Speaker 1: Brand new month and off a weekend that has seen
Terrence Crawford move up to junior middleweight and not unsurprisingly,
pull off a decision win over a top difficult to
hit opponent in Israel, Madramov. We're ready to discuss that
in the entire card that included an upset win for
Jose Valezuela, a spectacular knockout loss for Jared Anderson, and
much more. Welcome in It is the Fight Freaks Unit
recap podcast. I'm the somewhat capable host, TJ.
Speaker 2: Reeves.
Speaker 1: He is our insider. He was on scene in Los Angeles.
Dan Rayfield Fight Freaks Unit is his substack. Why have
you not subscribed again? Be subscribing to that? Be on
his newsletter, etc. Dan has returned from the West Coast.
You are back in the Eastern time zone as we
do this on Sunday night after a day of travel.
My friend, It's good to be with you. You and
I can see each other on the video hookup as
we do the pod here.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you're back. You survived Left Coast.
Speaker 1: I should let the audience know we have tropical Storm
Debbi in the Gulf of Mexico. Roaring by the Florida
Peninsula and up into the Panhandle. So we got some
we got some interesting things going on. You've had cross
country travel, I've got a tropical storm, but we had
a very interesting and intriguing fight card to go over.
Speaker 2: How are things after traveling back?
Speaker 3: I'm cranky and I'm tired. Let's get the fuck out
of it.
Speaker 2: That sums it up.
Speaker 1: Did mills Lane ever say that on one of the
pre fight instructions with the f B. I'm not sure
if he said it exactly like that. Thank you for
finding us. Follow subscribe on Apple, Spreaker, Spotify. Ray Feels
under over on amount of sleep is about three hours
and fifteen minutes, and I might take the under right now.
But if you enjoy the show, make sure you're following,
make sure you're subscribing. We come your way, previewing going
into the weekend, Thursday night into Friday, recap Mondays, Sunday
night into Mondays.
Speaker 2: All right, With that said, by the way, Virgil or
teas with us coming up.
Speaker 1: He is back in the ring and he's fighting for
a title himself at one hundred and fifty four pounds.
Later this week, you'll hear from Virgil Ortiz right here
on this podcast with Dan one on one in just
a little bit. That being said, let's get right into it.
Terrence Crawford gets the win. You were right there at
the BMO Stadium, the home of the La Galaxy Soccer
in Major League Soccer, as he gets a twelve round
decision win over Israel Madromov. We're gonna go over the
whole cart. We'll cascade down from the main event. But
your thoughts says, we do this here, and you've traveled back,
you've had some time to think about it. You covered
the postfight press conference on Crawford's when how he looked,
et cetera.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that all the people that were tweeting
and posting and saying that this was a cherry pick
and that this guy only had eleven pro fights going
into this bout and it was an easy win for Crawford,
they were wrong, and we were the ones, or at
least I was. Anyway, I remember where your perspective was.
But I've said from the moment that this fight was
made that don't let that lack of professional experience fool you.
Israel Majmov is a legitimate fighter, he's a top quality guy.
He is a worthy title holder. He was a outstanding amateur,
did everything basically accept you know, the Olympics, and was
a real guy, and that he was going to give
Crawford some problems. Now, I thought that Crawford would finally
get to him and get him out of there. But
he's a very strong and sturdy guy. He gave a
lot more movement than I remember seeing him in other fights,
and he was a tough nut to crack. In the end,
Terrence Crawford won the fight. There's a fake controversy which
I just I'm so sick of that garbage. When you know,
two guys on the judging panel had it seven rounds
to five. Happened to be how I also had the
fight and another judge had eight rounds to four, and
you just thought that there was like a you know,
a murder or something. I mean, it was preposterous some
of the fake outrage. But the bottom line is Terrence
Crawford was the rightful winner. Isral Majmov fought a good
fight basically in the second half of the fight. For
the life of me, I cannot figure out why he
literally did almost absolutely nothing for about the first three
to four rounds except bounce up and down and throw
his arms out like he was shaken out. It was
mind boggling because all he's doing is wasting energy. And
he was asked at the postfight press cards, you know
where you're tired in the twelfth round, and he kind
of said yeah. And if you take a look at
the way the judging was going on the score cards.
Obviously the fighters don't know this at the time, but
if you take a look back on the cards after
ten rounds, TJ this fight was even ninety five to
ninety five on two score cards, and the third score
card had Terrence c Carford had ninety six to ninety four.
And then what happened. So the fight's on the table
right there. It's anybody's fight absolutely. Rounds eleven, in round twelve,
Terrence Crawford one both rounds on all three score cards,
and that was that's how he won the fight. If
Majamov hadn't wasted so much energy doing bullshit for the
first three rounds, not throwing any punches and not doing
anything but jumping up and down like he was a
bunny rabbit, then he might have had a really good
chance to win the fight. Now, that comes with experience.
I'm not, you know, denigrating him. I'm just saying that's
why the experienced level well didn't indicate how good of
a fighter he is. But experience in those moments is important.
It's you know, I think back to the reasons why
Vasilli Lomachenko lost against Orlando Solito when he was fending
very world title on his second profile. He's a great fighter,
but he didn't have that pro experiences to deal with
that moment. And I can still remember to this day
after that fight was over in San Antoni that I
covered when Loma lost that fight, seeing one of the
people on his team who said to me, point blank,
I'm glad we got in tonight in his second fight,
because in two or three fights we'd have no chance,
and Majimov is going to get better from this fight.
My perspective going in was that even if Majimov lost,
I felt like he would give Crawford, whatever happened, knockout,
not a knockout, whatever, that he would give Terrence Craft
a good enough fight where his stock would be elevated.
And that's what happened. Isral Majamov may have taken the loss,
which he deserved, but he comes out of the fight
with a much I believe, a much better reputation among
boxing fans who didn't know him, and has shown the
world that he is a bona fide fighter that even
if he lost his fight by a couple of points,
that he was able to basically go even up to
a degree with the fighter that many people consider the
number one fighter in boxing at worse, the number three
fighter in boxing, obviously a future Hall of Famer who's
got massive amounts of accomplishment, who moved up and won
a title in a fourth way class. So it does
raise the stock. Now that all said, TJ, I didn't
think it was a particularly very good fight, No, I mean,
the first half of the fight was just like it
was very frustrating because of the way that the the
madroumav game plan was. They were preaching patients and eventually
you run out of time. It's a twelve run fight.
You can be patient for you know, a couple of rounds,
but in a twelve round fight, no way. And Crawford
has always been a slow starter, and you know, he
started they started to pick it up a little bit,
but it was just really frustrating the way that it
was unfolding. It did get much better to last, you know, say,
they maybe like four rounds or so, but it was
just it was a rough to watch.
Speaker 1: And I will interject a couple things. And by the way,
you and I have playful fun going back and forth.
And I know you, I've known you well enough now
for a couple of years. You're grouchy. I get that,
but we're gonna have fun with each other. I will
say this. Terrence Crawford didn't do anything in the beginning
of the fight either. The fight was a boring fight,
and I want your in the first three or four rounds.
I want your perspective being there. It sounded like on
the Desonne broadcast there was some booing, there was some whistling,
there was total lack of action early on in the fight.
And Crawford said something after the fight that I thought
was very telling, which was he kept waiting for Madramov
to do you know, reckless things, take chances, and Madramov
just wasn't going to do that. As the third round
became the fifth round became the eighth round, he wasn't
taking a lot of reckless chances for the chance to
CounterPunch him. But the first really half of the fight
nothing really going on. When you're looking at the punch
stats that they put up live on the his own
pay per view, and the hind number of punches landed
is fewer than one hundred in like the tenth round
between both fighters. That tells you there's not a whole
lot going on, but here's the fight go ahead.
Speaker 3: The reason why Crawford won those rounds is because whereas
Madramov literally did nothing, Crawford wasn't doing a lot, but
you know what, he was landing a couple of short
right hands that were very noticeable in the middle of
the ring. He landed a couple of body shots that
were clear as day. He did, you know, fire someo
jabs there, like he was throwing a few more punches
and he was connecting with enough. If one guy does
absolutely zero and the other guy does just a little bit,
the guy that just does a little bit compared to
the guy that does dick is going to win the round.
And so while Crawford maybe those rounds were very close
because not much was happening, Crawford was winning those rounds.
They weren't maybe super competitive and or you know, you
know a lot of action or a lot of stuff
to think about when you were making your score pick
on the round as it did maybe later in the fight.
But again I say this every single time we discussed this.
You get a ten nine round in round one because
you land like one or two decent shots and the
guys does nothing. In the mass, it's still the same
score as if you have a World War three in
round eleven and one guy you know, gets a little
bit of the better of it. So that was what
that was, what those rounds were. Not much is happening right,
let me ask you. I'm so let me just say
one other thing I heard Eddie hern yapping about. I
heard a lot of people talking about it. You know,
you got to take the title from the champion. That
is the biggest crock a pile of dog shit, bullshit
I ever heard of my entire life. That has nothing
to do with winning a boxing match. Winning a boxing
match is scoring twelve individual segments unless there's a knockout
of three minutes apiece, and then do the mass. It's mass.
It's not the emotion of who's the champion, who's got
the belt anything to do with that, it's did you
win round one or two or three through twelve, ten
to nine, ten to eight, whatever it is, and then
add it up. It's addition periods with you.
Speaker 2: I'm with you on that.
Speaker 3: And by the way, the whole win seven rounds, that's it.
Speaker 1: Yes, And the whole notion that Madromov should somehow get
a nod because he just won a vacant WBA belt
over a future Hall of Fame fighter that has two
undisputed notches in the gun belt in recent history of
four belt undisputed and is the a side fighter. You're
not going to get the nod. We all knew that,
and we all understood that. Now let me ask you
this israel.
Speaker 3: I Maajamov gave that fight away. It was his the win,
and he gave it away.
Speaker 1: I you know, I'm curious about one thing because again
I'll keep deferring to Todd Grisham. Sergio Mora, Sean Porter,
and Chris Mannix were on the call, but in the
case of Mora and Porter, they began to debate about
Crawford staying southpaw for the entire fight because he was
having trouble.
Speaker 2: This is the truth.
Speaker 1: He was having trouble putting punches together, putting combinations together.
When you look at the punch stats and they were
revealing the punch stats as the fight went on, and
he's got seventy five eighty percent non connect rate. He
was having trouble putting punches together.
Speaker 2: Do you believe?
Speaker 1: What do you believe about him staying southpaw? Basically the
whole fighting it up, go ahead.
Speaker 3: Most fighters stay one stance the whole fight. Terrence is
a great switch hitter, but he felt more comfortable in
that stance. Najamov his defense was pretty decent because of
some of the movement that he gave him side to side.
He was not that easy to hit clean anyway. I
think Crawford in the back was mind new, I'm in
a new way class. Is a big, strong guy for
this weight class, so I'm going to be a little
more careful. Whereas if he's fighting a smaller guy or
a guy that's you know, knowing not to be so durable,
where he can maybe exploit that to a certain degree.
But I you know, to me, the fighters going to
stay in the one stand, like ninety nine percent of fighters.
You watch a boxing match, they have their stance and
that's what it is. It just so happens that Terrence
is a very talented fighter who can fight either righty
or lefty, and in this particular case, he chose to
fight in a south bust dance against a fighter that
was right handed. So I didn't really see any particular
issue with that. What I did have an issue was
my man Sean Porter, who I love to death. He's
a wonderful human being. He was a hell of a fighter,
but he is. His call of the fight was prepascious.
He had Crawford winning like ten rounds to one, and
then at the end he said, I didn't score the
full fight. He didn't even give a score. I mean,
it's ridiculous. You can you want to say Karen Scruffer
won the fight like most people did. He didn't win
by you know, nine rounds. That was fucking ridiculous. I mean, right,
you know I can't agree with that, and then I'll
take issue with my man Todd Grisham also, who was
my my pal. I spent many years working with him
at ESPN. We did a lot of TV hits together.
But I mean, if I hear somebody say this was
the greatest card in the history of American boxing. Once again,
I'm gonna throw up. God bless you, Todd Grisham.
Speaker 1: The guys that I was watching the fight with full disclosure.
We went to a location that had the fight. We
were there and he said it, and then he said
it again, and I kept saying, listen, I've been around
the encyclopedia, meaning you Dan Rayphield long enough, who starts
quoting all these different fight cards and what we used
to have And what was the don King won in Washington,
d C. It was it was five on the scene.
There was a lot five on the screen and it
had that was.
Speaker 3: That was Atlantic City. There there's a lot of don But.
Speaker 1: It had five world title fights on a pay per
viewer or something like that.
Speaker 3: It had eight world title fight eight on the show.
