Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time.
Speaker 2: This is Big Fight Weekend.
Speaker 1: Now Here is your host, TJ. Leaves Ah. It is
October and we are ready to go with another edition
of the Big Fight Weekend Preview. Hello there, I am
the somewhat competent host, TJ.
Speaker 2: Reeves.
Speaker 1: He is our insider.
Speaker 3: Fight Freaks Unite is the substack and the newsletter Big
Fight Weekend Insider, as well for the website for the podcast.
Speaker 1: Hello Dan Rayfield, as I.
Speaker 3: Come the way of the pod listens from Atlanta, Georgia.
You come from your home in Northern Virginia. It doesn't
matter though where we are, as long as the preview pod,
the recap pod is there for the peeps, for the savages.
Speaker 1: They don't care where we are. We gonna be on
Pluto for all they care.
Speaker 3: Hello Dan Rayfield, Welcome into another edition as we get
ready for some more action this weekend and in advance
of the undisputed light heavyweight world title fight. You talked
to one Dmitri b vol which they're going to have
a chance to hear on the pod.
Speaker 1: How are you feeling? How are you feeling as we
go to the weekend.
Speaker 4: I'm good, I'm looking forward to a couple of the fights,
but I'm certainly much more excited for next weekend.
Speaker 2: Let's be honest, wetfoit.
Speaker 3: No doubt, no doubt with that card. Okay, follow, Subscribe, Apple, Spreaker, Spotify,
Radius Review US. I gotta say this, You savages are
derelict in your duty. If you enjoy this show, give
us a five star review. I didn't see that many
for September. Let's get October off to a good start.
Radius Review US. It takes sixty seconds for you to
do that. Write some glowing words about Rayfael's charming personality,
his boxing interviews, his great coverage of the sport for
twenty five years. In whatever order you want to spiff
him for that.
Speaker 1: Do it.
Speaker 3: Ratus review US. It does help us out with the algorithms. Again,
tremendous audience. We want it to grow, We want more
people to find out about it. So thank you, thank you.
All Right, so we're going to get into the preview mode.
We've got Dmitri v Bull. We've got some news. In fact,
you've got some explaining to do about why the Gervonte
Davis Lamont roach fight ain't in Washington.
Speaker 1: Stand By audience stand by. That's coming later in the show.
Speaker 3: But first, all right, so we have a world title
fight and we need to disclaim to the audience. Number One,
we're releasing this podcast a little earlier on Thursday evening
than what we typically do because we've got the unified
or is it unified? Ray Field have explained it a
moment middleway title fight with Janabec and Mikaylovich in Australia.
So if you're hearing us on Friday morning in your
normal routine, that fight has already likely happened, depending on
how early you're listening in the United States, it certainly
happened very early Friday. Ray Phiel and I are good,
am I right, Big Dan?
Speaker 4: But we ain't.
Speaker 3: We ain't good enough to tell you what happened in
the Janabec fight early on Friday morning on the preview pot.
Speaker 1: We're not that good.
Speaker 3: So that fight is happening early Friday morning, our time,
Friday night in Sydney, Australia. So we're gonna talk briefly
about it here because we suppose, do we not? Most
of the audience when you hear the pod is going
to know the result. So what's the point in us
going on for ten minutes about what might happen, because
most of you, you're feeling me, Big Dan, already know
what happened in the fight.
Speaker 1: All right. Nonetheless, that's gonna lead the show off.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 3: Just take the audience through it for a couple of
minutes here on how this thing ended up in Australia.
We'll give it a little preview, and then they more
than likely know what happened.
Speaker 4: Go all right, So, I mean, the long story short
is they were supposed to fight in the ESPN plus
Main July rather in Las Vegas, and everybody was there
and ready to go for the fight. They'd done the
press conference, and then two nights before the fight, Jenebec
fainted in his weight cutting process. The way that his
manager Agus Klemus described this, he was within zero point
eight pounds of making one hundred and sixty pounds the
night before the weigh in, and it was very, very
very hot in Las Vegas, and he went for a
walk without water and he fainted. And in other words,
his point was if he hadn't done that, he's still
had half a day. Basically, they'll get down another point
eight pounds. He would have done it, but when he
passed out, they ended up canceling the fight. So he
didn't make he didn't make the weight, he never went
to the way and the fight was canceled. And you
have Andre Mkalovich, his opponent, the mandatory in the ib
from New Zealand, who had traveled seven thousand miles to
Las Vegas. There he pissed off because his opportunity to
fight for the unified world title as well as his
purse was now gone. And janebec then, you know, within
a couple of weeks notified the organizations that he was
going to stay at and middle wait and the IBF
then ordered another purse bid. When No Limit Boxing, which
is Mcalavich's promoter and Top Prank, could not make a deal,
the purspit occurred. No Limit Boxing won the pursepit for
three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, beat Top Rank shockingly
by one thousand dollars, which is minuscule in any kind
of purse bid situation. So on twenty nine days noticed
this fight was made and it's now in Australia. Now
Mikalovich is from news. You know, he's a Russian, but
he's grew up his whole life in New Zealand, so's
he's not unused to being in Australia, so he's really
it's his promotion, his his home area, so to speak.
And Jannebec went there to defend the title. And you
mentioned about is that the unified titlele Now, Mikalovich's people
did a very smart thing in my opinion, which is
as the IBF mandatory fight. They were like, you know what,
we don't care. We're not fighting for the WBO. And
the reason was not because he doesn't want to be
a unified champion, but they felt like from a strategic
point of view, it was much much more made much
more sense to do it for just the IBF because
that would put intense pressure on Channebeck to go through
and have to go through with a day of the
fight wait check in the morning, where under IBF rules,
if you're fighting in an IBF championship fight, you cannot
gain more than ten pounds at a certain point before
you know on the morning of the fight, so it
puts a lot of pressure on you after the way
in In a unified fight though, that rule is waived,
so it was going to just be for the IBF. Now,
on Thursday morning, Eastern time, I got a note from
one of the people I deal with on a regular
basis from the WBO explaining what they had done, which
is they agreed to sanction the fight for the WBO
belt and Mkalovich's team is on board with it. The
Janebec team is on board with it, so the WBO says,
and they have agreed to respect the IBF rules and
they will still have the morning of weight check even
in a unified fight. So by the time you're hearing
this will know because as we're taping this, the weight
check has not occurred.
Speaker 1: So because of the difference right in Australia, right right.
Speaker 4: There's always a chance that Jannebec, who had the big
problems making no weight the last time, is going to
struggle to make the ten pounds inside the distance. Now,
I don't think that would be caused for the fight
to be canceled. That would probably come down to strictly
a financial situation. But it's been a very chippy build
up as short as it's been. They watched the press conference,
Mikalovich was talking a lot of shit. He basically when
asked by the moderator, my good pal Ben Damon from Australia,
if he had anything in conclusion to say directly to Janebec.
He looked him from you know, ten feet away or less,
sitting on his chair on their stage, and he said,
I'm gonna kill you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I've heard a lot of shit at press cards. I
don't know if I ever actually heard another tell a
man to his face, I'm going to kill you.
Speaker 1: I mean he was looking he was looking right his way.
Speaker 4: I know I was looking at him. So that was
a little bit off putting. I don't condone or like
that kind of.
Speaker 1: So you've explained it thoroughly.
