Speaker 1: The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big
Fight Weekend. Now here is your host DJ Leaves. Well,
we have reached the end of the month of May
or believe it out? Where did five months go so
far in twenty twenty five? How about that? We do
have a main event coming in Las Vegas featuring former
super middleweight world champ Caleb Plant in Action as well
as Jermal Charlow, the former middleweight world champ in Action
and the co feature. And it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes
to figure out that there may be something cooking with
those two to fight each other if they're both victorious.
That if, though, is a big thing on that. Anyway,
we're ready to preview those fights. We have some news
and a lot more welcome in. It is the Big
Fight Weekend preview. I am the somewhat competent host TJ. Reeves.
We've survived off the Memorial Day holiday. Hello, Big Dan
rayphel our insider. You've been busy. You've been busy this
week on the substack and reporting things, fight news, et cetera.
We got a fight week, We've got a recap to
go over. How are things as we head into the weekend.
Speaker 2: Thanks are good yet, like you said, it's been a
little busy, but it's okay. It's all good. I enjoyed
the business.
Speaker 1: We like it. We like it better when there's a
lot of stuff to go over and to discuss. Again,
thank you for finding us on the pod feed. We
preview going into the weekend. We recap most of the
time coming off the weekending. Again, we got the summer here,
so it may not be every weekend with a preview
in a recap because of vacations, etc. We'll do our
best to do that depending on what else is there.
So follow subscribe, rate us and review us Apple, Spreaker, Spotify.
Find the YouTube page. A lot of you have found
the YouTube page over the course of the last few weeks.
Make sure you're subscribing there. Hit the light button. Great content.
Dan's one on one interview with Caleb Plant on the
YouTube page. You can see that in advance of the fight. Also,
we had a great time in the in the recap
mode last Sunday Night Live. Hopefully they were with us
on YouTube, but also talking not only about the current
with that night, but we talked to Ali listened too
for a while as well, and debated about phantom Punch,
real knockout or not from sixty years ago. This is
the stuff we do on YouTube, and there's more unique
content coming there on the YouTube page. Help us out.
Make sure that you're subscribed on YouTube. Make sure that
you're there and you're engaged as well, especially for our nostalgia.
All right, so all of that is out of the
way before we get into the preview mode. Ryfield, we
had title fights midweek Wednesday night in Japan Wednesday morning
US time. By the way, my week is totally screwed
up because the holiday. I don't know about you. It's
the end of school here in Florida and in the
county in Tampa and Hillsboro County where we are. So
the twins have been taking exams, my juniors who now
don't want to be called juniors, they want to be
called seniors. So they've been acting like yesterday was Friday.
So part of me thought we missed the preview pot Dan,
because they've been acting like it was Friday yesterday. I
don't know what it is anyway, Wait week.
Speaker 3: We don't have the end of school for two more weeks.
When we'll will you.
Speaker 1: Have it better? But Wednesday was now yesterday. As we're
doing this, would.
Speaker 2: You say your girls are gonna be seniors. My son's
gonna we're going to the elementary school graduation.
Speaker 1: Oh, and you're moving up to middle school. It's all
down here. From here, he's gonna have a girlfriend, He's
gonna want to drive a whole bit.
Speaker 3: Stay tuned.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Wednesday morning US time Wednesday night in Japan
Championship doubleheader, it saw Yoshiki Takai didn't take long defend
his WBO banhamweight title with a smashing first round knockout
of somebody na named Udipong Tong d It took longer
to spell the name than it did for Takaida not
came out. We're gonna talk about that and Eduardo's sugar.
Nunyez did win over Rakishi for the IBF Junior Lightweight
Bana the vacant title the junior lightweight title, so Nunya
has won a twelve round decision. So let's recap both
of those. I will say, I've read my substack recap,
I've seen the highlights. It didn't take long to see
the highlights of the Takai fight. So enlighten us a
little more about those fights Wednesday.
Speaker 2: Well, the fight that Dezone was promoting because Sugar Nunyas
is a matchroom fighter, was the Nunya's title fight against
Massnari Rashiki. But the actual main event of the event
in terms of in the arena and on the Japanese
streaming of the event, that was the Bandon Way fight,
which is Takai defending, you know, as the Japanese fighter
eleven and zero out with nine knockouts. Looked really good
southpaw and just really took it to Tongy the Thailand fighter.
And I didn't know what to expect because I don't
think Tongdy was like a well known commodity, but you know,
he came with like a decent reputation and he was undefeated,
and Thailand guys typically are tough, I mean, if you
want to use a cliche. But he just got walloped.
I mean it was, you know, got caught right in
the beginning of the fight, like just right out of
the gate, and he just never really recovered. Takai's got
a really good left hand and he just kept putting
the cook, landing it like it was honed in, like
it had sonar or laser beam or whatever on the
end of his left fist, and it did, like you said,
it did not take long. Keep in mind, also, by
the way that this was about, that had been postponed
a couple of times. You remember he was supposed to
fight on Christmas Eve, December twenty fourth, was going to
be on the undercard back when they were supposed to
do the Annoy In a way, Sam Goodman fight got
postponed because of the Goodman cut, got moved into January,
and then obviously the Goodman dropped out all together, and
then I found a different opponent, but he didn't fight
on that card either because the guy got had a
shoulder injury, so he had a call off their fight
that got postponed and didn't take place until Wednesday. But
as I wrote in my recap of the event, it
sure heck didn't look like his shoulder was any problem
at this point because he just just destroyed.
Speaker 1: Tom d doesn't think there was a shoulder problem because
he got bashed.
Speaker 2: So the bottom line was in all of two minutes
and seven seconds, three knockdowns uh pretty much all left
hand based. The the the third knockdown was the one
that was into the ropes, but clearly he would have
ended up on the floor in the first or second
row if the ropes had not held him up. So
the American referee, Christopher Young properly ruled that a knockdown,
and then it was just a matter of you know,
he wasn't really defending himself and getting teed off on
and they stopped the fight. So the end of the day,
this was a tremendous performance from Takai, you know, who
has sort of burst on the scene. This was his
second title defense. I think he has definite uh. And
because there they're affiliate with Ohashi Promotions in terms of
their Japanese promotion. Uh, there's a reasonable chance that, you know,
before we may see Na Katani, who's got his own
unification fight coming up in a couple of weeks, a
few weeks, if Na Katani unifies the two belts, that
to Kai may be sitting there waiting for him to
have a three belt unification while he waits theoretically for
the prospect of in a way, but most likely, according
to what Ohashi said in the post fight before that
while Nakatani does his business coming up, the next fight
for Takai is going to be his mandatory against Christian Medina,
a Mexican fighter, So that probably takes place, you know,
maybe end of the summer, early fall, and then maybe
by the end of the year we'll see the Nakatani
fight and then hopefully, you know, if Dakatani is the
winner at that point, maybe he can become undisputed as
he waits it out for in a way to rise
to federate. But point is, Takai is going to be
in some good fights. He's a good puncher and this
was a really good performance.
