Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time.
Speaker 2: This is Big Fight Weekend. Now here is your host.
DJ leaves.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: We get ready for the final weekend in July, and
it appears we get ready for the final top ranked
boxing ESPN card. At least for now, it is headlined
by Xander Zaiez. We're ready to talk about his main events.
He goes for a world title on this card Saturday
Night from New York. Also, Claressa Shields is in action
defending the women's undisputed heavyweight title in Detroit on Saturday Night.
We're ready to preview that. We've got some news and
much more. It is the Big Fight Weekend preview pot
I am He's somewhat capable host. He's back from Vegas,
Ladies and gentlemen, our insider Dan Raphael. Fight Freaking Night
is the substack of the newsletter. Glad that you're back
off of what was a file weekend last weekend for sure,
not just in Vegas, but in England and even Bam
Rodriguez has winning Frisco, Texas. Good to be back with
you as we head towards another weekend here, a little
lighter weekend of action, but anyway, welcome in.
Speaker 1: I wish they would have had all the fights that
were last weekend between Manny Pack, Yao's return and the
undisputed heavyweight title with U Sick and Dubai in their
rematch and Bam. Also, maybe we could have spread them
out over like three weeks because it's going to be
Preleen and said they smashed everything together on the same night,
which just drives me wild. When you have open weeks
or weeks with not a lot of.
Speaker 2: Stubtle, sure doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
Thank you for finding us, however you've done so on
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All right, so before we get into the fights that
we're going to preview for this week. Just give me
an after thought here off of the weekend of watching
Manny Pacquiao's return in person and everything that went along
with it, any follow up, anything else that we didn't
cover off the weekend, anything else to put that to bed.
Speaker 1: Well, I just thought that Many performed in a far
better manner than I think anybody would have had the
right to think. There was a reason he was an underdog.
It is not normal for a fighter to come out
of a four year retirement and excel, particularly when you're
forty six years old. I can think of a couple
so like when George Foreman ended a ten year retirement.
He didn't go jump in with a world champion. I mean,
you may not think much of Mario Barrios, but he's
still a lot better than the stiffs that Foreman fought
those first you know, fifteen or twenty fights of his comeback.
He was tooking very slowly. Manny jumped in with a
top you know, five or six welterweight in the world,
and I was thinking to myself, if you didn't know
that it was a many Pacio off a four year retirement,
who hadn't fought in a while and been retired and
was forty six, you'd have been like, maybe it's not
the many Packyo of his prime, but I was a
many packet, looked pretty good, quick, light on his feet,
darting in and out, doing the things that we're used
to seeing many do.
Speaker 2: One thing, what about the argument that Barrios, especially in
the middle of the fight, didn't fight an aggressive fight,
didn't fight a smart fight, and that that made Pakia.
I'm not saying that Pacio doesn't deserve credit, but that
made Paqui, how in two ways, have an easier night
in the middle of the fight and maybe empowered him
a little bit because Barrios didn't get aggressive, didn't throw
a lot of punches, in bunches, that kind of stuff
in the middle of the fight. Especially he did more
so in the last three rounds.
Speaker 1: But that's why I was putting those rounds in the
bank for Pakya, because he was doing a lot more.
I mean, neither one were landing at a high rate.
So if the if the landing is sort of like similar,
but one guy's landing jabs, which was Barrios, one guy's
landing power shots which is pacyaw and one guy seems
to be more active and more uh more the guy
that's making the fight in terms of what you know,
controlling where it's taking place. And you know, what's the
old saying being the effect of aggressor more so than
the other guy, then I'm going to lean towards the
other guy. I'm gonna lean towards Manny to give him
those rounds. So that's why when it was all said
and done, I had Manny winning very clearly. And I again,
I've watched the fight back since I came home. I
might tighten my scop a little bit, but still would
have many Pakia winning that fight. And uh the upshot
of it, though, is that the way that that the
Barrios team acted. And you know, I have nothing but
respect for Barrios, as well as Bob Santos, the trainer,
their whole team. They're good guys over there. But they
were real quiet, like they know, I feel like they
were like, let's not make too much noise, let's get
out of dodge with our title. Like they didn't make
a big stink, like while we deserve to win. There
was really none of that. They said it, but it
wasn't with strong conviction was kind of half assed, like
they I think they know deep in their heart that
they kind of dodged a bullet. And I feel like
Manny pack Down now three times in his career has
been on the wrong end of a fight where I
feel like he was the clear winner of both this fight,
the Jeff Horn fight, and obviously the first fight that
he had against Timothy Bradley.
Speaker 2: Which agreed on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those justice in the history of boxing. But again,
the upshot though here is the following. Not a lot
of people are going to really care about what Barrios
does next. But Manny Pacow had a big crowd there.
They were all cheering for him, and from what he
was saying and what his team was saying is there's
a good strong Likelihod. We're going to see Manny Paco
back in the ring probably November time frame. And the
reason why I feel like that's a very logical thing
to do, regardless of who he may end up fighting,
is because PBC, if he's going to continue to work
with them, they don't have a lot of fighters that
they can put into a pay per view main event
at this moment in time. For a lot of different
reason as David Bennavidez is still with them, but off
in Saudi Arabia at least for the next fight, which
means he's not fighting here in America for the rest
of this year. You have Tank Davis, who schedules completely
up in the air between his legal problems and is
just a general knucklehead where he is in his life.
You never know what to expect with him, so they
can't make real solid plans. Canelo Alvaz left and went
with Turkey. The fight they were planning to do as
a pay per view between Kayla Plant and Charlo that
went down the toilet because of Caleb plants defeat. So
I'm making the point here that there's not a lot
to choose from in terms of who can headline a
big pay per view card in Mannipaco with that name,
with that star power, with that legend status, and an
excellent performance, He's a guy that can do that. So
he probably will headline in the fall on one of
their cards, and hopefully they'll load up the under card,
because I thought the undercard on Saturday was pretty, you know,
was particularly excellent. A lot of good fights, a lot
of good names, So that's where we're at with that?
Speaker 2: All right? So that puts a rap on last weekend.
Let's head to this weekend again. You did interview Xander Zaiaz.
We have it immediately preceded this podcast on the pod feed.
It's also on the YouTube video page where you talked
with him. He is fighting Jorge Garcia, a Mexican veteran.
Garcia pulled an upset with American Charles Conwell earlier this
year to get into this slot to fight for the
WBO Junior Middleweight vacant title. This is the belt that
Sebastian Fondora vacated to go ahead and fight Tim zu Zius.
Obviously undefeated, Zius heavily favored here in the preview mode.
What do you make of this? Here coming at the
Madison Square Garden Theater for Saturday night.
Speaker 1: This is the moment that it all comes together for
Zias if he's the winner. This is what they've planned
ever since he turned professional. He turned pro in signing
a contract with Top Rank at age sixteen. He didn't
turn pro right away, He waited a while, but they
had him under contract. He didn't turn pro until twenty nineteen,
and he has been brought along slowly but surely. He's
fought the right kinds of guys, guys to get him experience,
big guy, small guys, you know, long guy, short guys, lefties. Right,
he's I mean he's done with the matchmakers. What you
want for the guy to to develop, which is you
give him a look at all different kinds of styles,
you assess him after each fight, and he has, you know, fought, uh,
the right kind of guys. He's got a former world
champion on the resume, he's got an on the he's
got undefeeded guy on the resume, he's got vastly experienced
guys on the resume. He's got the journeymen who are
known to have, you know, been able to go in
the in long fights in the distance with good opponents.