Speaker 3: You explained it thoroughly, and again we're not gonna spend
time previewing it because we assume, as you are hearing this.
Speaker 1: The result has happened. Whatever happened happened.
Speaker 4: I just want to get the exact quote because I
just looked in the article that I wrote, so you
can read the story on my subject. I'm gonna fucking
kill you is what I'm gonna say. There you go.
So that's what the Kalovitch got a little bit of
a chip on his shoulder, but he was entertaining at
the press cards.
Speaker 3: And maybe and maybe he did great. This is the
fun part of what we do, and maybe he got
bulldozed by Kazakh style.
Speaker 1: We don't know.
Speaker 3: While we're doing the preview, and it's early morning Friday,
and you probably already know the result. I will say this,
you and I will do the live bet US Boxing
show first mentioned one Eastern Time on their platforms ten Pacific.
We'll talk more about whatever happened in this fight. It'll
be over with by then live, but here in the
preview mode there's the setup and more than likely I know,
Thursday night some of you heard this, but Friday, most
of you are hearing it, and you probably already know
the result of what happened in that title fight. All right,
so that's not the only world title fight. We fast
forward to Saturday night and the Queensbury card, and you
were talking to Frank Warren earlier this week on the
podfeed about this card from Liverpool, and it's now on
US TV. You were mentioning that with Frank on ESPN Plus.
Nick Ball defends his featherweight championship. Is WBA Featherweight Championship
coming Saturday afternoon US time? Pick it up from here
on what we're looking forward.
Speaker 1: To with this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so well, first of all, on the janemickfight. If
you're hearing it before the fight, that's The stream starts
on ESPN Plus the United States at five am Eastern
time Friday morning. When I spoke to Frank, I said,
you know, I'm all excited about Nick Ball. He's exciting.
He's in these excellent fights. He's been in a series.
He's been in about like four four excellent fights in
a row that I've watched, and now this is going
to be the first title defense. And at that moment,
there was nothing set for American TV, and Frank was like, well,
I hope there is off the check. I think there
is where someone's in trouble in the end. I'm not
sure why it took so long, because normally these things
are just a matter of fact, but it wasn't done.
Now it is, this fight hard will stream again on
ESPN Plus on Saturday, two o'clock Eastern time. You know,
obviously it's going to be on one of the TNT
channels in the UK, but here in America we'll get
to see this fight. Also, this is Nick Ball making
the first defense of his WBA featherweight title against Ronnie Rios,
a very solid veteran who has fought for the Jinger
Middleway title twice. Perhaps a little bit long in the tooth,
but Nick Ball, after a series of very tough fights,
is going home to Liverpool, England have the homecoming fight
against a reputable veteran butterfight where Nick probably should be
the significant favor. I haven't seen the odds. I'm sure
we'll get to that for US show. In any event, Look,
if you, if you, if you like boxing, how do
you not like watching Nick Ball fight?
Speaker 1: Right? TJ.
Speaker 4: This is a guy who just brings it. He's like
a little fire hydrant, marches forward, throws a million punches.
Seems like he's got a good chin, always in there
to brawl it out and try to get on the
inside and just fight to like, you know, tooth and
nail for every inch of space in that ring. You know,
I had a little bit of a tough luck situation.
He looked when he got the title eliminator fight that
he won back in November of last year, looks sensational.
Scored a knockdown and won a very clear decision, almost
a shoutout on two score cards against Isaac Dogbay, a
good veteran former junior Featherwick title Older got the opportunity
then to fight for the WBC title in March against
ray Vargas. Really good fight. That was one of one
of the read season cards in March, and he fought
to a split draw. A lot of people thought that
nick Ball won the fight. I happen to think that
ray Varius did just enough to eke it out. But
I can't really, you know, argue too much, particularly when
you look at the fact that that nick Ball scored
knockdowns against Vargas in the eighth and the eleventh round.
But then whatever your thoughts were about that, they delivered
another title fight for him, and that was on the
five versus five card that Troom versus Frank Warren. This
was on June first, back in Riat and he put
on another tremendous battle with ray Ford, who was making
his first defense, and it was a heck of a fight.
And in the end, whereas he didn't get the close
call in the Vargas fight and turned out to be
a draw, he got to close call against ray Ford.
It was a split decision and he won very close
one to fifteen one thirteen on all three cards, but
two for Nick one ray Ford, so really good fight.
And then now he goes home for the first offense
against Ronnie Rios. I mean, I'm sure there'll be a
big crowd in Liverpool, which has not had a ton
of champions in recent years, but there's been some and
that fans turned out. And look, Rios is thirty four
and four. He's been stopped in his three of the
four loss seas he's thirty four, he hasn't really been
the most active in the world, although he did fight
one fight earlier in the year and he got a
fifth round knockout. He hadn't didn't fight at all in
twenty twenty three, lost in his second opportunity to fair
world title in June of twenty twenty two, got knocked
out by m j Akmadaliav in challenging for that title.
That was a twelfth round knockout. That was a pretty
rough way to go and he had to go back,
you know, a few years before that in twenty seventeen
and one of his losses he lost a unanimous decision
against Ray Vargas. So they have that you know, common opponent,
but he lost somewhat lopsidedly in the Ray Vargus fight
back in twenty seventeen for the WBC title. But you
know what, you can do a lot worse with opponents
than Ronnie Rios. I have one thing I can tell
you about Ronnie Rios, having watched him for many, many years.
You know, I can't say exactly what will happen TODJ.
But he'll he'll come to fight and he'll give it
an effort.
Speaker 3: So I guess we and Nick Ball the same way.
Is going to get in the pocket, as we like
to say, or get in the kitchen and look to
brawl with you. So I'm intrigued to see what happens
on Saturday afternoon US time, Satday night in Liverpool. Featherweight
division has been interesting. Let's see, let's see what Ball
looks like in front of the home folk.
Speaker 4: This is sort of like the quintessential first defense fighter
wins the title. They give him a hometown fight. They
don't match him with the absolute number one contender. They're
not matching him with a bum or anything like that.
But they're matching him with a guy that he's supposed
to be a heavy favorite against but a guy that
will probably call him to put on a show and
they'll kind of, you know, thrill the fans at home,
and you know, Frank's putting a bunch of you know,
Liverpoolish area fighters on the undercard to help build up
the area.
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 4: Epitome of a first defense for a guy. And then
I'm very very confident we'll see Nick if he wins
back in a significant fight, you know, in his next bout.
Speaker 3: All right, So again that's the Queensberry card on Saturday afternoon,
and that leads us to what is next, which is
the WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitri Bvol undefeated about to
fight his fellow Russian unbeaten unified heavyweight champion Archer better
By should I qualified again? We all we hope they're
fighting in Saudi Arabia twice delayed this showdown fight that's upcoming,
but you don't have to wait for next week. And
the whole build up in the press conference is no
you got a chance to hear Dmitri Bevl right now
on this podcast with our own Dan Rayfield. Let's go
to that in the preview mode.
Speaker 4: Well, it is my great pleasure to welcome back to
our podcast. For this episode, it's none other than the
WBA Light Heavyweight Champion, Dmitri Bevo. Dmitri, we're here to
talk about you have a big, huge fight, a historic fight,
a fight that I know you have wanted for a
very long time.
Speaker 1: It is here.
Speaker 4: You'll be fighting against Arthur Better BEV, who is the
lineal champion also has the other three titles that you
would like to own for the undisputed light heavyweight Championship.
