Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time.
Speaker 2: This is Big Fight Weekend. Now here is your host,
DJ Leaves. All right, we are ready to go. Coming
up this weekend with a PBC on Prime pay per
view from San Antonio, Texas. We are ready to preview
Pitfull Cruise and Lamont Roach, Oshaki Foster and Steven Fulton
in the co feature, and much more off that card,
plus IVF Cruiserweight World Champ Jai Opataiah in action as well.
This weekend. We're previewing there. Oh, we got Hall of
Fame announcements. We got Terrence Crawford going ballistic at somebody
besides Rayfield. So that's a good that's a good thing.
Welcome in. It is the Big Fight Weekend preview. Let's
to cover, let's to go over. I am the somewhat
medicated host TJ. Reeves of the program. I'll explain in
a moment. Hello, Big Dan Rayfield. Fight Freak Unit is
the substack in the newsletter. Why are you not on it?
You should be on it if you're a fight fan
reading all of this stuff, breaking news, original content, all
kinds of things on the fight for each unit substack,
How are you, TJ?
Speaker 1: I'm doing good.
Speaker 2: You know, Uh, we reveal a lot here on the pod,
and you're gonna you're gonna laugh even because you don't
know what I'm about to reveal. I am doing this.
I am doing this about three to four hours after
I've had to have some oral surgery done. So I'm fine.
I'm not loopy in that regard. But I kept saying, Rayphael,
we got to wait. My mouth is not awake yet,
and I don't want to sound this on the podcast. Now.
You and I have been doing this for close to
four years, and I'm gonna have to actually do this
while we do it live. But you're gonna love this.
I am. I am salivating and drooling a little bit
while I begin the show because my mouth is still
waking up, and uh, I'm a mouth. I'm like a
mouth breather right now on the pod. But the fan,
the people love this. Now Here's the best is I
take pretty good care of my teeth and for a
long time, I am thoroughly convinced that genetics has a
lot to do with this. And you're about to bolster
my case in a second. Both my father and my
mother have had problems with dental and whatever. I do
a pretty good job of taking care of it. So
it's not that often that I have to have done
what I had to have done today because I had
to have a filling replaced. That's old. What happens, Dan
is they get old, they break whatever, and you can't
you got to deal with it. So I had to
deal with it today. And you knew this. I was
letting you know this, and then you pop off to
me before I hit the record button. What what did
you pop off to me?
Speaker 3: Well, you were telling me about about what happened today
with the with the cavity and the surgery. And I said,
you know what. Oh you said, you know you get old.
Everybody has it happened or something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that the fillings start and rotten and break.
Speaker 3: And you said, I said, I'm fifty five years old
and in my entire life, I have never had a
single cavity we're filling.
Speaker 2: That is hard to believe. That is some podcast reveal
right there.
Speaker 1: I like regular people out.
Speaker 2: Of the thousands and thousands and thousands that are listening
to us, I would bet you that probably two percent,
maybe you're like in the upper one percent probably that
have never had anything, So congrats to you. But again,
part of my theory is that it's hereditary that you
are predisposed to have the problems.
Speaker 3: Not only no fillings or cavities. Didn't have to wear
braces either.
Speaker 2: I had to have them. My sister had to have them.
My twins have had to have them, have them. We
joked that we've paid for the Orthodontis Beach house. He
is Tampa Bay Lightning hockey season tickets and everything else
we've paid for.
Speaker 1: I've paid for my sons.
Speaker 2: But am I correct? Young Rayphaiel has to have them, right?
Speaker 1: I just said he has them. I've already paid for them.
Speaker 2: So that's interesting on the heredity point that I'm trying
to make. By the way, I'm still drooling and trying
to deal with it at the beginning of the pot.
I means you're gonna have to talk a lot more tonight,
which is easy for you.
Speaker 1: And I gotta let the tea you need like a
cutman or a trainer.
Speaker 2: I need something right now. I'm like a dog that
has like meat on the bone here and is not
allowed to go have it. And the drool starts just
formulating you have cats, so you don't know how how
I roll. All right, well, let's get into it. Thank
you for finding us, Apple, Spreaker, Spotify wherever you have
found us. Also find the Big Fight Weekend YouTube page
as well for content. For example, go see the interview
with Lamont Roach before this fight that we're about to
talk about on the YouTube page. It's also been on
the podcast feed. You can also hear on this feed
from Steven Fulton with Dan as you talk to him
prior to this fight with Foster. Let's get into these fights.
It's the PBC on Prime pay per Views, San Antonio, Texas,
coming Saturday night. Main event is Isaac Pittbull Cruise, Lamont
Roach cruises WBC Interim Junior Welterweight title on the line,
Roach moving up in Wait, all right, give me some
thoughts on that, and then we'll just kind of cascade.
That's the word I'll use down the main Go ahead, Well,
I would.
Speaker 3: Say overall, I have I have pretty good hopes that
this is going to be like a pretty fun night
of the fights. And that is even taking into account,
which we'll discuss in a minute, the fact that the
middleweight unification fight is not a middle eight unification anymore
because Jennebec m cannolly had a positive drug test and
is off the show. But Laura is still on the
card defending his title. But in terms of the main event, look,
Roach thought he was gonna have the rematch with Tank
Davis after their very controversial draw that many of us,
putting myself thought he won. Kind of got robbed and
jipped out of that point with the knockdown that was
not called, and for Tank's reasons, he didn't take the fight.
He thought he was gonna get the Jake Paul fight,
you know, and then he got a draw from that
fight because of the constant domestic violence allegations and yet
another lawsuit. So he's off off doing whatever. He's not
fighting right now, but you know, certainly Lamar Roach is
not going to sit around when he's you know, in
his best days these days. So he was offered this
fight against Pitt Bull Cruz, so he's gonna go from
He's still, by the way, he's still has the title,
the WBA title at one hundred and thirty pounds. He
fought Tank at one thirty five, looked really good in
that fight, and and you know he's going up to
one forty to fight this fight against Pitbull Cruise for
the interim belt and and I think that he'll be
just finding that weight class. And I said to you
when we discussed this fight when it was mate, I
was surprised that the that the Pitbull people took the
fight because I feel like even though he's a smaller
guy supposedly relt smaller, not in stature, but in terms
of the way he's fought at coming up to meet Pitbull.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: Where Pitbull will be the fan for everyone all that,
I feel like Roach should be the favorite. I haven't
actually looked at the official hotsteageer, so I'm not sure
what it is.
Speaker 2: Close to a fifty to fifty five.
Speaker 1: Okay, I matter right right?
Speaker 3: So, but you got to figure with the all out
aggression of a Pitbull Cruise, the good boxing skills that
we have seen displayed from Amont Roach not the biggest puncher,
but a very good inside fighter even as a as
a more of a slick kind of guy.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: I think it has like a pretty decent chance for
the styles to mesh pretty well. And Pitbull fan favorite
everybody loves him, always makes a good fight, you know,
A couple to go back in February, had that spectacular
war against Angel Fierra, which he won on a ten
round decision. He was supposed to fight him in the
rematch back in July that was on the Manipacio Mario
Barrios undercard, but Fierro dropped out at the last minute.
He was having the issues making weight. They replaced him
with Omar Salcito, who was on the undercart and they
moved him up from Nate rounder and won that fight
that actually was for the interim belt. And now here
he is in the first fight against Roach and look,
it's gonna be a good Mexican crowd. I'm sure in
San Antonio rooting for Pitt Bull Cruise. You know, he
is like the pied piper. I've seen him fighting many times.
I've been to fights off his in Vegas, been to
one of his fights in Los Angeles, and no matter
where he goes, it doesn't matter if it's apt to
fight itself for you know, even like at the fight Hotel.
I remember when he fought Jose Vellanzuela back on the
Terrence Crawford Najamov card in August of twenty twenty four.
He was like more than any and there was a
lot of fighters that were hanging out in the lobby area,
you know, in the lounge bar area. He was mob
more than anybody the whole the whole night. And you
know he had won that fight or no, I take
the back. He was mobbed even though he had lost
that fight. That was a split decision in a very
close fight. But the point I'm making is he is
a fan favorite. So him and Roach it makes for
a pretty good fight. And now what the winner is
going to be in a great position because at you know,
there is some activity going on. We have We're going
to see Shakoor and Chakor and Tiafimo and and other
quality guys in the division. Uh, they'll reschedule the Gary
Antewin Russell fight. You know, he's gonna have opportunities if
he wins and Roach stame way. I think if Roach wins,
most likely stays in the weight class. He's not going
back down to one thirty to defend I don't think.
Speaker 2: And one thing that I thought in in hearing him
and then seeing him in the interview with you and
again that was done before fight week. I loved his demeanor.
