Speaker 1: All right, welcome to a brand new month. Welcome to
the final month of the year, and off of a
weekend that has seen fight cards in England as well
as California with the debut of legendary a Hall of
Famer Manny Pacquiaw's Sun Manny Junior. We're ready to recap
what there was this weekend in boxing. We're ready to
hear from the WBC featherweight champion, Stephen Fulton, who is
moving up to junior lightweight to battle O'shaki Foster this weekend,
this coming Saturday, December sixth, in a world title fight.
You're gonna hear from Stephen Fulton right here on this
very pod. It is the Fight Freaks United Recap. I
am the somewhat capable host, TJ. Reeves. Hello, Big Dan Rayhaeld.
Fight Freaks Unit, after all is his substack and newsletter.
Why are you not subscribing? Holiday Deal like in progress?
You've offered it once already. Is it still ongoing? I
don't know. I gotta find out myself. How are you
off the weekend? I still have like a deal going?
Speaker 2: What's going to.
Speaker 3: I'll give the plug? So it's the Holiday's shopping season.
We got a holiday discount. People can subscribe and get
a ten percent discount. I like that from now until
I think I set it up for at the very
end of the year.
Speaker 2: Beautiful.
Speaker 1: I mean like you had Black Friday as we released
the pod, Sunday night and a Monday, it's Cyber Monday.
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Speaker 3: I didn't put on the run. Want to discuss that
a little bit.
Speaker 1: No, but maybe it should be. But I'm just saying,
you gave that for free. On the weekend. I caught
some of that. But we love it, we love it,
we love you. I'm in a particularly good mood because
my Buccaneers snapped a three game losing streak and beat
the Arizona Cardinals, and so now there's still very much
in the playoff picture. We love playoff checks, big Dan,
you know how that works. I got played to eat
this weekend. I did send you the photo, did I not?
Of the mother in laws pecan pie homemade.
Speaker 3: I did look good. Left.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I would have sent you a piece.
Speaker 3: Okay, which is life?
Speaker 1: All right, Let's get into it. Thank you for finding
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I can't believe I'm saying. It's December the first on Monday.
Here we are here, we are to the final month
of the year. But before we get there, let's look
back on what happened on Saturday. Let's begin with Ben Whittaker,
not unexpected, does knock out Benjamin Gavazzi in the main
event the Matchroom de Own show in Birmingham Ingley, England.
And it did not take long. We don't have a
lot to analyze here. He wiped the guy out. I
will say this in watching that whole first round, Gavazzi
did not put up any resistance and was almost looking
I'm saying this like for a soft place to land,
and Whittaker Wambam got him out of there.
Speaker 3: Your thoughts, Look, I don't think Ivasi was necessarily looking
for a soft place to land. I just think that,
you know, this was the kind of fight where you
kind of felt what was gonna happen when they signed
the contracts, he was completely out of his depths. So
there's two ways to look at it. On the one hand,
and Eddie Herdan mentioned this in his interview that he
did afterwards. If you're gonna be in this type of
matchup where you know that your guy, Ben Whittaker is
levels above the man at the very least, he went
and he did what he was supposed to do. So
he went in there and he absolutely destroyed the guy
in a little over two minutes of the first round
with two knockdowns and got the knockout. So if he
had gone beyond that and it goes into I'm not
saying he can't get him into two or two rounds,
you know, but if it goes deep into a ten
round fight, now you're gonna start to question it and
people are gonna complain and well, he's not that good horse.
By the same token, you wipe Mount in two minutes,
you don't feel like he got your money's worth. I mean,
you're in a no win situation. So the way to
win that no win situation is to do what you're
supposed to do, which is just destroy a guy that
had no business being in the rank. So, as we
discussed in the preview, DJ, he was nineteen and oh,
or rather he was ninth? Was he nineteen and one
coming into the fight? But and then I told you
about the records of the kind Now, and keep in
mind the loss that he took was in his twenty
eighteen professional debut in a four round decision, and then
he had won, you know, all the rest of his
fights forward up until the Ben Whitaker fight. But the
records of the opponents that he had faced he never
fought a blessed soul of any caliber rights. And although
Ben Whittaker is a prospect who was undefeated, he did
have that one messy technical decision because of the injury
and all, which he avenged by a second round knockout
in his last fight back in April. Obviously as a
professional highly untested, but as an amateur we all know
he was the goods. The guy's a silver medal winner
in the Olympics. Massive speed, massive accomplishment, massive talent. I mean,
you can just tell you knows how to fight. That's
the point that Eddie likes to make also, So we
agree on those elements and things. That said. As a
main event on his own, which I pay for every year,
or you could pay for it every month, this was
not getting your money's worth. This was a tepid card
at best. To be polite, it was an awful main
event on paper and in practice unless you just get
off on, you know, seeing an overmatch guy get destroyed
in two minutes. I guess some people like that. I
like a little more competition of my fights. But I
don't blame Ben Whittaker. Ben Whittaker is the fighter. You know,
his management and his promotion, they're the ones that picked
the opponent. He went in there. He came in good shape,
you know, he styled and profiled on his way to
the ring. It was a ring interest. I've seen it before.
I've said this before. Your thought on this.
Speaker 1: He's long on the hot dog, on the showboating even
during fights, clowning around. We need to see more of
the skills. And we didn't see him for that long
the other the other night. But you know, let's tone
down all of the clowning and hot dogging. Let's see
him fight a better fighter, and let's see the skills
if he.
Speaker 3: I don't mind the showmanship on a ringwalk, no matter what,
because again the pain.
Speaker 2: But I'm talking about in the ring.
Speaker 1: I mean the stuff that he was doing before, doing
the Comby dance and sticking the tongue out and dancing around.