It will take place October twelfth on a Read Season card,
the card that opens the new Read Season festival in Riad,
Saudi Arabia in the United States. The fight is live
on ESPN Plus. Thank you very much my understanding. As
you went directly from your press conference with better BV
that was in London, directly to Read to finish out
your training camp in Saudi Arabia, how has that been
going for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything was good. We came here, we.
Speaker 5: Already start training, we are going to nice gym and
we have a nice mood. Everything is good now.
Speaker 4: As I mentioned, Dimitri, I know how significant this fight
has been. It's a fight that you and your opponent,
Arthur Better BF have both wanted for a while. You
both have held versions of the light heavyweight title for
quite a while, and now this is to settle the
issue of who is number one. So my main question
to start off with is what would it mean to
you to become the first ever four belt light heavyweight champion,
the undisputed champ, the lineal champ, have no more belts
to collect you?
Speaker 2: Sure it could be first. It wasn't Roy Jones before
in two thousand fall.
Speaker 4: Maybe well you'll you'll be the first one. I'm going
to get to a question about Roy Jones, but you'll
be the first or he if he wins of the
four belts. Time to have all the four.
Speaker 2: Belts that time it was three belts. Yeah, yes, sir, okay, okay, okay.
You know it means a lot. It means.
Speaker 5: You know, it's just the final step in my career.
I'm in boxing since nineteen ninety six and all this
journey was for what was for for this to get
this chance and to win, and I will try to
do all my best.
Speaker 2: Of course, it means a lot.
Speaker 5: I don't want to even think about it, to be
because when I start thinking about it, I have a
goose bump. I'm just trying to think about only the
fight only because the fight also is really exciting for
me because he's the most dangerous fighter with one hundred
percent KO and for me, it's exciting to try my
skills against this guy.
Speaker 2: And I'm trying to think about this not about belts.
Speaker 4: Well, like you mentioned Roy Jones, so I have to
ask you about the historical nature of the fight. When
Roy Jones became the undisputed light heavyweight champion, that was
still when it was three belts that were considered to
be undisputed. There was the fourth belt, but nobody thought
you had to have that to be called the undisputed champ.
And so when he did that, it was nineteen ninety
nine against Reggie Johnson, and he unified the three belts. Dmitri,
that is twenty five years ago. It hasn't happened since.
So when I tell you that, what do you think
about the nature of that historical aspect of this fight
that one of you two guys is about to accomplish.
Speaker 5: Of course, I'm thinking that it's amazing that I could
be a part of the history. I could mark my
name and the history. Of course, it's amazing. It's a
bonus for fighters who's working hard, because it's just kind
of a luck. You know, a lot of fighters are
working hard, but the luck is not giving them the
chance like this. But I got it, and I'm so
appreciate to universe to I don't know, but I appreciate
to be the part of historical fight.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm certainly glad that it's happening, but it was
supposed to have happened, as you know, on June first,
and unfortunately your opponent, Arthur better Be I've suffered a
knee injury. He was forced to postpone the fight, and
I'm wondering. You know, you were hard in training, he
was hard in training. You're getting ready for the fight.
How was it to deal with just mentally, to like
know the work you'd put in and all of a
sudden it's it's delayed again. You've been waiting for it
for a long time, and you've got to now go
through another couple of months and start over again really
preparing for the fight.
Speaker 5: To be honest, I'm trying to think positive about everything.
What's happening with me at that time. I just okay,
he injured it. This is sport. This is boxing, it's
professional sport. It could be laid this. I just need
to not be stuck in this point. I have to
move forward and I will give this chance again. And
I got another fight. I checked my skills and I
trained more. Maybe it's it's for better.
Speaker 4: So like you said, you went through and you fought anyway.
You stayed active. They were able to get you into
opponent for that June first card. They just you know,
instead of being in the main event, they moved you
down some of those other fights, took pressent over that,
and you scored a pretty impressive six round knockout against
Maliku's in not I just wonder before you got into
the fight, when you knew that the fight between yourself
and Arthur was postponed. At any time, did you consider
not fighting and not risking the fight, because you never
know what's going to happen when the bell rings. You
could get injured, you could get cut, you could lose,
and there goes the undisputed fight.
Speaker 5: To Don, didn't worry too much about it because I
just was focused on the fight on my leak to guest,
and I didn't know what in his head. He could
be very serious to this fight or put he could
even win win. Yeah, because he's young, he's he never lost.
And I didn't think too much about better beef fights
that time. When I realized that the fight is the postponed,
I just forget, forgot about better beef and I was
thinking about Malik, and I didn't have anything in my mind.
This is how I'm trying to think always. If you
were thinking about Maleiku, about the bitter beef, about somebody else,
you were just fighting in your head against the three
two guys.
Speaker 2: You know you should do it. You should think about
only one.
Speaker 4: So when you fought, when you fought my league, I mean,
you got your first knockout since twenty eighteen, you had
gone nine fights without a knockout. I've seen you score
some very nice knockouts. I wonder how satisfying it was
it to get back in a knockout on your record,
And were you at all sort of ever concerned that
you'd been, you know, such a while without getting a knockout.
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 5: You know, you know I was trying to I'm sorry,
somebody was calling.
Speaker 2: You know. I didn't think too much about about knockouts.
Speaker 5: I was just focused more about to be winner of
each fight which I got, and to be active and
to be available for the chance when I give it,
when I have it. I just have to be ready
for the chance, like like this time, I got a chance,
and I'm ready. I have my belt, I have my health,
and I can I can fight.
Speaker 2: I didn't worry about knockouts or not no cuts.
Speaker 4: You did mention a minute ago about how you know
you wanted to test your skills against him, especially because
he is a fighter who has one hundred percent knockout percentage.
He's knocked out all twenty opponents that he has faced
as the professional. Now, I know you haven't been hit
by him yet, but I assume you're familiar with the record.
I guess you probably have watched at least a little
bit of him on video. I just wonder before you
face him, when you see that knockout, the number of knockouts,
he asked, how do you in your mind assess his
power between that and maybe what you have seen if
you've watched any videos of him.
Speaker 5: He's really strong. He born to be strong. You know,
some people are born with good speed, with good movements,
with good something. But he born just strong guy. It's
not even about his punch. His body is strong. If
you look at him, how he moves, how he is,
how he's wrestling, when he's.
Speaker 2: In the clinch, you can see that he's just strong.
Speaker 5: And and what you I just need to deal with this.
Speaker 4: I've watched him push ups on his fingertips. You can
tell he's strong.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, he's doing a lot of things which shows
that he's strong.
Speaker 2: But you could you could see it just on the
ring that he's strong.
Speaker 4: So of all the all the fighters you have faced
and Demitia, you have faced a lot of outstanding fighters
in your career. Who has hit you the hardest so far?
I think maybe like Joe Smith comes to mind.
Speaker 5: Maybe you know, there is a different strong punches, you know,
like with the With.
Speaker 2: The Smith, it's like.
Speaker 5: Heavy, just heavy punches, you know, slow heavy, but it's hurting.
With Pascal, he's more explos close, if you know, and
sharp sharp sharp stone with better beefs.
Speaker 2: He's just not like heavy. He's just like stones.
Speaker 5: His arms like some concrete arms.