But that was just one one of those shows. So listen,
by the way, let me just say this for the record,
because I don't want anybody to think that I'm hating
on it. It was an awesome card, right, I love
the card day. It was one of the best cards.
Speaker 2: I've settled settled out in a long time.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't make it the greatest card ever in
American boxing. That tells me you just haven't done your homework.
You haven't looked at history. I consider myself somewhat of
a historian on boxing, and uh, you know, I know
my material.
Speaker 2: I love it on that.
Speaker 1: Okay, one more on Crawford and the future. You covered
the postfight press conference all to talk in the ring.
Would Canelo be somebody on your radar? Would that be next?
I will say this while we comes strong with the
opinions from what I saw on Saturday from a guy
that fights once a year and is now thirty six,
and he'll be thirty seven later this year to move
up two more weight classes and have any chance right
now at a Canelo Alvarez who is still on the
backside of his prime, but in his prime. I just
didn't see enough from Saturday night. That's is to me.
You say what you want about Madramov fighting defensively, and
he did a good job with head movement, upper body movement,
give any angles, the whole bit. I didn't see enough
from Saturday night that tells me that he's going to
move up two weight classes with Canelo and have much
of a shot or any shot with Canelo. All right,
that's me saying that everybody's talking about that. Is that
going to be the next fight.
Speaker 2: Et cetera from what you saw last night.
Speaker 1: If that is going to be next hypothesize theorize, what
do you think?
Speaker 3: No, I don't. I don't think so. And it's that's
not a knock on Terrence Carford. I don't know how
many times that I could say Terrence is a great fighter,
first bout, Hall of famer, done everything you ask you
got to do one all kinds of belts and accolades
and awards and made history and all kinds of stuff.
I mean, I was actually thinking about this. I mean,
there are very few fighters in the history of boxing
that were champions at lightweight and then also we're champions
at Junie midway, a spread of nineteen pounds right between titles.
You want to know the list of guys that did that.
I think this is everybody. Maybe I might have missed somebody,
but I think the this is the list. Terrence Crawford
entered this list last night. Besides that, and when I
tell you the names, you'll you'll find a thread in
common with all of them. How about Floyd Mayweather, Many Pac,
Yo Stugar, Shane Moseley, Oscar de la Hoya, Roberto Duran,
and Terrence Crawford.
Speaker 1: I think that's a pretty exclusive list, enticing list. But
that being said, now we're talking moving up two more
weight classes to fight at one sixty eight.
Speaker 3: So I'll say this, there has never been a fighter
to my knowledge, that has ever been a champion at
one hundred and thirty five pounds that went on to
be a champion at one hundred and sixty eight pounds.
That is doesn't happen. Now, There's been fighters that have
certainly moved up through weight classes and won titles. I
mean Tommy Hearns was a champion at one hundred and
forty seven pounds and you know, won a light heavyweight title.
But the point is that weight classes are created for
a reason, and I understand Terrence Crawford's desire to have
it because it is a historical fight from the standpoint
of in many you know, any time you can have
the number one fighter pound for pound against the most
popular fighter who also was on the pound for pound list,
But in terms of the the talent, the number one
guy against the number one star, that makes for a
mega fight. That's one of the reasons why. For example,
when Oscar and Floyd finally fought, Floyd was the number
one pound for pound and Oscar was the superstar attraction
and it made at the time the biggest fight in
money wise, in history. And Terrence is looking at you know,
in the in the twilight. I mean, he's still a
great fighter, and he's still undefeated, but clearly at his age,
you got to figure he's in the back side. He's
in the twilight of his career to some degree, and
that that's the cash here, that's the cash out fight.
From the standpoint of how much money he can make.
That is the biggest payday that he could He could
probably put into his bank account. But I mean after
seeing now, I know Crawford fought mad Magimov the way
he did, and Magie Mov has a totally different style
than Canelo Alvarez, but you know, to me, it's a
bridge too far, so i'd much And again that's not
my decision. I'm not the one bank rolling it. It's
not my career. But in terms of from my interest,
I'd rather see Terrence Crawford, you know, fight at Boots
and it's moving up in weight. I'd rather see Terrence
Crawford at one hundred and fifty four, maybe try to
become on disputed in that weight class. That would be historical.
You know, fight the winner of Virgil Artis and Boa Chuck,
fight with the other champions in the weight class, you know,
fight some of the other junior middleweights. If you if
you really want to try something, maybe you can go
and fight for a middleweight title and then see how
you handle it. But to jump up the two weight classes. Look,
we saw how how Charlot fared when when when when
he went when Jamel Charlo was the undisputed champion in
junior middleweight division, had accomplished you know, Terrence has you know,
got one of the belts now or actually he got
an interim belt along with it, the WBO's interim belt. Uh.
But when when when Charlot went up, he got played
with He lost every single round against against Canelo Ovarez. Now,
Crawford's a better fighter than Charlo, I think most people
would agree, although Charlotte was obviously at that you know,
in his time, you know, one of the best out there. Uh.
But again hard to see that being competitive. I mean
I'm sure a lot of peop be interested because it's
sort of like you know, rotisserie, baseball, fantasy football. You know,
you're just picking the names, and you know, I get
all that. You know, if if Canelo was successful against
Edgar Berlanga in September and it's a fight that Terence
Crawford is still interested in, and and Turkey Alshikhu's the
one that's going to bear the responsibility to bankroll that
fight if it does happen, If they offer it a
fight to Canelo and he decides to take it, I
think we could see it. But it's going to be
how much are they going to pay everybody? And is
Canelo interested in doing that? I mean, I suppose with
enough zeros at the end of that paycheck, he would
do it a lot of very and we would watch it.
We would watch it, obviously.
Speaker 2: I don't know how much. I mean, I will watch it.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much interest I have in that
because I just I think it's I'll use the word mismatch.
I think it's a mismatch. And you've talked for years,
and I've known this for years, but you've talked on
this podcast, on the shows we've done for years. There
are weight divisions for reasons, and you're talking about a
guy that was making one forty seven over and over
and over again, that now has moved up to one
fifty four and didn't look particularly great doing it last
night against a bigger fighter, I'll say this, And then
you got to move up two more weight divisions.
Speaker 3: So one of the things about that is so Crawford again,
I thought he won the fight. It was competitive, but
he won clearly in my opinion, especially the way he
closed it out to make sure that he won those
last couple of rounds. That I have a hard time
thinking about. Terrence Crawford is number one pound for pound
last night, because pound for pound you're talking about you
gotta split hairs at the top. You gotta split the hairs.
It's a tight race. I mean, it's about what he
had done for me lately. And you know, again he won,
but he didn't look like lights out. And when you're
competing against people like Alexander Usak, who just had a
sensational spectacular performance a couple of months ago in becoming
the undisputed heavyweight champion against Tyson Fury, and you see
what in a way has done in his recent fights
and being active. That's one of the things. Also, that's
a knock on Crawford in terms of his standing. It
doesn't take away from his ability or how great he is,
but he's only fought once a year for the last
like four years something like that. So that that's all
part of the when you when you figure out your
recipe for how you pick that, you'd like to see
a guy have a little bit more activity. And he
hasn't fought anybody. Now. The fight he had before that
against Aerol Spence obviously lights out spectacular domination, you know,
career type victory. But is that a year later and
then having you know, essentially like life and death with Magromov,
is that enough to keep you number one when you're
got what people like whosick and in a way have
done in the recent past. Also, I'm not so sure
about that.
Speaker 1: Very true because again it's body of work, and let's
be fair, let's be honest. He's not been active. He
fought one time in twenty twenty one. Crawford, he fought
one time in twenty twenty two, and this is the
one time he's gonna fight. Yeah, in twenty twenty three fought.
Speaker 3: By the way, he also only fought, Yeah, he fought
one time in twenty twenty one also, and one time
in twenty twenty. So in twenty twenty, twenty one, twenty two,
twenty three, twenty four or five years he's fought one
time in each year.
Speaker 2: He's fought five total fights.
Speaker 3: So the last time, the bottom line is the last
we had two fights in one year was in twenty nineteen,
when he had the wins over a mere con but
in a mean machine.
Speaker 1: In particular, when all this discussion has been going on
about who's the best and up at the top. If
you're only going to fight one time a year now,
he was spectacular about fifty three weeks ago. You and
I were there against Daryl Spence. The problem and the
difference is we've now waited twelve months and we saw
that performance, and if the time is the timeline, we're
going to wait another ten or eleven months before the
Canalo fight in Max.
Speaker 3: So I had this exact conversation last night. I was
sitting at the fight next to my dear friend Larry Merchant,
who came to the fight with his truckle.
Speaker 2: In this photo we reshared it, yep.
Speaker 3: So he came to his son in law, Evan. They
live in Santa Monica, and it's you know, it's to
go from Santa Monica to the state to the stadium,
it's probably, you know, in even decent La traffic. I
guess maybe half an hour, thirty five minutes, something like that. Anyway,
Larry and I were discussing that with some other people also,
and and basically it was like, if you're gonna beat
the town for abound number one and you're only gonna
fight once a year, there's no margin for error. You
have to be lights out. You know, if you're a
baseball player and you fight. You know, if you play
five games in a week and you have one or
two games in there where you don't do anything, but
the other game you might hit, you know, a couple
of home runs and driving a bunch of runs, maybe
make a great defensive play. You know, obviously people can
remember that. But if you're only fighting once a year,
that's on you, and that's what people are gonna judge
you by. You know, what happened a whole year ago
doesn't necessarily keep your standing when you've got other guys
breathing down your neck like husick like in a way. So,
and again I'm not saying you can't. I'm not saying
that parents Crawford is disqualified at this moment from being
the number one. If you choose to still keep in
number one, I respect that, I understand that. I'm just
saying I think that there's a real discussion that you
could have. You could have Crawford. I guess I don't
particularly agree with that, but you know, you could have
in a way, you could have Usick. But I feel
like if you're going to just have the one fight
and you want to maintain that position, you better be
lights out. And he wasn't lights out. That's all there
is to it. And it's not a knock on him.
He was fighting a good opponent. Even though a lot
of people thought it was a cherry pick. I never
thought that. I said it from day one, this fight
against a good guy, and we.
Speaker 1: Played the Madromov interview and we talked all about it.
You said it over and over again. If you've been
with us on these podcasts, that's why you gotta be here.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you.
Speaker 1: Were there, unseen Steamy night. Let's let's go over the heavyweights,
and let's go over what went on?
Speaker 3: Feature was the pit Bull fight?
Speaker 1: Well correct, but on your rundown you have the heavyweights first,
you want to talk pitt Let's go pit Bull and
h and Jose Valenzuela. I gotta say this all right,
Julio Sesar Chavez, the legend was in the locker room
and Pitbull had the table set with the crowd ready
to roar, and for whatever reason, he could not. And
some of it's Valenzuela to here's credit with the South
Paul shots and he and he and he actually rocked
Cruise a couple of times, but Pitbull just did not
turn it on, did not have enough offense, did not
have enough power punching to make the impact. And then
of course you hear split decision. I thought Valanzuela won
that fight. I thought he won that fight fairly decisively.
And then you hear split decision and you'll, okay, here
we go again with the judging. But the right guy,
I believe, ended up winning. What was your perception as
Jose Valenzuela in an upset takes the title off of Pitbull,
Cruise and maybe Ruin to rematch with Gervonte Davison doing that,
I want your thought on that as well.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, Well, I agree with you about the fact
that he won the fight. He deserved to win the fight.
So looking at the official score cards, you had two
judges or I take that back. One judge had the
fight one fifteen one thirteen for Pitbull Cruise and the
two other judges had it one sixteen and to one
twelve for Valans. Well, that's eight to four. My scorecard
was one fifteen to one thirteen in favorite Valenzuela. I
thought that Pitbull Cruise got off to a great start.
I thought he won the first round. He landed some
solid overhand left and valenzuel It seemed kind of like
kind of surprised by them, which is I don't know
how you could be surprised by Pitbull Cruise over and
left because's pretty much the bread and butter punch. But
after like two rounds had him all figured out, and
I felt like dolins Will did a great job where
he was able to throw with authority and off keep
his distance enough because he would like seven inches taller
and had a much longer reach, but he also was
able to get on the inside to some degree. He
threw some very heavy jabs, he kept them off with
good right hands or you know, with a just just
an overall a more a more diverse game. Let's say,
like he was able to box, he was able to
move a little bit when he when he needed to.
We could stand there and fight with the guy. And
you know, he had little facets of different things he
could do. And that's you know, that's good. That's a
well round. Invider Cruz I think has become a fan
favorite to some degree because he does basically one thing,
and it's exciting and interesting to watch. But he basically
comes forward and wings the left hand, and he really
didn't seem to have any kind of like you know,
it's call it a plan be it wasn't. It wasn't
happening for him. And so after about like I said,
after maybe the second round, you know, valan Zuelle I
thought got him kind of figured out and went to
school on him and showed him a variety of punches pitbull,
he got inside, but he wasn't effective when he got inside,
you know, And I think, you know, he's always gonna
have trouble when you're when you've got to when you
have a skillful guy who's that much taller, it's gonna
be problematic. Now, if valons Weela was not skillful, then
crews would just eat him alive on the inside. But
val Zuela was able to do things on the inside
and to.