So he's taken care of that. And well, not every
fight has he looked great, but generally speaking, I feel
like over the course of times Xander has improved.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: He has moved up from welterweight because that was what
his body did. Obviously turn him pro at such a
young age. He spent the first part of this career
fighting at welterweight. Now he's been for the last several
fights in the gerumidaweight division. He's been there since what's
been since twenty twenty one, since he when he when
he moved up in Wait and so he looks good
at the you know, at the weight. He's matured. He
really gets it. I mean he by all accounts, he
lives the life. He's not a guy that's running around
and doing other things. Reminded at one point by me
in an interview about you know you're a young kid.
You know you're not going to the prom, You're not
going out with your friends, You're in the gym. He's like,
once I become a champion and I start making that
money and I'm done with things, then I can enjoy that.
But right now, it's about working and fulfilling his dream.
He takes great pride in the fact that this particular bout,
his most important fight will be a classical Mexico versus
Puerto Rico kind of fight because them being a Puerto
Rican and his opponent Garcia being from Mexico. He understands
what that means, especially taking place in a place like
New York City where it's going to be a large
Puerto Rican contingent. Yeah, he's so highly identified at the
moment with the Madison Square Garden Theater. He's fought there
his last four consecutive fights. He's fought in the garden
something like eight times. Between the main arena and the theater.
He's joked around. I think he joked around an hour
interview that's on that previous episode of the podcast, joking
around like when he shows up now with the theater,
he doesn't have to show an ID because they just
recognize him because he's been there so much time. So
it's you know, he's comfortable there, but now he's got
to do the job now, you know he obviously he's
fighting a competent opponent. This is not like some nonsense
walk over. There's a guy who's been in the ring
many more times than he has. He's got a lot
more fights in him. He's thirty three and four. What
stands out to me about the four is that all
of those four losses are all distance fights. He's never
been stopped, and Xander, for all of his good attributes,
is not known as a big puncher. He's filled with confidence.
I am sure Garcia coming off the big victory that
your reference against Charles Conwell, who was in the undefeated
United States Olympian that was on his way to a
title shot. Even before that, he beat you know, a
very experienced longtime contender and ab du Kakarov that was earlier.
That was at the end of twenty twenty four. He
got the win in that fight. So he's experienced, He's
fought some good guys and you know, made the best
man win. I expect this to be a pretty good fight.
I'm expecting Garcia to be the more of the aggressor
and Xander to be more of the guy that's going
to cat owner. But you know, the guy that wins
is going to have that belt there.
Speaker 2: He certainly surprised Conwell and was tough and out battled
Conwell down the stretch to fight and won the decision
because Conwell was in position to be the guy fighting
Ziaz here.
Speaker 1: So listen. After Fandora won the fight against Cordell Booker
earlier in the year, Xander was ringside for the fight,
got in the ring with him in a in a
professional manner. They took photographs together, They talked about doing
the fight. Their teams at Top Rank and PBC were
negotiating and then after Zoo had won his interim bout.
Apparently he was allowed to take an interim bout but
had the right start to do a rematch, and that's
what he opted to do. Obviously, he paid the price
by getting beat by Fandora on the Paco card on
the co feature. But the thing about Garcia is, and
I thought this was amazing. Again, if you listened to
the interview I had with Xander, he was talking about
how a while ago, this is before he was positioned
to fight for the title, and him and his father
were just sort of looking at the rankings, and his
father said, someday you're going to fight this guy Pez
because they've they've been around each other in those ratings
for the for the last while, and so now that
they're doing it for the for the vacant title, you know,
it shows the you know, if you take a look
at rankings, you sometimes if you if you read the
tea leaves and follow the bread crumbsy and kind of
figure out what the matters are going to be if
certain things happen in terms of guys vacating or moving
up and wait or what have you. And so look,
this is it. This, like I said, This is the
culmination of all the hard work that the kid has done,
what top rank has done. And Garcia, I'm not going
to downplay. I'm sure he's done hard work. Also, he's
won eight fights in a row, by the way, and
he's never been stopped, and he's coming off the biggest
win of his career. So you're getting two guys, at
the very least, two guys who are on the upswing,
two guys who are supremely confident, I believe, and two
guys who have good records who have beaten good guys.
And then a splintered sport where there's lots of belts
and rankings are sometimes screwy. It feels like this is
a reasonable fight for two guys to fight for a
vacant world title, especially since Fondora is the one that
vacated instead of fighting Xander Zayas. So I think this
will be a good fun fight.
Speaker 2: All right. So we have that for the main event.
The co feature fight is Bruce Shoeshoe Carrington, the Brooklyn
native who we've also seen fighting over and over again
in the Madison Square Garden Theater. He will fight a Namibian.
I don't know a lot about matteos Hata, if that's
how you say it for the WBC's vacant interim featherweight championship,
Clearly this is a moment for Shoeshoe Carrington to take
a big step in the featherweight division.
Speaker 1: No doubt about it. I mean, he's fighting in front
of his people. He's from Brooklyn, he's fighting in New York.
Similarly to Xander's eyes. He has fought numerous times in
the Madison Square Guarden Theater. It's very comforting for him.
It still irritates me that they have made this interim
title fight. I scored a quasi get it because you
have Steven Fulton Junior as the full champion. He is
supposed to be moving up to one hundred and thirty
pounds to challenge O'shaki Foster for the WBC title and
that weight class. That fight was supposed to be the
co feature on August sixteenth against on the undercard of
Tank Davis in the rematch against Lamont Roach. But that
fight is now not happening in August and it's up
in the air it will happen at all, but they
still have a deal for that fight. So in the meantime,
the WBC has permitted the interim title to be contested
in this fight between Carrington, who is an outstanding young fighter.
I mean, he's done nothing wrong in his career. He's
had you know, he had the one close, real close,
I guess, a very close call against Segawa a couple
of fights ago, a majority decision. A lot of people
thought that Sagawa could have been the winner in that fight.
But he's won two fights dominant since then, a shutout
on a Tyson Jake Call undercard, and then he's then
he had a third round devastation against Enrique Vivas that
was back in March, and so he's primed and ready
to go. One thing about Shushu Carrington is win or lose.
You know, he's a fan friendly fighter. Uh he's got
he's got a good disposition and a good personality, and
he's a very likable guy both in terms of as
just on a personal level as well as to watch
him and the style he fights in the ring. So
he's fighting in front of the home crowd and and
you know, you got to give some props to the
opponent and Mattheus. I guess it's Haitia I guess how
they say he's undefeated fourteen and zero nine knockouts. He's
not an old guy. He's twenty seven. He's actually a
little younger than Carrington. Carrington has a little bit of
a late start. He's already twenty eight. I mean, people
think of him as a prospect, but he stayed amateur
for a little longer than I think than people realize.
