Speaker 1: Don't Countdown is on to fight Time.
Speaker 2: This is Big Fight weekend. Now here is your host,
DJ Leaves. Yes, indeed, we get ready for a ring
magazine to his own pay per view main event, Mario
Barrios and Ryan Garcia for the WBC welterweight title. We're
ready to preview that. We're ready to preview the two
junior wel toweight world title fights that are on the
undercard as well as that whole pay per view. We've
got an intriguing junior lightweight rematch in England earlier on Saturday,
US time plus Claressa Shields is back Sunday. We've got
a barrage of fights to go over and plenty of
fight news as well. It is the big fight wee
can preview pod. I am the somewhat capable host. TJ Reeves. Hello,
Dan Rayfield from Fight Preach, to Night to Substack and
the newsletter. He's our insider. Always love getting to chop
it up with you. We get ready for this weekend,
and you've already done great leg work because on the
pod feed they heard from Mario Barrios. You're one on
one with him prior to the Garcia fight. You heard
from Richardson Hitchens if you were on the pod feed
as he gets ready for his title defense in the
co feature with Oscar Duarte. Intriguing fight that we're about
to talk about. How are you as you've been hustling
and we're getting ready now for this show. We're within
as we released this pod, we're within the forty eight
hours now of the fight card getting under way in Vegas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got a big like you mentioned, all those
fights we got come up. It's several notable fights on
this card and then good fight in the UK Claressa
back in an Action on Sunday. We're back into the
groove after I think somewhat of a slow start to you.
I've had some big fights between you know, we had
Chicora and Tiafimo and now we got this card. We've
got some other stuff coming up, so we're getting back
into the groove.
Speaker 2: We do, we do have business. We have, We have
lots to go over. Thank you for finding us. Make
sure you're following subscribing Apple, Spreaker, Spotify here on the
pod feed. Also find the Big Fight Weekend YouTube page.
You can see Dan with Mario Barrios and Richardson Hitchins,
if you so desire, on the pod feed, we also
have great nostalgia.
Speaker 1: On the YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: On the YouTube channel, excuse me, on the YouTube channel,
forgive me subscribe like us there, rate us there, review
us there because you've got great nostalgia on the YouTube
channel as well. That's good any time to go back
and relive some of these great moments, and we do
occasional live stuff there as well, different than the pod feed.
All right, let's get into it. You did interview Mario Barrios.
I've seen plenty of Ryan Garcia the full disclosure. They've
not completed the press conference. So if somebody picked up
a chair like the WWF and slung it at somebody,
Rayfield and I don't know that right now. While we're
taping the pod, we hoped everybody behaved. I think the
Joe Goosen stuff's getting totally overblown, but you never know
with Ryan Garcia because he used to be his trainer
for a fight and now he's Barrios's. Yeah, there you go.
So we have the fight approaching. Give me your thoughts
now as we get closer. There are a lot of unknowns.
Barrios's last two fights have been draws. Garcia, we don't
know what we're getting after what we saw on his
last outing where he also had an injury and lost.
So what do you think here about this?
Speaker 1: Look, we know what Mario Barrios brings to the table.
We've seen him plenty of times. He's very consistent, he's
very good. He's not great, but he he I always
look at like this. He's like the B talent with
the A plus work ethic and effort, and Ryan Garcia
is like the A talent but a lesser grade in
the effort. So if I was scouting boxing and I
could pick my guys, I'm always wanted to take the
guy with the B talent but the supreme work ethic
and heart and desire, as opposed to the guy with
the A talent who doesn't live up to the potential
because he doesn't work as hard as he should and
doesn't have the proper mentality. So that's why I can
absolutely see Mario Barrius winning this fight because but you know,
the true thing we're gonna find out is this is
not about Barrios, because, like I said, he's like a metronome.
He comes to fight, he's in good shape, he gives
the effort sometimes, uh you know, he makes things close because,
as you mentioned, the two fights he's had in his
recent defenses were both draws. The gigantic wildcard, which we
just have no idea what to expect is which Ryan
Garcia shows up. Is it the dynamic guy that's in
shape physically and mentally, or is it the guy that's
got eight thousand things going on outside the ring and
is distracted and you know, isn't maybe in the best
condition and you know, is not doing drugs or drinking
or performance enhancing drugs. I mean, you just don't know
what's going to show up. I've seen some of the
videos of his preparation for this fight that they post
now that you have to take with the grain of
salt because he's controlling what's being put out. But it
looks like he's fucking training in his living room. It
reminds like when Julio cesar Chobs was training for, you know,
some of his big fights and Freddie Road. You wouldnt even
come to the Jimmy Freddi Roach would go to his
house and they would move the couch out of the
way and set up an area on the fucking on
the floor to do their to dontwork and all that business. So, uh,
you know, Ryan, all due respect, his father, Henry Garson
started in that one boxing, but Henry Garcy is not
an elite professional boxing trainer. Uh. And that's who Ryan's
trainer is for this fight. It's not a Joe goosen
Er some of the other you know, a Derek James
or some of the other you know, truly top nots
professional trainers that have worked with you know a number
of quality fighters. So I don't know which one is
showing up. He's coming off of a performance hancing drug
suspension after the Devin Hainey fight in his return that
took place last uh is what June. I guess it
was May May May At the time he didn't show up.
He had a sleep walk through a decision loss and
a shitty fight against Roly Romero for a title belt.
You know, did have an injury, but plenty of guys
have fought through, fought through hind injuries if all things
are taken equal. So here's the reality. I'm not opposed
to the match as far as like the potential for
it to actually be good, because if Ryan is in
shape and Barrios. We know he comes in good shape.