I loved his attitude. He kind of let the Tank
Davis stuff roll off his back and he's on to
you know, he's obviously in with a talented, tough fighter
and knows what it's I just I liked his demeanor,
and I don't know what that's worth. Maybe it's not
worth anything. Comes Saturday night, we'll stay tuned.
Speaker 3: One thing about Lamont Roach that you should know, and
I know this because I've covered tons of Lamont Roach
fights because he was on so many the big Golden
Boy undercards when he was coming up, and I got
to know him and his father, Lamont Senior, who's this trainer,
because he's from the DC area. I live in the
DC era, And inevitably, when they were flying west, we
were on the same airplanes all the time. So I
couldn't tell you how many times like we joked around.
We sat in the boarding area at the Reagan National Airport,
shooting the shit about the upcoming fight week, and then
fast forward to the Sunday and we'd be back at
the same gate, but at this time at the Las
Vegas Airport and get ready to get on our flight
back home to d C. So you know, you sit
in airport with people for you know, an hour here
and there you're gonna you know, you talk a lot
of stuff and you kind of get to know them
and sort of the kind of people they are. Lamont
Roach is a good guy. Like you said, he let
that tank shit rode all, you know, not make a
big deal about it. He's like, what can I do?
So he's you know, he's moving on with his life
and he's you know, he may not be making as
much money against Lamont Roach, or rather for Lamont to
fight against Pitbull Cruise, but he's gonna make good money
come Saturday.
Speaker 2: And there's opportunity if he wins, which is what you're saying.
There's opportunity at one forty, and.
Speaker 3: It's a big opportunity. I mean, it's not anything to
They a lot of fighters, you know, they look ahead
to that sort of thing. I mean, he's gonna be
in the picture for you know, the winner of Mattias
who's got the title. If he beats Dalton Spi or
whoever wins that fight, he's right there to make a
name for himself even bigger than he did off the
Tank Davis fight.
Speaker 2: All right, co feature fight again. You talked to Stephen
Fulton in advance of this. This is for Oshaki Foster's
WBC one and thirty pound title, which Foster are we getting?
We know Fulton moving up here, and what are your
thoughts on the co feature fight.
Speaker 3: I think this similar to like you said, the odds
were for the main event about fifty to fifty. Again,
I have not looked at odds for Foster and Fulton,
but I would imagine they're probably awfully close too, probably
you know, a similar kind of pick them type of
thing where you can see either guy winning the fight.
Good matchup. I'm hopeful that that it will ignite. Style wise,
I'm maybe studly less hopeful of that than I am
compared to the main event. And that's not a knock
on either guy. It's just that both of them are
more boxer than den brawler, more boxer than puncher. But
that said, I have seen at times in certain fights
when necessary, we've seen them stand in there. If you
look at Steven Fulton, especially in the first fight he
had against Figaroa, they battled it out to yes, Oshaki
Foster has been in some fights where he came back
and retained the title. In the fight in Mexico, where
he was trailing on the score.
Speaker 2: Tremendous, tremendous final rounds, right, final couple of rounds again,
Rocky Hernandez.
Speaker 3: Right, exactly. So there are moments. So even though their
general nature, if you will, is to box and use
their intelligence and their speed and their skills their fighters,
and when it comes necessary to bite down, we've seen
them do that, and like I mentioned, that was the
exact scenario when Foster needed to do so in that
Rocky Hernandez fight that was in twenty twenty three. We
saw in the first fight with Figueroa battle it out
and that was a unification fight against Fultons.
Speaker 1: So they can do that. Now.
Speaker 3: Fulton's moving up from one hundred and twenty six to
one hundred and thirty. I feel like that won't be
a big a big deal in terms of the jump.
You know, he started in terms of his championship career
at one hundred twenty tw pounds where he won his
first title belt. They're both good boxers and this fight
has been a long time coming. We've talked about this.
This fight was supposed to take place on the Tank
Roach rematch undercard when it was being discussed back for June,
and then for various reasons, delay Delay, Delay, was supposed
to be on October twenty fifth, but the Fondora Keith
Thurman fight was postponed because of the injury. It got
moved to this card and so finally they're they're they're
gonna take care of business. And again, one hundred and
thirty pounds is maybe not like the deepest weight class
in the sport of boxing at the present time. But
the guy who wins this is going to have a
really good win against another really good opponent that's going
to certainly help make their name a little bigger, and
you know they'll be in The person who wins this
is I guess you might, especially if it's Foster, because
he's got a little been a history going on right
now in the division. He's been there for a little while.
You may not say he's the number one guy in
the division now. Lamont Roach has a belt, but he's
he's only defended the title once, so it's hard to
like rank him too too high. And the other guy
that's in the division, Emmanuel Navarette, he's going to be
in a unification fight with Edward o'nunyaz early next year.
So the winner of that fight to be considered number one,
But the winner of this fight is going to probably
be considered number two, I say. And by the way,
if Navarette wins against Dunyas and Oshaki is the winner,
they're both with top rank. They could make that fight easier. Sure,
and Natroom worked with top rank to make the Navarete
Nunyas fight. No reason they couldn't do so again if
they wanted to make if Nunia's were to win, to
make him against O'shaki Foster. So the winner on Saturday
is going to have a variety of nice opportunities, I think,
and hopefully, but.
Speaker 2: Can we get some action? Can we have good things
in this one? Because you and I are both anticipating,
and you're right, it's about a fifty to fifty fight
right now from the odds makers a couple places, including
our friends at bet us. All right, let's get into
aras Landy. Laura no longer fighting janabec Alm Canulei. That
is because janebec popped dirty as you like to say,
for a ped so he is off and we now
have a late replacement in Johan Gonzalez, which we'll get
to in a second. But first, again, this was a
VADA test, a test that was done. I read what
you put out there that the Evada letter says the
sample was collected back in the middle of November and
now has shown an adverse finding. So pick it up
from there, because janebec is off the cart and out
of this fight.
Speaker 3: He tested positive for a substance called meldonium, which, to
my understanding of that particular substance is not the kind
of thing where contamination would usually be the cause. Like
when you see a guy pop positive for clem, peuterol
or even ostereine, things along those lines. A lot of
times you know it could be a contamination, even though
most times people don't believe it is. But meltonium, again,
my reading of the things is that it's not the
type of drug that you're going to accidentally find in
a you know, in some food or or in a
supplement or something along those lines. So it is a
commonly known substance that is used primarily has been used
by those in the former Soviet republics. Probably the most
famous case in sports was the tennis player, the tennis
star Maria Sharapova. It took a fifteen month suspension for
testing positive for this. I wrote about this substance a
few years ago. This is the substance that Alexander Povetkin
tested positive for, among as many drug tests that were positive.
He was just on the cusp of fighting Deontay Wilder
fight where Wilder had been doing the end of his
training again in the UK. He was supposed to get
on the plane and fly from London to Moscow. He
was going to fight him in Russia, and the fight
ended up getting canceled because of what happened, and they
had Povetkan go in with some other opponent that night,
you know, because they don't have really any rules on
the road in Russia. They couldn't care less. So this
is not the first time I've seen this happen, but
it's a real shame because Janebec and Laura was to
be a three belt unification fight. Janabec has or for
the moment anyway, has two of the titles, and Laura
is the WBA champion. And I think the thought from
a lot of boxing fans and media speculating reading the
tea leaves, looking at the breadcrumbs, all that is that
the winner of that fight, who emerged with three titles
would make themselves the likely and obvious candidate to fight
Bud Crawford if he wasn't gonna have a rematch with
Canelo Alvarez. That does not seem to be the case anymore.
Most likely janebec is probably going to get stripped of
the two titles. They'll go through the process and give
him his opportunity to have his say so, but most
likely he'll end up getting stripped. And so a guy just.
Speaker 2: Can I just say this, It's just stupid and whatever
they were doing, they don't get the benefit of the
doubt anymore.
Speaker 3: That there have been plenty times where I've given benefit
doubt to people or I you know, there's technical reasons
why you should let the fight go for you know,
when Canelo's going to beuterral case. If it was tested today,
it wouldn't even flag, it wouldn't get FLAGG because it's
below the threshold. We discussed thresholds with the Matia situation.
If you're testing positive from maldonium and you're from a
former Soviet Republic, maybe I'm just a bad person, but
I think he did it. I mean, that's just my opinion.
Speaker 2: You have no benefit of the doubt on that. And
by the way, it's a WADA, but we had a
lot of fun with VADA with a V and WADA
with a w. It's been on the WADA ban list
as a newer substance for about fifteen years. It's been
known they test for it in an Olympic competition, et cetera,
and a VADA test is what found it.
Speaker 3: It's been on the band list since January first, twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: I'm not either know than that. How about that?