Speaker 3: That's just who he is and everything. But get you switter,
don't watch him.
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, yeah, but fight somebody. And then when
you start doing that stuff and they punch you, then
I'm interested.
Speaker 3: I agree, okay, And so to me, the jury is out,
they claim a that room that you know this was
clearly let's just showcase him. Let's get him a highlight
reel kind of win, which this was a highlight reel
knockout as a massive right hand that put him out
the second time when he dropped him and knocked him out.
A guy was you know, the referee didn't even count.
He was gone and he had been down earlier in
the round too. So this was that fight, and now
they're prepared they claim for an aggressive twenty twenty six
where I would imagine he'll fight four times and he
will step up his level of opposition to some degree.
He is not a twenty two year old or a
twenty one year old kid. He's twenty eight years old
as a light heavyweight should be, you know, just about
entering his prime. But he's a little behind schedule because
he stayed amateur longer than some and so he went
for the medal. He got it. So now it's time
you got You got your apprenticeship out of the way,
you got your first fight against you know, a lesser
opponent in your Mattroom debut. Now it's time to start
to move up the ranks. And by the way, there's
plenty of light heavyweights who may not be the elite
light heavyweights, but are guys that could bring competition or
at least have name value. I saw some people on
my social media commenting. People were mentioning guys like Joshua Blatzi,
Guys like Zach Parker. You know, they fought each other.
There's other light heavyweights, you know in the mix that
that can make for a solid fight. And give him
the rounds and the competition theoretically that he needs. But
to me, the jury is out, Like I'm gonna I'm
gonna revisit Ben Whitaker's situation. No, I'm going to give
him another Like let's say, let's see what happens through
twenty twenty six where he's at. I suspect he's going
to be on the verge of fighting for a world
title at some point the bee ble titles will fracture eventually,
and you know he figures to be right there. He
can move offully quick because the one thing if you
take all the bullshit aside, you take all the nonsense
with the ring walks and all the things that you
should drive people crazy. Twenty years ago, Prince Nasim Ahmed
he would come to the ring with the same stuff,
but then he would go knock the guy out whoever
he was fighting, and he won a whole bunch of
featherweight title belts. If Ben Winner can can do that,
and he can do all the clowning he wants, no problem,
but you got to back it up. And so far,
so good, but it's against nobody in particular. The funny
thing about it is Besides all the stuff we're talking
about with the nonsense and the ring and the showboating,
when you just hear him talk, or you hear how
he acts or is towards people, I've seen how he's
dealt with certain media, people like he is actually a
pretty cool guy like Andy Lee, who is his trainer,
who I have the highest regard for of you know,
just about anybody you could think of him. Boxing speaks
about him about what a pleasant person he is, what
a hard worker he is, what a just a good
guy he is, what a good heart he has. So
you know that means something to me anyway, not that
they care what my opinion is. I'm just snaking the
point though, that he also have to remember at show business,
he's out there trying to make his name bigger, get
himself exposure, which ultimately he believes will lead to bigger
pay days.
Speaker 2: All right, stay tuned on Whitaker.
Speaker 1: Also in England the Boxer BBC main event card in Derby, England,
which I believe was also what on Triller Plus in
the United States. This is Shshkiva right TKV and he
wins over Fraser Clark to win the vacant British Heavyweight
Championship a twelve round decision. We're deep in the weeds
with this kind of matchup. Give me the quick Rayfield
assessment in the recap.
Speaker 3: I don't think we're that deep in the weeds. It's
British heavyweights, so they're fighting for a respected historical title.
Fraser Clark was a medalist in the twenty twenty Olympics
and Shakiva had been in a loss in his previous
fight against against David A Dela for the same title,
which was very controversial in the way that it was
ended because of the stop in the way the referee
got involved with the stoppage, and you know, eventually a
Dela gave up the title. So he got an opportunity
now to fight Clark for this title. And it was
from the significant standpoint was Doctor kicking off its BBC deal.
Remember their their agreement with Sky Sports came to an
end in the summer when Sky did not renew the contract.
They ultimately made their deal for a lot less money
by the way, with BBC, which hadn't done boxing on
a regular basis for literally twenty years or twenty one
years actually, and so this was the kickoff event. It
was postponed by about a month because there was an injury.
But now they got this off the ground, and you know,
it was not a bad fight. I mean it was sloppy,
kind of messy. You know, two big heavyweights, not the
most skillful heavyweights in the world, but big dudes.
Speaker 2: Do you agree with the winner? Did they?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Shikiva won the fight. You know, he goes like
two sixty five, Fraser Clark about two seventy. There, big dues.
You know, maybe not in the greatest shape necessarily as
far as the way their body looks, but they were
in shape to be able to go the rounds they
did and take the punishment. They dished out a tremendous
amount of punishment on each other. If you like inside
fighting and you like two big guys, they're winging hooks
and uppercuts and some body shots. This was a pretty
solid fight. I enjoyed it. I did watch it because
I subscribed to Trailer Plus. And here's the thing about it, though,
so TKV, which is his nickname, he got the duck
at a point for a low blow in the third round,
and then he could have maybe even given the eleventh
round to him as a ten eight round, even though
he didn't have a knockdown, he really really had Treasure
Clark in very very serious trouble in eleven and twelve. Now,
the first half of the fight, I thought that Clark
was winning the fight. He was doing a lot of
good body punching a lot of good clean shots, and
he had TKV holding on quite a bit. But he
kind of lost his wind a little bit and TKV
kind of came on in that second half. Definitely won
a bunch of those rounds, and even with the points,
with the point he lost on the on the low blow,
the one sided nature of round eleven, which I actually
just had it as a ten nine round, but it
was still a pretty big round for him. He did
this similar in round twelve, not as much. He definitely
did enough to me to win that fight seven five
eighty four. But the the the action, the drama of
the fight really became about those last few rounds because
Fraser Clark was pretty much done in the eleventh round.