And so he's coming over from Namibia and Africa, which
has produced some good fighters through the years and has
produced world champions. But he's making his American debut. It's
the first time he's ever going to fight out of Namibia,
and you know, we'll see what happens. But I'm intrigued
by the matchup just from the standpoint to see Carrington
in the ring with an undefeated guy who comes from
a place that at least traditionally has produced very tough opponents,
even if they haven't achieved huge success on the world stage,
but again have had a few guys that have gone
on to win world titles.
Speaker 2: And again Carrington with the fast hands and a good talker.
So there's a lot of potential there. Can you realize
the potential?
Speaker 1: Though?
Speaker 2: Now you're going to step up to whatever extent this
is a step up, and we'll see.
Speaker 1: And I would say carr Carrington is not. I mean,
I have nothing negative about Carrington to say, but his
record really for a guy that's fighting for a title,
And the same thing with Haitia is that neither one
of them has fought really anybody. I mean Sagawa who
was viewed as a journeyman ish kind of guy, he
was like seventeen four and one when he fought him
back in September of last year. That was probably the
best guy that he fought, and he gave him life
and death in that fight. Now, the thing is in
terms of comparisons, and it's hard to look at them,
at the Haitia opponents and really know much about him
because there's a lot of guys that you never heard
of who have, you know, very modest records. But in
terms of their matching up head to head, Haitia's fourteen
and oh with nine and Carrington is fifteen and oh
with nine, So record wise they're essentially the same. They're
only separated by less than a year. In terms of
their age. One is twenty, you know, Bruce is twenty eight,
Asia is twenty seven. Obviously, Carrington's got the advantage because
he's fighting in the comfort of home where he's enjoyed
a lot of success and a lot of fans support.
But as a doubleheader, the main thing I like is if,
especially if the two A sides, if you will win,
if it's Xander's eyes and Bruce Carrington like they are
the future of those divisions at the moment. Two younger guys,
two undefeated guys, two guys who are fan friendly, two
guys are good with the fans, good with the press,
have climbed the ladder, have good backgrounds, and these are guys,
if they can keep winning, that can become the next,
you know, group of fighters that we'll see, you know,
in bigger fights and perhaps some day on a pound
for pound type of list.
Speaker 2: All right, we'll handicap both of those fights. By the way,
I first mentioned here on our bet US Boxing show
live at one Eastern time on the bet us platforms,
on their YouTube and their social media. For those two
headlining shows on the top ranked card, also on the undercard,
it'll have a Million Vargas, Rojan Polanco, who I know
you're high on, and the big heavyweight Jalla loof. So
take me through what we're looking for out of any
of those three fighters and fights real quick on the car.
Speaker 1: We're just we're just looking for improvements for taking that
next st up. They're they're not matched with terrible opponents.
I mean, Joe Love, it's hard to know because he's
he's a hard guy to match. You know, he really
should be in my opinion, fighting better guys. Uh, he's
really He's really perplexed me. For a while, he's stayed amateur.
I get it. He turned pro, then he had a
bunch of fights. He went back to fight in the
Olympics last summer he won a second gold medal, and
if I'm not mistaken, he's only had like one fight
since then, I think since the Olympics, and I just
don't know what they're doing with you know, and it's
not even top break. I think it's just him and
his team. Like, I'm just not sure what they're doing.
This is a guy that should be fighting top ten
type heavyweights right now. He's thirty years old. He's not
getting any younger. He's got massive size, He's a southpaw,
he's a big giant puncher. Like, what are we doing here.
I get it's frush.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: He could be moving a lot.
Speaker 2: Is part of it that some of the lesser fighters
don't want to fight him, and he's had trouble matchmaking
for that reason because he is so.
Speaker 1: I don't buy that. I mean, there's if you're willing
to step in, Uh, there'll be money there if you're
a real guy to fight him. So I feel like,
right now, I'm not.
Speaker 2: Talking about real guys. I'm talking about whatever level of
competition that he maybe wanted to fight. I'm not making
excuses looks at him being so massive and says no,
not for that money?
Speaker 1: You got what? The truth there's I just feel like
his career I'm not saying it's not going to turn
out to be where he might be a heavyweight champion.
But let's get the funk on with it already. You
know what I'm saying, What are we waiting for?
Speaker 2: Vargas intrigues you in the junior welterweight eight rounder?
Speaker 1: Yeah, really really good prospect has grown on me to
some degree, Like when he first when I first saw him,
you know, and he was fighting the complete dregs. You're like, Okay,
they're they're making it out. You know, he's the he's
going to live off the father's name, and it's a
matter of can you I put it to like this,
There's plenty of fighters that have turned pro in recent years,
Shane Mosley Junior, Fernando Vargas, Campbell, haddn't plenty of others
who are the sons of guys that were Hall of
Fame level guys or world champions or popular figures. And
my thing is, yeah, you can get the opportunity because
he got that great name. The question is can you
do anything to separate yourself. Shane Mosley has developed into
like a decent contender, ish type fighter. I actually saw
Shane Mosley Junior when I was in Vegas. I had
a nice chat with him. Nice kid, and I wish
him the best. Hasn't yet gotten to that level, and
it's gonna be hard to reach the father's level. Campbell hadten,
for example, has just retired. I mean, yeah, he couldn't
get to the next level, and so I'm not looking
down on him. He went like what fourteen and two,
gave it his efforts and he wasn't going to be
able to match what his father did. Emiliano Vargas. He's young,
he's strong, he's got a lot of good knockouts. They're
moving him along quickly. Noah, I shouldn't say they're moving
that quickly. They're moving him a long at the proper
pace that they should be moving him. And so this
is that next step. But of the of the of
the recent fathers who had sons to become professionals, he
looks like a guy that might be able to develop
into something bigger. Now, I'm not gonna say he's gonna
ever be bigger than Fernando Vargas. He was a huge star.
He was involved in some humongous fights. He won multiple
world titles, and so that's a tall order. But he
looks like a promising young fighter. But I'm very high,
as you know, on Polanco, the Dominican olympian, whose look
absolutely spectacular, strong as a bull, had been fighting at
one has recently made himself into a welterweight. He just
kind of outgrew that weight class. And you know, he's
taken on a solid a veteran in Quintin Randall in
this particular fight, and I think that he's a dynamite fighter.
He's very heavy handed, very crowd pleasing, seems like he
takes a good shot, comes in good condition. And I've
been watching him pretty much since he turned professional on
I can't say there's been a single fight of his
i've seen. I think I've seen all of them because
Top Rank has shown all of those bouts on plus
that I've been like, oh, you know that, you look
like he didn't have a good night. Like he's done
the job pretty much every time out. So if you're
into seeing the prospect besides what it seems like a
good main card, you know, you got some good names
like we just mentioned with and then there's others also
on the undercard, other kinds of prospects as well. But
those are the three main guys you want to take
a look at, and that's John Love, Polanco and Vargas.
Speaker 2: All right, And one more thing before we move on here. Obviously,
as I said at the top, and this is well known,
this is out there if you're a fight fan. This
is the last scheduled fight on the multi year deal
that ESPN and Top Rank have together, and so now
an uncertain future for Top Rank on where they land
with broadcast partners. It's fascinating if ESPN's not going to
be involved with boxing because going all the way back
to the beginning, you and I are nostalgic for this stuff.
