Speaker 1: Yes, indeed off of a one sided, very impressive arguably
maybe the most impressive win of his championship career TKO
by e Manuel Navarrete to unify the one and thirty
pound WBO IVF titles. Forybody to recap his win over
Sugar Nudiez talk about the rest of that card. We've
got the IBF and lineal cruiserweight champion Jiopataiah on the pod,
some fight news and more. It is the Fight Freaks
United Recap Podcast. I am the somewhat capable host, TJ Reeves.
Happy March, everybody. I'm in a great mood because it's
not only college basketball. Spring is in the air birthday
month for me. But I'm back with our insider Fight
Freak Tonight is the substack. Hello, Dan Rayfield here on
the pod. How about that for a build up and
for an intro? How are we feeling heading into a
brand new month?
Speaker 2: You know, We're good? And the reason I say that because,
as you mentioned, it's a month. March is a great month.
He got the college basketball tournament, he got spring training, baseball,
got plenty of other stuff going on. But when I
was looking at my calendar on my computer and I
called up the check at data something I got the
most glorious prompt you could ever ask for next week
March eighth, the day of the Opataia fight, at two
o'clock in the morning. Earlier that day, Daylight Savings Baby,
the best day of the year.
Speaker 1: I love it and we have shared this before. That
is also your co host's birthday on that day. That's
a big days the board. And so before Opataiah steps
foot in the ring, you're going to hear from him
on this pod. Dan spoke with him just a couple
of days ago in advance of fight week for the
ZUFA Boxing promotion's main event. We're going to know all
of that with gi Opataia in a little bit. Thank
you for finding us on the pod feed again, another
strong start to the year. Tens of thousands of you
that found us in February. Thank you keep following, keep subscribing, Apple, spreakers, Spotify,
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If you review us, do it. Also find the YouTube
page Big Fight Weekend YouTube page. Original content there nostalgia interviews.
See the video version of interviews. You and I do
some live stuff previewing and recapping, etc. On the Big
Fight Weekend YouTube page. All right, let's get into it.
We spent some time building it up. I teed it
up by saying one sided whipping. You could maybe argue
that when navarat first became world champion and dominated Isaac
dog Bay listen to me going old school last decade,
at the end of the last decade, that that was
a devastating announcement in a championship fight for him. But
you could maybe argue that since then, this was as
great a performance as what we've seen, certainly recently. One
sided whipping. I characterize it as what are your thoughts,
and then we're going to get into allowing this fight
to go on for a ninth round, a tenth round,
et ceterable. What were your thoughts overall on Navarata getting
the win.
Speaker 2: It was a big win, no doubt about it. First
of all, he came in as an underdog. It's not
a huge underdog, but an underdog in terms of the betting.
None the last I didn't agree with that. I thought
he would win this fight. I didn't. I didn't think
he should be the underdog. I know it didn't look
great against Charlie Suarez, and I know he's had issues
here and there with the weight and this and that.
But I felt like, you know what, this was a
fight where I felt like he knows the stakes. He's
been asking for a unification fight for a long time.
Then it was disclosed that he had for the first
time as as a professional. He worked with a nutritionists
to make the weight the right way, and you know,
you're never gonna change his style. He's always reckless. He
does a lot of things wrong technically, but it works
for me. And he's very heavy handed. And when I
saw how deferential Nunies was him in the final days
before the fight, about how he was such a huge
fan of Navarates and he was sort of like stars
in his eyes kind of that, I was like, you
put it all together. I was like, you know what,
never at these win in this fight, but be that,
as you say, the greatest performance you go back since
the Dog Bay victory. Obviously, that was his big announcement
that he's here to be a championship caliber fight. But
he sat some other impressed victories also, certainly the first
fight against Oscar Valdez, a rematch against Valdez where he
got a knockout in that fight. Those were impressed victories.
But it is my opinion, including those bouts including the
Dog Bay fight, to me, this is by far and
away the best performance of his career because it was
the highest stakes to unify. There were a lot of
people that were doubting in because of the inconsistency. Let's
call it in terms of what happened in Charlie Suarez,
whereby all rights it should have been a TKO lost
friend because as it was disclosed after the hearing that
the cut that he suffered that initially caused it to
be called a technical decision was found to have been
on the video that was not available to them on
fight night, to have been from a Charlie Suarez punch,
but the commission elected to make it a no contest
so he could be coming off of a TKO loss,
in which case he would not have gotten this fight
because he would no longer have the title. But anyway,
he's been a professional now TJ for fourteen years. This
was his seventeenth appearance in a world championship fight covering
three different well technically covering four weight classes because he
fought in a title fight in the lightweight division where
he lost to Dennis Brentchick. But he's been a title
holder at junior featherweight, featherweight now obviously junior lightweight, the
one loss in the title fight, appearance at lightweight, seventeen
world title fights and all that's a lot of championship experience,
no doubt about it. Big Mexican crowd on hand to
see him against a fellow Mexican in Sugar Nuniz twelve
thousand plus at the Desert Diamond Or in Glendale, great a.
Speaker 1: Rocking environment, like we thought it would be perfect location
in that location.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And as we talked about in the preview, were
certainly weren't alone in this sort of path of conversation
that this was going to be an action packed fight
of the AAR contender, and there was a lot of
action and it was that, but it sure as hell
isn't a fight of the Year contender because it was
so utterly one sided because for whatever reason, we'll get
into the ex's and Oz was a little bit for
a minute, never Atte came out and fought like he does,
throw out of punches, throwing uppercuts, wild right hands, left hooks.
Very little in terms of his jab, but when he
used it pretty effective. Meanwhile, you got nun Yez, who
is one of the great punchers in that weight class,
has won mostly everything by knockout. He's a knockout artist.
He comes to try to pretend he's fucking Floyd maywe her.
He's trying to do a shoulder roll and he's backing
up and he's trying to box, and you know, he's
trying to show himself to be mister master boxing, Like,
what are you doing four rounds? He did that for TJ. Meanwhile,
you know the first four rounds are clear cut and
that he.
Speaker 1: Was, by the way, unlike Floyd, he was absorbing punishment well, because.
Speaker 2: He's not that kind of boxer. Floyd's a brilliant defensive fighter,
so he can do that, but none neither has the
defense nor the acumen to do that kind of high
caliber boxing. He's not incapable of boxing, but in this
type of circumstance, I don't know where that that game
plan came from. Who gave it to him? Why he
tried to do it. To me, that was the stupidest
thing he could have done. And so now he's down
for nothing and it's not even close. Obviously the official
score cards reflected that also when you looked at them
after the stopping. And finally in the fifth round, he
was like okay, either he decided or the corner told him,
you know, fuck this no win situation of trying to
be a boxer, and he started to fight him. But
once again, Emmanuel Naverette is there to you know, as
much pressure as Nunya's wanted to try to apply. That's
Navarrete's game. Also, he can do the same thing. He's
got longer arms, he's a taller guy, and he just
could not deal with the overwhelming volume of punches from Navarette.
He's a hard puncher, not that Nunia's isn't, but he
never was able to land the best shots. He did
work over when he was throwing punches, he threw a
tremendous amount of body punches on navaretin he landed, and
you know, Neverete was in great, great condition. That I
think that's like the headline in a way, that's I mean,
it's not what you notice first. But to me, when
I think about why did he win the fight? Besides
you know, the them, the gum, the dumb game plan
that that Nonia's had, but that was only for four rounds.
You still got a lot of rounds after that. To me,
the biggest the biggest headline is the fact that he
came in supreme condition. If you go back watch all
these previous title fights and the conditioning was incredible.
Speaker 1: He seemed to get tired in other fights. We mentioned
in the preview that when he fought and we moved
up to lightweight and fought Denny's Baranchik in that fight,
that he seemed to tire in the middle of that
fight and it and it changed everything. He still had thud,
thud thud in the power. In the seventh, eighth, ninth round,
he was not going anywhere.
Speaker 2: And Nona's I think got discouraged.
Speaker 1: Yes, because he's already and his punches were clearly even
though he's inside in the kitchen as I like to say,
he's not moving navarate with his punches and that had
to be demoralizing as a word that we will use
as the fight we're on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's already in a little bit of a
hole the first couple of rounds. Then in the third
round you have a Navarette lands a nice left hook. Uh,
and now there's a a cut under Nunia's right eye.
I don't know if it's from that left hook, but
he emerged from that round with the cut. It wasn't
that bad. But as the fight went on he ended
up getting a second cut. There was a third cut eventually.
I think one of them may have been from an
accidental head but his face was showing the wear. He's,
as you say, demoralized because he can't get inside, and
even when he does get inside, his attack is not
really working that well. And meanwhile, Navarrete is doing his thing.
He's throwing crazy, wild punches. He's putting together tremendous combinations.
His uppercut was landing very well, like there was really
nothing he couldn't do. He looked tremendous. And again you
look at the style that he employs. He is the
most fundamentally fucked up fighter and.
Speaker 1: Box it but it works.
Speaker 2: That's the crazy thing.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of things. He's a south paw and
you don't see the left uppercut that often, and that's
like his favorite punch, and he throws it from weird angles.
Speaker 2: Sometimes he's not a south bell. He may turns up
well yeah.
Speaker 1: But I mean he throws that punch from kind of
weird angles as a hook or as an uppercut, and
you got to get used to that. And this is
what led into the problems because you mentioned the cut
under the eye. But suddenly in the eighth round he
slammed him with a couple of lefts and the eye
is swelling shut, almost totally immediately in the eighth round
of the fight. And at that point, watching live, I
don't know what your thought was. My thought was, this
is over. This is over. Shortly, he's gonna knock him down.