I have no idea how he stayed on his feet.
You know, props to his heart in the in the
in the will that he showed because he was just
taking absolute fucking beating and in the corner there was
a lot of drama his trainer, Angel Fernandez. You know,
there was a lot of like, I'm gonna stop the fight.
Are you hear can you hear me? You know? Are
you okay? Like up until the moment that the bell
rang to let twelve start, I thought they're gonna pull
them out, They're gonna stop the fight, and they let
it go. Clark got off the stool, he took a
little bit of a some more shots in round twelve,
and you know, they were talking about how Angel Fernandez
is sitting there poised on the by the ring that
with a white towel, ready to throw it in. But
Fraser Clark, to his credit, he made it to the
final bell. And I think that was mainly because TKV
was so fucking gassed that even when he had him
hurting round twelve, he just couldn't eat punch himself out.
He couldn't throw another shot. I feel like, you know,
he could have hit him with like a half hearted shot.
He might have knocked Fraser Clark down. But there were
some drama. So if you like heavyweight, so I mean
I enjoyed that fight a lot. It wasn't going to
remind you of Alexander Russik against Tyson Fury won er
from Larry Holmes against Kenny Norton or something like that.
But it was, you know, for for a diversion on
an otherwise lacklust or Saturday of fights. I was pretty
happy with it. And so here's the crazy thing about it,
TJ so that the broadcast of the de Zone show
in the East Coast, their main card started at two
pm Eastern. This boxer card started on Triller at one
pm Eastern, and all their fights pretty much were going
the distance. And so by the time that the highvyweight
main event was over and I flipped over to the Zone,
which I had been sort of half heartedly monitoring up
until that point, I got there just as the Whitaker
fight had ended. Like that's how like, cause it was
one round. So I just had to rewind, you know,
on my stream, and I was watching on my phone
and was able to watch that fight, but it only
took me about two and a half minutes to do so.
So they concluded at the same time roughly, even though
one started a good hour before the other, because made
such quick work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was over with quick. All right, so there's
a little British. We will get to Stephen Fulton in
a couple of moments.
Speaker 3: But yes, no, I was gonna say, now the big talking.
You know, if you're into British heavyweights, I know there's
a lot of people that are apparently they're going to
look to do TKV to defend this British title. There
was a lot of chatter about him fighting David Allen,
who was the sort of the folk hero British heavyweight
of the moment that everybody seems to love win or lose.
So all right, and if you're into British heavyweights, that'll
be a fun fight.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we'll get Stephen Fulton in a moment. But
Manny Pacqui, how junior Jim Mule right that they're they're
calling him did have his pro debut on the undercart
of the Many Pacquiao Promotion show in te Mechula, California.
Speaker 2: And Jim Mule did not win the debut.
Speaker 1: In fact, there was no winner. It was a draw
with Brendan Lally. They were both making their pro debut.
I did not know this. I did not get this
from the rayphel preview in the build up that Brendan
Lalley is a part time high school teacher as well
as being a boxer from boxer. Now, all right, so
this this ends with being a majority draw. Two judges
in the four round fight had a draw. The third
judge gave it to Paqiao Junior. All right, give me
a thought or two here in a recap.
Speaker 3: Well, when you say that it wasn't a win or
a loss because it was a draw, here's the reality,
fair or unfair. It's a loss for Manny Pacao in
the hearts and minds of people watching for two reasons.
Number One, when you are the son of one of
the greatest legends who ever put on gloves in the
history of prize fighting, and you're held to a draw
by a part time high school teacher, you you laws,
you probably lost the fight. I mean, when you make
pro debuts, whether you're an Olympian or the progeny of
some famous fighter or the A side or the sign fighter,
and they bring in a school teacher or a you know,
some type of well, you know whatever, some person that
has this is not a full time box I'm not
the meaning teachers. I'm just saying if you're not a
full time boxer. You're the guy they bring in for
the to be in that opponent spot. You're supposed to
get wiped out. Most most guys who make pro debuts
with any semblance of accomplishment or with a promotional contract
or the son or daughter for that matter, of a
famous fighter, most of it, like ninety nine point nine
percent of the time, you go in there and you
absolutely destroy the person in like a couple of you know,
thirty seconds. I mean, there's some examples where it didn't
quite work out that way. We could go back to
the ridiculous pro debut of Robesi Ramirez who lost his
professional debut as an Olympic gold medalist. That was kind
of ridiculous. But Manny Jimuel Pacyau junior with father at
his side and poor Jinky his mother sitting ringside like
she wanted to cry every time her baby got hit
by a punch. I mean, he's twenty four years old.
He's not twenty like his dad was when he was
already a world champion. To just be real it, I mean,
maybe you know he'll prove everybody wrong, but coming off
those four rounds, this does not a long professional boxing
cur of a future champion. He lost the fight he did.
The ESPN deportees commentators had a thirty ninth to thirty
seven in favor of Lally. I had a thirty ninth
to thirty seven for Lally. Uh it turned out to
be majority draw. Uh, you know it is what it is.
I mean, clearly they were giving him the benefit of
the now pack out. But if you didn't know that,
that was many Paco son and they just stuck the
fighting in front of your face and scored these four rounds,
most likely you'd be scoring it for Brendan Lally, who
you know, looked like he just won the fucking lottery
when they announced the draw.
Speaker 2: How about that? All right?
Speaker 1: Again, he's not his father, he's not close to his
father yet. By the way, maybe it'll develop, maybe it won't.