Speaker 1: And then Sugar Nunya is obviously in the co feature,
look good really hence the big lefty Rakishi, the lanky lefty.
In this one hundred and thirty pound world title fight,
Nunya is going to the body the highlights. I saw
good with the right hand. Actually rocked him with the
right hand late in the fight, and it ends up
being a unanimous decision win for him. More on the
Sugar Nunyaz fight and his short term potential here with
with what we say midweek.
Speaker 2: Well, he's now twenty nine and one with twenty eight knockouts. Nunias,
it's only the second time he's ever heard the final bell,
but the first time in a victory. The last time
he ever heard the final bell. He got to go
all the way back to twenty eighteen, and that was
in his only loss, which is a six round fight.
So he's not one that typically here is the end
of the fight, and so this was a really it
was a good performance from Rashiki, but he just he
was just sort of overpowered it. He just he was sturdy,
and he took some great shots from Nunias, who was
a really big puncher, but he just he just never
could really get into the moment, you know, get the
momentum going with him. He's a good counter puncher. He
did land some good punches on Nunya, so took the
shots really well. This was a very good fight. It's
not going to be the fight of the year, but
a very very entertaining fight. They really let it all
hang out. There was a couple of rounds that were
just back and forth. That the twelfth round where I guess,
you know, Rashiki, you know, I didn't understand Japanese whatever
they were saying in the corner, but I got a figure.
They knew that they got to go out there and
do something spectacular to get to win, because he was
definitely behind, and he let it all hang out in Nuniez,
who had a figure on the head. He didn't back away,
didn't ron, he didn't go looking for, you know, a
place to hide in that round. They so they really
battled it up. This was a really good fight and
in the end the scores I thought we were pretty good.
One seventeen to one eleven, one sixteen to one twelve,
and one to fifteen to one thirteen all for Nunez,
one fifteen, one thirteen, in my mind was slightly generous.
Not keep in mind I was watching this live at
like five thirty in the morning, so maybe I was
a little like sleep Trump stuff as I was watching,
but entertaining fight. And now Nuniez is another world champion,
uh for matchroom boxing, and uh, you know what he
does from here? You know, that's an interesting question because
one hundred and thirty pounds, there's not tons of names,
and the guys that are there, like Lamont Roach is
the WBA champion. Obviously he's occupied with a fight at
lightweight with a rematch against Tank Davis.
Speaker 3: You've got Emmanuel.
Speaker 2: Navarete, who has the WBO title, clearly headed towards a
rematch with Charlie Suarez, whatever the California Commission rules. And
you have the WBC champion also with top rank like Neverette,
is Oshaki Foster, who is in the process of getting
a fight done to defend against the furtherway title holder,
Stephen Fulton, so he's not going to be having any
kind of unification at the moment.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: There has been the suggestion that even though Anthony Kassachi
vacated the title to go do the Lee Wood fight
rather than take on Sugar Nunya's in a dangerous mandatory,
that was not worth nearly as much money. The fact
that Kasachi won and looked so impressive against Lee Wood,
and now now you have Nunya's with the belt, but
they're both with the same promoter. You know, maybe it's
not out of the question. Now there's more money in
it for Kasachi to do that fight and maybe they
make the Maybe they do that fight, it would just
be reverse of what it would be.
Speaker 1: And certainly if Nunya is willing to go all the
way to Japan to have a title fight, I don't
know that he I'm not his management, but I don't
know that he would be that adverse to fighting in
the UK for a lot of money.
Speaker 2: To get the opportunity to fight for the title. Forget
about going to Japan, where by all accounts they're the
visiting fighters are very treated very well. This guy to
get the opportunity in the eliminator, he went to Tajikistan
to fight Rock Him Off. And now that's not exactly
a place that's easy to get to. He went all
the way to the to the ends of the earth
to get this title shot, and he went there on
the other guy in Rock Them off'sly.
Speaker 1: Do you connect through to get to Tazeki stand? I'm
not sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, I really don't know the answer to that.
I know a lot of shit, but I don't know that.
But he knocked He knocked Rock him Off out in
his home, in front of his home people. So the
notion that Sugar Nongions would have any objection to traveling
to Tajikistan or Japan or to the UK are non
existent in my mind. He will go where the money
is and where the fights are.
Speaker 1: All right, So stay tuned on what his next move
might be as the new IBF Junior lightweight champion.
Speaker 2: So let me tell you what are gonna be a
tough out for anybody. Tremendous puncher, tremendous aggressiveness, tremendous stamina.
Seems like he's got a good chin and absolutely's got
some serious firepower.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. All right, So that was midweek with
a recap. Now let's get into the preview mode again.
I've belabored this a few times. You spoke with Caleb
Plant back now, probably ten days ago, right two weeks ago,
as he was winding down his training camp. He's now
fighting Armando Rezendez. He's a massive favorite. Uh do we
even want to promote and say w BA interim super
lightweight or super middleweight championship fight. I just I just
I just said it. I just said it.
Speaker 3: It's just factual with what.
Speaker 1: The WBA keeps doing. Uh So, it's a twelve round
fight Saturday night, PBC on Prime mandal A Bay and
Las Vegas. They have shown up, they have met with
the media now in in Vegas, and Caleb Plant returns
to headline on this card. Give me a couple of
thoughts here, including on the opponent.
Speaker 2: Well, in terms of the matchup itself, both for Caleb
Plant as well as the fight we'll talk about after
that with Charlow. Uh, they're they're they're facing prohibit of underdogs.
Not a surprise this and it's not in any way
this respect to the opponents. Armando Rizendez, who is the
opponent that will be fighting Kayla Plant, is a solid fighter.
