Speaker 1: Well off of a weekend and has seen Eduardo Sugar
Nuniez successfully defend his IBF one one hundred and thirty
pound title. It has also seen Oscar Valdez return in victory.
It has seen Michael Conlin in Ireland get a victory
as well. We're ready to recap all of that. We've
got fight news and much more coming off the weekend.
I am merely somewhat capable. Host TJ. Reeves, he is
our insider. Fight Freaks Unit is his substack, his newsletter.
It is the Fight Freaks Unite Recap podcast. Full disclosure.
The host had a happy conclusion to the Sunday Buccaneer
Falcon game, a buccaneer win, a happy postgame show, a
happy plane ride. We're doing this late night on Sunday night,
after I have gotten back. No, Rayfield does not want
to talk about his New York Giants. Terrible, terrible, however,
as terrible as that might have been, Apparently the Sugar
Nunias fight, which I have not seen in its entirety,
but you're already scolding me. You're like, you gotta go
watch the fight. You gotta go watch the fight. Apparently
the Stunias fight was good, so we're about to talk
about that in all the news of the week. And
then Big Dan's got to leave himself because you're headed
to Clark County. You're headed to Vegas for Canelo Crawford
later on in the week.
Speaker 2: You gotta be out there on Wednesday for Canello Crawford.
I'm looking forward to it. A big fight and many
of activities. They got two fight cards before the big show.
They've got some prospect fights that will take place after
the workouts on Wednesday. Which did the read season and
Turkey events. They've done that. They've done it where they
have some of the smaller fights but they give them
for free to the public to kind of wet the appetite.
And then got the premiere of their Underdog series on
Thursday night with Oldascagua in the title fight. So there'll
be plenty of boxing activity in Vegas. I promise TJ.
I will not get arrested. You don't have to work
the authority.
Speaker 1: I don't have to when I.
Speaker 2: Go to Clark County.
Speaker 1: The authority is normally that is, if you and I
are there together. What's happened A couple a couple of
years since we have been out there together. Town ain't
big enough for both of us. That's what it comes
down to. All right, let's get into it. By the way,
make sure you're following subscribing on the pod feeds. We
are hustling Applespreaker, Spotify, wherever you get your pods, and
go to the Big Fight Weekend YouTube page. You and
Sir hey Boachuk on the on the YouTube page. If
you didn't just hear the audio interview, go watch the
video interview of him as he gets ready to fight
on the Canelo Crawford undercard against Brandon Adams.
Speaker 2: In the rematch.
Speaker 1: All right, get get to it. Because I was tied
up with college football getting ready for the NFL game.
I am aware because I read my Dan Rayfield substack
that Sugar Nunya has successfully defended his IBF, the junior
lightweight Crown. Rayfield says, in big bold letters, tremendous fight.
Are you over hyping this a little bit? Really? Say
on a Saturday night, It's not.
Speaker 2: Going to be the fight of the year. Okay, that's
you know, let's be clear about that. But when people
make their lists and they've got you know, a half
a dozen or whatever eight fights on their top fights
of twenty twenty five. Yeah, there's a really good chances
fights on that list. This was a really good fight.
And I think we've talked about this about other Mattriom
box Stars events that have been done in Mexico, where
Mattrium has been putting on a handful of shows every
year with their partner in Mexico, the box Stars Outlet.
And I said to you in the preview, I believe
it was that that for me, I really enjoy these
Mexican shows. They may not have huge names or big time,
you know, superstar names on these cards, but these Mexican
cards at Mattroom and box Stars put on rarely fell
to deliver some type of entertainment or good fights. And
in the case of this particular fight, you got Sugar
Nunyez who's been a road warrior. He's been on the
road three fights in a row. You know, he got
the eliminator that got in this championship opportunity. He went
all the way to Tajikistan and put on a tremendous
battle and got a late knockout against rock them Off.
He then came to the United States and knocked out
Miguel Mariaga, a veteran former title challenger, in his last fight,
and then he went home to Losmochis me to go
for this title defense. Well, I take the back. And
earlier in the year after the Marriaga fight, he went
to Japan and he won the vacant title that Kasachi
had vacated against, and he did so against a Japanese fighter, Rakishi,
and so Eddie hearn at that. Joe promised them, when
you have your first defense, I'll give you what you want,
which is a hometown fight. So we came home to
bos Mochus. He's fought many times in Mexico. He hadn't
actually fought though in his hometown for like the last
few years. So not only does he get the fight
in Mexico, he gets the fight in front of the
hometown crowd. They bring in Christopher Diaz, a veteran contenders
fought for the title. He's now zero and three in
world title fights.
Speaker 1: Well, we wondered on the preview mode when Diez have
something to offer? Clearly he did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look he put up the heck of a fight.
I mean, we'll get to the scoring and how it
went down, but he didn't embarrass himself. And you know what,
he may have lost the decision, but if he still
has the desire, there's zero reason why Christopher Diaz cannot
get another solid fight in this weight class and be
matched with another good quality opponent. I'm not saying he's
getting a title fight in his next opportunity or whatever,
but he always comes to fight, so you know, he's
lost his three title fights. Kind of a hard luck
loser in that sense, always been a good guy, but
this was the classic Mexico Puerto Rico. They came to fight,
and it started off a little bit slow, and I
was sort of like, oh, what are they going to
just kind of dance around? Because that first round you're
sort of expecting, with the crowd going crazy and Sugar
doing is being such an explosive and aggressive kind of fighter,
that they'd sort of have at least some early fireworks
before maybe things settled down a little bit. But it
wasn't like that. It took about two three rounds for
them to really get into it, because you know, and
I thought that when the commentators were talking about this also,
they were exactly right that that actually was good for
Daz because you take the crowd right out of it immediately,
and you sort of are able to box and move
around and take away that early sort of like explosion
of adrenaline and excitement for Nunyaz, and you know, you
can make it more of a of a less frenetic
type of fight. And that was the case for a
few rounds, but then they started to mix it up.