Going all the way back to the beginning of ESPN,
they were televising fights almost from the jump in nineteen
probably eighty, about six months after they were on the air,
they were showing boxing of some kind to brank boxing whatever.
Speaker 1: So for most of their existence it was top rank boxing.
I mean from the nineteen from like nineteen eighty one,
I want to say, until like them, like nineteen ninety
seven ish or nineteen ninety eight, it was top rank boxing.
And then they didn't do top rank boxing for a
while and they went and did other things. They had
a time where they were doing stuff with Sugar Ray Leonard.
Then it was wide open and anybody, you know, they
were you know, basically they had a person that was
responsible to deal with all promoters and it was what
you call an open shop. So they did a small
deal with Sugar Ray Leonards company. But they had on
you know, Russell Pelts had fights and banner promotions and
main events, and there was a series with Golden Boy.
They had Tuesday night fights, they had Wednesday night fights.
They had Friday night fights and it was an open, open,
open thing. And then they ended up in twenty seventeen
when they canceled Friday Night or they had canceled Friday
Night fights, but they went and they did a long
term deal with Top Rank that brought them from mostly
HBO to give them their tire vertical of the prospects,
the contenders, the champions, the top fights, the shoulder programs,
you name it. They kicked it off with a Manny
Pacio Jeff Warren fight that did you know, four million
or five million viewers, a live many Paco fight on
Basic cable that was not a pay per view, and
when Manny was still a you know, even a bigger
name than he was this past weekend when he fought
against sat Mario Barrios. And for different reasons, it apparently
has not worked out to the best for ESPN. It
is my opinion. And I remember I was still working
at ESPN when the deal was consummated, so I have
a lot of knowledge about the way, you know, some
of the business side of things that went down with that.
I'll say this and I'll die on the hill. They
basically made the deal with Top Rank, and it's kind
of like you're a kid. You get a Christmas toy,
you play with it for ten minutes, and then you
forget about it. That was sort of the way that
I feel like Top Rank got treated by ESPN, especially
once Top Rank was there, and then not that long
after ESPN made it a long term deal with UFC.
When that was done, I feel like they basically turned
Toppering into the red headed stepchild. They didn't give it
to promotional support that they had promised. They didn't do
a good job of helping market the shows and the
activities and the events and the fighters. The idea was,
and I've talked to people from Top Rank a thousand
times about this when they made the deal, the idea
was not like they're gonna overdo it and it's not
gonna usurped NFL coverage or NBA coverage or anything like that.
We get that, but it was going to become part
of the conversation of your daily sports menu. So in
not every single fight, but when you're doing like Lomachenko,
or your got like an Oscar Valdez against Navarette or
something interesting, or you know, obviously, when they were doing
Tyson Fury. It's going to become part of the of
the of the of the fabric of what you're talking about.
The same ie you might talk about the big baseball game,
or the big college football game, or the big you know,
whatever was going on in the sports world, you're gonna
have something about boxing, whether it's on the bottom Line,
or it's on the radio program, or it's on First Take,
or it's on whatever sports center with an interview. And
they just never really followed through in that in my mind,
and and that that cost him. And the viewership was
pretty steady for the most part. I mean, you know,
when you had bigger fights, they did bigger numbers, and
they had lesser fights, they did lesser numbers. That's just
par for the course. But I feel like the Top
Rank and I mean some people may disagree, and yeah,
where there's some terrible fights, you know, that happens with anybody.
But I feel like, in general terms, Top Ranked did
an excellent job with the program. I'm gonna say one thing.
I think I've mentioned this before where my critique comes
in where they made a mistake, and this was both
the Top Rank as a company as well as ESPN
as a network when they were doing a biggish fight,
they're doing t Female against Josh Taylor. They're doing something
that was significant. They're doing Devin Haney for the undisputed
title in Australia against George Kimbosa, something that was bigger
than your average fight. And then on the comeback, they're
doing like, you know, Jared Anderson in Toledo against Charles Martin.
Not like a bad matchup or a terrible fight or
anything like that, but you can't put that in the
same basket as the Mega Mega Championship fight. And it
is my view that they never explained to the fan
base or to the media. Frankly, I understood it, but
a lot of guys didn't that we have different levels
of events, but they treated everything the same. So when
they're doing Lomachenko against Tiafimo, or they're doing Navarete against
Valdez or whatever that Shookhorse Stevenson against Valdez in a
unification fight, or there's some of their bigger guys and
they're giving it the full coverage, they're doing the same
thing when they're doing like Edo Vanello against Faa Jagba,
and they're just not the same product, right, you can't
treat them the same. You have to make a delineation
showtime at showtime Championship Boxing and showbox you know, Top
HBO ad Boxing, ever for Dark and World Championship Boxing.
They were able to understand that not every show was
created equal. When you're spending five six million dollars for
one event and another event you might be spending a
million and a half on, there's a huge difference. And
the network and the promotion never did a good job
explaining it. So they'd see a big time event and
be like, wow, that's a great fucking show, and then
the next week or number two, three weeks later, the
next event would come on and it was the type
of you know, Jose Padraza against Richard Comey or whatever,
but not again, not a bad fight, but not on
the same level of course, And they didn't do a
good job explaining what they were doing.
Speaker 2: All right, So we will see what happens with Top
rank down the road and where they land next. I
will just say this is this is an interesting time
and they are I mean, obviously out of side, out
of mine is not a good thing. They've got to
get on somewhere and get on somewhere regularly. Just for example,
you were mentioning this with PBC and then we're gonna
move on. But we're talking about the industry. You and
I have both been in the industry for a long time.
Premiere Boxing Champions talked a good game about I still
remember you uttered the phrase fifty seven times that they
were saying to you, we're gonna be fine, We're gonna
be fine, and we're gonna watch what happens, watch what
we're gonna have when the show Time deal ended in particular,
and they're not fine. They're far from fine on regularly
having fights and regularly establishing themselves with the audience. Most
of their fighters are fighting on other cards elsewhere for Turkey, Alis,
Chic and whatever, because they can't regularly produce and have shows.
Speaker 1: So that's another example. By the way, when they announced
the deal, they were supposed to have far more.
Speaker 2: Non and they haven't done it. And part of that
is because they've had to pay for it. That's another
thing too, and they haven't been able to figure it out.
So we'll see, we'll see what happens with Top Rank,
But for now, I continue to say it seems if
Top Rank wants to produce it and pay for it,
ESPN Plus is a logical place to be in there
and have ESPN still get behind it to an extent
because they would still maybe talk about it on some
of the shows.
Speaker 1: But they never did that when they had a contract.
Speaker 2: But if you're paying, it might be different in that deal.
So I don't know. I don't know, but they got
to have an outlet.
Speaker 1: When the Saturday Night Card with Xander Ziaz concludes and
the contract comes to and a couple of days later,
on August first or July thirty first, it will be
the first time, at least the way I've looked at it,
I went back and kind of looked things up and
study this a little bit. When TV became accessible to
the masses in the United States of America, when it
was invented, we're talking about in like the early nineteen forties.