Speaker 4: It looks like so he you know, we know how
good he is because we've seen him also against top opponents.
You have the common opponent of Joe Smith, who we
knocked out very easily. You know what, you went very
deep into that fight. But he is thirty nine years old.
He has been more inactive than you and I wonder
and he's had injury issues. Have you noticed any slippage
in him or do you expect to see the meet
an Arthur better Beef at the absolute top of his
game when you get in the ring with him.
Speaker 5: Of course, I'm trying to think about that he will
be in the best shape because it's.
Speaker 2: Just respects to the opponent.
Speaker 4: Okay, fair enough, I want to ask you, I mean,
this was of interesting to me. Is just not that
long ago. We had Canelo Alvarez. He fought his fight,
defended the super middleweight title against Berlanga on September fourteenth,
and what he said after that fight was he wanted
to stay in the super middleweight division. He didn't have
any desire to go back to light heavyweight, except if
you were to beat Arthur Better Biev to get a
shot at you for the undisputed title in a rematch. Obviously,
I know you got a very significant fight that's sitting
right in front of you. But in the back of
your mind, I know there was conversations about you and
Canelo having a rematch. At one point it didn't happen.
Are you open to a rematch if you're the victor
in this fight and doing it in defense of your
titles at one hundred and seventy five pounds.
Speaker 5: You know, we didn't talk with him at all about
pretty much. We didn't have any conversations. He didn't have
any conversations with our team, but he.
Speaker 2: Was talking about it. And now it's the same.
Speaker 5: She's saying, But ooh, I need to fight against Bitter
B and then we will see some options.
Speaker 2: What will happen. I hope I will win.
Speaker 5: I will try to do all my best, but now
I'm focused on Bitter B fight for the Canala. I'm
open for everybody who wants to make big fights.
Speaker 2: I was opened before and I will be open after.
Speaker 4: Also, my recollection, Demetri is that when you were open
to that before, though he wanted to fight you at
one hundred and seventy five, your thought was, you know what,
I'd like to fight him again, but do it at
one hundred and sixty eight to try to become the
undisputed champ in the one sixty eight well way class.
So when you say you're open to it, are you
open to it at one hundred and seventy five pounds?
Speaker 5: Doesn't matter, you know, one hundred and seventy five, one
sixty I was talking about this on media. Yeah, I
prefer to fight one six state for his belt. But
how we all know, how how how do you am
making in boxing? There were no negotiations at all.
Speaker 2: You know, you're saying on the.
Speaker 5: On the media that you want to fight once sixteed,
but let's let's talk about one seventy five. This is
our offer for you or something. We didn't have this,
We didn't discuss, discuss anything.
Speaker 2: And it just just nothing. We just now it's useless
to talk about it.
Speaker 4: You know, now, when I when a when a fighter
becomes the undisputed champion, I know you have every intention
of doing that by beating better Be because you got
all the belts. You also got all the mandatories and
all the other guys that you that the organizations want
you to fight, and you'll be you'll be uh at
some point. I guess you have you know, a very
deep group of opponents because you've got other guys with
interim and regular titles that David Morrell and Bwatzi who
just got an interim title, and obviously David Benavitez is there.
When you look at the landscape of your weight class,
besides yourself and better bef, who do you think stands
out as guys that could you know, be a challenge
to you at some point in the future.
Speaker 5: These names to which you say, of course, all these guys,
it could be my opponents in the future, just the
one of the best fighters in our weight division, in
our weight class, of course it could be.
Speaker 4: So I want to just wrap up with this. When
I think about the match between yourself and better Bev
and the way that it might go h looking at
it from the outside, I think the general thought from
many people is, you know, as we've talked about Arthur
Better BV, just a massive puncher, great knockout artist, really strong,
as you saw talked about. And then there's Dmitri Bevil
can punch a little bit, certainly, but but really more
well known for just great skills, good defense, you know,
quick hands, and that it's like whichever guy can impose
their style that it would come down to either he
can knock you out or dmitriy Vivo can out box him.
I wonder your thoughts about how you think that the
fight goes, and if that description you know is the
same as what you think the way the fight will go.
Your skills and great boxing ability against his tremendous punching power.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: You know, in my head a lot of different scenarios
and that which you said, he could knock me out
or I could out boxing. Of course there is also
uh and everything could happen. This is boxing. But the
main thing that I have to be the best version
of dmitriy Vivo. I cannot create anything new, just be realistic.
He cannot create anything new for this short time.
Speaker 2: We will us.
Speaker 5: Be ourself and doing and we'll win that one who's
more focus and who feels himself.
Speaker 4: Better in this At this day, I understand that.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 4: I have to tell you, Demetria, I've been saying this
for a long time, ever since this fight was made
that to me, this is the best boxing match on
the boxing calendar for the entire year of twenty twenty four,
and there's been a lot of tremendous matchups, so I'm
really looking forward to it. I wish you the best
of luck in the fight, and I really thank you
for doing this today. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Then that more than what's our appetite for this undisputed
title fight, I always ask you this because I like
the extra benefit of all right, you got to take
a look at him and see him a little bit there.
Speaker 1: What do you think? What do you think about what
you saw in advance a fight week for these guys.
Speaker 4: Dmitri Bieble has dialed in for this fight. I mean,
I can tell I've interviewed Dimiti Bibo numerous times over
the years, dialed in ready to go. Always a pleasure
to interview. But I did sense not a bad way,
because he's always a gentleman in terms of what he's
doing his media. But I definitely could sense a little
bit of an edge there, Like like we did the
interview obviously this week, so he's, you know, he's a
full week plus before the actual fight, but he's already
seems like he's got his game face on, so to speak.
And you know, I thought that the thing that struck
me was one of the questions when I asked them,
people could hear that when we were talking about the
historical nature of the fight, which is, if he wins
or whoever wins, is going to be the first four
belt light heavyweight undisputed champion ever and the first undisputed
champion period going back to the three belt timeframe when
Roy Jones accomplished that in nineteen ninety nine to unify
the three belts against Reggie Johnson. And you could tell
when looking at him when I asked him about what
his thoughts were about that that biopole. I won't say
he got choked up, but it was like it was
like whoa, Like he's trying to process that I have
a chance to do something that has only been done,
hasn't been done in twenty five years, and when it
was done was by one of the greatest fighters in
the history of the sport, Roy Jones Junior. So the
magnitude of the history is not lost on Dimitian Bible.
Even though he says, I'm trying to put it out
of my mind because if I keep thinking about it,
I'm gonna, you know, I get the goosebumps stuff. So
they these guys know what a big deal this say is.
And you know, as he said, you know, sometimes it's
lost on us because we just want to see a
good fight. This man, and better Be presumably also who's
older than him as well, has worked to this moment
for his entire life, since he's picked up gloves when
he was like six years old. And everything comes down
to ding ding what happens on October twelfth. Everything you
work for, your whole life is down to that one fight,
that one you know less than an hour to see
if you can solidify your legacy for all time.
Speaker 3: And and as you said, they will be the back
half of the question. Roy Jones did it in ninety nine,
and twenty five years later, Blank did it again. Unless dear,
oh god, am I going to bring it up, unless
it's a draw, or unless it doesn't we're gett We're
not gonna do that.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna do.
Speaker 4: We got twenty where we were getting to a fight
that we wanted to see in terms of an unisputed
four belt title fight. A couple years ago, you know,
Charlot and Castania did fight to a draw, and that
they did the re thata what the draw sucked? Anyway?
