Speaker 1: Well off of a weekend that may very well have
seen the upset of the year, if not a knockout
of the year as well, with the same punch in Tijuana, Mexico.
And we know we only got a couple more weekends
left to determine what happened. We're ready to talk about
that upset of heimimong Dia. We're ready to talk about
fights in Monte Carlo in Ontario, California, and well beyond.
It is the Fight Freaks You Night recap podcast. I
am the somewhat capable host TJ. Reeves. He is our insider,
Dan Rayfield, Fight Freak You Night, the substack in the newsletter,
my friend. Good to be with you again. They need
to be on your newsletter. They need to be following
subscribing this recap podcast right here through Applespreaker, Spotify, and
full disclosure. We're making this work on a Sunday. I'm
in Los Angeles where my Buccaneers are playing the Chargers tonight,
this afternoon and tonight, so we're making the pod work.
But we were not gonna not be here after some
of these fights this weekend. Big Dan, how are you?
We're ready to get rolling didj.
Speaker 2: I'm okay, except I'm disappointed that we're doing this out
of the normal schedule in terms of the timing to
accommodate your your football team, because it means that we
will not bring the peeps the very involved, very in
depth recap of one Dyllian White's fight Andrew Balter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's something that we were just going to
have to live without. They'll have to be on your
sub stack, they will have to be on your social
media and we will make it work.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: I'm coming straight to you. We didn't know a lot
about this Bruno Serrace guy with or Sorase from France.
We know about him now after the knockout of Haimimongia.
My lord, I'm coming straight to you. Is that the
knockout of the year. Is that the upset of the year?
Speaker 2: You know? I don't. I don't think it's a knockout
of the year. I mean, but it's definitely the upset
of the year because there's been prettier knockouts. But in
terms of the upset of the year, this was a
guy that on the betting line, we talked about on
the bet Us Show who's like a fifty to one
dog in this fight, a guy with zero accomplishment, a
guy that had been in the ring with absolutely nobody
to speaking. Yea, he had a great record, fair enough, but
his opponents, I mean I went through his record and
I was looking in terms of and is there all
fights like in the last like two three years, he
fought guys with records of five twenty three and two
eleven and twenty two, eight ten and four, fifteen thirty
nine and three, sixteen, thirty six and six. I think
you get the point. This was a guy that was
built on nothing. And he was also, by the way,
not only had he fought absolutely nobody, had never fought
outside of France, and had no accomplishment at all, had
four knockouts in twenty seven previous professional bouts, and was
going from middleweight up to super middleweight. So every single
possible metric that you could use to determine if the
guy is legit or not was against his chances of
scoring a win, much less a devastating knockout. And then
the fight started and a Mangia knocked him down early,
and he was winning every single round of the fight,
and look Sarachi, he looked looked good. He looked like
he was hanging in there. He had some quickness to him.
He was there to fight. He tipped the hat out
the world that he said going into the fight to
change his life, in his family's life. That's why he
went to the other guy's hometown to have the big
fight of his career. And he was still losing a fight,
by the way, And now all of a sudden, round
six rolls around and Monkey has never been the most
defensively responsible fighter in the history of the world, but
he has always shown a good chin. The only time
he ever got knocked down before this knockout in a
long career that had spanned some forty six fights and
more than a decade, and he just let his hands
dangle in front of him. Chain a wide open, you know,
a wide, wide open, and the guy landed the picture
perfect home run ball, you know, one in a lifetime
half court shot a bank off the backboard, right hand
on the fucking chin, and he went down and he
struggled to get up. He got to the all fours
and just got counted out. Could not beat the count.
End the story. It was a massive, massive, massive upset.
I mean, I was sitting in my office watching it
on ESPN plus shot that I'm listening to Christina Poncher
and Chris Algery were doing the commentary for ESPN. They're
They're like, oh my god, I can't believe it. I
mean it. It's a shocking upset fact that Albert is
the only other fighter that ever knocked Unia down that
was back in May in their fight, which was only
other previous loss until this knockout, and so that was
quite the scene. It also, by the way, Lens creedens
that when we said I said this at the time
when you saw Canelo drop Mungia and then he let
him basically survive the twelve rounds, we discussed the fact
that it was my opinion and that of others that
Canelo carried him to the finish line because he didn't
want to bris' Mexican countryman once he had him under control.
I think it's pretty clear that if Canelo really wanted
to do the damage, he probably couldn't knocked him out
based on what we saw in this particular fight. But
that's not what's important. What's important is Haimi Mungie's career,
which had a lot of big plans new promotion hometown
fight first time in two years, Big crowded this outdoor stadium,
making plans for an interim title fight against and Billly.
Speaker 1: So obviously, the next question becomes with this knockout, he
now has obviously bolstered himself. But what does this do?
From mcgea, Dan, I mean, what does this mean?
Speaker 2: I mean it means you got to clean yourself up.
I mean it's a devastating loss. You can't you can't
just like sweep it under the rug. It happened. It's
not like his career is over or anything like that,
but he takes a huge hit. It's one thing to
lose to Canelo Alvarez in a big fight on a
big stage, to the number one guy in the division,
that the unified champion, a superstar in the sport, that
he actually had his stock and his like the credit
people gave him kind of increased off that loss. This
is the complete opposite. This is a disaster because he
didn't just you know, if you lose to like if
he had lost, come and Billy, Let's say he lost
to you know another good super middleweight, like he lost
like Caleb Plant or you know another good fighter in
the division. You know that happens fine. Brunos Tarrasse was
a guy that was as obscure and unknown as manufacturer
record as you could ever possibly fathom. I cited you
the chap converse on the records of the guys that
he had faced and the lack of competition. And also
this was like those a lot of the fights of
the records of the guys he had beaten. I mentioned you,
they were in fights that were six rounds and eight rounds.