It could be a fun fight. But let's just be honest.
Ryan Garcia does not deserve this title opportunity. He's coming
off of a suspension for drugs and he's coming off
of a defeat where he looked shitty. It's not like
it was a great fight and it was a close loss.
I'm like, you can see him getting the opportunity. He's
coming off a non performance and a non effort in
a terrible fight where he got knocked down and then
the WBC unsuspended him because he said all kinds of
terrible racist things and you know, anti gay things, and
you name it. It's boxing, it's business, and he brings
supposedly a big crowd. Although I must tell you spend
two seconds looking at the ticket mamithest any of your
ticket broker sites or on the you know, the second.
Speaker 2: Market, the secondary market too, not even not even.
Speaker 1: The secondary market, the first what is it? The first?
The primary market? The primary we did.
Speaker 2: If you went through, you just go on through the arena. Well,
I mean, the one thing I keep thinking when you're
saying this is we're not talking about the Ryan Garcia
of like twenty nineteen, twenty twenty one. At this point,
after having lost to Jervonte Davis, the mess with the pds,
and and even though he won the fight in the ring,
being basically stripped of that victory and suspended for a year,
and then how awful he looked a year ago. There
there are serious question marks about what we really have
anymore legitimately, about whether or not this guy has championship
level talent. Is he ever going to be championship level
talent at this point.
Speaker 1: He had the one fight in twenty twenty four, that
was the no contest with Haney. He had the one
fight in twenty twenty five, the shit fight against Romero.
He's got this fight against Mario coming up on Saturday.
You know, he hasn't really looked good. I mean, even
though he officially got in no contest. You know, he
did have his hand raised on the night against Hany,
but we all know that that was partially you have
to acknowledge the depositive drug test. The last time he
actually looked good was in December twenty twenty three, when
he scored an eighth round knockout against Oscar Dwart. They
were going to talk about Hi Minu, who was on
the undercard. That's a wind that actually is sort of
aging pretty well. So I will give him credit for
that was his bounce back fight after you know, he
decided to quit on his knee against Travonta Davis in
their fight in a big, humungous fight in twenty twenty three.
So the upshot here on this one is, I know
what I'm probably gonna get from Mario Barrios a steady, consistent,
good effort, maybe not ultra dynamic, but a guy that's
going to be in shape, and you know, has done
his homework. And obviously I don't think having Joe Goosen
in his corner is a bad thing. I think Joe
is a great trainer, and the fact that he's extraordinarily
familiar with Ryan can't hurt. But the giant question mark,
I'll go back to it, it's what are we going
to get from Ryan Garcia? That is the only intrigue.
It seems as though the public is not the most
intrigued by it, just from the mere fact that the
tickets are dead. That's just a fact. I got an
email blast from Golden Boy Promotions offering fifty percent off
tickets you know, on the you know, the primary market,
if you will.
Speaker 2: Not not exactly a good sign the week of the fight.
Speaker 1: Right, and they put it in a big building. It's
in the Team Mobile Arena, which is a cavernous arena
that's hosted the biggest fights in boxing. While this is
not I'm not saying this is a bad it's a
good card actually because you know, even if you like
the main event or you don't like the man event,
the rest of the cards quality. But again, it's a
humongous building that they're putting it in, and to be
quite honest, there hasn't been a tremendous amount of buzz
for it. In fact, I found it very strange. Now
I've covered a thousand pay per view type fights in
Las Vegas, and you know, typically, you know, you've got
your arrivals on Tuesday, there'll be a press conference on Wednesday,
maybe the workouts on Tuesday or Wednesday, they'll do an
undercard press conference on Thursday. Uh, there'll be obviously the
way in on Friday, they'll do trainer round tables, they'll
do all kinds of different, uh, you know, different promotional activities,
and of course on the day of the fight is
the fight. Their fight week schedule for this event didn't
even start until today. There was no official arrivals, there
was no workouts that I'm aware of, There was no
under card press. They have Thursday press conference, which I
guess is for the entire card, followed by right and
then the fight on Saturday. That's so we tea.
Speaker 2: We can pretty well say at this moment, because we've
been doing this for a while, that this is almost
like going through the motions type situation, and maybe they
know this is not going to be huge crowd, huge
pay per view and whatever it is it is, and
they're kind of it is certainly not a Canelo fight
weekend in Las Vegas. Nobody's even suggesting anything like that, right,
a mega fight, not.
Speaker 1: Even a Tank Davis Frank Mark and fight week promotion
or David Benavetez against David Morrell type of promotion. So
I'm not sure why, you know, they say what a
big superstar Ryan Garcia is, you know, and I think
I think they have to.
Speaker 2: I think it's wrong. I think it was. I don't
think it is. I think it's was with Garcia. It's
a was thing.
Speaker 1: The only metric that they are amazing. That on is
the fact that he's got ten million or whatever followers
on Instagram, and that does not a star maker. A
star is when you sell seats and when you sell
pay per view, and he has not done that except
for the Tank fight, right.
Speaker 2: And by the way, you win, and you win big,
and then and then you you fight frequently. While you
win big, I'm getting on my soapbox now. And then
that then the public demands they want to see more.
We haven't seen that, all right.
Speaker 1: This DJ, the boxing public is well aware that he
lost his last fight and looked like shit and came
up with a positive drug test and misweight in the
fight before that.
Speaker 2: So there you go, all right, So now we'll he just.
Speaker 1: The kind of ignored that basically.
