Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, off of a weekend that has seen Christian
Mobility step forward and get a dominant decision win and
really put himself in the picture for potential. The name
is out there at Canelo Alvarez down the road, Mobilly
gets it done. Heavyweight Action season upset for Guido Vannello.
We're ready to recap these fights, the entire Top Rank card.
It is the fight Freaktion Nighted recap podcast. I am
the somewhat competent host TJ. Reeves, he is our insider. Hello,
Dan Rayfield. Off the weekend, a weekend that has seen
me travel from West central Florida to Jacksonville, Northeast Florida
and back, including in the middle of the night while
the Top Rank show was going on full disclosure. You're
trying to hold down the fort without missus Rayphael, and
that may be tougher action than trying to fight Christian
Mobili Right now, between you and holding the house down,
how are you off of the weekend?
Speaker 2: I'm doing fine. And the fact that my son set
off our fire alarm about five minutes before we started
to do the podcast, so I've been a little on intent.
Speaker 1: We should point out unattention and authorities not called. You're
not at the moment having a deal with the fire department.
Speaker 2: Authorities were called. I started going off like fucking crazy,
and I had the phone calling as it's connected to
the ad T people, and I got the fucker's calling
me in my house or you have a fire on
the first floor? Is everything okay? And we got that
all straight out. I got the alarm turn off, and
then then I got my wife calling. She's in a
work conference and she got the cost too, says everything okay.
So it was fucking crazy in the moment. So just
hold on, hold on. I'm halfway through my time as
mister mom. We've survived two days so far, going we
can make it till Wednesday, and we got the first
day of school on Monday, so it's to be determined
what happens.
Speaker 1: Currently, we're in the middle of the of the storm.
We are in the eye of the hurricane. We are
facing savage punches to the hand and the body from
Christian mobility, whatever metaphor you want to use.
Speaker 2: I feel like devn tango about round.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, all right, So but there is hope. There
is school tomorrow, so good luck with that, by the way,
full disclosure, M two take the driving test my sixteen
year olds tomorrow. I may I may be calling the
fire department for that when it's all said and done.
But anyway, we give you a little peek into our lives.
We recap fights, we've got news, we've got nostalgia, We've
got much more. Rate us and review us. Let's go.
Let's go with some ratings and some reviews. Do we
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that before. Give us some five star reviews, Apple Spreakers, Spotify,
make sure you're following and subscribing. We may have to
bribe you coming up to give us some ratings and
some reviews. We don't mind doing that. Rayfield's got the collection,
He's got some extra items. He might have a perforated
card of a fighter out of a Japanese fight magazine
like he described before that he might want to I'm
not giving those the way, bro, But I don't know
if it's some no name fighter from you know, back
in the day, Henry Akin Wande or something. I just
threw a name out. You may throw some more names out,
you know, whoever. Donny Lalan we talked about him before.
If you got suddenly a card perforated from a Japanese
fight magazine, who knows what you might give away a
room key card with a fight poster on it or
who knows, So we might need to brye. But rate
us and reviewers. Please do that again. So I was
working NFL preseason bill. You talk about a struggle to
get through. It got through the Buccaneer preseason game. Can
we reduce the number of preseason games please? I'm just
saying that, just a public service announcement. Get through with that.
I get to the vehicle we're driving back. I'm not driving.
I'm now aware of the Vanello win and the gnarly
nasty eye for Motmadov. I now suddenly pick up the
Mabili fight in about the fourth or fifth round as
we're driving back. I have seen the highlights of the
Vanello fight. I've seen the back half of Mobili's impressive win.
But here we go to you. This is what we
do on the recap podcast. Give us the recap because
you were locked in the entire way, riding about it
on your substack, etc. So go ahead.
Speaker 2: Well, in terms of Christian of thebilly. I mean, it's
not a surprise that he won the fight. I think
we all expected it to be a good fight, which
it was, even though it was one sided. But I
do think that I and many others thought that devin
Chenko would be more competitive in the fight in terms
of maybe winning rounds. But that was about an as
an authoritative victory against devin Chenko as any of his
other opponents who have defeated him have scored. That was
as dominant as it can be. Now there are some
that would say, well, he was hampered because he tore
his biceps in the fight, which you know, the ESPN
crew caught it on tape. They showed the replay. You
could literally see it tearing in slow motion and rolling up.
Kind of gross. That happened in like round number four
out of a ten round fight. So that was perhaps
part of the reason why it was as one sided
as it was. Perhaps it's also because devin Cheko, even
before that occurred, he is thirty eight, he's been in
a lot of wars. He's maybe you know, on the
downslide at this point, obviously in the twilight of his career.
But mobility as strong as a bull, aggressive, seems like
he takes a good shot. You know, younger by almost
ten years against his opponent. It was a good performance
from Abilly. I mean, it was a learning experience for him.
It was by far and away, in my opinion, the
best opponent that he has faced. But let's talk before
we get to my abillity. I want to talk about
Devin Schenko. You want to talk about a guy with
big balls and a big heart and an ability to
take punches and take punishment. And you never even saw
his face change, like he's like an assassin, Like you
don't know if he's up five points or been on
the canvas ten times. I mean, he just walked through
the fire without an expression changing. I mean, and outside
of the ring, you know, he's one of the nicest
guys you'll ever meet. I mean, just humble and friendly
and that's a cool guy. But he he took an
absolute beating last night, you know, damaged arm or.
Speaker 1: Maybe too tough for his own good. And I saw
your tweets while the fight was going on, and again
full disclosure, I was not able to hear the commentary.
I'm in the car, we're driving, we're driving back. I
don't have it a full blast, but I don't and
and I guess Tim Bradley was advocating that maybe they
should stop the fight. Rayfield was certainly advocating, I've seen
enough in the eighth round and the ninth round. Here
it's only a ten round fight. It's a one sided fight.
Was he too tough for his own good? And maybe
you corner have saved him last night?
Speaker 2: I believe so. I you know, Tim Bradley was perhaps
a slightly dramatic, but I get it because Tim is
a fighter, and Tim has been in those types of fights.
I mean, you know, I'm going to definitely defer to
a man that has done what he did against Ruslan Pravadnikov,
for example. Uh So I don't when he talks about
stopping a fight, I don't take that lightly. I mean,
if anybody knows, it's a guy that's been in those
types of fights. From my perspective, having seen lots of
those fights and unfortunately seeing fighters be seriously injured and
or die, you know, especially at that's I mean, I
shouldn't even say especially it's never good for that to happen, period,
but when you are damaged like he was in terms
of being a one armed fighter. He could only throw
his right hand because because the left biceps was horn
So he's down one arm, which is a tough and
any fight. Number Two, he's thirty eight years old. He's
already taken a bit of a shellaking. He's not a
big puncher. He's way way behind on the scorecards obviously.
I mean, you know, we didn't. It's not open scoring.
But you got to be a fucking idiot to know
anything other than the fact that he's down that maybe
he's won one maybe if you were generous, two rounds
in the fight. So at what point is enough enough?
I mean, you know, and this is a fighter also,
by the way, who even though he's probably the highest
paid fighter in the history of boxing with a fifteen
to five record or a fifteen and six record, I mean, now,
to the credit of his team, and I'll shout out
his manager, Keith Connelly, Sergi Devronchenko has made millions and
millions of dollars. He may he has probably grossed over
ten million dollars in his career, and that's because he's
had fights he made, you know, good mid to high
six figures for that fight. He's made good money against Charlow.
He made great money against Golovkin, Danny Jacobs, he made
a lot of money. I mean, Jimi Mongia, he made
good money. I mean, this is a guy that's fought
top guys and has gotten excellent pay. So he's not
a guy that's like you know, and by all accounts,
he's not somebody you're not gonna see him walking down
the street, is you know in Brooklyn where he lives,
you know, flashing twelve necklaces and you know, with a
with a bunch of people around him, with a big
entourage and you know, driving fancy cars. He's a you know,
a humble type of guy with a family, and you know,
I think he saved his money. So that was not
about you know, fighting for the next payday necessarily, and
even if he got stopped, he can still fight for
another day. I keep seeing people saying, well, you know,
it's a big deal to preserve the fact that he's
never been stopped, because that's gonna make him, you know,
get that much more money in the longer. About so
we got one time in a tough fight. I mean,
he should probably think about calling it to day anyway.