This was not even a guy that's been you know,
in regular I think this was maybe a second ten
round fight. He's never been in a twelve round fight.
I mean, I can't even impress upon you enough that
the how bad this is for the prospects of himimongy,
but you can you can turn it around. I mean,
he's still a younger guy. I wonder how he's going
to recover more mentally than physically from this type of fight.
He is only still twenty eight years old. But again,
this is a rough, rough loss, and you know he's
gonna have to you know, he's gonna have some hard
moments over the next you know, hours and days and
weeks based on what happened.
Speaker 1: I know Oscar de la Hoya, who's no longer promoting him,
it appears, got a good laugh probably of what happened.
Unfortunately not his fighter anymore. All right, So quickly in
the recap mode on the undercard, I know you mentioned
about Alan David Picasso and he had a last minute opponent,
like night before the fight or day of the fight.
But the real thing here is he's a possible opponent
for Naoya in a way, who we're gonna be talking
about more here a little bit. What about Picasso? He
got his knockout, I guess stay busy, right, yeah, and.
Speaker 2: That's all that was. He scored a third round knockout
against a guy like you mentioned it took the fight
the day before the fight, Jason Queo. This is a
junior featherweight fighter. And the reason why it's even remotely
notable other than it was the co feature on this card,
is because going into the fight, it is an open
secret that when Anoi in a way has the plans
to come and do a fight at the MGM Grand
Or Team Mobile in Las Vegas with top rank calmed
April ish, that the opponent that was on the short
list was Alan David Picasso, who was Wizzan for Promotions,
which is a company that Top Rank does a ton
of business with. And obviously they worked together on Mangia
and they've worked together on many fighters in the past,
most famously Eric Morales for many, many years. So Picasso
was in that sort of tune up mode and he
took care of his business with a third round knockout.
Speaker 1: All right, again, that was the show in Tijuana. Let's
move earlier in the day in Montic Carlow. We were
wondering about Mura John or mj Akmadaliev in this interim
junior featherweight title fight, how he would look full disclosure.
You and I on the bet Us show thought this
would be a distance fight. He made sure it was
not a distance fight. He scored a third round knockout. Impressive, obviously,
tell me more about what you saw and what that
means for him.
Speaker 2: Listen, mj is a good fighter. There's no doubt. He's
a former unified champion. He obviously suffered a very controversial
split decision loss again tomorrow and the Palace back in
April of twenty twenty three. That was a fight that
cost him his belts obviously with the Paulis that then
went on and got a chance to fight in a
way in the undisputed fight, so that would have been
on MJ's position. He came back in December of twenty
twenty three, he got a victory, He became the mandatory
challenger in the WBA. That fight is due. He was
denied the fight against Ina on multiple occasions. Who went
and fought Delheny got the exception and then basically, as
we've discussed, ignored the order and went and fought the
fight that he had most recently in a way that is,
and so that was the position that he should have
been in it. You know, this fight against you know,
not he didn't fight the fight, but the fight that
he has scheduled against Sam Goodman, who's a mandatory in
two other organizations. That's fine, but the wawba's mandatory was
the next in line, and they basically ignored that, and
you know, more or less to soothe it over, they
were like, all right, you know, stand down and you
can fight Ricardo Espinosa for the interim title and he'll
be stilled the in mandatory obviously, so that's what he did.
He fought Ricardo Espinosa on the Monte Carlo card that
Matrian put on, and he looked really good in the fight.
I mean, he's an excellent fighter. He had a you know,
he's a bronze medal winner from the Olympics back in
twenty sixteen. Hasn't been the most active by in the world.
I'd like to see him fight a little more often.
This is its first fight in basically one year to
the day. This fight was on December fourteenth. This previous
fight against Gonzales that I mentioned that was on December
sixteenth of last year. So he comes back in the
ring after a year layoff. But again he looked sharp.
You know, first couple of rounds were kind of slow
and even, and you know he can just see like
the rust of is shedding off of him. And then
comes the third round and you know, he goes to
town in Espinoza. He scores the two knockdowns, gets the knockout. Now,
the thing about it is Espinosa maybe not a great fighter,
but he's not He's not disgraced himself. I mean when
he's lost fights, they've been against in the two recent
losses or more recent I should say, against pretty decent
opponents and the only time he got stopped was in
the twelfth round against John Real Kasmara, who's a three
you know, three division title holder, and by no means
would be considered like any kind of bum. That's you know,
you go twelve rounds with the guy, you get stopped.
I mean, shit happens. There's nothing wrong with that. And
then the other loss that he took was a ten
round decision loss to Daniel Roman, who was a former
unified champion in one hundred and twenty two pounds. That
was back in two thousand and twenty one. The Kasmari
fight was twenty nineteen. Point I'm making is when he
lost those fights against the top guys, he was competitive
and he and he and he was able to hang
in there with those guys, right, that's not the case
against MJ. So MJ gets a knockout and then, you know,
more so than the fight, and we'll get to this.