Maybe he doesn't have anything.
Speaker 2: We don't know. We do know this, We have this.
Speaker 1: Now let me set it up thusly, you're about to
hear from Steven Fulton and uh, this was an interview
conducted over a month ago now, because we have been
waiting to play this for the build up to fight
week here for his fight with O Shaky Foster that
was originally sup to be part of the fight card,
right with Sebastian Fundora and Keith Thurman. That got Oilbert
October October twenty fifth, So Fondora got hurt. You had
done the interview. The interview is still good. The interview
is still Stephen Fulton talking about fighting Oshaki Foster for
Foster's WBC one and thirty pound title. All right, so
let's go to this conversation now for the Q and
A with the Philadelphia fighter who's the WBC featherweight champion
moving up in weight. This is on the undercard of
the PBC Prime Show PBC Prime Video pay per view
that is in San Antonio, Texas. Here is Dan with
Steven Fulton.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to start off with your last fight,
which was an oppressive win where you defeated Brandon Figuerreau
and you won this WBC featherweight title that you have
in a rematch when you guys fought a few years earlier,
back in twenty twenty one, that was to unify the
titles in the junior featherweight division. It was a tremendous fight.
A lot of people had it as a Fight of
the Year candidate you won a majority decision. A lot
of people thought that that he should have been the
winner of the fight. So I wonder when you went
into the rematch and you won and there was no
dispute this time, it was a very clear cut victory.
Uh how much did it did it mean to you
to show, like, you know what, forget about whatever the
dispute was, I'm the better guy. I beat this guy
clean this time. Yeah? I mean was that like important
to you to show that there was no dispute this
time about the outcome of the fight.
Speaker 4: Honestly, I just wanted the boat. I wanted to be
two division world change. I just wanted to bot.
Speaker 3: Do you feel like you performed better in that fight though,
than you did in the first fight, because the first fight,
whoever won, it was a really close fight.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think I performed a lot better. I saved
myself some years by now getting into a war, right,
So that was good as well.
Speaker 3: Was it a matter of maybe from the experience to
going the twelve with him in the first time around
that maybe yeah?
Speaker 4: I was familiar with them, Yeah, I was familiar with them.
His style. What's not being a ring with you one time?
Then the next time is like, all right, I got
I got you how you operate?
Speaker 3: After you won that fight and you uh won the title,
like you said, in the second division, that was after
though you had moved up from one hundred and twenty
two where you had been a world champion. Uh. After
you or I mean after you defeated him in the
first fight you moved up to or you you went
on I should say, uh as a unified champion, defended
the title. Then you traveled to Japan. You did what
a lot of people UH don't want to do. You
went over to overseas, to the enemy territory. Well you're
not scared.
Speaker 4: I know that these fights maybe, but they really be scared.
Speaker 3: Like I said, you showed you were no fear in
you because you did travel to Noi in a ways
home turf. In Japan, you were a champion. He was
the undisputed bantamweight champion. Moving up you were the unified
junior featherweight champion. Obviously, Uh. You know that was a
tough night for you. Didn't win the fight. He stopped
you in round eight.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: But was there anything positive that you could take from
that experience of, like you said, having a fearless nature
to go there, to give it everything, to fight in
front of that crowd, and to be in the ring
with one of the best fighters in boxing.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I could take. I took some positive things
from me, oh yeah. And one of it was experience.
It allowed me to be had more experience. And now
when I do fight, Yo, like when I fight in
the United States, I don't be nervous or anything like.
That's why I just walk around confident, but like just
quiet or just like unbothered at times when I'm at
these press conferences or face like when I'm fighting in
the United States, now I'll be unbothered. And it's because
of the experience of me breaking that barrier, of that
comfort zone being uncomfortable. I first went to Japan, it
was a little bit uncomfortable at first, but I was like,
I'm here now, so here.
Speaker 3: Like you said, you you you gained the experience there,
so are you saying that when you got there you
were there were maybe more nerves than usual when you
were getting ready.
Speaker 4: Just because it was a different element. But I wasn't
nervous for the fight. I was just it was nervous
of where I was, where I was like my location
and me just looking at everything I'm sitting. You're really
across the whole worlds about you. You really crazy, Like
you're really crazy. I said, no, that's why I do that.
I get a rush out of the challenge myself and
doing things like that. So when loser draw, that's that
still was like an amazing experience for me.
Speaker 3: Did you realize Steph, that a lot of people, whatever
the result of the fight was that you among the
boxing public and among the boxing press, even though it
wasn't a victory, you got so much credit for being
the one guy that raised his hand and said I'll
go there and fight the guy as the champion. Right?
Did that at least give you like a positive attitude
about it even though it didn't go the way you
hoped it would.
Speaker 4: You know, I didn't. I didn't care about it because
that's that's how I've always been. I've always been as
a since a child, I've always been the one that said,
you know what, I do it when everybody else was
scared to do something. Even as a kid, I was
the one, all right, I'll do it. That's how I
got this mark on my on my head. Like you
probably can't see it right. It was. I had a
little dent right there and everything everybody. I used to
be like a little dar devil. I think I might
have passed out. I got up too high and I
came right down on my face boom, and I slid.
How long hands everything I had? They had to wrap
my head? Was it a hospital?
Speaker 3: Looking back on the experience, how good is in a way?
You're the guy that was in there in front of
him in the ring, and a lot of people have him.
Speaker 4: He's good.
Speaker 3: That's you fought?