He's been in the ring with some good opponents. He
makes for entertaining fights. But there's a reason why the
people with PBC and TGB have selected the opponents that
they have selected for both Plant and for Charlotte, because
when they announced this doubleheader in the first place, well
it's really four fights on the broadcast, but in terms
of the two main fights, when they announced it, they
weren't keeping it a secret. They're like, if these guys win,
you know, we're going to look to match them later
in there. The Charlo and Plant sort of feud has
been going on for a while. They've wanted to fight
each other. I talked to Caylee a little bit about
it in the interview that you referenced that's on the
pod a couple episodes ago. Definitely fight he wants, but
I think both guys understand their pros. They've been around
a while. They got to take care of their business.
No reason looking forward if you haven't taken care of things.
And with Charlot, because he's been off for a long time,
he's got, you know, to concentrate on what's in front
of him. And for Kayleb Plant, you know, he's been
more active obviously, but again you still got to win
the fight. But the whole purpose of this is they
match them with lesser ish opponents with the idea that
they'll both shine and make the public more interested in
their fight against each other, which will presumably be a
pay per view in the you know, probably in the
fourth quarter of this year. And you know, as as
Caleb said, you know, we couldn't go right into you
what have Pegel would have liked to just go right
into the Charlotte fight. But Charlot, with the layoff, you know,
they wanted to get him active again, and so he's like, Okay,
if he's gonna do that, then I'll take one of
those fights also, And so that's what this is about.
So he's taken on Rezendez. Look, Plant, I think a
lot of people thought, maybe you know, he got the big,
big money, the ten million dollars payday to fight Canelo Alvarez.
Came a good fight but lost the title. And he
didn't just disappear. I mean, he came back. I mean
he took some time off, but he came back. He
had a great knockout against Anthony Durrell. He then took
the fight against David Benavidiez, who a lot of guys
don't want to fight. You know, he didn't win, but
he competed. He won rounds and it was a really
good fight, a hell of a promotion. And he took
some time off and he came back. You know, he's
you know, he's got a young daughter. His wife is
now pregnant. But he thought Trevor McCombe back in September.
That was a very fun fight, but he really beat
him up down the stretch of that fight, stopped him
in the ninth round to win this interim belt. And
he's moving on to this fight and again Rizendez. I
don't know how much of a test he's gonna pose,
but you know, he's a professional. It's not like he's
you know, he's not been in the ring with good
guys and we'll see if he can handle He's only
got you know, he's got nothing to lose. He doesn't
have as nearly as many fights as Charlotte. I'm in
as planned. He's fifteen and two eleven knockouts. He's a
Mexican fighter. But his biggest win, if you know who
he is, you go back to twenty twenty three, he
did score the win against Jared Hurd, who was kind
of diminished at that point. But that when the fight
actually win, that match happened, it was considered a big upset.
Hurt has not pretty much, you know, announced his retirement,
and you know, he also has a loss to Elijah Garcia,
which you know was the hot prospect at that moment.
So he's had his ups and downs. But I gotta
believe he's coming to show up. He's coming to compete,
and you know, I fully expect kal Plant to win
this fight to move.
Speaker 1: On and then we I think we both do on
that and we'll see how tough for Zindez is and
uh and kind of go from there again. H you know,
cayleb plan. Unfortunately we didn't really talk about this. Took
a real beating from David Benavitez as well. So and
with a family and with kids, we don't manage their
careers and their money. You wonder how much longer is
he going to do this he has.
Speaker 2: I don't agree with you at all about that he
got beat by by beneviies I don't consider that to
be a bad beating.
Speaker 3: I mean he took shots, he.
Speaker 1: Took a go back and refresh yourself. He took a
bad beating in the last three or four rounds of
the fight, to the point that bred Man, Edwards' trainer
said to him in between the tenth and the eleventh round,
I think, Cayleb, I know you want this to go
the distance, but I'm watching this and I can't let
you keep taking this kind of punishment. So you can
disagree with bread Manvidez was beating him up late.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying you didn't take some some rough ones
the last couple of rounds of that fight. But in
the scheme of his whole career, that's not really the case,
Like he's not in thirty didn't say the scheme of
his whole career.
Speaker 1: I mean he got beaten up recently by Benavitez. You
mentioned married and family. He's got money. That's all I'm
pointing out.
Speaker 2: So and what I'm saying to you is he's the
last guy that I'm thinking is looking at like retirement.
He's going to be around for a few more years.
He still has more, he still trains hard, he still
wants it, he still has things he wants to do,
he still has things that he wants to accomplish. And
I suspect, you know, while he may accomplish them, and
maybe he won't, but he's going to be around for
a while, and I would expect, you know, the next
so called big fight for him will be Charlotte if
he is successful on Saturday, and Charloe is as well,
So that would be a fun That'll be a great promotion.
That'll be a lot of fun to watch.
Speaker 1: So that's the segue. And now what do we make
of Charlo and Thomas Cornonflake Lemana. Now they were exchanging
the barbs at the press conference, and why do I
get the feeling that the press conference getting saucy might
be better than the fight. What do you make of this?
It's a ten round fight, and again it's set up
as you said, he wins plant wins, there's the carrot,
there's the reward.
Speaker 2: Charlow has had so much inactivity, he's had and there's
been so much out of the ring drama for him
and for his twin brother Jermil, that I can't keep
it all straining anymore. It's guy's getting arrested, it's mental
health issues, it's divorce problems, it's it's alcohol issues. But
I can't keep them straight. I'm not I can't even
remember these days.
Speaker 3: This.
Speaker 1: He basically was out of the ring three years, not
defending the WBC middleweight title, and they finally stripped him.
He even had a fight at super middleweight.
Speaker 3: And he got arrested at one point, yes, and he
and he and.
Speaker 1: He had a fight at super middleweight, and the WBC
was still holding out for him to come back and
maybe defend at middleweight, even though he said in the ring,
I'm gonna stay at super middleweight. Here's here's the point,
and now here he is at super middleweight.