Speaker 3: Okay, Just so people understand the reason why a boxer
or frankly a tennis player might take the substance is
because what it's supposedly going to do to the for
the athlete is going to And this is what I
read in like the various descriptions of this, you know
where you can find them in medical journals and things
on Wikipedia. Whatever is it enhances your endurance ability? Yes,
it reduces fatigue if you're in a tough World championship
fight or in a tennis match, if you're in you know,
a grueling.
Speaker 2: Uh you know, long match or five set match, right.
Speaker 1: Whatever it may be.
Speaker 3: Don't you think you'd want to have a little extra
course endurance and less fatigue as you get deeper into
the event. Absolutely, so that's what that's all about. I
do find it bizarre, by the way, if he in
fact did it on purpose, that a younger fighter like
a Jenebek, who theoretically should be in his prime, is
doping to fight a guy who's forty two years old
and the oldest fld's true good point, extremely inactive and
hasn't thought a good middleweight in his entire middleweight run.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point that you make, ironic that
you would be doping for that reason and not be
the older guy that hasn't been fighting. All right, So
he's out of the picture. He's likely stripped, probably just
Amaldy will be stripped by the other two organizations. So
tell me about the match up now with Johan Gonzalez,
who they had on standby. I saw him with a
couple of comments saying, this is a dream come true.
He's a world title fight. Obviously, what kind of shot
do we give him? What do we think? What do
we know?
Speaker 3: Go ahead, Look, I mean, Laura, maybe forty two, but
he's an og you know what I mean. He's a
real quality boxer. He knows his way around the ring.
He was an amateur world champion. He's been a long
time junior middleweight champion. Even though he hasn't fought good
quality opponents, he's had a middleweight title now for a
while and he's got a good resume. He's fought, you know,
pretty much most of the top defau Canelo had the
fight of the year, even though it was a close
loss against Jared Hurd a few years ago. If you
go down, he had some tremendous fights and also some
terribly horrible, boring, stinker ass fights as well. But the
fact is I always hit my hat to the folks
at TGB Promotions and PBC. They've always done and I
think they even ramped up more when it came to COVID.
They do a tremendous job of making sure there's at
least a halfway decent opponent on standby for either fighter,
depending on what happens, if there's an injury, if there's
an illness, if there is a situation like a drug test.
It's not an uncommon thing where you need in our
replacement and when you're in a co feature on this
type of level of a show. They put a guy
like Gonzales on standby, so it sort of works where
you know, you make sure he's on weight, he's training,
he gets paid whatever he gets paid, and if suddenly
he needs to be pressed into service, he's in shape,
he's trained for a fight, he's done his work, and
he's going to get paid a lot more to be
in the actual fight. And for him it's like a
it's a great bonus because he was going to put
the work in and take whatever he was going to get,
but not actually fight. Now he's going to get actually
fight and by the way, make a lot more money
and have a chance to win a world title. So
if you're Gonzalez, you know who is a thirty four
year old fighter from Venezuela, thirty six and four with
a thirty four knockouts, So he's punched out a lot
of guys that he's faced. He's getting this great opportunity.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: What they did do for obvious reasons, Fulton and Figueroa
was taken from what was the third fight down the
show moved up into the Kofeed your spot and they
flipped the Laara fight down one spot because obviously it's
not as significant or sexy matchup as it was when
it was to unify three of the titles. How much
of a chance does Gonzalez have. I mean, look hard
to make him a favorite, but at least he's a reputable,
legitimate professional be there to give his best effort. He
is two and two in his last four fights. He
did get stopped in the ninth round by Haesus Ramos,
who we're going to talk about in a minute, was
also on this card. That was back when Ramos was
fighting at junior middleweight. That was in twenty twenty four.
He came back and got to win against you know,
three to nine guy, just sort of get back in
the ring in Venezuela and the fight that probably you
know wasn't much. And then he took a knockout loss
to Yo n. S. Taes when theyes was undefeated, which
was at the time looked at as a pretty good
win for teas.
Speaker 2: I was at that fight. That was to fight in
Orlando on the back room Zoo card. Corrects knocked him out.
Speaker 3: Yeah and now and most notably though, in his most
recent fight, which was in March of this year, he
won a ten round split decision over the former U
Junior middleweight world champion Jared Heard. Now, Jared Hurd is
not what he was at his best, but he does
have a win against the former world champion in his
last fight. And Jared Hurd for if you want to
have fun with it, I'm sure we'll come up on
the pay per view broadcast. Who's the last guy teacher
it'd ever beat Aristony Laura.
Speaker 2: That would be Jared Heard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that was in the twenty eighteen Fight of
the Year. So as a as a save as a
third fight down the show to Tom Brown and the
whole team.
Speaker 2: Get he literally tipped his hat while he was doing that.
Just like.
Speaker 3: That, they show up and give us at least a
fight much that they can do. I mean that Laura
is there to actually fight and not run like he
has done in the bat.
Speaker 2: Just like we do it on a show. Just like
I verified that I was droweling early in the show,
I can verify Dan did in fact tip his hat.
Speaker 1: I am actually very yeah, that's right to do what
you are wearing the hat.
Speaker 2: Okay. So Jesus Ramos, as you mentioned, is fighting Shane
Moseley Junior, also on the full pay per view. Touch
on that and then touch on the free prelimbs here
because we got to move on to some other stuff.
Go ahead.
Speaker 3: Well, I think Ramos and Moseley Junior is a nice fight.
I mean, look, I don't love that it's for the
interim WBC midwaight title.
Speaker 1: That seems kind of.
Speaker 3: Pointless, you know, as they say, it is what it is.
But the fight probably wouldn't happen if it wasn't for
that belt, so you can look at it that way too.
But look, Ramos was an up and coming, top young
guy at junior middleweight. He took what I feel like
and many people felt like, a very controversial loss to Lubin.
In twenty twenty three, he won his next fight against
Johan Gonzalez, who we just talked about. Then he scored
a knockout of the shell of the former Dingam middleweight champion,
Jason Rosario. Now that fight was at middleweight, but that
was more of an accommodation to Rosario, and he maintained
he said, I want to go back down to one
fifty four. So he actually did that. In his most
recent fight, which was in March of this year, he
fought you know, just slightly over the one fifty four
pound weight, but he was looking to still campaign as
a junior middleweight, but for whatever the reason, he opted
to go and do this fight at midweight. So I
feel like he's at middleweight for good now. Maybe he's
just outgrown it to some degree. And then Shane Mosley,
who of course is the son of the Hall of
Famer Shane Moseley, Sr. Always makes me feel old because
I covered Chane Senior's career and I've now I actually
had a conversation. I saw Shane Junior when I was
in Vegas. I think it was at the at the
Pacio Barrios fight that was this past summer, and I
ran into him. We were talking a little bit and
I was like, you know, I told him, I said, dude,
I remember you when you were like a little kid,
you know, and he was running around when his father
was like, you know, king of the world.
Speaker 1: But he's he's he's uh.
Speaker 3: When he first started, I didn't think he could fight
a lick be quite honestly, I mean, absolutely terrible in
every way shape or for him. He got better, a
lot better, and he's he's got four losses. But that
was like his amateur curve. Basically he's never been knocked out.
He's got four losses but never been stopped. Twenty two wins,
twelve knockouts, and this is a big This is by
far and away his biggest opportunity, it seems to me
based on who he has.
Speaker 1: Faced so far.
Speaker 3: I mean, he has some other you know, he lost,
like the Brandon Adams for example, he lost to Jason Quigley,
who fought for a world title. But in terms of, uh,
you know, where he's at in his career now, he
is coming off of he's been off for a while
because he hadn't thought since July of last year. He
was changing promoters. I'm not sure what the exact issue was,
but that was when he won a ten round decision
against Daniel Jacobs, who was a great name. But Danny Jacobs,
you know, was coming off of a very long layoff,
was way past his best. It was fighting you know,
at super middleweight as opposed to warriors at his best
at middleweight.
Speaker 1: So I feel like.
Speaker 3: Ramos is probably the better boxer overall, but he's also
the guy that's moving up to a heavier division where
Shane has fought a lot of his fights, we'll see.
I feel like this could be a fun fight though,
because I've seen Shane Mosley. He doesn't run around the ring.
He comes to fighting. Ramos is pretty much the same way.
So hopefully they'll mesh together, they'll have a little bit
of an explosion, and we'll see a pretty good fight.