Speaker 3: All right, So that's next week. Good stuff there with
Dimitri Bevill. Let's get to some news. Let's get to
some nostalgia, Raphael Travonte Davis is in fact fighting Lamont Roach.
It is in fact in December, on a different day
than what you were talking about. But what in the
wide wide world of sports is going on here? Because
you sold me, you were selling it and I was
buying it that this fight has Washington d C sizzle?
Why is the fight in Houston, Texas? According to your reporting?
What is going on here?
Speaker 1: What is up?
Speaker 4: Well, the fight's gonna take place December fourteenth, which was
always a possibility. What I reported on was there was
also the possibility that they were to go on December
twenty first, The fourteenth was always one of the dates
they were looking at. And yes, this is a Washington
d C fight obviously, because Gervonte Davis is immensely popular
in the district. He comes from Baltimore. So that's our region.
I say our because I live here, you know, I live.
We call it the DMV the District Maryland, Virginia. I
live in the V for Virginia. You know. Gervante is
from the M the Maryland, and Lamont is from the
d D the district. When he fought here against Hector Leias, Carcia.
It was a huge event against an unknown opponent, had
no ties to Washington, did the biggest gate in the
history of the Capitol One Arena, almost five point two
million dollars, better than a Rolling Stones concert, which was
the previous record. Arena has been there for you know,
probably close to twenty five or thirty years anyway, So
they could have done this fight on December twenty first
at the Capitol One Arena which was available. But the
PBC people think this is my reporting from what I
am told by different folks that are involved with the event,
They would have loved to do the fight in Washington
because of the fact that it's a great rivalry fight.
They fought each other as amateurs. Roach has his own
fan base here in the district. He drew a nice
crab when he had a defense here back a couple
of months ago. However, they really finally, you know, when
you got to make a decision, you got to make
a decision, and with a lot of money on the line.
For the amount of money that's going to be involved
in this fight, I think two things came into play.
I know two things came into play. One they didn't
love the fact that it was so close to Christmas,
but more than that, because I think they would have
done that. More than that, they were a little They
understandably they didn't want to put a second pay per
view on December twenty first, because remember that's the same
date as the rematch between Tyson Fury and Alexander Usak.
Now that fight's taking place in Saudi Arabia. The first
fight that took place earlier in the year in Saudi
Arabia did terrible on pay per view in America, right,
But they still they didn't want to go up against that,
maybe out of some respect for boxing fans, which I doubt,
but still it's maybe possible. But I think also they realize,
you know what, when the Saudist Turkey al Chic in
particular was a force that lowered the price on some
pay per views. Remember they're doing this the Bevault Better
BF fight not in America but around the rest of
the world for the full cardjoinly like fifteen bucks the
rest of the card fifteen bucks in America, even though
the main events on ESPN Plus they did a much
lesser price point for the Anthony Joshua fight that just
took place against Dania Dubois. That was twenty bucks in America,
and I feel like, you know, if Turkey felt like
he was being competed with on the same day where
PBC has its model where they're charging seventy five or
eighty dollars for a fight, and now you got the
same day, you got a serious fight. Like you know,
fury U sick too, he might say fuck it and
also charge twenty bucks, and then it puts them in
a real bad spot. So they you know, they they
made the only decision that they could in my opinion,
for all those different reasons. And they're going on the fourteenth.
Now you say, well, when I'd just go in the
DC area on the fourteenth, Well, they wanted to be
a Capital One arena, which was the primary arena in
this area, and that that day is taken up by
a Washington Capital's NHL game against the Buffalo Sabers. Now,
if it's a concert, if it's some other event, you
can sometimes work things out, maybe pay them to move
do something like that. You're not paying the NHL.
Speaker 1: That's the NHL playing that I agree with you.
Speaker 4: I mean the Wizards of the NBA and the Capitals
of the NHL are the primary tenants of the building
and it's their season they're not getting so they go
to Houston to the Toyota Center, where I've covered fights before.
One of the great fights they ever covered, by the way,
two thousand and nine Fight of the Year, the first
fight between Juan Manuel Marquez and Houston's own Wan Dias.
Gervante has wanted to fight in Houston. They were thinking
about doing the Frank Martin fight in Houston before it
wound up in Las Vegas. Tank loves the fact that
he can sell a ton of tickets and go and play,
you know, do his stuff in all different cities. When
I thought about this, TJ and this is a very
significant thing in my mind. The last American star level
fighter that really traveled the country and fought all over
the place, not just in New York, not just in Vegas,
not just in LA was Roy Jones. Roy fought in Florida.
Roy fought in New York, he fought in LA he
fought in Vegas, he fought in Portland, Oregon, he fought
in Mississippi. I mean, he fought all over the United States.
He fought in the Connecticut casinos. Right, Hank has done
business in London, New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Atlanta.
You know, he's traveled all over Baltimore, Washington, and so
Houston is appealing to him. I apparently he has family there.
There's obviously a big African American community there. It kind
of touches a lot of bases that he wants to touch.
So they're going in Houston on December fourteenth. It's a
PBC pay per view. It has not been announced yet.
Tank alluded on his Instagram to being in Houston. Did
not name the opponent, but I've talked to multiple sources
who are directly involved with this event. It will be
Lamont Roach. It will be December fourteenth, it will be
the Toyota Center in Houston. It will be a PBC
on Prime pay per view. End of story.
Speaker 3: There you go from mister Rayfield with the explanation and
just one more note and we're moving on. This also
keeps them off the December twenty first date. And this
is not a thing to just dismiss. The college football
Playoff for the first time ever, is expanded and they've
got four playoff games throughout the day, the afternoon and
that night, and there are two NFL games being played,
including the Chiefs with Patrick Mahomes, and that is a
factor on how much attention span are you going to
draw away from all the football fans for a boxing
pay per view if you're on that date for two
So that's another I didn't I mean, is another thing
they considered, especially with what they're going to charge. And
so now it's on the fourteenth. So well explained on that,
all right, quickly, A couple of more things. The Hall
of Fame ballots are out for the class of twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 1: Some guy named Paqiao.
Speaker 3: I think he's getting in. It's his first year of eligibility.
What else of note from the Hall of Fame ballot release?
Speaker 2: Real quick?
Speaker 4: So yeah, a few years ago they changed the eligibility
rules from being or not retired because some guys don't
necessarily retire, but having had your last fight after five years,
now now it's down to three years. So many is
now in that in that time frame where his last
fight was three years ago. So obviously, Uh, he will
be a first ballot induction. Uh, it's I don't know.
They don't release the percentages when the Hall of Fame
announces the inductees. But you know, I gotta believe he's
going to be as close to uh, you know, at
you know, one hundred percent as anybody could get. I
mean if you're not, if you're a voter in the
Boxing Hall of Fame and you're not voting for any
pakaut for the Hall of Fame, then you should go
fuck yourself. Yes, I mean that's just the reality.
Speaker 3: I thought I was gonna say it the more polite way.
You shouldn't be a voter, but youre abrasive, abrupt ray
Field way.
Speaker 1: Which I like.
Speaker 4: I mean, Look, he's he's he's his locked automatic.
Speaker 1: He's a first ballot, unanimous Hall of Famer, has.