Speaker 4: Yeah, he beat me, okay, fair enough?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean look after that you moved up to featherweight. Yeah,
you got a good victory against Carlos Castro and the
eliminator that sets you up for the title fight that
you won this WBC title and now you're going to
one hundred and thirty pounds to challenge O'shaki Foster for
his WBC title. In that way, class, how did the
fight come about to you? Because it kind of to
me anyway, not that it's unusual for a featherweight champion
to move up and fight a junior lightweight champion, but
this particular matchup, But to me anyway, kind of came
out of the blue. Was this a fight that you
were campaigning for or did somebody from your team bring
it to you or did they make an overtore to you?
How did it all come about?
Speaker 4: Both? I had it in mine by somebody from my
camp brung it to me as well, But I had
it in mine and was who I wanted to Plus,
I knew I wanted to go up and fight for
that belt.
Speaker 3: For the one hundred and thirty Was it against any
one hundred and thirty pounds belt or foster in particular?
Speaker 4: It was really any, but like that was more reasonable.
So it was like, yeah, he did say something before,
so let me let me, let me let me go
up there and handle that.
Speaker 3: So if you win this fight, you do become a
three division world champion. You've been a champion at junior featherweight,
you are currently a featherweight champion. You would then become
one hundred and thirty pounds or eight hundred and thirty
pounds champion. What would that accomplishment mean to you? It's, uh,
you know, lots of guys have done it, but it's
still pretty uncommon to become a three division world champion.
Speaker 4: I mean a lot. It will mean a lot. Yes,
So that's my that's that's my main goal is to
you know, I'm just I'm just starting. I'm be honest,
I'm just starting to get motivated, like today for.
Speaker 3: The fight or just yeah, for the fight. What is
it about today?
Speaker 4: You know how it is in a fight week like,
well you have you haven't been a fighter.
Speaker 3: I know how it is as a as a media person,
not as.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so as a fighter. When you're around the atmosphere
of the of the fight, that's when it feels like
a fight, Like all right, yeah, all right, you get
that movie. It's like, okay, I'm out the fight. Really
about the fight? Doing these interviews is what's making me like,
oh damn, now, really about the fight is right here?
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I guess I'm glad to help it. I'm
glad to help with the motivation as you go to
one hundred and thirty. Though, when you think in the
in the in the more in the future, if you
do it all, do you feel like this is your
maximum weight or do you have harbor like the desire
maybe someday I'm gonna try to be a lightweight champion. Yeah,
I'll go up, you will go up again. So is
it fair to say then that whatever happens against Foster,
that you are done as a featherweight, and that you
will win or lose your vacate or would you, if
you win or lose, come back to featherweight to do something,
especially if you were the winner to defend the title
or have you not thought about that?
Speaker 4: When I went out, stayed there at one.
Speaker 3: Thirty, So all done at one twenty six.
Speaker 4: Then I'm gonna stay at one thirty?
Speaker 3: Okay, fair enough? How do you feel like you match
up with Foster? He's a couple in just taller than you,
maybe a little longer in reach, a similar number of
professional fights between you two guys.
Speaker 4: Feel like it's a good fight. Feel like it's a
good matchup. It's an exciting matchup. He's a box I'm
a boxer. So we'll have to error. Both parties will
have to switch things up and see how we'll fight
each other. My job is to make the adjustments.
Speaker 3: He's run. He's a talented guy. I've watched him fight
plenty of times. He runs a little hot and cold,
do you know what I mean? Like even in fights.
Sometimes when he wins, it's maybe not this and he'll
be the first to admit it's maybe not the best performance.
And you know, and the one time he lost, obviously
it was not a great performance on his behalf either.
How do you how do you think that he stacks
up with you in terms of his skills, his power,
his speed, things that you may have seen if you
watched any videos of him, that type of thing. That
last part again, just just I'm asking, like, your thoughts
when you've watched, if you've watched video thoughts on him? Yeah,
how you match up with him? Like you know, speed defense?
How you name it?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: I mean have you watched videos of the guy?
Speaker 4: Like a minute?
Speaker 3: You leave that to your trainer? I guess yeah, okay,
well I guess you can. You can give me a
more detailed explanation after the fight.
Speaker 4: I suppose, yeah, yeah, I could. Then I could talk
to you and be like, you know what, he did
this good, he did that good, he did that bad,
and that's why capitalize off for this with this that
X Y and Z.
Speaker 3: You know, you're kind of one of the guys carrying
the mantle right now for Philadelphia boxing. A great boxing community,
been great history in Philadelphia. Uh, how is the state
of Philly boxing? Now? You are a champion, you know
you got drawn boot Sennis. He's was the unified welterweight
champions now moved up to the junior middleweight division. But
what's the story in your mind with the Philadelphia boxing
scene right now?
Speaker 4: Like it's good because then you have younger guys coming
up under us, like Seline Bay. He's a great amateur
that's coming up as well. So we have some great's
coming up under us. But I feel like right now
me and Boost is holding the city down for the
long run. And I've been doing this so far for
some years now.
Speaker 3: Yeah it's been it's been a while, but you're still
a young guy though you're only thirty one years old.
So do you do you feel like you got years
left to go? Or are you looking at the exit ramp.
Speaker 4: A little bit of booth?
Speaker 3: Can you expound on that a little bit?
Speaker 4: We've been doing I've been looking I feel like I
have some more years on me, and then a part
of me still be like I want to be done
with it. We've been doing this since we was kids,
since I was twelve and thirty one, So that's like
you get tired of training, making weed, You get tired,
you get tired of all that stuff, not even just
the training aspect. I don't really get tired of training.
I get tired to make a week.
Speaker 3: Maybe one of the reasons why someday, like you said,
you'll be a lightweight. But first things first, you got
big business to do it. One hundred and thirty pounds.
Take care. It is against O Shocky Foster. Right. I
will just say thank you very much for your time.
I wish you the best of luck.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I like Dawhite. I like where you're going
in with all the Sanda look.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much. You got.