Speaker 2: And that leads us to the co feature. And I'm
actually a little intrigued by both of these fights, because, gee,
we've done this enough. You lay it out, we talk
about it. We got two junior well toweight world champs
in separate fights on the same card. The possibilities are
out there that they could end up fighting each other,
maybe depending on how they look. So stay tuned for this,
and let's see what happens here with Richardson Hitchins and
Oscar Duarte in fight number one. That's the IBF Junior
welterweight title that Hitchins has. You talked to him earlier
in the week. You mentioned Duarte, who recently fought Ryan Garcia.
You know about a year and a half ago or so,
all right, what are your twenty twenty three? Yes, so
give me actually about two and a half years ago.
Give me your thoughts here on what we suspect for
Hitchens and Garcia or Duarte.
Speaker 1: Well, these are good matchups. You mentioned two junior welterweight
title fights between Hitchins and Duart. Team we'll get to
Gary Antewon Russell and Andy Heroka. The mandatory look. We
all know after what happened a couple of weeks ago
that the Junior Wealthyweight World champ Dellennial Champion as well
as holding the w BO BELTI show course Stevenson, so
he's number one. But these guys are real guys in
the division. So Hitchins, he he was a guy. I
think that a lot of people, I would say they
overlooked him, but they kind of maybe looked down on
him a little bit because and he and I talked
about this inn the interview that you referenced, because he
wasn't maybe the most exciting guy, but he boxed beautifully.
He won all of his fights pretty handily at boxing,
great amateur background as an olympian, but he really showed
a lot of ability to go forward and to make
it crowd pleasing and also still be responsible on defense.
And this is back in June when he absolutely demolished
George Cambosis in his first title defense. Now, I know
George Cambosis was as a lightweight champion, hasn't done much
as a junior welterweight and was kind of on the
back side of his career, but nobody ever did that
to George Cambosis. So that was a big feather in
his cap. And now he's going in the ring against
you know, a very credible fighter in Oscar Duarte. So yeah,
Oscar lost the fight when he fought against Ryan Garcia,
you know, a tough loss rohim. That was in December
of twenty twenty three, a very solid victory, a decision
where he looked pretty good against Battier achmadav who was
an Olympian who was a very good fighter. And a
legit contender. He thought Miguel Madueno was not a bad contender,
maybe not an elite, but a pretty solid guy. He
beat him. That was a pretty good performance. He knocked
Hi out in the seventh round. And then he got
what I think is probably his biggest win of his career,
and that was in August of last year. He scored
a twelve round decision going to the hometown of Chicago
of Kenneth Simms Junior, who was a very good fighter contender,
and he won a unanim He won a majority decision
against him in Kenny Simms's hometown. So Duarte take whatever
you want from the Garcia knockout loss. Anybody can get
caught by Ryan Garcia's left hook, but he's put together
a very solid four fight streak and he's he's compared
to a lot of fighters in boxing. He's earned this
title opportunity. This is nobody's handing. And this is not
Ryan Garcia being served up a championship fight on a
silver platter having done nothing to earn it. This is
this is a quality guy in Duarte going out there
and taking care of business over a recent period of
time and earning the fight. He'll be there to fight
with Richardsonichens. My question is is he athletic enough, is
he quick enough? Is he defensive enough to avoid you know,
the problems that the Hitchens is going to give them,
both on offense and on defense. Because if Richard Hitchins
shows up the way he did against Cambosis and is
even mildly offensive minded, and we know already about his
great boxing technique and his defense, it's gonna be a
tough night for Kennison for Oscar Duarte if he's able
to land anything solid at Hitchins. If he does, maybe
he can give him some problems because de Warte is
a pretty solid puncher, so to me, you know we
talked about in the main event, this is not about Barrios.
It's about which version of Ryan Garcia shows up. For me,
this co feature between Hitchens and Duarte is what are
we going to get out of Duarte? I feel like
I know what I can get at Richards and Hitchins.
Is Duarte going to be there on his best to
be able to show the type of performances he has
shown in those victories I mentioned to you before.
Speaker 2: And in Hitchins case you mentioned the stoppage with Cambosa's
He had been a distance fighter in the previous four wins,
including the getting the championship victory over Liam Parro prior
to that. So it doesn't have a ton of knockouts,
but is definitely crafty and obviously the favorite here in
this and there are big things riding on this fight,
and there's no doubt about that. There's there's a chance
at unification obviously straight ahead, if Hitchins can follow through.
Say a little more about that.
Speaker 1: Real quick well, he mentioned in the interview that we
did that his management, his team has talked about the
possibility of if he is the winner of potentially a
unification with Dalton Smith, who is from Britain, who had
won the WBC title, coming to New York recently and
getting a big win against Sabreal Matias. So that would
obviously be intriguing. Look one hundred and forty pound way class.
You know, as I mentioned before, the king of the
Hill right now is of course Stevenson based on the
victory against Tia Fim Lopez, but there's still lots of
other good guys. Tf Mo Lopez is still there even
if he lost the fight. Dalton Smith, I said, won
the WBC belt. We're gonna talk about Gary Antonine Russell,
who's in the other fight on this card. Do you
still have guys like Isaac Pitt Bull Cruz who's holding
an interim title. I mean there's there's names and you know,
good fighters in this division, and a victory by Hitchins
puts him in the mix for any of those guys.