Speaker 4: To be eight division world champion, one of the biggest
draws in the history of the sport, one of those
popular fighters in the great fight time and again, a
resume that's longer than your arm. Uh, you'll fight everybody,
even in the losses. He fought top guys. I mean,
just there's there's there's no other definition. He's as Hall
of Fame as as any great you can think of,
you know, whether you want talk about Mohammad Ali or
sugar Atte Robinson or his more contemporaries like Floyd Mayweather
would beat him, of course, or you know, any of
the other greats of the modern times. Anyway, So he's
the biggest name on the ballot, and I must be
honest with you, I'm very disappointed with the others who
are on the ballot for the first time. It's a
very weak first class of group of guys. I will
definitely be voting for Manny Pacio and my other selections
when I get the ballot was put out when they
announced to the first time once. I actually am waiting
to get my paper ballot in the mail, which were
mailed out Monday, so today is Thursday. I should have
it hopefully by tomorrow or Saturday, and then you have
to fill him out, send him back, and they'll announce
the results sometime in early December. So I'll be voting first.
I'll be voting for the holdovers that have been on
the ballot, so the other first timers, and it's not
a disrespect to them, but I don't feel like any
of them touches the box of like your first ballot
Hall of Famer, or even a Hall of Famer at
all for that matter. One of them and I wouldn't
even put this guy on the ballot. And that's Lucian Butte,
Lucian Bute's former super mid away title holder from Canada,
where he became a big star. When he finally stepped
up to fight a top notch guy uh in a
fight that I was ringside for in in Nottingham, England,
Carl Frotch knocked him the fuck out, Uh, you know
he and then he had a foul drug test later.
I mean, just there's no there's nothing on his record
that would indicate should be a Hall of Famer. That's ridiculous.
The other two are are guys who have more of
a case, but I still don't think more of a
case to be on the ballot before such guys who've
been overlooked for years and years and years, guys I've
advocated to be on the ballot. And again I'm not
even saying I would vote for them, but I very
strongly believe fighters like Chris Bird and Vernon Forrest, Marlin Starling,
this three, off the top of my head, should be
on the bout. If you don't know about them, go
look them up. Not that complicated, but the two the
other and they only put you know, three or four
guys on the ballot each year. The other two besides
Boute they've had is Mikey Garcia, who won four title
in four weight classes, junior welterweight, lightweight, junior lightweight, and featherweight.
But it's one of the softest. If there's such thing
as being a champion in four division, that's a soft
way getting there. Mikey had it in a soft way.
The only one I can think of that was softer
was Adrian Broner. In terms of four division champions, doesn't
really have a defining victory in my mind, unless you
count a unification victory against Robert Easter, who never really
went beyond his lightweights, you know, and now is basically retired.
And the other one is Sean Porter, who was a
very popular figure and you know it was in some
excellent fights, two times welterweight title holder. But that's your
first that's your group of first ballot guys. That to me,
I was I was sort of like, wow, that's not
the deepest thing I've ever seen in my life. And
then some of the other folks that added. I won't
go through the entire list because everybody is, uh, you
know there's a bunch of categories. There's six different categories,
but in the women's you got yes to get Chavez
from Mexico two division title holder as well as the
Canadian two division titleder Jessica RACOUSEI TJ. I've said it before,
I'm gonna say it again. The women's category is something
that does Hall of Fame rightfully added a few years ago.
It should be there. There's plenty of excellent women who
aren't that conversation to be in the Hall of Fame,
and I have endorsed that, and I applaud that, and
I'm glad that there's a women's category. However, in the
past few years since the category was created, we have
now exhausted the legitimate candidates to be voted in. So
Laila Ali and Christy Martin and Lucia Reiker and etc. Etc.
They have already been elected, and now it's to the
point where the group of women that they're adding are
just ridiculous. In my opinion, to be Hall of Fame
doesn't mean they're not good fighters, doesn't mean they're not
nice people, but at the level to be a Hall
of Famer to me is absolutely preposterous. And they insist
on electing two. I feel like they can do one
and do it every other year and space it out
because we're in a period of time right now where
those who are becoming eligible is preposterous, and we're going.
Speaker 3: To Inderjeck can Iderjeck, you kick the ones before them
as well. Is another point on this with all halls
of fame. If you're putting people on the ballot and
saying we've got to have two of them for whatever
your motivations are, you're taining the ones you've put in
before by comparing them to somebody who doesn't deserve to
be there. I'm just saying, in general terms.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, you're right. And so what's gonna happen is
we're gonna go through a few years where there's going
to be women from the modern category elected that have
no business being in all of fame, and we will
get to a point in a few years when their
careers have petered out where we'll see another crop of
outstanding women who do deserve it, people like Amanda Serrano
and Katie Taylor and Claressa's Shields yep, you know, and
maybe Sinisa Strada and certainly Cecilia Bretcuss and I mean,
I could go on. There's those types of women who
have achievements that are way beyond the others that are there.
So I'm very, very very down on the whole scenario
with women at the moment. And then among some of
the other folks that are on there are non participants,
which is like you know, the trainers, the cutmen, the promoters,
the managers, et cetera. You have the American referee Kenny Bayliss,
who to me is a lock. I mean, to me,
he was one of the if not the best referee
in the entire sport of boxing for him several years
and now is retired. You have a guy who's actually
been a good friend of mine for many, many years,
Russ Anber, who is a well known cutman and trainer
from Canada who's worked with a million guys trained guys.
He is the creator and founder of a rival boxing year.
We may see them on their gloves and robes and trunks,
et cetera. That's another guy, the Italian promoter SALVADORC. Kirkie,
who has kept alive boxing Italy for decades, him and
his family. And I'll just go through the observer category
two of the One of the people in the observer
category is who I've sat next to for countless big
time championship fights, A man who has been a friend
of mine for over twenty years, who was to me
a lock for the Hall of Fame. I'll vote for him,
without a warl without a chat over it out is
my man, Kevin Ioli. I mean, who for decades was
the boxer reporter for the Las Vegas Review Journal. After
that span about I don't know fifty in eighteen years
as the boxing writer for Yahoo Sports now is like
me doing his own thing. But Kevin is a first
class journalist also amen very known as an MMA journalist
as well as boxing. But uh, that's that's Uh, he's
on the Eternal.
Speaker 3: We've got Kevin on the podcast a couple of times
previously before tremendous uh insight historian of the sport put
him in, put him in.
Speaker 4: He'll uh, he'll be he's on the ballot for the
first time this year, and uh, you know. And then
they have some other categories, which are rough ones because
it's there's not a lot to You got to do
some homework if you're gonna have pioneers and women's trailblazers
and late year old timers. So uh, but those are
the main the main attractions.
Speaker 3: Well, I know you'll come back strong with what your
ballad is at a later date and what you did
and the and the announcement for the Hall of Fame.
Mark a couple more items quickly, because then I want
to get to the nostalgia, which is a couple of
fascinating fights with Felix Trinidad and uh and Floyd Mayweather.
Speaker 1: All right, uh, welter waits.
Speaker 3: I'm in Atlanta as we do the podcast for Thursday
Night Football for the Buccaneers and the Atlanta Falcons, part
of my radio duties with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Speaker 1: One of many hats that I wear, by the way.
Speaker 3: Uh. And and an Atlanta area fighter Brian Norman, who
has the WBO welterweight title. He's been elevated as the
champ was to be fighting in November, it's now not happening.