Speaker 1: The punches, and I guess there's gonna be some questions
about uh Pitbull's punching power a little.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you a funny thing. So I get I
get back to the hotel last night after the fight
from the press cars, and uh, I walk into the
lobby and as I said during the week, by the way,
just as an aside, so when you go to like
a big fight card and everybody's staying pretty much at
the same hotel. In this case, it was the J W.
Marriott at La Alive, and it's just filled with like
boxing people calling everywhere, fighters, promoters, managers, you know, media people, UH,
folks from the from the broadcasters. I made the joke
that if you remember the I'm a huge Star Wars fan,
there's that scene in the original Star Wars we got
Obi Wan and Luke and they're going to the moss
Isley Spaceport to try to find transport to take him
to alder On and that's where they hire hand Solo
in the Millennium Falcon and before they go to the spaceport,
they get out and they look over the city and
you got Obi Wan telling Luke what it was, and
he goes, You'll never see a bigger hive of scum
and villainy. That's what the lobby of the the JW
marriy I was like during this week. Anyway, it was
really funny to me when I saw that. So I
come back into the hotel after I come back from
the press conference. We had taken a van back and
I was in. It was crowded. There was tons of
people around. Everybody was milling about and you know, having
drinks and just chilling out after the fight. And I
wasn't hanging out. I had to finish writing some stories
and I had a very early flight this morning, which
is why I'm so fucking cranky. I'm no sleep. Anyway,
when I was going around the bend to go into
the elevator, there's Vealanzuela with the belt over the shoulder
with a bunch of people, and you know, he saw me,
and I saw him, and I don't like know him well,
but I know I've covered his whole career pretty much,
and I've been to a bunch of his fights. So
I said hello to all my second gratulations, and he
like had a huge smile on his face and he
had the belt over should he goes, how do you
like my belt? And those are endearing moments to me.
I've told a story about being in the van when
Jared Hurd won the Junior Middleway title and he was
wearing the belt to the airport. And when I see
a kid like Valanzuela twenty three years old who dedicated
the fight to his parents who gave up everything to
bring him to the United States to give him a
better life, and he delivers the title, you know, makes
a career payday, and that was a world champion. He's
going to make other paydays and in the history books
as a title holder and all that. And he's like
looking at me like like glowing, like how do you
like my belt? Like a kid on Christmas morning or
just got a great birthday present, like how do you
like my belt? Like I get choked up when I
think about it because it was such a cool moment.
So that's the human side of seeing what these guys
go through to get that, you know, that carrot, That
what they strive for for their entire life, and he
deserved it. He did a hell of a job in
that fight. I was really happy for him. Not that
I'm anti pitpoin anything that guy, I would have been
happy for him too, But to see valan Zuela do
what he did after having gotten so fucking badly robbed
against Chris Colbert in the first fight, come back and
and destroy him in the second fight, that even that
up in the last fight, and then you go back
before that where he got clipped and he got knocked
out by Edwin de los Santos. So to go through
the knockout loss, then the bullshit decision against Colbert, come
back and show his stuff when a lot of people
doubted him in the rematch, and absolutely pummel Chris Colbert.
And then get this opportunity against a very hot fighter who,
as you said, had the possibility of perhaps being a
Tank Davis opponent or some other significant fight. And to
go in there and really put on a beautiful display boxing, punching, fighting,
uh and and and doing enough to deserve to get
this big win you know, I was really happy for
the kid.
Speaker 2: Give him credit.
Speaker 1: And I know pitt Bull was upset with the decision
and and wants a possible rematch, but I just didn't.
Speaker 3: Didn't he didn't. He said he thought he won, but
he didn't really make a strenuous argument against it, like
he was I think trying to save face. I mean,
he was sort of maybe disappointed in his performance, but
he didn't give a vigorous defense of why he felt
he want so.
Speaker 1: And the punch and the punching power just won there
and did it lost him? We'll say, time will tell
and force such.
Speaker 3: A small guy, you know, Pitbull is such a tiny guy,
you know, I forget like I see him in person.
And remember he's at one hundred and forty now. He
when he was coming up and he was first on
the scene, he was really at one thirty five, even
a one thirty five. He's a little peanut at one
hundred and forty, like he's by far. Yeah, he would
make like if you put him next to t Fimo Lopez,
t Femo would look like a freaking heavyweight. Right.
Speaker 1: Well, and we'll see what the future is for Valenzuela.
One forty now that he has one of the belts,
having having won the WBA title last night.
Speaker 3: With this, he's got some good options. I mean, it's
a good weight class. He's an appealing fighter, he's got
a good personality. He's got a very good like kind
of like I said, diverse fighting style, you know, ken
box and punch it. It's a very entertaining style to
watch because he can do a lot of different things.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: Now you know, Cruise is entertaining too, because he likes
to just rush you and and go for the go
for the juggular pretty much with every shot. But val
as Well's his game is a little bit more nuanced
and he can do a little bit more things. And
I like that.
Speaker 1: I noticed the story stopped without Valezuela inviting you to
the post fight party to celebrate there last night.
Speaker 2: You didn't get in on that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you had other I went to my room,
TJ the A List celeb that you are in the
A List town there by the way, there were some
A List celebs all over the place. I still want
to know how Scottie Pippen was two seats over from
Turkey Ala Chic.
Speaker 2: That was impressive.
Speaker 3: I was as they say. I didn't have that on
my part.
Speaker 2: It was interesting, all right. Now to the heavyweights.
Speaker 1: Let's go in order with Andy Ruiz, which was the
fight immediately before the Valezuela upset of Pitbull and the
draw with Jarrell Miller. We now know Ruiz said it
after the fight, I feel like I broke my hand.
Speaker 2: I don't know what the confirmation is.
Speaker 1: He showed his hand at least dislocated, if not broken.
Speaker 3: Show me after that.
Speaker 2: All right, So did you agree with draw? Did you think.
Speaker 1: Miller deserved it more? A lot of people are wondering
if we'll see it again. I thought they were tough
rounds to score, and I put it out on social
media and the tenth round. This thing has draw written
all over it, with tough rounds to score. What did
you think being there on Miller Ruiz?
Speaker 3: I had no problem with the draw. I thought it
was a really close fight. My personal scorecard was one fifteen,
one thirteen in favor of Jerrel Miller. But again, when
you have that many close rounds and they're just going
back and forth like that, I mean, certainly you can
have a couple of rounds swing one way or the other.
I mean, there was rounds that easily could have gone
the other direction. I always, when I keep my scores off,
have like my little codes that I use if I
think it's a close round or run. And I had
a couple of those on my scorecard where you maybe
think it could go either way, you know, And there
was no you know, there was no time in that
fight where one guy was really hurt or about to
go down or got knocked down or anything along those lines.
So it was a good fight. It was an entertaining fight,
like I think we knew it would be. And you know,
Jerreal Miller was upset with the decision. You know, what
are you gonna do? Two judges, you know, one judge
had it a draw or you know, I take them back.
Two of the judges had to draw, one fourteen and
one fourteen. The one judge at had it without being
a draw was one sixteen to one twelve for Miller.
I could see that. But you know, if you told
me you thought Andrew Reies won at one fifteen to
one third, I couldn't argue with that. I mean, it
was a close fight. If they do a rematch, I'd
be fine. Andy's gonna be out for a little bit.
That hand look awfully messed up. You can almost see
like the bones sort of like it wasn't out of
the skin or anything. But clearly there was an issue there,
and you know, we'll see what they do. But I
think when you get we have two heavyweight contenders like
that and they go, they get a draw, if they
don't do a rematch, both of them are still in
business because they didn't lose, and they can easily be
in another kind of fight.
Speaker 1: What about the argument, I realize Miller's a good talker,
but Miller got beat by Daniel Dubois. Ruiz has not
been active, by his own admission, he was on the
pod with you. He's had problems outside the ring, and
he hurt the hand and didn't look particularly great. What
about the argument that neither one of these guys is
going to be a serious player at the top of
the heavyweight division, and maybe the only best thing is
for them to rematch each other whenever that can happen.
I don't know who's clamoring to fight Durell are off
his draw, I guess is part of my point, But
go ahead.
Speaker 3: Well, it's not about who's clamoring I mean, if there's heavyweights,
the way the heavyweight division is oftentimes and it certainly
is that way right now, is it's almost like a
game of musical chairs, like they start matching guys up
and you kind of got to see who's left and
he is a dance partner, and then there's usually somebody
that's left out. But the fact that other heavyweights and
promoters also will view Jerald Miller or Andy Reeves for
that matter, as entertaining for the for the public to watch.
It'll make a good fight beatable. So if they've got
the other guy they think can win, like it's not
like you're putting your guy in huge mental harms way.
I mean, they're both good heavyweights, but Jeral Miller, just
based on the performances in the last couple of fights,
clearly a beatable fighter, and same thing as Andy Ruiz,
who has lost previously low terrible against aj in their
rematch and had a very close loss to Joseph Parker
back in like twenty sixteen in their first title fight.
But I'm making the point here that if you're if
you're doing like the Saudi Raby cards for example, and
they put a lot of heavyweight fights on. Everybody needs opponents,
so maybe your boy Agi Calbiell needs you know what
I mean. I'm just making a point that they can
mix and match all these guys.
Speaker 1: So let's lead to the fight immediately before that as
we continue on this read season card. And that was
Martin Bucoli from the Congo by way of Scotland in
Los Angeles. Rayfield was there on scene, and I have
to say, we don't get them all right, but we
were all over this upset. The only thing that made
me mad is I blew it on the bet Us
show because I went next level for the decision and
the bang for the buck and you just went straight
money line. But for people to say that we weren't
all over this is danger for Jared Anderson and Bakoli
could end up wiping him out.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: You were there and when the first round knockout happened,
your reaction, the media around you's reaction how shocked, and
a lot of.
Speaker 3: Us right there everybody was like it was audible gasps.
Like you know, most guys, you know, we've been to
a lot of fights for you don't really get too emotional.
You watch it, you know you're enjoying it, but you're
not cheering and hollering and screaming. But when he got
knocked down, there was definitely a a, let's say, a
vociferous reaction in media and media area. I picked Bookcoley
in the pre fight partly because the number was ridiculous,
because I felt there was a fifty to fifty fight
and he was such a heavy dog. He was almost
a two to one underdog. But then on Friday morning,
so they they did the ceremony away in the evening,
like six. I was actually supposed to be at nine
o'clock at night. They pushed it to six o'clock right
outside in l a live right by the hotel. But
I was in the room at nine am on Friday
morning for the commission. Wagh And then watch them and
they don't you know, when you're at the commission way
and they're not doing shit for the photographs and all that.
So they didn't like pose together, but they weighed the
guys in within a few minutes of each other. And
I'd never seen Martin Bucoley in person before. When I
saw Martin Bacauley get on the scale, I'm like, this
is a this dude is a mountain of a man,
a house like wide body, Paul. You know, maybe not
in the perfect shape, you know, a little flab going on,
but like kind of caught and you could talk a hard,
strong guy that this was going to be a rough go.
And Jared is much shorter than him and was out
weighed by about thirty pounds by him.
Speaker 1: But he's the point is, he's not a small guy.
I was saying that to the guys I was watching
the fight with. I'm like, look, so this looks, you know,
like a serious disparity, but Jared Anderson is every bit
of like two hundred and forty pounds.
Speaker 3: He was just or I kept thinking when I saw
him get on this scale, I kept thinking, man, Jared
Anderson's in a lot of trouble. That's exactly what was
in my mind. That was. I mean, I already had
made the pick, but that to me was just like
because we did the show the day before I went
out there or the day after I got out there,
but I was already there. We already We didn't do
it on Friday, Thursday, so I didn't see him on
the scale until Friday. It just reinforced my my conviction
and my certainty, frankly, that he was going to win
this fight way bigger, just a thick, sturdy guy. Seems
like he took a good punch. Listen, I'll give Jared
Anderson some credit here. He may have been beaten and
beaten pretty badly and knocked out and sort of lived
up to what a lot of people were thinking were
his liabilities because he showed that maybe he wasn't all
that in the last couple of the fights and his performances,
whether it was getting buzzed by the way he did,
hurt by Charles Martin, or just you know, the the
lack of a killer instinct, let's say against Riad Marry,
who threw like, you know, less punches in the ten
round fight than than Majimov did in the first few rounds.
Just you know, you kind of can feel it coming.
