May 16, 2025 • 35 mins
A boxing weekend that began with disappointment ultimately delivered one of the year's most thrilling fights. Fritz and Franco take you through the entire spectrum of emotions that fight fans experienced over this packed weekend of action.
The Times Square card failed to ignite any real excitement despite featuring names like Devin Haney, who appeared hesitant throughout his victory, and Ryan Garcia, whose defensive limitations were exposed in his loss to the equally controversial Rolly Romero. Neither contest provided the fireworks expected from such high-profile matchups.
Saturday's Saudi Arabia event reached a new low with William Skull's embarrassing performance against Canelo Alvarez. Skull's strategy consisted almost entirely of running away, literally throwing his hands up and retreating whenever Canelo approached. The hosts don't hold back their contempt for this display, questioning how the IBF could possibly have made this their mandatory title challenge. Even the Saudi promoters couldn't hide their disgust, with Turki Alalshikh unceremoniously dismissing Skull from the ring after the fight.
The weekend was salvaged on Sunday when Naoya "The Monster" Inoue demonstrated why he's considered one of boxing's premier attractions. Despite suffering a knockdown in the second round against the game Ramon Cardenas, Inoue mounted a spectacular comeback featuring punishing body work that culminated in an eighth-round TKO. The co-main between Espinoza and Vasquez delivered consistent action as well, with Vasquez showing tremendous heart before the referee's merciful stoppage.
Join the hosts as they celebrate fighters like Inoue and Jaime Munguia, who showed impressive growth in his rematch victory, while calling out the sport's disappointments. They also address the problematic commentary that continues to plague boxing broadcasts, with Joe Tessitore receiving particular criticism for his hyperbolic reactions to punches that didn't even land.
Want more unfiltered boxing talk that cuts through the hype? Subscribe, leave a review, and join Fritz and Franco each time they break down the best in boxing... with a sense of humor.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
welcome to punches and punchlines, where we break
down the best in boxing with asense of humor.
And now your hosts, fritz andfranco welcome back everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Thanks for joining us again this episode of punches
and punchlines.
Thanks for listening, thanksfor subscribing.
We have a lot of boxing tocover, franco from one weekend,
and some of it is good.
So, um, we're gonna save thebest for last.
We're gonna wade through sometrash.
There's a couple bright spotsalong the way, and then we'll
end on a high note.
(00:44):
From that Sunday of Cinco deMayo weekend.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, the weekend was like my love life.
For it it was awful andterrible and it hurt a lot, but
then at the end we foundhappiness and and at the end of
the day, that's all that matters.
But that's definitely how theweekend went.
But, yeah, let's go on aheadand wade through all of it and
show how we finally found truelove they tell us all the time
(01:09):
you can't play boxing.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
We prove them wrong every episode with the segment
called playing boxing.
If you're new to the program,thanks for joining us.
This segment's brought to youby the people over at zipix
toothpickscom.
Go over there, enter the code,punch 10.
They will give you 10 off your.
You can help you stop smoking.
It's a delicious toothpick.
Save a few years on your life,so it's not a bad deal.
(01:31):
Franco, this boxing weekend thatwe're going to cover started on
that Friday in Times Square.
All right, it wasn't at MadisonSquare Garden, it wasn't at the
Barclays Center, it wasoutdoors, and I think that's
because they didn't want tostink in the building.
All right, they had to let thisjust out in the streets where
it could air out a lot faster.
(01:52):
I didn't see any joy in now.
Granted, I didn't watch everysecond of it, but nothing
watching the replays made mewish I had.
It made me joy that I didn'tpay for this crap.
It was Devin Haney versus JoseRamirez.
All right, haney looked sotimid in this fight.
There was more fire from hisdad afterwards for people saying
(02:14):
he looked timid than Haneyshowed at all during this fight.
I don't give a shit what BillHaney has to say.
His boy looks scared and,granted, this is his first time
coming back after just gettingknocked down and beaten up in
what was the first loss of hiscareer.
And then he sued to have itremoved.
So I agreed that ryan was acheater, so I'm glad that he
(02:36):
didn't get to keep the win.
And then tiafema lopez was onthat card as well.
He was way better than barboza.
There wasn't anything in thatfight that I was like, oh, this
is great, I'm, it was more justokay, it was.
You know, the hot and cold thatwe get with tiafema lopez is
just exhausting.
Where you're just like, allright, which one are we going to
(02:56):
get this time?
And this time around we got theokay tiafema, not the guy who
fought Josh Taylor and came outgangbusters.
You got the guy that was like,yeah, it's in New York, it's
outside, I'm just going to gofor a stroll.
You know he acted like he wasout at Central Park for a walk.