He also talked about possibly going up to wellweight. Furthermore,
he is going to have to address at some point
his mandatory defense. And a good thing about Hitchins is
mandatory defense. It's not against a complete nobody. It's against
Landolfel doll Got was a Mexican Olympian that's been winning
and you know, has an exciting style. He's a top
rank fighter, or fought not that long ago on a
card in Mexico. So there's all kinds of opportunities for Hitchins,
whether it's at one hundred and forty to unify it's
the mandatory, perhaps it's a step up to one forty seven.
But at first, for the first things, first, he's not
in This is not a showcase fight. Sometimes it's easy
to look ahead because you got a guy in front
of you that's got no shot, Oscar Duarte. Well, he
is certainly the underdog and should be. This is not
a no hope or type of event. This is a
fight where a quality performance by Duarte might be able
to get the job done.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's the cod feature and Junior Welterweight Championship one
hundred and forty pound title fight number one, Title fight
number two. Is a guy that hasn't been nearly as
active as he should be. But then again, he comes
from a lineage of brothers that don't fight it awful lot,
Gary Antwan Russell. He is fighting for the WBA Junior
Welterweight Championship, defending it that he has against Andy Heroica.
All right, so tell me about this again. Russell's got talent.
We just haven't seen a lot of him. Give me
your thought.
Speaker 1: Russell has prodigious talent. I mean he was an Olympian.
He comes from a great fighting family. His brother was
the very talented but extraordinarily an act of Gary Russell Junior.
This is a guy that knows how to fight, and
compared to Gary Russell, his brother Gary Antoine is blessed
with much more punching power that you know, Gary Gary
Junior was a fantastic is a fantastic boxer. You know
when he decides to get in the ring. Russell, now
this particular layoff to these hats. So his last fight,
but you go back two let's go back two fights
to go. He lost a split decision in a WBC
interim title fight to Alberto Fueyo that was considered a
big upset. It was a split decision. He returned from
that fight not quite a year later and he had
a big unanimouscision to win over Jose Valezuela. That was
a victory to win this WBA belt. Now, he was
supposed to be a little acted because he was originally
scheduled to have this fight. Who was supposed to be
back when Tank Davis and Jake Paul were supposed to fight.
Obviously we know what happened there. Part of making the
deal with with Tank and Jake Paul was that PBC
got the chance to put one of their fights on
that card, which was this Gary Antelin Russell mandatory. When
Tank Davis's problems mounted and he was dropped from the
fight because of his domestic violence legal issues. When they
rescheduled Jake to fight a month later. Three weeks later,
whatever it was against Anthony Joshua, the PBC fight was
gone because they were no longer involved. So he's had
to wait to get this fight. Now he's got it now.
The good thing is there was a lot of trepidation
in the last few days because Heroka he didn't have
his his FISA had not been set by the embassy there.
They had done the paper work, but.
Speaker 2: Key part of being able to participate in the pay
per view Saturday night, you gotta be able to get
into the country Raphae exactly.
Speaker 1: So Fortunately, and I was checking on this earlier today
as a matter of fact, that Heroca is. I guess
he's here or he got here or was about to
get here. But he's he got his visa squared away,
so the fight will be able to take place. The
question is is it enough time for him to applimate
to get because he should have been here, like you know,
many days ago, and that was the plan, but it
took time to get the visa together, which is just
the way it is. Unfortunately happens all the time. Boxing
people make the efforts to go get these PaperWorks done
well well ahead of time, and it just takes forever
sometimes because the federal government doesn't give a shit if
you're here to be in a boxing match or not.
You know, it's just the way it is. So thankfully
does have the visa, he will be in the ring.
The question is how much of it toll did the
the anks of getting it done, the travel, it's always
tough if you're trying to make weight, if you're going
on those long flights. I mean, I've heard those stories
a thousand times. But if Andy Roka's you know, in
the proper shape and there's no other issues, it's it's still,
in my opinion, a fight that Gary Antonine Russell should
win pretty handily. I mean, Heroka has got a great record.
He's twenty four and oh with nineteen knockouts. He's probably
one of the better fighters in Japan. That's not a
world champion at the moment. The problem is if you
take a look at the record, there's so precious little
on the record to merely speak of. He has a
verst all. He hasn't fought since September of twenty twenty four,
and that was maybe your boy, the old man Ishmael
Barroso by a ninth round nine. Oh man. Yeah, if
you take a look, if you take a look at
his record, that's really the only quasi name guy that
he ever fought. You have to go all the back
to twenty twenty one. This was back in a Japanese
title fight against Jin Sasaki, who gained fame because of
the devastating knockout he took against Brian Norman and hasn't aside.
He came back after the horrendous knockout literally today and
Scott got a knockout in his comeback fight in Japan.
But those are the only two guys that are even
remotely like notable opponents. And I don't even consider Sasaki
that big of a name if you go back five
or six years ago when they first fought each other.
So he's got a lot of proving to do. To me,
Gary Antoine Russell is just going to be is a
level ahead of him in terms of I've watched Heroca
fight because a lot of the matches he had, he
would show up on the undercards on the big Japanese
cards at top rank, would bring in from teak in
boxing that when they used to have all the shows
on ESPN Plus. So if you pay attention to those shows,
his fights were easy to see. But Russell's got the speed,
He's got the pedigree as an Olympian, He's got good
professional experience against several, you know, quality opponents, whether it's
Valan Zuel, La Pueo, Rancis Barthelmy, Victor postol at Me,
go on and on. So the proof's going to be
in which Heroca shows up. Can he land the big
punch to neutralize Gary Antoine or does Gary Antoine, you know,
play with him? That that to me is going to
be the question. But it is an interesting fight just
because of the physicality of Heroca.