It wasn't so much okay, you did the win, you
got the you got what you needed. It was all
about They spent all the time in the post fight
not discussing what he did to Espinosa because it was
you know what it was it was more about, okay,
come on in a way, let's get it on. You know,
I'm next up, but you're not fighting me in the
w B A you know, needs to enforce the mandatory
which they had already twice ordered. Instead in a way,
you know, wound up getting an exception. As I mentioned,
uh and and then in this particular next rotation, which
is supposed to be the fight against uh that you
know that's coming up against Goodman, that that would that
should have been Acmadealia's spot didn't happen. So they're they're
pressing the issue. And you know Eddie Hearn, who's you know,
goes on a pretty good rant once in a while
after fights. This was one of his classic grants where
he basically just went crazy about fighting in a way.
I mean you could you could watch the video. I mean,
but he basically you know, went off. He's like, you know,
he made the point. Also, I'll bet the house that
that in a way never fights Achmedhalia, which would be
disappointing because here's the thing. You want to tell me, Okay,
he lost it the place. You want to tell me
that he's been inactive. Okay, that's all fine. And it's
not even untrue. You wanted tell me he's gonna fight
Goodman in the mandatory first, so be it no problem.
But the fight that happens in April, if in a
way continues to win in Las Vegas, should be akmadaiev
because you can look down any set of rankings at
one hundred and twenty two pounds, whether there are rankings
I do, or the Ring magazine or box Wreck or
the or any of the organizations, whatever your choice, is
the best guy in one hundred and twenty two pound
way class that he has not fought yet, that is
most deserving of the title shot. Who is the mandatory?
He now has the interim delta. He won for that
what that's worth? In this fight that he had on
Saturday against Espinoza, the best guy, the only guy is
is MJ. That's the end of the story. I mean,
I don't want to hear excuses and nonsense. He's the
best guy at won twenty two and in a way,
and I'm not saying in a way's ducking him. But
it feels like, as Eddie said, I happen to agree
with him. It feels like that in a way, team
is ducking him. You know, they want to fight Picasso
instead of MJ. A Picasso good fighter, has zero accomplishment
relative to MJ. Give me a break, ring. I agree.
Speaker 1: Let's see if we can get the better fights. And
in a way, and then, like you said, in a
way is not shied away from the better fights, all right.
Quickly recapped the Monte Carlo undercard on his own that
included Taromona. Taromona, who you've been telling us about the
heavyweight and what else from this undercard as we move along, all.
Speaker 2: Right, So I'll open it up. Tarramona was in the
in the opening fight. This is the Australian twenty twenty
four Olympian who lost to jaw Low, who was the
two time gold medal winner in the in the quarterfinals.
So if he got a better draw in the in
the blind draw of the tournament, I feel like he
absolute would have made it to the final. Nonetheless, he
already had four professional fights. He then took the break,
went the Olympics, signed with Mattroms. So this was like
his second pro debut, pro debut, if you will, the
first fight with matching, big audience, you know, big card
or whatever, and anyway, he looked great. He knocked out
a five in one Ukrainian fighter named Vladimir cap That suck.
And he's a He's a big man, he's got good power.
He had a diverse arsenal. I saw him throw body shots, rights, lefts.
I mean, he did a lot of nice mixing up
of his punch, a couple of uppercuts in there. But
so so, he definitely can fight. I've talked to other
boxing people. I know some different managers and promoters in
this sport that tried to sign him and we're not
able to match him. Got him, and they're all high
on him. But here's the thing putting his talent aside,
which you know, as a heavyweight, and he's not he's
you know, he's twenty six years old, so he's not young.
But heavyweights, you know, they get into their prime a
little bit later on. He'll be back, by the way
Teremona on January eighth, on the undercard of the upcoming
Jai Opataiah cruiserweight title defense. But the thing about him
is talent fine. He definitely got marketability. He definitely has
a fan friendly sort of personality and a f fighting style.
He's got a lot of enthusiasm. He's like, I just
want to get in there and punch your face out.
I mean, he's going to be a lot of fun
to follow the journey.
Speaker 1: Put it like that, all right, and what else from
the other and then okay, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So then the other fights, he had max He Hughes,
who was a lightweight that had taken some losses and
you know, seemed to be sort of at the end
of his career. He was matched up with the the
prospect that Gary Cully trying to rehab sort of from
a devastating upset loss a couple of fights ago, and
he didn't show up, and Maxi Hughes fought his ass
off and won a ten round decision in a shutout.
So he's reborn. He'll get another significant fight out of that.
Remember Maxi had the fight against Cambosis. A lot of
people thought that he got robbed in that fight, et cetera.
But Gary Cully was a massive disappointment and Maxi Hughes
moves on. And then there was another fight on the undercard,
the one women's world title fight. You had Beatrice Ferrara,
the two time olympian who had got a medal back
in not the twenty twenty twenty twenty four Paris Games,
but in the twenty twenty Games. But she she'd made
her first lightweight title defense and just want to shut
out every single round against Lucia Medersa. And then you
had what was the fight of the night in my mind,
one hundred percent, this was for the vacant European who'sier
white title. Yeah, the British fighter chev Clark, who was
undefeated with a lot of high hopes against a French
fighter named Leny Leonardo Musquaya. And it was an action
pack just to punch out, you know, just a tremendous
action battle. Chef Clark got knocked down in the first round,
but it was Masco who went on and won a
split decision in a really, really excellent fight. And you know,
Jeff Clark maye have got the loss, but he's got
nothing to be ashamed of. This was a hell of
a fight and I'd love to see both of them
back in action against other good cruiser wits. And that
was your undercard, and then they moved on to the
acmadalia of main event.
Speaker 1: All right, good stuff on the Mattrium de Zone show.