And you know, if you've ever Christopher Diazing, you've ever
watched any of Nunya's fights, you know eventually there's gonna
be some type of you know, explosion of offense. And
that's what happened. And it was the kind of fight
where he started off, like I said, a little slow
first couple of two three rounds, started to pick up,
pick up, pick up, and by the time they got
to the end of the fight, I mean, the twelfth
round is like going to be Around of the Year
type round. It just a raging inferno and they were
just blast on away, tremendous fucking battle. In the end,
Dounias gets the proper decision. The judges gave it to
him one seventeen one oh nine on two scores one
sixteen to one ten on the third I had at
one fifteen to one eleven as I was watching live
and scoring along. Uh the gap in those scoreses because
in the seventh round you had Ununia's getting two knockdowns.
The first one he caught him with like a little
tiny right hand that we didn't really hurt him at all,
but it did enough to knock him off downs where
Nunya where DZ had to steady himself by putting one
of his gloves down on the campus, so the referee
properly called that the knocktown. But a few seconds later
when they resumed, he landed just a clean overhand right
right on the button, knocked them down on his rear end,
and that was a second knockdown, and he got up
and fought back, and actually he came back in the
eighth round and had a good round. He won the
eighth round, and it seems to me and then they
were just blasting away, and when they got to the
twelfth round, they're in an all out fucking war. And Diaz,
the guy that'd been down twice, who was definitely behind
on the cards, he has Nuno Is at one point
looked like you might have him ready to go he's
just blasting away also, and you know, there was just
a tremendous fight, a very enjoyable classic Mexico Puerto Rico.
Like I Mentioneduna is the rightful winner. And then as
good as the fight was, this was sort of like
a surprise. We kind of knew this because they had
shown in the crowd earlier TJ that Emmanuel Neaverrette, who's
the WBO one hundred and thirty pound champion, was there
the Mexican countryman watching the fight, and when the fight
was over, he was asked about that particular matchup, but
is it's something you'd want? And Eddie Hearn, you know,
wearing his sugar Nonia's red bandana, got it, you know,
was in the ring with him and invited Navarette get
in the ring and they faced him off and talked
about how they want to fight each other in a
unification and how what a great fight this would be
from Mexico and why that would be a tremendous fight.
Who wouldn't want to see it? I don't see any
reason why, you know, Mattrim and top Rank couldn't work
it out. But the issue is, and you know, I
don't know if this can be worked out or not.
People they kind of forgotten, never meant to. Broadcasters didn't
mention it, Eddie didn't mention it. Nobody mentioned it. You
may remember that back in May never Reet they had
that very controversial what became a contest no contest against
Charlie Suarez because of the craziness with you know, was
it a punch and opened the cut? Was it a headbutt? Anyway,
at the end of the day, the w B ordered
an immediate rematch, and so he's on the he's on
the he's on the on the hook for that. Now
he can always vacate the title and they can't do
anything about that, and you can go and challenge Nunez
for the IBF title, I suppose. But part of the
part of the magic and the sectionists of the fight. Besides,
you know, what's going to be good action is you know,
the carot of the unification. So we'll sham they can
get something done, or maybe they're just talking shit, and
maybe they'll wait. If Neverete fights Charlie Suarez in the
next few months or whatever, and after that's over, they
can go into that kind of fight. But Nunez is
always going to give you bang for your buck, and
Christy has to a lesser degree will do the same.
Really good fight on a on a on a time TJ,
where it's been a real slow period last few year. Yeah,
this was a very good shining light. So if you
didn't see, it's certainly on demand on his own En
got well worth watching.
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta catch at least keep the.
Speaker 2: First two or three rounds. If you want to dog, I.
Speaker 1: Can scan ahead. I can scan ahead on that. All right,
so good on that championship main event. Now, former two
division world champ Oscar Valdez was fighting in a different
part of Mexico and his hometown of Nogales, and he
gets a ten round decision when and and was this
an impressive showing from him? Just kind of an okay
showing against someone named Ricky Medina. How would you assess it?
Speaker 2: I think you could say lackluster is the proper way
to put it. Uh, and Oscar Valdez it kind of
acknowledged that in his comments after the fight. Uh. This
was on ESPN Deportes in the United States, and it
the main event started like in like the eleventh round
or so of the Nunias fight because I had my
the Zone on my phone, and I had the Deportes
on my computer, and I'm in my office and I'm
kind of monitoring both at the same time. But I
was paying attention to the Nunyas fight, and so I
didn't pick up the Valdez fight until about the I
guess about the third round. I didn't miss anything. I'll
tell you that. Look, Oscar is a little bit long
in the two. It's always been one of my favorite fighters.
We've discussed that plenty of times. It's coming off the
rough knockout loss in the rematch against Navarette and is
looking to make another run, and you know whether he
can do that or not. I did mention, by the way,
that the contract for this fight was slightly over the
limit of one hundred and thirty, but in fact they
both weighed under the one hundred and thirty pound limit,
so it actually was technically a junior lightweight fight. But
Oscar just look, he won. The scores were a little
bit misleading. If you asked me, two judge one judge
had a shot out one hundred and ninety. That's fucking fantasy,
that's not reality. That did not happen because Ricky Medeena
one hundred percent won at least a couple of rounds
in that fight. The other one of the other judges
had at ninety ninety two given him two rounds, and
one judge had it ninety seven to ninety three. He
gave him three rounds that semed appropriate ninety seven to
ninety three. I mean, yeah, okay, I missed the first
couple of rounds, so I can't say for sure, but
the rounds I saw, which were like the final seven
rounds of the fight, Ricky Medina won at least two
of those rounds. In any event, it was just not
a great performance from Valdez. Now, he did say in
Oscar has never been the type of guy to make excuses.