Speaker 2: And again when you just emphasize one more time, Gary Antoine,
Russell has not fought since last March, eleven months ago.
One fight in twenty twenty three, one fight in twenty
twenty four, one fight in twenty twenty five. What does
he have? Does it take him a while to get
warmed up and get going or not? Stay tuned for
that part, all right? What else here? Off of the
preliminaries and on the night I know Frank Martin the
ghost is back. He's on this card. Beck the Bully
is on this card. Amari Jones, up and coming middleweight,
former Olympian is on this card. What else intrigues you
here on the Ring magazine to his own pay per view.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the former olymping you mentioned is Joshua Edwards,
the heavyweight from the United States. You know, Amari Jones,
excellent young middleweight, a rising contender prospect, Joshua Edwards the Olympian.
You got the Saudi Arabian junior lightweight Mohammed Akl. Those
are the preliminary guys. But in terms of the main card,
you mentioned Frank Martin. Look, he took a puff loss
in a big knockout against Tank Davis in a lightweight
title shot. He took a long layoff, I think it
was about eighteen months or so. He came back and
he looked absolutely spectacular. He moved up and wait for
the fight when he when he returned from that layoff,
and he scored a sensational knockout and really, in my opinion,
I think anybody that was paying attention really announced his
arrival as a junior walterweight. I mean as a as
a real legitimate threat. He you know, ransist Barthelemy was
the opponent he was. He's an older fighter. This was
a fight that took place in December. This was on
the on the Pitbull Cruise Lamont Roach undercard. He scorched
him four rounds and absolutely devastating knockout, had him down twice,
and you're like, you know what, this is a guy
who really is going to benefit from those extra five pounds.
So I'm very interested to see what he can do
against the heir Albright. Now, Albright's not as big of
a name as Barthelemy, but he's a more natural guy
at the weight and he's not nearly as shop worn
and as old and inactive as a Barthelmy has been
through the years. So Albright, if you remember, he gave
Keishawn Davis pretty decent fight. That was the fight that
became a no contest because Keishawn had tested positive from marijuana.
He then was the fighter that went and defeated Kishan's
brother Kelvin Davis. That wound up in a melee or
a physical confrontation when Kishon Davis and the other brother
attacked him in the dressing room. That was back in
June when he had that fight against Calvin Davis. He
went to Kelvin's hometown in Norfolk, and he pulled the
upset in a in a majority decision. And now he's
in there with Frank Martin, and you know Frank should
be the favorite, but here Albright is is a good
quality professional fighter. So Frank Martin I think is the
better fighter. He should be able to take care of business.
To me, it's not about does he win the fight.
It's key can he showed the kind of spectacular nature
that he showed the way he erased Barthelomy And if
he can do that to a guy like Nhir Albright,
who has two losses but has not been stopped in
either defeat, to me, that means you must now consider
Frank Martin a bonafide contender at one hundred and forty pounds.
He already, in my mind, he already is based on
the way he looked in the last fight. But you
know he's got he's got a has to do some
damage here against all Britton and just continue to burnish
his reputation as somebody that you're really gonna have to
be fearful of at one hundred and forty pounds. So
that that's that fight, and you mentioned about Beck to Bully. Now,
Beck to Bully is in an interesting situation. He's already
sitting there as the mandatory for the WBA in the
super middleweight division. That fight is not happening right away,
so he's not going to just sit around and be inactive.
So they match him with a journeyman. His opponent in
Senna ag Beco, who has been stopped three of his
four losses. Honestly, if Beck to Bully is, you know,
even decent shape, this should be it should be a
whitewash in my mind. But he's got to stay active.
They didn't put this high up on the card. You know,
Beck looked really good when he when he had his
last fight. That was the tremendous battle that he had
against Darius Fulgen, that was the eliminator. He won a
unanimous decision, tremendous fight. And now he's back in action
to continue to push forward to to try to get
the mandatory fight.
Speaker 2: Certainly will be a busy day, there's no doubt in
Las Vegas day and night building to that main event.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think the best fight of the weekend might
actually be the legal battle between Golden Boy and Virgil
Artisa's team. They'll be in court on Friday, the day
before the pay per view.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that could be interesting. More on that in a
couple of moments. So earlier in the day US time
in England in Nottingham, England. As a matter of fact,
Lee Wood and Josh Warrington will rematch as junior lightweight's
twelve round battle. This is obviously significant in the UK.
Worth the mention here, give me a couple of thoughts
on what we're looking forward to.
Speaker 1: Well, these are two of the better names over the
last few years, mainly in the featherweight division of British
rivals of course, and you mentioned it's a rematch. So
they first fought in Sheffield, England. This is October twenty
twenty three and Lee Wood is down on all three
scorecards by wide margin on two of them fifty nine
to fifty five, he's down fifty eight to fifty six
and the third and he rallied to stop Leewood in
the seventh round and retained the WBA featherweight title. And
so they've been rivals, they've talked some shit with each other.
There's always been sort of discussion ever since that that
there would be a rematch it is now happening now
in the wake of that loss. You know, in terms
of Warrington's career, we've we've discussed this in the past.
He lost to lee Wood and then he lost in
the upset to Anthony Casachi. He came back had a
small time win in twenty twenty five. Now he's coming
off of that layoff about ten months and he's back
in the ring against Leewood for the rematch that both
of them have wanted. In terms of lee Wood, you know,
he's been on the positive of the knockout loss. I mean,
I mean the knockout win rather that's kind of come
from behind. He's been on the on the wrong end
of it in terms of a loss. And look, there's
not a lot left for either one of these guys
in terms of what's out there for them. They're a
little older, they've had their ups and downs. Lee Wood
is coming off of defeat. He got stopped by Casachi
in the ninth round, so that was back in May
of twenty twenty five, also coming off a similar layoff.