Speaker 1: Uh So, where do you just be down in the
eighth round, in between rounds, ninth round, in between rounds,
shouldn't corner have stepped forward and just said, you know,
serge enough here, like I get.
Speaker 2: The fact that you're gonna I get the fact you're
gonna let it go a little bit. And you know,
they were they knew about the injury to the arm.
Can you throw a hook? Can you throw a jeb
can you do this? They were trying to coax them
through it. They're putting ice on it between the rounds.
So I'm not saying that they should have stopped it immediately,
but it got to a certain point. I want to say,
maybe after round seven where he took a huge amount
of punishment in that round, and Andre Rosier, who's his trainer,
you know, who's been with him for a long time, yep,
you know, was thinking about it and he was saying,
I'm gonna give it another round. Well, okay, if you're
gonna give another round a y he's got very little
chance of a one punch knockout number one, or even
a two punch or a three punch knockout for that matter.
Then he comes back to the corner, nothing's really changed
and you still let it go on. So I know,
no disrespect to Andre. I'd known Andre for many years,
a good dude, obviously a top trainer for many many years,
has work with a lot of good fighters, including Sergey
devin Cheko, including Danny Jacobs and others, Richard Kome, et cetera.
I felt like the fight should have been stopped. I
really do. I mean, And I'm not I'm not a trainer.
I'm not in the corner, but I have watched enough fights.
I've seen enough guys take punishment for are warriors who
he was never going to quit, a guy like devin Chenko.
He took an extra basically two to three rounds of
intense punishment for really no reason other than the fact
to say I went the distance, which in the end,
you know that that ain't gonna pay your bills, you
know what I mean. So I felt like it should
have been stopped. Now, to deviren Chenko's credit, you got
to tip your hat for one of the toughest dudes.
Oh sure, the biggest parts you'll ever see. Never say die.
And he was really taken a shellacking, and in the
end it was Mobili who won on the scorecards. Anyway,
ten to nothing on one card, nine to one on
another card, which is how I had it. I think
I gave him the fourth round, which was actually crazy
because that was around where he actually messed up the arm,
and then one judge had it eight rounds to two,
which we talk about all the time. DJ the range
of acceptable scorers. That was the range of acceptable scores
anywhere from a shoutout to maybe giving him two rounds.
Speaker 1: And Mark Krigel, the unofficial score for top rank and
ESPN had at nine to one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So I mean, and in watching it, I'm sitting there
watching it, going, this is a one sided eight two,
nine to one type decision. I thought the same thing.
His face is bruising, so we've covered that.
Speaker 2: The thing was I want to say that in terms
of fights, when you're watching, in terms of are you
being entertained as a crowd pleasing, A lot of times
we think just about what the winner is doing. I
find there to be some of the drama, and the
interest is how the guy that's getting his ass kicked
is persevering and getting through it. That is so to me,
that's the more uplifting part. So you got it. You
give him ability the credit for the win. But what
made the fight to me in terms of like my
attention being like wrapped as I'm watching, this is watching
not mobility do the work and take them apart. It's
watching watching devin Chenko absorb it and never quit. That
to me is like more dramatic than the other guy
pulverized him, and.
Speaker 1: To his credit, he was firing back. He was even
firing back in the tenth round. He was trying with
whatever he.
Speaker 2: Had left, just didn't have anything on the punches.
Speaker 1: Me coming back that sometimes the corner has to save
the fighter from himself and the fighters will even sway.
I'm waiting for my corner to tell me that's it.
Speaker 2: How about Michael Griffin? The referee was like, you might
as well be sitting on a rocking chair in the
corner looking at the fight, because he never even I
never noticed one moment in time where it seemed like
he was even looking that close stop in the fight.
And all I kept thinking about was, you know, Michael
Griffin was in the ring the knight that a Donna
Stevenson was punched into a coma in Canada by Alexander Vodzig.
I'm like, dude, what are you doing? At least look
at the guy, at least assess him. Go up close,
get in the corner between between rounds, right, what are
you doing now? The other thing that pissed me off
was they never really did that type of you know,
having the I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about this.
I don't remember seeing the doctor come into the corner
or like in the in the heavyweight fight we're going
to talk about, there was multiple cases where the bell
would ring and they would call a time out because
he had the bad eye with the bruising, and Macmaduke
and the doctor would examine him and they would allow
the fight to go on. I don't remember that ever
happening in terms of this fight in the main event,
because he didn't have any kind of you know, injury
that you could see. You know, it's when it's starking.
You got a bloody eye or a busted nose or
you know, some kind of obvious problem. Although the you know,
the bicep was certainly an issue, but it's not as
stark because when you got an eye that's swollen up
twelve times size of what it should be, so there's
less Uh. I guess uh, noticing of that, so you're
not gonna necessarily stop and call a time out and
have it be examined. So I just thought, you know,
I don't want to get too emotional and say that
they were like derelict in their duty or anything like that,
but I just felt like between a trainer like Andre Rosier,
who's very experienced and has been with Sergei for a
long time, and a and a top notch for many,
many many years Michael Griffin to not even really like
do anything serious about thinking about stopping. I mean, yeah,
Andre said I'll give you one more round, but it
didn't mean anything because he just let them round. You know,
you gotta you gotta say to the guy from a stopping.
You know a lot of trainers worry all that they
stopped the fight. I'm gonna get fired. You know what
if they stopped the fight and he fires Andre Rosier,
So what the guy? He's barely got any fights left
in his current anyway. So I don't know, I just
felt like I'm watching what especially.
Speaker 1: The circumstances the worst with the biceps injury at biceps
injury and also exactly right, this is how you can
also lead to guys getting seriously hurt and then you're
regretting the rest of it. Okay, so we've sufficiently covered
that part. Let's propm mobility for how good he looked?
Vicious overhand right right, body punching, landed what like forty
something body punches in the ten round fight. All right,
what's his short term future? And is that name Canelo
that I alluded to maybe a guy maybe that's on
the radar for Mobili in twenty twenty five. How realistic?
Speaker 2: Well, that's what Mobilly wants, That's what he wanted even
before this fight. The reality is he's ranked number one
by the WBC. It doesn't mean he's the mandatory, but
he is number one in the organization that are obviously
very well aware of him. He's ranked in other organizations also.
It's hard to get a world championship fight in the
super middleweight division currently because you have Canelo Alvarez with
three titles and you've got the other title that was
stripped from him in the IBF that is vacant. That's
going to be fought for by your boy William Skull
against Vladimir Chikan, which will take place at some point
in you know, the next few months probably, so uh,
you know, he's not going to get a shot at
those guys now he I don't know if he made
the case, like, did you see anything in the fight
against Devin Shanko that was so overwhelming that it would
kind of catch Canelo's eye? And I say that for
this comparison, before he opted to fight John Ryder or
not John Ryder? Uh, who is the fighter that he uh.
Speaker 1: The horror? Right?
Speaker 2: No, no, No, What I'm saying is before Canello selected
Jimi McGee as his opponent that took place this past May.
One of the things that jump started that possibility was
a tremendous amount of conversation among fans and media that
that Mangia had done what Canelo couldn't do, which is
he won against against John Rider. But he did what
Canelo couldn't do, which was to stop him and do
so impressively, and that kind of ignited Canelo's interest and
that led to the fight. If you take a look
at what UH and Billy did against Devon Chenko, I'm
not sure, despite the fact that it was a one
sided ass kicking, that there was anything that's going to
suddenly make people like myself or fans uh that are
gonna say as suddenly, well, you know, Canelo needs to
fight this guy. Now, I don't saying I would be
a post to the fight. I'd be perfectly fine with
that fight. And I think just from a toughness standpoint
and a power standpoint that and Billy would you know
he might he would hang in there with Cane.
Speaker 1: Hypothetically if Mobilly fights another contender fight sometime in the
in the rest of this year and looks really impressive
coming off the derivd in Chenko, now it's a more
compelling case. You're just saying, right now, is it compelling enough?