Speaker 1: What's what's up?
Speaker 4: So he was scheduled to fight Derek Wavis in his
first defense on the undercart of the Keishaw Davis Norfolk,
Virginia homecoming fight that you mentioned that is gonna be
November eighth, that's a ESPN Plus card. He was in
the co feature and remember there was all that back
and forth, is he gonna is he gonna do the deal?
And is he gonna fight Jeron Ennis for the unification?
Obviously that didn't happen anyway. So he was scheduled to
do this fight, and he had had hand surgery back
in the summertime and everything seemed okay. When he got
back into training not that long ago, Uh, the hand
was given him some problems and so they basically pulled
him layoff. He doesn't need from what I'm told and
talking to the top Rank and talking to to Brian's manager,
he doesn't need another surgery, but he needs to rest
it and uh maybe dolo rehab, so let it he
Also that is off. So Coprank is now trying to
put together another co feature for that card, and they're
saying they're going to try to reschedule the Norman Quavis
fight and most like you will see in the early
part of twenty twenty five when Brian is ready to
come back.
Speaker 3: All right, let's hope he gets healed up. And again
that would have created an even bigger mess with Jeron
Boots Inns had he been the opponent.
Speaker 1: And then there's an injury. So there we go.
Speaker 3: Welcome to boxing, all right. One other note, what's going
on here with the WBO and their junior middleweight title
as it relates to Terrence Clawford. Explain with Sebastian Fundora,
Terrence Clawford and what is the WBO up to here?
Speaker 2: Real quick?
Speaker 4: Well, there has been a lot of reporting that I
haven't reported because it's just not been accurate. In my
opinion from what I have been told and who I've
talked to, is there was a lot of discussion that
it was going to be a fight, first of all,
at the end of this year, which was never true.
But now they've said early next year between Fandora and
Eryl Spence. Fandora of course at the WBOWBC title holder
at one hundred at the four pounds. Spence hasn't fought
since he lost in the welterweight undisputed fight against Crawford
in July of last year. Anyway, the Fandora team wants
to fight Crawford. When Crawford fought the Madrama fight in August,
he moved up to junior middle eight, he defeated Madrumov.
He won the WBA title from Madama, what was less
of a big deal, but still there was. In addition
to winning the WBA title, the WBO had made its
interim title available in that fight, and Terrence Crawford won
the fight, and so therefore not only is a WBA
title holder, he also now holds the WBO interim title,
and the WBO while they'll approve interim titles from time
to time, they're pretty militant about making sure you get
rid of them as quick as possible, So they take
the guy who wins that title, and as soon as
possible they will order the fight against the full champion.
So the Fondora side and the Crawford side apparently have
been interested in seeing what they can do about doing
Crawford against Vondora, because remember the Crawford is won at
Canelo Canelo Canelo, that seems like it's not happening. So
if he's going to have a fallback plan, you got
to figure out what else their is. So for Crawford,
it's appetizing and appealing to him to go and get
a guy that you can win two titles off of
in the same night, so they had ordered that fight,
and on Tuesday of this week, the WBO granted them
a ten day extension. Now that's not entirely unusual for
an extension to be granted, but I was a little
surprised that the reason that the extension was granted was
because the Crawford's side, his lawyer. They went to the
WBO and asked for the extension, which tells me that
they're at least interested in the fight, right And Samson Lukewitz,
who is the promoter for fron Dora, he you know,
you got to both sides have to kind of agree
if they're going to do an extension. He agreed to
the extension and told me, and I presume he also
told the WBO that okay, we'll have the extension and
we'll talk about it. We'll try to make a deal,
but no more delays. If you can't we don't make
a deal in ten days, we're going to a purspit.
And he says that day of the backing of PBC
to do a purspid, Crawford obviously has the backing of
the Saudi Arabians and Turkey, so you know, they obviously
have the money. If it's a fight that is interesting
to them, but we'll see. I think there's a chance
that Crawford and Fondora will fight. I never really believed
that Errol Spence deal was done. You know, it may
be an option for Ferndor if the Crawford fight isn't made,
but they're going to exhaust all avenues to try to
do a Crawford fight before they look at Spence. So
we'll find out with the next ten days or so
what they end up doing.
Speaker 3: All right, stay tuned for the junior middleweight division, and
that leads us to nostalgia before we're done. It was
twenty years ago earlier this week on Wednesday, the second
as we released this podcast Thursday night into Friday, that
Felix Trinidad ended a brief two and a half year
retirement and font Ricardo majorga at Madison Square Garden and
Rocus Environment and you were right there. What do you
remember twenty years later about that one?
Speaker 1: As we go on the way back, TJ.
Speaker 4: One of the great joys of my career covering boxing
has been covering Felix Trinidad fights at Madison Square Garden.
There's just there was nothing like that. I mean, they
were big events, but it was more than just the
electricity and the excitement is just a pure joy of
the fans and of Trinidad. It was such a pleasant,
pleasurable experience to be there, so much fun. You know,
he really loved the crowd and with this fight of
him as popular a fighter as you could get with
his people, coming out of a two and a half
year retirement and making the comeback against the ultimate villain
opponent in Ricardo Majorga, who had been a top champion
at welterweight that won a title at junior middleweight, was
always in good fights, but usually lost in the fights
when he stepped up. Remember he had been Trinidad I'm
talking about, had been defeated by Bernard Hopkins by knockout
in the undisputed middleway title fight that culminated the tournament,
which we spoke about on the anniversary.
Speaker 1: Because it was last week, last week he had.
Speaker 4: He came back several months after that did a homecoming
fight in Puerto Rico, which which was the last fight
on his HBO contract against the former title holder, has
Seen Sharifi.
Speaker 2: He moved, you.
Speaker 4: Know, he went and did that fight in Puerto Rico,
and then he retired, and all through the two and
a half years, everybody kept asking when's Tito coming back,
When's Tito coming back? And he finally came back. Against
my argue, they put the fight at Madison Square Garden.
It wasn't a title fight or anything, but it was
just a just a chance to see Trinidad back in
action and some of the great atmospheres. I've talked a
lot in the past about the atmosphere at Madison Square
Garden when Tito fought William Joppi in the middleweight title.
The first the semi final of that tournament was as
exceptional as anything I've ever been in. But not that
far behind is this fight against Ricardo Moraga. I have
this lasting image in my mind of when the first
bell rang. You don't see this often the entire crowd
rose at the first bell. Usually they rise at the
beginning of the twelfth round, there's a knockdown or some
massively exciting moment in the fight, but you don't really
see even with all the excitement, you don't see the
whole crowd. And by the way, you're talking, like seventeen
eighteen thousand people at the garden just a rock and place.
Everybody stood up and was just so excited to be there,
and it turned out to be as expected. One hell
of a fight. Our man, the late Greatete's Smoger, the referee.