And again, the winner has the interim belt. And in
the middleweight division, which we've discussed a thousand times, is
you know, one of the worst divisions in boxing in
terms of overall ballon and depth. The personal wins is
going to be a good spot. The WBC champion is
Carlos Adamis. He's got a mandatory coming up, so it
won't be against the winner this fight. He's not next,
so we'll see what the guy can do. But uh,
I have high hopes for this one to be at
least a solid fight for the opener on the pay
per view. And as far as the other fights you
mentioned in terms of the these are free. That's the
first fight on the pay per view. Prime Video is
gonna have three bouts on the that are free to
the that you can watch even if you don't buy
the pay per view, and they have pretty good matchups
on there. I mean that that could be like if
they were doing a card that was not a pay
per view card, they could just make this its own card,
like on a you know what I mean, like if
they were doing the old uh you know, if it
was a lesser showtime card or a lesser disowned card
or something like that. These are solid fights. The main
one though, to discuss is the return of Frank Martin,
who's now going to be a junior welter rate has
been out of the ring since he got knocked out
by Tank Davis by like fourteen months ago or something
like that. He's fighting the former two division champion Rancis
Partella May who has never made very good fights. But
I think he's all older now. Hopefully he'll be able
to make a better fight because his legs aren't as
what they once wear. We'll see, but it's a good
opportunity for Martin to make a splash, if you will.
And then the division and then the other two fights
are are maybe not sexy names in terms of recognition,
but I feel like they're pretty solid matchups. You got
Isaac Lucero was a good looking junior midleweight fighting the
Roberto Valenzuela Junior, and then Luis Nunnez, who is a
promising featherweight. He's in there with Hector Sosa in a
ten rounder. So that's Those are the fights that start
at five thirty in the afternoon Eastern Time before the
eight o'clock pay per view Eastern time on the on
the Prime Video pay per view.
Speaker 2: All right, so you gave us a bunch on that. Excellent.
There is another world title fight as well earlier early
Saturday morning US time, Saturday night in Australia. Ji Opataia
is back the lineal IBF cruiserweight champion fighting. I'm going
to say this a little known opponent in Hussein Sinkara.
I did look up Sinkara. He is a Kurd born
in Germany, lives in Turkey. Don't know a lot about him.
We know Opataia is a big puncher at cruiserweight. This
is basically set into play for him to have a
big night in broad Beach, Australia. Give me a little
more here on what you think about this early Saturday
for us in the United States.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is this third fight in a row
at the same venue in Broadbach. It's the Gold Coast
Convention and Exhibition Center. That's his home region. He lives,
you know, a few minutes away from broad Beach. He's
fighting Sincar because he's a mandatory even though he's an
unknown forty year old, even though he's got a nice
record twenty three to ozho, nineteen knockouts. What do I
always tell you is, you know, to coin the phrase
from my good Palace Steve Farhard when he was doing Showbox,
Let's go behind the numbers, and it tells you that
he fought a lot of nobody, He's in a lot
of stiff rus and that that record is as manufacturers
as anything you could think of. But Opataiah, if he
wants to keep his IBF title, which he does, he's
taking the fight. He hoped that this would be a
tune up ish type fight to lead him to a
or unification against Zerdo Ramirez. Obviously that did not happen because,
as we have discussed, he is moving. He's going to
not fight Opa Tai. He's gonna fight against you know,
gonna take on the challenge of that Dennvidia is moving
up in May. If he wins his tunea fight in January,
so that leaves Opataia to still fight some relative nobody's now.
I think, as he has said leading up to this fight,
since he can't do the Ramiers fight, he still wants
to unify titles. So that leads bad Due Jack. He's
going to turn his attention to him, and we'll talk
about this in the next episode. But we got Badu
Jack coming up with them now. He got a title
defense coming up in a rematch against mckellian that takes
place on December thirteenth in Los Angeles, so I'm sure
that he'll be keeping an eye on how Badu Jack
does in that fight. In the meantime. If this is
like some of his more recent fights, the Henry Squayos
of the World and everything, I don't think it's going
to be much more than a workout. If you care
and you live in America, you can watch this fight now.
I don't really know what happened with this exactly, but
most of the fights that Jai has done recently, for
all of them, frankly, have been on his own. He
is co promoted by Matchroom Boxing they obviously have their
deal with his own, and he was also on some
of Turkey's cards. That were in Saudi Arabia, but for
whatever reason, the zone is not showing this fight in Australia.
It's going to be on a pay per view platform
in Australia. But in the United States, if you subscribe
or a character subscribe to the UFC Fight Pass, which
is going for boxing in a sense. That's where Tom
Woeffler and three sixty promotions to their cards on a
regular basis. This card is being picked up by UFC
Fight Pass. It doesn't cost extra as far as if
you have a subscription, but it's on a two thirty
in the morning Saturday night, Sunday.
Speaker 1: I get what is it Saturday.
Speaker 2: Morning for us? Saturday night for them? About thoirteen hours ahead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so at two am Saturday morning technically for us
would be like late late Friday night, early Saturday morning. Anyway,
you can let me help you.
Speaker 2: Let me help you again. It is Saturday morning in
the United States, it's Saturday night in Australia. You always
like to help me.
Speaker 3: I'm helping you when I think of that timeframe. For me,
it's still Friday night because I haven't gone to bed yet.
Speaker 2: Well that's you. But it's early Saturday morning, just so
we don't confuse it, and the main event will probably
be because people ask about this, I've seen it put
a couple places somewhere around four am or five am
Eastern time. So unless you're a nut like Rayphael, you're
probably not up at four or five am. But I
would assume UFC Fight Pass probably has at archive somehow.
Maybe they don't.
Speaker 3: You're right, you probably could watch, yeah, because that's that's.
Speaker 2: A struggle for a lot of people at four or
five in the morning. It's a little better when we
do the Japanese boxing stuff and it's at seven am,
even on a weekday. But let's see, and let's see
if the Opataia destroys this guy and then sets himself
up for Unifica.
Speaker 3: Is the lineal champion. He's an undefeated champion. He is
clearly number one in his weight class. He's exciting to watch.
I thought it was worthwhile to have a few minutes
of discussion, even if it's against you know, just a
regular type opponent.
Speaker 2: And he and he delivers big knockouts. He's been on
a couple of these Saudi shows. He destroyed what was it, Zoro? Right,
He beats Zoro as well as Uh. You know he
outdueled Zorro. I used that. There we go with an
early knockout. All right, So Opataia fighting Saturday. There we
go with that. Onto some news and we had championship
fight as you mentioned on Thursday morning US time from
Thailand Thursday night in Thailand, and it is the WBC
Junior flyweight title. The vacant title has now gone to
Tom Mumanan. Is that how we say it? Niamtrong, you
are known as CP fresh Mark, right, CP fresh Mart
is a champ again, right now?
Speaker 1: Tell me more knockout fresh Mark, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's okay.
Speaker 1: We just called him Niamtrong and I always call him
your boy.
Speaker 2: My boy, my boy. Nam Trong is the winner.
Speaker 3: So Niamtrong was the long reigning WBA champion in this
in the strawweight division. He had an undefeated record. He
had defended the title, you know, like I forget exactly
like a dozen or so times. He lost it on
the lat Latina Latino Night card in uh in Saudi Arabia,
he got stopped in a one sided fashion against Oscar Colossal.
Speaker 2: Laso destroyed him on that is correct.
Speaker 3: So he moved up in waited. He had like a
lot of the tie fighters. He took some lesser fights,
you know, a few of them in Thailand against you know,
terrible opposition. But he was staying busy and he was
supposed to be the fight. And this card is in Thailand,
where he's from. But the WBC convention, which we're going
to talk about him, and it has been going on
this week in Bangkok, and so this was a boxing
event with some WBC regional title fights in this world
title fight on the card that was sort of a
centerpiece of the convention, taking place in the same hotel
in Bangkok where the convention has been taking place. So
the issue though was that he was supposed to be
fighting against Canazalez, who was the champion from Venezuela. Because
of all the political upheaval and all kinds of issues
in Venezuela, he was not able to travel to Thailand.
So earlier this week the WBC announced that they had
placed him as an in recess champion because he can't
leave his country. But he didn't lose or anything like that,
and they would allow him when he comes out of
recess to challenge for the title. Whenever, you know, he
is able to travel again, and in the meantime, the
Amtrong would still be fighting and the number three ranked
WBC Junior flyweight, which is a guy named Junior Serat,
who was I guess on hand or on standby because
I think they had an inkling that this was going
to be an issue. He took the fight. So they
were fighting for the vacant belt, and the Amtrong with
all that experience, won the fight, and it was, you know,
it was on his owne actually in the United States.
He won pretty clearly, one seventeen to one eleven, one
sixteen to one twelve, and one sixteen to one twelve.
It wasn't a very scintillating fight. I have to be honest.
I did not watch the entirety of it. I watched
about maybe six or seven rounds of it. But he
won the title. And now we'll see if Kenazalas can
get out of it as well and be able to
come back and make the fight. But again, whenever the
WBC has a convention every year, typically where the convention
takes place, there's a card that is a company of it.
They did it in you know, all over wherever they
have these shows, and this was the one in Thailand
and they featured a lot of high fighters.
Speaker 2: We aim to serve and to keep the peeps informed.