And it's probably not compelling enough.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, If Knello Albarez is
going to continue to box and he's going to continue
to have events and he's still a champion, you can't
just go in the ring and not fight another person
on the other side of the ring. You need guys.
And if you ask me a guy like Mbilly who's
an entertaining fight fighter that Canela wants to fight guys
that make good fights. He always says, who's a good
puncher who's obviously got he's got. You saw the personality
to come out of him when he was started singing
to the crowd. You know, he definitely has a little
swagger to him, so I do think that could be
built up into something good. It's that he needs to
get know now. They it's good for him to talk
about wanting to fight Canelo Avers and that's fine. Obviously,
Canello's got to deal with Edgar Berlanga coming up in
the h in his next fight in September. The more
likely scenario, and I'm not saying it's definite, but this
was the fact even before this fight took place. I
wrote about this when they did the deals. Top Rank
is working with himI Mangia. He's going to fight against
Eric Bazinian, another one of the Canadian fighters that's in
the similar stable as Mobility. They're going to fight September twenty.
It's on a Top Rank card in Arizona. And if
Mongia is out of that fight with a victory no injuries,
then the fight that Top Rank has told me flat
out that they'd like to do is Mongia against Christian
and Billy. That's a fantastic sign that puts the winner
in a great position because if you're not fighting Canelo,
you gotta fight other shit to do in the division. Sure,
you can't just sit around and not do anything. So
for a fight that's not for a title, that's not
you know, like a big pay per view or something
like that, I think a fight between and Billy and
and uh him and McGhie, that's just about as good
of a fight as you can make in the super
middleweight division in terms of entertainment value without a title
is anything I can think of unless I'm just you know,
spacing out and by one other If Tenko won the fight,
we would have been talking about maybe Mongia and Devren
Chango in a rematch.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure, one other thing and then I want to
move on to the rest of the card and the
other stuff that we've got going. Mabilly has one other
leverage thing that he's built a following in Quebec in Montreal,
and Montreal has had a bunch of world title fights.
Would that somehow factor in Canelo comes to Canada. I
know you're shaking your head. I'm just playing amateur matchmaker
that that's an angle to help sell that fight beyond
just him having to look devastating in the ring and
be number one ranked, et cetera. Does that have any help?
Speaker 2: No? He first of all, he's not as he's not
that level of an attraction in Canada. Seems like there's
a lot of empty seats over there in Quebec City
the other night. Uh. And so the answer is no.
I mean, it's one thing to draw for a local
fight and bring in a few thousand people. Uh. Canelo
doesn't do Canada. Canelo doesn't go there where there's you know,
high taxes. You want to fight Canelo avers you're coming
where he wants you to fight. That's probably Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: So that hampers him in that regard to if.
Speaker 2: It's not, it doesn't, It doesn't hamper him.
Speaker 1: He's still well attractive. What makes him the most attractive option?
And maybe it is now a Mongia win, another win,
a convincing win, maybe makes him more attractive.
Speaker 2: We'll see if we talked about what what did what
did Mugia do against Ryder in comparison to what Canelo did.
Now we're in a situation where maybe John Ryder, I
mean not John Ryder. Maybe Uh, the billy and Mongia
fight each other, and maybe among billy stops in Mongia, possible.
Speaker 1: Which did not which Canelo did not do.
Speaker 2: So again the same situation. Now, maybe Mongia wins the fight.
I don't know if that's going to necessarily it certainly
in my mind doesn't trigger a rematch against Canelo. But
here's the very very basic thing. Canelo Alvarez is going
to always need opponents to fight. And who doesn't want
to have a good opponent like and Billy in the
pocket to select when you've got a guy that makes
good fights, that's got some swaggering personality, who's undefeated, who
by the way, is number one in the WBC and
ranked in the other organizations as well, and there's not
a single boxing fit out there, and we'll look at
that fight and say that's trash, that's crap. And I'll
tell you right now, there's probably a lot of people
out there that would probably say, let me see m
Abillity rather than Berlanga.
Speaker 1: Interesting. All right, co feature fight. As you mentioned, gnarly nasty,
swollen left eye. We both thought that mak Madou would
end up winning instead. Guido Vanello credit him, he gets
the victory. And this also, as you put and we
talked about a little bit in the build up in
your substack. This Avenge is an earlier career loss for
Vanello as well. What a what a win for him?
And again here we go back to how long are
we going to let this go on? With a left
eye swollen virtually shut from early on in the fight.
And finally it was what the eighth round when the
doctor and the referee agreed, Okay, that's it. It's done.
Your thoughts on Vanello's win there in the heavyweight division.
Speaker 2: You know, I liked Vnello when he turned pro out
of the Olympics. I got a little less impressed as
his fights went on, and then he lost to Johnny Rice,
and then even though it was a competitive fight, he
lost to Faa Jagua. I gotta give him credit though
here he is against a big, strong guy like Mac macduff, who,
by the way, showed himself in my mind to be
one of like the least athletic heavyweights with big power.
You'll see like just has no fluidity to him, terrible footwork.
I mean, I'm not trying to tell you I'm Eddie
Futch here, but you don't have to be, you know,
Emmanuel Stewart or Joe Gooseen. Eddie Futch or any other
top trainer to notice just the basic flaws in his game.
You know, Vnella was like more of as a heavyweight
go anyway, a classic of like boxer punch or he's
light on his feet, he moves really well, he's got
a good long jab. You know, technically he's a lot
better than Mackmandu. But mackmcdof. You know, what I had
seen was he just got that brute strength and can
knock you out. But he didn't really seem like he
he had much of that the other night. The main thing, though,
is this Vannello as down as people were on him.
You know, when he lost the fight that Jagba, in
his mind he thought he won the fight. It was close.
You could argue he got he should have got to win.
But he he took a lot out of that. Like
he he performed about his best as he ever had
even in the loss that you know, according to his comments,
that gave him confidence and he was able to put
it all together, said, this was the best I'd ever
been in my built in my preparation for a fight,
Like he was really locked in mentally and physically. He
looked in great condition and you know, you got to
give him credit. Fought a good fight, perfect kind of
game plan, showed a lot of toughness, showed a lot
of heart. You know, he suffered a bad cut over
his eye, like that was a vertical cut. That blood
was right and kind of running into the corner of
his eye. But but he was the guy that was
snappy with his right hand, good jab through some body
shot and kept him off balance and tied up when
he had to and did some damage. And that I obviously,
and I don't know if it was a head butter,
if it was a punch. They never really made that clear.
But obviously it was a punch. That's what they said
because that's what ended the fight. They didn't go to
the scorecards. But that was as bad as a as
a as a swollen eye. I kept thinking about it.
Wasn't I mean as to think about the swollen eyes
you've seen. I'm thinking in like Rocky was where he
tells Mickey to cut him. You know, that's the type
of dwelling that there was. So obviously Macmandou was was
hampered by the fact that he's a one eyed fighter.
If we saw Devin Chenko is a one armed fighter.
In the main event. We saw Mac mcdou as a
one eyed fighter, you know, in much of this co feature.
But that's a career win for Vannello. That's gonna get
him other fights. He's now thirteen and two with the draw,
still got eleven knockouts, only thirty years old, which by
heavyweight standards, he's still somewhat on the younger side. And
he can he can play in the sandbox with any
of these guys. I mean, I saw some people suggesting
when Jared Anderson comes back with top rank, that's a
fight that they can do in house. That would certainly
create some interest based on the performances that they've both
had in recent fights. But it doesn't even have to
be that because Vnella can now put himself in the
conversation for you know, I'm not saying he's gonna be
fighting Tyson Fear, Alexander Russa, g Anthony and Joshua, but
pick a heavyweight you know you can fight your boy out.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, what about my boy a Jet
Cabayel on a Saudi card or something we talked about
in the build up, not only on the pod, on
the preview pod, but also on the bet Us show
that part of the lure here is that the winner
is maybe gonna get to be in there against an
a side contender as the opponent by winning this fight,
and Viennello is now maybe put himself you would have
to think in position where it's you know, maybe somebody
like that or somebody like Joe Joyce or Chisora or
what you know, there's gonna be the way the heavyweight
division is currently. There's a lot of money to be
made and a lot of interesting fights by a lot
of guys who are all around a similar sort of level,
who are entertaining guys. You know, there's the obviously we know,
the top top guy who were fighting those gargantuan fights
with fury U sic Joshua Uh, you know, was gonna
be involved with one of them with Joshua coming up.