Speaker 4: A little pepper under here, though. You gotta get that too,
A little bit a little.
Speaker 3: Bit of pepler, all right, steph thank you very much, man,
I appreciate it. See take care.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: This is a very competitive championship fight, two known names.
If you follow American boxing and the smaller weight fighters,
give me a follow up thought, here is its fight
week now for these two guys.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that Stephen Fulton, I don't think anything
has changed other than the date of the fight. I
mean as far as for either him or for Foster.
This fight had already been postponed previously, because if you
go back earlier in the year, it was originally going
to be on when Tank Davis was supposed to be
in his return, which at the time was supposed to
be the rematch against Lamont Roach. That did not obviously happen,
so this had been moved around quite a bit. In
any event, were able to wait it out and still
get the fight together. I know it's a fight that Fulton,
as he talked about, he really wanted to have an
opportunity to win a title in another weight class because,
as we discussed, he's been a champion at one hundred
and twenty two pounds, he won the title that he
holds presently at one hundred and twenty six pounds. This
is a chance to go to one hundred and thirty
to become a three division world champion. And it wasn't
like Foster had guys kicking down the door to fight
in top rank. Who is this promoter does not have
a TV contract at the moment, so they're sort of
happy that they're able to put this fight on a
PBC card, still have him in a good fight, still
have him making good money still have some exposure to
the event, so you know, it sucks that they all
had to wait so long to get it on, but
at least it's happening. And like I said, you said,
even though we spoke, you know, at the end of October,
the information, the things he talked about as far as
preparing for the fight and the opponent he was going
to be facing, and the makeup of the division, all
that sort of stuff, nothing has really changed. So I
expect this to be perhaps not a slam bang, you know,
duke him out kind of fight, is just not the
style that either of these guys fighting, but competitively, like
there's reasons you can pick both guys to win. So
you know, we'll save some more of that for the
when we get to the actual preview at the end
of the week. But uh, it's a it's a it's
a high quality matchup between you know, two guys who
are maybe not on the pound for poundless, but two
really good fighters, who solid pros, two worthy fighters guys
who've been you know, have or have held world championships.
So uh, and they're two champions at the same time
fighting each other, although you know one is in one
hundred and twenty six pound weight class. One is in
the one hundred and thirty pound way class. But I'm
interested in this fight and it's uh, you know, it
adds the depth to what I think is a very
good pay per view card.
Speaker 1: Get a lot of name recognition. People know who these
guys are, so good stuff on that, and again I
plug away to the audience. They can hear from lamont
Roach on the previous pod. We will also put these
up on the pod feed as separate podcast. Lamont Roach
interview and this interview with Steven Fulton. Also go see
the video of these interviews. Will put them up on
the YouTube page. You talking on video to both of them,
so stand by for that coming up on the YouTube
on the Big Fight Weekend YouTube.
Speaker 2: Pitch.
Speaker 1: You idt a little news before we are done. You know,
normally you like to elaborate, giving me a rundown. You
gave me like four words update on Taya Fimo Shakur.
That's Taya Fimo Lopez and Shaquur Stevenson. All right, give
me the update and the fight fans the update.
Speaker 3: I think I was just too lazy for being brief.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 3: You can elaborate right now on the pod Earth Shouting.
It's just that this fight has been like the worst
kept secret maybe in recent boxing history. And because match
Room Boxing had its event over the weekend with Ben
Whitaker and Birmingham, England. When Eddie Hearn is off doing
his million YouTube interviews and other interviews, not only does
he get asked questions about the event that he's there promoting,
but he also gets asked about other things that he's
involved with. And I think Shaqurse Stevenson and tia Fimo
Lopez are at top of mind for a lot of people,
partly because if you take a look at the social
media posts that the fighters have made Shakur recently, you know,
talking about still grinding away and not taking part in Thanksgiving.
You know, like I'm getting ready for a fight. Well, yeah,
because you're probably Again it's not one hundred percent. They
haven't announced it, but I would think that this week,
now that the holiday Thanksgiving holiday is in the in
the rear view mirror, it's time to announce this fight,
and they'll announced January thirty first that Madison Square Garden
unless something as dramatically changed, which I don't believe it
has and we'll see the fight. One of the things
that was interesting, you know, there was a lot of
conversation before Chakor's most recent fight when he had the
big win against Williams of Paida. Going into that fight,
you know, he had, you know, his contract was very
short term with Mattrium and his manager James Prince, had
reached out and wanted to hire Lou de Bella on
their behalf to be the promoter and not stay with
Eddie Hern Turkey al Sheik you know, basically talked them
out of it, and he stayed with him for another fight,
and so I guess they're doing the same thing again
for this upcoming fight because he was asked on Eddie
was in some of those YouTube interviews about the matchup
and when asked he was going to be promoting the fight,
he said, yes, I'm promote the fight. So you know
it'll be a matchroom event apparently, uh and uh, but
this fight will happen and it's a it's a you know,
a big time all American matchup, and we just had
a fight that that a lot of people were very interest. Well,
we're gonna see what was the f we just saw
with with Uh, we're gonna see you know, Ryan Garcia
and Barrios probably in February. They're you know, American Mexican
American Mexican Americans fighting each other. You know, this is
one of those top notch kind of fights that you
can make among American fighters, right, I mean, there's not
that many, and this is you know, talking about bringing
back you know, good quality American matchups and not having
everything taking place in Britain or everything taking place in
Saudi Arabia. And so that's a good thing. And so
this is this is gonna be one of those Fights's
gonna get a tremendous amount of hype when it happens.
