Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Off of a weekend that has seen Jana beck A
limb Canulu successfully defend his IBF middleweight title in Australia,
a weekend that has seen Nick Ball make it through
a very interesting title defense where he ends up Ko
and Ronnie Rios, and retaining his WBA featherweight title in England.
Speaker 1: We are ready to talk about both of those.
Speaker 2: Give you some news, give you some nostalgia, and much
more on the Fight Freaks Unite recap podcast. Hello, and
welcome back in. I'm merely the somewhat competent host TJ.
Speaker 1: Reeves.
Speaker 2: He's our insider. Fight Freaks Unite is the substack and
the email newsletter you need to be subscribing to that. Hello, Dan, Rayphael,
good to have you back aboard here.
Speaker 1: Off of the.
Speaker 2: Weekend plenty to go over, My God, can we get
out of hurricane season in the Gulf South, the Gulf
of Mexico, the state of Florida, because as we do
this very podcast, yet another hurricane may be threatening my
beloved state. Milton, I'm Milton Burrow, the comedian. Now we're
really dating ourselves, so we go back to him. He
was Uncle Milty. This is Hurricane Milty that is in
the Gulf of Mexico and maybe a serious threat to
the state of Florida. At the time we're doing this,
it is Sunday night into Monday. It is still days
from being here. We got to be vigilant, Dan Rayphiel, so.
Speaker 3: Well, we'll know how bad it was if we have
a podcast on Thursday night that is true.
Speaker 2: Does Reeves have power? Is he still alive? Does he
have four feet of water? In all seriousness, like everybody
else it's been dealing with this, it's just been a mess.
Speaker 3: But they're taking it seriously. Our friends at Probox TV,
they've postponed their card this coming Wednesday, where Chris Kolbert
was in the main event, to make it the following Wednesday.
Speaker 2: So right here, it's plant City, Florida, which is about
thirty minutes to the east of me, towards the middle
of the state, and there's a lot I mean, school
is postponed Dan from most of the state of Florida
for the for the next three or four days. And again,
the west coast of Florida already took damage from Hurricane
Helene back two weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Here we go again.
Speaker 3: So they take as much damage as Andre Mcalovich.
Speaker 1: Yes, good segue from a boxing standpoint.
Speaker 2: So anyway, we got all things, all worlds in focus here.
Make sure you're following or subscribing on the podcast feed here,
and let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Let's start right there with Janebec's win.
Speaker 2: Now, we should say to the audience, you and I
talked briefly about this fight on the bet Us Boxing show,
but we haven't given a full accounting of it.
Speaker 1: That's what the recap podcast is all about.
Speaker 2: This was Friday morning, US time, Friday night in Australia,
and Janebec does get the win. I really believed that
this was going to be over with, like in the
second or third round, the way that it looked, it
ended up being a longer fight. Jandebec retains, all right,
your thoughts on what you saw from Australia.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean both of the two title fights that
we're going to talk about, this fight with Janebek and
also the Nick ballfight, there was one common thread, which
is that the two opponents that look to be completely
outgunned going into the fight were indeed completely outgunned in
the fights, but they also showed in more enormous toughness
and heart and resiliency to make it through when it
looked at its worst where they were maybe going to
be looking at an early knockout loss, and that sort
of made both fight. It's dramatic despite being one sided.
So this fight, like the other one, it was an entertaining,
exciting fight, There's no doubt about that. But you made
the point that with Mikalovich, like it looked like he
was in the out of there early. The dechasm of
talent between Janebec and Mkalovich is massive. It's like a
grand kingon of talent once you've watched them in the
ring with each other. Remember, Janebec is a seasoned amateur.
He was an Olympian, you know, he has grown up
in this sport for most of his life. And at
this point, even though he doesn't have big time opposition
to fight, unfortunately, of what is there in the middleweight
division at the moment, I think you'd be hard pressed
to make a real legitimate argument that he's not the
number one middleweight in boxing. Now, that's sort of like
you know, you're the heavyweight champ of the Bahamas, I guess,
but it is what it is he is the number
one guy who won sixties. It seems to me and
Mikalovitch he looked apart. He sure talked a lot of shit.
Uh said he was going to kill the guy in
the fight, and you know he's the one who was
getting killed in that sense. But you mentioned about the
second round. This was a absolutely dominating, just you know,
destructive round where fight maybe could have been stopped. There
was some confusion and some in my opinion, some criticism
to the referee that was not warranted because you heard
the sound in the late part of the round that
sounded like the bell, and the referee did not call
them apart and let the continue. And during that period
of time it was when janeback landed a shot and
just absolutely pounded Mikalovich, who went down for the knockdown.
What the what the reason for that was the referee
was one hundred percent right, that was not the bell.
What it was was the ten second clapper, right. That
was confused by some people. So Mikalovitch made it to
his feet and then the bell rang and the round ended.
So it was like a false narrative that there was
some kind of controversy there it would have been more
controversial had the referee interceded and not given jannibc Tho's
last ten twelve seconds where he scored the knockdown. In
any event, that was the first knockdown, and from there
on he just looked basically, you know, all credit to
the heart that Mikalovitch displayed, and that's the only time
that he was officially down. But he got his clock cleaned.
I mean, he got absolutely pummeled and pounded and destroyed.
It showed a great heart. And then in the later
part of the eighth round are the In the ninth round,
rather as Jennet big Is teen off on him, he
clobbresm with a shot and he went into the ropes
and kind of squatted on the ropes. I mean, I
guess you could.
Speaker 1: Only I thought it was the only thing that kept
him up.
Speaker 2: I thought it had have been down had he not
landed on the bottom strand of the ropes. Clearly hurt again,
and he had been taking We can't emphasize that, you
just did. He was taking punishment round after round after round.
There was no hole that he was winning this.
Speaker 3: Fin so it doesn't count as an official knockdown, but
you're right, the rogues did hold him up, but it
didn't turn out the matter because he didn't call it
a knock inn. Instead, the referee simply waved off the
fight because he had been taking so much punishment. So
there was the one official knockdown that we just talked
about that took place in the second round, and then
there was what would have probably been a knockdown of
the ref not stop the fight, but it was a
worthy stoppage. But when you take a look at the
official scorecards when the fight was over, you had jannet
Back ahead eighty to seventy one, which was a shutout
on two score cards. One of the judges somehow managed
to have at seventy eight to seventy three, which actually
gave Mikalovitch two rounds, which to me, honestly, we talked
about the range of acceptable scores and fights. To me,
the range of acceptable scores in this fight was a shutout.
I don't see how you could even find a singular
round to give them Mcalovitch. Not to say he didn't
try hard and show a great heart, and credit to
him for that, but this was a man and a
boy This was an absolute one sided ass whooping. And
you know, I have to give janetback credit because he
had all the issues that took place in July where
he didn't make the and passed out and they had
to cancel the fight. It went to the purse s
bid and now the purse bid takes place. The other
team side wins over top rank, which is Jenebex from
what I hunt by one thousand dollars, sends him all
the way to Australia. He gets to Australia. I mean
what he did to go through with this fight. First
of all, he didn't really from what I understand, didn't
start training camp until the persband was done and he
knew the fight was happening twenty nine days ahead of
the fight, has to travel to Australia, has to make
the weight, has to do a second day way check
for the IBF on the morning of the fight, and
was only in Australia sixty hours prior to the bout.
Speaker 1: So he got there Like, that's interesting.
Speaker 2: I saw you report that in your sub stack that
a lot of times fighters will take longer to acclamate,
but you were pointing out he was not training in
the United States, he was training in Kazakhstan or Kazakhstan, right, yeahaak.
So so what was it that much of a time?
Speaker 1: Different?
Speaker 2: Same thing, like half a day, because it is that
he was only there two or three days before the fight.
Speaker 3: That's trying now. First of all, if you if you
go to do a fight under a purspit in the IBF,
the promoter of the fight that wins the purspit is
only obligated to give you three days in the hotel,
coach airfare like you don't get true. That's why it
behooves people, in my opinion, to make a deal if
the money is you know, reasonable, because you're typically able
to negotiate. You know, ten days are into site, nice accommodations,
first class travel or business class travel whatever, and those
things can make it different. So I think, you know
now they maybe they upgraded themselves and spent their own money.