But then there's a bunch of other guys behind them,
whether Joe Parker, your boy at g Cabiel, you know,
joy Jelai. You know, I just say, like Nacola, yeah,
but now now, I mean, I'm not saying Vanello is
necessary even on those guys level, but he's not in
the conversation that he can be. He can be in
any of those types of fights and it's not going
to be viewed as like it's not credible. And he
does make pretty decent fights. I mean I've watched basically
every single fight of his professional career, and uh, you know,
I was impressed. I mean, I gotta give him credit.
I thought that he was a huge disappointment after the
couple of fights he lost, not to mention, there were
fights where he won where even though there wasn't a
question about what the result was, he just left you
kind of yeah, you know, just not a not a
dynamic kind of performance. He's seemed offully pedestrian, but he
grows to the occasion. And I can't make Makmandoub out
to be some kind of boogeyman. He's be was, you know,
did not show a lot of heart, did not show
any and two fights ago when he got absolutely waylaid
by Cabel in one of the Saudi Arabia cards, when
he scored you know, three knockdowns stopped him in the
fourth round. This was back in December on our great
part we love so much the Day of Reckoning. So
now now Machmandou, who's thirty five years old. By the way,
he's now lost two out of three fights, and two
of the losses were by stoppage, so you know his
situation is as kind of dire if you will. But
Vanello man, you know, good, good, good for him. He
looked good and he moves on, baby, all right, so
promising things for him. Speaking of promising, Abdullah Mason you
talked about in the preview mode, and it did not
take long for him to get a knockout here on
this undercard.
Speaker 2: Tell me more, Well, I think it's very clear at
this moment that the Abdullah Mason, who was a lightweight,
who was twenty years old from Cleveland, he's the best
prospect in boxing right now. I mean, flat out. I
don't know who else is. I mean, I know people
talk about I mean they talk about Andy Cruz, they
talk about this guy, they talk about that guy Cruzes, twenty.
Speaker 1: Yegs name, Diego Pacheco's name comes up.
Speaker 2: And there there's a lot of great prospects. I mean,
I said Cruz because he's only got like three four
four fights, I guess.
Speaker 1: But Carrington, he's much older.
Speaker 2: He's much older, and he's also got an Olympic background.
We're talking about a twenty year old fighter that never
had those like open amateur fights, that did not have
international experience to any degree. Uh, he's spectacular. I mean,
we don't know what the future is at all, but
right now, the the sky is the fucking limit. Because
he is a puncher. He's got good skills, he's got speed,
he's got good size. He doesn't seem to struggle with
the way. He's got a very tight knit family unit.
There's not a lot of noise around in terms of
like the distractions outside. You know, it's there's not a
big entourage. It's like him, his dad and his brothers
who are also fighters. They all look out for each other.
I remember, you know, meeting him. I was at his
pro debut, which was on a card in Las Vegas
that took place the night before at Canelo Alvarez fight.
And I met him at the pro debut and I
don't know him well or anything, but set aload to
him and was introduced to him and his dad. Humble
the light but an animal when the bell rings, I mean,
but not the thing that I like about Mason. And
you can't say this for a lot of twenty year
old fighters. It was already not by the way fifteen
and oh with thirteen knockouts, the maturity level that he
boxes with in the ring, if you didn't know he
was twenty and you looked at sort of the poise
he has, Like when you see him score a knockdown,
a lot of young fighters just go crazy and want
to just rush the guy and just bomb them out.
Mason will take the step back, he'll take a look around,
he'll throw a body shot, he'll throw a chef. He's
thinking three or four punches ahead what he wants to do.
It's not just about rushing in and trying to just
destroy the guy. I mean, there's a real thought process,
seems to me. So he's got the not only the
physical abilities and the youth and the speed and all
those attributes physically speaking, but he's got the mental thing
going on too, where he's intelligent about the way he
goes about out taking his opponent apart. So he was
fighting a fighter named Mike Ohan Junior who was like
nineteen and two with a whole bunch of knockouts. This
was like a considered I think from his perspective, from
the top ranks, the matchmakers and the folks at the company.
This was like a step up kind of fight for him.
This was a fight where they're like, hey, we can
get him some rounds. He's gonna go some distance with
this guy. And nothing could be further from the truth.
I mean, you know again, Oh and he had nine
knockouts coming in, so you weren't necessarily he had a
bunch of knockouts, but not against the top opponents. But
he'd been in the ring with some decent guys, like,
for example, a couple of fights ago or three fights ago,
he had fought the twenty twenty United States Olympian Tiger Johnson,
who's also a top rank fighter. They fought at one
hundred and forty and Tiger Johnson stopped them in round five.
But now he was back fighting at lightweight and Mason
just tore him apart in two rounds. I mean, it
wasn't even competitive at all. And the thing about it
was the punch selection, uppercuts, body shots, right hand, left hands.
I mean, he does have the full arsenal. Some guys
you see, especially early on, you know they're a one
trick pony. Yeah, he's gonna get you with the right hand.
You got to watch out for it, but it's hard
to do. Abdulla Mason was throwing punches from different angles
and the upper cut was beautiful. It's just, I mean,
it's hard and I don't want to like tell you
he's gonna be Sugar Ray Robinson. I'm not getting too crazy,
but it is hard to watch him. Sure, and having
watched several fights him because it was already you know,
he's cap rank has been keeping him busy. He's not
you know, he's not at the level where he's gonna
be only fighting a couple of times a year. So
this was already his fourth fight of the year. He's
looked spectacular in every single one of them. He's going
to fight again, probably come, as he said in his
post fight comments. Probably he'll be scheduled sometime in November.
I mean, he's a he's a tremendous talent. So to me,
as long as he keeps doing what he's doing, you know,
stays away from injuries, stays away from the outside. The
distractions had always come along, it seems, when guys are
on the rise, keep that tight knit. Don't let anybody
infiltrate the circle, you know, keep it tight, keep listening
to your brothers and your dad, and he's going to
go a long, long way.
Speaker 1: Well, and you are somebody that has seen this. To
the positive, go the correct way and to the negative,
go the wrong way. So interesting advice you're giving there,
and you like what you have seen to this point.
So that is the Top Rank.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't have to be a rocket scientist at
all to be impressed by watching this kid fight, especially
if you watch him. He's not. I'm not I'm making
my comments based on Justice performance on Saturday. This is
over more of the body of work of having seen
virtually every single one of his fifteen professionals.
Speaker 1: You've done this for a long time and I've done
this too, and a lot of people that observe this.
You can tell. Does the guy have the goods? That's
a phrase that always comes around. Does he have what
it takes? It looks like right now to you, this
guy's got the goods, He's got what it takes. Can't
he get there? That's the intriguing part. What's going to happen?
Speaker 2: So there's the heart part, you know, the heart third
part now was how does top rank handle him? They
can't just match him with like you know, schmears.
Speaker 1: He's too good for that squash fights.
Speaker 2: You know, a guy like Ohn Junior who he blitzed,
who was a very credible opponent. He blitzed him also,
so he's you know, they gonna take him the next
step up. Uh and now what what level are you
gonna talk about? I heard, uh, you know who was
that that was they referenced on the broadcast. I think
it was a tweet by our buddy tiith Idac saying
that now the matchmaker's gonna look to like match him
up with like the likes of a of a Jose
Padraza for example, or somebody like that.
Speaker 1: Top rank.
Speaker 2: I don't know is he ready for that? He probably
is at this point, top.
Speaker 1: Rank, well known opponent, B side fighter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Richard call me they were talking about.
I'm not saying that that's what top rank's gonna do,
but a guy with a name that has some credibility,
that's been a champion. I mean, that's probably where he's
headed for. I don't know about then in the next fight,
but certainly, uh, you know, come twenty twenty five, and
you know it, certainly it gets to a point also
with some of these younger fighters. He just can't hold
him back. There's no reason to hold him back. I mean,
they're they're they're gifted athletes, and they're doing extremely well.