I imagine it's gonna do a nice crowd teethema. It
is born in Brooklyn, h Chakorus from nearby Newark, you know,
just a hop, skip and a jump over the uh
the bridge from New Jersey to uh, you know, to
the midtown Manhattan. So uh And and also it's a
kind of fight where whoever you think is going to
be the winner of the fight, I think whoever you
pick the other side, you can see having a chance
to win. You know, there's reasons why I can see
shir Court Stevenson winning this fight absolutely and by the way,
same thing goes for the possibility of having a tia
Fimo Lopez win this fight. So not not in any way,
shape or form out of the question. And we've had
some other you know, nice American matchups. We just had,
for example, Hanian Norman with all American kind of fights.
So this is sort of like getting back to those ways.
And uh, you know, there's not really that many top
toatch American fights you can make a beyond this, I mean,
and we just talked about like, you know, not that
it's on the same name level recognition, but Oshaki Foster
against Stephen Fulton is you know, on that kind of level.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And so this will be a pretty big event, and
hopefully they'll get an announced, uh you know, as soon
as possible, because I don't know what they're waiting on.
Speaker 1: All right, stay tuned, but maybe late January, probably in
New York. Yeah, Zerto Ramirez now looks like he will return.
We talked about this with David Benavitez. Benavidez announced in
the ring in Saudi Arabia. That's what we're doing. Sinko
Demayo weekend You've done some follow up reporting about this,
so it looks like that's what's happening in May cruiserweight
unified title fight. Zerto off of shoulder surgery to fight Benavidez.
Speaker 2: Moving up.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, ji Opataiah, who's in action, coming up soon here
he and his camp none too, please exactly upon this,
upon this revelation go ahead.
Speaker 3: Well, so, as we've discussed the Zerto fight against Benavitez,
that is a sign deal done for May second, with
the caveat of course that come January sixteenth, you're gonna
have Zerdo Ramirez coming off of that shoulder surgery that
your referenced, having a comeback just to make sure everything
is sound with the shoulder. He's gonna fight on one
of the Golden Boys, his own cards. He's taken on robins.
This has not been officially announced so far. As the
nineteen to zero Swedish fighter who fights out of Las Vegas,
who if you've heard of him, you probably know him
because he ended uh Sergei Kovalev pretty much like Covilev.
Took one more fight after that and then retired, but
that was his big win was against the aging and
not as good as he once was Sergey Kovalev. So
they all feel like this is a win for Zerto
and then I'll move on to that other fight. But
the point here is that the fight that so many
people had been talking about before the Benavidas fight came
into the picture was to see the three belt unification
between Zerdo and Opataia. And if you go and you
look at post fight interviews from their fights, in each
of their like most at least their last two fights,
they were calling each other out. I mean, for example,
when when Zerdo unified the belts against BILLM. Smith in
Saudi Arabia, right after the fight, he kept talking about
wanting to fight Opataia. When Omataia scored a big knockout
against Squeo and in his last fight, you know, he
was talking about how he wanted to take care of
I'd rather take care of Ramirez. Let's get this, let's
get this unification on stop running because he wants to
unified titles really bad. He's already the lineal champion, he
has the ring title, he has the IBF title, but
he wants some more of the belts. And so when
when this was announced, you know, uh, Zerdoormirez came out
and talked about how, you know, he liked this all
Mexican war with Benavides and it's going to be a
big deal and going to be a big hyped up crowd,
and you know, it's the kind of fight that excites him,
even though he would sure like to further unify. But
he was mocking Opa Tile like that he was stalking
him like I'm an ex girlfriend, like he was made
you know, he made some notes about you know, he's
talking about how you know, he says he called my phone.
You know, it reminds me of my ex girlfriends. Like
he was really giving him the business. And uh. And
the OPA Tie camp is like if they're enraged by this,
because it's a fact that Golden Boy, which is the
promoter for Zero, and the Opa Tie people, they've had conversations.
This is a fight that Turkey al Chic talked about
having interest in. Whether that interest has waned, I don't know,
but the point was they were talking about getting this
fight done once he was back from the injury. And
everybody knows that there was a mandatory that was due.
Zero did his mandatory in June. That was the fight
where he suffered the injury when he defeated Dordikos, and
now you have Opataia has got the upcoming fight on
December sixth against Sinkara his mandatory and that the thought was, okay,
after that's over, then we're going to make the fight.
But when they made the match with him in Benevide's,
the Opataia camp kind of freaked out and they both
had a lot to say about him and his promoter
from Australia, you know, from Tasman Fighters. They just you know,
Mick Francis. They just went off on him. And so
the battle between them just continues outside the ring. Will
it lead to them eventually fighting for bigger stakes in
the cruiserweight division? Hopefully if Opataiah goes the business. He
said of David's and and and Zero do their business.
And should Zero win the fight.
Speaker 1: Let me be very profound here on a Sunday night.
You love this stripping with sarcasm. On a scale of
one to ten, Opataiah versus Zerdo in the United States
is about a three or of four. Opataiah has name
recognition worldwide, is font and sli Rabe whatever. He's not
that enormous a deal in the United States. Bena Vetez
is a big deal to fight in Las Vegas. Zerto's
got a California fan base. My man Rayphael loves to
say commercially viable. That fight is about an eight on
the commercial. I won't give it a nine or ten.
It's about an eight. So you go where the money is, obviously,
and that's why they're going to do that fight first.
Speaker 3: Well, I totally understand that. I'm not even arguing with you, but.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying you are there.
Speaker 1: Opataia's people can rant all they want, but the bigger
fight for Zerto after he does this thing in June
is to fight Benavide.