I thought it was fine, allright.
And then my last thought thatI'll give you Ryan Garcia versus
(03:18):
Raleigh Romero.
I wasn't rooting for either oneof these.
You got one guy who is aconfirmed cheater.
All right, he got busted fortaking, you know, I think it was
38 000 performance enhancingdrugs and allegedly, and another
guy that's just been accused ofbeing a scumbag.
So that's part of the reason whyI didn't want to rush and get
(03:42):
in front of my tv and pay forthis, because I'm like I don't
want to give money to a cheaterand a scumbag.
And I'm glad I didn't, becauseRyan looked timid in this one
too.
You know he got knocked down.
Romero has a decent right hand,but that's all he's got and he
still managed a one arm.
Romero was able to beat RyanGarcia, so I don't know where
the hell he goes from here.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, you know, with this fight, I thought, with that
main event, I thought that itwas going to be a lose lose
situation for us, where it's twopeople that I absolutely cannot
stand, like the two boxers thatI despise the most fighting
against each other.
Who do you root for?
You know, I joked last episodea double knockout.
I think we might have gottenthe best case where not only did
(04:23):
Ryan lose because he couldn'ttake his performance enhancing
drugs, this time allegedly buthe lost to Raleigh Romero, whose
luster has already been lostfrom previous fights.
So you're fighting againstsomebody who doesn't have the
drawing power and then, on topof that, it just kind of
solidified that your defensesucks.
(04:44):
He still still has power, he'sstill super fast.
But just watching this fight,as much as I hate raleigh romero
, he was moving, he was weaving.
You could see his head movingaround, he was stepping back and
ryan was just keeping his headon the line.
He hasn't fixed anything.
He's still got that one strongshot that he relies on.
But if they're waiting for that, nothing's going to happen, and
(05:08):
so it was like his game planwas like oh, I'm gonna try a
left hook.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Oh, that didn't work.
Uh, maybe a left hook.
Oh, he was ready for that one.
You know what?
I'm gonna try, uh, a left hook,that that, that was his game
plan.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Oh, and then the other thing that I forgot about.
So I'm saying how much I hateRaleigh Romero, I completely
forgot one of the things thatgot me to hate him before I ever
heard him ever speak in aninterview or speak after a fight
.
Oh, yeah.
Oh my God, it was like EricCartman choking on a chicken
(05:43):
wing up there.
It was so effing annoying and Iforgot about it.
And so, man, it was justhorrible.
It was boring.
The only fun thing was seeingRyan get knocked down, but then
I wanted to see Raleigh getknocked down.
I just wanted to see them bothjust keep knocking each other
out until their careers wereended.
I do not like these dudes.
I think that they had to relyon a gimmick like oh, we're in
(06:07):
Times Square because of theweekend and because you're going
up against two of the biggestnames in boxing.
But Ryan Garcia, I feel likehis name still has some kind of
power, some kind of draw.
It's almost like Jake Paul orsomething, where it's just such
a gimmicky joke at this pointbecause they have such a big
social media following that Ryanended up getting pushed to the
(06:28):
moon before he was ready for it.
I don't think he was mentallyready for it.
I don't think defensively hewas able for it.
Hopefully he just goes away now.
I don't ever have to seeanother Ryan Garcia fight, but
he's worth too much money.
So I know we're going to seehim again.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I just don't know what they do with him next.
Yeah, without a doubt I.
I know that I went through thethree fights on that card.
Uh, did you?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
have any.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Any, you know like I feel like I went a little long,
so if you had any thoughts on onhaney versus ramirez, tfmo
versus barboza, I apologize oh,no, no, uh, I had nothing to add
because.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
so, for anybody who might have missed the weekend of
fights there, there was aspecial with DAZN where you
could order the Ryan Garciafight for like 20 or $30 more on
top of the Canelo fight, and Ididn't pay it.
I was like it could be $5 moreand I'm not going to pay because
I know that they're going toget money from it.
(07:23):
It's kind of like not shoppingat Walmart or protesting Target
like people are doing.
I kind of felt the same wayabout this one where I was like
I don't want either one of themto get my money.
But if I wait and I'm patient,I know I'll be able to see the
full fight other ways.
But that was the only one that Iwatched and it looks like it
was a good decision.
I don't think there were anyknockouts on the night.
(07:52):
Maybe it was too chilly intimes square, but it was a bunch
of unanimous decisions, justlong drawn out fights, I don't
know, and there were big nameson this card, but it still
wasn't enough for me to be ableto pull the trigger.
For what?
Two value meals at mcdonald'slike exactly so.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
That led us into saturday, where I went in with
high hopes, franco and I sat.