I mean, you know, to use a baseball analogy, you know,
when when certain players are doing what they're doing in
the minor leagues, at some point you just got to
bring him up to the big league because there's no
reason to keep him down there. I mean, I'll date
myself go back to like the mid eighties when the
Mets brought up Dwight Gooden when he was what nineteen
years old, and.
Speaker 1: He's right, that's Tampa's Dwight good and brought caught up
to the Mets as a nineteen year old, and he
was devastating. It was time to see what he could do.
You're a man, Derek Jeter. He played with them five
minutes in single A, Single A, and they said get
him up to Double A. And he played for like
a week or two in double A, and they said
get him up to the Yankees.
Speaker 2: Well he played more than a week or two. He
played fifty games or so in Double A. And you
know what, I know that.
Speaker 1: Why I know that because you were covering some of
the games because.
Speaker 2: No Rayphael covered Derek Jeter as a double apels.
Speaker 1: What I mean, but it along and the understood this
could be greatness. This guy's got the goods.
Speaker 2: If the guy's ready to go, the guy's ready to go.
In top rank, in my opinion, in is excellent at
determining that if a guy needs fifteen to twenty thirty fights,
they're gonna give it to him. If the guy's ready,
you know, had to go sooner than later, they'll they'll
match him appropriately. So you know, again with Mason, I'm
not saying he's ready to be fighting for titles at
this point, but it seems to me like they can
definitely step him up to a significant level after what
he's been doing in the recent fights.
Speaker 1: All right, good stuff on that for the recaps, And
we're aware that Denzel Bentley won the Queensberry Show with
a second round easy knockout. Again, he's ranked in the WBO,
He's not ranked at middleweight in the other three organizations.
He's still got to win some more. Suffered a loss
a couple of fights ago, so we acknowledge that it
is a recap podcast. He did get a win but
it's not like Denzel Bentley suddenly in championship contention, even
in a light in a middleweight division. As we like
to joke, your word is berefed, my word is devoid
of star names. It's gonna take a little bit for him,
but we were aware that he got the win in
the Queensbury show in in London. Okay, news and then
some nostalgia here Louis Alberto Lopez. As it turns out,
after that devastating knockout of the year candidate left hook
from Angelo Leo to take the IBA featherweight title. We
have an update that Luis Alberto Lopez actually had to
be hospitalized in the aftermath of that five what's the update,
Dan Well.
Speaker 2: The reporting from our buddy mar Kriegel on the ESPN
broadcast was that after that when he went to the hospital,
he was diagnosed that he had a small brighten bleed.
Brain bleeds. Obviously there's different levels of seriousness, but they're
all serious, and that's when a fighters die from being
in boxing matches. That's generally the cause of what happens,
and it's just because the bleed is so bad. Fortunately,
it seems like they got this. You know, it was
very small and able to take care of, and he
was in the hospital, like you said, But it does
call into question whether I'll ever be able to resume
his career because most of the time that's a disqualifying
thing in many commissions where they're not going to license.
You've had that documented. He's on a suspension obviously, which
he would have been anyway even without the brain blade
from the New Mexico commission where the fight with Angela
Leo took place. And uh, look, that's nothing a joke about.
I mean, as I've said, I have been unfortunately that
fights where fighters have died. Uh, yeah, it is. It
is still a rare thing in boxing. But what causes
the death is you have bleeding on your brain and
you know that's that causes uh serious, Yeah, so thank god,
you know, I don't I don't know if he had surgery,
it didn't. It marked insane his report. I made a
couple of costs today. It is Sunday, A lot of
guys were traveling in terms of the top ring and
that sort of thing. So I'm just glad he's okay,
I guess, and uh, I have no idea if he's
ever gonna fight again. But it just shows you uh,
you know, we saw a knock out of the ear.
You know, he saw a situation that that perhaps has
altered the rest of his career or or taken away
from it.
Speaker 1: And it's it's what we talk about all the time.
You cannot we don't. I don't say this lightly and
try to oversell and over dramatize, but the double impact
when you smack your head like he did on the
canvas came to serious injury and even death on a
brain bleed and swelling of the brain. And that one
was devastating.
Speaker 2: And that's why when we start to show and we're
talking about should they have stopped the Devon Chanko fight.
H this is the kind of thing I think about.
You know, he doesn't need I mean, look, it's a fight,
but there's fights get to a certain point where they
transition from being a competitive athletic endeavor to just barbarism.
And in my opinion, the Devon Tchanko fight went to
that second level where there was no reason for the
fight to continue. And yes he made it out of
the fight, yes he went the distance. Hopefully he doesn't
have a brain bleed now. This was a different scenario
because the brain bleed was not in terms of the Lopez.
We don't know when it started, but clearly there was
a cataclysmic ending to the fight in terms of the knockout.
But that's that's the type of thing you think about
when when you're like, all right, they need to stop
this fight. There's absolute zero reason for it to continue.
So I think about that. Brain bleeds are nothing to
joke around about.
Speaker 1: All right, Dan, you'll keep his posted. Be locked in
on the substack too. With Dan and his social media
and the Substack email newsletter, et cetera. Fight Freaks unite
for the latest. There. Oh, I know what's coming now,
Jeron Ennis? Okay, can't we have good things? Correct me
if I'm wrong? Is Jiron in us not one of
the hottest names right now in the welterweight division, if
not arguably the hottest name in the welterweight division? Am
I correct on that? I'm not overstating that right?
Speaker 2: He just did a huge crowd at home in the
first title fight in Philadelphia. Yeah, look tremendous in that fight,
knocking out David.
Speaker 1: I know what I'm coming to now. We have news
that the IBF is ordering him to make a fight,
which in and of itself isn't unusual, except it's whom
the fight they want him to have is against, and
Rayfael's ready to go off three two one blast off.
Speaker 2: They want him to fight Karen Chikazian, a Ukrainian fighter
who is twenty four and two with thirteen knockouts, who
you may remember that in January of twenty twenty three,
Yes fought drawn boots Enna's in Washington, DC. Uh huh?
Was I was there ringside for that fight. It was
on the undercard when Tank Davis fought Hector Luis Garcia
and what happened in that fight They were fighting for
the interim IBF title at the time, the interim title
and drawn boots Ennis. He didn't just win the fight,
he won literally twelve rounds to zero on all three scorecards.
The only thing that Karen Chakazi couldn't say after that
fight is eye lasted the distance with Bootsennis, right, but
he lost every single round of the fight. It was
a shitty fight to watch. Since that loss, he's come
back and he has defeated three fighters in a row,
none of whom was gonna make you look at boxing
ranking and say this was a top ranked fighter. He
beat the at the legendary Michelle Marcano, who you may
have not heard of. I don't think I was a
second round knockout. He was twenty nine and seven with
a draw. He then moved on to a fight in Germany.
In October of twenty twenty three, did scare a ninth
round knockout in an IBF Intercontinental welterweight titled Doubt, which
is why he's associated with the IBF because he has
fought for their regional belts. And then in a I
guess it was an eliminator that took place this past May.
He beat on a twelve round decision, the legendary thirteen
and two Harry Scarf, and that's now enough to put
him in the mandatory position to fight Ennis again. It'd
be one thing if he never fought Ennis. It's still
grumble and get pissed off because he's fighting and nobody
you know when he's getting this opportunity with that easy.
Speaker 1: We saw this already, That's the point.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't like that long ago. There was nothing
compelling and it just as I said before about other
instances with sanctioning bodies. I'll say it again, it's the
IBF doing IBF things. I've said this a million times.
One of I always talked about the rules of the IBF.
They follow them generally, although they've broken them recently a
couple of times. That we don't have to get into
as it related to Ennis, by the way, as related
to the heavyweight interim title, but I'm not in the
mood to even go off even more on that. Here's
the problem. One of the many things I say about
IVF roses, they're antiquated. They don't work in the current
boxing environment where you know, guys fight twice a year.
Sometimes they have not caught up to the current business
the way the sport is done. So to force him
to fight a guy that brings absolutely nothing to the
table athletically, competitively, marketing wise, entertainment wise, there's just literally
nothing about Jakazi, and that says, you know, I must
have a title fight or I will strip Geron Boots
Ennis of the belt. I mean I must, I must
get a rematch. I must get a rematch with had
the opportunity and improved over the course of a twelve
round fight that he can't even compete for three seconds
against this guy.