Speaker 3: I guess the missing part of this discussion is we're
not sure what happened to the interest that Turkey Alchik
had in the fight, because he did mention it, and
whether they pulled back a little bit on it or
the timing was a writer. They don't have another event
scheduled at a time where it was conducive to do
that particular match. I don't know the answers. All that
I know as a fan putting, you know, whatever the
dollar figures are and all that I'm very interested in
the Opataia against Zero fight, but I'm also very interested
to see Zero against Benavidez. They're both good matchups from
an excitement standpoint in the United States. Obviously, Denavide's against
Serto is bigger because you put a big, all Mexican
kind of fight like that, you PLoP it down in
Las Vegas on the single to my holiday. Yeah, we're
gonna have some razzle dazzle and some excitement going on.
Speaker 2: We agree all One more note.
Speaker 1: Kazuto Ioka Kasioka four division world champ, has been saying
he's gonna move up to bantamway. We've now learned that
that is going to happen at the end of this month.
Explain a little more in detail. He's seeking a fifth
world title in a different weight class here, what about
Ioka at one eighteen?
Speaker 3: So he he and i in a way are the
unless I'm forgetting somebody. To my knowledge, they're the only
two Japanese boxers to win world titles in four weight
clas now. He did lose to Puma Martinez in the
in their back to back Junior bandamweight title fights, one
of which was a unification the rematch was only for
the one of the belts because of the IBF doing
IBF things and Bernando Martinez vacated before. Ultimately he lost
last week to Bam Rodriguez. In any event, Ioka announced
after that loss in the second fight that he was
not retiring that he was going to move up to
the bantamweight division to look for another world title to
try to get that they try to get that fifth title.
Now that fight, as you mentioned, is now said, so
he is coming back. He is going to fight in
a WBA title eliminator against a Venezuelan fighter named Mikael Ordsgati.
It will take place on Djang on December thirty first,
on New Year's Eve, which is a for those who
don't know or have never thought about, this a very
traditional time for a big boxing event in Japan, sort
of the same way we see a big fight in
the United States on Single Demayo or that Mexican Independence
Date weekend, where we've seen him take place on on
the traditional that the weekend in June and New York
on the Puerto Rican Day, Prairie weekend. You know certain day,
certain weekends or times where it's popular. The thing that
blows my mind about Ioka, who is to me a
borderline Hall of Famer, is that he's not just having
just another fight on on Januar, on December thirty first, TJ.
This is going to be Now he's in his sixteenth
year as a professional boxer. This will be his thirteenth
time fighting on December thirty first, and there's one other fight,
a fourteenth fight where he fought on December twenty ninth,
which is you know they make they usually have that week.
Speaker 2: Loves that time, loves that time frame.
Speaker 3: That's crazy. You're talking about Canelo like owning Cinco de
Maya or back in his day, you know, Oscar de
la Hooia owning Sinco de Maya or whatever. Ioka, you know,
owns the New Year's hellity in Japan. So he's going
to tee it up with this Venezuelan challenger to try
to become the mandatory challenger in the WBA, and we'll see. Now,
the thing that's interesting about the matchup is if he wins,
he becomes the mandatory for the win. Now, the WBA
champion is Shudsumi. He has a title fight that is
scheduled against the interim title no Nito don Air. They
are fighting also in the month of December December seventeenth,
So theoretically, if you know, the winner of the December
thirty first fight would become the mandatory for the winner
of the December seventeenth fight. But in Japan, the bigger
talk of in boxing is not so much if Ioka
is the winner to go for the WBA belt. It's
for him to match up with Takuma in away who
just recently won the WBC title. And if you follow
the politics of Japanese boxing, one of the reasons why
for a long time that was seen as not makeable
was because similar to what we see here in America
sometimes is they were fighting on separate platforms on different
streaming services. But Ioka is moving to a new streaming
service for this upcoming fight, which happens to be the
same one that is shared by in a way, and
so it would be more conducive for him too if
he wins to challenge Takuma in a way for that
title not go in the WBA direction. And the scuttle
butt out of Japan is if that fight gets made,
it could wind up as like an undercard fighter, a
co feature when there's a very strong possibility if everything
breaks the right way with wins coming up on the
undercart of a potential in a way meaning Noya in
a way against your boy Janto Nakatani next, that would
be a mega cart in Japan.
Speaker 1: All right, But again Ioka moves up at the end
of the month to ban them weight. All right, good
stuff here off the weekend to get us rolling in
the month of December. It is fight week for this
Pitbull Lamont Roach main event PBC on Prime pay per View. Again,
you'll hear from You've already heard from Lamont Roach on
the pod feed. You can go find the video of
that interview upcoming on the Big Fight Weekend YouTube page.
You heard from Stephen Fulton on this podcast fighting Oshaki
Foster on the undercard of that. We look forward to
that fight week. Other than that, I think we're good
off the Thanksgiving.
Speaker 3: Week any else Japanese bannam weights and British head What
a show we did.
Speaker 1: We spanned the globe like wide world of sports and
gave you a bunch and I know fans are appreciate this.
I talked to a couple of more people that communicated
with me socially, etc. They're like, we love the fact
that you guys are still going going, preview into the weekend,
recap off the weekend. The peeps and the savages are
out there. Show us some love, rate us and review us.
Spread the word that helps in the algorithm, share it socially.
Speaker 2: That all helps.
Speaker 1: Dan and I keep putting the work in here, my friend,
have a good week. We're ready to rock on and
later in the week preview this upcoming show in San Antonio, Texas.
Speaker 2: More on that later in the week. Big Dan Rayfield,
thank you.
Speaker 3: Give bet TJ.
Speaker 2: There is Dan Rayfield. I'm merely TJ Reeves.
Speaker 1: Applespreaker, Spotify is where you can find this all the
podcasting outlets you've been listening to the Fight Preach to
Night Recap podcast