Boxing basically has had a presence on linear television ever
since it was on the networks with the big Friday
night shows, and networks are looting it exists anymore. Then.
Obviously it came along, you know, all those big events
that they did in the nineteen seventies, ABC was.
Speaker 2: Showing it on network TV sixties seventies.
Speaker 1: Yes, ABC, NBCCBS showed all through the eighties into the nineties.
Then you had Fox, FS one, USA Network, a lot
of the Spanish language channels that invested heavily, various Univision properties,
and Telemundo and you name it. All of these places
had boxing at one time or another. And we're invested. ESPN.
When they're done on Saturday Night will be the first
time since since the advent of accessible television in the
nineteen forties that there will be no boxing on linear
television in the United States of America, almost eighty fucking years. Yeah,
and it's the powers that be that fucked this up
because they served up a lot of garbage. They took
a lot of money, they didn't give the fans. Therefore
their broadcast partners bang for the buck more often than not.
I'm not holding one particular promoter to account for this.
Like I said, I feel like Top Rank, given what
they were dealing with, did actually a very good job
with this particular contract. But just in recent years, we've
seen ESPN go out apparently certainly we saw Foxy, Showtime
and HBO and FS one. You know to an extent,
because they did a lot of the PBC material also,
so you know, you can look at see, well, we're
still getting these big fights, and they still had many
pack in a big pay per view, and we still
had some amazing events that have taken place, like Duboi
Nusick and some of the mega cards that Turkey al
Chic has done with Riad Season the Ring Magazine, and
that's all good. I'm happy about that, but it does
not replace regular activity that can go to the masses.
And the reality is the masses do not get the zone.
The zone is in a handful of hundred thousands, a
few hundred thousand subscribers in the United States, and while
they've put on a lot of good fights, a lot
of them have been on pay per view.
Speaker 2: On top of this, you certainly aren't cracking the mainstream
sports fan.
Speaker 1: Which is I came home from Vegas and maybe I
missed it, but I mean, because I'm an old motherfucker,
I still get the hard newspaper delivered to my house.
I still get the USA today in the Washington Post,
and I went through the sports sections and I don't
know if I saw a single word about the Usik
Dubuil fight. That's the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world.
And if I if it wasn't the paper, it means
I missed it because it was probably like two paragraphs
in like a round up, and I didn't see one
word about the manupaca If and it actually surprised me,
and maybe I missed this, you know. If I did,
I apologize. They usually have something like when Gary Russell fights,
because he's a DC guy. I fought on that card,
so maybe they had something on Gary. But the point
I'm making is, you know, even in a big newspaper
like USA Titty or the Washington Post, I mean, barely
a word of anything on two significant events in the sport.
Speaker 2: All right, So we'll see what the future is. Top
Rank is not going out of business. It's just a
matter of where do they land, what are they going
to be doing? Stay tuned, it's unknown for right now.
One other fight card, and again we'll bring it up
because Claressa Shields is one of the premier female fighters
in the world. Although we've well discussed this the last
couple of goal rounds, this whole undisputed heavyweight title thing
that they're pushing in this. Lannie Daniels is the opponent
that no one knows anything about, all right, So she's
headlining for Salita Promotions in Detroit for this fight card
coming on Saturday night. Tony Harrison, a former brief world
champion at junior middleweight as well, will be in the
co feature. So give me a little more in the
preview mode about all of that.
Speaker 1: Well, Lannie Daniels is coming over from New Zealand, where
she's from. She's eleven two and two and she is
the holder of the IBF's light heavyweight title, and she
is challenging Claressa essentially in Clarisa's hometown. The fight's taking
place in Detroit. She is from Flint, Michigan, so it
would obviously be a huge Claressa crowd. That's where she
She does do a pretty good job drawing fans to
her events there. And I think Claressa is the best
female boxer of all time. She is tremendously skilled. She
barely loses rounds. She doesn't have a lot of punching power,
but she dominates and wins easily every single time out.
She had one loss as an amateur she avenged that
as a professional, which she defeated Savannah Marshall. So I
have nothing bad to say about Claressa. She is a
tremendous fighter. She will be a first bout Hall of Famer.
She is obviously the pound for pound number one. The
problem is as she has moved up in weight and now,
as you said, she's now fighting in the heavyweight division
where and it's a little confusing because within the way
the sanctioning bodies operates, some of them have a limit
as far as like two hundred or over one seventy
five or whatever they call them different things, but it's
the heaviest weight class among the women. There's no competition.
Like when she was fighting at one fifty four, one sixty,
one sixty. It was hard enough to find competition in
those weight classes. But at least there was a few
girls around that could, you know, get in the ring
with her, whether it was Savannah Marshall or there was
a lot of hype when she fought Franchion Cruise Desern
in her pro debut. Uh, you know, there was some
some reputable opposition, uh, when she fought some of the
women that she faced from overseas, TJ BEFO. I knew
we're gonna talk about it, so I actually went on
the four organizational websites, the WBA, the WBO, the WBC,
and the IBF, and I looked this up just to
be clear. In the WBA heavyweight women's division, in the
entire fucking planet Earth, they ranked four women.
Speaker 2: I know you mentioned this before, I'm going through.
Speaker 1: This is up to date. Yeah, in the WBO. Now
keep in mind, so in organizations they overlapped, so there
might be a you know, men's boxing and win's boxing
where the organizations.
Speaker 2: Might be in the top ten and two or three
of them.
Speaker 1: Of course, I mean like we've touched us, like Williams
of Hata was across the board number one a lightweight.
But specifically for the WBA, on the entire planet Earth,
they ranked four females in the heavyweight rankings. In the WBO,
they ranked four women in the heavyweight rankings. In the
WBC they actually ranked ten, but they typically go much deeper.
For the men, they go maybe twenty thirty deep, and
the other you know, in the other gender and in
the IDEAF. On their website they don't even have a
heavyweight division. Their highest division that they list is the
light heavyweight division, but they they they did a title
for Claressa what she fought, so she was that champion. Also,
they literally have in the whole planet Earth billions of people,
about half of them who are a female, eighteen ranked females,
some of which are overlapping because they're the same person
ranked by the different organizations. So again, I don't want
to downplay the achievements. Okay, so this is not a
knock on Clarissa. She is the champion. She's okay, the thing,
but there's nobody to fucking fight.
Speaker 2: Understanding Daniels, why doesn't she go back to one sixty
eight and make that weight that she made because she
moved up to weight classes and see who else is there?
If the heavyweight division in particular is so devoid, because
the bigger picture is no one cares about this. So
you're having these fights and no one cares, you might
as well try to move back down. I'm just saying
where someone might care, because you know who she's fighting.