And then when you see him go in there and
even though he got stopped, kept getting up a lot
of heart. Noon got to tip your hat to Jared
Anderson's heart showed it all, let it all hang out,
you know, was there to try to win. Just either
didn't have the defensive capabilities, doesn't have the ability to
take the shot and Bacolia by no means is a
light puncher, and that's what happens. They they wanted to
step up. I don't think that he was ready for this. Uh.
I know for a fact there are people at top
rank who venomly disagreed with him taking this fight. They
did not want him to take this fight, but in
the end they were offering Jared. Let me, I understand,
I had no choice but to take the fight.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: Let me let me interject, because we go back and forth.
You brought that up, and you're you're in with those guys,
and I understand what they were wanting. They were wanting
him to get to the finish line if he could
of a title shot without taking a significant risk.
Speaker 3: I get that's true. That's not true. Okay, that's not
not true. All right, So you don't want to know.
Speaker 2: Can I finished? Can I finish the point?
Speaker 3: Because you're mischaracterizing it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to go over what we talked about before.
They had Faa Jagba on card after card with Jared Anderson,
and I said to you that guy would be a
step up. Let's see him in a step up fight.
You said back to me, that's a risk that they
don't really want to take right now because he could
end up getting a heavy waight title shot.
Speaker 2: You said that to me.
Speaker 1: So when this fight was made, I remembered the Bakoli
dominant performance.
Speaker 2: Against Tony Yoka.
Speaker 1: I've seen him win since then, and I believe this
was an even bigger risk than that.
Speaker 3: So I agree.
Speaker 1: Sooner or later, we were going to have to find
out what does Jared Anderson actually have or not against
a guy that's a real guy that could.
Speaker 2: Potentially knock him out.
Speaker 1: Okay, and we've now found that out they wanted was coming.
Speaker 3: To They wanted a little It's incremental. It's not either
or in boxing. It's not where either going to fight
this guy because we think he's an easy guy. We're
not going to fight this guy's because he's a tough guy.
There is nuance that the matchmakers know better than you
and me about moving a guy in a level and
the type of opponent. So this fight happened because Jared
Anderson wanted to fight, because Turkey al Chic wanted to
fight and paid a shitload of money that I have
the fight. Bob Aram was like, okay, and you asked,
Bob like leading up to the fight he was much
more nervis and the days leading into it he was
much more concerned. But look, the point here is he
didn't have to fight in a jog bab, but they
could have taken an incremental step up and given him
more seasoning. In particular, because this was his first fight
with a new coach in sugar Hill Stewart, they put
him in the toughest fight he could possibly be in
at this moment, having one training camp with with the
new coach. Typically a guy would have a couple of
fights at least, you know, work on a few things.
And it cost him dearly. And again, I'm not gonna
sit here and tell you that Jared Anderson's career is
over or he's never gonna amount to anything. But when
you see a guy who already worked question marks about
get and he didn't just get caught by one shot
and knocked out, that can happen. I don't even like
hold that against anybody. And I do give Jared credit
for the Tickers show by getting up and trying and
really doing it what he could do. Yeah, but we
got he got. He got destroyed, is the bottom line.
He got knocked down three times. This was not like
an insignificant loss. And keep in mind also Jared Anderson's
other knock on him, if you will, is that the
combination of the outside during troubles that he's had and
the fact that he has made no bones about the fact.
And he says it almost to the point of like
derision of those who want to watch him. I don't
care about boxing. I'm in this for the short haul.
All I want to do is make money. I don't
care about being heavyweight.
Speaker 2: Chance it's his own worst enemy on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, I mean a lot of his reputation is
built on the great will that he had from heavyweight
you know, from Tyson Fury when he was heavyweight champion
that had Jared in the training camp and gave him
all kinds of plaudits and flowers for being a great
sparring partner. And that's cool and everything. So right now,
I can tell you, right now Sunday, as we're taping this,
this is a hard day for Jared Anderson because he's
coming to the realization as the day wears on. I
am sure I got knocked out pretty badly last night,
and you got to pick up the pieces and you're
gonna go through like the grief stages.
Speaker 1: Well, and we saw Bob Aaron in the locker room
on social media trying to console him and say, you'll
come back from this. And obviously, look, they have a
vested interest in the guy coming back because he's still
under their promotional arm, unless you're gonna break news to
me that he's not any longer.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: But there's a couple other things that strike.
Speaker 1: Number One, there's a saying in sports and in life
that adversity doesn't build character, it reveals it.
Speaker 2: It's very true, what do you have?
Speaker 1: And I'm pointing to my chest for the audience, I
can't say what do you have right here?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: He did have heart to get up. But how much
does Jared Anderson really care about being great? We're going
to find that out. It's going to be revealed. Is
it good enough that he made whatever he made Saturday night?
And for right now he's going to coast or cruise
along or be highly motivated.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but he's.
Speaker 3: Certainly I suspect that he's going to continue to fight,
because guys always talk about I'm going to retire at
this age or that age. In the end, Jared Anderson
is still a young man at four years old. He
has a young family now with with with a baby
daughter that you know he talked about he wants to
provide for. And I'm not saying that Jared Anderson is
not a you know, an intelligent human being. But it's
not as though he's going to suddenly, you know, drop
his his boxing career and you know, and go become
a you know, a computer programmer or you know, a
a dentist, right or what exactly. So, I mean, you
know that's he's a boxer. It's not I'm not sitting
here telling you there's not other things he could do
with his life. But I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be
as lucrative as fighting for a few more years, that's
for sure. And uh, you know, the reason why he
was on this card in the first place was because Turkey.
She was a fan of his and wanted him on
the card. So you know, if Turkey tells him, you know,
go shake it off, get it a little rest, and
we're gonna bring you back, then they'll put him in
another fight and we'll see if he can redound. I
hope he does. I don't know, but I tell you
one thing, by the way, what it does expose when
Jared got knocked out like that, there is no United
States heavyweights right now? That I mean you're the top
American heavyweights? Is Jared Anderson going into this fight? Andy
Rees is an American heavyweight, you know, Mexican but born
in America. American. Uh, you saw what happened with that
fight Jerald Miller. I mean that's a heavyweight that's American.
I mean, are you thinking these guys are future everyweight champions?
And then you know, I don't know. Deontay Wilder is
pretty much done at this point unfortunately, so an American.
But where where's my American heavyway? Give me one? You
know the guys that you mentioned that the other top
rank guys that they use like Edo Vannello is from Italy.
A Jagua is you know, from Uhigeria, and other heavyweights
who may fight in America are not American. So have
you said to me right now, who's the number one
American heavy And Richard Torres is the United States Olympian
from twenty twenty Tokyo, and Richard's an exciting, uh hard
puncher and and uh you know, is on the way
up the ranks. But and I'm I like Richard Torres,
but here's the problem with Richard Torres in the long
run of being in competition with the big guys in
this weight class is he's about two thirty. Now. Back
in the day, that was a big deal, like that
was a big heavyweight. Hey, but today Martin Bacole was
fucking two eighty five, Jared was two fifty. You know,
Andy Ruiz was two seventy or whatever. Uh, big baby
was three oh three, three oh five. So two thirty mostly,
And it's not like he's not a tall guy. He's
maybe like six to one, you know, two thirty six
one ish. I mean, unless you're spectacular, unless your cash
is fucking clay in the old day, that's not probably
getting the job done in today's heavyweight division. So by
all means, I wish Richard Torre is nothing but success,
but I'm just being realistic, all right.
Speaker 1: And and again, where does Pecoli go his stock is up?
Speaker 2: Does he get a fight with Jang?
Speaker 1: That would be interesting, that is, if he Jang, that
would be interesting, dude.
Speaker 3: That's the carnage fight right there.
Speaker 1: All right, That's it would be interesting if you're looking
for something else for Jarrell Miller, maybe it's Pecoli.
Speaker 2: I don't know who you can You can take all
these you got several.
Speaker 3: Ahrwee's Take Jerald Miller, take Forecoli, take Jang, you know,
put them all. Take your boy Tabiel. Joe Parker is
going to be coming back, probably in the later part
of the year. You know, you can put all these
guys in a hat and you can pick out the
names and just make the matches.
Speaker 1: All right again. Virgil Ortiz conversation in just a moment.
Also on this car, we kept saying this. Six fights
on the pay per view, David Morrell victorious in his
light heavyweight battle, and Andy Cruz got buzzed early on
in his fight with Antonio Moran but eventually got a TKO.
Any follow up thoughts on seeing Morel and Cruse in
person to round out the car.
Speaker 3: So, I have a couple thoughts on Morell. He moved
up from one hundred and sixty eight to one hundred
and seventy five in large measure because similar to David Bennavidiez,
who he wants to fight, he couldn't get a fight
with Canel Alvarez. There just was no other big name
fight for him in the weight class. He got the opportunity, unfortunately,
to fight for the WBA regular title, which they said
they were getting rid of, and then they just created
an allowed morele to go from his super middleweight regular
belt to now winning the lion Headwell belt in the
light heavyweight division, which he'll now have a short period
of time in which he'll have to notify the WBA
in through which division he intends to keep the title. Obviously,
he's going to keep the title at light heavy Wait.
I felt like, you know, it was kind of a
weird performance from him, because David Merrel is a very
talented fighter, a good offensive fighter. Didn't seem to have
a whole lot of snap the other night. You know,
a hot rod collegiate who was his opponent has been
knocked out before, but he never really seemed to do
really any serious serious damage against him. I do suspect
and maybe I'm wrong about this. I'm trying to make
excuse for anybody. At the time that that fight happened, TJ.
It was so hot outside in Los Angeles and they're
under the lights and the sun is shining on them
in the ring. You couldn't escape it. I mean, I
think he was just tired because it would just snaps
your energy. Now his opponent's in the same boat, but
guys maybe react a little bit differently. It was really
really hot. It was not a good situation of being
if you're the fighter. Now, not to say it wasn't
hot also when the other guys fought in the in
the subsequent house, but it did when when the sun
started to go down a little bit, it definitely cooled off,
you know, considerably in that in that stadium. So I'll
just talk it up to you know what, I got
my feet wet in the weight class. I still won handily.
It wasn't like there was controversy. Won clearly. I thought
he would do it a little bit more impressively. But
David Morrell is still a quality guy. I think he
still has a chance to do a lot of good
things in the in the light heavyweight division. He says
he wants Benavides, who's now in the light heavyweight division. Als.
Remember he moved up and fought Vodzick in June, and
now you got Morell going up in wait to do
this fight. That he had on Saturday night, so they
I think they should still fight each other. That's a
PBC fight that could easily be in any of the
kind of cards that they do. It could certainly be
the main event of a card if they want to
do one like that. They did promoters Samson Lukawitz for
Benavides and Leon Margilize form Warriors Boxing h and Louis
de Couba Senior for David Morrell. They agreed to the
fight back a while back, and it was and Morell
was okay with the fight. He wanted that fight. It
was Benavidez who was having some issues with his promoter
Samson Lukawitz, who decided not to and they would end
up doing the Dematerius Andre fight instead. So I'm not
going to tell you that David Benavidez was ducking necessarily,
But the point is that fight is still out there.
That is a very marquee fight in terms of who's
under the PBC banner, and I think that fight should happen.
They both made successful debuts in the light heavyweight division.
They both won second tier titles. You know, Benavide's won
an interim title, the undisputed title is taking place later
in the year. The winner of a fight between David
Morrell against David Benavide's would absolutely be like the people's
commandatory for the winner. And because they're gonna, you know,
because David has the interim title and Merrell has the
regular title, they're going to be in position to be
mandatory for both of those organizations if they were to
fight each other. So to me, it's a no brainer.
What else is out there? The light heavyweight division is
good at the top, but the two best guys are
fighting each other. So I think that's a fight that
you know, it's prize fighting. If you go through that gauntlet,
you get your eye, you get your opportunity. So but anyway,
in terms of the fight on Saturday, look Morell, you didn't
look great, but he did enough. He won the fight
and he moves on. And in terms of Andy Kruz,
the lightweight great amateur fighter twenty twenty US Cuban Olympian,
three time World Amateur Champion, two time Pan American champion,
defeated Kishan Davis, you know and outstanding prospect in his
own right, defeated him for the gold medal. Actually has
multiple victories against Kishan in the amateur ranks. I was
I was a little concerned, and I saw him do
the shaky leg, you know, get the funny leg there,
like zab Juda when he got knocked out Bykasazu for
a quick second there, but he recovered. I mean, I
was like, maybe this is a little bit too much. Again,
he's only in his fourth professional fight. And again, no
matter how much amateur experience you have and how great
you are an amateur, it is different fighting as a professional,
no question about it. I mean, I've used a Lomachenko
example many times, and we just talked about what was
going on with Majimuf.