Speaker 2: He did fight multiple times in twenty nineteen, he had
one fight in twenty twenty. He had the title defense
in twenty twenty one against one Messius Montiel, and he
was off for another year and a half he fought
at super middleweight. Over the weight he fought and looked
I thought, very pedestrian against Jose Benavidez Junior, who's really
been when he was at his best, was really a
welterweight or junior welterweight. He fought him at a bit
over one sixty. And now he's been off for another
year and a half because the last time that that
when that Benavidea's fight happened, that's David's older brother. That
was in November of twenty twenty three, so since the
end of and he had that fight at the very
end of twenty nineteen. So in the last five years
or you know, we're four and a half years, he's
had three fights. This will be his fourth. So he's
been masterly inactive, had all kinds of issues. He is
now a full fledge moving up to super Mida eight
for this fight against Lamana. And this is all about
what does he have. He claims he's back, he's focused,
he's in good shape, he's ready to do battle. He's
looking forward to getting back in the ring. I mean,
you know, and guys saying that it all the time.
I mean, color me slightly not impressed. You know, I
want to see what he can do. I mean, I
don't I don't wish bad on him or anything like that,
but I don't. Don't tell me he showed me my
my and that would go for we're talking about his
brother or with him. But here's the main point. Though
he's in soft okay. Lamana is a club fighter. He'll
train hard, he'll work hard. He's a nice guy, but
he is not at the level of even a degregated charlot.
In my opinion, this is a guy who went into
the ring as a junior middleweight years ago against Aristoni
Lara and got smoked in one round. He's lost when
he stepped up. He doesn't have a big win of
any consequence whatsoever on his record. I mean, this is
me to order for Charlotte.
Speaker 3: Charlotte.
Speaker 1: Are you saying that corn flake Loamana's wins over one
manual wit Nicholas Hernandez, Juan Carlos Abreu and No Lopez
Oe No Lopez are not exactly earth shattering contender wins.
That's exactly just.
Speaker 2: I mean, he has won a bunch of fights in
a row, but they've been all against like softer competition.
He's not a well, I take the back when he
fought Laura it was actually a title fight. How he
got a middleweight title fight, it's only because it's the
WBA doing more WBA things than even the IBF doing
IBF things. I mean, that was just a gift that
he got destroyed in the in the first round. So
he's won the nine fights since then, but it's been
all against you know, nobody in particular. So again this
is set up for Charlotte to get back in the groove,
look good, make people, you know, interested in what the
appetite for the for the fight with Caleb Plant and
it'll be up to Lamana to show that he's more
than a club fighter again.
Speaker 1: PBC on Prime Videos Saturday night, late Eastern and Central time,
prime time in the West at the Mantlee Bay in
Las Vegas. They will have that, all right, some news
and a lot of it. Well, it was Thursday afternoon
that we started seeing news that Haimi Mungia had tested
positive for synthetic testosterone in a Vada test related to
his fight back on May third against Bruno Serrase where
he won the rematch. Again and it's the French fighter
that had knocked him out previously in Mexico late last year.
So now we await the b sample to be tested.
You have been doing some digging in the afternoon in
the evening before we have begun this podcast. What else
do we know, including the result is obviously in question,
if not about to be overturned at a later time
here coming.
Speaker 2: Up right, I mean, and he's also facing a very
if everything is what it seems to be, which is
going to be this positive test, he's facing a long
suspension because the fight that he had this positive test
as related to, was overseen by the British Boxing Board,
and they don't, you know, if it's proven. I mean,
obviously they have their issues. You know, we'll just look
at what happened with with Connor Ben. But what they've
done many many times is delay anchor license and they'll
put you down for two years, I mean, end of story.
Now I'm not sure if that will apply to Mongeye
because he's not in British, but it was there. It
was their event that they were regulating. My error by
that when I said synthetic testosterone in the note I
sent you, it was really exogyny testosterone. Which means it's
not testosterone. The testosterone that they found in his system
was not produced in his body, it was it was
introduced from elsewhere outside and that is not allowed now.
In the statement that Haimi posted on his social media
where he talked about how he's taken all these antidoping
tests before in his career and never had a positive test, Like,
I always find that to be complete bullshit, because if
I go out and I murder somebody, I said, well,
you know, I've been I've been living for fifty years.
I never murdered anybody. Well yeah, but don't tell you did,
you know what I mean? Right, So that's one thing
about it. And then he also made the point where
he said that several experts have explained to him that
there are multiple ways that contamination can occur.
Speaker 3: So I did some reading.
Speaker 2: I checked in with the resident drug testing guru, Victor Kante,
who people can hate or love or whatever, but he
knows his shit, and he basically laughed. He says, I've
been doing, you know, involvement with drug testing for decades.
I've never heard of their being contaminated when it comes
to testosterone. I mean, certainly it's other drugs that is
certainly a possibility. Apparently testostro is not one of them.
So he's got some splaining to do.
Speaker 1: Yes, and so Victor Conte, by the way, was an expert, defrocked,
went to prison. The whole thing on how trying to
cheat the system doesn't work when they were trying to
cheat it, and the okay, so let you finish, okay,
if you say so. Uh, there's always going to be
a distinction there with me with him though, let's go
to I do not know Victor.
Speaker 3: I don't spend time with Victor for years. I know
him well, I.
Speaker 1: Don't have to know that he has a laundry list
of back to Brunos. So just giving me his opinion,
by the way, I understand he he gave his opinion
in a statement and said, I went to Mexico. I'm paraphrasing,
I fought clean, I beat him, and now you have this,
and I want the result overturned and that and that
likely is going to happen in short order.
Speaker 2: He assuming, assuming the BET sample comes back positive, which
in most of any of these testing the B sample
does come back positive. But yeah, then the result will
be changed to a no contest, and that'll be that
he won't you know, they're not going to get Sarase
the victory, but the no contest probably is what's coming.
That's a very common thing, you know, the same exact
thing that happened when Ryan Garcia tested positive, granted for
a different substance, they changed the result of the Hainy
fight to a no contest. I mean, it's unfortunately, it's
not the most uncommon thing in the world, so it's
very disappointing.
Speaker 3: And what it does do.
Speaker 2: You know, there were certain things that had to happen,
But with Mangia getting the victory earlier in May against
Sarase and then you have Edgar Berlanga, who's got the
fight coming up you know, later in the summer against Shiraz,
there have been a lot of conversation between the camps
about the possibility that maybe a bigger fight down the
road at the end of this year would be Mangia
against Berlanga. That would be a tremendous battle. If he's
on the shelf with a suspension, that's probably out the window.