He did acknowledge that in the first round he hurt
his left shoulder and that may have, you know, hampered
him through mental danger of the fight. So take that
for what it's worth. But he does get back in
the win column. You know, there was a lot of
people there cheered him on. It was his hometown. We
talked about this in the pre fight guys. A two
time Mexican Olympian, a popular fighter among his people, but
it's only the third time he ever fought in his country.
He hadn't been for a number of years, and he'd
never fought a professional fight in Nogallas, which is where
he's from. So that was sort of a big deal
to do that going home. And I don't I don't.
I mean, he still has the desire to be in
another World Tide of fight, maybe to win a third
World tuttle. He's been a champion at junior l We've
been a champion featherweight, been involved in some tremendous fights
over the years. Uh, that version that I saw on
Saturday night, Uh, probably doesn't have a prayer against the
top guy at junior lightweight. He is kind of lucky.
He was in with a guy like Mendina who had
a you know, good durability and uh and showed a
good heart, but didn't have the type of skills that
Oscar has. And uh, you know that's that's why Oscar
was able to come out on top of that fight.
You match him up with you know, a Sugar Nunias,
it's game over that type of thing. You know, Neverete,
he already lost the place. You know. It's so I'm
not sure where Oscar goes from now. I mean he's
not I don't he's not going to retire, but I'm
just not sure what type of fight you can get him,
what type of uh you know, fight or or money
the top rank and offer him for for that type
of whatever he wants to do next. But always good
to see the guy go home and get that that
uh that warm greeting from the hometown fans and and
uh going there. And it wasn't like a bad fight,
but it wasn't you know, we're not talking about that
as the fight of the air. It was a little sloppy,
a little bit a little bit of holding going on,
but uh, but they threw their hands. It was it
was solid, all right.
Speaker 1: And then just to cover it. Michael Conlin, also victorious
back on Friday Night in Ireland, got a TKO. I
would love to say that I know anything about Jack
Bates and the opponent Colin has taking a couple of
rough knockout losses, previously contemplated retirement. Did he not retire
for a little while like they all retire for six months?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think he ever actually retired and.
Speaker 1: Did never actually announce it. Okay, but whatever the case is,
he's back at least for this fight and got a TKO.
Speaker 2: Right, So, if you go back to twenty twenty three,
he fought Louis albert O Lopez for the IBF featherweight title,
and Albert Lewis Alberta Lopez just absolutely drilled him in
the fifth round, a horrific knockout, really brutal, bad, rough and.
Speaker 1: It hurt him earlier in the fight to knock him
down earlier in the fight.
Speaker 2: And yeah, yeah, a very very hard knockout. So that
was in May of twenty three. He comes back in
December of twenty three in a fight that he is
a heavy favorite to win against Jordan Gill, and Jordan
Gill drops him in the second round and then knocks
in the fuck out in the seventh round. Another really rough,
tough loss for Common, and at that point you're like, okay,
maybe it's over. So he never I don't maybe I'm
wrong about it. I don't think he ever announced his retirement,
but he did not. That was December of twenty three.
He did not fight at all in twenty twenty four.
Then he came back in March of this year in
a very lower profile fight. He took an eight rounder.
He was back, you know, closer to featherweight. He'd been
fighting Jordan Gill was at junior lightweight. He fought like
one hundred and twenty seven pounds. He won an eight
round decision, nothing to speak of against just a run
of the mill kind of opponent. And now they put
him back into a little bit of a stepup fight.
You know, Bateson came into the fight with only one
defeat on his record, you know, similar in terms of
his experience as a professional. You know, the age that
they are. And they went to Dublin. Now Michael is
from Belfast, but Dublin obviously home of the Irish. You know,
he was pleased to fight in front of a very
raucous Irish crowd. They had a really great crowd on hand,
kind of going crazy for him.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Bateson, of course was not Irish. He's from England, so
it's Irish versus English. And look, Michael Conlin looked at
had as sharp as he's looked in a long time,
if you ask. This fight. While it was on Channel
five in the UK, free to air here in the
United States, it was on the Triller TV plus which
puts on a bunch of different things, and a lot
of times they've picked up the America rights of these
Wasserman boxing cards. So I watched it on there and look,
Michael put on a like I said, probably the best
performance he's had a long time. He scored a very
heavy knockout. It was a good, well, I shouldn'tay heavy knockdown.
What he did was he got a knockdown and then
later in the fight he ended up stopping him. Uh,
but it was it was a weird thing, like he
knocked him down with a clean right hand, a beautiful knockdown.
This is a hard knockdown in the fourth round. He
had dropped him like a flash knockdown in the third round,
but when he knocked him down so hard in the
fourth round, they're like, okay, the fight's over. But actually
Bates and got up. But when he got up, he
was sort of limping and hobbling and leaping around and
kind of fell into the ropes because he messed up
his ankle. So he was hurt from the knockdown punch.
But he did beat the count, but he couldn't continue
because the ankle was messed up. In the after fight,
so goes as a TKO, and of course Michael was
very happy with the victory, and you know, he was
talking aboutw he wants to step up and fight, you know,
another a much better grade of opponent, maybe fight for
some kind of title, if it's all, if it is
all possible. And so he's got two wins in a row,
and this was an exciting and good performance from Commin.
I mean, you know, a lot of people like the
count guys out. I understand why, especially when you take
the kind of brutal knockouts he had against Lopez and Gil.