And so it gets to a certain point in lots
of fighters' careers where they that won't work after the
fight in their back pocket when there's nothing else really there,
no big fight, no title opportunity, but something they can
still kind of get people in there among their fan
base excited. And that with this fight is they're now
fighting as junior lightweights on the rank to headline this
matchrom Card on his own, like you mentioned, for us
here in the United Stystem, during the day before the
pay per view, you want to have like consider your
appetizer before the pay per view and we'll see. You know,
it's kind of like the loser goes home kind of
fight and the winner probably gets to move on to
have at least some other decent fights. These are not
young guys. Wood is thirty seven years old and Larrington
is thirty five years old, and as I mentioned, they've
had their share of losses and some tough fights, but
they can make a lot of things right with a
victory on Saturday.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we look forward to that one earlier in
the day. Now you fast forward beyond to Sunday night
and in Detroit, Claressa shields his back and fighting Franchon
Cruz deserm who's a familiar name. They're doing this at heavyweight.
Here we have talked and look, Shields is a tremendous fighter,
but the whole heavyweight undisputed thing. We've well documented. It's
a struggle to even find ten of heavyweights in the
female category for a top ten. But Shields is back
in the ring again. It's a Solida Promotions Desonne main event,
so give us a little bit on that as it's
going on on Sunday night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when it comes to the women, for the
most part, when they do these fights that are labeled
heavyweight fights, there you know they're going to fight in
like the one seventies probably in terms of what their
actual weights are. But the the universe of competent professional
female boxers above super midiweight even is extremely minuscule. So
Claressa has sort of been stuck in that position where
we know she's a great fighter, we know she's an
awesome technician, we know she's I think by most people's
view clearly the number one female boxer in the world
pound for pound, but she just doesn't have anybody to fight,
you know. And it was even a struggle when she
was fighting as a super midweight, as a middleweight, and
even as a juerim middleweight to find the top type
of opposition. But she has won all of her fights
rather handily. She continues to be undefeated at seventeen to know,
she barely loses rounds. So this was a reatch that
I think if you will follow her career or you
follow Franchon's career, this was sort of an inevitability. It
was going to have to happen at some point. Now.
When they first fought in their first fight, and I
was actually a ringside for that fight, you go all
the way back ten years ago, they fought a four rounder.
They were both making their professional debuts. Claressa was coming
off of winning her second gold medal in the Olympics.
Franchion Cruise Desern was a known amateur, was turn and
pro as well. This fight took place and it kind
of I did say it sold the show, but in
terms of the preliminaries, it kind of was. Everybody was like, Wow,
good fight. This was on the undercard of one of
the fights between andre Ward and Sergey Covala. That tells
you how longo it was. And although Claressa Shield has
won the four round decision, this was a true battle.
I mean, this was a really exciting, highly entertaining fight.
They just slugged it out, and that's typically not the
way Claressa fights. She's more of a technician, more of
a boxer. She ended up winning forty to thirty six
and all three scorecards. But it was if you watch
the fight, you'll know why. Like it's not. It didn't
look like a shut out, like every round was a
tough round and franchise cruiz desern. She bounced back from that.
She went on to have her own accomplishman and she
became an undisputed champion. She has done her job, you know,
fighting in the super middleweight division. Over the years, she
has moved up as well as Claressa has. And so
now they're doing this rematch. Claressa's got popularity in that
area in Michigan. She's from Flint. They're fighting in Detroit.
She's done good bus this at the Little Caesars Arena.
I suspect they'll do good business again. It is on
a Sunday, which is not the norm, but nothing wrong
with that. Uh, there's good boxing competition on Saturdays for
the viewers. So de Zonne and everybody involved decided, hey,
let's go on Sunday. I guess the building was available
and they'll do it. That said, I don't I don't
see why it's going to be any different in terms
of the outcome, and it's not a knock on on
Franchise Cruise Dessert, who has established herself over recent years,
is one of the top female boxers in the sport.
But I just think so much highly, so highly of
Claressa's talent and her skills that frankly, this could be
another one of those kind of you know, one sided decisions.
She's Clara, does not have powers, only got a couple
of knockouts in her entire career, but she embarrasses opponents.
She wins every single round, which she's rarely.
Speaker 2: Been challenged, Yeah, rarely been threatened, even if she doesn't
have the knockout power. And we don't have a lot
of reason to think this.
Speaker 1: Way so different. Cruise Desern is probably your best opponent
in the last few years. But I don't, you know,
I'll say that Cruise has earned is her best opponents
since she had a victory in twenty twenty two against
Savannah Marshall, who had given Claressa her only loss ever,
and that was way back in her amateur days, and
since then she's fought decent professionals, but people that were
way less than she is. And I don't think franch on.
She's probably better than the women that Clorsa has beaten
in her last few fights since the Savannah fight, but
I still think still a definite step below. So you know,
if you're a Claressa fan, she's going to go out there,
I think, and do her thing and display her talents
and continue to be the number one female boxer on
the planet Earth.
Speaker 2: And that again is on regular Dezone with your subscription
for Sunday Night so Plenty in the preview mode. All right,
you teased it, Why don't we go right there with
the latest with Golden Boy and Virgil Ortiz. Now, we
did not do a full podcast coming off the weekend
when the news had come out that Oscar de la Jolla,
his lawyers, and Golden Boy had gotten a temporary restraining order.