All right, so speaking to the zone, we now skipped
back to the Golden Boy main event Saturday night in Ontario, California,
and man, this was a very competitive, compelling welterweight showdown
Alexis Rocha and Raoul Curriel. They laid it on the line,
a lot of brawling, a lot of drama, and unfortunately
Rayfield no winner. It ends up being a majority draw.
What were your thoughts on that one? It truly could
have gone either way. I mean, I saw you tweeting
about it that you had it close, and it ends
up being a majority draw. Two of the cards.
Speaker 2: He listen, sometimes there are draws. I mean the power
hour is it being boxing made it more difficult on
themselves when they reduced the fights from fifteen rounds to
twelve rounds. It would have been better probably if they
had made them thirteen rounds or eleven rounds, so there
wuld be an odd number of rounds, which would reduce
the number of draws obviously, but in the case of
a twelve round world we live in, a draw is
a draw, and this was the fight that if you
watched it, it felt like a draw. There was every
round basically was a close round. One judge did have
a one sixteen to one twelve, which I have no
problem with because there were so many close rounds that
if you're going to swing a little bit here, a
little bit there, that's going to happen. And the other
two judges had it one fourteen to one fourteen, which
obviously six rounds to six. I have no problem with
the draw. The two fighters, Roach and Raoul Kurryell, neither
one of them seemed to be too upset about it.
They put on a tremendous fight. I didn't think it
was at the same level maybe that the commentators were
making it out to be. It was a good fight.
Don't get me wrong. It is not the fight of
the year. It did not have the kind of drama
that the fights of the year typically have. It did
not have knockdowns, it did not have, you know, massive state.
It's just a really good, hard nose fight. All credit
to both of these guys. For Creel, he's the Mexican
Olympian who stayed undefeated, who was really taking this first
step up against the top opponent. He was an Olympian
back in twenty sixteen. He's had a little bit of
a slower start to his career, but he's a talented fighter,
and this was the first sort of name guy that
he was facing in terms of ROACHA. He's had some
bigger names on his record, but this was another typical
roach of fight where it's back and forth, and you know,
they just basically would be like, I'm gonna break you
and then punch me.
Speaker 1: Great ten round, great ten round, and then the twelfth
round dramatic too. The only thing I'm curious about, if
you know, to pull it to the even on both
the cards, did they split on one giving roach of
the final round one Mariel, because I'd be curious about that.
Did one or both of them have either of the
fighters winning going in the final round. I haven't seen
that as of yet.
Speaker 2: Because I don't have the carriage in front of me
right now.
Speaker 1: So they don't have any answer in six six though.
So we'll get the replay, we'll get the we'll maybe
get a rematch on the fight and then settle it
that way.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to be a maybe a rematch.
I think it's going to be a rematch. But which
I said, let's do it next, let's uh, you know,
let's run this back immediately. Both fighters were in agreement
with that, and it's entirely possible, and I think that
it makes a lot of sense. I did have the
occasion after the fight on the telephone to speak to
Frank Espinosa, was Robl Kuriel's manager, and obviously they're they're
in favor of doing the rematch. And I mean, if
the managements in favor of it and the fighters are
in favor of it, you don't have to worry about
sanctioning body nonsense. And certainly I can't imagine dez Owne,
who buys these fights from Golden Boy, would have any
problem with a rematch. So let them take their break,
let them rest up, enjoy the holidays, and you know,
maybe sometime in the you know, the late winter, early spring,
we'll see this this fight again. It was a worthy
fight for a rematch, and you know, the winner of
that rematch is still going to be in business in
the Welterway Division. And frankly off the way we saw
on Saturday, even if they didn't have a rematch, the
fact there was a draw keeps both them in a
good position because it was that good of a fight
in both them, you know, you know, should be proud
of their efforts. They had a hell of a fight.
Speaker 1: All right, love it. Great action on that one, and
we'll probably see it again, as you mentioned. Okay, some
news and then some nostalgia to wrap it up. And
the news is significant. We were talking leading into the
weekend about Naoia in a way and who he might
possibly be fighting down the road, and now Sam Goodman,
the Australian is cut in training. This news was breaking
what Friday night into Saturday, and they have now had
to reschedule this fight. Dan fill in the blanks on
what's going on here.
Speaker 2: All right. So Sam Goodman is from Australia. So he
was sparring his final sparring session in Australia before they
were going to break the camp and fly to Tokyo
for the fight, which was on schedule for December twenty fourth,
Christmas Eve. And so in that sparring session, which took
place Saturday morning Australia time, Friday night here in the
United States, he saw for a cut over his left eye.
There's a photo that was posted on this on their
Team Goodman social media. He made a video on social
media a sort of talking about it he got clipped
underneath the headguard and he got cut over the left eye,
like it was sort of under the left eyebrow, above
the left eyelid. It wasn't a bad spot, wasn't a
very huge cut, but it was certainly a wound, and
you know, it was open and there was blood. And
you know, if that cut it happened three four weeks ago,
we probably wouldn't have ever known about it, But the
fact that it happened with the fight literally a week
away or thereabouts ten days away, made it very impossible
for the fight to actually take place. So they were
forced to pull out of the fight. So there was
a fluid situation for a little while, and I was
in contact with the Top Rank people because obviously they're
the co promoters of inn Away. There was a discussion,
you know, they were trying to decide do we find
another opponent and keep the show on December twenty fourth.