But he's thirty three years old. Might still have the
chance to maybe do something against a little bit of
a better grade of opponent. He's kind of in the
same boat as Valdez. You know, they they you know,
he never won a world title, common he had an
interim belt for a little while. But they've both been
guys that have been willing to fight the best guys.
They don't duck people. They come to fight. They've got
their fans, They wear their emotions on their sleeve when
they when they lose, it's dramatic. Sometimes when they win,
it's dramatic, and to me, win or lose, like they're guys.
I like to watch, you know what I mean. So
I have nothing but good wristiness for Commin and for Valdez.
Speaker 1: And and we had some act this weekend and he
delivered to whatever extent that was. And we'll see if
he fights on or not. Okay, so we covered things
from Mexico to Ireland. Can I be honest with you?
I mean, we do an honest show. I get the
email update, I'm looking on social media and there's something
about Floyd Mayweather and Mike Tyson, and I honestly thought
it was one of these things about a video game
or somebody saying who would win a fantasy matchup? And
then I look a little closer and I have to
confess I didn't read my Dan Rayphael substack for the
update about it because it was like Friday, right, And you.
Speaker 2: Can still go back and read that.
Speaker 1: By the way, I can't go back and read it.
This is actually seriously, legitimately being talked about that they're
going to do something together. It's not silliness in a
video game. Do you want to say it or do
you want me to say it? You can say at this.
Speaker 2: Time I'm gonaive it.
Speaker 1: I've been on an airplane coming back from Atlanta. What
are we doing here? Ray Peel, thank you. Mike Tyson
weighs like ninety pounds more than what Floyd May was.
Speaker 2: It's only about eighty who's county.
Speaker 1: Right, But what he typically fought at was like one seven.
Speaker 2: If you if you look at Floyd as just a
regular guy, he's about one hundred and fifty pounds, okay.
Tyson was like two twenty something for the Jake Paul
quote unquote fight.
Speaker 1: What are we doing here?
Speaker 2: Why I listen? I have no idea, And here's the
reason why. This one's kind of fucked up to me.
I mean, if they want to do it and they
can make money, I mean, so be it. I'm not
you know, live and let live. That's always sort of
my motto about life. As long as you're not you know,
hurting anybody, at least in boxing where it's legal. You know,
you're not you know, robbing banks and uh and stealing
from grandma's and hurting kids and things like that. You
want to go in a ring and have your exhibition,
you know, have that doesn't mean that I have to
like it. I mean, I'll write about it because it's
what I do. I'm a boxer writer. What else my
people said? Why do people always saved me when there's
an event like this? They that is displeasing to them,
or it's like a really big mismatch or whatever. Well,
why don't we don't have to? Why write about it?
I'm like, I use the logic that. Do you think
the correspondence who go cover wars enjoy it? No, it's
their calling, it's what they do. So if Mike Tyson
and Floyd Mayether, two of the most famous boxers in
the history of when men have put padded gloves on
their hands, are going to do a fight, regardless of
whether it's a real or exhibition, Yeah, I'm gonna write
about it, and I'm gonna you know, opine about it,
and I'm gonna cauch.
Speaker 1: He's eighty pounds bigger.
Speaker 2: I agree with you about that. So the reason why, Okay,
a couple things about this. Number One, they announced this
thing with very little detail, as is typically what happens
sometimes with these events. They didn't tell you how many
rounds it is. They didn't tell you the date of
the fight. They didn't tell you the location of the fight.
They didn't tell you what is the platform on which
that people could actually watch it is that they want
to watch the fight. They didn't tell you if there
is any kind of rules tweaked, such as they did
with Tyson and J.
Speaker 1: Paul.
Speaker 2: Although I was tech delete official fight where they use
two minute rounds for men instead of three. They used
larger gloves compared to what they've typically done. There was
nothing about any rules or anything. It was just Mike
Tyson and Floyd maybether have signed. They used the word signed,
so somewhere I guess there's contracts that stipulate certain things
for a Spring twenty twenty six exhibitions, So this would
happen sometime like next whatever, you know, March, April, May whatever. Now.
The reason why you can laugh at it, I get
it because it is kind of preposterous. And my perspective
is this, if this had been the first time this
was happening, there woud people be going nuts. But the
fact that Tyson J. Paul already happened right takes any
luster away from this.
Speaker 1: Because Edgreid and Tyson looked from like the first round
on exhausted. He's chewing on his gloves. We talked about
all of.
Speaker 2: This, and here's your thing. Also, Floyd, who is no
stranger to exit now. Mike has had two past exhibitions.
One in two thousand and six, like a year and
a half after he or first retired. That is very
forgettable against Coreys. We don't have to rehash that. And
then the big popular one that was when everybody was
locked up with the pandemic that they did against Roy
Jones Junior and it did, like, you know, a million
and a half pay per views or a million eight
pay per views and everybody was home watching it because
there was nothing else to do. And that was okay.
But the thing is his fight with Jake Paul just
simply was not entertaining, and that was mainly because Tyson
couldn't do anything. And Jake even said afterwards, I didn't
want to knock out a guy that didn't need to
be hurt. So you already saw.
Speaker 1: That Tyson's going to be fifty nine. As we know,
he's had he's had health problems, yeah, continues to have
health problems.
Speaker 2: But also, and the thing with Mayweather is so he's
been retired from actual fights since he fought Connor McGregor,
which was sort of an exhibition that was in twenty seventeen.
Floyd's actually had like eight exhibitions since then. And the
reason why you think that's probably a shocker because they
all spunk. They'd been horrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, he fought the one in the UK
that I thought, I think we had more people on
the Buccaneer airplane than we're at the Floyd Mayweather. I
actually that ain't saying much.
Speaker 2: I actually, because I'm sick in the fucking head. I
have kept a list and I keep track of this.