Speaker 1: But and look at what happened to a large extent
to Jared Anderson facing the adversity of a knockdown and
how did he respond and what happened. I know, you
got a tougher opponent there, but here again adversity, but
still adversity reveals character. He got buzzed, but he didn't
let it phase him, and then he got the stoppage cruse.
Speaker 3: I was talking about the amateur at level because it
was not the kind of amateur Nadrimov is a decorated
three hundred plus amateur guy ONEm a Chanko you can
argue is the greatest amateur of all time. And in
terms of Andy Kruz, you know, maybe not at the
absolute Loma Chanko level, but still one of the top
amateurs ever in terms of his accomplishments. And again he
goes in with a guy that's got like thirty six
thirty seven fights in Antonio Moran, who's been in the
ring with all kinds of quality guys, lost six fights
going into this fight, only got stopped at one time
by Devin Haney. He's fighting a veteran, you know, a
true vett maybe not a world title contender, but a
guy that's usually gonna make the guy he's facing work
for a victory if he is going to get that victory.
And so in terms of Andy Kruz, he showed the
grit after he had that that uh, you know, he
got hurt in that in that early early round. He
came back and he didn't just you know, get on
his bike and start to revert to that old Cuban style.
He went after him and he took him out, and
that's what you do.
Speaker 1: And he showed little Philly came out. You kept talking
about the Philly jim. A little Philly gim came out
in him.
Speaker 2: Go get it.
Speaker 3: While I was in Los Angeles on the multiple occasions,
I saw Bozyannis had a chance to talk to him
a little bit about about Andy Kruz, and we were
talking about and I told him, you know, he said, like,
what do you think. I said, I'll tell you what
in freshmoun Andy Kruz forget about wins. This is before
the fight, you know, before we saw what happened. That.
The thing that I like about Andy Kruz is that
he didn't just and it's you know, these guys when
they defect, the road they go on to get here
is so hard, and you know, they just they got
their free They can do whatever they want. Now. They
can go where they want, They can align with whoever
they want. No one's going to tell them how they
have to train or where they have to train. But
instead of going to the Cuban culture in South Florida
or going with like an Ishmael Salas in Nevada and
sticking with another Cuban coach, he was determined to to
take the skills and the excellent background he has as
an amateur fighter and add to that by becoming more
of a pro style fighter, because not only does he
want to be a great fighter, but he wants to
appeal to the fans, and that helps you make the
bigger money and create that kind of legacy, you know,
if you can put that in combination with winning titles
and big fights. So he went to a place where
he's gonna be turned into a pro style fighter, and
you saw that on Saturday. He doesn't run and move
around like crazy. He sits down on his punches, and
he's learning that from Bozyannas if you can survive the
type of sparring and the type of guys that they
have in those Philly gyms. I mean, he even spars
with Geron Ennis sometimes if a guy doesn't show up,
you know, he's spars with with Ennis, who's a welterweight.
I was talking to Bozy about that. I said, they've
had some good sparring together, even though you know they're
not going all out on each other, obviously because Gion
is so much bigger. I'm just making the point that mentally, Uh,
in terms of desire cruises in the right spot and
he and he and that some of that came out
in the way he finished ran by overcoming some difficult moments.
I thought it was a it was a great learning
experience for him. He's going to be a better pro
because he went through that difficult moment.
Speaker 1: Realistically, how soon is soon enough for Cruise to get
a title shot? Do you think he needs a couple
of more fights? Do you think we're looking at maybe
early twenty twenty five, middle of twenty twenty five much right?
Speaker 3: I think if he could get the opportunity literally in
his next fight, he could win a title in his
next fight. But interesting, again, you're not going to that opportunity.
It's dependent upon you know who's available and who you
can fight. But I'm not going to tell you he's
ready to fight anybody. But he can handle himself against anybody.
In my opinion, I'm not saying he would necessarily win,
but he would not be out of his depths against
anybody in the weight class. So if you just take
a quick look at the division, Shaquurte Stevenson's the WBC champion,
tremendous defensive fighter, but in some ways has some similarities
to Andy Kruz with that amateur career. I believe that
that Andy Kruz would would become competitive tomorrow against the course.
Stevenson's not saying he would win, but it's not a blowout.
Dennis Brentchik, an Olympic medalist, also a little bit older.
He would be in that fight now. Lomachenko, they're talking
about the greatest amateur maybe ever, but he's in the
in the twilight out of his career. That's a hard
fight for a lot of different reasons. And Tank Davis
he's probably not ready for that. But I'm making a
We're talking about a kid with four and oh not
really a kid because he's twenty eight now, but in
terms of his amateur you know, making that transition into
the pros, he still early on. Uh, he could compete
with the champions going into his fifth professional fight in
my opinion. But you're not going to get that opportunity. Yeah,
but it's you're not going to take a long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could see him fight another fight. There's me
just saying this and then maybe or maybe two more
fights and then maybe and I closer.
Speaker 3: If we can get our friends that bet you has
to put up a number. I would definitely bet that
Andy Kruse fights a world title before his tenth professional fight.
Speaker 1: Oh, I would bet it's before the eighth. I even
go lower than that. I think you could get a
title fight in his six or seventh fight.
Speaker 2: We'll see, we'll see his.
Speaker 3: Rod his like this, tej. I will agree on this.
His road to a title shot is not based on
his ability. It's based on availability.
Speaker 2: True.
Speaker 1: I uh, why don't we do this? We got some
news and nostalgia coming up. But speaking of available, he
was available, and you talk with him about that for
a Seguey, Virgil Ortiz is back, coming this Saturday night
in Las Vegas, and he is fighting for a title.
That's sir, hey, bullet Chuck's interim title at one hundred
and fifty four pounds. Here again, what else is on
the line for Virgil Ortiz, we'll talk about. But this
is the interim WBC Junior middleweight title on the line,
or tees bullet Chuck for twelve rounds. But you don't
have to wait for fight week, as we love to
keep saying in the press conferences and all that. Here
from Virgil Ortiz about his return, right here, right now.
Speaker 3: It is my great pleasure to welcome back as a
guest WOR Podcast once again. Top junior middleweight contender in
the world, Virgil Ortiz Junior, Virgil, thank you so much
for being on with me today. I really appreciate it.
We have a lot to discuss.
Speaker 4: How have you been, Yeah, we do, man, Thanks for
having me on. First of all, I've been I've been
really good man. You know, chain has been going well.
Now this year has been great for me. This is
my third fight this year and everything's going good. Everything's
going as we expected.
Speaker 3: We're going to get into all that, so we'll let
the folks. No, you have a I would guess actually
from the stakes anyway standpoint, maybe even the competition standpoint,
the biggest and best and toughest fight on paper anyway
of your career. You're going to take on the WBC
interim JERM middleweight title holder Sarry Bochek in a really
interesting fight in my opinion anyway, you'll fight him on
August to tenth. It'll be the Golden Boy main event
on his own at one of my all time favorite
venues in the in boxing in the world, Mandalay Bay,
the michelob Ultra Arena. I know it's been a long
time coming for you to get a fight like this,
But I gotta go back and discuss how it got
to this point. It's a great matchup starting off, go ahead,
not glady, I was gonna say. Originally, your next fight
was supposed to be what was a fantastic fight that
everybody seemed to be awfully excited about against him Zoo
for the WBA interim title at one hundred and fifty
four pounds. They were going to put that on the
big August third card in Los Angeles, the first ever
riadd Seasons card in the United States. A huge card,
you know, Terrence Crawford in the main event fighting for
the WBA full title against Madromov in the main event,
and just a loaded show. But to many people, Virgil,
your fight with Zoo was the best fight on paper
on that card. And then we know what happened. Zoo
had the injury, the cut from the previous fight in
March against Fandora. He was ruled out by his doctor
and so that fight was off. And then there was
a lot of sort of talk, you know, he'll stay
on the card, They'll find a different opponent for you.
That didn't happen. So I want to just hear from you,
like sort of like the emotional roller coaster you're on
in this great matchup. Your opponent's out, maybe you're gonna stay.
Now you're off the card, They're gonna try to get
you a new opponent. Now you have a new date.
Now you're fighting Boachek for a different version of the
interim title. Was it a little bit of up and
down for you over the couple of weeks that was
going on.
Speaker 4: Uh, you know, it's uh throughout my career, bunting, my
ups and downs, and at this point, I'm not really
surprised about any of it anymore. It's just just how
the sport is, and uh, things can happen. So I
kind of, honestly, I kind of expected it, Like I
didn't want to get my hopes too high, because you know,
I tend to get disappointed, you know, Like I was
supposed to fight We were in talk spot to fight
Thurman one time. Man, I was super excited about that one,
and you know, it didn't end up happening. I don't
think I've ever said this before, but those even talks
of many Packyard at one time, and I was when
I was the I don't know when it was. I
was the WBA Gold and he was the WBA Champions too,
and so the talks, very low talks, but you know
that ignited like some kind of hope in me.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, this could actually.
Speaker 3: Happen, you know.
Speaker 4: And of course it didn't happen, obviously, but uh, you know,
I think I've gone through these uh these really highs
and after the highest the low because.
Speaker 2: You know, it didn't happen.
Speaker 4: I'm just like, man, you know what, I'm just if
it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, I'm just gonna
I'm just gonna keep it with my things. So with
this Tims You thing, uh, you know, I was really excited.
I was happy that, you know, his excellency. Uh you know,
he was like, hey, we'll like you on the card,
and uh what about the Tims You fight. I'm like, shit,
hey do the Tims fight. But back in in the
back of my head, I was just like, something could happen.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: He just had a horrible cut, and I thought about
that exact same you know that you know, that thing
that that could potentially prevent the fight from happening, and
that's what it ended it up to be. Uh, as
far as now, we've got a big fight the WBC
interim with Sergi, you know, and uh, it's it's gonna
be a good fight. You know, we should spark a lot. So, uh,
I know exactly what kind of fight it's gonna be.
Speaker 3: Well, we'll get to that, but you can start by
telling me what kind of fight is it gonna be?
When you say that, I'm intrigued.
Speaker 4: There's it's gonna be close quarters the whole time. There's
there's gonna be no boxing.
Speaker 3: Well, the way you described your situation, it seems to
me that in the years of your career you've grown
some wisdom, like you kind of it seems like you
were able to more maintain and even keel because of
there's so many emotional ups and downs with fights that
are made not made, injuries, cancelations, postponements. Do you feel
like that any of the stuff that comes your way
you can deal with now with, you know, whatever it
may be when it comes to that type of situation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm I think I don't want to say I've
been through it all, you know, I can't say that,
but I think I've been through my fair share. I
think I'm mentally prepared for everything at this point.
Speaker 3: What was it like when you thought that, you know,
you're off the August third card. There were still conversations
going on because I think Golden Boy and Boachuk's promoter
Tom Loeffler, I think a lot of the fans and
media were like, yeah, I mean, okay, I'm not really
sure why the Saudis didn't want to include that particular fight,
even if maybe it wasn't the same name recognition as
at tim Zuo, where you were sort of in that
limbo area where you weren't sure if they were going
to make that fight for you or maybe other fight.
You know, it can get your own date. Obviously, Disown
and Golden Boy work together, so they've been featuring you know,
you and other fighters on Golden Boys, So that didn't
really seem to be the issue. But were you concerned
at all that you would have another longer layoff because
of what happened with the post moment or cancelation of
the Zoo fight.
Speaker 4: I don't think so, because you know, we did have
some options, you know, and you know we will with
Sir Hey, which I believe is the hardest option that
we could have went with, you know, but I feel
like it's the one with the most opportunity, and you know,
that's that's one that we chose to go. And uh,
you know, I'm not one to shy away from a
hard fight. You know, this is exciting for me.
Speaker 3: This is why I'm in the sport.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I want to give the heart. I want to give
the exciting fights. I want to be a part of them.
That's what motivates me to chain, you know. And I
mean that's it. I mean, I just want to I
just want to show down the best because I believe
I am.
Speaker 3: So when you go in this, in this fight, and
even if you had gone in the fight with Zoo,
You're gonna be fighting for an intern world title. It's
not a full world time, but it's obviously a little
more meaningful than no title. What is your position on
sort of and what does it mean to you that
it's an interim title. Some guys are like they love it.
Some guys realize it's a stepping stone to a big title.
You know, certain guys we've seen in recent times. I
just interviewed Boots and it's not that long ago he
he was elevated from interim to full and walterwait because
Crawford moved up and wasn't going to fight him. So
what's your take on the interim aspect of these title fights?
Speaker 4: So I am grateful for the opportunity, for sure. You know,
it's it's a belt. It's just because it's an insterroim
doesn't mean nothing. But would I recognize myself as a
world champion, No, because you know, that's just you're the
vice president. You know, just because you're the vice president.