That's certainly a possibility. And from when I was told
the top rank, had they wanted to, they would have
probably given him a little bit extra money to get
there sooner and taken care of those expenses that we're
not going to be paid for by No Limit boxing.
But let me just say this about if you get
there sixty sixty hours ahead of time. Sometimes it's if
you're not going to get there ten days or a
week beforehand, go at the last minute till you don't
have to redo your body clock.
Speaker 2: So I just did the checking, because we we always
analyze and research and do whatever. Kazakhstan is nine hours
ahead of Eastern time right now, which means it's about
five hours behind Australian time. Australian time is fourteen hours
ahead of us, so he had a five hour ahead
time difference to contend with. That's a little better than
half a day where your day is night and your
night is day. I mean, in my world my day
is night and my night is day most of the time.
But I'm not a professional fighter. But that's a little
different when it's only five hours. So it helped him.
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, we're going.
Speaker 3: And all the conversation leading into this fight was is
he going to make the weight? That was all there.
What I mean, I think if you knew ahead of time,
he's going to be on weight and it's going to
be in good shape. Nobody's picking Mkalivich to win the fight,
but the great question was is he going to be depleted?
Is he going to be drained? So the sixty hour thing,
in my mind right off the bat, I'm like, Okay,
they're going to cut it close on purpose because of
the what you just mentioned about the time difference. So
now when he made the weight at the official way in,
obviously that's You're like, okay, that looks. That looks that's
a good sign. And I saw the video of the
way and he didn't look particularly drained compared to what
I've seen with other fighters. But what really made me
convinced that this was going to be an ass kicking
was when not only did he make the weight at
the morning of the fight weight check, but he was
actually a little bit under the maximum that he was allowed,
which as far as I understand, it's uh. They could
have been as heavy as one seventy two twelve and
a half percent of your body weight in the IBF
in that weight class. So he made that without a problem.
Mcalvich also was on weight. Mcalvich clearly a smaller guy
also when you saw them side to side and he
did the business. Now you know, if he can can
continue to make a weight, you know, I don't see
everyon why he's gonna need to move up. Now we
talk about the belts for a quick second. Here it
was he is the unified IBF and WBO middleweight champion.
They did the IBF title fight, and as I explained previously,
the Mcalovich team did not they're the main they were
the man to turn in the IBF didn't want to
fight for the WBO, not because he didn't want another belt,
because they fell from a strategic point of view, Let's
do this. So we forced Jannebeck to do the morning
of the fight waycheck, so we limit how much he
can put on after the way in because typically what
the what the IBF does is they require that morning
of the fight waycheck. However, if it's a unified fight,
because the other organizations don't have that rule, they waive that.
And so they thought, okay, you know we're gonna you know,
we're gonna be a weight bully. I mean, that's the definition. Really,
they're gonna make him make that morning of waycheck. Now,
at the last minute, the WBO, who was kind of
ticked off. They didn't have a supervisor there. They were
not involved with the fight that was announced in the
ring if you saw the fight about him being the
WBO champion even though he had the belt with him.
They they put out a resolution saying they would sanction
the fight. They would respect the IBF's rule of this
of the morning of waycheck as long as the fighters
followed their their championship rules. As it turned out they
didn't do that apparently. I don't know what rule they
broke up was in conversation with the IBF. I'm sorry
with one of the w WBO people that I that
I talked to a lot. They did not have a
supervisor on hand as I said. Uh, from my understand,
Matt Kalvich definitely didn't pay a sanctioning fee for the fight.
It remains to be seen with Jannon back Will, So
what the what the WBO did in the post fight
was set out another resolution which is available on their
website if you want to read it. They do what
they call and it's not just an instances like this.
They issued Jenebet a quote unquote show cause letter. They
gave him five days to explain or make his case
why they shouldn't strip him of the title because he
went through with a championship fight. Uh, without following certain
ib with WBO regulations and uh, it's I think he's probably.
Speaker 2: Gonna Can I just say in the wave, I don't
know what's okay?
Speaker 3: W BO belt is definitely in jeopardy.
Speaker 2: You've got I got you. You've gone into the weeds.
Can I just say, oh, we do into the weeds?
On the podcast, I understand this is yet another example
of why people's eyes glaze over and these guys just
make it up as they go along with and yeah,
let me finish, let me, let me finish, let me finish.
Because on Thursday in Australia, the WBO said this is
for our title. I get your point that there had
to be uh things that were followed, all right, I'm
saying for the fan that's trying to keep up with this.
Then we get to Friday and all through the broadcast,
which was televised on ESPN Plus, they're saying the WBO
is not sanctioning this fight. It's not for the WBO title.
And so now if you're a fight fan, you're confused.
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 2: You just explained why, and now they're going to try
to maybe strip him when he didn't lose his title
in the ring because he didn't pay him enough money.
This is stupid stuff. It's stupid stuff that makes fans crazy.
Speaker 3: If I get I get the ire, but I also
and I'm not excusing them. It should have been where
they followed the rules. They shouldnt allowed Mkalovich to get
away with just the one organization, but that happened. The
IBF said it was willing and was going to sanction
the fight when the two sides did not agree to
that or follow the rules. They really put the WBO
in a situation where they really have a choice but
to not sanction the fight. And it was my first question,
but can I just super You explained it's not going
to be for the title.
Speaker 2: You explain that, but can I just simplify it. The
fight wasn't for the WBO title. He didn't lose.
Speaker 1: He's still the WBO champion, just moving.
Speaker 3: And he may be that for the next few days,
but they're not going to let him get away with
not following the rule.
Speaker 1: Again, he didn't lose.
Speaker 2: I know it's a non title fight because they didn't
sanction it.
Speaker 1: They had nobody there and he didn't lose, So why is.
Speaker 3: That whether whether he has the WBO title or he
doesn't have the title, he has the IBF belt. And
even more so, I think it's like I said before
this all started, was he's probably viewed by most people
as the number one one middleweight, which is on the
one hand, that's a nice thing. On the other hand,
it's like, Okay, it's not a great division. So what
Janebek did after the fight is what he's been doing
for a while, or whoever runs his social media anyway,
although he did say it in the ring, is calling
out for the other champions. But I find to be
hilarious is when they post their tweets, they're like, send
us the contract. Well, dude, you're the guy with the
two titles. You have a promoter. You can send them
a contract. Also, it doesn't have to be one way streak.
So he's talking about wanting to fight either Carlos Damas,
who's the WBC champion, or Arislandi lar who is a
WBA title holder. They're both with PBC. Frankly, they should
fucking fight each other on one of the PBC cards
and then we have you know, if he keeps the
w BO belt, janebec will have one guy with two belts.
One guy with two belts and let them fight for
undisputed if you care. But the middleweight division is not
good right now. I would pick janebec to beat Adamas
or Lara, no disrespect. They're both good fighters, obviously, and
I can't even say I'd be like super amped up
for those fights. I mean I would look forward, I
guess because it's a unification, but it's not like if
I'm making my list of fights, I have to see
that that would come to my mind.
Speaker 2: We talked about this on the bet US show. Let's
say it for this audience. Isn't maybe the most marketable
fight to fight Hams of Sharaz And you talked to
Frank Warren on this podcast feed that's his number one guy. Really,
that's a contender at middle eight. That one makes sense
and it would be a commercially here's your phrase, viable
fight in England if you were to go there and fight,
and they were talking about that fight at one point.
Speaker 1: Here we go, making too much sense again.
Speaker 3: Brother, I peel, that's not out of the realm of possibility.
I mean, janebec is with top rank pop rings going
doing a lot of business with the Saudi Arabian events.
The co promoter of Tyson Fury. They're involved with the
Better BV and Bible fight that's coming up on October twelfth,
this coming Saturday, so it's not out of the realm.
As I said earlier, they did, according to Top Rank
and to Queensberry, make an offer to Jenebec to have
gone to England to defend the title against Shiraz. That
would have been on the Anthony Joshua Daniel do Wald
card that was supposedly turned down. It would have been
a seven figure pay day. He got a fraction of
that to go to Ushow under the rules of the
purse bid. His take on the purse bid was like
two hundred and like two seventy or two eighty something
like that, not a not a huge purse by relative standard.