He's gonna stop him. The corner's gonna stop it. It's
a one sided whipping. Then the ninth round went on
and I heard this in Sergio Mora's voice where he's like,
they've got to stop this fight. He can't see the
left hand coming. This is dangerous stuff. And the fight
was allowed to still go on for a tenth round.
And I'm just saying this to you. I am not
mister hyperbole, mister clutch the pearls, but fighter safety is
a big deal, and as I was watching this in
the tenth round, I'm going, this is how people get
seriously hurt in major championship prize fighting. Somebody do the
right thing here, the referee do the right thing. And
even Eddie Hearn went over to the.
Speaker 2: Corner apparently that was after the tenth round.
Speaker 1: And said to them, guys, the fight is over. He's
getting drilled. He can't see. I were you as concerned
as I was. We are looking at possible serious injury
here with the shots he's taking.
Speaker 2: Listen, I thought when they so he got beat up,
like you said in the eighth round. In the ninth round,
now the eye is totally closed. He literally it's literally closed.
It's not like a slit, it's that eye is shot.
Now the other eye is fine, but the you know,
the bad eye was completely close. So at that point,
you know, certainly his vision is impaired, at least seeing
some of the punches coming. So now the bell rings
to start round number ten. The referee Ben Rodriguez CAUs
the time out properly has the ringside doctor examined the fighter.
He looks at Nunez. I'm not sure why he let
the fight go on. I don't think a lot changed
between the beginning of the tenth and the beginning of
the eleventh. But he let it go on. And so Navarette,
you know, clobbersom with a hook. The swelling on the
the eye was swollen. Now the fight starts up again,
he hits them where the left hook. The tenth round
is going on, and he hits him again, and now
the what was the swelling now bursts open and there's
fucking blood. Part that is correct. Now at that point
you're like, okay, well, the reft probably should just stop
the fight in the middle of the round. You know,
to to none has his credit. You got a big heart,
you know, all all credit to his balls and and
his willingness to go on. Even said in this Postman
interview he wished he could have gone. H he was
okay to continue, but obviously they had eventually do the
right thing. When the round ended, they went back to
the corner and at that point they're they're looking, they're
talking about stopping it. It didn't have to come from
the corner because the referee uh called the time out, uh,
and they stopped. You know, they stopped the fight, right there.
The doctor was like, no, we're not gonna happen that.
They let him get off the stool. That's all the
time out. So technically the official time of the stoppage
is one second of round eleven. But no punches were
thrown in the eleventh round and they properly stopped it.
Speaker 1: But you've seen this hundreds of times. I've watched it,
you know, dozens and dozens of times. Referees are much
more proactive in some of these instances that come in
the corner, warn the fighter you're taking way too much punishment.
I'm gonna stop this. This guy I don't know anything
about the referee. This guy proactively did not go in
the corner in between the eighth and the ninth or
the ninth and the tenth to even say anything or
do anything. I thought he was slow to react to.
This is over. He has no hope of winning, and
he is taking big time punishment where he can get
seriously hurt.
Speaker 2: And even listen, even though Nunyas is a noted puncher,
you never got the feeling that even at that moment,
even if they let that fight go on and he
lands something like it just didn't seem like Navarrette's going anywhere.
Now if you look at the official scorecards when the
fight was finally stopped one second into round number eleven,
I had to fight, you know you could. I thought
you could argue that maybe Nunia's won around one judge
had it as shout out one hundred to ninety. The
two other judges, including our man Steve Weisfeld, had it
ninety eight to ninety two on the other two, so
they did find I believe they both gave him the
fifth round and the eighth round, surprisingly, which I disagreed
with dramatically. Nonetheless a clear wipeout for an ever Atay,
as I said at the beginning, his best performance in
the biggest spot. He unified the titles, which is what
he wanted to do. And this is how much of
a beating that Nunia's was taken. And they even showed
this on the de Zonne broadcast. You had Julio szar
chav Is, yes, who's there as a I guess a
broadcast for in a Mexican broadcast or whatever, and they
show him like shouting at the referee at ringside to
stop the fight.
Speaker 1: According to the broadcast, he stood up and was waving
at the referee to save the fight off.
Speaker 2: And by the way, from experience, I have covered numerous
fights where Chavez has been a commentator on the Mexican broadcast,
and because of where we would sit on the floor,
oftentimes I was sitting next to Chavz or you know,
right behind chav Is. I can tell you one hundred
percent that there's probably half a dozen times I could
think of in my time at ringside where I'm like,
chav Is, get the fuck out of my way because
he's standing up and I can't s you know, we
would joke around about that. So chav Is is very uh,
you know, enthusiastic, let's say, when he's at these fights
and demonstrative in the way he reacts, and they're a
little bit more Homerish if you will, on the Mexico broadcast.
So when it's you know, obviously this was Mexico versus Mexico,
but he doesn't want to see Nias get get get
the shit beat out of it. So Chavaz was like,
you know, if Julio Cesar Chava is one of the
great warriors in the history of the sport, is saying
you should stop this fight you might want to take
a listen.
Speaker 1: Okay. So Navorante gets to win and they, you know,
they were very gracious after the fight to each other,
respect for each other.
Speaker 2: Oh one more thing, by the way, Yeah, the fact
that he looked so good that as he did. You
have to also take into account he didn't get to
Glendale till Thursday because of the whole lost passport situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was trying to get in the country. We'll
go back to again. Fundamentally, you got to get in
the country, right.
Speaker 2: But it was not his fault. So he goes to
the embassy to get the visa put into the passport.
Sometimes they'll just do it while you wait. Other times
just say, okay, leave it here and we'll we'll notify
you when you can come back. That's what they did.
In this case. He got notified Okay, come back and
pick up your visa. That that was on like Tuesday,
whatever day of the Monday, whatever day it was. And
he goes to the embassy in Mexico and they literally
can't find his passport. The embassy has lost the passport.
So they go through about forty eight hours.
Speaker 1: Watch my sarcasm. You love my sarcasm game. Here's an
individual trying to legally enter the country and we cannot
get it. Right after all this about legally or not legally, and.
Speaker 2: They finally they actually finally found the passport, and at
this point now they're running short on time, but the
governments they're not They don't care if it's a boxing
match or whatever. To them, you're just a person trying
to travel. In the end, they ended up having a
transport Navarrete and the team I guess, from Mexico to
Glendale via a private jets. They actually arrive on the
fight site until Thursday evening, and they were there. They
didn't even do They had done the actual press conference
with the undercart, but because the main event was not there,
they didn't do a press conference for the main event.
Speaker 1: So they you referenced, Floyd arrived like Floyd and the
lear jet to get the film, however, you got to
get there.
Speaker 2: All they did was do a photo op. And so
when you're thinking about how Navarrete's going to perform in
the fight, the first thing in my mind was, even
though I thought he was gonna win the fight, before
I knew about the problems with the passport, they're like,
oh shit, when you're that late getting too the fights,
that maybe he's going to impact your ability to make
the weight. As it turned out, he was, as was
none Yez, a little bit under one hundred and thirty
pound liament, so he made the weight comfortably. His people
said there was no issues in terms of the weight
this time around. Makes you think if he continues to
take it that seriously that he could stick around at
one thirty if he wants to for a while longer.
But anyway, that could have caused a lot of problems
for other fighters if they weren't as disciplined as naver
At they appeared to have been in this camp.
Speaker 1: All right, so he wins. He now has two of
the championships. He looks good at one thirty. So the
logical follow up that I always ask is what do
you think is next here for him?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, there's a lot of possibilities. It seems
to me if I could wave the magic one, I'd say,
make the fight with your top ranks stable mate Oshaki Foster. Now,
obviously they need a platform on to do that. This
was a fight they were able to make with Mattrium
and went on the Dezone platform, which where Matchroom has
all their fights. Currently, Top Rank is without a platform,
so you can't really do a Foster never at a
unification fight. They don't have some kind of financial backing
from a broadcaster to do that. But putting that to
the side, that's the fight that probably should happen. They're
both with the same company. It's the WBC champion Foster
against Navarreti, a NAWS two of the other titles. Navarette
was at the fight. I mean, I'm sorry Foster was
at the fight. The Matchroom fighter Raymond Ford, who is
a former featherweight titleer who's been fighting now and looking
solid at one thirty, he was there also. They were going,
nose knows, that's the fight they're probably gonna do. They
didn't announce it, but I would expect that that fight's
being made. You had Carl Mulready from Top Rank on site.
I'm sure he and Eddie Hearn at some point sat
and discussed the particulars. So that's going to probably mean
that Foster is not going to be the Navareti next opponent.
It also means that ray Ford, who would be a
reasonable challenger, would not be the next opponent because they're
probably going to fight each other on what will wind
up being a matchroom card on his own, So who
else is in the running? You could if never they
wanted to, perhaps he would want to go try again
at lightweight. Remember Top Rank promotes more Atia. That would
be a fucking war. That'd be a really good fight.
I'm skeptical that that happens. If Raffiae Espinoza, who is
the very tall featherweight champion of the WBO, he could
come up and challenge for the title against never Atte,
that would be another nexic entin of war type fight.