You always know you're gonna get a good fight because
he lets the guys go, and this was dramatic. He
knocked him down. My Orga went down three different times
in the eighth round. Trinidad had touched his glove down
in the third round. He had taken some shots, but
he definitely overpowered my Orga. And when he finally went down,
I just have the image of Smoger standing over him
with the dramatic wave of the hand. The fight's over
and the fucking place went absolutely bananas. I mean it
just I wish I say this often about different times,
with the experience of being in these great atmospheres of
these big fights. I wish every boxing fan at some
point could experience what it's like to be there, and
from myself, not only to be there, but in the
case of this fight and lots of the fights I
talk about, I'm sitting five feet from the ring, so
it's like and more exciting.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, we had a couple of we had
to come against a couple of recent examples, with Dubois
scoring the early knockdown with Joshua and Wembley Stadium on
one hand is stunned. But there's crowd roaring in that moment,
or Canelo dropping Edgar Berlanga back two or three weeks
ago and the crowdy erupts in Vegas, and you were
right there ringside for that. You have those moments, and
in this case, one of the great's, a Hall of Famer,
Trinidad gets the ko.
Speaker 4: And so Trinidad kept on going after that, and he
came back in his next fight, whereas my orga was
tailor made for him, he picked Winky right. So I
always give him props for being willing to take on
the tough guys. But that was the worst style match.
Speaker 3: They would say it correctly, Saint Pete Florida, Saint Pete's
Winky Wright put him to sleep after that.
Speaker 1: But still what a night.
Speaker 4: But so here's the point though, Also so that night
when he came back and front Majorga was the last
win of Tito's career, and what a way to have
his last win, because then he lost in a one
sided fashion to Winky Right retired again and then came
out of retirement like in our three years almost three
years later and fought the ill advised fight of the
two legends against Roy Jones, who scored a win over
him in a light heavyweight fight. And so Trinidad lost
those two fights. But that my orga fight. I mean,
go you tell you tue it up, because I actually
when I knew we were gonna the reason it came
up in my mind was I'm looking up the dates,
and I put the poster at the poster, I put
the program picture in my newsletter from my show and
Tell section. And when I did that, I went on
YouTube and I actually watched this fight again. Dude, this
is a great fucking fight. I mean, Tito Trinidad in myga,
don King doing his thing, Smoger doing his thing. I mean,
it's a I mean, I wish I could go back
and bottle that because that's how fucking good.
Speaker 1: It was great nostalgia, allright. One more real quick.
Speaker 3: Twenty six years ago, as we released the podcast October three,
nineteen ninety eight, a young Floyd Mayweather fighting Gennaro Hernandez,
and Floyd was devastating that night tell me more because
this was this was kind of the precursor of what
we were going to see for years and really a
couple of days ads to come with Floyd Mayweather right
real quick.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Look, Floyd was a great prospect. He had got
a bronze medal in the Olympics. A lot of people
thought he got robbed badly in the Olympics, which I
thought he did also probably should have been the gold
medal winner. Nonetheless, you know, he had, you know, a
huge upside. Everybody thought he's a tremendous prospect. But at
this point in his first couple of years as a professional,
you know, Top rank did its job. They matched him appropriately,
they built them up, and they did his thing. They
let him develop, But he still had never fought anybody
of even remote consequence. He'd been on television, he fought
on ABC and ESPN and on some undercards of pay
per views, and they were getting his name out there,
getting him exposure. Obviously, people knew because his father had
fought Sugar Ray Leonard, his uncle Roger been a two
time world champion. He had been in the Olympics, so
he was getting plenty of exposure, plenty of attention and
had plenty people talking about him. But the moment of
truth game when he stepped up, is well, is this
too much for young Floyd? Is he buying off more
than he can chew? Because Jenn r Handez may have
been a little bit older at that time, but he
was a massively back to champion one hundred and thirty pounds.
He only had one loss going into this fight, and
that one loss was because he got his nose broken
badly by Oscar de la Hoya. But that wasn't a
lightweight fight. He had moved up to fight Oscar in
a title fight at lightweight and so in his more
natural division where he dominated and then a title holder
on multiple occasions. You know, he's now Like the general
concept was Floyd is taking this too soon in his career.
You know, think about what people saying in retrospective out
Fernando Vargas taken on Tito Trinidad. They say, oh, it's
too early for him to do that. While he proved
that didn't it wasn't because I mean, in that case,
maybe it was because Vargas got knocked out and took
a real rough night and they were Olympic teammates. There
was a lot of conversation about that, but Gennaro had
no chance against Floyd. You could tell from the opening
bell Floyd was faster, Floyd was stronger. Floyd was just
dazzling offensively and defensively. He gave Jennia Hernandez an absolute
fucking beat down, and Rudy Hernandez, who's still one of
the great trainers in boxing today, best known at the
moment as the trainer from day one for a Jonto
Nakatani who's on a grand run right now. In any event,
Rudy Hernandez stopped that fight after the eighth round. Gennaro
had taken absolute pounding. Gennaro retired after that fight, never
fought again, very sadly. You know, he had a cancer.
He died many years ago. He was just a tremendous guy.
Matter of fact, people I think sometimes don't remember this
or they forget about it. But Floyd Mayweather had so
much respect for Hernandez that he paid for Gennaro's funeral.
Speaker 1: How about that he passed the way.
Speaker 4: So that was a tremendous performance from a young Floyd
who again stepped up to fight his first Legit opponent
of his career, and it was the first world title
that Floyd won at one hundred and thirty pounds, which
he went on and defended just a couple of months later.
Matter of fact, he won this fight we're talking about
on the anniversary October of nineteen ninety eight. He was
he talked about activity all the time, DJ he was
back in the ring. This was an HBO main event
against Genera Hernandez. He was back in the ring December
nineteenth of nineteen ninety eight, six weeks later against angel Anfreddi,
who was the number one contender, and he smoked him
in two rounds. People forget that Floyd Mayweather back then,
pretty boy Floyd. He was a badass. At one hundred
and thirty pounds, he was knocking guys out and doing
devastating things to guys, and he defended that title many times.
And then of course he moved up and went on
to win world titles in a total of five different
weight classes. Became money. Mayweather began the pay per view attraction,
the biggest star in the sport, the biggest money earner.
Speaker 1: In the sport.
Speaker 4: But the first of all those world titles that he
won in five different weight classes was this night against
Sennara Hernandez. An absolutely spectacular performance from then pretty boy.
Speaker 3: Love it, love all the nosalgia and by the way,
we acknowledge and noad the Thrilla in Manila earlier this
week forty nine years we got to do something around
the fiftieth Anniversario Ali Fraser three.
Speaker 1: It's one of those that.
Speaker 3: For all time here it is fifty years later. You
know about that fight. If you say thriller in Manila,
you know what that is with Ali and Fraser. Busy show,
my friend excellent work, including getting Dmitri bvol on the
podcast again. This came out earlier on Thursday night because
we were aware of the Janabec fight, etc. A lot
of you already know what happened in that fight. Ray
Phiel and I will be talking about it on the
bet US Boxing show at one Eastern time, briefly at
the top of the show because the fight will have
happened Saturday or Friday morning US time, so we're live
at one Eastern time handicapping the nick Ball fight.
Speaker 1: Look forward to doing that, and then.
Speaker 3: You and I will be back with a recap podcast
off the weekend, and look towards next weekend, the Undisputed
light heavyweight showdown in Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: Coming at the end of next weekend. For now, though,
I think we're good, Dan, Are we good? Are we
ready to get out of here?
Speaker 4: I think we're good.
Speaker 1: I think we arguing.
Speaker 3: Thank you, make sure you follow, subscribe, Apple, Spreaker, Spotify,
Spotify for finding us here on the Big Fight Weekend
preview for Dan Rayphiel, I'm merely TJ Reeves.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the fights this weekend.