He has fought Tension Nasaku in Japan. That was the
one that was interesting because he drilled him in the
first round. He fought Logan Paul, which did well on
pay per view for showtime. He fought Aaron Chalmers, don
more your boy Degie. He fought another Japanese fighter, Assa Kura,
and then he fought the back to back exhibitions against
John Gotti the third, who is known only because he
is the grandson of mafia.
Speaker 1: Again. Yeah right, so none of.
Speaker 2: Them were rememberable. What are we doing other than splattering
Tension around the ring in the first round, which by
the way, was one hundred and forty something pound Floyd
against one hundred and twenty two pounder moving up, and
he smashed him in like the first round. Who was
not even a boxer, was a kickboxer. So here's the point.
Had this been done before all these other kakamami exhibitions
and whatever, I think there'd be a lot of interest
because of the magnet, the names. But when you look
what they've all done in exhibitions and how non entertaining
they are, plus just the joke of the eighty pounds difference.
Plus it all remains to be seen what kind of
commission will sanction this, or how the thing is gonna
work in terms of the weight or whatever the rules
are going to be. I get it. There'll be a
lot of people that will want to watch it because
they're not looking. This is the thing you have to remember.
They're not so much looking to appeal to you or
me or to the diehard boxing pan. It's the as
somebody involved said to me, the looky lou. I've heard
of Mike Tyson, I've heard of Floyd Nayweather. Yeah, they're
gonna fight each other. I got to check that out.
Now they're trying to do this on some kind of
a platform where it's not going to be a pay
per view, so kind of like Jake, Paul and Tyson
was on Netflix and the streaming service put up a
good amount of money. They're involved with the folks from
CSI or if you ever see on late night TV
maybe an old fight will top on your local sports channel.
They own the library to a ton of HBO International fights.
They've owned a library of the old USA Tuesday night
fights a series, and so though they they've made a
lot of money doing that and they're trying to get
into doing some live events.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: The reason I'm getting to the reason why I am
taking this seriously because the people that they have hired,
they announced these hires right before they announced this exhibition.
They have brought on TV executives and executives within boxing
and within sports who I have deep, deep respect for,
who are extremely good at what they do. They hired
my old boss, John Skipper, who used to be the
executive president or whatever his title was at ESPN, and
when he left the ESPN he became the executive chairman
at the Zone. He signed Canelo Alvarez to his original
the Zone contract. I have massive respect for John Skipper.
They signed my good friend for twenty five years, who
was the senior vice president of HBO Sports for you know,
and basically invented modern pay per view, Mark Taffett, who
was a very very knowledgeable person about the boxing business.
Was right in the middle of every big pay per
view deal at HBO that you could think of ever
in the history of HBO pay per view. And now
he's the very successful manager of Claressa Shields as well
as among other talent out in boxing women. So they
hired him, and they brought on my boy Chris de Blasio,
who spent many many years the chief of communications for
Showtimes We Love. So these are real people that they
have brought in. And then this other person I don't
know they brought I forget the guy's name. They brought
in a production person that's that has been involved for
many years with American Idol, obviously a big time, top popular,
top television program. So, and let me tell you, those
are people that don't come cheap. Number One, they're very
very experienced in this space. They're very knowledgeable, and they've
been very successful. So you may laugh at at the
notion of a Mayweather versus Mike Tyson exhibition. But when
those are the types of people that are involved, I
don't laugh now, I may not tea.
Speaker 1: The only thing I keep coming back to is I
don't know how reliable Mike Tyson is going to be
health wise, mentally and otherwise to make it to next
spring and whatever this is going to be. That's the
variable I keep coming back.
Speaker 2: You can say that about anything, I guess. I mean,
you could probably say that about it. You know, any
number of fighters are.
Speaker 1: Out in this, but in this case at a fifty
nine age and with the health problems he previously had,
remember he had ulcer problems. It's there's no question that
he is on medicinal or whatever constant use of cannabis.
He's open about that. And the whole thing, uh.
Speaker 2: Whatever his issues are, it's the concept of this, the
weight disparity that Mike is his ages, Floyd is pushing fifty.
You've got the fact that they've been retired for years
and years and years. I don't count the Jake Paul
fight as a real fight, even though technically it was,
and there's did anybody wake up and say I need
to see Tyson and Jake Tyson and Floyd Mayweather. No,
and then we and again if it happened before, you know,
we didn't know the Emperor wasn't wearing any clothes. People
might be interested. But we saw what Tyson did when
they put him back. There was going into the Jake
Paul fight. There was the fantasy or the imagination of, Wow,
Mike Tyson is back after twenty years, maybe he can
still knock the guy out. Jake doesn't have a lot
of experience. Jake doesn't you know, has never fought around.
Speaker 1: It was comparable weight, and they shortened it to two
minute rounds and so it was a little more believable
for those reasons. But we saw what we saw, all right.
We gave that a lot of time.
Speaker 2: Oh, we would be giving a lot more time, you.
Speaker 1: Know, if we actually get to next spring, because.
Speaker 2: Before we go on, let me give her one more time.
Speaker 1: What are we doing here?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Can we move on to the other news? Yeah, because
at some point I have to collapse and we got
to start over with a Monday. Yes, all right, Queensberry
says Joseph Parker and Fabio Wardley is officially happening on
October twenty fifth, which you talked to us about the
strong possibility that that would be the date it is
going to be a pay per view, including in the
United States.
Speaker 2: Rubally everywhere. It'll be a pay per view all over
the world.
Speaker 1: Do you want me to say it again?
Speaker 2: Go ahead?
Speaker 1: Who in the what are we doing here? Who in
the United States really is going to pay even more
than a nominal amount for Joseph Parker and Fabia Warldly
in this country? What are we doing here with that?