So yeah, I mean, and by the way, that would
be a very good fight. I mean, Sharaz is the
hottest min away in the division right now based on
his recent performances, and Janebeck looked good in this fight
and scored a knockout, So yeah, I mean, if you're
looking to make some noise in the wage class, I
actually think that would be a bigger deal in terms
of fan interest and publicity and you know, be good action.
Probably even a bigger deal frankly than if he was
in one of the Unification fights, because Adamis is a
good fighter but largely obscure. And Lara, you know, Lara's
obviously a good fighter, but he's in the twilight of
his career. And you know, Jennebec and Sharaz they're still
on the younger side of things in terms of their
pro careers, and you know, Sharaz is still you know,
still in his twenties. So I mean, I would say,
bring that on.
Speaker 1: Yes, I agree with you.
Speaker 2: That's more compelling than just about anything else that's out there.
So that was on Friday, and then on Saturday, the
main event of the Queens Queensberry Reed season card Liverpool, England.
Liverpool's Nick Ball did deliver a knockout against a veteran
in Ronnie Rios, and you and I believed this would
be a distance type fight, that Rios, the veteran, would
be tough. It looked like early that Ball was going
to get him out of there was savage was all
over him. But then I began to believe Rios is
trying to cover up here and let Ball punch himself
out maybe strategically for the back half of this fight.
Took some punches, yes, but was blocking some punches. And
the one key thing is he kept firing back, and
he was firing back hard, hard shots. But Ball just
overwhelmed him. I mean, if that was the strategy by Rios,
Ball just stayed on the gas.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Ball got his nose busted up in this fight, so
give me your analysis. He eventually gets the TKO, But
Ronnie Rios deserves credit because he took some punishment, He
had some strategy. It just didn't work. It didn't work
because Nick Ball was better and savaged him for a TKL.
Speaker 3: You know when they when they finally stopped the fight
in the tenth round, just before the big flurry that
Nick Ball landed to me, I'm like, Okay, the fight
is sort of settled in here, and he's gonna continue
doing it. He's gonna do and it's gonna go. It's
gonna go the twelve round distance. But the fight ended
suddenly where it looked like it was gonna end much earlier,
as you mentioned, because you know, nick Ball came out
as he always does. He was very aggressive, scored with
some good shots in the first round, clearly winning the fight.
Second round more of the same, third round scores. The
knockdown has Ronnie Rios all kinds of trouble. And I
think you're right though about the fact that that there,
and their game plan on the Rio side was we
know we're in tough, we know we're in with a
super aggressive guy. There's those a million punches, but not
a defensive wizard. He can be hit also, So let's
just see if we can take some shots, cover up,
high guard, chin down, you know, get in there when
we can. But we know we're gonna have to take
some shots. Let get this fight into the second half.
Let's slow him down. And it just didn't happen because
Nick Ball is still a younger fighter. He has that
still that energy. He's not an old warn out guy.
He still can do that at his age and lack
of punishment that he has taken. And like you said,
it was the right strategy. He just couldn't pull it
off because Ball was that tough and strong. Ronnie Rios
showed the biggest fucking heart in the world. I mean,
Mikalevich did also, but in my mind, Rios even more so.
He's you know, he's thirty four years old. He had
fought for the junior featherweight junior featherweight belts twice before,
had lost by decision to Ray Vargas back in twenty
seventeen when Ray held the WBC belt. Took a twelfth
round knockout loss in a w title fight in twenty
twenty two. After that fight, you know, he basically I
don't know if he actually retired, but he didn't fight,
didn't fight from was two years, called up his people
and said, list, I think I want to do this again.
They put him back in the gym, said make sure
you're getting self in shape. They talked about this on
the broadcast also he did that. They brought him back
in the spring. He got in a small fight and
scored a knockout and it landed this fight. But there's
a big difference between fighting. You know, the second kind
of lower level type of opponent in his comeback fight
that he did Nicholas Polanco. Now you're in the ring
with Nick Ball, who's one of the hottest guys in
the division. He's been active. This was his what fourth
fight in eleven months, and it's been not just against bums.
He's fought good guys. I mean in November last year,
so we're talking, you know, less than a year ago.
He has a big win against dog Bay, really dominating fashion,
knocked him down one a decision, had the draw in
read on the five on five cart a split draw
against ray Vargas, challenging for the WBCs. Had a lot
of people thought that Nick won that fight, shook that off,
came back just a three months later, less than three
months later, had a spectacular fight, totally good action fight,
won a split decision over ray Ford to win the title,
and is now back in there. You know, less than
four months later. In this fight with Ronnie Rios, he
put on a good performance. What you say. He scored
a knockdown in round three, scored a knockdown in a
round seven, uh, scored the big knockdown in round ten,
and did the fight. I think you can make the
argument he's the number one featherweight in the world at
the moment. I mean, it's unlike the middleweight division, which
we've discussed at length about how terrible it is. If
you take a look at what's going on in the
featherweight division, there's a lot of good talent down there,
because the other champions you're talking about Ray Vargas, who's
you know, got a draw with him in a close fight.
However you scored the fight. He got Rafael Espinoza, who
scored the huge upset win over Robaesi Ramirez at the
end of last year and has made one defense. They're
looking towards a rematch. Angelo Leo is coming off a
big win to get the title. Uh that he just
just won. And now nick Ball, you got Brandon Figueroa
sit in there with one of the internbouts. That's a
lot of talented guys, a lot of interesting fights that
you can make. But Nick, I think because of that
that that good recent record and uh, you know with
beating ray Ford, beating Rios and the draw with Vargas
plus Dog Bay, those are good wins right now. But
this was a very exciting fight.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: I think that Ronnie Rios in this, you know, he
didn't win, maybe but maybe you could be talking to
that again acceptable scores. Obviously this ended at anaka. Maybe
you could have given Ronnie two rounds. He did that
in the middle of the fight. I think there was
one round where nick Ball was maybe taking the round
off that that he may have won. He worked, He
worked to the body very well.
Speaker 2: He busted I mean he busted Nick Ball's nose. I mean,
I know, I sent you a message and you're like,
stop messaging me. I said, there's blood all over that
ring from Ball's nose. I mean, there was certainly some
concern here about how big a factor is that going
to be.
Speaker 1: Rios just couldn't take advantage of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt about it. I mean, the uh, the
it wasn't so much. I didn't think that Nick Ball.
It wasn't the devastating punching power because I don't think
he is that big of a puncher. It's that he
threw a lot of punches. He was very accurate with
the punches. You're in with an older guy who hasn't
really been in the ring with a top guy for
a number of years, and it's going to take its toll.
And now I was kind of wondering, though, how is
Nick gonna deal with like the hoopola of being at home?
That was like a big part of this fight. Fighting
in Liver he spoke about how he literally lived so
close to the arena where they boxed in that he
thought maybe on the night of the fight he was
going to walk to the arena. That's how close two
minutes away, he said. Now, he has fought plenty of
times in his curer in Liverpool, but a had never
fought in that arena. That's like the big arena in
the town. And he also hadn't fought in Liverpool since
twenty twenty. You got to go all the way back
to when Nick was boxing as a prospect in you know,
little undercard six rounders. So this was like a big deal.
They've had a big crowd there, so you never know
how a fighter is going to react to that. He
did very well in terms of that. He took off
the you know, the the blood from the nose. I
mean there was at one point between rounds they take
a shot of them, you know, working on him, and
he's sitting on the stool and they got the two
giant you know, cotton balls stuck up his nose. I mean,
that's never a good sign. I think if you're that guy,
he got those two cotton swabs jammed up your nose
and the blood's going down your throat and coming out
the nose. You got to take a couple of seconds
probably when that's happened to go what the fuck am
I doing here? What am I doing well?
Speaker 2: And then you find out, I mean, that's adversity, and
then you find out what the guys made of and
we saw what he was made of to finish it off.
Speaker 1: So but I just you've already hinted that good things.
Speaker 3: Well, I just want to say that I want to
talk about the finish of the fight for okay, go ahead,
go ahead. The finish of the fight was about as
ferocious sequence as you can see in boxing. Because Ronnie Rios,
as I said, I thought this fight's going twelve because
it was kind of settled in and Ronnie had maybe
taken around off. I'm not saying he took his fuck
completely off the ass, but he was going through his stuff.