So as we release this podcast Thursday into Friday, there
is a hearing in Las Vegas where they're trying to
iron out whether or not Virgil Ortiz essentially is a
promotional free agent or whether or not Dala Hooya's agreement
still stands and he gets to be in the middle
of negotiating a jiran in his fight. We don't know
that answer as we're releasing the podcast, but obviously that
will make news. Stay locked in on your social media,
on your sub stack on what happens with that. So
give me a give me a thought, because we haven't
really talked about Dala Hoya took the measure of getting
the restraining order.
Speaker 1: So he went and he saw what's called an emergency
temporary restraining order, but it was for a very limited
amount of time. So the judge in this case, this
is in Nevada State court, it is on a very
accelerated are you Novada districtort? I can'tmember if it's state court. Whatever,
they're going to court, it's at a very accelerated pace.
A lot of times these lawsuits take forever to play out,
but they're doing it within basically a week of when
the judge issued the temporary anyway, So in that period
of time from when it was issued until they meet
in the court room on Friday in Las Vegas, the
two sides had to give their responses, their rebuttals, and
so they've been going back and forth showing portions of
like agreements, making disclosures. If you're into the business side
of boxing, it's very fascinating reading about offers that were
made and you know, supposedly things that were breaching Virgil's contract.
It's kind of getting really nasty. And in the end, look,
the Zone still wants to make Virgil versus Boots Tennis
nroom boxing. They still want to make the fight. That's
of course the promoter for Jern Hennis. The question is
going to be is it going to be with any
involvement from Del la Joya? Is he going to be
allowed to fight? There's lots of there's been that room disclosed,
an offer that they had made. The Virginal Artis side
says they're being restrained from making a living because of
the craziness that Oscar has partaken in with this clap
back Thursdays. It's without to every dirty detail. It's it's
one of the nastier back and forth I've seen in
a long time. Here's here and even if wins, even
if Golden Boy wins the case and is going to
be involved, that that that that relationship is so damaged
right now. I just don't see it working.
Speaker 2: And here's the bottom line on all of this. It
did not have to get to this point, and you
you laid it out. Oscar de la Hoya is the
reason why it got to this point because he was
trying to renegotiate what had already been agreed to. And
so now here we are with the managers, the lawyers,
and the judge, and ultimately the judge is going to
decide whether or not dal La Hooya's case can proceed
or whether or not he's going to say because this
is what the other side wants. This is what Rick Marigian,
the manager, has talked about on social media. Uh, he's
put it out there. They put it out in the
court filing. They believe they are a promotional free agent,
and they notified Golden Boy in writing in early January.
We believe the deal is up. We have notified them
in writing we want to make this deal with Jeron
Innis and Matt Troom and go ahead without Oscar Dale
and the judges got a.
Speaker 1: Sort of and they claim the virgil ort side claims
they have various offers for you know, significant money for
not only this fight, but for other fights in terms
of a longer term contract with Matchroom, and they claim
there's another promoter that they had not mentioned. The issue
here also is while this is all playing out, you
still have Golden Boy in the Zone trying to make
a new rights agreement. Their agreement based on all the
disclosures in this lawsuit, their agreement ended on December thirty. First,
they did the one off show that was from a
few weeks ago while all this is taking place, that
Golden Boy was trying to do this March fourteenth card
out of you know, trying to get their new de
Zone deal done. Was going to be Ernold Barbosa moving
up to Wealth Wait to fight Kennis Sims. You know,
two guys coming off losses, but a pretty evenly matched
type of fight that would would certainly lift the winner.
But the interesting to me fight to me was they
were supposed to do a three belt strawweight unification fight
with their excellent champion, Oscar Colaso in a rematch with
Melvin Jerusalem, who's the WBC champion. Kalazu had defeated him
for the WBO belt, but he had since become the
WBC champ, so that was a way to consolidate those
titles further, plus the undisputed flyweight women's champion Gabriella Fundor
and the title defense. And so now that they had
this issue going on in terms of the lawsuit, that
that fight was now k not going to happen, Suddenly
it's back on as a one off, not because they've
made a new rite, but conveniently the really big time
fight as far as the stature and the stakes between
Klaso and Jerusalem as not happening because Jerusalem is off
the card. I suspect I don't know this, but I
suspect it's because they're getting less money from the Zone
to make the card because it is a one off
as opposed to part of a deal, and they kind
of had to eat the Melvin Jerusalem and not have
him as the opponent. I guarantee you they got the
challenger horrow a lot less money for him than it
would have if they got Jerusalem for the unification. So
that's a big disc appointment. But nonetheless they're going to
do this one off, and it's all taking place under
the cloud of this you know, terrible situation between de
own Golden Boy and Virgil Artis's team. It's a real mess.
Speaker 2: Stay tuned on that, all right. So that leads us
to what other interesting announcement, and that was Manny Pacquiao
earlier in the week at age forty seven is going
to come back, but this is going to be in
a ten round welterweight exhibition. And do I see the
name on my rundown, Russlon Pravadna Koff, I do see
that for April. He's been out of the ring for
a while too. Pakiao, of course fought Mario Barrios. It
circles back to Barrios, who's in the main event Saturday night.
What about this? Dan Rayphiel, give me, give me a
little more insight into this.
Speaker 1: In the immortal words of my good pal TJ. Reaves,
what are we doing?
Speaker 2: What are we doing here?