So you know, look, at the end of the day,
I don't believe that that that there's that there's testosterone contamination,
and so we'll have to wait and see what the
B sample says. But again, twenty plus years, twenty five years, TJ.
You've read about drug testing. Virtually every single B sample,
no matter what the substance, is the same in the
B as it was in the AG because they sucked
right now.
Speaker 1: And Vada and right and Vada does a tremendous job
of preserving that et cetera and being ready for all
of the legal challenges. Oh, you didn't preserve the B
sample and it could be you know, one thing I
keep coming back to you while we just digress for
a second on the whole drug test thing. There is
nothing that degrades a clean sample into being a dirty sample.
This this has been said for thirty years of this,
going back to the nineties when I was doing five
day of week sports radio and that were popping all
the athletes in the NFL or baseball for peds or
track with the Olympics or whatever. Time and again, the
drug people say that if you have a clean sample,
it doesn't magically degrade somehow, some way because of the
conditions into being a positive What. Well, No, I'm just
saying if it degrades, it degrades into inconclusive. What they're
saying is this is conclusive for testosterone not produced by
the body, and the B sample will more than likely
say that one more aspect. And we don't have to
go on for fifteen minutes about this because we've got
other news. To move on to. The photo that's there
on social media and all the talk, and it's fair
and it's warranted that you have Eddie Renoso with Canelo Alvarez,
Oscar Valdez, Ryan Garcia, and now Haimi Mungia, fighters that
he trained at some point or was training, that have
now all tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. And the
picture that's being circulated, which is a legit picture of
all of them in a training facility somewhere presumably in Mexico.
You shake your head, You shake your head at this
stop it happens again. So there it is again that.
Speaker 2: All of those cases are very specifically different. I don't
need to get into the ins and out. So I'm
well aware of every single one of those cases. I
reported them extensively. The Canelo test was bullshit. It wouldn't
even count as a positive test today. The valdez positive
test was not illegal based on where they were. It
was perfectly within the rules. It's just that the rules
of the commission where he was fighting were different than Vada.
And in terms of Ryan Garcia, if my memory is correct,
Ryan Garcia's positive test, he wasn't even with Raneeo, so
when that happened, he never tested positive while he was
with that. He tested positive when he was with Derek James.
So again, it looks it's fun to shoot a meme
on Twitter or Instagram or something like that, but let's
talk about the facts, and the facts are that that
is a coincidence.
Speaker 3: In my opinion.
Speaker 1: By the way, Oscar Valdez was taking a weight loss
drug to make weight. He never was able to adequately
explain how it got into his system. And the technicality
of oh the what, we're just spewing facts. Oh, the
Native American Commission is the one in charge, but the
WBC wants him stripped, and all that got into technicality.
Speaker 2: You don't even have your facts right. The WBC did
not want happen a strip. That's what the result of
that scenario should have probably been, is that under the
rules that the fight should have gone for it, and
the WBS could have shipping him of the title. The
reality was he tested positive for a substance that the
local commission that's in charge, did you know, they were
under water rules. Water rules were allowed that substance to
be in your in your system out of competition, meaning
outside the twenty four or forty eight hours before your event,
which was well before that, as opposed to evada, which
says any time, and the two rules did not jibe,
so Oscar, in my opinion, technicality, it's not a technicality.
That's here's a huge difference.
Speaker 1: This is where we love to go back and forth.
He was taking a ped dan for weight loss. He
was taking a ped that he tested for what I
do because it was in his system, and he was
trying to explain it by saying it was in my
tea unknowing that's verbal t That was his excusage.
Speaker 2: All I know is the substance that he took at
the time he took it was legal in the jurisdiction
in which he boxed, period.
Speaker 1: Under the technicality not a technicalicality that if he had
know if he had taken it at the time that
were testing him for the fight, he would have been banned.
That's the technicality drug. Like you say, you got some
splaining to do on why it's in your system in
the first place when it's a weight loss drug. While
we're literally jating the Oscar Vale in.
Speaker 2: Drug testing, god forbid, we're nuanced. There is a major,
major difference, and there's a reason why it's done this
way between in competition and out of competition. Now, I'm
not saying that I like to see people do the
things that they do out of competition, but it didn't
break the rules. But but Vada's rules are different than WADA,
and the commission where he was in was underwater rules.
Their error was doing VADA testing and not taking that
into account, and the WBC allowing the sanction to.
Speaker 3: Stay to take place.
Speaker 2: So again we started with about Renoso the picture all
fun and games, but every single one of those cases
is completely different and doesn't, in my opinion, reflect upon Eddie.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to some more. You were reporting
earlier this week that it looked like Taya Fimo Lopez
and Devin Haney had a deal to fight later this year,
but now that is not the case. And now we've
seen social media stuff from Taya Fimo Lopez. Not a
surprise here going on and on about it. So what's
the truth on how close was this fight legitimately and
has t Lopez now ruined it with his antics and
actions on social media?
Speaker 2: This fight was agreed to on Tuesday night. Everything was done.
It wasn't signed, but all the paperwork and every term
was agreed to. They were circulating the contracts back and
forth between the camps. I've been told this by multiple
people that were directly involved in this negotiation and in
this deal the fight was happening. He was going to
be a one hundred and forty five pound fight. That
that's what they agreed on. I don't think that benefited
either guy because Pine just had a welterweight fight at
one forty four against Ramirez, and Tifemo would be moving
up a few pounds from being champion at junior wealterway,
but he's fighting a guy in Haini that is you know,
was just at one forty you know, just in the
last couple of fights. So anyway, that was supposed to
be the weight they were going to do this fight.
It was going to be a non title fight in
that weight division. It was supposed to be on August
sixteenth in Saudi Arabia, which was unfortunate because August sixteenth
is the date that they're supposed to be doing the
Tank Davis lamont Roatrie matcho. You know, that would have
been two pay per views on the same day. Obviously
that's now in question because of what's going on with
this fight. But the bottom line was there was the
original before they made the deal for the Haini fight
against Lopez. You had Lopez desperately wanting the Geron Boots
Ennis fight, and there had been an offer made for
that fight, a lot of money for both sides, and
for whatever reason, I didn't speak to the enniscamp, but
by the accounts of others that were around that negotiation,
eventually Ennis basically was like, no, I don't want that fight,
and he decided not to do it. We'll see if
he speaks about that in the future. So the backup plan,
if you will, was to do the fight between Hani
and Tiafimo, because obviously they nderstood like the rest of
us had doing the remask between Haiti and Ryan Garcia
off of their terrible performances, but more notably the loss
that Ryan Garcias suffered was untenable to do that, and
so it was what are we going to do instead?