Speaker 3: You're not, by the way, president. I've been doing this
a long time, man, I have written about interim title
fights and interview guys a thousands. I have never heard
anybody refer to it as the vice president. That is
absolutely perfect. We perfectly said.
Speaker 4: That's that's how it is. You'r the vice president. You know,
like you know, when when people think of the president
of the United States, you can you know, corredate that
like the world champion. We don't think of Kamala Harris
or Joe Biden when it was Obama. You know, that's
just not to bring politics into it, that's just how
you know. So anyways, uh, you know, I don't. I
don't bring anyone down when I say that. Just for me,
I just I won't be satisfied until I have the
actual title.
Speaker 3: Now, you mentioned that you and sorry bull check of
sparring sessions together. Is it a lot of rounds or
a little rounds or like, how how much do you
know him from the ring experience with him? And then
you know, not a real fight, obviously, but just in
a sparring session, a lot a lot of rounds with him.
Speaker 4: We've we've gone a few rounds. He actually not only
you know, when I was with Manny Roebliz over there
was I sparing him, but he actually got me ready
for the.
Speaker 3: Mean machine fight. Okay.
Speaker 4: He came from South A to Riverside when I was
still at Roberts and we were sparring there too, So
I'm very familiar.
Speaker 3: With him, and of course that means he's familiar with you.
But you're twenty one to know what twenty one knockout.
He's twenty four and one with twenty three knockouts. Not
a lot of distant fights when it comes to you, guys,
First of all, you know, I know that it's not
a full actual fight, but you must feel some power.
I guess, if he's got that many knockouts, what kind
of punching power does he has? From your recollection? Because
he does have so many knockouts, you're both obviously punchers.
Speaker 4: I would I wouldn't say that his knockouts come from power.
He does have some. It's more consistent. You know, he
has a really good conditioning. I would just say it's
the pressure. Yeah, I feel like the main reason.
Speaker 3: Now when you go into the ring, you do have it.
As I mentioned, the perfect knockout record. I wonder when
you get to the point where you're twenty one to
oher and you got twenty one knockouts, is it all
in the back of your mind or meaningful to you
to continue the knockout streak?
Speaker 4: Well? You know, sometimes I do think about it before
the fight, but when I'm in the fight, I'm just thinking,
all right, how am I gonna avoid this?
Speaker 3: How am I gonna wear that? How am I going
to get to him?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: And then it just comes into play. And then next thing,
you know, if I see an opportunity, I just I
just I jump.
Speaker 3: On it, all right. So when you guys were the
fight got announced and then on July eleventh, the day
that Golden Boy had arranged for the press conference for
you and Boltchak to kick things off. Right before the
press conference, Golden Boy announced that you and the company
had agreed to a contract extension to keep you with
Golden Boy for the next period of time. How how
did that? I mean, it got done, I guess kind
of quick relative to when the fight was announced to
Is this something that was being worked on for a while,
And just how do you feel about having that sort
of stability and that your business situation is handled before
this big fight for you? Yeah, of course.
Speaker 4: I mean we knew that the previous contract was coming
to a close, and we're just thinking, okay, so like
how are we doing this? You know, like just talking
to Golden Boy, like you know, what's up? And it
took some time. I wouldn't say it took a whole
lot of time, not like it took a lot of convincing,
because you know, we work well with each other. You know,
it's just ironing out, you know, the small things. And
I mean, I'm, like I said before, I'm very happy
to be here. Goldaway has always treated me in the
best way. I'm very happy here and why would I
go anywhere else?
Speaker 3: No, I just wanted to ask because it's it's, uh,
you know, in sports in general, whether it's boxer otherwise.
Some people like yourself, they they don't necessarily think the
grass is greener, and they're comfortable with their circumstance. They
got themselves a deal they're happy with financially, and whatever
else goes along with that. Other guys, like other sports,
want to test the market and see what else is
out there for them. So I'd always want to sort
of gauge the mentality of the athlete of what they're thinking.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, true.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Unfortunately, here for me, I was very fortunate to
you know, find a great promoter and all that stuff,
you know, and it's just, uh, it really is a
blessing to be here.
Speaker 3: I feel, like Virgil, it's sort of like the opposite
of what we had talked about in a couple previous
time when we've done interviews where unfortunately we had to
talk about, you know, no fights in twenty twenty three
because you had the medical issues and the postponements and
the ultimate cancelation of the amount to stanions fight just
the one fight in twenty twenty two. Now fast forward
to where you are sitting here today. You're one of
the busiest top names in the sport. You got two
fights under your belt already in twenty twenty four. You
got a third fight that we're talking about here against
Bochek coming up on August tenth. How does it feel
for you now to finally be like it feels like
in a groove, regular fights, irregular activity, you know, fight,
take a little time off, training camp, get a fight,
get paid, you know, all the things that go along
with it.
Speaker 4: It feels really good, man. And I'll tell you what
I think. The thing I like the most about it
is the activity is keeping me sharp. Like sometimes I
will go back to the gym and I'm like, goddamn,
like I'm rusty as hell, Like I don't make these mistakes,
you know, But when I go back to the gym,
I'm just like, damn, like I feel like I haven't,
like I didn't take any time off, and I'm just
I'm sharp as ever.
Speaker 2: Like this.
Speaker 4: I could give me like two weeks of conditioning and
I'll go another tour ground.
Speaker 3: But I'm like, like fair to say, you don't need
as long as a training camp you don't need like
ten weeks if you've already fought and you've been active.
Am I wrong?
Speaker 4: That's kind of a hard one.
Speaker 3: I say that because partly part of training camp. You
know you're making the weight if you've if you fought recently,
you know you don't have that much time to go
crazy in terms of moving, you know, going up and
in the weight and and you're and you're just like
you say, you stay sharp, you stay conditioned.
Speaker 4: Yeah, as far as as far as that you know,
the physical aspect, No, I'm good. And you know even
mentally the mental clarity is still there, and uh it is.
It's getting better as as I'm staying more active.
Speaker 3: So we talked about the activity. So the two fights
you had were Frederick Lawson and then you had to
fight with Thomas Lormet. So on the good hand, it
seems like you're as active as can be relative to
the other names in this you know, the top names.
And maybe it's bad, maybe it's good. You tell me,
just do you're not in the first round. I mean, obviously,
as the old saying goes, you don't get paid for overtime,
and it's always good to get a big win and
get a knockout, but it is only less than two
full rounds? Is that a positive or negative? As you
go into this fight, so.
Speaker 4: You could you could see it both ways. I see
it as a positive pace. The first one we came
up for a long way off. We needed to see
how how if I was still the same or not.
You know, I felt pretty rusty physically and mentally. But
you know what, we we got a good training campaign,
I got some good sparring. Uh, and we got that
fight out of the way. Soma's the lord man. You
know this fight, I felt I was starting for myself,
kind of getting into that group again. Not quite there,
but like you know what, I'm I'm I'm feeling better.
Speaker 2: This is seeming kind.
Speaker 3: Of familiar again.
Speaker 2: And uh, when when we find him, I was.
Speaker 4: Expecting to go In my opinion, I thought the fight
was going to end like in four five rounds. But
I was just when I got him out of there
in that first round without trying to, and I saw
everything in so motion. I just hitting with that body
shot like okay, yeah, that's where I'm back.
Speaker 2: Like that's it.
Speaker 4: And now that I've started this camp, definitely feel like
I haven't left the gym at all, it's I'm the best.
Speaker 3: I've ever been. Well on your fight with Thomas Lormee,
who I've known for many years and have nothing but
love for Thomas Lommey, a great guy. My prediction on
that fight was Virgil Ortiz in the first round, So
I feel like I did a pretty good job on
that one. So now that you've had the two fights
that we mentioned, you got this fight coming up with Bolchek.
If everything goes how you hope it goes, and you
win this fight, it's only gonna be August. There's still
plenty of time left this year. Are we going to
see Virgil Ortiz in the ring a fourth time in
twenty twenty four? Yeah, that was a quick answer.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So yeah, then the question becomes, I mean, I know
you got to fight the fight, and it's uh, you know,
you know that's what's right in front of you. But
you're a weight class. You know, August third, the week
before you fight, you're gonna have Crawford Madgemov a good
chance at you know, Crawford is crowned the champion if
it's made Mov. He's pulled the humongous upset and he
becomes a big name. You still got Fundora out there,
who's gonna come back from his issues, probably at the
end of the year. Uh Tim Zuo is gonna be
ready to fight at some point. You know. Just because
he can't go in August doesn't mean he can't fight
at some point later in the year. There's the IBF champion,
not the most well known guy in terms of Martazla,
But like, what in your mind is like, if you
could pick your fight, what would you want to do after.
Speaker 4: This, either Tim Zoo or the winner of Fundora and
uh Spence if they if they fight. I'm just yeah,
that's I've been here in rumors, but I've always wanted
to fight Spence in the Cowboy Stadium.
Speaker 3: And that's and I always.
Speaker 4: Say it had that one fifty four. It's not gonna
have that one forty seven. I already know one four.
I'm telling you, I'm I'm calling it. It's it's gonna happen.
Speaker 3: And both of you guys being you know, from the
Dallas area, that would probably do a big crowd, A
and a and a you know a lot of fans
that would turn out for that kind of fight. Yeah,
of course, exactly be a huge fight. All right. So
before I let you go, I got to ask you.
With Boachak, you know you are familiar with each other. Uh.
You both guys have accomplishments and in great records and
lots of knockouts. How do you think this fight goes?
Are we going to see another classic Virgil Ortiz knockout
or what.
Speaker 4: You're gonna see a brutal fight. That's so I'm gonna say,
I know how he fights, we know how I fight.
It's it's uh, it's gonna be a brutal fight.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you this when I just thought of this,
when you said it's gonna be a brutal fight. You're
fighting in the Mandalay Bay. Uh, the arena at the
Mandala Bay. That's the location of where I think the
greatest fight of all time took place. Do you want to
talk about a brutal fight? The first fight between Diego
Carlis and Jose Lewis Castilla was in that in that ring.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you want to deliver that kind
of group brutal fight. But when you when you hear,
when you when you see and think about the types
of great fights that have been there. You know, your promoter,
Oscar de Laya had one of his greatest fights, one
of his biggest wins, against Fernando Vargas in that ring.
Among other great fights, Marco, Antonio Beerera and Eric Morales
fought in that ring. You know, Manny Paco fought in
that ring. What does that make you feel like when
you hear the names and the greats that fought there.
Speaker 4: You know, history repeats it stuff. You know it's it's
gonna be a classic. You know for sure, it's gonna
be one of those fights you watched in twenty years, like, damn, yeah,
this one doesn't get over.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm excited just hearing you talk about that, Virgil,
thank you so much for your time. I wish he's
such a good success in that fight and I look
forward to watching.
Speaker 4: It, of course, Thank you man, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: All right, a lot of intrigue because he scores a
lot of knockouts. And you even said it earlier in
this pod. You did the interview with him before we
knew the result with Terrence Crawford, although he was likely
going to win, Could this guy end up being a
Crawford opponent?
Speaker 2: Maybe?
Speaker 1: Is he in for another big time fight besides Crawford
at one fifty four.
Speaker 2: What about Virgil Ortiz as we hit the fight week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, like you said, I talked to him
before we knew the result of the Terrence Crawford fight
against Magimov. But without question, and it was spoken about
at the postfight press conference by Eddie Hearn and others
that one of the things that Turkey would like to
see if he can't make the Canelo Alvarez fight. Now,
remember Eddie doesn't promote Virgil Ortiz or Terrence, but he
was asked the question at the press carts and obviously, yeah,
the year of Turkey al Chikh, So you know, he said, yeah, listen,
that's the fight that they would like to say, I'd
like to make again if they can't make the Canelo fight,
then if you take a look at the landscape in
the weight class, Terrence Crawford against Virgil Artis, if he
comes off a big win against Boa check or or
and you know, in another possibility, let's say, would be
like if Tim Zu who's gonna fight in September, that
would be another possibility. But the two guys that would
make for probably the most higher profile fight as well
as entertaining fight would be Terrence Crawford against Virgil or
against Tim Zu or remember Tim Zu and Virgil, We're
supposed to fight each other on the card on Saturday Night,
but because of the scalp injury that Zoo was not
healed yet, that was not happening, so they just went
and did their own date with Bowchuk and Tim is
going to fight in September on you know, in Australia.
But yeah, Virgil Artis has a rot a lot riding
on Saturday, as does Bochick obviously, but we're talking about
Virgil more particular because he's the bigger name and where
that's the guy just interviewed. This is an opportunity for
him to not only claim the interim belt, put himself
in a mandatory position, but also keep winning and put
himself in a spot because now he's on the radar
of Turkey to get some type of significant fight. So,
you know, is it out of the realm of possibility
that he winds up on Let's say, I'm making this
up like he could be maybe on the December on
the undercard in Saudi Arabia when Fury and Usik have
their rematch. Oscar de la Waite, who is this promoter,
was there at the stadium last night. He's had conversations
with Turkey about different things. He's been a guest of
Turkey's at at least one of the cards that took
place in Saudi Arabia last year. So there's a lot
of possibilities for Virgin r Tis without question.