Speaker 1: Yes? So, look, Manny looked pretty good. I thought he
won the fight against Barrios in the summer, and frankly
should be the WBC welterweight champion. For whatever reason, they
were not able to make an actual fight for him,
and there was a lot of conversation about challenging Roly
Romero for the DOBBA title, but it never came to pass.
I'm not really exactly sure what happened with there. I'm
sure something had to do with how much money everybody
wanted in the fight, so they didn't line up a
real fight for him. They have this new player, something
called Intry Media. My Ole pale Art Polula from Danna Promotions,
who was the long time promoter of Rustlin Pravdnikov, who
has been retired literally for a decade. They're going to
do this at Thomas and Maxenter on April eighteenth in
Las Vegas. It's the same day as one of the
days of WrestleMania. I'm not sure It's the greatest scheduling
situation I've ever seen in terms of big events in Vegas.
I have no idea what sets this apart and makes
it an exhibition fight, because I've not seen or heard
any differences, like why isn't it an actual fight? But whatever,
They're supposedly no headgear. It's a ten round exhibition match.
I'm not sure what I mean. Whatever. Here's the thing
about it. They got Provodnikoff, and as my sources tell me,
they offered this fight to three others who turned it down.
One was many pack had to do another fight, although
an exhibition against Wan Daniel Marquez. Of course, they've got
the amazing rivalry that took part over four incredible fights.
Timothy Bradley Junior, who had three pretty bad fights against Pacou,
but a huge controversy in the first fight. I don't
need to see that ever again. And also Marcus Maydonna.
They fight that a lot of people wanted to see
back in the time when Maydonna was an active fighter.
For whatever reasons, they all turned it down, and Ruslan
Pravandikov was who I guess has done a couple exhibitions
over the years in Russia, decided okay, I'll take it.
They haven't announced what the broadcast situation is. Obviously we'll
be shown somewhere. Ye look, TJ. It is what it is.
We live in a different world now.
Speaker 2: It's many pakiaw at forty seven, still fighting and Pravadonnikov,
who hasn't fought in what six eight years fighting, So
there we go.
Speaker 1: I don't have a problem with pak fighting a real
fight because of how we looked against virus. I just
don't get the whole purpose of the exhibition. I don't
get it.
Speaker 2: I got you who's watching this, I'm with you, by
the way. One other note, they did make it official.
Fabio Worldly will defend the WBO version of the heavyweight
title with Daniel Dubois May ninth and Manchester, England. Correct,
we have some time, but it is now official, right
real quick?
Speaker 1: Yeah, not a surprise. I mean, look, Fabio ended up
becoming elevated to the full title when Usik decided to
vacate because he was going to go try to do
his own thing. And as they looked around for opponents,
I mean, if you are a British boxing fan or
you are a heavyweight fanning you were in England and
whatever you think about Duboi, he comes to fight. Usually
both possess good punching power. Frank Warren promotes both guys.
They'll talk a lot of shit together. It is that
rare all British heavyweight title bout. And they'll make an
event that if it'll be his own pay per view,
it'll be again one of these fights similar to what
we're gonna see on Saturday with Garcia challenging Barrios. That's
part of that ultimate plan that if you upgrade your subscription,
it all comes as part of it. That's the thing
that everybody has to decide do they want to go
and all these different one off spend the money, or
just suck it up and buy the whole package. I
don't know what the right answer is for me, you know,
because this is what I do. I have the full package.
But Warley in Dubois as a heavyweight fight goes, if
you look at the landscape of what's available, it's a
pretty good fight. It seems to me like it'll be
it'll be exciting. Uh, you know, I don't know, you
know what to expect exactly, because Dubai has been hot
and cold. Worley sometimes like against Whooney, was dominated, but
he did land the big you know, eraser punch coming
back in a big rally, had a very exciting fight
with Joseph Parker. I mean, one thing about about Wardley
and Duwa is generally win or lose. So you know,
if Fabio was undefeated, Uh, they give you their money's worth,
you know, So it is it'll be probably a great
crowd there and high stakes. Because whatever you think about
the way that Warley became the WBO title holder, he
does have that title. It is an important part of
the landscape and let them go do their.
Speaker 2: Thing, So that'll be in May. That is official. We
got some time for that. But we're ready now for
the weekend again, very interesting prominent card, the Ring fight
card pay per view the de Zone in Las Vegas.
What kind of crowd, what kind of atmosphere, what kind
of main event with Mario Barrios and Ryan Garcia again
Richardson Hitchens title defense at one and Gary Anjwan Russell
title defense at one as the two prominent fights there.
We got the Lee Wood Josh Warrington fight. We look
forward to all of it. All right, Big Dan, let's.
Speaker 1: Come back on TJ. Yeah, go ahead, And we were
just talking about these different events on the Zone. We're
never seeing a lot more matchroom boxing on the Zone
because they just announced that they extended their contract for
five more. So there you go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not surprising that they extend that deal to help,
you know, further what they're doing matchroom in the UK
and in the United States. So there we go on that.
So we look forward to that. We got Lee Wood
speaking of de Zone earlier in the day, and Matchroom
we got Leewood and Josh Warrington saurday afternoon US time
read Dan substack for more beyond the social media again
for the Dale Hoya stuff with Virgil Ortiz. What is
the judge rule on Friday? You want to be locked in?
Why don't we see everything that's going to happen and
come off the weekend and do this again in the
recap mode.
Speaker 1: Sounds good, sounds good.
Speaker 2: Love it. There goes Dan Rayphiel. I'm merely TJ. Reeves.
Thank you for being with us as we preview going
into the weekend on The Big Fight Weekend Preview Podcast.