I'd be happy to see that. Over on social media,
he got Steven Fulton out there calling out never Atte
to do a fight. Certainly that's makeable given the the
the good relations recently between Top Rank and PBC shouldn't
be an issue if they were serious. The point is
there's a lot of possibilities for never at that he
as far as what he said, he didn't call anybody.
He says, listen, I'm tired. I just thought a tough fight,
you know, give me a few days. I'll think about
it and then i'll see what i want to do.
But I'm not thinking about that right now at all. So,
but you know, it doesn't take a genius to look
and see who's in the in the ratings, who are
the other champions, that type of thing. Oh, by the way,
let us not forget he got this fight against the
unification after the WBO had ordered the rematch with Charlie
Suarez because of that crazy ending in the first fight
when they couldn't make the deal and everybody basically told
Charlie Suarez go pound sand and they approved the unification.
But he's still the WOBO mandatory, so that's probably going
to be something that the WBO is going to revisit
in order, which means he will have the option to
either fight the rematch against Suarez or you'll be vague,
I'll either be stripped or after the vacant the WBO title.
So it seems to me, if you can't make one
of those other bigger fights, whether it's for a unification
or not, he should give Charlie Suarez the rematch. He
deserves it.
Speaker 1: There are options, and as good as he looked there,
he's a fun fighter, big puncher. Let's see what happens. Okay,
we'll get to gy Olpatai in the conversation a couple
moments with the rest of the undercard. That is of note,
Emiliano Vargas did win by TKO late in his fight,
but the unbeaten rising welter way Tamir Smalls did not win,
So give me the dats on both those fights.
Speaker 2: Well. Vargas, the son of course of Fernando Vargas, the
former world champion and superstar of the nineties and early
two thousands, and Emiliano, also my twenty twenty five Prospect
of the Year, continues to live up to the hype
and to the potential. Really good fight against a very,
very tough opponent in Augustine Quintana. Quintanna gave him something
to think about. He pushed him hard, he won some rounds.
And remember this is Quintana. Is was two fights removed
from having scored an upset decision over the then unbeaten
top prospect Mark Castro. So he comes with that scalp
on his resume already. Now he's looking to bump off
another top prospect. But Emiliano was up for the was
up for the challenge, very very entertaining fight again. First
half of the fight. Like, I'm not saying that Vargas
was losing, but he was losing some rounds and he
was getting hit and it was a tough it really was.
But in the end he opened a cut. It became
a problem. He was starting to land a lot more shots,
and I didn't love this stoppage. Compare like, we agreed
that the stoppage was appropriate, maybe even a little too late.
In the main event, I thought this one was like
real sketchy on the stool after round nine he was cut.
Quintana and Raoul Kayz Junior at the start of that
ninth round, he was the referee, had the referee examine
the cut, the docum go doctor yeah. Allowed to go on,
and then after the after the ninth round in the corner,
they stopped the fight and Quintana was pissed. He got
off the stool and was shouting, no, no, no, I
mean it was he was cut, but he wasn't getting
beat up, like you know what I mean, Like that's different.
The cut was not It didn't seem that bad. But
in the end Vargus was going to win the fight.
I know that Quintana would have been a feather in
the cap to go go the distance. But you know,
listen that you can quibble about that. In the end,
Vargus was going to win this fight. He's now seventeen
to oh with fourteen knockouts, only twenty one years old,
huge future, Uh, well spoken, lots of charisma, good looking kid, fighting,
fun fighting style, you know, wants to be uh. You know,
just has that that that huge desire very you know
in that respect, super similar to his father.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And as I make myself feel old, I covered his
father as a young fighter. Uh, so you know, I
they look almost the same, except for Fernando was a
little bit bigger in terms of the weight class. Fernando
was a one fifty four pounder. Emiliano was a one
forty pounder. But they have they carry themselves the right way,
uh in the ring. And it's sounded like what Fernando
says about his son. He's me, but without all the
baggage and the negative shit and the and the and
the and the and the stupid things that he did,
like you know, getting involved with this and with that
and lots of distractions that you know, he's able to
focus much more in boxing full time than Fernando did
because he was always pulled in a thousand directions, didn't
have maybe the greatest training habits. Uh, but it's it
seems as though Emiliano has that. And if it continues
to perform in this manner, he's going to be in
the whether it's in a couple of fights or three fights,
or later this year or early next year or whatever,
probably definitely going to get a chance to fight for
a title, and you know, a good chance maybe if
he continues to develop win it now. I spoke to
Brad Goodman, the matchmaker, a top rank before this fight happened.
I asked him, I said, you know you made the match.
What do you think. He's like, well, I'll be very impressive.
He gets the stoppage. He got the stoppage, and they
made this match. His opinion was that August and Quintana
would give him a tough fight. He felt, of course
his guy would win the fight, but it was going
to be a great learning experience and you could not
nail what happened better than what Brad Goodman did in
this fight, because that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 3: He learned.
Speaker 2: He got in rounds. He did get the stoppage late
in the fight and you check all the boxes of
what his matchmakers wanted to see from him.
Speaker 1: Okay, and then again Tamir Small's and the veteran Abo Ramos.
We talked in the preview mode that Ramos could be dangerous,
and it turns out he off the win.
Speaker 2: Very close fight, A really good fight. This one good
I mean, action wise, it was a good card. I
mean the main event. May maybe wasn't the fight of
the Year contender that many of us thought it might be,
but it was certainly entertaining for a variety of reasons.
But Tamir Small's he he's with Mattrium, He's part of
the Boots Ennis camp, so he's gotten the opportunities courtesy
of his buddy to go on these Mattrium cards. He
came into the fight sixteen and oh, but hadn't really
ever fought anybody. And as I said, I think I
said exactly this when we were previewing the fight. If
you're going to be a world champion, if you're going
to be a top guy in your division, you got
to beat a guy like Abo Ramos, who's vastly experienced,
who has fought for a world title, who's always given
guys a tough night and this was a gigantic step
up in class for Tamir Smalls, and he did not
pass the test because Abo Ramos. Even though it was
a close fight, Tamir Small's pretty much dominated the first
few rounds, but Abo Ramos is the kind of guy
like a lot of veteran Mexican fighters, you know. Took
him a few rounds, but he really gets started halfway through,
you know, thereabouts, and in the end you're just concerned,
if you're on the Ablo Ramos camp, did he start
too late? Are the judges going to react to what
he's doing? Is he going to get a fair shape?
And guess what he did, and he won that fight.
In the later rounds of that fight, there was a
split decision, but a well deserved split decision. Two of
the judges had it wide for him. One had a
ninety eight ninety two one headed ninety seven to ninety three.
Ninety seven to ninety three. To me, that sort of
felt like the right score, but the other judge had
it ninety six to ninety four for Smalls. I just
didn't see that. But this was a good fight and
you gotta be you gotta feel good for a guy
like Abo Ramos. You know, he's in the sort of
the twilight ish part of his career. He's from Arizona,
although not from from Glendell where the fight took place.
He was coming off of a fight at the end
of twenty twenty four, so he hadn't fought for all
of twenty twenty five. That was the draw in the
tremendous battle where he challenged Mario Barrios for his WBC
welterweight title. He had fought other good fighters Omar Figaro
or Dennis Ugas, et cetera. And this is a big
win for the kids the guy, so you got you
gotta feel good, foreman, you know, for Small's sake, he's
got the loss now, but nothing to be ashamed of
losing to the guy. You know what is the all saying,
redouble your efforts and get back in the gym.
Speaker 1: And if you want to obviously be a championship caliber fighter,
championship contender, win a title, you're gonna have to fight veterans,
You're gonna have to beat bigger names. So that is
a learning lesson the hard way on taking the l
that fulfills the recap portion of this evening's podcast for
the most prominent fight card of the weekend. Let's get
into the preview mode because as we release this podcast
Sunday night into Monday, one week from the night March
the eighth, is the IBF Cruiserweight Championship, although we have
more to discuss after we hear from ji Opataiah about
whether or not this is really an IBF Cruiserweight title,
an Millenneal championship and the Ring magazine and they're also
billing it as the ZUFA Boxing Cruiserweight Championship to be
in Las Vegas. Brandon Glanton is the opponent. Let's hear
from gi Opataiah before fight week really even gets cranked
up right here on the pod.
Speaker 2: Well, it is my pleasure to be joined for the
very first time, my first interview ever with the w
with the IBF and the lineal Cruiserweight world champion. Ji
Opataiah Jai. Welcome to the show. We're gonna talk about
your your fight that's coming up on March eighth. First
of all, welcome, I know you're in Las Vegas getting
ready for the fight. Training. How's everything going.
Speaker 3: It's going really well. Man.
Speaker 4: I'm happy to be here. You know, we've been training
very hard. I'm just ready to get this fought done.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's it's been dragging on the wall, and now you know,
I've been away from home for about six weeks now
of another fucking two weeks. He's let's get this shit done. Man,
I'm ready to go to work.
Speaker 2: Well, you're gonna go to work. I'll tell the people
what the work is. You're gonna defend the title against
Brandon Glanton. It'll be the main event of the ZUFA
boxing card on Paramount Plus March eighth at the Meta
Apex in Las Vegas. And this is obviously your first
fight since signing with zoof I think you and ZUFA
create a lot of interest when they announced you became
I mean they had signed obviously several talented fighters, but
you were the first, like really top quality elite world
champion that they had signed, h an established title holder
champion when they made that announcement, so people were sort
of excited, like here the Cruiserwight Champs coming to America
to do his thing. And so I was curious. This
was an announcement that was made in January. When you
made the deal with them. It is my understanding that
yes you're gonna be a ZOOPA fighter, but you have
your your team in Australia, Tasman Fighters that is still
your co promoter. And I wonder how did the deal
come about and what was your motivation for for signing
with ZUFA.