Obviously the Goodman camp they were pushing for the fight
to just take a short delay, and so they had
to go back and forth. Ultimately, what was decided is
the fight would be postponed. It'll be rescheduled for January
twenty fourth, same location in Tokyo, same undercard. Everything will
just move from December twenty fourth to January twenty fourth,
so the fight is still on. And the question that
I have about that is that if the plan was
for in a way to have the fight with Goodman,
and this is all based on the assumption that in
a way would be the winner, their plan, like I
mentioned earlier in the show, is that they're coming to
the United States for a fight in April. But the
question is if he fights in late January, is is
it enough turnaround time for in a way to be
prepared and train and travel to do a fight in April,
or whether they have to push that fight off into
the later into the spring. That remains to be seen.
And then of course if he comes to the United States,
it's gonna be the whole thing about who was the
opponent Picasso we talked about. I didn't mention to one
factor that when in the wake of Akmadaliav's victory and
the postpone of in a way, the lawyer for Akmadaliev
and I've seen a copy of this letter, they've sent
another letter to GILBERTA. Mondoza from the WBA, basically saying
let him go and do his other mandatories as as
they're going to do with Goodman. But please let this
letter serve as notice that you need to enforce the rematch.
I not have to rematch rather but theory between Acmadalian
in a way, uh and making the point that we
have shown a lot of patience on this matter, more
than we should, et cetera. But assuming that the Goodman
fight actually takes place, that uh, that the next bout
that we want the WBA to confirm and follow its
rules that he should be compelled and ordered that that
April or Spring fight should be the mandatory against Acmadalia.
And we'll see if the WBA follows through on that,
and that would make the possible business kind of irrelevant.
But the point is, uh, fights get get postponed. This
did not seem like that damaging of a cut, but
enough where you can't be ready in ten days. And uh,
you know, I felt bad for Goodman. I mean, it's
it's one thing if the fight gets postponed and there's
an injury. It's a totally different game when you're literally
like your last fucking sparring session and that happens. I mean,
we saw I've seen that happen before. It's uh, it's
really unfortunate. And uh, you know, all things considered, no
big deal. They just moved the fight one month and uh, everybody,
uh you know, takes a little break and then gets
back and keeps themselves together and we get a fight
and then uh we'll see what happens and again, and
if an Away wins, hopefully acmcdali will get the opportunity
that he deserves.
Speaker 1: You always love my lines. We don't get the monster
for Christmas. We instead get him in the new year
here in January, hopefully for this fight with Goodman. Okay,
And so that leads us to nostalgia before we're done,
and I got to get to work with Buccaneer Football,
and you got to get back to updating the substack
on the Dillian White recap and everything else.
Speaker 2: This relax, you're not my editor, boss man.
Speaker 1: Let's talk nostalgia. Let's talk five years ago today. As
a matter of fact, on Sunday, December fourteenth, twenty nineteen,
Terrence Crawford knocked out mean Machine cave Loscas and retained
his portion of the welterweight world title, as well as
Teya Fimo Lopez knocking out Richard Kome in the co
feature to win his first world title. You were there
at the Garden five years ago or right, give me
some nostalgia please.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was a good card he also had. I
mean in retrospect, it doesn't mean a whole lot at
the moment, but at the time. The third fight on
that show was a grun match showdown between Michael Collin
and Nikita, who had defeated him in that hugely controversial
Olympic fight where it prompted Michael Kamman to, you know,
take that famous picture with Bob Aaron when he signed
also in the ring after that match, to give the
judges the finger because they had robbed him so blatantly
and so badly of the Olympic medal. So that was
a big deal on that car too. But nonetheless, these
other two fights, as you mentioned Terrence Crawford, you know,
he was cruised along still un defeated obviously today, but
this was one of his toughest fights. This was maybe
his toughest fight of his entire career if you ask me,
certainly a lot tougher than Narrow Spence Kabalawskis was an
Olympian himself, was the top notch amateur, had gotten off
to an excellent start in the pros, has kind of
petered out because of the lack of activity and just
hasn't really kind of gotten over the hump. But in
this particular fight, despite the fact that in the end
he got knocked down three times and stopped in the
ninth round, in this wo Walter Way title defense that
Crawford was making, there was a moment there in the
third round where he landed a big right hand on
Terrence Crawford and it made it's It's the one time
I can truly say that I've seen anyway that I
felt like Crawford was definitely hurt. Uh, definitely hurt, grabbed
it onto him, and then Cavalos has got off a
few more shots and Crawford went down to a knee uh,
being a look like a clear a knockdown and you
can get I mean as a knockdowns, a knockdown and knockdown. Uh.
The referee, Ricky Gonzalez from New York, was usually an
excellent referee. By the way, he ruled it a slip
and so it does not count on the official record,
but we've seen this happen before. There's a you know, uh,
I will maintain until the day I died that zab
Judah got robbed of a knock down against Floyd Mayweather.
There's no doubt about that. This was one of those
situations where Crawford was hurt. Crawford was knocked down, uh
and uh that didn't get called uh. And he came
but he'd take his credit. He came back and he
scored the knocking himself. Uh. And so that added some
electricity to that night. And then, as you mentioned in
the co feature, you had the young and precocious. He
liked that for a word on I got the young
Fimo Lopez, who's you know, in his first world championship
fight against the very well respected Richard Kome gunning for
the IBF title. You know, Komi is defending the title,
and this was this was tia Fimo's biggest win to
that point. Now, he's gone on, by the way and
scored some of the best wins in boxing in recent
years when you take into account his victory over in
Lomachenko and his victory against Josh Taylor. But this was
a big win for him. He's, you know, Olympian, undefeated
fighting for a world title, so much expected of him,
and not only did he deliver with a win and
get the title, but he did it in resounding fashion
in a second round knockout. I mean, this was just
a beautiful knockout for him. This was a crowning moment.