And so they went forward to try to make this
fight and Tifemo was accepting of that, but apparently things
got a little hairy in sideways when the amount of
money that was going to be given to Tiafimo for
that fight was apparently less than what he would have
been getting if he had done the Nis fight. And
it's not even so much the money.
Speaker 3: I guess what.
Speaker 2: I The way I heard it was that he just
really wanted the Ennis fight. He was sort of blaming
Turkey al sheep for not being able to deliver. Ennis
went again, you know, you want to say whatever you
want about Turkey, but he can't make a guy fight.
And if Ennis decided he didn't want to do the
bout that, that's not ti Fimo's fault. That's not Turkey's fault,
that's not Ennis's management's fault. There his promotion, that's Ennis
and his father making a decision, I guess. And so
unfortunately Tiafimo felt like, you know what, I'm so upset.
He went out there and he made some derogatory comments
about Turkey on his social media, which obviously Turkey, a
proud guy who doesn't usually take shit from anybody, did
not like what he read or saw. And then t
Femo made some videos on his social or did some
interviews and this and that saying, you know, I got
fired from boxing, Turkey fired me. He referred to Turkey
Alshik as a dictator, but he spelled the d ick
like basically calling his excellency say that one I mean
And he deleted that eventually. But the point is it's
left this fight in shambles because you know, Turkey's Key's
Key works with anybody he wants. He doesn't need to
take this shit from t Femo Lopez, so he can
go out and make any fight he wants. He's the buyer.
Remember that, he's the one with the bank book, He's
the one with the cash. He's the one that can
do the fights that he decides to do and has
the money to pay for them. And if you're gonna
sit there, you know, whatever your opinion is about him,
if you're going to insult somebody, you got to pay
the price.
Speaker 1: And this is repeated stuff self inflicted from we've seen
over and over and over again.
Speaker 2: So they're trying to get from again from what I
hear from both like the handicamp, We're good to go.
Speaker 3: They're ready to do it.
Speaker 2: They're hoping that they can convince te to sort of
try to smooth things over. So we'll see if if.
Speaker 1: He's fundamentally pissed about the lack of money, you didn't
do anything to help yourself get more money. So how
are we going to get from point A to point
B on that when you've been insulting it.
Speaker 2: Whenever he's getting, it's still a tremendous amount of money,
even if it was a little bit less than what
he would have gone for Ennis.
Speaker 3: Here's the point, though, It's gonna.
Speaker 1: Be up to you know.
Speaker 2: Can the Haney team, can Timo's father, can Ti Fimo's promoter,
can Tifumo's management, can can people at his own whoever
it is, you know, or anybody on Turkey's you know,
inner circle? Can they convince him to like apologize and
to smooth things over with Turkey and see if you
can salvage the fight. Otherwise they'll probably find somebody else
for Devin Handy to fight and t Fimo will I
have shot himself in the foot like a dummy.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: So, speaking of the whole Ryan Garcia stuff that got
messed up back on May the second, when Garcia lost
to Roly Romero, we have now learned that he had
an injured hand, apparently in training. And I know you've
been reporting on this too. Chris Mannis was the first
to put out there was he had hurt the hand
in training and was taking cortizone shots for the hand
because he wanted the fight to move forward with Romero.
All right, So Garcia confirmed on Tuesday night that he
had had hand surgery. This is the same right hand.
Because I wrote the story on Big Fight Weekend dot
com and went back and looked at the other stuff
I had written, this is the same hand that he
had hand surgery on in October of twenty twenty one.
What else have you found out? Because you're far more
plugged in than I am. Besides what we know from
what Garcia told us and the other reporting, well, I.
Speaker 2: Don't think anything to do with whatever happened in twenty
twenty one. But when I spoke to his advisor of Guadeloupe, Valencia,
he made the point that if you remember back in
December and mid December, he pulled out of that exit.
Remember he was said to do that exhibition in Japan
on New Year's Night against the Japanese kickboxer had like
one hundred and fifty three pounds or whatever. That would
have been okay because it wasn't a sanctioned fight, because
normally you wouldn't be able to do about if you're
under suspension. But in the end, he withdrew from that
event two weeks beforehand because he had hurt his wrist
slash hand, and so they felt like that was that
was being treated. And as Lupe said to me that
we thought we could deal with that because he had
been able to go back to training. But he dinged
it up in the camp. As you mentioned, he took
the courtzone shots and he went through it the fight
and he hurt the fan again in the fight. And
maybe that's one of the reasons why, you know, you
look at the punch output, it was one of the
lowest in the history of COMPUWOCX. Now that's not a
reason why it would be so low for Roly Romero.
It turned out to be like one of the lowest
output of fighting fighters.
Speaker 1: And I will say just interject this now makes a
little more sense on two fronts. He was so, what's
the best way to put it, non offensive, non energetic,
non enthusiastic about engaging. Okay, and then after the fight.
I remember telling you that night when we did the
live show on YouTube it was weird after the fight,
where he's like, hey, credit him, and I told you
this is just strange. Now this makes a little more
sense to me. I'm saying this that he knew my
hand is screwed up. I re injured the hand during
the fight. That's why.
Speaker 3: That's excuses. I mean.
Speaker 1: Excuse. I'm not I'm not making excuses for my saying
it's now a little more understandable what the behavior was,
why he wasn't why he wasn't engaging and throwing as
many punches, and why he was weird after the fight.
I am now saying, this is more believable. If you
knew your hand was hurt, and you hurt your hand
in the fight, I get that now the weirdness at
least is somewhat explained.
Speaker 2: A couple a couple of things about that. Number one,
if you're injured, don't fight. Now, to his credit, I'll
give Ryan gar he didn't you, by the way, I'm
about to say that.
Speaker 1: He didn't use it as an excuse in the ring, right.