Speaker 1: All right, So again that is his fight week this week,
coming in Las Vegas.
Speaker 3: That's gonna be a good fight ToJ main event.
Speaker 2: Will be previewing it later in the week.
Speaker 1: Some news, Okay, there were all kinds of people there
last night. Eminem in concert by the way, Rayfield, how
were you doing when they dim the lights? I know
they still have the lights on in the press box.
You were trying to do your work, trying to get
a story done. Eminem was rock out. I was texting you,
my god, can we get the main event in the ring?
I know I'm discussing man, old man, get off my lawn, guy,
but can we get the main event in the ring
before one am Eastern time?
Speaker 3: Let's discuss that for just a question.
Speaker 2: Let's discuss yes, let's please discuss that.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, Okay, I like the fact that they that
not just what happened with the Saudi card on Saturday,
but any promoter that puts on a big cart. That's deep.
That's you get value for money if you buy the
pay per view or if you buy a ticket. All
that so done and knock in that, But can we
learn to pace the show a little bit better? There
were such long breaks through some of these fights. I know,
I mean it was it was like interminable. Now. I
get there was gonna we all knew going in there
was gonna be about a half an hour between the
end of the co feature and the start of the main.
Speaker 2: Event, about about a half an hour.
Speaker 3: How long, I don't even know how long it was.
I just know I think it.
Speaker 1: Was closer to like an hour and twenty minutes, just
because of the uh. I was busy working, so I
understand it was at least an hour because of the
shameless how shall we just say, fawning all over Turkey
ala chic ceremonies in the ring, and then we had
to dim the lights for the concert, and that went
on and then and then we had to do the
ring walks with all the build up, and then all
the anthems. It was easily forty five minutes, if not
an hour in between co features.
Speaker 3: So when that was happening, yeah, I was actually very
focused and intently writing my story about the pit bull fight.
Speaker 2: Mm hm.
Speaker 3: So I was kind of like, uh, you know, blocked
a lot of that out. I mean I saw it
was were.
Speaker 2: You tapping your foot to lose yourself at the end.
Speaker 3: I actually stopped. I did stop that because I liked
that song. I've heard. I've seen it as a walk
in song for a fights many times. It's a cool song.
So I did. I did stop at that point to
sort of pay attention to perk up. Uh. So it
was cool. I can't come. You know. When I got home,
I said, you know, I said to my son, I said,
you know I saw last night. Says no, he said,
I saw Eminem. He goes, really, you know Swemms. He's
eleven years old, but he knows who I'm an ms. Right, So, uh,
it was that was cool. I didn't I didn't mind that.
But again, if you know you're going to have a
break for the concert, which was always built into the
timing sheet, can we move shit along a little bit?
I mean it's just it gets interminable, and I get
they want to talk about this and talk about that.
My perspective is this, once the event has started, the
pay per view has been purchased, you're not there's nobody
to sell it to anymore. They're either going to buy
it or they're not your words. They're not going to
hear because they haven't purchased it yet. If they did
purchase it, you've already got them for your for your buy.
So you know, a lot of times sometimes the production
people want to let their pundits talk, which they should.
If you're bringing on somebody to be on your show,
you you did it so for a reason. But I
can think they could use maybe a couple of less
voices on those shows. Number one, not that they're not
good talented people that do it. It just it gets
to be too busy and it needs to be too many.
So it's not a knocking any one individual. You just
don't need to have nine talking on show.
Speaker 1: And I will also say this too, you lose a
lot people. There are people who are fading and falling
asleep in the Eastern time zone as you become midnight
twelve thirty one am and the main event hasn't started yet,
so the is the Pacific time zone. It's a bigger
deal that we got M and M on the stage
at nine to thirty local time and the Crawford first bell,
which because I kept track of it, was at nine
to fifty three Pacific time, twelve.
Speaker 3: Fifty so that's the AM one twelve fifty three am
Eastern time. That's unacceptable. It's an American based show, so
I get that they're showing this internationally all over the world,
that's cool. But if your base is the United States
and the audience for that pay per view, yes, a
lot of the people that would buy the pay per
view would be on the West Coast because maybe they
were buying it for Pitt Buller, for andjuries with the
Mexican community. But your main event is what sells, and
Crawford is going to appeal also to some West Coast people.
It's certainly well, whatever he's going to sell is going
to be in the Central time zone where he's from
with Oman, Nebraska, and you know, he's fought many times
on the East Coast in places like New York City
and that sort of thing. Boxing fans on the East coast, which,
by the way, there's more way more people in the
United States of America living on the east of the
Mississippi River than live in the west of the Mississippi River.
So you you can't ask somebody to spend eighty dollars
for a pay per view and not start the main
event until almost one o'clock in the morning. What are
tj Let me hear it?
Speaker 2: What are we doing here?
Speaker 3: Thank you? I agree?
Speaker 1: So we did have the the Eminem and Eminem took
his seat, and we had all of that.
Speaker 2: But interesting, Shakour Stephenson, and that's what I was leading to.
Speaker 3: But go ahead, when I posted the links to my
articles for the fight, I did tag Eminem, thinking maybe
I might get a retweet from from the main man.
Speaker 2: Hasn't necessarily happened yet.
Speaker 1: That point is, Shakur Stephenson had a pole position seat
right beside Turkey for a little while early on in
the night. He eventually talked on his own not a
coincidence that he's there around Turkey, Ola Chic and around
Eddie Hearn of Matro, around Oscar dal La Jolla and
whomever else. All right, so what do we have anymore?
You were digging also a little bit. I'm sure on Saturday,
what else should we think?
Speaker 2: What do we know? Why?
Speaker 3: On his own but go ahead, yeah, I mean on
his owne he said pretty much. The truth basically is that, look,
I'm shopping around, I'm looking. I want to hear offers
from different people. He doesn't. You know, he was asked
specifically if he's made up his mind on a promoter,
even they didn't ask him like which promoter have you decided?
Have you made a decision? You know? Uh? And he
was like, look, uh, you know, I'm not sure yet where.
It's still only been a couple of weeks, so it's
not like the end of the world hasn't made any
kind of decision. But he's looking, he's talking, he's hearing
what people have to say, and you know what, of
course he's enjoying the process. You know, some athletes, like
in other sports baseball, football, basketball, they become a free
agent and they like to be whined and dying and
here they get here the peer what they you know,
to talk them up and show them what they might
be able to do. Others, you know, they're comfortab where
they were and they just want to get a deal
done and get back to work. That's not really, of course, personality.
This is really the first time, not really, it is
the first time as a professional that he's been a
free agent because he was with top rank from the
time he signed after the Olympics when he was the
silver medal winner. So now he's a top fighter, he's
a multi division world champion, he's near at the top
of his game, and he's out there to try to
see what he can drum up. So I'm not surprised
to hear him say that. But at the end of
the day, TJ, you and I both know there's only
a couple of different possibilities. That's not like there's a
This is not if you're a free agent in baseball.
You know, he got thirty thirty two teams to talk
to in boxing at that level, and he's made the
you know pretty clear he's not going back to top rank.
So if you take them off of the table you're
talking about the only like people that can even conceivably
in the running would be Oscar, who he's already had
his beef back and forth with Eddie obviously, who he's
got struck up a relationship with recently and has been
talking to PBC Slash TGB. Not so sure how much
they're looking to sign new fighters given the problems they
have schedule wise getting the own guys in the ring
and chakor you know, doesn't come at a cheap ticket,
you know, cheap price. He could do business directly with
the Saudi's if they like him and want him on
their shows. There's Frank Warren who's been signing in a
little bit of a of a I we'll call it
a binge, but he's branching out and he's in the
process of signing several fighters that are not British fighters,
So that's maybe a possibility. But I'm making the point
that we're talking about three or four outfits at most
that he's gonna be able to sign with.
Speaker 2: My perception is what do we know?
Speaker 1: But I've done this enough, You've done it enough at
the at the highest level of covering it. He wants
a one off for the biggest amount of money he
can get somewhere, and that seems to be Turkey. Make
a deal for me with whoever with Oscar and Zapeida,
or can we make the Javonte Davis fight. But it's
almost like you have the bag. Everybody knows right now,
the money, the moulah, the bread.
Speaker 2: You have the bag.
Speaker 1: Make a fight for me with one of these guys
and it'll be on your show in Saudi Arabia or
the United States or wherever.
Speaker 2: You tell me.
Speaker 1: I think you're well, so I think that's where we are.
He wants a one off because Oscar said, and I
believe him, we wanted to do the c Beta but
as part of a multi fight deal with Golden Boy,
and he doesn't want to do a multi fight deal.
Speaker 3: But the thing about that, the good thing about the
Zepeta fight if you're if you are a shaker, is
that it's a mandatory. So nobody can require you to
sign with them when get that fight. Because when it
goes to a purse bid, well, either they can make
a deal as a one off, because that's what a
purspid would do, just a one fight between the camps.
And I've said this before, just because your word doesn't
have a promoter doesn't mean they can't make a deal.
He's got his his management team, and he's got his
his lawyer, and they know what they're doing. They're very
experienced people. I'm talking about Joshduben the lawyer and UH
and James Prince the manager, and also he does have
the promoter who's always in the background, doesn't put on shows,
but is a licensed promoter and works with James Prince
on all of his guys and has been doing so
over years. And I actually had a lengthy conversation with
him in the hotel in Los Angeles this past couple
of days. And that's Antonio Leonard was a very experienced
fighter who's worked for Shakor. He works with Jared Anderson.
They worked with andre Ward for all those years. Anyway,
the point is they don't need to have a promoter
to make a deal for Shakur to get this type
of fight, because they've got experienced people that know what
they're doing. So it goes to a per s bid. Again,
it's a one off fight anyway, so this is a
paida fight. Seems like it's more possible. But he's making
the point. He said so in interviews. He certainly said it
in his his Zone interview that what he wants is
he wants Tank Davis, whether it's the end of this
year or certainly next year. And he's right. What he
says it's the biggest fight in the world between two
fighters and one hundred and thirty five pound way class.
It would be the unified titles. You know. It would
certainly bring in about a pretty good amount of publicity
and would probably be a pretty well received fight from
the fans.
Speaker 2: Day tuned.
Speaker 1: Gervonte Davis, by the way, was in Paris this weekend.
If you need to know where he was, he was
not around in La or in anywhere else. All Right,
one other news item, then we've got the nostalgia. You
have learned about the rescheduling of the Caleb Plant Trevor
mccumbe fight, Tell me what you have learned out that,
so then it will be.
Speaker 3: This was originally supposed to be the main event of
the first non pay per view PBC on Prime Card,
which they they've lagged quite a bit. Remember, their deal
was done at the beginning of this year, maybe even
at the very end of Blasure. I forget exactly when
it was announced, and it was always position is, we're
going to start this agreement in March. It was obviously
pay per view heavy, but they were certainly in their
announcement and what everybody said to different reporters that were involved,
that it would have a substantial element of non pay
per view fights also, and that they would start those
sometime in I believe. Originally the thought was they would
start them in maybe like April. Ish that did not happen,
then it was going to be June. That it was
going to be like July, August whatever anyway, So Caleb
Plant and McCombe was supposed to be August seventeenth. They
never got announced, but it was a done deal as
far as I know, and that was the main event,
and they were to have Stephen Fulton returning from his
loss in the junior featherweight title fight when he lost
his belts to in a way and putting in the
ring against Ronnie Rios. And there's your there's your non
pay per view double hudder. I've seen worse. It was
not that's not a terrible cart or anything like that.
And then McCombe suffered a very.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hopefully the cut for McCombe heals up enough.
Speaker 3: Well, they should be able to get a new opponent
if they want. This has gotten I mean nothing against mccomby,
but he doesn't bring anything to this promotion. It's it's
all about Kayla Plant getting back in the ring. But anyway,
the point is August seventeenth is not happening. What they're
doing is they're now going to put Kayla Plant against
McCombe and perhaps somebody else of mccombe's cut is not healed.
It will be one of the fights on the pay
per view topped by Canelo Alvarez against Edgar Berlanga. They've
alady announced the co feature for that fight, which is
a Arislani Lard defending his middleweight belt against Danny Garcia,
and if they when they announced the rest of the fight,
it would be in my opinion, probably what they'll do
is they'll make Kayleb Plant the next fight down the
cart and they'll add on whatever else there to add
to the pay per view plug whatever preliminaries are going down.