Speaker 3: Well, plus I couldn't resist because you're a boy in
the Armstrong is a champigain.
Speaker 2: Maybe he got it back. He just needs to stay
away from Colaso after what we saw in that fight. Okay,
so wait a minute, while we're here, why don't we
talk about the rest of the convention. Then we'll get
to the Hall of Fame class, because I know you're
gonna go for a bit on Triple G and Antonio
Tarvar and Nigel Bin getting in the Hall of Fame.
I'm thinking that Terrence Crawford is not invited to Mauricio
Suliman's holiday party coming up.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: This is because the WBC has taken stripped the uh
their version of the one hundred and sixty eight pounds
super Middleweight Championship for failure to pay failure to pay
sanctioning fees, and Crawford went on a rampage. All right,
so pick it up. This happened at the convention where
Mauricio Suliman announced this, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is this entire thing is really unfortunate. And
I see the positions on both sides, but I will
say it like this in the one hand, when you're
referred to Crawford, he and if you can watch the video,
if it's still on his Instagram, he went about seven
or eight minutes and just went on a freaking rampage.
He mft Mauricio Suliman and the WBC a thousand times.
I mean, and I've seen Terrence Crawford, you know, get
a little chippy, though frankly I have faced it once
or twice in my day covering him, but not like that,
not like that.
Speaker 1: He really really was, like he did.
Speaker 2: Not cap it Riddick bow style with taking the WBC
built and throwing it in the garbage. That did not happen.
You're here to verify that on after life. That did
not know.
Speaker 3: So the gist of it is the following. So he apparently,
and he doesn't even deny this, that he owed them
money of the sanction fees not only for the Canelo
Alvarez fight where he became the undisputed champion in September,
but also from the August twenty twenty August twenty twenty
four fight where he defeated Israel Majamov and won the
WBA Junior at middleweight title. Now you'd say, well, why
does he owe money to the wbcb's fighting in a
WBA world title fight.
Speaker 1: A couple reasons. Number One, if you.
Speaker 3: Are a champion and you're fighting out of the weight
and you're fighting in another division, especially for another organization,
usually you have to pay a fee for to be
able to keep that belt while you're doing the other business. Secondly,
and I didn't realize this to tell so many jobs,
jog my memory about this, I think this is correct.
When he went into that fight, although it was for
the WBA's title, they also his team had asked the
WBC to sanction it as a WBC Junior middleweight title
eliminator as well, so there would be a fee for
that as well. So the combination of the two he
owed the organization about four hundred thousand bucks and he
has not yet paid and one thing to let go
from August twenty twenty four to the present, but the
other one that was a bigger payday, and at some
point they had to put their foot down. If you
listen to what Mauricio Suliman said in front of everybody
at the convention, they had contacted Terence Crawford, his management, is,
his lawyer, etc. To you know, hey, you know, in
a friendly way. I guess you know you owe them
any I.
Speaker 2: Would like to joke an attempt to collect was made?
How specific an attempt or how vociferous in attemp point,
don't know, but go ahead.
Speaker 3: Well, he said, they didn't even get so much as
a response to acknowledge it even had received the invoice.
Speaker 1: Orwever the email or whatever.
Speaker 3: And I mean, look, they're not going to let you
not pay the fees, and so I get it. So
they stripped them to the title.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Terrence Crawford's position was, why should I have to pay
every time I step in the ring?
Speaker 1: It's like a tax? This and that.
Speaker 3: You're more for the fighter. You say you're for the fighter.
It sounds like you're more like a promoter. You know,
all you want to do is take our money. Blah
blah blah. You come to our nice events and you
stay in a five star hotel and you you know,
you eat at the big beautiful restaurants and the whole thing.
And I'm like, oh, that's probably true, and I've seen
some of that myself in my day of doing this,
But big butt. If you're going to be a world
champion in terms of holding an organizational title that goes
with the territory, Terrence Crawford didn't fall up a turn
up truck yesterday. Guy's been a world champion for a
long long time and multiple divisions has been undisputed in
three I'm.
Speaker 2: In the WBC champion at Junior welter Wade and welter
Waight when he won the undisputed titles.
Speaker 3: Exactly Yeah, so he and it's not just those those
belts in WBT.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's known about WBC sanctioning fees. Is the
only point I'm making by saying exactly so.
Speaker 3: And I get the feeling based on the way he
described it in his very uh R rated language curse
filled tirade that it wasn't so much that he had
to pay the fees that pissed him off. It was
the noown that he had to pay. Based on this,
and it's not an uncommon thing. I've seen this happen
plenty of times. He owed the money on the fight. Now,
typically the sanctioned body takes three percent of the purse.
Mauricio Suliman made the point, and he's one hundred percent right.
They're weren't going in the WBC your cap though, So
if you're making a purse of fifty million dollars like
Mauricio Suliman said that Crawford made, even though Crawford, you know,
didn't say how much he made. And it's frankly, if
it's not a public document like in some commissions, I
guess it's not our business. But the thing that he
said was we were never going to charge three percent
of fifty million dollars. The WBC as well as the
other organizations, they cap the maximum. So if I'm not mistaken,
in the WBC, the maximum sanction fee is three hundred
grand and if you're making a purse that's three percent,
would be less than three hundred gand you pay three percent.
So if you're making one hundred thousand dollars, perse right,
three percent of that. If you're making a fifty million
dollars person, it's a maximum of three hundred thousand dollars. So,
but Crawford made the point, and this happens a lot
because it was such a high amount and you're dealing
with all four titles. Like it was just the BC,
he probably would have just paid it and been done.
But if you got to pay a percentage, and it's
four organizations to have all the belts, you know, he
made deals with the other three organizations where they took
less money. So we paid like the organizations of the
BA and the BO and the IBF. I am told
by sources about one hundred to one hundred and fifty
thousand a piece, but Mauricio and the WBC would not
budge off the three hundred. Now Mauricio counters said, look,
that was only point six percent of fifty millions. But
again Crawford was pissed that the other ones were willing
to play ball and the WBC wasn't.
Speaker 2: So he just and you made tens of millions of dollars.
If it was important to you, you should have paid
the fee. And if not, then you know you got
the other three titles at super middleweight. And there's some
belief he's not going to fight again at super middleweight.
Speaker 3: And there's also a very significant underlying thing here. Yes
the title, Yes, he refused to pay the money. Who
is Terence Crawford's benefactor? Right now, who's paying the freight
for his fights? The Turkey al Chic is Turkey alk.
Turkey al Sheik is the owner of the Ring magazine
the Ring Magazine belt, whether it's under Turkey or it
was under the Oscar de la Hoya administration, or before
that when it was not owned by a promoter, if
you won the Ring Magazine title, they gave you the
belt for free, there was no sanction fee, and you
were considered the real champion of the division, a belt
that was more notable than an organizational ton of because
theoretically it meant you're the lineal champion, you're the man
who beat the man, You're the acknowledging universal consensus number
one in the division. But they have an agenda. They're
trying to maneuver away from the sanctioning bodies. Why do
you think ZUFA Boxing has been doing a ton of publicity.
I saw my old agent, Nick Cohn, who was heavily
involved in that, doing the rounds on various podcasts and
youtubes and talk shows, and.
Speaker 2: They went before they went before Congress. So there's sing
yes on Thursday. As a matter of fact, yes.
Speaker 3: So the one thing that Nick made points and they're valid.
I mean, I don't disagree with them at all that
there's too many organizations, too many titles, too many weight divisions,
blah blah blah. And if you want to continue to
play by those rules, you know, you can still do
that under what we're trying to do in terms of
amending the Ali Act, you can still do that. I
think where there's something that I'm he's right about all that.
But what they don't talk about is that the issue
that most people in boxing have with what they're trying
to do in terms of the amendment, you know, to
the new Muhammad Ali Amendment they're trying to get passed
in the Congress. The sanctioning body part of it is
not the key. The critical part of the Ali Act
is about the financial disclosures that if you if this
new thing is passed and you're the boxer in the
main event of a big show, you're not going to
know what the revenues are, so they can pay you
ten million dollars and you'll be like, shit, that's a
lot of money. But if the event is generating one
hundred million dollars, you're probably getting shafted. So the sanctioning
body part of this where they want to do their
own rankings and they want to do their own titles.
That is part of it, an important part, but it's
not the most important part. So he's accurate. When Nick
and and and Dana White and all the people that
advocate for the change of this amendment, they're right, but
they leave out the important part to a boxer.
Speaker 2: Still, they're pointing to this example and saying, look at
this example.
Speaker 3: But the reason I'm saying this is because Crawford completely
railing against the WBC and he conveniently is the ring champion,
conveniently being.
Speaker 2: Even said in the ring. He even said in the
rant because I read my Danilo tech, I didn't pay
anything for this belt. It's free, which is a sanctioning fee.
There's no sanctioning fee for it.