Speaker 2: The only reason he brought it up was because the
news came out about about the impending surgery, and then
the surgery that happened, so he responded to that. So,
to his credit, he never mentioned about an injury leading
up to the fight. He didn't use it as an
excuse in the post fight in the ring, he didn't
speak about it at the post fight news conference. He
hasn't said anything about it to my knowledge, you know,
just in the in a few weeks since the fight occurred.
But obviously he uh, you know, he took it into
account and he he basically said, yeah, that's true when
he when the news came out about the surgery. But again,
if you're that hurt, don't fight number one. Number two.
His best punches is left hook, so he's still had
the other hand he could use that's used to throw
no punches. So you know, it's just one of those
things where it's disappointing because.
Speaker 1: What do you hear on how long are we talking?
Months probably before I mean, you can get back out
at it later this summer.
Speaker 2: And according to Lupez. This is like no contact, layoff,
don't use your hand. You're talking six to eight weeks.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Maybe they'll give him the full eight weeks just to
be careful. Maybe a couple of more weeks after that. Obviously,
it's going to be depending on how he feels. He
is being treated by one of the foremost hand experts,
you know, I think certainly in the country, maybe the
world doctor Steven Shin, who if you and I've covered
hand injuries for years. He's done surgeries on everybody. I
think back in the day, he worked on Oscar deal Loway,
He's worked on Canelo Alvarez, He's worked on Alomachenko, He's
worked on now Ryan Garcia. And that's just in terms
of boxers. I mean, there's a I'm sure he's dealt
with too. So that's like one of the biggest names
in that medical field, based out of Los Angeles. And
so they'll they'll go through the process and they'll come
back in the fall, and it's a matter of what
he's going to do. What's probably not going to be
the Hainy fight obviously, and we'll see maybe it'll be,
I mean, the one that makes the most sense I
guess I'm not sure I really care about it, but
that's just me. Maybe they'll do a Roly Romero rematch.
I'm sure Romero would take the fight if he gets
paid for it.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned. That's that's looming after he heals up Ryan Garcia.
Are two more things real quick here. Top Rank did
officially announced what we've been talking about, the Xanders Ayas
Hoda Hey Garcia vacant WBO Junior Middleweight title fight for
July twenty six Also, Bruce Shueshu Carrington announced and confirmed
on the undercard as the co feature. Tell me more
about this now that it's officially slated for late July.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so July twenty sixth. It will take place at
the Madison Square Garden Theater, a place where Xander's Ayas
has fought noumerore times. He's fought like eight times between
the Garden and the theater, mostly in the theater. You
have Shushu Carrington who's from Brooklyn, so you got the
Puerto Rican fighter and Zias who will bring that crowd.
You got Bruce Shushu Carrington who comes from Brooklyn. He'll
bring his fans. He'll be fighting at the Garden. I
want to say, like for the this will be his
this fourth fight in a row at the theater or no,
I'm sorry, Dezigner's eyes is fourth fight in a row
at the theater. And for for Shushue, you know it'll
be like his eighth or ninth fight in the theater.
That's a place that's been a home to him, so
they'll do a crowd there. But he's taking on a
fighter named Mattias Hasha from the African coastal nation of Namibia.
You drop a little geography lesson on the playoff. He look,
I mean, I'm cynical about this. I love Bruce Shushu
Carrington as a fighter. He's a very good prospect. He's
exciting to watch. He's got a tremendous personality. We've had
him on the podcast. Good dude, this is such a sham.
I can't help but say any other word. He's getting
a title shot quote on quote is for an interim
WBC title, which is basically because Fulton is the champion,
but he's going to be probably fighting at one thirty,
so in essence, they're filling the vacancy before it becomes vacant.
You know if he happens to win or loses and
decides to stay at one hundred and thirty. It's the
same thing that happened with Navarette, who ended up losing
and coming back down to one thirty, coming back down
to one thirty when he lost at the one thirty
five title. About Carrington has no resume to speak of,
and the opponent he's facing is all the way down, like,
I don't know, fourteenth or something in the.
Speaker 1: Dow has no business fighting for an interim titles.
Speaker 2: He's fought every single one of his fights in Namibia,
and one fight other than that was in Zimbabwe or
you know whatever, not Zimbabwe in the Yeah, in Zimbabwe,
he's fourteen and oh against fourteen. Nobody's all in a
country that's not known for big time boxing. Now, they've
produced some world champions over the years, but nobody that's
going to be on the tip of your tongue or
in the Hall of Fame run. So this is just
a complete setup and you know, we'll see, but it's
they're going to get him a belt, and they've been
trying to do this for a while and Xander is
in a real fight though in the main event, against
Forge Garcia. If you watch the recent fight that where
Hey Garcia fought against Charles Conwell, where Conwa was a
big favorite, but Garcia really did a tremendous job in
that fight.
Speaker 3: One.
Speaker 2: You know, he's won eight fights in a row and
it's coming off the biggest fight of his career and
that was a split decision. But I felt like it
was a split decision that he most definitely deserved against
Conwell handed him his first loss that was back in April.
So he'll come into this fight not off some crazy
long layoff or anything like that. This is a tough
fight for Xanders Ice. Obviously he's gonna be the favorite
of the crowd and probably on the odds as well.
But this is what they've worked for. I mean, it's
like the comment that Bob Aram said when they made
then announcement to fight. They signed Top Rank signed Xander's
Ice when he was sixteen years old. He didn't turn
professional until he was seventeen years He's now grown in.
You know, he's still obviously a very young fighter. He's
only twenty two years old, but he's taking his time.
They've built him up. He's got twenty one fights They've
done everything that they can do. They've given him different
kinds of styles. He's fought like former champion and Tacieda.
He's fought different styles, different sizes, whatever. Now's time to
see what.
Speaker 3: He can do. At twenty two.
Speaker 2: He's not he's still young, but he's been a pro
for now quite a while, and this is the opportunity.
Speaker 1: And again we'll have more time to talk about this
because the fights a couple months away. The guy he's
fighting is the guy that upset Charles Conwell. I just
said that then they had been angling for Conwell to
be that guy. But this is a really tailor made
for Zias.
Speaker 2: This was supposed to be Xander's eyes against Fondora. That
was the mandatory fight. He was on board, their team
was ready to do it. They were negotiating, and it
was Fondora's team that opted to not do the fight
and take the Tim Zoo rematch, so he got stripped
of the title. So Zius was ready to do the
Fundora fight, so they stripped him and so the next
guy up was Jorgey Garcia coming off that win against Conwell.