Speaker 4: It just fit perfect, you know, other other than money,
of course, John, the money's the money's the bonus. You know,
will he Tyston dreams and will he they keep goes.
You know, the money would have come anyways, you know
what I mean. Will iison undisputed and when you become
undisputed you get paid anyways. But this is just sped
that process up, you know what I mean. And to
be honest, man off the making decision and I'm happy
I've made it, you know, like you know, obviously the
contract was good and that's why we signed. But you know,
being here and being around the people and seeing who
I'm working with now and and seeing the way they move,
it's it's been good, you know, it's it's it's refreshing,
you know what I mean. It's something new and I
feel like news is good as well, you.
Speaker 3: Know what I mean.
Speaker 4: A lot of people have been bad mouthing it, but
it's been turning out really well.
Speaker 3: You know, like people can't.
Speaker 4: Sit there and say the boxing wasn't a fucking you know,
always looking especially as a fighter, but you're aways looking
over your shoulder, you know, who can you trust and who?
But this is this has been pretty straightforward, you know
what I mean. I feel like there's no hidden agendas here.
You know, they tell you what they want from me,
and this is this is my this is my experience
so far. Anyways, you know what I mean. So it's
all it's all been well. But to go back to
your question how it started. So we were dealing with issues,
you know, got a fair bit to do with the
Zoo for boxing. He was talking to my team, you know,
and once my team sort of realized that he meant
business and he was being serious about his offers and stuff,
then we again.
Speaker 2: I miss who you said you were talking to. His
name's Ish, oh, I know, yeah from U. Yeah, yeah,
I go way back with this, back in our days.
He was my representation.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Nice, Everyone ever was speaking to you says they go
way back with this, So he must be a nice guy,
you know what I mean. But so so far, Bro,
everything's been good. You know, I'm you know, Ish flew
out to Gold Coast. We had to sit down and
you know, everything was just was was what we were
looking for, you know what I mean, getting on big
cards and and doing big fights and getting these stuffs
over the line and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So it's it was just perfect.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that was interesting, I think
the reason, besides obviously you being a top world champion
and becoming the first one to go with them, the
thing that sort of I heard a lot from fans
and other people in the business was because Dana White
from ZUFA Boxing has not been shy about what he
wants to do. He has said and certainly it's the
prerogative of the company to not work with the sanctioning bodies.
That's what they've said all along. I interviewed Dana when
they first announced this project, and he said, yeah, we
don't want to work with the organizations, okay, and they're
going to have their own belt and this fight, of course,
when you fight Brandon Glan is going to be for
the first ever a ZUFA cruiser with that of the
first of their titles in any way class, and I
know you've made no secret about your desires. You just
said it just now that you want to be evolved
in unification fights and become eventually the undisputed cruiserweight champion.
It is my understanding. You can tell me if I'm
wrong that you are allowed to defend your IBF title,
even though that's not the course that ZUFA maybe wants
to go in, that you'll be permitted to pursue unifications
with the other sanctioning bodies if those come to pass.
Can you tell me how? How is that correct? And
how did you able? How are you going to get
that part of the deal done.
Speaker 4: I don't really want to go back on you know
what Dayana said. You know, he you know, I'm not
sort of heater. You know he's wrong or right or whatever.
Speaker 3: I can only speak for my own my own experiences.
You know.
Speaker 4: They told me, you know, undisputed was in our goals,
you know what I mean. They said that we're going
to have unification fights. Obviously, we have to keep winning,
you know, we have to take care of business on
March eighth, But unification fights was in the talks, you know,
and it was a big selling point. To why I
why I signed, you know what I mean? Because you know, otherwise,
what are we doing as world champions?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 4: We should be chasing undisputed all the fighters, all these
other world champions. Once they get their world titled, then
it should be the what's the next world title? I
can get what's in and then they should be chasing undisputed. Otherwise,
what are they doing?
Speaker 2: You are considered the champion, you are the lineal cham
you on the ring title. You have the IBF title,
You're gonna get, you know, a chance to fight for
the ZUFA title. Will you be defending your IBF title
in this fight? I know they don't want to make
that part of the promotion. I don't have a problem
with that, but I'm from just a factual point of view.
Is that on the line against Clanton?
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure it is. You know I was.
Speaker 4: I went to the fights, you know, the the Guarcia
fight on the weekend. I actually spoke to the I
told him, you know, like, we're we want to fight
for the IBF. You know, I want to work with
these guys, you know what I mean. There's all this
outside stuff, all this all this you know who's arguing
with who? That's not the fighters, that's not that's not me,
you know what I mean. I'm the one fighting. So
I'm here to say, Look, I'm I want to be undisputed,
and I can't do that if the boys don't see
the same goal as me, you know what I mean.
These sanctity bodies don't don't see the same and they're not.
Speaker 3: Willing to sort of see the dream that I have,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Like it's I feel like they sort of losing track
of you know who, who's in charge of this and that?
But who cares? Look, we want the big fights over
the line, you know. We want to fucking see undisputed boxes.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It's it's well to my knowledge and what I'm what
I know is the IBF is on the line.
Speaker 2: So okay, So let's get to the fight a little bit.
As far as where you're fighting the fight now, this
will be your first time ever fighting in the United
States in Las Vegas. On top of that, of course,
in this country, the biggest fight city that there is
a history of great fights throughout the years, and I
wonder how how big for you as a young fighter
and now as a champion, was it ever your goal?
Where your dream to fight a championship level fight in
the United States? On?
Speaker 4: You know, it's uh, I feel like that. I've been
fighting my whole life, you know what I mean. I've
been watching I've been watching the best of the best
fight here in Vegas my whole life since I was
a little boy, you know what I mean. It's always
been it's always been down the track, you know, like
one one day, one day and even this one. You
know it might not be the biggest arena, but this
is a stepping stone. These are these are these are.
Speaker 3: To me. I look at things like this like fighting
in these their investments.
Speaker 2: You're gonna what you're doing right, You're checking exactly.
Speaker 3: It's investing.
Speaker 4: It's it's you know, like investing isn't always money, Investing
time and effort and and and you know, and fights.
Speaker 3: And doing this so we can get here.
Speaker 4: These these are these are investments in my in my
in my career that are that are important, you know
what I mean, Like I get to fight here in
Vegas and then be a part of you know, this
new chapter a zoo for boxing and be the biggest
name in there. So far, you know, one of the
first assigns, so you know, it's it's all just stepping
stones man two. And I'm very confident that in a
year I'll be able to call myself on disputed cruiseweight champion.
Speaker 3: Of the World.
Speaker 2: Well, Brandon Glan, Brandon Glanton is going to try to
ruin those hopes and dreams for sure as your opponent
in this fight. About a year ago, he lost a
decision to the former w BO cruiserweight champion Chris Billum Smith.
He came back in October and he scored a six
round knockout against a longtime light heavyweight contender, former title
challenger in Marcus Brown, who was a United States Olympian.
He was coming off of a twenty six month playoff. What,
in your opinion, whatever you've seen of Brandon land I
saw your interview on where you were together on one
of the Paramount Plus cards. What do you believe he
brings to the table to challenge you in some manner
in this fight.
Speaker 4: He's tough, but he's tough, he's gritty, and he wants
to win. You know, he's got no he's got a
fucking big engine. He keeps walking forward, and he's just
ready to have a crack, you know what I mean,
he's dangerous to hold for you know, so you go
to be switched on to be ready to fucking get
in the trenches, you know when we are. So we's
box smart, we do our thing and you just make
him walk on the ship. But he's just gonna fucking
do what we do. And that's the science of the sport.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: Our skill levels is completely different, you know. But he's
he's big, he's strong.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: It doesn't take a fucking rocket sciences to see with
our styles and how this fight matches up.
Speaker 2: Well, I happen to think that it's going to be
as the as they say a cracker. I mean, just
knowing the way because I've seen both of you guys
fight plenty of times. Going to be a good fight,
how long it goes who that knows? I mean, you
are known for your knockout power. We've seen what you've
done in some of your recent fights. Do you feel
like you can deliver that kind of spectacular knockout against Lanton?
Speaker 4: I believe I can knock anyone out if I learn
the right punch. You know, it's at the timing speed.
Speaker 3: You know, it's it is what it is. And we're
big boys, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: We're not fucking lightweights, you know, we're both punch hod
you know.
Speaker 3: So it's it's an exciting thought.
Speaker 2: Since your your win in the rematch you had with
Myris Bradus, who was you know, considered one of the
top fighters out there. You won the title from him
the first time you became champion. You fought him a
second time in twenty twenty four. You've had four fights
since then. You've won them all by knockout, some quite
spectacular as I mentioned, Uh, but they've not been the
biggest names. Jack Massey, David Nyika, Henry Squayo, Hussein Sinkara
spectacular knockout. So they're obviously, you know, veteran professional fighters,
and Nika was an Olympian, but not necessarily big name opponents.
Was there any sort of frustration that you couldn't get
a bigger, more well known opponent in those past four fights?
Speaker 4: Of course, you know we were chasing these these are
guys good fought us, you know, like like you said,
we go to European Champions and MASSI, we go to
you know, silver, silver, medalists at the Olympics in you know, Noaiga.