Speaker 1: So there's a handful of people obviously who are gonna
turn out because they're her fans from the Detroit and
Flint area that are gonna be happy to go see
a professional boxing card in a first class arena like
Little Caesars Arena in Detroit and watching undercard with some
local fighters and see a former world champ like Tony
Harrison or wherever compete on the show. And she's still
gonna make a good amount of money. And she feels like,
I've already been the undisputed champion at the middleweight. I've
already been the undisputed champion. I guess I forget juor
middleweight or super middleweight. She's won unified titles in the
other weight class, I forget which order it was. Point
is like she may not have that motivation to drop
the weight or the find the right opponent. I mean,
if there's one opponent out there that she hasn't fought
that would at least be quasi interesting, and that's Shadejah Green,
who won the fight that took place on the recent
all women's card that Jake Paul and MVP put on
that was the main event that night, was h Serrano
against against Katie Taylor in their third fight. But there's
so few people for her to fight, regardless of it,
she's at heavyweight, light heavyweight, super mid Away and so
on and so forth, that it just it's said when
you look at the opponent's site that that Katie Taylor
or Serrano or Bomb Gardner or some of the women
in the smaller weight divisions, even a Mikhayla may Or
at welterweight, there's other people for them to fight. She
just has nobody. So when you got a match up
with Landing Daniels, and I'm not knocking Landy Gangiles, but
she's just a regular type fighter. It seems to me,
based on her record and that kind of thing like
this should be like a no hitter. The way I
look at this is a tend to nothing kind of
fight for claressa bigger and there.
Speaker 2: In lies the problem because you can't even get the
hardcore boxing fan to be interested. If we believe this
is gonna be a shutout, an easy night, why watch
much lesser. You're gonna get the casual fan, the casual
boxing fan interesting.
Speaker 1: This will this will probably overlap with the top rank card.
In no way I'm turning off to SHOs Xander Zias
and even the younger guys on the undercard that we mentioned,
like the Emeliano Vargas and people like that. I'm not
gonna do that to watch, to watch Claressa in a
fight that I don't think is worthwhile. Again, I'll say
this again, this is not anything against Claressa. Shild's all
she can do is fight the women they put in
front of her. But I just have no interest in
watching her win one hundred and ninety against a girl
that doesn't even belong in the ring with her.
Speaker 2: All Right, So that fight card again on Saturday night
in Detroit. Let's get to some news you mentioned earlier.
Being in Vegas. We're also Sebastian Fondora was victorious. We
mentioned this with the win over tim Zo and what
might be next if if Zias wins, could there be
unification with Fundora. Tim Zu got roughed up, was in
this fight. That's three losses in four fights for him,
two bad knockouts in the last two. But Zoo did
put out a social media post saying I'm not done here.
Elaborate follow up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he you know, he made up a video that
he put up on his Instagram, and you know he
wasn't wearing sunglasses or anything like that, so you could
see the cut that was still there on his eye
and just you know, some bruising and you know, just
this is obviously within a day or so after the fight,
and he basically was like, look, I'm you know, because
there was a lot of conversation like after that fight happened,
like especially because he basically quit in the fight, that
that he might not ever fight again. I mean, he
got so roughed up in that fight. As you mentioned,
he had, he had gotten destroyed by Martazeleev. He had
come back in a in a no count kind of fight,
get well fight against Joey Spencer, who he just used
as cannon fodder, and then he stepped in against fandor
in the rematch. And the reason why I was so
stark is because at least in the first fight with
fandora A he had the terrible gash, combined with the
fact that they had switched a ponent. It's on a feud,
you know, in a week and a half notice to
go from fighting a normal right handed fighter that was
around your same height and now you're fighting a six
foot six guy who's a southpaw. So all credit to
him for having the stones to make the switch. So
even when he lost the fight, and it was a
split decision that was highly competitive. You're like, all right,
you know that was a weird circumstance, so you can
kind of ignore that loss. I mean, you know it happened,
but there was a lot of extenuating circumstances. But then
to go in there and get absolutely pummeled by Bachram,
then you take care of the win you're supposed to
take care of back home in Australia, and then you
don't even compete really very well with Fundor you land
some shots you might have won around, but you basically
got your ass kicked and then you quit on the stool.
It called into question, like, Okay, as much as we
loved Tim Zoo and admire the bravery and admire the
fact that he's willing to fight anybody and he's hungry
to do this, I mean, I'm talking about the guy
that fought after he got did by the dog, remember that,
And and they were like people saying, well, maybe you
should not fight because of the injury, and he fought anyway.
So again nothing but respect for him, But what he
said was he is he's going to fight on that.
It didn't go the way he wanted, you know, that
when he when he started out boxing, the idea was
to get to the very top and if he had
to crash and burn along the way to do it,
he would be willing to do it. And so he
admitted he goes, I did crash and burn. This is
all on his video. But we're still going to move forward.
And you know, some things go your way and some
things don't, and you know, what happened on Saturday didn't
go his way. But he's still going to move forward.
And so he's planning to fight again. Now where he
goes from here and what type of level of opponent
he wants to fight or when he comes back, or
if the fans will still have a huge amount of interest.
I assume that the Australian fans will at least have
some interest because he's still a beloved figure there. But
I don't think it's unfair to think that his time
as a legitimate guy at the very top of this
division might very well be over. Now, you never say never.
You know, guys have shown resiliency and they've been able
to come back, so I would not write him off.
It's not like he's old. He's only thirty years old
and I hope that he can get back because he's
so good for the game.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna keep so good for the game. I was
higher on this guy maybe than some watching him in
Australia and tracking his career and him coming over here.
But at this point with Fondora beating him, you know,
the gash on the head obviously was a factor, but
Fondora won the fight, and then with what martaz Elaiev
has done and Fondora in the rematch, I think it
is fair to say that he was overvalued to some
degree with the competition that he was facing in Australia
and that once he has stepped up into better competition.
I mean, we mentioned Tony Harrison briefly a few moments ago.
He did beat Tony Harrison. He got the WBO title
because it was vacant, right, I believe in winning that fight.
But Tony Harris had already been beaten and had been
knocked out a couple of times before that.
Speaker 1: Right, But Tony also had to win against Charlotte like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Tony had been used up to a degree.
But when when he's now come over here into the
United States and had these fights and lost three of
the four of them. I think it is more than
fair to say he was overvalued for beating people in
Australia that that maybe weren't top notch and weren't even.
Speaker 1: He also here and he defeated like a quality guy
like to who.
Speaker 2: Was to Shane knocking down in the first round of that,
but he won every other round in he did, he
did win, but that and then and then.
Speaker 1: I don't agree that he was overvalued, but the reality
is he you are what your record says you are.
And so right now he's a guy that's lost three
of his last four fights, two by knockout. Then and
now you gotta you gotta figure things out.
Speaker 2: Let me just say that we talked constantly about the
rise of Tim Zoo and the son of the Hall
of Famer and can he be a great fighter and
all of that, and it unraveled faster than you can speak,
is Bill Zoo? It did so.
Speaker 1: Listen, It's hard to think of a guy that was
at a certain level that that a lot of people
considered number one in the division for that matter, to
have such a fall in sixteen months, in just a
few fights. Yes, I totally agree with you about that,
but I hope he can come back. I'll put a
thing like that. But if he does come back, number one,
he's got to do something about the defense. And number two,
Quite frankly, I think he needs a change in terms
of his corner, not because the trainers are no good,
but I think he might need a new voice in
the year to like point him in the right direction,
because clearly what's going on there is not working at
the moment. So it's gonna have to make some hard decisions.