But he wasn't like truly, I didn't feel like going
for it. He knew he was winning the fight obviously.
In that tenth round though, when he had the opportunity
and I was counting, he ripped off like an extended combination.
He had to have thrown about twenty to twenty five
punches and he connected with a whole bunch of them
rights last, a lot of them. Uppercuts, but tremendous. Yeah,
when you're really short like Nick Ball, and a guy's
coming towards you and he leans a little bit, that
uppercut is very effective. But he just ripped off that
combination right hand, left hand, and it was such a
powerful group of punches that when Rios went down, he
basically fell through the ropes.
Speaker 1: I thought he was gonna fall out of the ring,
did you.
Speaker 3: Think, Thankfully he didn't. I didn't use about the ring
because he was the apron was wide enough, so he
fell onto the apron. And I tell you, I mean,
this is not a common thing. Usually a guy, if
he's conscious and it's not knocked out, he'll get up
and he'll climb back through the ring ropes and you know,
take an assessment from the referee. Ronnie literally crawled underneath
the bottom rope, got back in the ring, actually beat
the count to his credit, so they don't see a
tip of the hat to Ronnie Rios. And at that point,
like you know, he looked like he was actually like
okay but not great. And the referee hadn't yet made
a call, but at that moment, his corner threw in
the towel and then the referee waved off the fight,
which was a good stopage. No one's gonna complain about that.
But Big Heart finished on his feet even though it
was a stoppage and an exciting ending, a great, great combination.
Speaker 2: And so can we have good things? Can I fantasize
about the second half of twenty twenty five? I know
this is not going to happen anytime soon. Can I
get a monster Naola in a way Nick Ball fight
in my future? I just was thinking of that after
that fight, that that could maybe be on the radar,
so they I.
Speaker 3: Mentioned that that was mentioned, And I mean when in
a way decides to move up to featherweight, Yeah, I
mean he has said specifically you know, he wasn't going
up for the time being, and that's I respect that
he is defending his title on Christmas Eve. It's not
one hundred percent done, but it's going to be against
the IBF mandatory Sam Goodman from Australia. And when that
fight is over, if he wins, the plan is and
top rank is spoken about this already at his previous fight.
He's coming back to the United States. He's going to
defend the title and or do a maybe another title
fight at featherweight. You know, will depend on where he
is fighting in terms of his division. But he's coming
to the United States and they're going to have a
fight for him, either at the Timobile Arena or MGM.
That's a pretty much a done deal. He's got obviously
take care of his business. So is it going to
be a nick Ball fight? So Nick Ball and when
he was asked what he wants to do in the future,
his main focus is he wants to unify titles. He
wants to go and have a WBC title fight. He
believes that he had won the WBC title in the
fight with Ray Vargas and he was robed, so he
would like the rematch against Ray Vargas. I do happen
to think that's a very doable fight. Remember, even though
Ray has been with PBC, they had no problem making
a deal with Turkey and having him fight against Nick
Ball on the cart in read. I don't see why
they wouldn't do that. Again, all things equal in terms
of the money being the right thing, so I can
see a rematch happening. Stephen Fulton is the mandatory. He
came up to feederate he wanted belt, he'll be the
WBA mandatory fight. Knowing the WBA if nick Ball has
an opportunity to unify and puts in an application for
that situation to bypass the mandatory, I'm pretty confident the
WBA is not gonna force him into that fight. Next
after that, now that becomes the question because when in
a way gets the featherweight, everybody who has a belt
is gonna want to fight him because they're going to
make a lot of money and it's going to be
a big event. And nick Ball is certainly on that list.
I can't tell you he's the favorite. Remember, in a
ways with top rank they promote co promote Espinoza that
the promoter Roubis Ramirez potentially gonna win the title back.
I mean they have other potential options. They're the They
now have h Angelo Leo, who won the belt in
his last fight. So nick Ball, while he's with a
friendly promoter in Queensberry, I don't know if he's necessary
number one on the list. So we'll have to wait
and see. It's one thing for nick Ball to want that,
whether it gets that, I don't think that's necessarily something
you can say at the moment.
Speaker 1: All right, fair enough, I just said, fantasize about it.
Speaker 2: I said half and I said back half of twenty
twenty five, and maybe it has to be later.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I'm not even saying that you're
wrong and that it can't I'm just giving you the reasons.
What what what the landscape looks like. It's not impossible.
I'd actually say, there's like a it's not like fifty
to fifty, but there's a you know, there's a chance,
you know what I mean, among others other things.
Speaker 2: Again, so we go to the news, and you just
made mention of this, so we'll go ahead and cover it.
That the rematch for the WBOS. By the way, champion
Rafael Espinoza and Robas Ramirez, the former title holder who
he upset. There's news about that. Share the news about
that as we begin the new week.
Speaker 3: Sure, so, I mean, of course we all know about
their great fight they had at the end of last year,
one of the best fights of the year, big huge upset,
with Espinosa coming out of nowhere and getting the title
off Ramirez in a tremendous battle all along. Once he
won the fight, the plan from top Rank and zand
for Promotions. Zandfer is the co promoter of Vestvenosa. They
actually did a co promotion deal with Top Rank after
he won the title. So Top Rank promotes Robasi. They
prove they're the co promoter of Espinosa. Zanfer is the
other co promoter of Espinosa. All along the plan was
we're going to do an immediate rematch. The Espinosa camp
was like, well, you know, we'll do the fight, but
we don't want to do an immediate rematch. Top Ranks said, okay, fine,
so they gave him a fight in the summer. He
knocked out Sergio Charino in the fourth round. This is
back like June in Las Vegas. One week later, on
a card in Florida, they had Robasi Ramirez come back
off of that knockout. He scored his own knockout. They
both had done what they were supposed to do, and
now the plan was, okay, rematch in the latter part
of the year, which is still the plan. The problem
is they've been unable to finalize agreements with the two fighters.
It's not mostly people understand when when you have difficulty
making a deal and you hear about fights, you're going
to go to a purse bid the first thought. And
this is not incorrect, and it usually is the case.
It's because the two promoters on the opposite sides have
a hard time making agreement. But it also is a possibility,
and I think that, well, I know, so this is
the case in terms of Espinos and rres. It's not
that top rank and Zanfer can't make a deal. Top
rank and Zamfer can make that deal and probably I
mean no one, Bob Arim and Todd de Buffin and
then Fernando Beltron and everybody involved, they can make a
deal in probably literally like ten minutes do that fight,
no doubt in my mind, it's that the individual promoter
is having a hard time closing a deal with their
respective fighter. So zan first slash top rank is probably
having a difficult time of making a deal with Espinoza.
It could also be a matter that top rank is
having a difficult time with Ramirez. I happen to think
that that's probably less likely because Ramirez is the one
that so desperately wants the rematch because he wants to
regain the title. But it could be Espinosa that's given
them a hard time.
Speaker 2: So my speculation would be Espinosa wants more money than
what they're offering him because he's the champ and Robas
Ramirez was more of the a side fighter that he upset.
Speaker 1: So this is just educated speculation.
Speaker 2: Probably he wants more money and wants to roll the
dice with the purse bid.
Speaker 3: Well, well that's the thing, rolling dice with the perspect
it may not be the smartest thing to do because
they're but the same promoter. So I agree with you
from the standpoint that it's probably Espinosa that's seeking a
larger payday, so they're going to go to a person.
So anyway, so they didn't make a deal. So now
once that happens, the WBO has now scheduled a purs
bid will take place this coming Friday on October eleventh,
you know, in San Juan at the w BO officis.
But when they're both with the same teams, gotcha, it's
very unusual. I mean, it happens. I when we saw
the glaring example in recent times is when uh, you know,
the the Triller folks came out of nowhere and had
a huge bid on the fight between t F Malpas
and George Cambosas.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 3: We see how that worked out, not very well as
it turned out, because they.
Speaker 2: They they paid drastically more from that fight, which is
your point.
Speaker 3: It because they defaulted on the bid is what they are, right.
Speaker 2: But I mean, theoretically they won the purse bid with
a dramatically bigger offer, which you don't know until they
unseal the offers, that's your point.