Speaker 3: But you're even if you're not a Turkey fighter and
you win a ring title, you don't have to pay
a sanctionaryce. So that's a good thing. I like that,
But again, you know, you know what you're signing up for.
So either don't do a WBC title fight and then
you have to worry about being paid, you know, paying
them for anything, or if you do it, then you've
got to have to pay the piper, as simple as that.
Speaker 2: And I know and don't complain about what they're doing.
The only thing that I continue to say, and I
know we got to move on is these organizations do
whatever they want. This is the same organization that allowed
Jamal Charlow to keep the WBC middleweight title for three years,
hold it hostage while fighting no one, and had no
problem saying to the public we'll do whatever we want here.
We won't make him fight at all against anybody, and
he can still be our chance.
Speaker 1: That's a fair point.
Speaker 3: Now if you listen to what they say, and I'm
just trying to be fair to both sides here, they say, look,
he was having a lot of the problems.
Speaker 2: Does matter for three years?
Speaker 1: I get it. Three years what they were saying.
Speaker 2: I don't care what their place like the guy that's
in court that's been found guilty, that's trying to tell
me the reasons why he did whatever the crime, you
did the crime. It's the same thing here in this
case of they will make up whatever.
Speaker 3: So the bottom line parents Crawford no longer has status
as the undisputed champion, which by definition is having all
the belts. Clearly is still the number one guy in
the division. Still he's the champion, He's got the other belts,
and he still hasn't made the decision.
Speaker 2: Do you believe that a that an Alvarez rematch is
realistic from what you're hearing, realistic, possible, possible, But I
believe he may not fight anymore at super middleweight and
may come back down to middleweight anyway and start trying
to accrue titles. So what is this He may have
to relinquish all the belts coming up, is the only
thing I'm supposing. I don't know, We'll see.
Speaker 3: I think that the fight, first of all, is only
a couple months ago. He's been celebrating, and you know,
Canelo had his surgery, so neither one of them are
ready to come back to the ring immediately. They just made,
you know, crazy amounts of money. But when you stop
and you actually sit down and think about what's the
next play, He's not, he said specifically. I mean, sure
he can change his mind, but he clearly about not
going back to jingor middleweight. So again, if you're gonna
go to middleweight, if you're doing it for one reason,
it's the fight for a title to make the history
of having want to title and get another weight division.
We already know how terrible the middleweight division is overall
in terms of star power and all that I got.
You and Canelo, I'm sure would love to do the
rematch to try to get the get the get the
licked back, as they say, but we'll have to wait
and see it. But again, Turkey's gonna have to be
the one that's gonna make the decision. If they want
to do the fight, someone's gonna have to pay for it.
If it's not on pay per view and they go
back to Netflix, and frankly, if they put it on
pay per view, I don't think after we've already seen
it once and it wasn't a great fight, it's not
exactly gonna generate you know, crazy crazy money on pay
per view will sell, It'll obviously sell, but not at
the not that I won't to do a million buys
in my opinion. So we'll have to wait and see
what they decide to do.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: So also from the convention, h Alexander Usik wants to
fight Deontay Wilder. This is legitimate, right, Yeah, we have
and then we have more stuff with Connor Binn and
the WBC, but get to Usik and Wilder real quick first,
because I want to get to your Hall of Fame
ballance stuff going on.
Speaker 3: Okay, So Usik of course was mandated to the WBO
mandatory against Fabio Wardley, which I thought would be a
good fight, would probably be the popular fight in the UK,
would do business. Wardley was fromly a worthy contender, a
guy that would just had just made a spectacular fight
against Joseph Parker, had had a drama fight in the
last fight when he came back out of nowhere and
scored a one punch knockout against Justice Hooney. So there
is a lot going for that fight. But he decided
I'm going to give it up and you know, I
want to do some other things. Okay, that's his probabative.
He's a great champ. Let him do what he wants
to do. But for to give up the title to
no longer be undisputed and say now I want to
fight Deontay Wilder instead of Fabio Wardley, I think I
mean no offense to Wilder, But at this moment in time,
Fabia Wardley's clearly ahead of Deontay Wilder, who, yes, he's
coming off of the victory in his last fight after
having been knocked out so badly before that. But he
didn't exactly look like Deontay Wilder of old. He looked
more like the old Deontay Wilder.
Speaker 2: Can I just tell you I defended Wilder for a
while and really believed he would have a great chance
against Anthony Joshua. So I come with this credibility. He's done,
He's been done. I don't have any interest in that fight.
I don't know about you. I don't have any interest
in that fight.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is only it's really because you want
to see Usik. As you know, anytime Usik fights, I
want to watch him because he's everyweight champion. With Wilder,
you never know if he lands the big bomb. But
I don't think he really has much of a chance
against Usink because he didn't land the big bomb against
the guy that.
Speaker 2: Was Plus, are we only going to see Usik maybe
a couple of more times, because what else is there
to prove? So that we need to waste one of
them on Deontay Wilder. And he's an American. I'm saying this,
and I defended it before.
Speaker 3: But if they do the fight, if there's a decent
chance based on everything I have heard that they might
do it in the United States, that would be, I
guess a good thing. But even still, I'm not really
that interested in the wild I mean, if Wilder gets
to fight, I mean, good for him. I don't I'm
not anti Deontay Wilder by any stretch of the imagination,
but I just don't think it tickles the fancy of
the public. I do think that in the UK anyway,
the Wordly fight would have done so.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it just hot fighter that just upset Joseph
Parker makes a lot.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, it just annoys me. I mean, whatever, is.
Speaker 2: There a door number three besides Wordley and Wilder? Stay tuned.
By the way, are we back to the WBC again,
and we'll do whatever's in our best interest?
Speaker 1: This is about this is what happened at the convention.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Connor benn is suddenly the number one welterweight for
the WBC.
Speaker 3: They made him the number one contender. They also and
again I've said this many times and I wanted I'm
gonna preach it till I die, just because you're number
one on the WBC does not mean you're the mandatory.
In this particular case, he was made number one and
the mandatory they've already said you're the mandatory. Now the
champion of the WBC is Mario Barrios. It's not one
hundred percent done yet, but most likely he's going to
be defending the title February twenty first against Ryan Garcia.
Another ill advised WBC situation. In my mind, they again
and I try to be nice, but sometimes you just
gotta be real. What they've done in the welterweight division
is just so crazy to me. They've they're giving Ryan
Garcia the opportunity to fight for a title when a
he lost and got dropped.
Speaker 2: His his only f at welterweight, he got dropped and lost, right, it.
Speaker 3: Was only official. His only official fight at wealth rate.
The last fight, which was an unofficial fight that he
had at welterweight was the Devin Hainey fight where he
came in three something pounds.
Speaker 2: That was I thought that was junior welterweight, but maybe
we have that mixture.
Speaker 3: It was supposed to be junior welter but then he
became a welterweight, so Hainey was the junior welterweight WBC champion,
but when he weighed in at one hundred and forty
three pounds and change, he was fighting as a junior
welterweight right so, and that, by the way, was the
fight where he he got a positive drug test and
got suspended for a year and forfeited his entire purse.
So in his recent history, drug test positive and then
dropped and lost against again and did the did the time,
and then got dropped and lost in a horrible fight
against Roly Romero. And for that he's rewarded with a
title fight after they unsuspended him because they had suspend
him originally not for the positive drug test, not for
being overweight, but because before that he had gone on
a crazy tirade where he dropped the N word like
fifth times and say how much he hates black people.
So the combination of losing drug use, being a piece
of shit racist and now you're getting a world championship fight.
And then on top of that they put Connor Benn,
who by the way, hasn't fought at a welterweight level
in like, I don't know three.
Speaker 2: Years, correct, is the last time he fought as a welterweight.
Speaker 3: And by the way, also was out for a long
time because of his own ped situation. And yes, he
just won the title.
Speaker 2: Or I can feel it coming, you don't feel it coming,
whether it's the Crawford hold on, whether it's the Crawford situation,
the Usak Wilder or this situation. Do you want to
say it or do you want me to say?
Speaker 1: What are we doing it?
Speaker 2: What are we doing here?
Speaker 3: So he's gonna fight for the mandatory or he is
the mandatory when he's not won a meaningful fight in
the welterweight division. Yes, he did win a big fight
against you Bank Junior at middleweight, but what about the
guys who have been doing their business? I had the question.
Solomon Susoko not a popular guy, not a big time name,
not a fucking superstar, not not a fighter that anybody
aed American knows. But the dude went out there and
he kicked ass against mean machine Kavalawskis in an official
title eliminator. He sits number two in the rankings. Based
on that alone, he should have been moved to number
one before Connor Ben. Connor Ben got it because connor
Ben means money, He lines pockets, He says the right
things in public. I always wanted to be a WBC
champion because my daddy Nigel was a WBC champion, and
they gave him this chance. There's no reason they could
have still approved him for an optional defense. Still would
be a big fight, but they have basically taken Sissoko
and said, you know what, You've been coming up our
rankings for years. You finally won the eliminator, but go
fuck yourself. It's not stop.