So this is a good I feel like there's a
good fight now the other aspect of this is not
anybody's press release, But you can't hide from the truth
this fight on July twenty six unless there's some kind
of miracle reprieve. This is the last Top Rank event
with ESPN after seven after doing all their events with
them since twenty seventeen. They kicked off in July twenty
seventeen with Many Paco against Jeff Warren, and this is
where all of the content for Top Rank has been
for all those years, and as unless they're doing the
greatest job of hiding anything besides what I'm about to say,
they've done a tremendous job of hiding it because right
now Top Rank, to my knowledge and other reporting I
have seen, they do not have a deal at the
moment going forward for any future fights with a platform.
Speaker 1: My understanding from talking to somebody with ESPN is they
told Top Ranked months ago that we're not renewing. That's it.
They've done the same thing with Major League Baseball. They've
done the same thing with Formula one. They're trying to
restructure what they're doing now, as you just qualified it,
Does that mean that the two sides could not come
back and do something at a later I don't know.
I just I just know with somebody that I talked
to you earlier this year, we'll see.
Speaker 2: But that's also as one person that's involved in the
whole situation has said to me. And again I'm not
saying this is happening or this is a done deal
or anything like that. It is not out of the
realm of possibility at all from what I was told
that even if they don't do a new long term
deal with them or whatever the case may be, for
them to go forward with some events on an event
by event basis, for you know, maybe a couple of
events later the summer, beyond the expiration of the contract
and see how things go. Possible, we'll see if Top
Rank secure as a deal before then, and hopefully it
doesn't come to that.
Speaker 3: I just know.
Speaker 2: The Top Rank there's a reason they've been one of
the top promoters, if not the top promoter for many
many decades. They produce more world champions and superstar fighters
than probably anybody in the history of boxing as a
promotional entity, and that includes Don King. I mean, they
have produced one superstar after another. I mean, maybe it
hasn't it's been a little while since they've had a
big pay per view star but they've got a tremendous
amount of islent right now still on the roster in
terms of their younger fighters. They still have good quality contenders.
There's a good chance they pick up another couple of
title holders on this car July twenty six, with Zaias
and with Carrington, and I would never count them out
by one.
Speaker 1: More news it, I mean, you did talk about the
scary situation with Jinchiro Shigioka after he is you know,
suffered in the IBF Strawway title fight, collapsing in the
ring after the fight was over with. There is an
update on shiga Yoka's condition from Japan after that title
fight over the weekend. Go ahead with the latest.
Speaker 2: So he did have brain surgery to relieve the swelling
and the pressure on his brain. That was something that
was announced by the Japanese Boxing Commission. They said that
he was you know, you know that he had suffered
acute subdurolhematoma, which is bleeding on the brain, which is
basically if a fighter dies from a fight, that's the
reason like ninety nine percent of the time. But he
was alive and he was in intensive care and so
it was his his brother, whose name is you Die
shig Yoka, who is the former WBC Straway champion. They
both were champions in the same division. And now he
posted in Japanese on his Instagram, which I was able to, like,
you know, cut and paste it and run it through
the translator to see what was up. Basically, he said
that they're through the most difficult part of what's been happening.
But the biggest takeaway from what he wrote was a
pretty extensive comment. I actually posted the entire English text
of it in my notebook that's on my substack right now.
But the main thing was he said that his brother
is no longer on a respirator, that he's able to
breathe on his own, which is definitely a good sign.
So he, you know, his quote again translated from the
Japanese into the translator. At first he needed a respirator,
but now he can breathe on his own, and other
indicators also show improvement. He can get through the next
three or four days, the doctor will be able to
tell us, you know, more about the next step, and
that they appreciate everybody's support and well wishes. And you know,
he said, look, My brother is a fighter. He's never
going to give up, and you know, hopefully he's okay.
Obviously his career is over as a boxer, but the
main thing is hopefully, you know he can go on
and have a fruitful life beyond the ring and beyond
this injury.
Speaker 1: Well said. All right, so again we've given you a
bunch in the recap of the Japanese fights midweek, the
preview of the Caleb Plant main event, and that PBC
on Prime Video cards some news. We say to you,
go find the big fight weeke in YouTube page for
the nostalgia. We keep pushing you there for the nostalgia.
You'll love it. See what we look like. You're going
to be talking about Johnny Tapia, a humongous fan favorite,
big time personality out of New Mexico right at the time,
and fought a bunch in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, Johnny Tapia
lived a tormented life with drugs and drug abuse and
actually died thirteen years ago earlier this week, on May
twenty seventh. I know you've got a lot to say
about Johnny Tappian. We encourage them to go find the
YouTube page where you and I are engaged there where
you're waxing about him and about what he meant, and
about your interactions being around him and him fighting those demons,
and it's been well documented. They did a documentary about him,
the whole bit about trying to fight the drugs and
the drug abuse.
Speaker 2: Right amazing. Though he didn't die from the drug abuse.
I mean he technically he didn't drive from an overdose,
which I think most people assumed at that moment, but
it was heart failure apparently now maybe it was brought
on by the years of abuse. It wasn't specifically because
he oedeed.
Speaker 1: All right, So find out more about Johnny Tappy, his
career and his life and why we think so. Finally,
of the great fights that he gave as well, even
all these years later there on the Big Fight Weekend
YouTube page. With that you and I this the first
time I mentioned it will reconvene on the bet Us
Boxing Show on their platforms live at one Eastern time
on Friday, So whenever you're hearing this pod, find us
at one Eastern time or even after the fact on
bet US's YouTube page. The other platforms will be predicting
and handicapping away on the Caleb Plant main event and
even the Jamal Charlo co features. So we'll do that
on bet us and we will come off off the
weekend with a recap of whatever happens in that fight
card and then all the other fight news as well
anything else. Are we good? I believe that we are.
Thank you for finding us on the pod feed, Subscribe
on Apple, Spreakers, Spotify, rate and review us. That helps
us out as well. If you enjoy the content and
go find the YouTube as well, subscribe there, hit the
like button be engaged with all the different unique content
that is there. For now, for Dan Rayphiel, I'm merely
TJ Reeves. You've been with us on the Big Fight
Weekend preview