Speaker 3: You know, I feel like they just they're just unknown,
you know, the respect yeah, yeah, yeah, well but yeah,
of course.
Speaker 4: You know, we've been chasing these unification fights for for
a long time, you know, you know, and it's been frustrating.
But honestly, but it's all in the past. You know,
We've got a job to do on the eighth. We
are focused on the eighth, you know, like we're talking
about a lot of things, but my main focus. And
while I'm here the last couple of weeks, I've been
away from home for fucking six weeks, now, you know
what I mean. I've been making all the pain and sacrifices.
I've been in the trenches, and that is for March eighth.
So unless I take care of business on March eighth,
none of this matters. Unifications, all this stuff, it means nothing.
March eighth.
Speaker 3: I need to win.
Speaker 2: I do want to ask you about Zerdo Ramirez. He
is the unified champion with the WBO and the WBA titles.
I know your teams have spoken to one another about
trying to make that fight a couple of times, uh,
I know you guys are game four. It he decided
that he was gonna go in the direction of the
David ben A Vidias fight, which is not necessarily a
fight with Jobatia, but David has a very good name
here in America. UH, probably a bigger fight commercially, to
be quite honest. Video, so they're doing that. They had
a news conference on Saturday, UH in Las Vegas on
the day of the Garcia and Barrios fight, sort of
talking about just your inability to get that deal done
and if and again any frustrations for knowing that the
conversations were taking place, but you guys just can't get it.
As they say over the.
Speaker 4: Line, I don't think there was much conversation, to be honest,
I feel like we fucking wanted the fought, and I said.
Speaker 3: No, you know what I mean. So it is what
it is.
Speaker 4: You know the well, I'll go to take care of
business on the IF and I'll go night.
Speaker 3: Doubt that fat will come, you know what I mean.
We just got to keep winning, keep focusing on our job.
You know.
Speaker 4: We gotta make sure we deliver every time we step
in the ring, and then we just get closer and
closer to getting these thoughts out of the line.
Speaker 2: The one thing that was quite interesting is you did
the interview, as I mentioned on Paramount Plus, when they
introduced you as having signed with them, and then they've
they posed you with a WBC champion in Noel mckellion.
There was a lot of conjecture, a lot of speculation
that when you did have your fight announced, this was
before they announced Lanton as your challenger, that maybe you
would be in a unification fight against Noel mckellian. Uh,
that seems to be a fight that could be available.
He doesn't have anything particular coming up. I just mentioned
that Benevide's and Zerta were doing their thing. If you're
successful against Brandon Land, is that the fight that you
would target next to try to unify at least those
two titles.
Speaker 4: Definitely, you know, one night around June where like midyear,
where when they're fighting Betavidez and Xerta. You know what
I mean, we should be fighting around that time and
then we can fight at the end of the year
for unification.
Speaker 2: It's perfect, but it seems that a great schedule.
Speaker 3: It's fucking per It is perfect. That is more.
Speaker 4: That is more Golf's per it's undisputed by the end
of the year, and then whatever happens after that, by
let's go, you know what I mean. But man, there's
obviously a little moving pots for a plan on that
to happen, you know, and they over the lawne up.
Speaker 3: So and at the end of the day, all I'll
go to do is keep winning. You know. I've got
a job to do on the IF.
Speaker 4: So let's not get keep talking about all these other thoughts,
and they all sound good coming out of my mouth,
but unless I take care of business IF of March,
it is all imagination. It's all just talk and it
sounds good, but we got to fucking hard test on March.
Speaker 2: IF.
Speaker 3: So I don't want to lose chrak of.
Speaker 2: Okay, I just I want to wrap up in just
one more thing. This goes beyond cruiserweight and top the
possibility of unifying or becoming undisputed, whether that happens or
it doesn't happen. I know you've mentioned in the past,
your people have mentioned in the past, but eventually you
will be fighting in the heavyweight division. I don't think
there's been a top cruiserweight since the weight class has
been created that hasn't at least at one point tried
their hand in the heavyweight division. How much is that
in your in the back of your mind. I know,
like you said, you got March eith, and you got
other things you want to still I'll accomplished as a
cruiser weight. But the lure of the heavyweight uh division?
Where does that kind of fit on your on your
to do list?
Speaker 4: It's a chapter after Undisputed. You know, I'm not losing
truck of what I want, you know, And I'll keep talking.
If I keep saying heavyweight, heavyweight by people get excited
and then you know everyone's fucking oh, I just do
it now by a shout up. You know, this is
my life and when when my career is done and
when I look back at it, I want to be
proud of it, you know. I want to I want
to say I did what I wanted to do, you
know what I mean? So Undisputed first and then come
talk to me about heavyweight.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a good plan. First up, though, as
you've said many times, March eighth, your main event against
Brandon Glenn on Paramount Plus on the Zooper Boxing card.
GI it's been a real pleasure to talk to you today.
I appreciate your time. I wish your good luck in
your fighting and pursuing your your goals and dreams.
Speaker 3: Thank you, I appreciate your ton d.
Speaker 2: Good luck to you.
Speaker 1: First of all, as advertised to me privately, he may
have rivaled you on the number of F bombs being
used in the interview. Very interesting about his decision to
come with ZUFA and the plans, et cetera. Clarify I
said it teeing up the interview. What do we know?
What do you know? Is this a sanctioned IBF Cruiserweight
title fight or are they looking at this as a
non title situation because they're not sanctioning it and they
may strip him because it's not their title fight. What
do we know about that leading into it? For the
organizations and outside.
Speaker 2: The ring, I can't say for one. Jai Opataiah, when
I asked him in the interview, was believes that it's
going to be for the title. He wasn't one hundred.
I don't know if he's just playing possum and he
doesn't want to talk about it, or he's been told
not to talk about it. I can tell you this,
I talked to the Opataia people on a regular basis.
They have all said to me, essentially, we didn't go
with ZUFA Boxing. This is Tasman fight. There's still this
co promoter even though ZUFA is obviously taking charge now.
They didn't go with them to give up their IBF title.
And Jai Opataiah has spoken in this interview with me
as well as to others constantly ever since he became
the IBF champion for the second time. My goal is
to unify the titles and become undisputed. He must have
said it tej in the d with me fifty times.
Speaker 1: Yes, So can I ask a fundamental important question because
we pay attention to these things. Have they paid a
sanction fee?
Speaker 2: You don't pay a sanction fe until fight night anyway,
So that's because but here's here's the thing, one hundred percent.
You gotta figure there's stuff going on behind the scenes.
I can tell you this. I have a nice relationship
with my friends at the IBF who do IBF things.
I may rip them about this and that we have
a cordial professional relationship. I deal with them all the time.
I have asked a question both to their publicists as
well as to Daryl Peoples. I've called, I have texted.
Speaker 1: Darryl Ables is the president. Yeah, keep going.
Speaker 2: Daryl and I are cool, no problems. Never had a
bad word with Daryl Peoples and knowing the guy for
probably twenty something years. I've reached out to him a
dozen times in the past week or so maybe more.
Haven't gotten a response. Highly unusual. Doesn't want to The
publicists who I have a very nice relationship with do
I email with all the time about their purse bids
and their schedule of this and you know what the
particulars are in that she is a lovely woman. Won't
respond to that one question. Clearly something's up. It is
my opinion that they will work it out, that it
will be an IBF title fight. You probably won't see
the belt on the broadcast, you probably won't hear them
announce it in the ring.
Speaker 1: But the second they're billing this as the ZUFA Boxing
So what I'm saying is I fully expect that's how
they're going to introduce him. They're not going to introduce
him as the IBF World Channel.
Speaker 2: They're going to introduce him as the ring magazine champion.
Becausezoof is involved with Turkey. If you look at any
of the artwork, it simply says cruiserweight World title or
Cruiserweight World Championship. It doesn't specify now. But I'm not
offended by that because I've been down this road for many,
many years. You'd watch HBO and they wouldn't mention the letters.
They would just call it a heavyweight title fighter. They
would say it's the wealthweight title, and they didn't get
involved with the organizational stuff. And by the same token,
when PBC was created back in twenty fifteen, they spent
the first year plus doing their stuff where they wouldn't
mention it to the extent where they actually There is
one card I wish I can remember what show was
where there was almost like a physical altercation when one
of the PBC officials tried to remove the belt from
the ring. That's how militant they were about it. So
the fact that they don't want to mention or talk
to the IBF is perfectly fine. However, I believe when
it's all said and done, this fight's going to be
for the IBF title, because that's what Opata is all about, unifying,
and if he gets stripped or gives up the IBF title.
He cannot do that. They'll pay their fee, they'll be
a supervisor. They'll do the wait check on Sunday morning,
the day of the fight, because this fight's on Sunday night,
not Saturday or Friday, and then we'll know for sure.
But they don't expect Zoupa Boxing to talk at it,
to be involved in it. But at the end of
the day, I believe it's going to be for the
IBF title period, all.