Speaker 2: I mean, that's their problem, not ours. I mean, if
you know, I mean I always say this, you don't
have to watch. I mean, it would be nice if it
was part of your regular zone subscription. I think what
happened was and I don't know this for one hundred percent,
but they did have times where there were fights that
were available in different territories on a pay per view
basis and that were on pay per view in other locations.
So as an example to remember, back when Devin Hainey
fought Regis program mm hm, that was a pay per
view in the United States, but all around the rest
of the world where the fight didn't have kind of meaning,
it was on regular de zone. So if you lived
in the UK, you lived in Australia, or you lived
in Germany or wherever you're watching the Zone, that was
part of your regular subscription. But in the United States
they charged pay per view fee for it. I think
what they found was that the people that really wanted
to steal it could steal it because once the signal
is open and Germany or England right, it's a lot
easier to just go on and figure out how to buy.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I'm old and I don't know the technology, so for
me I would have a hard time doing that, but
for a lot of people they can.
Speaker 1: But still from the appeal standpoint, this is a British
fight fans, a European kind of angle. You understand the
pay per view. Why doesn't do a solid to the
dezonne subscribers in the United States and not worry about
paid perview, That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I think it's because if they make
it available to subscribers in America, it will be easily
to steal in a place like the UK. That's my impression,
and I will say this in defense of Queensberry. First
of all, is a good matchup. It is a very
interesting matchup. There's a lot of state they're both interim
title holders, but regardless of that, the winner of the
fight is going to be in the Joseph Parker's already
the mandatory for Usik, but because Usik has got the
back injury and he's been given the medical exception to
delay the mandatory from the WBO, he's not going to
fight probably the rest of this year. And Joseph Parker
hasn't fought since two rounds in February. He doesn't want
to sit around, so to his credit, he's willing to
step up and fight a legit him an opponent, not
just take on some nobody. And for Fabio Wardley who
had a struggle with Justice Hooney and knocked him that
with one shot, he's got the WB you know, interim,
but eventually it will probably wind up that says just
for the WBO. And so regardless the winner is going
to be the mandatory because if it's Parker, he's going
to continue to be the mandatory. If it's Worthy, he's
going to take over that spot and he's going to
get a chance to fight either for the vacant title
or be elevated or fight Whosick for you know, all
the marbles. So that's the reason why it's interesting. Now
it's a very expensive fight, so Frank Warren and again
I'm not I don't have to defend Frank Warren. And
lord knows we've done plenty of times where I've ripped
Fank Warren. We can go back to what happened with
Dania Dua in the supposed non low blow against Usick.
So I call it like I see it, just a
super expensive fight. I honestly don't believe there'd be a
way for him to make the match of it. They
didn't do it as a pay per view. Now if
it doesn't do business, again not our problem, but as
a fight, putting the pay per view element of it aside.
But it'll be in intro.
Speaker 1: Probably do it'll do some business. We're just saying this
because we know it in the UK this is a
bigger deal. Yeah, especially because awardly it's not a big
it's a.
Speaker 2: Non entity in a mess. It's only for the Diet's going.
Speaker 1: To be in the afternoon on a football a huge
college football Saturday in late October, and they will be
lucky to get I said this before they'll be lucky
to get ten thousand people, fifteen thousand people to care
pay attention. Maybe they don't even get five.
Speaker 2: I actually think it would in the United State. Again,
I'm not knocking the fight, but in terms of the
by rate in America.
Speaker 1: In the middle of the afternoon, I would says.
Speaker 2: I just said, well, that's that's But the bottom line
is the fight is happening, right and to their credit,
they're willing to It's Frank Like Frank, it's a risk.
Speaker 1: We said it before. It's a real risk for Joseph Parker,
who is in line to be the full WBO champion
if Busick.
Speaker 2: Won't find it is also with the right, right.
Speaker 1: Right, But in Parker's case, he's already there. He's taking
the risk.
Speaker 2: So so, as Frank said in his announcement when he
when he announced that the deal was done, that we
had spoken about probably being done a few days ago,
he basically said that Joe Parker and Fabio Warley neither
one of them to sit runing, to wait and protect
their positions. They wanted to fight in a real fight again,
you know, and obviously they're going to be well compensated
to do so. They're putting it on in a you know,
excellent place, and they're not. They don't need to put
in a big stadium. But the O two Arena in
London is a first class venue hosted plenty of big
fights over the years, and I for one, I'm looking
forward to this fight. I mean, you know, it is
what it is. I'm buying the pay per.
Speaker 1: View intriguing it'll be next month. Now let's stick with
this because Frank Warren says Moses E. Tama is going
to be back and again he took only a couple
of minutes to dispatch Dillian White back a few weeks ago.
To me, I mean again, I'm a little punchy here
at this point. Put him on the undercard of the
Parker fight and helps sell the pay per view, but
you have here on the rundown. He's looking to have
him fight much later in the year. What have we learned?
What do we know?
Speaker 2: No, he's he said that, and I've confirmed this with
with their people that Moses and Tomi will headline his
own card. You know, he's at the point that when
you beat Dylan White the way he did, they're not
going to put him on undercard I mean, I think
he unless it was like Tyson Furry, Anthony Josh or
something like that, I think we've seen the last of
a Tama in an undercard position, unless it's later later,
later in his career, when you know, maybe he's been
defeated or whatever and he's trying to make a comeback
or something like that. But that's a long way for now,
it seems to me anyway. So he'll be back to
headline a Queensberry card will be December thirteenth. It'll take
place at the co Op Live in Manchester, England. I
know they have designs on eventually bringing Moses to fight
here in the United States. Obviously won't be in the
next fight, but I think in twenty twenty six there's
a reasonable chance that we might get a chance to
see him fight here in America. But in any event,
it'll take place December thirteenth. They don't have an opponent yet,
but Frank's comment was it'll be you know, a quote
unquote a top ten fighter. There's lots of ways to
read top ten. Is it a real top ten? Is
it you know the WBA top ten or you know
some some you know you can go through any of
the four. I'm not just picking on the WBA, but
you can go through any of the four organizations in
heavyweight rankings and find a couple of guys that you
wouldn't want to really think should belong there. And by
the way, you're probably gonna have the cow because I
I would imagine that when it comes time to actually
put this together, an ounsaid, unfortunately, they'll probably make it
his own pay per view all so unfortunately.