Speaker 2: Paying all and can we tie it all together. You've
been paying sanctioning fees too, that's true also to do this.
Speaker 1: So I just I'm I don't look.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of things about the WBC that I
love and respect and like, and I'm all four in
the way that they've dealt with this welterweight situation is
just an abomination in my opinion.
Speaker 2: All Right, I want to cheer you up because the
International Boxing Hall of Fame Class of twenty twenty six
has been announced. You're a longtime voter advocate of a
lot of fighters in situations. What did you think the
headlining names are Triple G, Antonio Tarvor, Tarbor, Time, Nigel
ban The dark Destroyer. They're all in on this class.
Speaker 1: What are you?
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts?
Speaker 1: Go ahead?
Speaker 3: I mean they're all they were all tremendous fighters, obviously,
I mean heart first of all, Glofkin was an automatic
in my opinion, especially when you look at who was
available on the ballot. There was forty two people on
the ballot. You could vote for five. They elect the
top three unless there's a tie, or anybody that gets
above eighty percent of the total, which is extremely hard
to do. So the trip, the fact that Glofkin gets
in on the first ballot is not a surprise. He's
one of the greatest metal wights of all time, one
of the most devastating punchers of all time, and he
deserves it. You know, he is one of the best.
He's a silver medal winner in the Olympics. It's a
big It's been a big couple of weeks for him
because today as we tape this, you know, there was
announced that he was elected the All of Fame that
the guys who got elected and the gals who get elected,
they're notified about a week beforehand. They're just supposed to
keep it a secret. But also it wasn't more than
a few days around that time where he also was
elected by acclamation to be the president of World Boxing,
which will oversee the Olympic Games in the upcoming Los
Angeles Olympics. So big, big week for Triple G to
be elected president of that organization for the Olympics, and
now to become a Hall of Famer. It's a huge
honor for Nigel Ben. That was an interesting one to
me because he's been on the ballot for a long time,
and while I'm not saying he doesn't deserve to be
in the Hall of Fame, it struck me as highly
bizarre that in the year in which Steve Collins, who's
on the ballot for the first time, who knocked Nigel
Ben out twice, granted at the end of Nigel's career,
but also has two wins, including a knockout against Chris
you Bank, he didn't get in. And I'm also thinking
to myself, Nigel Ben and Chris Eubanks Senior have been
on the ballot for about seven or eight years, probably
had not gotten in. And I'm trying to understand if
you're a voter and you and you checked the box
for Nigel, how are you not also checking in a
box for you Bank. They're basically the same in many respects.
They fought in the same two divisions at middlewaight and
super middle eight. They both won titles in both divisions.
They fought each other twice. Obviously you Bank got the
knockout against him in the first fight, which was spectacular.
They got a draw in the second fight, which was
a very obviously could have gone either way to most people.
And they fought some of the same opponents. So I'm
not anti Nigel ben being the Hall of Fame. I'm
just perplexed that that there's somebody out there that checked
his name but didn't also check the U Bank name.
So I always felt like, if they're gonna get in,
like they should go in together like peanut butter and jelly,
you know, and if they're still in each other, make
them face each other once again on the podium.
Speaker 2: Is there anybody else that you believe should have gotten
in here? Is there a name that should have gotten
in here that did not? Or are you fine with
who was left out? Also?
Speaker 3: Well, I voted I voted for a different I didn't
I mean, like I said, I voted for I used
all five of my votes. Obviously Triple G was one
of them, and I didn't vote for Nigel Ben or Tarvar. Again,
I'm not a post to them being in, but I
voted for people like I think who was criminally underrated
should have been in years ago. In my opinion, no
offense that those other guys should be in before them,
and that is the great Puerto Rican champion Israel, Raphael
hold On, the great Puerto Rican champion Vasquez Senior. And
there's also Israel Vasquez, who was another fighter that I
voted for. One Mexican Vasquez, one Puerto Rican Vasquez. Both,
you know, tremendous fighters. He's been criminally underrated.
Speaker 1: This is well.
Speaker 3: Fredo Vasquez Junior, who was a three division world champion featherweight,
junior featherweight, bantamweight, was in a tremendous battles, fought a
lot of quality fighters, had a long prayer, fought for
twenty some years nineteen eighty one to two thousand and two.
I don't understand why he's not in the Hall of
Fame at this point. I also voted for Israel Vasquez,
as I mentioned, I know he died not that long ago.
He was one half of the greatest trilogy of recent
times not named Barrera Morales or Mickey Ward and Arturo
Gotti or you know, four fights he had actually technically
with Rafael Marquez, we don't really count the fourth fight,
but you know he won titles multiple times. That junior
featherweight was has a very underrated resume. I voted for
Darius Mikolchewski, who was a longtime light heavyweight champion. You know,
I got to like forty eight and zero before he
lost his first fight. He didn't fight Roy Jones. That's
the hang up a lot of people have, but it
wasn't his fault. It was a fault of lots of
other people, not him. But even if he didn't fight
Roy Jones, if you're the second best light heavyweight for
ten fifteen years and you also want a title at cruiserweight,
and you have that longevity and some good names, like
he beat straight up Virgil Hill for example, to become
the lineal champion at light heavyweight in a pretty big
unification fight. You know, he beat like Montel Griffin also,
who was the guy that had beaten Roy Jones. I'm
just saying, like, to me, I've been voting for Mikkelchevski
in recent years. Also, I feel like he was more
suited then than the other guys that got elected, at
least to go before them. As far as Tarvar look,
I like Antonio Tarvor. I know Antonio personally. We have
a good relationship as do. I help me out with them,
not that long ago in a fight we were at.
I mean, just a good dude. Love them, absolutely, love
Antonio Tarvor. I didn't vote for him because I can't
get past the one drug test. I get it sometimes
and I'm not like going to hold it against you
for the rest of your life. He had two and
that's a problem. Uh, he does have two huge victories
against He was the first fight against Roy. He did
beat some other very quality guys, like he had the
fights with Glenn Johnson, and he had plenty of other
rank guys.
Speaker 2: We have to light it up. He had an outstanding
battle with Rocky Balboa too. And you were part of
the movie, but you hit the cutting room floor trip
that we we love Tarvor time. But it's a borderline
Hall of Fame case. But not anymore.
Speaker 3: If you're if you're you're a die hard boxing here.
You know, Cliff rolled my good pal who wrote for
many years for Boxing Scene. He does his own thing
on Substack now as well and does a lot of
historical stuff the Corner Stool. I would advise everybody to
go check that out. Also, he's my go to guy
when we talk about history, like he's I consider he's
like the young historian. I spoke to him today as
a matter of fact, when we were kind of hashing
over the Hall of Fame stuff, because he's big into
it as well, and he was making the case to
me about Tarvar you know, statistically and the level of
opponents that he faced and the where they were ranked.
He does hit the boxes, but the drug testing thing
was a problem for me because it was multiple times
like it was. But again, talent wise and accomplishment wise,
he's all of Famer and he's gonna, you know, he's
gonna go in with a great class because Nigel Ben
gets in. I think Nigel gets in because he was
the not only was he really good and won the
titles and was involved in some major fights, but he
fought not only in the UK, but he came and
fought plenty of times in America. Whereas guys like U
Bank primarily stayed in Britain. He also was the action star,
so he gets the bonus points for being not only
a really outstanding fighter, but he was the drama guy.
He's probably he's the win of what is I don't
think is arguable is the greatest super middleweight title fight
in the history of the division. That was the one
that had the very tragic ending, however, against Gerald McClellan.
But the rounds all the way up till when we
found out that Gerald was so severely injured is an
absolutely pulsating, insane, glorious fucking yeah. So, you know, congratulations.
It's a big year for Nigel because he gets into
Hall of Fame and he also saw his son, you know,
get revenge in the rematch against his great rivals son,
Chris Junior.
Speaker 2: And here's where I plugged for you. In the substack
and the newsletter, they can read more about your ballot,
what you voted for, and I've been reading some of
this as well. If you're on the substack, go check
it out for the twenty twenty six Hall of Fame class.
All right, we've been here for a second.
Speaker 3: I want to just give you the other people that
got elected yeah, do it. So there was you know,
they voted more than one category. There's the women's category
and the new you know observers and all the other
stuff that you have. And so anyway, there was an
old timer elected. It was a lightweight to middleweight type
of guy from like fought from like nineteen oh nine
to the nineteen twenties named Jimmy Klass. You can go
look him up on it.
Speaker 2: I would like to tell the audience you did not
cover Jimmy Klatt.