Speaker 1: So you want to say it, go ahead and say
it is what are we doing here that we have
to see this again? Or you might strip Jiran of
the title please.
Speaker 2: So this puts everybody involved in a tough spot. Boots
Ennis goes and has the big homecoming fight against Avin Scan,
a late replacement for Cody Crowley. Mattroom does a bang
up job promoting the event and its draws in a
great crowd and its looks very good in the fight.
He gets the knockout against an opponent that's a far
superior opponent than Karen Chikazi to my estimation, and now
he's got all a heap behind him. Right, he's done
the hometown. Everybody's excited. Where when's Boots fighting? When's Boots fighting?
We're excited to note. You know, they've talked about he's
coming back in like around the November timeframe, sometime before
the end of the year, and they were going to
look around to try to find a good opponent. They
were talking about like maybe we can do you know,
a unification. Eddie Hearn has made video saying we offered
a unification against Mario barrios. Now they say it was
this quote unquote substantial offer. I've talked to people on
the barrio side who basically laugh and say his definition
of a quote unquote a substantial offer does not meet
anybody's definition of what actual substantial offers. But that's besides
the point. It's a first offer. They would like to
put boots in a unification fight. Now, the IVF rules
will say that if you can come to them with
a unification that would take precedent over a mandatory. The
problem is, once they order the mandatory, then the clock's
kicking on the purse bid that they can't do that.
So here's the point, the purse bid for this fight
between or the negotiation period, which would happen before the
IBA would actually schedule the PERSPID. They're in that like,
they're within that window right now. That window expires in
a couple of weeks. If they can somehow put together
a unification fight between now and that cutoff date, which
I forget the date. I want to say, it's like
August twentieth or something like that. So maybe they could
do a step aside deal, but that would piss me
off also because why should you have to pay a
guy to step aside who doesn't even remotely deserve the
fight in the first place. The mandatory fights were made
for people who are aggrieved, guys who are desperate to
get a shot, who can't get a shot, who nobody
wants to fight, who've done what they're supposed to do
but are avoided for obvious reasons. Chakaziin just had the
opportunity in January of last year and did absolutely nothing
with it, lost every second of every round to the guy.
And even if he's come back in won fights, Sage
came back and beat a top guy, he beat a
bunch of nobody's and now he's gonna get the opportunity.
And it just drives me absolutely fucking crazy with the IBF.
They just are bad for boxing. They're bad for business,
they're bad for the promoters, they're bad for the networks.
If you're dezoned, would you spend five fucking cents on
fucking Karen Chakaziin and a Giron Ennisroyette. Eddie Hearn must
be eating his heart out right now. The guy did
a fucking great job doing the Evanescent event. They made
Edison to a thing, and now they got to take
a step back and have him fight this dude, give
me a fucking break.
Speaker 1: Rightfield is cranked. It's IBF doing IBF things, and you
you went down a laundry list and none of it
applies here. Makes no sense, makes no sense, all right?
A couple more items. Devin Haney on social media says
he wants to get back in the ring. He was,
you know, obviously beaten in the ring by Ryan Garcia.
The decision is now overturned because of the positive drug test.
So what do we think about when we might see
Devin Haney again real quick?
Speaker 2: Well, he went on in social media and you know,
and if you just back up to the fight, I mean,
after what happened with Garcia, the loss then becomes a
no contest. Ryan Garcia gets suspended because he used peds.
And at that point, Haney had been ordered to do
his mandatory defense against Sander Martin of the WBC Junior
Wealthway title, which he kept even though he lost, because
it become a no contest, and so therefore, well, I
didn't even have to do it. The no contest I
had to do with the fact that Ryan Garcia, even
if he had won the fight, and he was going
to keep the title because Garcia didn't make the weight,
but in the end, because he was gonna take some
time off and really was sure he wanted to do.
Don't think he really was interested in the Sander Martin fight,
which was not a big kind of fight. Bottom line
was he vacated the title and was granted his request
by the WBC to he made the champion in recess.
But and so he was gonna take a break. But
now he went on a social and he says, I'm
you know, I'm ready to come back. It's about time
to come back. You know, I gave you all three
months and now he's ready to go. And so, okay, cool,
I'm happy to see Devin Hanny get back in the ring.
CEV he can shake off, you know, that situation from April.
But the what was interesting about that is when he
wrote that a few days ago on his Twitter account.
I refuse to call it ASTs fuck that, it's Twitter
to made always right.
Speaker 1: Most people still consider it that.
Speaker 2: It was Turkey al Chic who wrote who responded to
Haines's message said waiting for you in riad uh And
then Haines, you know, tweeted back at Turkey saying, uh,
you know whatever he said, and then at the finished
it with it, you know, see you soon, brother. So
I do think there's a very strong possibility. Remember, Hani
is a promotional free agent. You know, say whatever you
want about what happened in the Garcia fight. He's a
known guy. Now he's you know, somewhat polarizing the some,
but certainly people know him. He's still a talented fighter.
I think there's absolutely no question in my mind that
we could end up seeing him fight on a card
in Saudi Arabia. And I'm not saying this is the reason,
but it probably doesn't hurt whatever the relationship might come
to exist between Devin Haney and Turkey al Sheik. They're
both devout Muslims. They share that. I'm sure Devon would
have you know, it would be very interesting then for
himself personally to fight in a Muslim country like Saudi Arabia.
So there's a lot of things going on there. And obviously,
if he's gonna stay in the junior wealthyweight division, will
still be notable opponents. And as we've discussed numerous times,
you know, Turkey al Sheiik's got a budget to use
and can make fights that he and and the fans
and the fighters want.
Speaker 1: Certainly at one forty their interesting name. So that leads
right into what the WBC has decided to do with
that belt that Devin Haney vacated. So the person bid
is canceled. Here for the fight that they were looking
for Devi and Haney to fight, Sander Martin, tell me
about the fight that's now going to happen.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, So after Haney gave up the title and
was reclassified as the WBC's one hundred and forty pounds
champion in recess, the interim title holder Albert Pueo was
elevated from the interim to the full title, and with
that happening, he inherited Sander Martin as the mandatory challenger
and that fight was ordered. They had up until I
believe it was July twenty third to make a deal.
The thing was posed, the purse bid was postponed a
couple of times. They were getting close and anyway, this
past Friday I got a text message from Ursio Suliman
saying that they had made a deal and the purspid
was canceled. No date yet, no site specific yet, but
The bottom line was there is now a deal between
Pueo and Sander Martin for this mandatory fight. It will
be Santa Martin is co promoted by Top Ranks as
well as another promoter in Europe, and Pueo was with
PBC and promoted by TGB Promotions Tom Brown. But TGB
and Top Rank made this deal. It was a fight
well take place before the end of this year. It
will be on a PBC card. Whether it's on a
Prime video card, whether it's on a pay per view undercard,
still not clear, but it's they've got a deal done
and now they're just figuring out which one of their
shows they're going to put it on. So that's the
next step. And I mentioned Maurcio Suliman by the way,
and I just want to take a quick minute to
send the WBC president condolences on the passing of his
mother over the weekend. I know how close Maurcio certainly
was to his father, Jose, who was a former president
for many, many many years of the WBC position that
Mauricio took over when his father passed, and now his
mother has passed. In there a very close knit family,
and I know people have a lot of things they
like to say about Maricio and the WBC. But I
know Mauricio personally for many years, and I like Maurcio.
We don't agree on everything and people know that, but
he is a good man in my opinion, and I
just send my condolence system in his entire family on
the death of their.
Speaker 1: Mother, obviously on that. All right, nostalgia time now, and
my goodness, we go all the way back to nineteen
ninety third, twenty four years ago today on August eighteenth,
nineteen ninety I remember this fight with the Dark Destroyer,
Nigel Benn fighting in the United States on Network TV
against Iran Barkley. Again, I keep saying to this all summer.
I've said this to you over and over again. I
don't want to accept that that was nearly thirty five.
Speaker 2: Years accept it, Bro, Accepted, Bro, I.