So maybe they'll announce it this week because starting on Monday,
Canelo and Canelo and Berlanga and Garcia and Laura, as
well as the teams, they're in New York City for
the kickoff press conference on Monday in Manhattan, and then
they go Tuesday for the second stop of this two
city tour to Beverly Hills. So perhaps they'll announced that fight,
but at the very least they'll talk about the two
top fights. But anyway, bottom line is Caleb Plant is
supposed to be on the paper.
Speaker 1: View good enough, all right, nostalgia before we're done here
recapping off the weekend. It was seventeen years ago tonight,
August four of two thousand and seven, the fight of
the year took place, and this was one that was
hyped for Raphael Vasquez Israel Rafael Marquez, excuse me, Israel Vasquez.
Speaker 2: Seventeen years ago.
Speaker 1: They thought that night and Rayfhael even says on the rundown,
one of the top few fights in Showtime history.
Speaker 2: I think I would go along with that.
Speaker 1: I just don't want to go along with the fact
that it was before my twins were born, seventeen years
ago and they're sixteen years of age. Been a little
bit now, but still a great one.
Speaker 3: I went back and looked this up because when Showtime
came to an end for their boxing involvement at the
end of twenty twenty three, I did a column same
way I did when HBO came to an end in
twenty eighteen. A Showtime I ranked, you know, because of
when they started. I did like their top list of
my opinion of their top fights of all time, like
with show with HBO, they had been in business forty
five years. I did the top forty five fights. I
think Showtime was what thirty nine years or something like that,
the top thirty nine anyway, even I think they started
nineteen They started nineteen eighty six, right, and ended in
two thousand and twenty twenty three, right, right. So I
cheated a little bit because certain fights like this was
on the HBO list and the Showtime list, like I
took like Daddy Ward and that was one entry. Even
though they fought three times, you know, Marquez and pak
Yao fought four times, they were all great. That was
like a four to one one entry. So I went
back and looked at my list the Vasquez Marquez one, two,
and three. We disavowed the fourth fight, but one, two
and three are all spectacular. I made that one entry.
So in my Showtime ranking, I ranked it as number three.
I ranked number one obviously Corrals versus Castillo, and number two.
I ranked the Mike Tyson against Evander Holyfield fights, and
I had the Vasquez Marquz trilogy trilogy. It's a four
fight series, but I'm counting the first three fights as
part of the entry because they were that special, and frankly,
at this stage of the game, they're underrated because they
don't get a lot of love. You hear fans much
more talk about Barrera Morales or Gaddy Ward or some
of the other great slugfests and and glorious kind of
rivalry fights. But this is every bit as good as
any though. So they fought in March of two thousand
and seven, their first installment. This was a spectacular fight
and it was a fight that was for the They
was for the WBC one hundred and twenty two pound
title and Israel Vasquez got stopped in that fight by
Rafael Marquez and they had in a meeting and now
so when that fight was over, I was like, oh
my god, this is the fight of the year, absolutely
fight of the year in marr with nine months ago.
So then they had the rematch. The first fight took
place in Carson at what is now the Dignity Health Park.
Back then it was called the Home Deep the Home
Depot Center, and they had the rematch. Is the one
we're talking about, which was in August of two thousand
and seven, and they met yet again again. Now it's
you know, uh, they're also still fighting for the WBC's
one twenty two pound title, and Marquez then turnabout, he
gets knocked out, Vasquez gets I take that back, Vasquez
gets the revenge. Rather, he knocks out Marquez in round
six and regains the title. In the fight of the year,
it's literally voted the fight of the year. And as
I stated to you before another fight, they fought the
three fights in a row. Two of them took place
in two thousand and seven. Uh, one of them took
place in two thousand and eight. So fight number one
what have been the oh seven fight of the year
had the second fight not also taken place in the
same counter year and the third fight took place in
two thousand and eight, was the fight of the year
for eight because they fought the three times right in
a row. So all three of those fights are spectacular,
but the second fight was among the great fights you'll see.
I mean, the third fight probably trump's the first two,
but the second fight went ahead of the first fight.
In the first fight was fucking spectacular to begin with
these guys were just made for each other.
Speaker 1: I watch my humor that Vasquez and Marquez fought three
fights of the year with it, who knew they fought
three fights of the year in just two years, but
that this was the second of those.
Speaker 3: But this was like just an This was just an
old school, bloody fucking war.
Speaker 1: But in the interesting twist, you were not there for this, no,
because also that night, the nostalgia still rings true seventeen
years ago, August fourth, two thousand and seven, you were
elsewhere David Diaz fighting Eric Moore that night, and you
were ringside in Chicago instead of being at Vasquez Marquez two.
Speaker 2: Correct, So pick it up on that.
Speaker 3: So Vasquez Marquez too took place in the Dodge Arena
in Hidalgo, Texas, and I was going to go to
cover one of the fights that weekend. And again when
I was working at ESPN, I certainly had a certain
amount of latitude to determine where I was going to go.
But I certain didn't have the unilateral decision making ability
to say I'm going here, I'm going there. They have
to prove it. There's budgets, and there's this and that,
and when it came to the time when there's fights
that are overlapping and they're on the same night, and
you have to make a hard decision and if we're
going to do one or we're gonna do the other.
I don't remember the exact conversation, but I'm sure it
was done in concert with my editors, where we determined
that Okay, on this particular night, I'm going to go
to Chicago was actually in Rosemont, right outside of Chicago
for this boxing card that featured David dis who was
from Chicago, against Eric Morales. David had won the lightweight
title the WBC Lightweight Tattle was the against Morales, who
was trying to become a four division world champion at
that time. Had he accomplish it on that night, he
would have become the first Mexican fighter to win a
title in four weight classes. But they also had a
lot of other quality guys on the show. Juan Nanuel
Lopez was a very hot fighter at the time. He
was a WBO one hundred and twenty two pound champion
and Olympian. They had another world title fight between Ulysses
Solis and rodel Meole for the IBF Junior lightweight title.
You also had Julio Sesar Chavez, who was on his
way to a world title shot at that point, still
a good fighter, thirty two zero to one before he
ran into all of his problems and then with just
a bunch of different prospects and this and that. So anyway,
that was an HBO pay per view fight that was
really it was produced by Top Rank, but HBO distributed,
but it was considered I think the bigger event because
it had a bigger name like Morales. It was in Chicago,
which did not host a lot of big fights. Actually
one of the only the handful of fights I've ever
covered in the Chicago area through all my years of
doing this. So I went to Chicago and David Diez
and Morales. They didn't put on the kind of fight
like Vaskar as the Marquez did, who put on an
absolute fucking classic. But David Diez and Uh and Morales
put on a good fight. There was a good crowd there,
A lot of them had come to see Chavez and
Uh and also the Puerto Rican fighter that I mentioned
to you in one Manuel Lopez. A matter of fact, funny
story about that. There's not you know, pretty much every
major city you find little enclaves of certain nationalities, and
in Chicago there's an area that's Puerto Rican and so uh.
In boxing events when they're promoting them, they'll do the
open workout, like you know, on the pier on Wednesday
night in Santa Monica, they did the open workout and
they have all the fighters on the pay per view
coming and show their stuff. Dual workout for the fans
and the press and you know, drum up some uh
some publicity. So one of the publicists that was working
on the event, one Manuel Lopez, was Puerto Rican and
they had the great idea to do an open haircut.
They took one Manuel Lopez to like Puerto Rican neighborhood,
like one of the barber shops there, and they had
like a photo op and some of the repri show.
I went just for the heck of it because it
seemed like a cool thing and actually have this cool
photo of me with like the barber shears and why
Manuel Lopez and some of the other guys in the picture,
and they did the open haircut. So that was like
a very interesting way to start to promote the fight. Uh.
That was a good fight week anyway, but in the
main event, you had Eric Morales, uh, challenging for this
title and and uh, you know, David Diaz did a
hell of a job in that fight. He won the
fight uh and sent Eric Brows into what at that
time was a retirement. It was a close fight, but
he won. It was like one fourteen one to thirteen one,
fifteen one, thirteen one, fifteen one to twelve and Morales,
who has already established himself as an all time great fighter,
he retired. Now ultimately he came out of retirement.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: And David Diaz, with that victory, though against a big
name and a Hall of Fame caliber guy, was able
to parlay that to a couple of fights late. He
took one more fight, was a non title fight, and
then he got the big one when he fought Manny Pacio.
Manny went up to the lightweight division and uh and
knocked him out. But David Diaz got the opportunity for
that big career defining fight because of what he did
against Eric Morows. And by the way, David Diaz was
no joke. He was a tremendo. This amateurs the United
States Olympian had beaten quality guys in the amateurs like
zab Judah and others. But on this night against Eric Rouse,
he had the night of us. That was the pinnacle
of his career, on the night he beat the legend.
Speaker 2: And you were there in Chicago. What a night that
was seventeen years ago.
Speaker 1: To have those different fight cards in the different locations.
Speaker 2: How about that? All right?
Speaker 1: My friend, busy busy recap, you've gone left coast and
back to the Rayfaield compound in northern Virginia. I'm glad
you got back safely. I'm glad we were able to
break down everything with the fight card, the read season
fight card. You heard from Virgil Ortiz. It's his fight
with Boachuk that we're most interested in for later this week.
Anything else in closing here on the recap pot or
are we good and ready to get the week underway?
Speaker 3: I need to go to bed bro.
Speaker 2: I understand that we.
Speaker 1: Can both identify because I think the Crawford fight got
over with about fifteen minutes ago, and you've fought, and
you've flown cross country since then.
Speaker 3: By the way, and then all seriousness that so the
fight started, we'd made mention that it started at twelve
fifty three am. Right, and it went to twelve rounds. Yeah,
that's another you know, forty five minutes or so. And
then it took a little while to do the to
get to the press conference. And then Crawford and Bowmack
and and uh and then Magi Mov and his promoter
and Eddie Hearn and his manager of Eddie Cornel. They
did their press covers by the time we got out
of there, and then I had to get back to
the hotel, which was, you know, fairly close, only a
few miles ag. I got a left from my good
pal Lance Pugmyer back at the hotel. Now I'm back
to hotel, and it's like it's I after one. I
see down's well with the belt in the in the lobby.
It's now well after one o'clock in the two o'clock
in the morning, I guess. And normally I take like
an afternoon flight. I like to sleep in on the
Sunday and do a little work and then I'll leisurely
go to the airport. But for this particular case, because
of the way the flight schedule was, my flight was
at like seven to fifty five am, and you got
to get to the airport earlier Chicago, it's yeah, okay,
so and I still have to finish some of the
stuff I was writing from that night. So now I'm
back in my room and I've got to like kind
of hustle and get all that shit done. And you
make that you get and I've done this a million
times TJ. With these types of trips, you get to
that moment in time where you got to decide am
I going to sleep or am I staying up? Right?
Because you know if you go.
Speaker 1: Which going to sleep is defined as like ninety minutes
or maybe an hour, like not.
Speaker 3: Changing, like laying down in your clothes and not taking
your socks off, so when you wake up you can
quickly put your shoes on and get the fuck out
of there. So for me, it was like there was
no shot I was up, So I stayed up. I
went to the airport. I got there, actually was I
got through maybe a little earlier than I need to.
But if I'd fallen asleep, I would have never got up.
So when I got to the airport, there was still
like about an hour before my When I got to
the gate, I saw like an hour, but that was
better than being late anyway, So I'm like falling asleep
in the fucking gate waiting for them to board the plane.
Finally we get on the plane, and when I tell you, TJ,
now full disclosure, rayfel sit in the first class. I
love that I had a little beverage before we took off.
When I tell you, it's wheels up, Its wheels up,
eyes closed, And all I know is like three hours later,
I wake up and the fight attendant comes over. He says, sir,
I didn't want to wake you up. Can I get
you somebody to drink? Would you like your breakfast? So
I put three hours in the bank on the plane,
but then always up the rest of the way. That's
the only time. So all right, that's why I'm looking
forward to going to bed tonight.
Speaker 2: You're punchy.
Speaker 1: At least you're not talking to me about Ali Frasier
on the pod.
Speaker 3: Tonight, so that's good because I do that.
Speaker 2: That didn't happen.
Speaker 1: Sorry night, But in any event, really good stuff on
the recap.
Speaker 2: We're ready to attack the week.
Speaker 1: It is the Fight Freaks Unit Recap Podcast, Dan Ray Phil,
have a good week, Thank.
Speaker 3: You, my friend. All right, TJ.
Speaker 2: I am merely TJ.
Speaker 1: Reeves, follow, Subscribe on this feeds, Freaker Apples, Spotify, wherever
you get podcasts.
Speaker 2: Because we come your way.
Speaker 1: Previewing going into the weekend, Recapping off the weekend on
The Fight Freaks You Night Recap