucking shack, correct ten b
It's like Samwich between a fucking gas station.
Speaker 1: That's correct. Shopping plaza, Yes, there's a shopping plaza. Besides
next to a gas station. I will try to get
a photo this weekend if I'm there by the Alamo,
to prove exactly what you're saying on a selfie. I
think you can fuel up and get your twinkies or
whatever you need, your five hour energy. This legendary to
the Alamo.
Speaker 2: Legendary spot in American folklore and history of this country.
Remember the Alamo, David to like a fucking Exxon station
or whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, all right, I'll try to verify that
this weekend. I'll have some enchiladas on your behalf and
let's go do Let's see what happened or go Gators
in my part of the world. For Florida, Auburn and
Houston are in the basketball Final four. I'll be there
in San Antonio. Dan, have a great weekend. By the way,
you and I will reconvene on the bet Us Boxing show.
We'll handicap some of these fights and then we're back
with a preview off the weekend on this podcast feed.
For now, we are good, my Fred, have a good weekend.
Thank you you too, Harris, Dan Rayfield. I'm merely TJ.
Reeves follower. Subscribe on this podcast feed. Apple Spreaker, Spotify,
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