Speaker 3: Knowing the landscape of boxing as it exists currently, I mean,
you never know for sure, but it seems unlikely that
they'll be a third bidder enter the fray and top
rankin zandfer. If they're the promoters, there's nothing against the
rules since they co promote the fighter together, that only
one of them bids and they know you know, or
that even if they both bid, they know what they're
going to be bidding. In other words, it behooves everybody involved,
at least the fighters, I should say, to make a deal. Otherwise,
let's do let's have fun just with this.
Speaker 2: Let's do a little quick role play here before Friday,
Hey one eight hundred, Rafael Espinosa, we got this per
s bid coming on Friday, and before you find out
the sealed envelope that is the only offer for this fight?
Do you want to go ahead and take what might
be a better offer than what's inside the sealed envelope?
And if if I'm Rafael Espinoza, I'm probably gonna do that,
because more than likely what's in the envelope on Friday,
if it's only one bitter, is less than what I'm
offering you before Friday.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, We'll say.
Speaker 3: Again, I don't know what he's asking for. I don't
know what they're offering, but I have to believe that
whatever he wants, he's gonna have to be willing to
take a little less. And whatever they're offering, there's probably
enough money to go up a little bit. I mean,
there has to be I would think a common ground there.
Speaker 2: So but let's just I mean, let's just say that hypothetically,
they're offering him seven hundred grand. I have no idea.
Right now, you're the champ. We're offering you seven hundred grand.
That's seven hundred grand might turn out to be five
hundred and fifty thousand dollars if you unseal the envelope
on Friday.
Speaker 1: That's the leverage. I don't know, I'm just throwing numbers out,
but that that's what could happen.
Speaker 3: Dannabeck supposed it was offered like a million plus a
million two or something like that to go fight Shiraz
in the UK. They went to the person. But on
the Makelevivitch fight. Uh huh Mkalovich's people offered three hundred
and fifty one thousand dollars top rank over three to
fifty and he fought for shit money.
Speaker 1: So he thought he fought for about two hundred grand
instead of the million.
Speaker 3: It was a lot more than to wonder, But the
point is it was a big difference. So he's better
off of doing it and getting the best deal he
possibly can, because he's the kind of guy where if
he doesn't do the rematch in a mandatory he will
get stripped, and now you know, his earning power is
dramatically reduced. Some fighters the belt.
Speaker 2: This is the leverage. He's got the belt, and this
is the rematch, this is the fight.
Speaker 3: But but but here's the thing. If you're Canelo Alvarez,
if you're taking this, if you're you know, a big name,
you know, if you're one of the big daddies, you
know you can you don't have to have the belt,
then you can still make a tremendous amount of money.
Rafel Spinoza. The only reason at the moment he can
make real money is because of the built Yep, he
hasn't gone to that next level yet, so he needs
to work it out. And we're saying all this on
the assumption that it's him. Logically that's the one that's
the issue of Maybe it is Ramirez, who the heck knows.
But the point is what this now does is the
first bit is scheduled for Friday. It really puts them
more on the clock and and creates or urgency because
they can still make a deal between now when the
person stay tuned.
Speaker 2: To the Dan Reyfield, social media and the substack, because
you're right, there may be a deal before the Perst
bit on Friday, but right now that's looming. Let's see
what happens with that. All right, let's continue with the news.
Match Room Boxing has made an announcement as it relates
to Liam Parrow, the IBF Junior welterweight champion. Interesting that Parol,
who's an Australian, will go back to Puerto Rico. But
it's not a rematch with super Real Mattias, who he beat.
It's a different fight with a different fighter. Go ahead,
what's the what's the latest.
Speaker 3: Well, originally when he won the title against Sybril Mattias
and he was considered a big upset. Remember he went
to Mattias's hometown of Manatee, Puerto Rico, and he was
a big underdog. Everybody figured, uh that that the punching
power and the home crowd and all that that that
this was gonna just be a coronation of Sabril Mattias
and Liam Paro. Uh maybe the only one that believed
he could win, and he did win even matchrom Boxing.
I mean, they're the promoter of both guys. I don't
think if you're if they were being truthful, they didn't
think that Paro had a chance in hell to win
that fight, but he did. He got the job done,
he won the fight. So, uh, the original plan was,
and Eddie Hearn spoke about this, We're going to take
Paro to do a hometown or homecoming fight in Australia
and they were looking at different opponents and in the meantime,
Richardson Hitchins, who was the mandatory he had gotten that
mandatory position in his last fight with the victory over
Gustavo Limos. That was back in April that they were
going to have Richardson Hitchins do a fight in Puerto Rico.
They were talking about maybe Peedraza as an opponent. Then
you asked, well, why Puerto Rico, Because when they did
the Mattias fight against Paro, the matchroom folks had done
I guess it was a two fight deal with a
tourism company there and with the local government, and they
were going to bring another event there. So Paro against
Hitchins was the first one, I mean Paro against rather Mattias,
and then they were gonna do this second fight in December. Meanwhile,
have the title fight back in Australia, and they had
mentioned about possibly being a defense against the George Cambosis
was one name that was mentioned at any event those
fights didn't work out. The Hitchins team was like, well,
if you want us to have this fight and not
fight for the title, we need to get six figures
to step aside. And when you start to add up
all the numbers and see what was out there, what
the calendar looked like in the end, Mattriom scrapped the
plans for Australia. Cambosis wasn't going to do the fight,
I guess, or they didn't have the right deal. Nonetheless,
they decided, you know what, let's just go right to
the title fight, which was perfectly fine with the Hitchins team.
So now he'll defend the title in the mandatory, which
wasn't due just yet, but they'll they'll do it anyway.
Mattriom has both guys, they're gonna put a you know,
as you always say, TJ, if you're an Australian and
you're fighting a fighter of Haitian descent, by what you know,
who grew up in Brooklyn, New York, you should do
the fight in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: Of course I always said that, Yes.
Speaker 3: They've They've put this fight in San Juan at the
at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum, which is a historic venue.
I actually covered a fight there. I covered MC photo
there right there in San Juan. Beautiful. One of my
favorite trips I ever made in my boxing writing career
was going to Puerto Rico, by the way. Done as
an aside, my wife very very rarely, very rarely will
travel with me on a boxing trip. She doesn't want
to go when I've gone to like Little Rock, Arkansas,
or to uh, you know, the Frisco, Texas or whatever.
When I told her I'm going to Puerto Rico, says, yeah,
sign me up, I'm coming. So we got to the
plane tack and she came on that track we go.
Speaker 1: It's lovely in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 2: I took Missus Reeves there on our tent anniversary and
by the way, very nice. You love when I go nostalgic.
Speaker 1: Edwin L.
Speaker 2: Chapel Rosario would always fight in at Roberto Clemente Coliseum.
He had, He fought a couple of three title fights.
I don't if I remember correctly back back in the day.
So it's the main building for like the last forty
or fifty years in Portago.
Speaker 3: I think Trinidad fought there. I'm pretty sure Goto fought there,
all the all the big guys from Puerto Rico. But anyway,
so Porrow and Hitchins will have their fight. It'll headline
the The Zone show on December seventh, uh And it's
a good matchup. I mean, Hitchins is a very talented boxer.
Olympic pedigree. Porrow has shown enormous toughness. Uh. You know,
he is undefeated with twenty five wins fifteen knockouts. He's
coming off a big win against Mattias he Uh. He's
looked pretty good in his fights. He had that very
good performance against uh Montana Love. So anyway, that's the news.
I mean, they put that card on and if you know,
what they've done is in top uh at the top level.
It's a event from that standpoint. But in terms of
the undercard, they're working with Javier Bastillo, who is the
promoter from uh, what is it, Universal Promotions. It was
one of the top promoters in Puerto Rico. I guess really,
when you think about what's in Puerto Rico, it's pr
best promotions, it's you Universal and it's Miguel Coto's company.
So they're loading up with the with the working with Universal,
they're doing a ton of Puerto Rican themed fights on
the undercard, so they'll draw in the crowd if they're
not so much inserted in the main event, because neither
one is Puerto Rican. Universal Promotions has got various you know,
talent in their stable, and so they're going to make
a very heavily Puerto Rican undercard of consequence everybody who
listens to those. One of my favorite prospects is the
lightweight Mark Castro, not Puerto Rican, Mexican American from Fresno, California.