Speaker 1: At least have it be a decent name.
Speaker 2: Yeape. You know they've talked about guys like Kergovic. Now
I don't know if that will happen.
Speaker 1: I would love to see that.
Speaker 2: He's coming off he's got an injury from the last fight,
but somebody that's a reasonable fight, that's good.
Speaker 1: But we don't know for a time. And again that's
December exactly, sticking with the heavyweights and now who we're
not gonna see. Eddie Hearn has confirmed on the record
that Anthony Joshua post elbow surgery, not fighting the rest
of this year, but looks to return at the beginning
of next year. Tell me more about this.
Speaker 2: Is this is like we're doing like a British boxing
heavyweight show right now.
Speaker 1: The other thing is we're talking more about theoretical stuff
here again on do we even know if he has
an opponent down the road.
Speaker 2: Here, well, I mean, it's gonna be somebody significant, I
would think, But it's not about the opponent. This is
a matter of the fact that a lot of people
speculated and thought that AJ would be back before the
end of this year to try to shake off that
horrendous knockout that he took against Daniel Dubois. But he
had the elbow surgery, and Eddie has been pretty clear
about this that they were thinking we can maybe get
him out in December or so. But now he's saying,
you know what, that's just not going to happen. At
the earliest. We're looking at January February, which is not unreasonable.
I mean, so AJ basically will go not basically, he
will go the entire calendar year of twenty twenty five
without a fight, which you know, not a surprise when
guys get to the latter part of their careers. That's
not a total shocker. If he ends up taking off
fourteen or fifteen months, which I guess if he were
to fight in January, he would have fought in September
of twenty twenty four, so you know, do the math
am I am.
Speaker 1: I remember it's the left elbow because he was talking
about the jab hand when they were discussing that. So
and the other thing is they were rumored to be
talking to Jake Paul about maybe fighting him in the fall.
That didn't happen.
Speaker 2: Well that that was not accurate the Jake Paul fight.
According to the Jake Paul peoples. Yes, they were talking
and it did happen. It was going to be post
Tank Davis. Interesting, but that's another we didn't even when
we were talking about the Tyson and Maywethering, we'd even
bring up the backlatch on Paul against Paul, and that's
another one with crazy weight disparity, all right.
Speaker 1: But also theoretically a Tyson Fury fight would still be
hanging out there. If Fury's not gonna fight. It was
sick a game, even a Wilder fight. But all you're
saying is not happening the rest of this calendar year.
Eddie Hearn is saying that.
Speaker 2: Edie Earn says he's back in January February. The other
part about it was and he made this point too,
that there are groups in other parts of the world
that would like to have be in the Anthony Joshua
business and bring him to their place to do a fight.
So he specifically mentioned a group from Ghana that has
been talking about doing a fight, and obviously January February
is what they would like. But if the people in
Ghana say we're going to give you a shitload of money,
but we're not going to do the fight till April,
they'll probably wait till April. Now, Joshua has said for
years that one of his dreams would be to fight
in Africa. He is British, of course, but his heritage,
his family is from Nigeria. He spent a lot of
time there through the years. He's visited there. I guess
he has family and friends there. So Nigeria is a
place that he has gone. Obviously gone is not Nigeria,
but it's still on the African continent. And so I
would think that if the deal was right, and the
opponent was right, and the circumstances were right, Anthony Joshua
probably would embrace the idea of having a fight. If
it was a real deal to fight in Africa.
Speaker 1: The only thing I keep coming back to is he's
not getting any younger. He's off an injury. We saw
Dubois destroy him. I don't know what's left here, and
we're waiting another four or five six months before we
see it.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you can only go if if your
elbow is not ready to go, and there's you know,
you can't rush it.
Speaker 1: Oh, now, wait a minute, that's a different thing. And
I may be punch you here. If you're telling me
the elbows not ready to go, that's different.
Speaker 2: Well, they did testify. The reason seems to me like.
Speaker 1: They don't have a lucrative opponent in plan right now.
That the elbow he was saying back in like April May,
this was a six week thing, six to eight week thing. Now,
if he's more seriously hurt than that, then.
Speaker 2: You got get me wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you're not reporting that. I'm just saying hypothetically,
if he is more hurt than that, then I think
it really calls into question the end of his career here.
And this is a I mean, I'm not saying I.
Speaker 2: Think, but I think this is not about that. I
think this is more.
Speaker 1: About opponent money and where.
Speaker 2: And also Anthony Joshua fights like certain like a handful
of fighters. It's a it's a very complicated thing to
put on one of these events. I'm talking about guys
like Joshua, guys like Fury, you know these mega shows
they do in Saudi Arabia, uh A, Canelo Alvarez, those
types of names where it becomes a lot more complicated.
There's a lot of things that have to fall into place,
that have to get done. And it's now we're already
in September. And it may sound crazy, but to plan
a fight for Joshua in December when he's not even
been in camp yet, you're not's pushing it. January February
you get an electra time, we'll see hopefully you'll be back,
I mean, and we'll see what he's got left, all.