And I have a memory of this. By the way,
I was with a couple of guys after the fight
at the Garden. You know, there's a bunch of like
diners and restaurants and coffee shops and pizza shops and
stuff right around that area. I mean it's it's midtown
Manhattan on a Saturday night, and we were in like
one of the pizza places across the street from the hotel,
and who walks in, you know, two hours after the fight,
Tia Femo went his dead. That's kind of hilarious, Like
you're celebrating with with a pizza and coacht, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1: That booming right hand against Kome, I mean, he he
It was not quite Trevor Burbick, but he was wobbling
all over the ring, trying to stand up and flopping
down and getting back up.
Speaker 2: This was a big this is a big knockout for
a big night. And then you know, the next fight
he scored what still was the biggest win of his
career where he went out there and he won a
close fight, but definitely won the fight against Lomachenko. Unfortunately,
he was in the bubble with COVID, so there wasn't
the you know, the hype in the crowd and the
excitement around it that there normally would have been. But
to kome fight got in the first title and they
was able to beat Lomachenko with the unified titles. And
but that that was an explosive kind of knockout from
a from a tremendous young fighter in t them a
lopen So you put ta Femo on the card. You
have also obviously uh Terrece Crawford getting to win in
an exciting fight. And as I mentioned that, you know,
I know again today it doesn't really mean a whole
lot necessarily, but that Michael Colin Vladimir and the Kiaden fight,
that was a win for Colin to make right the
outrageous Olympic robbery.
Speaker 1: Love it all right, So go backwards to twenty sixteen
and on Tuesday, December seventeenth, twenty sixteen. Eight years ago,
Joe Smith Junior scored a wild knockout of Bernard Hopkins,
knocking him out of the ring. Tell me more about
and this you have on the rundown. This is a
fight that Rayphiel made. So tell me more about the
nostalgia of eight years ago, twenty sixteen and the Joe
Smith ko of the Hall of Famer Bernard Hopkins.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean this fight was at the Form
in Englewood, California. I was ringside for this. It was
a big deal.
Speaker 1: It was promoted by the way I am broadcasting and
working this satternoon at Sofi Stadium in LA which is
literally a nine iron from the Forum. I'm exactly on
the property and I remember this fight, and that's wild
that it was at the Forum. I didn't remember it
was at the Forum. Continue the nostalgia money one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So this was promoted and discussed in the presosition.
This was Bernard Hopkins's farewell fight. This is the last
fight of his career. He was all annoyed because he
had taken a loss in a shutout decision and a
unification fight in November of twenty fourteen, against Sergei CoV Lev,
which is a big fight at that time. Really, honestly,
that in twenty fourteen, ten years ago, that's the last
I think that's the last fight that took place in
the main Boardwalk Hall, main arena. I'm not talking about
the upstairs three thousand seat room. I'm talking about the
big arena. There hasn't been a big fight in Atlantic
City in that building, in that space, and I think
this was the last one when he lost the coal left.
But anyway, he was wanting to fight after that, and
just for whatever reason, he was kind of locked out
of things. So it was, you know, twenty five months
later he came back. He had wanted to fight a
final fight, a farewell fight in his mind. He wanted
to go out on his own terms. He described it
to me as sort of like, you know, Kobe Bryant
went out on his own terms, and he was talking
about other athletes and you know, I've told this story before.
You know, a few months earlier, Bernard Hopkins was doing
the broadcast because he was commentating on HBO at the time,
and he was in London with Jim Lampley working the
Gnati Glovkin Kell Brook fight that was taking place at
the two Arena. I was there to cover the fight
for ESPN, and Bernard Hopkins and I, who had you know,
known each other for many many years, despite a couple
of bumps in the road, had to develop the relationship.
And here I am walking out of like the hotel
restaurant from having breakfast. Bernard's walking in and he's like, Hey,
come on, sit down with me, let's talk. So I
turned around and I sat down while Bernard had his
coffee and his breakfast, and we normally, Bernard and I
when we would talk, we didn't talk a lot of boxing.
We talked about politics, we talked about religion, we talked
about other sports, we talked about our families. I mean,
that's the type of relationship that I had with Bernardo.
Boxing was a small part of it as the years
went on. But on this particular morning, he wanted to
talk about what should I do? I want to fight,
who should I fight? What's your opinion? And so we
had this we this was like it turned out. I
want to tell you what must have been. We must
have sat there for a couple hours, an hour and
a half or whatever, just going over all this So
in the end, I came up with two ideas and
he gave me his great here and I've written extensively
about this in the past, right he wanted a guy
that was not He didn't want nobody, he didn't want
an embarrassing compony. Wanted a legit guy with a good record.
But he also made it very clear I don't want
to run around chasing the guy. At this point. Bernard
is like in his you know what, was he in
his fifties. I guess at this point, I want a
guy that's gonna clump the fight and be in front
of me, so I don't have to chase a young
guy around. So he gave me all these and he
wanted to fight that was make aball in terms of
promotion and networks and all that. So I gave him
two names in my in my memory as my rollodex was,
and I went through the two guys. One was a
New York fighter named Shanny Monahan, was undefeated, hadn't yet
stepped up, but at a good fan base, he could
definitely make the fight. He was with Top Rank. There
was not a lot of issues at that point between
Top Rank and Golden Boy. Would have been no issue.