Speaker 2: All right. Speaking of retiring Josh Taylor, this was not unexpected.
Josh Taylor hasn't been that active and now he has
announced this week, the former undisputed junior welterweight champion briefly
has announced that he will retire. Do we believe he's
retired for good? He certainly did not look good in
the fight earlier this summer where he was shockingly beaten
in Glasgow at you know, in home in Scotland. All right,
So what about Josh Taylor here?
Speaker 1: Well, the reason he first of all, this was not expected.
He hit every intention of fighting again after he lost
the fight you were just mentioned against Echo Essimon that
was back on May twenty fourth. It was his third
loss in a row. He had, well, if you back
up to when he became you know, the night of
his life where he basically reached the Apex and the
Promised Land, if you will, and the ultimate which was
when he defeated Jose Ramirez in Las Vegas. This is
in May of twenty twenty one. He had two of
the titles. Ramirez had two of the titles. He scored
two knockdowns. He won the fight one fourteen to one
to twelve across the board, so the knockdowns were the
difference in a draw, and that on that night he
became the undisputed four belt junior welter at world champion.
It was a very big deal. He became the first
ever British fighter to be a four belt world champion.
He's still the only British fighter to be a four
belt world champion. He was you know, did so with
the Legend of Scotland in Ken Buchanan, you know, was
in the same conversation with him. It was a huge,
huge deal for him in his country. And then he had,
you know, ten months later or so, the massively controversial
split decision victory over Catarell where he retained the title,
but it basically in the UK was a scandal because
of the way that that was scored. There was attempts
to make a rematch, different things happened. He was off
for a while, came back a year four months later
so came to New York City and got beat by
t Fimo Lopez. By that time, because the time that
had elapsed and mandatories and strippings and vacatings, et cetera,
he only had the WBO belt and the lineal title left,
but Ta Fimo took that from him and that started
the real downward spiral. He finally got the rematch going
with Catall that was in May of twenty four. He
lost that fight pretty handily. There was no it was
not a controversial decision. He lost, you know, pretty clearly
in terms of an unanimous decision in that fight, and
then was off another year until this past man came
back and fought Estimon and was that was a huge
upset in like you mentioned in Scotland, where it was
his people. But he had every intention to continue to fight,
so this was not an expected retirement. The reason he
announced his retirement he posted this on his social media
was because he has had a recurring eye injury and
it has been recommended to him by the doctors that
because of the injury to the eye that he should retire.
He's going to risk his eyesight, and in his goodbye
post is thank you to everybody posts, he basically said,
you know, I got to preserve my vision and therefore
I'm hanging up the gloves. So he never liked to
see a guy have to be forced out because of
that type of situation. But I think in the long run,
it probably is the best for Taylor because things were
not going to get better when you lose the way
he has lost. You know, even even you know, he
couldn't couldn't get over the hump once he got beat
at junior welterweight, the essimum fight he fought at welterweight.
So if you're losing to like a lower level type
of guy in the in the welterweight division, I'm not
sure how you're gonna fare if you're going to step
up and fight the bigger names. So he you know, look,
he had a good career. For a short period of time,
he was the best junior welterweight in the world. This
guy was an Olympian at one point in twenty twelve,
he had some very good victories and you can never
take away that brief period of time where he was,
you know, a number one. I mean when he joined
the World Boxing Super Series, which was a tremendous tournament.
He went into that he had beaten Victor Postal. This
is in twenty eighteen. Now, at the time he fought
Victor Postal, Victor post I was twenty nine and one.
His only loss going into that fight post a loss
of decision in a unification fight against Terrence Crawford. That
was a very good win for for Taylor. Then he
joined the tournament, scored up easy knockout against Ryan Martin,
who was undefeated at the time. Then he won a
title against Ivan Branchick, who was undefeated. That that was
a very good win for him. Then he went in
the finals of the tournament. He went into the tournament.
The final was a unification fight against Regis Program, who
at that time was also undefeated. They were the two
best guys. Who was a great fight. He pulled out
a close decision. He became the unified champion. He made
a mandatory during COVID where he just blitzed a complete
shmear in one round and then he had the big
win against Ramirez. So that that stretch from the from
the post All fight in twenty eighteen until he had
the fight against Ramirez in twenty twenty one, he was
he was dominating his you know, or at least even
against the top guys like a like a progres wins absolutely,
so you know, I'm not going to downplay what he did.
The fact is the prime was a little short, but
it was pretty spectacular and then of course, you know,
he went off a cliff. I mean, in many ways
it's sort of Tim's dudn't achieve what Josh Taylor achieved.
But in terms of the rapidity of the fall from grace,
if you will, was pretty stark. And unfortunately Josh has
to retire because of the injury. But like I said,
that might be the best thing, because I don't feel
like things are gonna get better. But you know, would
never want to see a guy have to retire because
of that situation, So hopefully he can come to grips
with that, come to terms of that. But he'll go
down as one of the greats from Scotland. I don't
think he's probably he's probably not done enough to become
a Hall of Famer, But again, that doesn't mean he
was not a heck of a fighter for a while.
I wish him the best of luck. He was very
classy in the way he made his announcement, and he
thanked all of his different promoters and trainers and family
and all the things that had helped him get to
the point where he got the fans who are super supportive.
So I just say good luck to Josh Taylor.
Speaker 2: A couple more here. Well, we have found out one
of the reasons that Gilberto Zerto Ramirez may not have
been as effective in that Cruise Away title fight the
uh the unified Cruise Away title fight on the Jake
Paul undercard in Anaheim, California. I was there at ringside,
is a shoulder injury and he has now undergone shoulder
surgery that will keep him out basically the remainder of
this year from fighting. So elaborate on how how much
I mean you you do a great job of fairting
this stuff out. How much was this a factor before
the fight as opposed to he really damaged it during
the fight with Dordiakos. What do we know if anything
on that for the show for the shoulder surgery.
Speaker 1: In Zerdo's statement when Golden Boy announced that he was
that he had had surgery this past Saturday, he said
in his comments that he's been dealing with this since
the since the fight with Dordikos, So it didn't really
make it clear whether it was some type of injury
they had going into that fight he sucked it up
and got through the fight, or that maybe happened during
the fight, but either way, it happened, and he he
said he had three different medical opinions made the point like,
obviously most people would do that. It's never good, especially
if you're a professional athlete that to have the surgery,
but he felt like after hearing the varying opinions that
the best course of action was to have the surgery
and just do the reab and get it taken care of,
because that he needed to get it done because he
didn't want it to hamper him in his future fight
or future fights, especially with the Opa tie fight on
the table as a likely next fight in the fall.
Now the open tie camp, I hope they don't run
around claiming that he's ducking him or anything like that,
because obviously you're having surgery, you're not looking to get
out of a fight. But the main thing is now
when Golden Boy again, when they put the statement out,
never in the statement didn't mention what the timeframe was.
So I called up some folks there and I said, okay, guys,
what's the story like, is this a minor scope? Is
it a month? Is that six months? Is it a year?