He'll be on this undercard. The welterweight that that MATCHUM
recently signed the undefeated, very good looking prospect from Washington,
d C. Jalil Hackett. He is on this card. But
the the Puerto Rican talent you're talking about, the twenty
twenty Puerto Rican Olympian who's with Mattrium Yankiel Rivera and
also a fight that for the island. It's a decent fight,
I guess, junior lightway. This is the co feature the
undefeated Henley Lebron against the also fellow Puerto Rican former
world title challenger Christopher Petufo Diaz in a good old fashioned,
like all Puerto Rican fight. To see interesting, you know,
if the younger fighter can take a step forward against
a DS who's you know, let's call it's only like
twenty nine years old, but he's kind of I think
most people would view the most a little bit in
the twilight of his career and then they'll have a
bunch of other Puerto Ricans in those other fights that
are not necessarily the TV fights of the desone fights.
Speaker 2: Good intel from Dan rayphel on the December card coming
from match Room with the Porro Richardson Hitchens main event.
Speaker 1: All right, it is.
Speaker 2: Dmitri Bevil Archer better bv Undisputed light Heavyweight title fight week.
We do have Dmitri Bevil on the podcast feed. You
just we played that interview and you just got the
chance to talk with him, and you want to clarify
as we head in the fight week, it's now been
clarified about how to see the fight, especially in the
United States.
Speaker 1: Go ahead.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of confusion about this, so I'm
glad we can discuss this for a minute because I
received TJ I can't tell you how many people have
asked me on Twitter, how many people have dm me
on Instagram and hit me up on Facebook. It's like, okay,
so listen up. Okay, this ain't that complicated, but it's
it's annoying, but it's not the worst thing in the world.
Let's clarify. I'm talking right now about in the United
States of America. I'll get to the rest of the
world in a minute. In the United States of America,
if you want to watch better BA versus Bevo, awesome
fight on paper, undisputed light eavyweight champ in the United
States of America, there is one place to legally watch it.
It is if you have an ESPN Plus subscription. It
is part of your regular ESPN subscription and it will
take place and that will be the one fight stream
on Saturday, that fight. That's the best way I can say.
You just want to watch that flight at the time.
I don't have the exact time yet, but you watch
it or you subscribe to it, and that's how you
watch the fight. If you want to watch the undercard,
which is a good undercard, you got the rematch between
the big heavyweights who fought to the excellent Draft Awardley
against Fraser Clark. Do you want to watch Chris Hubank
Junior against Camille Zarametta. Do you want to watch the
cruiserweight champ Jai Opataie against Jack Massey. You know to
watch the flashy light heavyweight up and coming in Olympian
Ben Whittaker against William Cameron. Do you want to watch
the WBC Women's featherweight champion Sky Nicholson the vendor title
against Raven Chapman. There's a four rounder with a prospect.
That's the undercard. If you want to watch the undercard
of the United States of America, you gotta go on
regular the Zone and watch it as part of your
regular subscription. Now, originally the thought was, or the talk was,
and what I was told is that they were going
to make the undercard a pay per view unto itself,
but for cheap, like you know, fifteen bucks is what
Turkey how she had said. Originally was going to include
Shakhor Stevenson. Obviously, he is no longer on the show
because of his injury. So the rest of the undercard
regular de Zone in the United States and Canada for
that matter, Main event only ESPN Plus. So if you're
in the United States of America, you're gonna and you
want to watch everything, you got to watch it on
two platforms. Start out on his own watch the show,
and then flip over to the Zone. I mean, I'm sorry, flip.
Speaker 2: Over to the ESPN Plus for the main event. Main
event only on ESPN Plus.
Speaker 3: Correct in the rest of the world. Everywhere else you
live in Tokyo, if you live in you know, Berlin,
if you live in London, if you live Black Arkansas.
Speaker 1: Who you shot it out earlier? Well no, not little
block Cocker. So let's the United States.
Speaker 2: Let's say Ontario, Canada, Let's say San Juan, Puerto Rico,
anywhere outside the US.
Speaker 3: Well, Puerto Rico counts as the USDJ So your fun
completely does it for this if you don't live in
the United States of America or Puerto Rico, which is
part of the United States of America, right, can I? Can?
I finish?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 3: Worldwide it's a the zone pay per view, So for
the first time maybe in a long time, with the
exception of the occasional Joshua fight here in America, we're
not getting We're getting the fight for free with our subscriptions.
We don't have to pay and up charge. The rest
of the world has to pay the up charge. A
lot of times it's the other way around. So I'll
go through real quick once again. Free on ESPN Plus
for the main and Mint if you subscribe, free on
de Zone for the under card in the United States,
if you subscribe pay per view around the rest of
the world. Not that complicated.
Speaker 2: And just clarify if you're buying the pay per view,
because we have audience outside there. If you're buying the
pay per view outside of the US, you get the
full card. It's everything, it's not two purchases. If you're
outside the US, you get it all.
Speaker 3: Outside the un outside of the US, everything is on
his own pay per view, beautiful. The only place that's
on ESPN Plus is the main event in America.
Speaker 1: There we go.
Speaker 3: I don't know how much more clear I can make it.
Speaker 2: You did, and we look forward to that fight and
its fight week coming up.
Speaker 3: And by the way, if you still don't understand, go
fuck yourself and stop asking me.
Speaker 1: And by and by the way, I would love to know.
Speaker 2: Is it an affordable pay per view like what Turkey
Ala Sheikh has done before? Is it like the nineteen
ninety five variety, or are we going or we're going
all out that that card is decent. But this is
me saying this. I think they'd have a hard time
trying to make that a fifty nine ninety sixty nine.
Speaker 3: The international prices are never that high anybody, So I
haven't seen what the retail suggested prices, but I have
to believe it's going to be in the affordable range,
like you know what would be because it's not going
to be in dollars because that's in America, but in
other countries.
Speaker 2: Bothering Rayfield, It'll be the channel the fights are on.
Speaker 3: That's what will probably be the equivalent of around twenty bucks.
I would say, I'm just saying it.
Speaker 1: One more time.
Speaker 2: Stop bothering you want to find out what channel the
dating game reruns are on the game show network.
Speaker 1: Bother him about that.
Speaker 2: Stop bothering him about better beev and bevol. He just
explained where it's on. One more quick note, speaking of
light heavyweights, Anthony Yard, the British light heavyweight, is now
going to be back later this month. Uh, tell me,
tell me the latest because he's a popular, prominent British
light heavyweight.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he has been out of the out of
actions this earlier this year, he's been in a contract
dispute with Frank Warren, who has been his longtime promoter.
He last fought in February. He acquitted himself extremely well
in two world title fights against Sergey Kovalev in twenty nineteen,
more recently in twenty twenty three in a tremendous battle
against Arthur better Bee than a mandatory fight. I can't
tell you that he has signed with boxer, but he's
at least doing his next fight with boxer. They haven't
said whether he signed. I've reached out and asked, I've
not gotten a response. If you're listening, Bench Loom, please
respond to my next anyway. He will be back on
October nineteenth. He will be featured in the in the
co feature when Adam Azine fights Aharrad Davies at the
Copper Box Arena in London, a place where Anthony Yard
has fought plenty of times, and you know it's his hometown,
and so he's looking forward to that. It's available on
Peacock in the United States, it's a Sky Sports card
in the UK. No opponent yet, but anytime Anthony Yards
in the ring, because of the kind of punching power
that he possesses and the fun nature of his fights,
you know, I'm glad to see him back in.
Speaker 1: Action, all right.
Speaker 2: So and again that's only a couple of weeks away
here that he's going to be on that undercard as
the co feature. All right, some good news now, Nostalgia
time and let's go back in time to October sixth
as we do the podcast and release it Sunday night
into Monday. Sunday is the sixth and seventeen years ago.
In October sixth, two thousand and seven, Manny Pacquiao defeats
Marco Antonio Barrera in their junior lightweight rematch. Reminisce a
little what's what's in the memory banks about that one
seventeen years ago?
Speaker 3: Well, I was there at the rematch. I mean two
of the greats of their time. I mean, you have
the big four really, of those in and around those
weight classes, featherweight really kind of up to lightweight dish.