Speaker 1: Guess we have to. But the nostalgia is it did
not take long for Nigel Ben to become what he captured.
The He retained the WBO middleweight title and become a
more known commodity in the United States with a first
round knockout on Network TV. Dan right Field.
Speaker 2: All right, so this was a time in nineteen ninety
where yes it was the WBO belt, but in the
United States anyway, the WBO belt was like basically meaningless
at that point. I'm not knocking the WBO, I'm not
knocking the fighters that platform, but in the general consensus
of boxing media, fans and those in the sport, the
WBO didn't mean shit back then. But nonetheless, in retrospective we.
Speaker 1: Might have mentioned it was thirty four years ago, so
that's a long time for it to develop and it
has okay, go ahead.
Speaker 2: So Ben had come from the UK. He was working
with Top Rank at the time, and he had a
series of fights in the United States where he was
fighting in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and he had fought you know,
other defenses here on those top ranked shows. So now
he's taking on Iran Barkley, who was a you know,
a brawler, a known fighter, a guy with a made
excellent action fights. They matched him up at Balley's in
Las Vegas. This was ABC Wide World of Sports on
a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, Dan Dierdorf and Alex Waller doing.
Speaker 1: About how about that name? What a trivia easter egg
that Dan Dierdorf the former football lineman who was on
Monday Night Football. He became kind of the next boxing
announcer after Al Michaels was no longer doing boxing on
ABC and Jim Lampley, you guy, Jim Lampley had moved
on to HBO. Deardorf kind of slid in to call
fights and Dan Dierdorf's all on the call here.
Speaker 2: And just to put it in the perspective of where
we were in Nigel Ben's career, as big of a
superstar as he became, this was right, this was the
I mean, this was a spectacular shootout. We're going to
get to the fight in a quick second, but this
was the fight right before he suffered the loss in
a huge first fight he had against Chris Ubank back
home in the UK later in nineteen ninety, just a
few months later, and then of course they went on
to have even a bigger rematch that was one of
the biggest fights that you know, British fans have ever seen.
But in terms of this fight that took place between
him and Iran Parkley, I mean you can find that
on YouTube and by the way, it won't take very long.
It literally lasts won round. I mean, it's I think
it ended at like two minutes and like fifty eight
seconds or something like that, I mean to fifty seven.
I mean, it was just a great shootout kind of
fight you want to talk about, like think about the
first round of Hagler Herns where they just charge it
out at the other and just start blasting away. That
was basically what this was. Like, I mean, it was
it was just bell rings, boom, and they just they
hit the gas ped at like sixty miles an hour
and you know, they just started swinging for the fences.
Speaker 1: Two guys that made up their mind right away. There
is no feeling out here, there is no get you know,
angles and used a jab and get loosened up. It's
let's go, I agree, this is let's.
Speaker 2: Throw monster over and rights from the fucking opening bell.
And in the first like fifteen seconds, Nigel ben landed
a couple of heavy punches, right hands mainly, and he
dropped Iron Barkley again literally is like fourteen fifteen thirteen
seconds into the fight. He did hit him while he
was down and took a warning from the referee. Then
later and then after that sequence occurred, you thought, okay,
Barkley looks like he's about done. You know. Within the
first thirty seconds of the fight, Barkley comes storming back,
has some huge shots that land has Nigel Ben backing
up and in trouble, and you just got like this
chaotic first round going on. Then later in the round
he got Barkley, he lands, he like launches like an
onslaught of shots. You got Barkley going down again once again.
Nigel Ben hit him while he was down, and the
referee didn't take a point or even the point warned him.
I guess could have on the second one could have
disqualified him, but didn't do that. And then when the
fight resumed they're teeing off on each other again and
Nigel Ben gets in a couple more shots and Barkley
gets dropped for the third time. This was the only
disappointing part about the fight, because as a great of
a first round shootout as it was, it didn't come
to like the natural conclusion. Because this was back in
the day when the three knockdown rule was still in effect,
and so because Barkley had been down three times, the
referee had no choice but to stop the fight. So
Barkley on the third knockdown. He did get dropped, but
it wasn't so hurt that like he couldn't go on
it and see he was up in like, you know,
a split second and probably could have carried on and
we'll see a little more chaos. But that was right
at the end of the first round. On the third
knockdown fights over But what a you know again, there's
there's a handful of those type of first round like
shootout kind of fights, and this is one of them
where you're just like, oh my god, you know, for
three minutes, I'd rather watch three minutes of that chaos
and back and forth, you know, then some boring piece
of shit twelve rounder that you just want to then
Duran and his Charon Chikazian for example, where I wanted
to fall asleep and you know, maybe go to the restaurant.
Speaker 1: Going back to that, Yeah, great youtubed that up kids.
From nineteen ninety to Summer fight of nineteen ninety, All right,
move forward teen.
Speaker 2: Just let me to say about that. Jigel Ben was
in a bunch of those types of fights now, I
mean he was in in in whether they were long
fights or short fights. I mean a lot of tremendously
exciting fights. That's why he's such a beloved figure in
the UK boxing.
Speaker 1: No doubt, still still loved to this day. So move
forward ten years, ten years ago. On Monday the nineteenth
August the nineteenth of two thousand and speaking of the UK,
Nasim Hmed the Prince scored a tremendous knockout in a
main event fight in Connecticut at Foxwoods in Connecticut on HBO.
And you were there ringside back some twenty four years ago.
What do you remember about Prince? About Prince Dasim Hmed
and this ko.
Speaker 2: This was a fun fight. This was a fight where
a lot of people were critical of Hamed's and hbos
selection of Augie Sanchez as the opponent. Augi Sanchez was
best known as a guy with a tremendous amateur career.
He had beaten Floyd Mayweather and the amateurs back in
the day. Was a prospect coming up, but he proved
he just had no ability to really take the shot
and had been stopped you know, here and there and
ended up having his career peter out. But he did
get this opportunity, the challenge Hahmed, who was defending the
the at this time, the WBO was more recognized. He
was defending that title for the fifteenth time in this
fight coming to the United States. Remember he's in the
midst of this big HBO contract that he was involved in,
where he had been you know, fighting for the last
couple of years. People were building up. This was this
was his fight that took place right before he fought
Prince Nasim, I'm sorry, before Prince Asad fought Marco Antonio Barrera.
So this was like the end of like the let's
call it the prime Hahmed because he got smoked by
Barrera in you know, a decision and then he just
had a long often fought one more time and retired.
So this fight against Augiy Sanchez, though, this was still
the pompous, arrogant, you know, snack talking, you know, just
way wag his finger at you, Prince Nassim doing his thing.
I remember going to the press conference at at Foxwoods,
and I think Augi Sanchez, his wife was not yet
twenty one. She was twenty. He was. You know, they
were young. They were in their early twenties. You know,
Augie was whatever, twenty five. I don't know what he
was at the time. The wife was younger, and they
they were late coming to the press corrs because they
wouldn't let her go through the casino I'm remembering correctly,
and it took her to take the longer They had
to take a longer route to get to the press cart.
Speaker 1: It was circular navigator round.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Ahmed had such a at this point, he
had such a like a give and take back and forth,
but negative relationship a lot of the British press who
had been on him because he wasn't fighting the top guys,
and I remember him launching in they he just he
really got into it with some of the British press
guys that I've known for many years, by my old
boy Colin Hart and some of the others that were
there covering the fight. But for whatever reason, I mean,
and I was at this time, I'm working at USA
Today and I had interviewed Hamid a couple of times.
I had covered the fight in Atlantic City was my
first USA Today fight when I was on like a
short period of loan period there. For whatever reason, I
think Nas kind of liked me and so while he
was bitching and moaning and having them back and forth
with the with the British press, like he would go
out of his way to like, you know, call on
me or smile at me or say what do you
what do you think about that Dan or whatever? It
was like right, like whatever. So I always like I
never took all the crazy rhetoric from him. He had
too Seriously, I kind of always looked at it kind
of like he had a kind of a glimmer in
his eye. But that man could sell a fight. And
August Sanchez, who was from Las Vegas they called him
Kid Vegas, came into the ring. They had hired for
like a lot of money, I guess, and you know
this was gonna be like his one big person. I'm like,
why are you blowing all your money on this? They
brought him this whole review of like Las Vegas dancing
girls to like Elvis Presley music, complete waste. And I
remember his manager August Sanchez was Cameron Duncan, who you
know died not that long ago. And I remember Cameron
having a conversation from at one point where he was
like beating his head against So I cannot believe they're
wasting their money, our money on this nonsense of this
this Elvis Presley get up to come into the ring
and anyway. But they went into the ring and they
had to fight, and it was a far better fight
than anybody expected. Most people figured that Hamed is gonna
blitz him in a couple of rounds and it's going
to be over and out. But to August Stanchez's credit,
he actually scored a knockedout against Hamed in the second round.