Speaker 1: Right, So stay tuned. It is fight week for that,
and that's the most prominent fight coming this weekend, and
we'll have plenty of time to preview that. So I
was buzzing along on my Friday and then all of
a sudden, in my inbox came an announcement. Now, first
of all, I do keep up with the social media
here and there, and Alexander Usik, the unified heavyweight champ,
had cryptically put a couple of places about something big
coming blah blah blah. And now we know what the
something big is, and that's Turkey Alischic and the Ring
announcing that Usik will fight former longtime kickboxing heavyweight champion
Rico Verhoven. I would love to say that I've heard
of Rico Verhoven, but that means I would have to
keep up with kickboxing Glory kickboxing. I don't really know
about him. He was a boxer at one point back
in the twenty tens, but then became a kickboxer by
literal name that means you not only punch, but you
can kick the opponent for a while. This will be
in Egypt, Rayphael, we go in road trip to the
Pyramids of Egypt. This money tell me more about this
USI coming back, and it's not exactly an opponent we
know a lot about.
Speaker 2: It's called Glory at Giza. It's gonna take place in Giza, Egypt,
at the apparently in the realm of the base of
the pyramids, with them in the background outdoors, which I
can only imagine what the heat's going to be like
come May twenty third in Egypt. It'll be awfully hot,
I imagine. So in terms of the opponent, Rico Verhoven
he is. I'm not a huge kickboxing follower or fan,
but I actually have heard of him. He is regarded
as the greatest heavyweight kickboxer of all time. Within the
Glory promotion or maybe I don't know, if it's just
within it. No, I guess this is heir his whole career.
He's like sixty six and ten with twenty one knockouts
as a kickboxer. He's thirty six years old, so he's
actually younger than it was. He's from the Netherlands. He
vacated the Glory title in November. He holds all kinds
of records for Glory, which is the promotion that is
most notable, I guess in the world within kickboxing, most
wins and title bouts, most defenses, most wins, longest winning streak,
all kinds of different things. As a professional boxer, he's
one to oh. As a professional MMA fighter, he's one
to O. But obviously his career is made as a kickboxer. Now,
his reputation within kickboxing is obviously, you're going to be kickboxer,
you got to be able to kick. But he's known
to be good with his hands. He's a good puncher.
He has been a friend and close training partner over
the years with Tyson Fury. He credits Tyson Fury with
some of the tips and some of the instruction for
helping him become really a dep with his jet which
apparently is a good weapon for him, so he's tight
with Fury. It is my understanding that Peter Fury, who
is Tyson Fury's father and former trainer, will train him
as a boxer for this particular fight. So there's that
or not not. That's what Tyson's uncle, I guess.
Speaker 1: His uncle jonas dad got to keep all the Furies.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of Furies, so there's that aspect. And
if you remember before the terrible tragedy that that that
injured Anthony Joshua and took the life of his friends
in uh their trip to Nigeria, there was a lot
of discussion about Anthony Joshua was going to have a
so called tune up fighter, you whatever, fight in the
February March timeframe as they look to set up the
possibility of the big fight against Tyson Fury. One of
the opponents that was discussed that would be the opponent
for Anthony Joshua on that car had it taken place
in February, where if they were going to do it
in March, was this kickboxer. Obviously, with Anthony Joshua not
fighting at this point, probably not can we say this.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a massive following social media wise or otherwise,
So it's just kind of curious that this is the choice.
Like for example, France is in Ganu had a much
much bigger following out of UFC when Tyson Fury was
fighting him.
Speaker 2: Well, much bigger than Glory correct.
Speaker 1: So that so that kind of connect the dots makes sense.
Jake Paul fighting Nate Diaz out of the UFC world
kind of the same thing. That makes sense. This just
is kind of it's strange.
Speaker 2: Thing about this. When they announced the fight in the
press release that was sent out by h Ring magazine
in Turkey's publicist people, it was said it's going to
be for the WBC heavyweight title. It was called the
ring so obviously he's the ring champion. It's going to
be for the ring title. Also, no mention of the
WBA title or the IBF title, both of which Usik
also holds. He obviously vacated the WBO title not that
long ago. Uh and Savia Wardley was upgraded, so they're
not involved the WBO. So I reached out to my
friends at the IBF and to the WBA. The IBF
said to me.
Speaker 1: Now wait, wait, the IBF that won't give you an
answer on Jio Pataiah did give you an answer on
this question. So they're capable of answering some of the
things go ahead.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, no doubt about it. So they said to
me that in terms of of the they hadn't been there,
diden no inquiry made by anybody from Team USIK about
sanctioning any kind of fighter, doing a heavyweight title fighter,
or trying to get an exception or anything to that extent.
So as far as they're concerned, from what they told me,
the IBF knows what we know about it, what's been
sent out by their announcement, what's been in the media today.
On Sunday, I finally got a text message back from
gil Berta. Mendoza from the w BA about it and
said they also have not asked Now there they can
ask for a special permit, but they have not done
so just yet, and so it's unclear whether it would
be for either of those belts.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: In terms of the WBC, when the promotion announced that
this would be for the WBC title, WBC title, that
was premature because when I saw that, like I did
with the w BA and the IBF. I reached out
to Murcusulmann and said, what's the story with this, what's
going on? And the response from the WBC and for
Mauritia was that it wasn't necessarily for the title. They
had not yet asked for a sanction, but it would
be allowed as what they call a special event. Because
if you're the WBC champion in any similar.
Speaker 1: To Fury being the WBC championee.
Speaker 2: You have to get permission. There's a sanction fees in
the volve. We don't have to reletigate all the ship
with the sanction fees. But that they were enthusiastically supporting
this as a special event. They'd make the special Egypt
you know, geeze a delt whatever, and they would do that.
Now that was I believe on Friday when this was
first announced. So between Friday when it was announced and
sometimes Sunday afternoon they did a discussion with their board
of governors, who you approved, and it's now going to
be sanctioned for the WBC Heavyweight title. Now I don't
have a problem if they want to do it as
a special event. I've been saying all week and since
this was first announced. I got no problem with do
Sick fighting the guy. You know, he's at a level
of his career where you know the mandatory is not
due yet. The WBC has said, you know, there's an
optional if he wants it, which he does. He's ordered
to fight Cabio after this, says was the interim champion,
but he's got a chance to fight whoever he wants now.
So I figured they would make this sort of like
they did with the Gandhu and uh and And and
Fury fight, kind of a weird crossover kind of fight,
get a lot of eyeballs, get a lot of attention,
but not going to be for the actual title, at
least not for the the sanctioned by the title. For me,
if you step in the ring as the lineal champion,
which is not related to adult specific if you win,
you're still the Champions of Defense. If you lose, the
other guy becomes the lineal champ. Had n the gone
who defeated Fury, he would have been the lineal heavyweight
champ whatever. Today though on Sunday as we speak, they
approve this as the heavyweight championship fight for the WBC.
That I disagree with. Nothing against for Ahovin.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a twelve round title fight. Absolutely
that reason because the again, the Fury fight was a
ten round fight, So that that's Can I just intererg.
Speaker 2: I don't have a problem with the fight, I do
have a problem with it being for the title.
Speaker 1: Can I go one step further?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: Are we headed to fracturing all the heavyweight titles because
he now doesn't care about the WBA or IBF belt.
He's got the WBC belt, he's got the ring belt,
he's got Turkey Ali Sheik's money. He's maybe only gonna
fight one or two more times anyway, Is that what
we're headed for?
Speaker 2: That?
Speaker 1: Is that what this signals that he doesn't care about
those other two titles, and it.
Speaker 2: Very well could be. And by the way, and then
in boxing, when there's undisputed champions, rarely do they keep
them unified for a long period of time. And if
you take a look in terms of the four belts,
since there's been champions unifying and becoming undisputed as a
four belt champion, it is rare that anybody defends more
than once or twice.
Speaker 1: The rest I understand, I.
Speaker 2: Mean in a way has done it at one twenty two,
he's defended it several times, all of them together. When
Canelo was the undisputed champion at Super mid Away, he
defended it several a few times, but that was and
he would have continued to do so until he got
stripped of the IBF prior to I believe it was
before the Berlanga fight because he wouldn't fight your boy
William Skull, and then he fought him anyway and reunified
the titles. But the fact is, there's a lot of
guys that have become undisputed in terms of the four
belts and either never defend Like Terrence Crawford became undisputed
at Welterway, he never defended the four belts. Charlow became
the undisputed with the four belts at Jummer Midiway never defended,
and on and on. I could go. So if the
belts end up fracturing in this particular situation, that's not
totally unusual. He'll still be the heavyweight champs as the
man who beat the man who beat the man, et cetera.
But if the if the individual belts become fractured, so
be it. I mean, you'd like to see him keep
him together. If they can't, they can't clearly the WBC
is behind him, and you know he's okay with that.
We'll see what happens with the w BA and the
ib F and the WBO. That ship has already sailed.
Speaker 1: So that is from May in Egypt. Raypaiel currently speaking
of passports earlier with email, will not rotches. I have
to you do not You do not have an Egypt
stamp on your passport? Am I correct?
Speaker 2: Not correct? I will say this though I did just
for my own amusement. I did look to see what
what the travel situation was. You can there are there
are there are like many flights a week that are
NonStop from Dulles Airport, which is you know, it's half
an hour by was you know in Virginia on the
outskirts of Washington. D see about a twelve hour flight
from Dollas to Cairo, Piro to Cairo.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, so there is a possibility. Let's tease up
the audio. It's a possibility. I was just we could
get Rayphiel in a selfie in front of the pyramids
in Egypt. You never know, stay tuned.
Speaker 2: I mean I can probably just create that my son
is good with all the photoshop and all that that
makes that stuff all the time, I can actually get
my son the trip.
Speaker 1: Baby. Let's go to Giza.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what are you? You come up to Virginia.