You had Pacio, you had Barrera, you had Morales, and
you had Marquez. They obviously all fought each other except
for Marquez never fought against Morales, which to this day
still pisses me off. In any event, Back when they
fought Barrera and Pacio the first time around, that was
really the coming out party in a massive way for
Manny pacow He had already fought a couple of times
in the United States, he'd been very impressive, but he
scored his first really big win against a big name,
top touch guy when he just destroyed him in San
Antonio back in two thousand and three, became the lineal
featherweight champion, stopped him in round eleven of a pretty
one sided fight, and they obviously both went on with
their careers and then they met once again. This was
a period of time where Manny did not have a
world title, but he was fighting at one hundred and
thirty pounds. He actually continued to defend the original title.
The fact that it wasn't for a world title fight,
I don't think most people know or care about, to
be quite honest with you, he had been on a
good run. He had defeated Eric Morales in their third fight.
He had been on a smaller fight when he was
in a protracted battle over his contract between Top Rank
and Golden Boy. He had fought for a Solis and finally,
in the summer of two thousand and seven, Top Rank
and Golden Boy, who had been locked in this terrible,
terrible lawsuit over Manny Pacio's contract, finally did like a
global settlement. If you were around back then, if you
followed boxing back then, you remember those of us in
the media and those of us that talked about boxing
everybody referred to it as the Cold War. They were
not doing any business with each other. They were the
most bitter of enemies, top rank and Golden boy Oscar
and Bob Aaron Richard Schaeffer. They weren't doing anything, and
they both had very very deep stables with a lot
of quality guys that can match up with each other.
And we were deprived at that time of a ton
of fights. When they finally made the settlement, it paved
the way for all kinds of good matchups and they
began to happen, involving Pac Yao and Ricky Hatton and
some Floyd Mayweather fights and this and that. One of
the fights that came out of it, which is one
of the fights that was at the beginning when they
finally made the deal, was to do a rematch between
Mark Antonio Burr and Nanny Paco. Maybe not the most
necessary fight in the history of the world, given what
had occurred in their first fight, but Barrera, although he
had was coming into this fight off of a loss,
it was still not like we've seen worst fights. He
had lost a competitive fight to Juan Manuel Marquez. Even
though he didn't win, you know, people still thought he
might have something left. And so they did this match
at the Mandalay Bay and instead of you know, the
barn burner, I guess that most people expected, given the
styles that we were so used to seeing Barrera and
Pacyo employed during their careers, it turned out to be
more of a boxing match, and Manny Paco you know,
pretty much dominated and then one a very clear, unanimous decision.
I think the first fight is probably more memorable just
because of the destructive nature of what Manny did to Brer.
The second fight maybe more memorable because it didn't have
that kind of action and that Brera, despite the one
sided loss on the scorecards, actually he put it himself
pretty damn well. And what it did was it showed
that Golden Boy and top Rank could work together, and
it's set up, you know, a whole ton of other
fights that they were being able to do together. But again,
Brera and Pacio two of the biggest fighters of their
time in terms of their name recognition and bank ability,
and you know, this was a pay per view fight,
and you know, I just remember being a tremendous promotion. Again,
not maybe the greatest fight of all time, but anytime
he got two future Hall of famers in the ring
with each other who still had something left. It's always
a good thing for the sport of boxing.
Speaker 2: Love that all, right, Move forward now to Wednesday later
this week, but we won't be back before Wednesday, October nine,
three years ago and the Tyson Fury Trilogy fight with
Deontay Wilder, where Fury scored a wild eleventh round knockout
to retain his.
Speaker 3: Four years ago. Three years ago, four years ago.
Speaker 2: I was trying to help you with the math. Twenty
twenty one was three years ago. Oh my bad, stop
my role here. Uh what a wild fight this was
to retain the WBC and lineal heavyweight championships. This was
a fight a year and a half or more in
the making because of the pandemic craziness, because of Fury
trying to ignore the rematch clause in the contract, they
had to go to arbitration. They finally put the fight on,
and a wild fight that you were ringside for. And
this is high praise for it because it's on the rundown.
You believe this is the best heavyweight title fight you
have ever been in person at ringside for. And that's
saying something here on this that includes you being ringside
for the Andy Ruiz upset of Anthony Joshua. That includes
you being ringside at Wembley for Joshua and clitchco This
one's got high praise.
Speaker 3: That includes me being ringside in the Staple Center in
Los Angeles for Lennox Lewis against Vitalia.
Speaker 2: Clitch googredible and this one obviously had plenty of drama
and once again, fury Ko's wilder.
Speaker 1: Eventually in this one. What else do you remember?
Speaker 3: This was spectacular? I mean and I can still remember
just like and it wasn't just me, like the feeling
you had when the fight's over and you're like sweating.
I mean, you weren't fighting. It wasn't like particularly you know,
this T Mobile Arena is a a well air conditioned venue.
It was the fall, and they have a hockey team there,
so you're you know, the is there. It's never like
over hot, overly hot. But it was like your sweating
because this fight was just so dramatic and you're so emotional,
you're so juiced up or jacked up about what you
just saw. Everybody was like walking on air, what a
great fight we saw. You mentioned it. It was a long
time coming. They had had the rematch in February of
twenty twenty, right before the pandemic, and that was of
course Fury winning the fight by a seventh round stopage.
He wins the WBC title. He already was the lineal champion.
They had fought to a draw in their first fight,
and they had each had a couple of intern bouts
in between, and the third fight was supposed to happen,
and you mentioned it was a lot of issues making
it happen. The pandemic delayed things. Finally they redid, they
got the fight together and they went forward with the
third fight. It was at the Timobile Arena and as
good and as dramatic as the first fight was, mainly
because of the memorable knockdowns that Deontay Wilder had and
of course Tyson Fury rising like the Undertaker in the
twelfth round to get off the deck right the drama
of that to turn out to be a draw with controversy.
Then of course the rematch, where Tyson Fury, much to
the surprise of everybody, told us ahead of time, I'm
gonna go right after him and I'm gonna knock him
out and We're all like, what are you talking about?
YAO boxed him for the most part in the first fight,
you just kind of most people thought you got a
little bit of a raw deal in the scoring. Why
would you change what worked so well in his perspectives, Well,
I didn't get the knockout. We all thought he was
full of shit, and he walked straight to Deontay Wilder
and took it to him and did exactly what he
said he was gonna do, gave away the game plan
and knocked him out in the seventh round and knocked
him down multiple times. And so now you're getting ready
for the third fight, and you're like, Okay, what's gonna
happen here? They've both been off for a little bit
for a little while, and it turned out to be
one of those special nights I mean that you'd die
for in boxing. I mean what I made the point
after this fight, and I say this at times, when
you see a fight like that, TJ, it makes all
the bullshit that we put up with as boxing fans
worth it. We sit through shitty mismatches over rice pay
per views, political nonsense between promoters and sanction bodies, stupid
shit on social media, between fighters who claim they want
to fight but really don't blah blah blah blah blah.
But when they finally get in the ring and we
hear the ding ding and they put the business together
and the fight happens, and they perform the way that
Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury did in this third fight,
all that other shit melts away and it makes worth it.
Speaker 2: And when it's the heavy weights, it goes up another
notch and I know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's also for the world title. It's for
one of the major belts as well as the lineal title.
I mean, it's for all the marbled Basically they're too
larger than life figures and Fury Wilder the boxing public
knew them very well from the first two fights.
Speaker 2: So what I want to know is this fight began
with as I recall it with with with once again
Fury dominating and he knocked Wilder down. The difference is
that Wilder got off the deck and he knocked Fury
down early in the fight. Yeah, from what you recall,
that was a plot twist, because look like the way
that it was going that he's going to dominate him
again and knock him out and now suddenly Fury got
a good right hand in on him and Fury is down.
What do you remember about what you thought, because now
we got drama.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm thinking when he got dropped, when Fury knocked
down Wilder in round three, I think it was sort
of like, well, here we go again. It's going to
be similar to what happened in the second fight, and
he's gonna just you know, at some point he's gonna
clip him again and it's going to be over and
out and he's gonna have, you know, one, yet another
easy knockout victory. Most people will think he should be
three and oh. I will say this though, and I
defend myself all the time in this I believe that
Deontay Wilder won the first fight, and it's based on
what happened in those first few rounds that were very
very close that I scored for a Wilder. But that's
a discussion of debate for another day. So you mentioned
the plot twist in round four. Deontay Wilder, who was
one of it, was the murres murderous puncher in boxing
at that time and is one of the greatest punchers
in the history of the heavyweight division. Scored two knocked
against two knockdowns against Tyson Fury in the fourth round,
and now it's like anybody's fight. Because Tyson Fiery was hurt.