Speaker 1: I did not need to before the fil Neither did
Larry Merchant. You will.
Speaker 3: You will not find video of him in the women's
modern category. And my feelings in the women's category are
very clear. I wrote about it extensively in my in
my column who I voted for that the women at
the moment is does not have worthy candidates. There will
be some more in the future. The ones that deserve
to be elected have already been elected. But nonetheless they
put two in, Jackie Nava from Mexico who was pretty
popular fighter, and Naoko Fujoka from Japan. They are the
female candidates this year that were elected in the non
participant category. My good friend Russ Amber, who was a
great guy and a great trainer and a great cutman.
The creator of the Rival Boxing Year brand.
Speaker 1: He got in.
Speaker 3: He's a Canadian guy who was the first world champion
he had was Otis Grant years ago. But he's been
in the corner as a cupman and as a very
important strategist for Alexander Usik with Vasiliolomachenko before he retired.
Was a big part of the team when Deontay Wilder
was heavyweight champion. I mean, the guy's been in been
behind the scenes on so many great fighters. It's ridiculous.
There's a reason why he's so integral to some of
these teams. He knows what the fuck he's talking about,
what he's doing. The late referee, Frank Cappuccino probably most
master for being the third man in the ring for
Gaddy Ward one and as the tenth round began. After
that devastating ninth round where there was some confusion about
whether the fight would be over or not, that they
might be stopping it in the corner of Arturo Gatti,
he called him to the center ring. No, no, no, no,
fight ain't over yet. Fight ain't over, So Frank, you know,
unfortunately he's not gonna have lift to see his election
his election, but.
Speaker 2: Very famously counted out Michael Spinks too, that tyson Michael
Spinks ninety second destruction.
Speaker 3: Yes, you also have the late great trainer and cutman
Jimmy Glenn, a beloved figure by all and by the way,
not that this is why he got in the All
of Fame, but he owned for many years and then
his son became the owner of the famed boxing bar
in Midtown Manhattan called Jimmy's Corner. Which you've ever gone
to New York for a big fight and you haven't
gone to hang out on a Friday night or a
weeknight at that bar, you miss something great. You also
have a doctor, Flip Pomansky, the long time the ring
and physician in Nevada. He was elected to the Hall
of Fame and in the Observer category. The late Alex Walou,
who did the commentary for ABC from nineteen eighty six
until two thousand when they ended their coverage. Worked with
the broadcast partners like Jim Lampley and Al Michaels and
Dan Diridorf, a tremendous broadcaster. People know him as for
boxing people we know him as the broadcaster. But after
that he worked his way up became the freaking president
of ABC. Unfortunately he passed away just a few months ago,
but you know, he's a very well deserving guy. And
then the other person elected the observer category, my good
buddy who I have sat ringside next to, probably for
more fights next to me than any other person I've
sat next to at ringside over the last twenty some years,
and that's Kevin Ioli. First when he was working at
the Las Vegas Review Journal as the boxing reporter. Then
he left and basically helped create the vertical for Yahoo's Sports. Also,
this is not why he's elected to the Boxing Hall
of Fame, but spent a long long time also at
the top level covering UFC. He retired about maybe six
months ago, and so I called him, Kevin bro I
had known the results of the election yesterday under an embargo,
so I knew he was elected. So I did call
Kevin just to congratulate. We had a nice conversation. He's
very pumped up about it, very excited, and you know,
it's another great class of people that are getting into
the Hall of Fame this year. It's going to be
fantastic The inductions are in June, by the way in
Canistota where the Hall of Fame is, and then down
the road where they have the ceremony at the Turningstone
Casino ten minutes away in Verona.
Speaker 2: All Right, a couple of quick items and then we're out.
We talked on the last pot about Tea Fimo Lopez,
Shakur Stevenson. It is now official for January thirty. First,
they're going to have a press conference coming this week. Correct,
it's not confirmed. I didn't see this any of the
stuff that it's definitely at Madison Square Garden. Could be
somewhere else in New York.
Speaker 3: No, what do you know, it's going to be a
Madison Square Garden. As a matter of fact, I reached out.
So I don't know why they didn't announce that. I'm
not sure if maybe the paperwork's not officially signed right,
or whatever the case may be. But I talked to
some of my peeps at the garden. I know a
lot of people work at Madison Square and I've been
covered fights there for a long time. And one person
I asked said, I don't know why they announced it,
because they're having the fight here. So and that's where
it should be. I mean, it's it's a perfect look.
Speaker 2: Event, the event with those names. So you'll will find
out more from the fighters this week, and I'm sure
to you FEMA will be entertaining and they were already
trading barbs in the UH in the press release.
Speaker 1: It's a big fight. I'm this, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Arguably the biggest fight right now between two Americans. I
know Fulton and Foster are fighting as the co feature
fights bigger than that, but this is much bigger with
the notoriety of both. So yes, we are looking forward
to that fight, and they'll have the presser this week
on this coming week on Wednesday. And one more note,
because you've been keeping track of poor Frank Sanchez, can
he get anybody to fight him for the IB.
Speaker 1: We got it, We got it.
Speaker 2: We have a name and I'm actually intrigued by this name.
Speaker 3: Go so it's going to be Richard Torres Junior, now
Richard Torres Junior, the top rank heavyweight, the United States
silver medal winner. He was offered to fight at one point,
but I guess the reason he didn't take it was
because he had another fight scheduled. But he probably could
have bailed on that because it was against that Thomas
Salek who he knocked out in the first round. That
wasn't really much of a fight. He did that fight
back a couple weeks ago in Mexico. So all these guys,
Frank took everybody they offered him, but you had a
whole bunch yet Faa, Jagba, Moses Ama, Torres, Dango Dubi,
I think Hergievich also, they all turned him down for
different reasons, and they were just going down the ranking.
So once they got to Duwa and Dua turned it down,
Duwa pulled out like the you know, an hour before
the purse bid. And so if they continued to go
down the rankings, the next guy was gonna be Jared Anderson.
But the IBF actually did something intelligent. You know, I
always say the IBF does IBF things. I'll give them
credit for this because Frank Stanchez is like three in
the rankings, one is vacant like typical, and Jared was
number six. But in between them you had Richard Torres,
who would already turn down the fight. But once the
fight he had in Mexico was over and he had
scored the first round, not out. He suddenly he's now
available again. So rather than continue to go down the
rankings to six to get the Jared, they went back
up to reconvene with Richard. Torris said, Okay, you're available again.
Do you want to do the fight? And at that
point Torres and his team, his management top ranked, they
said yes, we're in. So they're now ordered to negotiate
that fight. He could so pull out or whatever, but
they notified the IBF and writing, we will partake in
this negotiation in this situation, and if they don't make
a deal, it will go to a purse bid. You know,
I believe the perspid would be on December seventeenth, I
want to say, and then they'll go through that process.
But it feels like they finally have found an opponent
for Frank Sanchez. The fight and the winner becomes the
mandatory challenger for the IBF heavyweight title.
Speaker 2: And did in seeing Torria step up. We talked about
that when he won that fight in Mexico and this
would be a step up. Yeah, and Sanchez allegedly has
an opponent. Stay tuned, all right, you and I are
ready for this PBC on Prime Pitbull Roach main event
co feature with Fulton and Foster. Also Arislondy Laura with
a middleweight title fight Jesus Ramos as well on the
pay per view, and also ji Opataia the IBF Cruisweight
Champion separate card early Saturday in Australia. All fighting this weekend.
We've we've given you a lot of preview, a lot
of news. What do you say we come back off
the weekend and recap all of this once it's all
done here? Sound good to you. Let's see what happens with.
Speaker 3: All of this, and I'll say to the peeps. Also
on Sunday night on the show, we will have an
interview that I conducted with the WBC Cruiserweight Champion, Bad
Dude Jack, who's going to defend that title in a
rematch against Noel mckellian on December thirteenth, that Saturday on PPV,
dot Com, the regular pay per view channels, etc. On
your linear television. So we'll see what Bad Do has
to say about the rematch of their very close fight
that took place back earlier this year on the Canelo So.
Speaker 2: You'll hear from him Sunday, you'll hear from us, You'll
hear from him. I love all of it. In the meantime,
read Dan on the substack and the newsletter. Find the
Big Fight Weekend YouTube page as well for our content.
That's there, Big Dan, have a good weekend. I'll talk
to you coming off the weekend, my friend.
Speaker 1: All right, you bet.
Speaker 2: By the way, for the record, I finally stopped drooling
about halfway through the pod after the oral surgery.
Speaker 1: I just thought i'd up to take you on my
novities or fillies.
Speaker 2: That is correct. All right, there you go. Apples, Preak
or Spotify is where you find this as we head
into the weekend on the Big Fight Weekend Preview Podcasts. Bye.