And it was described to me as that he's probably
on the shelf before it can train with the shoulder
four to six months. So if you do the math,
the most likely case scenario is he probably doesn't fight
again this year, and that if he did fight again
this year, I'd be a little surprised if coming off
this type of surgery, he's going to jump into the
open tie fight right off the bat. So unfortunately, he
probably won't fight the rest of the year. I would
imagine that they'd want to get him a fight to
see how things are before they go into the big one,
unless he's very confident and things are okay. But the
point is that Opatai fight feels a little far away now,
even though I know from speaking of both sides that
they were discussing it, they were trying to make it.
Certainly Turkey had and that very publicly said he wanted
to fight. It was a fight that he definitely can
could have put on. He has the money to do so.
He has featured zero on a card in Saudi Arabia
last fall. Opatai has fought his last other than the
fight he just had back home in Australia, he had
fought what two or three of his recent fights in
a fairly active schedule in Saudi Arabia. So there's two
two things here. One he hoped Zerdo is okay and
everything heals up good. And two he hoped that when
that's good to go, that they still can make the
match with opa Ti, that they that they're both still
there with their titles in that way, And.
Speaker 2: There's some believe that Opataia is going to move up
to heavyweight too, and so, but I'm not sure he's
gonna do the wow. I don't know, Yeah, but he might,
you know, he.
Speaker 1: Might sticker in there. Look, Opatai is not an old fighter.
There's doesn't seem to me like it would be unreasonable
for him the stick around in the division for another
year and get get an opportunity to unify further. Uh
the heavyweight division is a different ballgame for these guys.
It's he's gonna be a lot smaller than those fighters,
not to say he won't necessarily be able to handle it,
but uh, I still think it's a very lucrative situation
with stick around a cruise weight and get the Zerto fight.
I mean, if you go to heavyweight, you're not getting
a title shot probably right away, some kind of some
kind of tough opponent. Uh So maybe the better course
of action will be to stick around in the cruiserweight
division where there's still other competent and reasonable opposition to fight.
There's still another belt out there that he doesn't have,
which is the bad Dude Jack WBC belt. So you
know that all remains to be seen. But the main
thing is I hope Zero, uh you know, gets better
because he has. He has been a guy who was
at supermit ofweight, never really fought the top guys. Not
for his own fault. Head light heavyweight, he did very well,
but when he got the big opportunity, he looked terrible
and lost every round with the people. But since he
went the cruiserweight and was able to put the weight on.
He's looked really good like even though he won. Maybe
it looked spectacular against Dorda Ghost, but it wasn't like
there was a question who was the winner, and that
was a good quality opponent the ay to beat. So
Hill up and let's get the big one going after that.
Speaker 2: You mentioned Regis Progray earlier will rap with he is
going to be back coming here, not this weekend but
August the second next weekend on the undercurt of the
Oscar Duarte Kenneth Simms main event. What's the latest uh
with Regis here and who he's fighting on that card?
Speaker 1: Well, the Duarte Kenneth Simms matchup. Ever since it was made,
I've said this is a very kind of below the
radar kind of fight. It may not have the big
name recognition, it might not have a lot of sexiness
to it, but that's a damn good matchup in my mind.
It's in the junior Wealthy right division. Regis program is
the junior weal to right also, So it seems to
me that Golden Boy might be looking to, you know,
feature this weight class and perhaps the winner, you know,
fights the winner, if that makes sense. So they're taking Regis,
who's clearly in decline but still a great personality and
still has the desire. He's been holed up in Vegas
doing his camp. He left home. He's now training with
Ky Caroma out in Las Vegas, and they've matched him
with a longtime Golden Boy fighter, Joseph Diaz Junior, who
was a former title holder at junior lightweight but has
been fighting. You know, he's miss waited a few times
and so was into the junior walterweight division. Actually made
one hundred and thirty five pounds for his most recent fight,
which took place back in June. But now apparently he's
going to be fighting at one forty for the fight
against against Regis. Program. But no matter how bad Regis
looked in his last two fights, and he looked bad.
You know, he got shut out and knocked down by
Devin Haney when he lost his WBC belt, and then
in the next fight. You know, he didn't look very
good against Jack Catroll either when he went overseas to
fight him.
Speaker 2: And really you go back to the Zoria fight in
New Orleans where he did nothing. Yep, there are real
question marks about whether this guy has anything left.
Speaker 1: But big butt or regis Progray half dead should still
be able to be Joseph Diaz, who has not done
anything for years, who is now two wins and six
losses in his last eight fights and has fought very poorly,
has had a lot of outside the ring issues. I'm
sure that has been part of it, but even the
wins that he had in that period of time were
not against anybody to write home about. So it feels
like these are two names guys who are former champions.
But Pro Gray is the natural forty pounder. He's a
guy that has been in the bigger fights. If he
can't beat Joseph Diaz, I mean he really should be retired.
So yeah, But if he can beat Joseph Diaz, I'm
not saying that's some kind of earth shattering victory, but
at least puts you back in the win column, and
with the fact that the main event between Duwartte and
Simms is in the same way class, at least it
gives you some sort of opportunity maybe to be compared
to those guys or perhaps land to fight against the winner.
And so that's what's happening. Again. I can't make this
out to be some kind of spectacular matchup, but it's
good to see the guys get back in action, and
if Regis was going to continue to fight, at least
get the opportunity to be seen by folks in the
co feature of what I feel like is a really
good main event, even if it doesn't have the big profile.
And that's the bottom line. They made a match for
the guy, and I don't know if he necessarily signed
the contract with Golden Boy. I don't know if they're
going to go signing a Regius program to a long
term go. I'm sure they have an option if he's
a winner. Anyway, Regis back in action. He's out in
Vegas trending his ass off.
Speaker 2: All right, So we gave you a bunch. Why don't
you and I reconvene again on the bet Us Boxing
Show coming up Friday, one Eastern time, and we will
handicap the top rank show at the Madison Square Garden Theater,
Xander Zaiyez going for the WBO Junior Middleweight title, Bruce
Shoeshoe Carrington in the co feature. Will handicap those fights
live on their platforms one Eastern time, bet Us YouTube
and social media, and whatever happens you and I will
recap things coming off of the weekend here on the
podcast feed. Make sure you're following subscribing you get the
automatic notifications and reminders. There is a new pod when
it's up. You can obviously go to our YouTube page
see Dan interviewing Xander Zaiyez before this fight Saturday night.
You can also hear it on this podcast feed, but
see it great nostalgia that's there on the feed. Recently
we put up the Salvador Sanchez final fight before his
tragic death in a car accident back in nineteen eighty two.
I know it's a long time ago. You kids, YouTube
it up. Go look up Salvador Sanchez and go watch
us talking about his final fight with a Zuma Nelson
at Madison Square Garden. But the Mike McCallum knockout of
Donald Curry had an anniversary, the late body snatcher Mike
McCallum that just recently passed away, his fantastic knockout. We
analyze that. Go to the YouTube page. You can see
all about that. I think I'm done promoting. Shall shall
we reconvene on Friday one Eastern time? Are we good?
Speaker 1: It's for show?
Speaker 2: I think so all right, Big Dan, thank you, We
thank you for listening and for being with us as
you have been in here on the Big Fight Weekend
preview podcast, What the