We'll travel from dollars together about God.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine you and me in Egypt. We've met
one other place in person we talk about this is Vegas.
If place two is the Pyramids in Egypt. We got
to write a book. We gotta write a book about that.
Speaker 2: That would have to be like we'd have to do
like a podcast every day Earth.
Speaker 1: Yes from Egypt, something about froh, something about you know,
the construction of the pyramids, the whole bit. Camel uh, Yes, fantastic.
Hey listen, Hey, a buddy of mine, Mike Gill. I'm
gonna shout him out. He he's a boxing guy. He
hears his podcast sometimes. Mike and his longtime significant other, Heidi,
they went on vacation to a destination in northern Africa
in southern Egypt. I don't know how close it is
to Giza. And he said, this is interesting for all
the sterios. Okay, so he said, for all the all
the stereotyping about camels. He's like, we've been here two
days and we ain't seen a camel. We've seen mules,
we've seen horses, we've seen goats. I don't know where
we got to go, but we haven't seen camels.
Speaker 2: Are we gonna Are we gonna like get them like
some kind of like uh, like a raft and like
float down the Nile River?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but Guild because I saw his social
media videos where he was walking around. He's going, there's
not a camel to be found anywhere he goes. Look
at the goats, look at the look at the mules
and everybody.
Speaker 2: They do that in the they floated down the Nile
on the in the Ten Commandments movie.
Speaker 1: Maybe they did? Is that Charlton Heston.
Speaker 2: I believe, one of the great movies of all time.
Speaker 1: All Right, so I think we've covered the Egyptian angle,
the Usik angles. Stay tuned for May. That is May
twenty third, that that defense is.
Speaker 2: I have to say one thing, by the way, as
far as that fight goes between Usk and Verhoven, the
amount of ire that I've seen on social media is
like almost on parallels compared to what i've seen for
other fights that people are just so irritated by this
for some reason.
Speaker 1: It would again, it would make more sense if he
was a bigger known commodity kind of in his prime,
and god really wasn't in his prime anymore. That was
a little more acceptable back two and a half years ago.
So I don't know. And how many more times is
Usik fighting? This is obviously cash grab? This is money grab.
Speaker 2: Who but I mean when you say money grab, it's
prize fighting. The idea is to make as much money
as you.
Speaker 1: I don't disagree, but this is not for a guy
that's legitimately a threat to beat him in a boxing match.
I mean, not legitimately a threat to win the heavyweight title.
Speaker 2: Husik is probably at worst number three on the pound
for pound list, so some might have a number one
on the pound for boundst So you look at that
and you're like, you wish he was fighting somebody there yet. Obviously,
but if you're at you're at the twilight of your
current age thirty nine, and you can make a bowtload
of cash. I can't really complain to argue about it.
I mean, I don't. I'm not gonna see and tell
you I love it, but I'm not gonna shot on
the fight. I don't like it. As for the title,
that's clear, but the fact that he's doing the fight,
I mean, I'm over that. I mean, I dealt with
Connor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather. I dealt with Floyd with
Tyson Fury against Naganu. You know, the Floyd one and
McGregor was the least offensive. Because Floyd is coming out
of retirement. It wasn't for any titles. It was just
two big names doing a big boxing match, and it
turned out to be among his mego Then it was
a little different when you got Fury as the heavyweight
champ and that Wusik is heavyweight champ. There's a little
bit different there, I think.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: A couple of other news items. Ryan Garcia says he's
healing up from a sprain hand in the Mario Barrios
Win says on social media he wants to fight Devin
Haney be back this summer. Haney said he was at
the Navarata Nunez title fight van and Glendale, Arizona. He
said on his own I would I would fight Ryan
Garcia in a rematch.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that good thing.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned, we'll see.
Speaker 2: That's a big fight. I mean the first fight commercially
absolutely did terribly. I mean, that's why neither That's why
neither fighter made any upside on the pay per view,
because the pay per view did not do well. But
at this point, given everything that's happened with the positive
drug test, with the back and forth between these two guys,
with the fact that both of them are coming off
very impressive victories. Ryan looked really good against Barrios winning
the WBC Welterway title. Haney bounced back looked really good
winning the WBO belt against Brian Norman. Uh, They're going
to go back and forth about forever with everything that's
been going on between these two guys. So for me,
that's probably the biggest fight you can make in American boxing.
I think it's even a bigger fight than Boutennis and
Virgil Ortiz, as much as we love that fight. And
even though it's not on the rundown, I'll just slip
in that the judge did not roll during last week.
So now the clock is ticking. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: Who's which one of us was saying, justice delayed is
justice to the judge needs.
Speaker 2: To rule your opinion on just as delayed, as Justine denied,
is not what I agree with, because I don't believe
that an extra week or two is delaying months. Yes,
a week or several days not a delay. Nonetheless, back then.
Speaker 1: Gel or Chies is trying to get a deal with
Jiron Innis and has been, and Innis can clearly go
fight somebody else.
Speaker 2: Nothing is going to happen until there's a judgment in
this case, before they decide what they're going to do,
and that should be soon. Anyway, As far as Hani
and Garcia, I believe if they do the rematch, it's
a much bigger fight than the first time for all
the reasons I just mentioned. It is a unification fight,
and we'll see if they can make it. Now. If
they can't make it for whatever reason, I guess there's
other fights that they could do, but I think that
would probably be the first choice for most people, and
hopefully they'll get it done and there'll be a lot
of snippiness to that promotion. There'll be a lot of
breaking down the first fight, a lot of stuff about
what they've done since Roly Romero beating Ryan Garcia, Devin
Haney winning but looking horrible against Jose Ramirez, but then
coming back and both scoring big victories. I think most
people would say that that Brian Norman was a better
grade of opponent that Haini beat than than the Mario
Barrios that Ryan Garcia beat. I mean, there'll be a
lot to discuss in that fight. There'll be a ton
of you know, I'll go back to my early days.
I remember in starting my job at USA Today, which
I got hired for, by the way, in the past week,
back in twenty twenty six years ago, early on, going
to have lunch with the legendary writer from the New
York Daily News, Mike Michael Katz, and he, you know,
I kind of took me under his wheel of it
might you know, unfortunately passed away last year, and I
remember him giving me, you know, telling me about what
it was like to do the gig. There's great fights,
and there's great fight or great great writing fights, and
you hope that you get both. And I feel like
a fight between the rematching Haney and Garcia will definitely
be a great writing fight. Maybe not a great fight,
but certainly a good fight, because the first one was
pretty damn good despite all the antic from Garcia, So
it kind of checks a lot of those boxes, so
hopefully they'll make it.
Speaker 1: Got a lot of subplots for that one. A couple
of other news items. Edgar Berlanga, who we haven't seen
since Hams of Sharaz wiped him out. He's looking to
be back. Chris Ubank Junior off the loss in November
to Connor Ban in the rematch, So both of these
guys kind of on the rebound. Are they fighting each other.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of conversations. That's a fight that that
Turkey is looking to make. Berlanga is promotionally a free agent.
You Bank has been with boxer, but I don't know
if Turkey has options on him or they just have
a good relationship for what have you. Certainly he worked
with him on both of the fights that he had
against against Connor Ben, but Sharaz obviously wiped out Berlanga
in the fifth round. This is back in July. He's
looking to get back in the ring. He's got still
got a big name fighting at SUPERMANA eight. Chris you Bank,
of course, is coming off the loss in the rematch
that was at one sixty. Bank has fought numerous fights
in his career as a super middleweight, and that was
one of the reasons why there was so much concern
about could he make one sixty uh to go back
down and wait to fight against.
Speaker 1: He clearly looked awful in the second fight. He looked
drain whatever you want to call it, stay awful, over
the hill, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 2: But it's an interesting matchup because first of all, there
is desperation because both guys are coming off losses. You
Chris lost a one sided decision and God dropped twice
in the twelfth round. He got Berlanga, who's lost two
of three got uh the knockout loss to Sharaz that
was July of last year. He had a one round
victory before that against a Shmir that was just a
matter of like, let's play out the Mattroum contract. Then
coming before that was his performance that was better than expected.
But he still got knocked down and loss almost every
round against Kenela Lava. So you know he needs to
get back in a get a get a pretty solid win,
and you know, beating you Bank would certainly be that name.
And I think you Bank the same thing coming off
the loss against against Ben. Uh you know, he beat
a Berlin. I go, okay, that's a pretty solid victory.
So we'll see if they can make it. They'll talk
a lot of shit with each other, no doubt about it.
I would imagine that they probably would do that fight
in the UK. Haven't really seen or heard about the
particulars about if they did make the fight. I mean,
it's in the early stages. I know, right, they're gonna
bicker about what the weight's gonna be. Probably Ben's not
gonna are rather Ubank's probably not gonna want to fight
them all the way at one hundred and sixty eight
at the at the next and probably try to make
Berlina drop down a few pounds. Berlanga's gonna say I
can't do it. But uh, you know, we'll see if
they can make the match. But if they do make
the match, I mean I would definitely be interested to
watch the fight. I mean, there's not like tons of
other you know name guys that would be willing to
fight each other. That's not for a title, I guess.
So I'm okay, if they make that match, we'll see
if they get it done.
Speaker 1: Puplamore items. So you mentioned Top Rank Boxing before they
were involved with a Manuel navarraate. But I saw this
on social media that Robas Ramirez, one of their fighters,
who is a previous champ and the former Cuban gold
medalist two times, two time gold medalist, he says he's
no longer with Top Rank. He thanked them and says
I'm looking elsewhere, and it continues to add to all
of the educated speculation that there may be others following
him and what's going on with Top Rank Boxing. So
Robas Ramirez first, and then the bigger picture real.