HBO would have definitely taken the fight in my opinion,
So I said Shawny Monahan was one. The other guy
was Joe Smith's junior who had a defeat, but he
had come off a big upset knockout on network television
and a PBC fight. He had defeated Andrew Ferrara Fanfara
rather in a first round knock in that was a
big upset that was nationally televised. So he he sort
of liked the idea that I was giving him. So
he's sitting there with his phone, He's looking up their
their box wreck. He's he actually went on YouTube and
looked at some of the videos and we're going back
and forth, and he's like he liked Joe Smith. He's like,
I'm going to take that to Oscar and Eric you
Oscar de la Hoya from Goldenway and Eric Goldmez from
Golden boay right, And sure enough, I joked with him
at the time, I said, Bernard, imagine how hilarious would
be if you actually fight Joe Smith. And a few
months later we're sitting here talking about your farewell fight.
You know that I'm your matchmaker, And sure enough, a
couple of months later, they make the fight with Joe
Smith strictly because of that suggestion he liked. You know,
he had a good relationship with Joe Smith's promoter, Joe
de Guardia. He knew the fight was makeable. It fit
every every box that Bernard was looking for. Uh. And
then the fight happened and it did not go his
way and he got knocked out of the ring in
the the eighth round. I want to say, onto the
floor on.
Speaker 1: Your side of the ring, or what's your vantage point
of him going out of the ring and what do
you remember?
Speaker 2: So I'm sitting there behind the broadcasters looking at the ring.
He got knocked out of the ring to my left.
Now here's a funny story about this, and you can
google our YouTube and listen to the end of the fight.
So Jim Lampley was calling the fight for HBO is
at this stage of the fight just coincidentally, eighth round,
he is describing why Bernard Hopkins is fighting Joe Smith,
and he starts to recount the story about Rafael and
Bernard Hopkins are having breakfast at a restaurant in the
hotel in London over looking over the river Thames and
and he asked Rafael who he should fight, and Rafael
comes up with Joe Smith, and just as Lampley is
saying my name and telling the story, boom goes a
dynamite and Bernard Hopkins on the fucking floor, out of
the ring.
Speaker 1: And I got to go back. I gotta go back
and see that now, and everybody else does too. That's
tremendous and so and so at that moment, you're Bernard
Hobbins's matchmaker put it like that, I understand. But at
that moment, you gotta be stunned. And then and then
as he I mean, part of you just got to
be thinking can he get up? Can he get back
in the ring before ten? But that's the end of
the fight, right yeah.
Speaker 2: And by the way, this was and this was a
competitive fight at the time of the knockout. Now Bernard
was losing, but it wasn't like he was being dominated
or blown away. He was actually leading on one score card,
uh uh, and he was down on the other two.
But it was it was the fight was still on
the table, as they say, in round eight, as this
is happening, he he was, I guess he you know,
you have twenty seconds if you can get back into
the ring. But he messed up his ankle when he
fell out of the ring. I guess people started to
help him out, and then ultimately the fight was just
stopped and it was gonna be no way he was
going to continue. He wasn't, you know, badly injured or
anything like that, but it was kind of chaotic and
it was kind of shocking, and it was sort of
like so most of the people that are thinking, like,
I can't believe what I'm saying, and fucking this great fighter,
Bernard Hopkins, in his farewell fight, gets not only knocked out,
but knocked out of the ring, And in my mind,
I'm like, oh my god, I can't believe he just
got knocked out by the guy who I gave him
to fight. And Bernard and I have had we've joked
around about that in the years since then, so he's
not mad at me or anything about it. It's just the
way the business goes. And I will say this, I
give Bernard Hopkins credit for being willing to fight a
real guy in a showcase type of farewell fight, knowing
the risks of fighting a much younger man who was
coming off of a big knockout against a very well
regarded opponent and Fron far and by the way, Joe
Smith went on after that any won a world championship
and fought in some big fights and faced a lot
of top guys in the weight class.
Speaker 1: You know, it pains me as I say one more time,
I'm dis close to what was the Fabulous Forum and
in the Great Western Forum where Magic Johnson and Kareem
ruled the NBA in the eighties against my Celtics. By
the way, I was a big Celtics eighties guy with
Larry Bird. And I've never been in that building and
I'm right here by it now while we're doing the pod,
and you've been in it, including for this fight and
this spectacular moment where Hopkins got knocked out of the ring.
Speaker 2: I've covered several fights there. I covered Triple G fight there,
a couple of Triple G fights to my recollection, and
I covered the last fight from hold On last fight
of one Daniel Marquez against Mike Colvarado was a right
is Bernard Hopkins fight. There's I probably covered. I probably
covered a half a dozen fights there.
Speaker 1: From what I've been told, it's primarily a concert venue.
Now it's no longer got sporting events per se, because
they got so much around here, like the new Clippers
basketball arena, which looks like something out of a sci
fi movie I'm not kidding you, is right across the
street from where the Rams and the Chargers play here
at so far, I mean, they have so many huge
structures and facilities where they could do things. So it's
just interesting about the Forum and the nostalgia. But the
Forum is still standing. I'm here to report big Dan
on the nostalgia. It's still standing.
Speaker 2: You know, even back then, even back then, they always
had concerts, but they still always had a couple of
fights here and there. And obviously you go back, you know,
back years before that. Uh, it was they had a
regular Not only did they have fights on a you
know here and there, they had a regular like series
of fights. That was the you know, Jerry Buss, the
owner of the Lakers, was a huge boxing fan, and
they had a series of fights at the Forum also
right at the pond. They put on shows all the time.