But the referee fucking blew the knockdown call. Just Mike Ortega,
who was a well known referee, has done a thousand fights,
who's usually a very good referee, just completely boxed that calls.
It missed it completely. Hamed came back and dropped him
in the fourth round. This was a good shootout also,
I mean, it wasn't quite the level of what we
just talked about with Nigel Ben and Iran Barkley, but
a very funny fight. And finally when he scored the
knockout in the fourth round, he put aug Sanchez out
and I mean, Roggy I had to go to the
hospital cat Scans. I mean again, I remember talking to
Cameron that night when they were worried about him in
the hospital, and he finally was like, yeah, he's gonna
be okay, but it was a scary, fucking knockout come
in absolutely obliterated him in the fourth round and just
left him like.
Speaker 1: That's the thing about the Prince that we keep conveying
when we do this nostalgia. And I'm disappointed you didn't
tell me what the ring walk was for the Prince.
He came in on a magic carpet one night on
HBO two. You know, I don't actually suspended from the arena,
but it must not have been remarkable to you to
remember it twenty four years ago.
Speaker 2: I don't remember his walkout as much as I remember
the aug Sanchez, but this Aggie was down for several minutes.
Speaker 1: I was going to say the one thing you could say,
for all the arguing and all the flamboyant or whatever,
the dude would would launch bombs from all angles and
lay people out. And it happened again here in this fight,
for all the all the disputes up until the Barra fight, it.
Speaker 2: Took him out on a stretcher. And I mean, say
whatever you want about Ahmed, he is also a guy
that was very polarizing. But he should have had all
four titles at the He would have been and should
have been the first fighter to have all four belts
at the same time, you know, as the WBO was
becoming more known. But because of politics, you know, he
had fought like Wilfredo Vasquez who ended up having to
vacate the WBA because they wouldn't approved the fight with Ahmed.
He got stripped to the WBC title after he unified
and beating Caesar Soda. He should have had all the belts,
but the Sanchez fight took him out on a stretcher.
I'm gonna say this about Princess Hem I've always been
a huge fan of I mean I watched them of
his fights on ABC. Also some of his early fights
that I first saw run on a Wide World of Sports,
and then he had a handful of fights on Showtime
as well. In the entire history of the featherweight division,
he might very well be the greatest punch of Oliver,
certainly in the top few. I mean, there's no question
that he is one of not only I shouldn't even
say in the fatherweight division, maybe in the history of boxing,
but certainly among featherweights. I mean, just an unbelievable puncher, devastating, devastating, puncher.
I mean, I think the other historical figure that people
think about in terms of featherweights for their massive punching ability,
Sandy Sadler right the time Hall of.
Speaker 1: Famer Salador Sanchez. Maybe not the one punch power, but
yet power.
Speaker 2: But not not at the level of what Sadler and
Ahmed did in my mind. I mean and looking up
Sadler's record as I just am doing here, one hundred
and forty five wins, one hundred four knockouts, whoo fighting
at a time period when boxing was you know, top
of the food chain in the nineteen you know, nineteen forties,
in the fifties.
Speaker 1: But I mean for the for the younger fans we
say this all the time, for the under thirty year olds,
the gen z Ers and whatever, go back and watch
Jahmed's power, what the man is talking about, what Big
Dan is talking about. Watch him laying people out with
big bomb, single punches. So that's it's not an overset.
Speaker 2: So what's what made Ahmed fun Also was he was
vulnerable because he threw punches from such bizarre angles.
Speaker 1: Hands it inside, yeah.
Speaker 2: And just never kept the feet under him like he
was so off balanced because he didn't give himself the
he didn't plan his feet the right way, so we
you know, if your feet are not if you're not
leveraging your feet under you, you know you're off balance.
You know, even if it's not a heavy punch, you
might get knocked down. So he was down against Kevin Kelly,
he was down against aug Sanchez, although the referee didn't
call it. You know, he was in some other shootout
type fights where he was showing some vulnerability. But the
Augustantez fight for just in terms of just your fun,
just a great shootout for four rounds. No, it wasn't
on the Kevin It's not the Kevin Kelly level, which
is the greatest time that fight of all of them.
But this was a fun fight. And I, by the way,
I was thrilled because I was, you know, five feet
from the ring, so it was a great ring side.
Speaker 1: And again we closed the pod with what you were
talking about at the beginning of the pod, with the
derevian Chenko punishment he was taking, and we even talked
about it with the Luis Alberto Lopez one punch KO
from last week leading to a brain bleed. This is
a dangerous sport. And on this nostalgia you're talking about.
They carried Augie Sanchez from the ring. It is a
sober reminder of how dangerous this sport can be, and
fighter safety should still be at the forefront, including your
own corner. Now I'm gonna get repped up like Rayfaield
about the IBF. Your own corner has an obligation to
look out for the fighter if the fighter still wants
to fight on but is obviously getting punished, beaten up, whatever,
the corner's got to be also characterized there, you know,
chastise a little bit for its scrutinized in the other
eyes for not taking care of their fighters. So anyway,
we kind of come full circle on the podcast here
about all us. Are anything else that we've left out
on the recap off the weekend? Or are we pretty
well good?
Speaker 2: I'm just looking forward to the big Floyd Mayweather exhibition
against John Gotti the third next week.
Speaker 1: Not really, I just I wonder one thing I have.
Can I just say I have no interest in watching this.
The only thing I would be interested in his grandfather,
John Gotti's you know, mafioso head grandfather is one of
the wildest criminal caricatures in modern history. If he were alive,
what would he be thinking of this? That's the only
thing I'm thinking about this fight. If if Gotti, the mafioso,
what would he be thinking with John Gotti the third
fighting Floyd Mayweather. I don't know, I don't I have
no idea and couldn't care less I know. But nonetheless,
we go on here with whatever this is, and.
Speaker 2: This is truly the dulgeums of the summer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got We've got a lighter week this weekend
before we hit Labor Day weekend in the United States.
It has some more interesting action and the Monster will
actually be fighting off of Labor Day weekend on the
Tuesday after and then Canelo a couple of weeks later.
But hey, we'll still have a big fight weekend preview.
But who knows, who knows what all we come up
with on that. By the way, you've got some conversations
still to come. They'll hear from Edgar Berlanga on this
podcast feed, who you talked to recently as well as
Canelo Alvarez. We just recently talked to Danny Garcias with Garcia,
you can hear that as well on the podcast feed.
Make sure you're following subscribing and Rayfield's getting grumpy. Rate
us in review us as well. Rate us in review
us on the podcast feed here. Five star reviews do
help with the algorithms, et cetera. Other than that, you've
been away from the sun now for like an hour
and the fire alarm did not go off during the
pod with the authorities have not been notified. Good luck
with the first day of school tomorrow and being mister
mom and appreciating missus Rayfield even more for being the MVP.
Speaker 2: Absolutely one hundred percent, and for my two.
Speaker 1: Good luck.
Speaker 2: By the way, if I make it to the next podcast,
then we keep it on Thursday. Yeah, you'll know I
will not survive because this is his home on.
Speaker 1: We exactly She's back. And by the way, my two
have to take the driving test at sixteen years of
age to be licensed. Look out in Northern Tampa stand
by for that. For now, we are good. It is
the Fight Freaks Unite Recap podcast. We come your way
previewing going into the weekend with the Big Fight Weekend preview.
We recap with the Fight Preach Unit Recap coming off
the weekend twice every weekend for Dan Raphael, I'm TJ. Reeves.
Thanks for being with us.