Speaker 2: Quick, Well, it's sort of just like drip drip drip.
There's there's just guys who's as as contracts come up
for expiration, Top Rank is not making efforts to resign them.
For look, on one hand, they're being fair to the fighter,
because why are you going to resign a guy we
don't have any place to put him? Why would the
fighter resign with you when you've gotten no place to
put me. So it's not like and I don't know
the answer in terms of Ramirez particularly, I don't know
if Top Rank wanted to resign him, even if they
still had a robust colevision agreement, or they just figured
they've run their course. He has not looked great in
recent fights. He didn't fight it all in twenty twenty five.
He of course, was coming off the upset loss when
he you know, got beat by Espinoza twice a matter
of fact, second one by a knockout. So maybe they
would have let him go anyway. But he was a
big name when they signed in the because of everything
that went on in terms of his defection. There was
a saga there as far as how we finally got
from Cuba to the United States, turn pro with humongous
fair lost the title or lost the pro debut in
a big, giant shocker, you know, climb back up the ladder,
got off, got the revenge, ended up winning a world title,
defended it over in Japan impressively by a knockout, had
the massively dramatic fight and loss to Espino's in their
first fight, ended up losing again in the second fight
a couple of fights later. So there's been a lot
of drama ups and downs with Robasi. Ramirez and top
Ranks promoted him from day one of his career, so
his contract came up. I don't believe they made any
effort to resign him. Then he goes on his way.
But again, like we've talked about with some other fighters
over the last few weeks, it's a drip drip drip
fighter contracts are going to come up, and Top Rank
is not in a position to resign these guys because
they don't have a place to put them at the moment.
I mean, look, one of the reasons we got to
see Navarette versus Doni is because Top Rank had nowhere
to put Navarette. So if you've got Mattroom boxing out
there and they're offering, you know, a quality deal to
bring know Navarette over to the own to do the
fight as a unification, what other options do they have?
That's why, For example, coming up in a couple of weeks,
when we see the pay per view that PBC is
doing with Fondora against against Furman, the co feature on
that fight is the PBC fighter Frank Sanchez. He's fighting
the Top Rank fighter Richard Torres. Never in a million
yere if Top Rank was still on ESPN or had
a big TV contract somewhere, I guarantee you that even
if they went ahead and made the match with Sanchez,
they'd be the ones doing the fight, but they're not
in a position at the moment to do that. So
Torres is on on on a PBC card. We've seen
it happen before, so hopefully they can get their ship together.
But in the meantime, Ramirez is the next guy to depart.
Now where he winds up, maybe he goes with ZUFA.
I mean, certainly he'd be a guy I can't imagine
they wouldn't want to sign. I mean, he fits their
profile perfectly. I'm not sure if others out there, if
it's a you know, a Mattchroom Boxing or or a
PBC or know Frank Warren or whoever, I want to
sign him. But we'll say clearly the way that Ramirez
stated in his comments, he's not done yet. He's looking
for something else. He is only thirty two years old.
He still might have a couple of, you know, a
few good years left in him to do something. It's
not like he can't fight. He a dominating amateur and
has had a good professional career thus far despite the losses.
Almost see what happens. But if this is not so
much about Ramirez, as you mentioned, it's about the drip
drip drip of the top rank exodus.
Speaker 1: It is becoming more and more apparent there are big issues.
Just got to say it as we sit.
Speaker 2: Here in March.
Speaker 1: Here and one more item, Queensberry says that we're going
to have a fight card now in Paris. Lawrence o'coley
is involved, the name Tony Yoka is involved. What else
is going on here Queensberry by the way, with the
upcoming Fabio Wardly defense against Daniel Dubois as well. But
this will come up before in the timeline. Where's this
coming up? April? Correct?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is April twenty fifth. The reason why this
is somewhat interesting, not so much the matchup is the
greatest matchup. But if you go back to January, early January,
they're the promoters, Frank Warren and Queensberry, they're the promoters
for your boy a Gcabo, and so they took him
home to Germany to defend the WBC's interim heavyweight title.
And I think they expect it will be a good event,
but I think they came away from being shocked at
how big it was. I mean, you know, I talked
to George Warren, who was involved with Queensbury. That's Frank's son,
and he said on the broadcast also when they didn't
interview with him that of all the events that he's
been to in his time involved as a boxing promoter,
he can't ever remember that we talked.
Speaker 1: It was it was electric in that building for Kabel
in Germany.
Speaker 2: Yes, so they are. Obviously Queensberry is a premier promoter
in boxing, but they're mostly associated with the events that
are in the UK. Obviously they promoted a number of
events elsewhere through the years, but they're the number one
or number two promoter in UK. It's basically of recent
digits it's Queensberry and Mattrium. But they've made a concerted
an effort to branch out there doing international fights. So
they did this card in January in Germany. I have
talked to Frank Warren. They have plans whether I don't
know exactly when they're going to do this, but at
some point they're coming to do events in the United States.
They're gonna probably bring They're probably gonna bring Moses to
tom here at some point without question, and they want
to do fights in America. But now they signed Tony Yoka,
who has been a dramatically disappointing fighter to be quite frank,
he was a twenty sixteen Olympic gold medalist from France.
Has had his issues but still has popularity at home
in France. They have signed Lawrence o'coley, who had been
a title holder in the cruiserweight division. Whatever your thoughts
are about the bridgerweight division, he won the WBC belt
in that division. Also now he's fighting as a heavyweight.
So they've made the match between Tony Yoka and Lawrence o'coley,
and the joke has sorad of been. You know, it's
the winner to determine who's the next guy to lose
to Fabio Wardley if he makes it through the defense
that he's got coming up. But the winner of this
fight between Yoka and Locoley is going to get an
opportunity to fight a much bigger fight. And so this
is going to headline their next international card that takes
place in Parisol be in April. And to me, the
more interesting guy on the card is not so much
the heavyweights, but they have a junior middleweight, a French
junior middle named Bakari Samaki. He's only twenty two he's
from France. He's undefeated. He is nineteen and zero with
eleven knockcouts. Very interesting up and comer he is on
this card and that that is a fight that he's
having against an Albanian fighter named Irmal. I can't really,
I don't know. I think it's had Hatter Badge something
along those lines.
Speaker 1: I Drida Badge something. Okay, So this is.
Speaker 2: Going to be for the junior middleweight division. Is a
WBC final eliminator, so there are some stakes in that
as well. Not so much specific stakes for Yoka o'koley,
other than.
Speaker 1: By the way I saw Okohley and the highlights and
the pictures bloated might be being kind for him. As
a heavyweight, he had balloon thirty or forty pounds.
Speaker 2: It's more than that, actually, I mean all.
Speaker 1: The fighting cruiserweight limit. What he clocked it like two sixty?
Speaker 2: He was like two seventy.
Speaker 1: So what are we doing here with him? Is he
going to be in any kind of shame?
Speaker 2: I have no idea.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm with Yoka, But like I.
Speaker 2: Said, I'm more intrigued and more interested on a personal
level and seeing Samaki do his business, okay than that
heavyweight fight. But I'm I'm happy to see like a
Queensberry branch out and do fights other places. Uh, they've
got the talent, they've got the backing. Obviously, they have
a long term contract with his own and they are,
as Frank likes to say, and this is the reality,
they're the home of the heavyweights these days. They may
not have everybody, but they got a plenty of top
level heavyweights that they work with. And you know, we'll
see how this car goes.
Speaker 1: From Hey, Tama's rescheduled fight is also coming up too,
so that that is a full show, my friend. Off
the weekend. Happy March, everybody. Hope you enjoy Giopatia with us.
Make sure you're following, subscribing here to this podcast on
Apple's Preakers, Spotify, anything else or are we ready to
get the week going and get all of the college
basketball mayhem cranked up? Is as well as you said,
spring training, spring break for the schools in the US,
the whole bit. Are we ready? Are we ready for
all of this?
Speaker 2: From I am ready, except my week It's gonna be
weird because I have this like internal clock the way
it works, like you know, you with my writing schedule,
like you usually are thinking about the fights are on Saturday,
and so you cover the fights on Saturday, whether you're
at the fight or you're watching it on you know,
the screen. But this week, the only real fight of
consequence is the Opataia card and it's on a Sunday night.
So I got a sort of I gotta I gotta reave.
Speaker 1: Listen, we will stay regimented.
Speaker 2: We gotta see what we're doing on the point.
Speaker 1: Do our preview coming up, because that's the preview of
the fight. We'll have some news, et cetera. We'll keep
you on track for what day. It will have to
be creative because typically we release Sunday night into Monday,
and the Opataia fight's gonna be late night Eastern time
on Sunday night, on my birthday, no less. So we
got to work that out because my family, my family's
already buzzing about where are we going to dinner? You
know what, Where we going the dinner means where are
you taking us to buy food for us even though
it's your birthday. That kind of that's kind of what
that means. So stay tuned, stay tuned on how we
work all that out but that's problem for next weekend.
Have a good week, my friend. Were going to catch
up with you again later in a week on the
preview pot. There goes Big Dan Rayfield. Follow and subscribe
on the Fight Freaks Unite's substack and the newsletter. All
the breaking news, the nuggets, his insights, all of that.
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