Speaker 1: Very famously the rematch of Ali and Norton brought by
Jerry Bust to the Forum for nineteen I think seventy
three at the Forum. Ali beat Norton in the rematch
after he got his jaw broke in the first fight.
So good nostalgia on that, all right, listen, I got
about three minutes. We're all good, So let's just wrap
on Showtime. We're good, We've done great with the time.
Speaker 2: Let's go forward.
Speaker 1: Here we go paus here and that leads us to
one final bit of nostalgia, and it's kind of a
you know, it's kind of a down anniversary to end
it on. A year ago. On Monday, December sixteenth is
the final Showtime broadcast after thirty seven years of fights
and pay per views. That's the last broadcast, December sixteenth,
twenty twenty three. I know we're disappointed. A lot of
the fight fans are disappoint pointed. I mean, it's not
anything epic that you're going to remember from the card.
It's a David Morrell win in the main event. But
this is more about the end of I can't believe
it's already been a year. It's the end of Showtime,
Dan Rayphiel, exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean boxing has not you know, I mean
I've said this many times. Boxing is still suffering the
loss of HBO at the end of twenty eighteen, and
to compound that became the next big loss, which was
the end of Showtime, which was obviously for decades the
main competitor of HBO, and so for them to go
out on this note, similar to HBO where their last
show was absolutely a piece of dog shit, the final
Showtime card was nothing to write home about. It was,
like you mentioned, David Morrell in a second round knockout
and mismatch against Senna Egbeco. They had the Jose Valonzuela
who knocked out Chris Colbert in a big upset at
the time Valenzuell obviously he has gone on to win
a world title. And then the old Man fight that
they did in the opener for no apparent reason, which
was the rematch you know what nine years or eight
years after their first fight between Robert Guero and Andre Berdo
with that Guerrero one. That was, you know, a kind
of a depressing card in the Armory of Minneapolis. But
Showtime as a place in boxing history that will not
be filled anytime soon. They have a roster of fights
in their collection of events through those thirty seven years
that are unparalleled in terms of some of the biggest
fights they've done. You know, to name a few in
terms of pay per view fights, obviously Mike Tyson against
the Andrew Holyfield, both fights, numerous Julio Caesar Chavez events
that took place on showtime pay per view. They did,
you know, huge events. Obviously at the end of their time,
they did do Aero Spence against against Terrence Carver. They
did a number of Canelo Alvarez fights through the years.
Obviously they had the big contract with Floyd Mayweather and
did the last number of fights of his career. And
in terms of the non pay per view fights, they've
had some of the most memorable fights in the history
of boxing. They did we'd talked about it well, unfortunately
for the reasons that I'm going to say, with the
passing of Israel Vasquez, they did all three of his
all four of his fights against sure Ralphael Marquez. We
don't talk much about the fourth fight, but those first
three fights they did also, Uh, they had the greatest
fight of all time, arguably that I was ringside for that.
I will never forget. The first fight in two thousand
and five between Diego Corrals and jose Lewiskissy to unify
the lightweight titles. I mean, they have a litany of
great fights, and they were the home for the last
several years of their existence of PBC, And when Showtime
left the airwaves for boxing, PBC was left out in
the cold. They did a deal with Amazon Prime Video,
and although they are in that in that contract right now,
it hasn't produced. I mean, to be honest, they've done.
Speaker 1: It's a pay per view fights, it's a dove, it's
a dog they've done.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's not that is not going to get
the job done. So Showtime's absence is still being felt
because even though PBC has done the pay per views,
the shows that helped build a sport and help develop
your next paper view star are non existent. So I'm
hoping they can get back on track this coming year
in twenty twenty five, but so far Showtime has not
been replaced, and uh, you know, it's unfortunate situation all around,
all right.
Speaker 1: And so with that, busy on the recaps, busy, a
little fight news, busy on the nostalgia. Listen, you know
what's next Usik Fury two Fight week. We are about
to embark on that. I cannot wait to preview that
later on this week from read Season Saudi Arabia and
the Rematch. Let's see what's going to happen with that.
Can't wait to talk about that in that entire card,
My friend, thank you, we made this work with the travels,
et cetera. Here on the pod again, hit the like button, subscribe.
Make sure you're with us on Apple, Spreaker, Spotify here
for the pod. Be with Dan's newsletter and his substack
the Fight Freaks Unite, substack anything else, my friend, off
the weekend. We're good. We're ready for a big week
including Usik Fury the rematch.
Speaker 2: I think we're good. I want to mention one thing
I forgot to mention earlier related to the fight with
Magia and Strasse. Yes, I was told this was after
I wrote my story, that there is the option in
the contract for there to be a rematch. We'll see
if that happens, if he if there's a that I
write his exercise if they do that, but he would
have the option to get the rematch for a movie.
Speaker 1: You would think he wants the rematch, and you would
think for us, now it gets paid a whole lot more.
We'll see what happens without always good news in and
around Dan, listen, have a good week. We thank you
for all of this, and I'll make my way back
from California back to my home in west central Florida
and we'll reconvene talking you.
Speaker 2: Sick theory too.
Speaker 1: Deal, deal, all right, my friend, there's Dan Raythel. I'm
merely TJ. Reeves. You have been part of our recap.
Podd again if we do going into the weekend. This
is the fight for each Unite Recap podcast by