It looked like the fight may be over. You know,
he did survive. Tyson Furious had had a pension for
being knocked down and getting up. He's been down, I mean,
I don't know, he's been down ten eleven times or
something like that in the course of his career, but
he's shown the resiliency to keep rising from the canvas.
So he got up, and so from from that point on,
you know, it was one of those things. After round four,
you're sort of like, Okay, what's gonna happen here?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: Eventually Fury started to take over and he was laying
a beating on Deontay Wilder, who it just looked like
he was just gonna break him down, break him down,
and finally the enormous heart again. We talk a lot
of times about the action or who wins the fight,
but for me, a lot of times, what makes the
drama of a fight or the memories of the fight
is the perseverance of the guy that ultimately loses, how
he sucks it up, and gets through to the point
even if he you know, whether he goes a distance
or he does get stopped. So to see Wilder bite
down and survive as long as he did so damaged
the way he was, to me, that was largely the
drum of the fight, other than the knockdowns that we
just talked about. That's why this fight had everything. It
was both guys down multiple times, both guys are and
Deonta in the second part of the fight really sucking
it up.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: He was taking a beating swollen I and remember part
of the backdrop was he and j D's had dismissed
and gotten rid of Mark Breelin, and part of that
was because they believe Brilin should or at least Deontay did.
Brilin shouldn't have stopped the first fight even though he's
getting beaten up, and so it was almost like, these
guys aren't gonna stop the second fight. Wilder's gonna have
to be laid out in the second fight, correct, And
I think Fury sensed too that Wilder was not only damaged,
but was not in the greatest cardiovascular shape. Because when
you go back, and it's just me saying this, when
you go back and watch every round. It seemed like
Fury would get going in the round, would kind of
wait around, and then with about a minute left in
the round, he'd go after Wilder and Wilder would be
tired and trying to hang on to him, and he'd
hurt him. That happened Dan like three rounds in a row,
where the back half of the round he's like, I
got this guy tired, I got him where I want him,
I'm gonna get him, and he finally got him.
Speaker 1: He finally got him.
Speaker 2: And then take me back to the moment where he
splatted him and that's it, and he punctuated yet another yeah, no,
he overwhel.
Speaker 3: And at that point the fight was over. He put
him down again and again Wilder was getting up, but
the referee had no choice but to stop the fight.
The big if you want to look at the fight,
because they had both had scored knockdowns. On the scorecard
before the knockout, it was competitive. He had a ninety
five ninety one on the one card, ninety five ninety two,
ninety four ninety two. So while there was still within
striking distance, if he could rally, it wasn't out of hand.
If you will Well. I went back and I looked
at the punch stats for this fight, and that, you know,
we argue about that doesn't mean anything. Does it not
mean anything? You know, you can you have your own
opinions about that. In this particular fight, it was very
clear he had Tyson Fury landing like forty percent of
his power shots. And while they're landing like twenty percent
of his power shots, that's gonna make a big difference.
Landing many more punches. They both were thrown around the same,
but Fury was landing so many more shots. Now, maybe
it wouldn't matter if Wilder could have got in the
big bomb right hand and just knocked it out, but
that did not happen, And so when this fight was over,
you had a clear victory for Tyson. Fury had done
the same, although harder to get to the point in
the third fight as he had done in the second fight,
and Tyson fear at this moment is now after this
fight is over. In October of twenty twenty one, no
doubt about a top of the food chain, number one
heavyweight in the world. He had the knocked out Deontay
Wilder in a historic caliber fight. As I said for me,
in my almost twenty five years of covering boxing, the
best heavyweight title fight I have ever covered. I have
covered many heavyweight world title fights. This was absolutely unforgettable.
And it shows you though that even after just three
years both of these I mean, Wilder is basically finished.
He still plans to fight on, but after what he
did in the post of this fight is nothing to
write home about. I mean, he came back and he
scored like the one win against against Robert Helenius in
the first round after a layoff, and then he lost
his next two fights. He got beat by Joe Parker
where he did absolutely nothing in the fight, and then
he got knocked out basically with one shot by Zaying
by Jillie Zang. That was back in June. And in
terms of Tyson Fury, while he's still near the top,
obviously in the post of this victory, he had a
very good win and a good knockout in a big
crowd at Wembley against Dillon White. Then he pan picked
an easy fight against Derek Tesaa, his good friend. Then
he took another layoff of almost a year, looked like
absolute trash against France and Nagano an MMA Fighter. So
you ask yourself, was it a lack of preparation or
was it that he also was showing the effects of
a long career and certainly the wars with Wilder, and
you know, he's maybe over the mountain in terms of
other time.
Speaker 2: Ye.
Speaker 3: And then the next fight was the fight that we
saw this past May, where even though it was competitive,
he got knocked down by Alexander Russik, he got cut
by Alexander Usik, and he was, you know, all kinds
of tired at the end of the fight, and he lost,
in my opinion, a fair split decision. And now we'll
see what happens when he goes in the ring with
Alexander Rusik in the rematch from December. But I don't
I think it's very obvious wherever you think Tyson Fury is,
he's certainly not what he was at his best when
he was beating up on Deontay Wilder. And obviously for Wilder,
you know, the end of the road is here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tyson Fury broke Deontay Wilder in those two fights.
Speaker 1: There's no don't make.
Speaker 3: A mistake about this. Though Deontay Wilder may have been
broken in those fights, and lost and taken punishment. But
Tyson Fury did not escape unscathed.
Speaker 2: He was not saying he escaped on skate, but I'm
saying Wilder was never the same after those two fights
and will never be the same.
Speaker 1: Not the same guy.
Speaker 2: I mean he he won the one fight with Helenius
on one punch halfway through the first round, and then
we went at another year to see him and he's
obviously not the same old beaten up And You're right,
Fury is clearly on the back side of the career
or if not at the end, especially if Usik dominates
him again. I don't know where he goes from there.
If if Usik dominates him again in December and.
Speaker 3: He goes to the loser Leaves Town match with Anthony.
Speaker 2: Anthony Joshua, well we'll say on that great nostalgia lots
on this pod, Fight recaps news all of it, and hey,
guess what is we released this into Monday? It is
Archer better b of Dmitri bevol fight week in Saudi
Arabia and the undercard that you listed. Are you saying
one more time, don't contact you about how to see
the fights?
Speaker 1: I think you explained it here on that.
Speaker 3: I've explained it on this podcast that night. If you
really want to know again, go to my what currently
is my most recent notebook on my substance on the substack,
and there's a section in there that explains it. Again.
Speaker 1: It's there black and white.
Speaker 3: And just so if you have trouble finding it. It's
a notebook that is the top of the notebook. The
top section is the preview stuff about the nick Ball
versus Ronnie Rio's fight. So it's the second section in
that notebook. So either listen to this pod over or
go read that section in the notebook. I've done everything
I can do to tell you how to watch this show.
If you're too fucking stupid not to understand what I've
said or written, and I don't want to hear from
you ever again.
Speaker 2: All right, on that cheering note, we're done, though, I
understand you're in a good mood your Yankees one game one.
Speaker 1: Of the Baseball playoff series.
Speaker 2: Listen, in all seriousness, we're gonna hunker down here for
whatever's gonna happen with Hurricane Milton that's coming in the
middle of the week towards the state of Florida. Again,
I live on the West coast of Florida. I don't
know if it's gonna be evacuation time or not. We
don't know that right now Sunday and Monday, but I
pledge this somehow, someway. I'll be back in touch later
this week on the pod with you in the preview
mode for the fights in Saudi Arabia and everything else
that's going on.
Speaker 1: Deal will be good. All right, there we go.
Speaker 2: Make sure you follow, subscribe here, rate us, and review
us as well on his podcast beat. If you enjoy
all of this, including the interviews, et cetera, five star reviews,
help take the thirty seconds and do that on Apples, Preaker,
Spotify for Dan Raphael, I am merely TJ Rings.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us on the Fight Preaks
you nite recap pot