Speaker 1: Right, and then there is one more note and uh
and you love this kind of stuff. Uh, when when
rare occurrences happen?
Speaker 2: This is crazy.
Speaker 1: So the WBC had a purse bid on Friday for
the Cruiserweight Championship fight with Badu Jack and former Cruise
aweight champ Noel McLean. Yes, there were two bids, and
the WBC says the bids that they opened up were
identical amounts.
Speaker 2: This is wild.
Speaker 1: So have you heard of this before or is this
the first time you've heard of this?
Speaker 2: So I was going back and forth with Mauricio Suliman,
who was the president of the WBC, because I knew
that the person was taking place on Friday. So I
texted him and I asked him, you know, if he
had the results, and he's you know, and he said
that they tied. I was like, they tied. Now you
can bid any of this?
Speaker 1: Is this World Cup Soccer? What do you mean time, Maurice?
Speaker 2: In purse bids, Now, some organizations have like a minimum
bid for certain divisions and others don't. But basically you
can bid whatever you want. I could bid, you know,
a million dollars, two hundred thousand, you know, sixteen dollars
and forty three cents. I mean there's been bids. Would
like change at the end of them, the fact that
you would. I mean when a purse bid finished, and
I've seen this happen where there'll be like a solid
fight and the purse bid happens and they're separated by
like a few thousand dollars. I think I don't remember
what fight it was, but there was a fight where
they were literally separated by like three grand like and
that was like, wow, that's.
Speaker 1: A championship A championship fight right right was.
Speaker 2: An eliminator fight, but it was something that they would
go to a person on. So this fight for Badu
Jack and mckelliyan, now, if you remember back in Saudi Arabia,
they fought in May on the Canelo Williams Skull undercard,
was a very close fight and they gave the decision
really closely, a majority decision to a bad Due Jack,
and of course mckellian was very upset by that. He
protested an appeal to the WBC and they ordered an
immediate rematch, and so that was what this was for.
They had made a deal where Badue Jack's promotional company
is supposed handle the fight, and they canceled the Perspin
and they were not able to come through with all
the logistics things that had to get done, and so
the WBC re ordered the Perspit and that's what took
place on Friday. Now, there's a company run by Steve Bash,
a California promoter who's been around for many many years
to my knowledge, is not involved with either of these fighters,
but maybe he was bidding for somebody else. I don't
know the answered that in any event, he ends up
winning the person. But but before that, you had him
bidding two hundred and fifty grand, you had mckellion's promoter,
Don King bidding two hundred fifty grand. Even a tie.
Mauricio said to me that, at least in terms of
the WBC, and they've been doing purse bids for decades,
never happened that there's been a tie person. Now, I
can't tell you for a fact that that never happened
in the other three organizations, but if it has, I'm
unaware of that. As a matter of fact, I'm actually
going to I'm gonna check with my friends at the
other organizations and just see if they've ever heard of
something like this happened, because I'm like, I'm crazed by
this minutia. So what happened was, after the two hundred
fifty thousand dollars per spis were unsealed, the WBC gave
them fifteen minutes to resubmit a new bid, And I
don't know what Don King resubmitted at now.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious, and I think a lot of people
will be curious. In the process. They open these envelopes,
virtually are in person, and they announced the amount of
the first one, and then they announced the amount of
a of a second one.
Speaker 2: That would be and now and now there are it
could be four or five bids whatever the understood.
Speaker 1: So there was two in this case. So they announced
the amounts. So now it's interesting because now both sides
know we tied with this amount, and so now they
reseal another bid.
Speaker 2: They gave them fifteen minutes to resubmit a new bin.
Speaker 1: And so while I up another envelope.
Speaker 2: I don't know what King bid, but Bashed Promotions bid
three hundred ten thousand dollars three hundred ten eighteen dollars.
They win the bid, And like I said, the reason
why the tie person is so cockamania is because you
can bid those weird numbers most of the time. If
you're gonna be fifty, you'll be two fifty one fifty two.
Speaker 1: It's like the prices that's right, including one dollar in
case somebody goes over with Doc Barker back in the day.
Speaker 2: So this is not the type of subject we would
typically spend a lot of time. Okay, I'm just so
like enamored with this kind of minutia that I thought
it was worth having a convers.
Speaker 1: More interesting, I asked, just it rhetorically than the rematch
with Jack and Michleean. We'll find out.
Speaker 2: I mean, the first fight was okay, nothing spectacular, but
you know it was a close fight.
Speaker 1: We even give you purse bid stuff. We gave you
fight recaps, We talked some Mayweather Tyson, what are we
doing here? Some heavyweight fight news besides that, and now
perse bid stuff. Are you ready to go to Vegas
for Canelo Crawford?
Speaker 2: Not really, I got a lot of shit to do. Actually, well,
you still got.
Speaker 1: A couple of days before all that happens. We encourage
them to be locked in on the YouTube page. We
intend to do our preview live on Thursday from Vegas
on the YouTube page. You will see it on the
YouTube page before you hear it on the pod feet.
So that is our intent. And obviously fight we're gonna
ramp up Allegiant Stadium, the whole bit. We're anxious for
all of it. All right, we got through it. It's
been a wild day for me, a wild night, but
we're good. To the audience. We gave you some good recaps,
some nostalgia and all of the Big Dan have a
good week and we will talk to you next from
Las Vegas for Canelo Crawford deal Deal. We love it.
There's Big Dan Rafael. Fight Preaching Night is a substack.
You get all this news and information written up as
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sure you're subscribed, hit the light button be engaged there.
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well on the Big Fight Weekend YouTube. For now, we
are good off the weekend. Canello Crawford fight week upcoming,
but you've been listening to the Fight Preach to Night
Recap podcast