I sat down and I watched thefirst fight on the very first
fight, and that ended up beinggood.
I didn't take too many notes,but I was like, all right, this
is fun.
And then I thought to myself oh,I only have maybe an hour left
to sunshine, I'm gonna go snag acouple bass.
(08:23):
So I did that.
I snagged a couple bass andthen I came in in time for now.
Did you enjoy any part of thefa jogba versus martin piccoli?
Speaker 1 (08:33):
uh, you mean, besides him walking out the dude who
walked him out, who walked outfa jogba?
It looked like where's waldocombined with shaba Ranks.
Do you remember Shaba Ranks forit?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I can't remember it because I don't know that I've
ever known it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
It was a bad 90s rap, slash reggae, nonsense Like
Informer, like Snow, but blackOkay, like not a white Canadian
dude.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Oh wonderful.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I don't know, it wasn't a bad fight.
It wasn't a bad fight.
I thought that they took alittle bit long to get started.
I thought it was fine.
I don't know if I got burnedout, because I did watch the
entire card, like from the verybeginning, and I kept waiting.
I'm like this is a big card.
This is Terrence T, budCrawford and Saul Canelo Alvarez
(09:21):
Like the asshole the nightbefore, and all these big names
yeah it just it kept beingpeople that I had never, ever
heard of in my life.
It started getting a little bitlong, like the night started
getting a little bit long.
So by the time that fight rollaround, uh, I was like half
awake, half asleep.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Um, just for our listeners, it's not anything you
would have to go back and watch.
We watched FAA jog, but fight,fight.
And we've seen really good fa ajogba.
We've seen really shitty fa ajogba.
All right, I stood next to himin the lobby at the virgin hotel
in las vegas and the dude is agigantic monster, all right.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
So many boxers have you stood next to in?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
vegas.
Him and jared anderson were inthe lobby okay yeah and uh.
I was like, oh, my god, theseare big human beings.
All right, so I was rooting forhim in this a little bit, but
neither one of these dudes mademe think like, oh, I can't wait
to see them on.
Uh, on another card.
I was like, all right, theywere both boring and a jog about
(10:22):
.
The only way he could win wasby moving.
All right, so he, he did moveand I thought he did enough to
win.
So take your notebook out rightnow and write down.
I don't hate somebody that'sgoing to move, because later on
I'm going to have somecomplaints about it.
But in this fight, his only wayhe was going to be able to win
was to kind of move around,because piccoli came in looking
(10:43):
like the Goodyear Blimp or theyou know Michelin man.
He did not look in shape, so hewas just trying to.
You know, land bombs.
A jogger was smart enough tonot just stand there and trade
with them, so they ended upbeing a draw where I was like
all right, well, I'm glad I uhglad I made it back in for this
one.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Let me ask you this.
So this fight was in SaudiArabia.
Like I said in the last episode, I was worried about a Canelo
fight or even a Canelo cardbeing in Saudi Arabia.
So there's a lot of Mexicanfighters.
It sounded like there was adecent Mexican contingent there,
but this did not feel like abig fight night and even during
the Bacoli fight fight it waslike half empty.
(11:25):
It felt like we were watchingthe espn covet bubble or
something right.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
it was really a weird vibe for this one I have a
feeling that, uh, turkey, Ishall leak, or what.
Uh, I'm probably saying hisname wrong, as people came back
like you were given tickets andyou're like, all right, you're
mexican, all right, so you'recheering for this guy, this guy
and this guy it depended on whatsection you had, and you know
(11:49):
90 of the remia was givenmexican tickets.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
So like like medieval times with boxing exactly
exactly what they did.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Now that fight led into a much better fight where
it was the rematch of JaimeMaguia versus Bruno Saras.
Jaime Maguia was coming backoff of his the first knockout of
his career, getting knocked out.
When it started as slow asJaime Maguia was going, I was
nervous that that's how it wasgoing to continue.
But he got a little morecomfortable as the Browns went
(12:23):
on and then you could see him gomore to his offense but was
staying much more responsibledefensively where he was having
his way with Saras in the firstone, but got laxed on his
defense and Saras landed thatperfect shot.
They always say that puncher'schance and that ended the first
fight.
Munguia was smart enough andlistened to his trainers and did
(12:46):
not that let that happen inthis one and was just a much
better fighter.
What made me laugh was sarascomes in with shorts that were
like pulled up just under hisnipples, all right, and at one
point munguia gets called for alow blow that was above the
belly button, like that's sureit was below the belt, but the
belt was right below his nipple,so it's like the ref needed to.
(13:09):
You know, make that clear earlythat, hey, this whole area in
here is fine to see somebodypunch somebody above the belly
button and still get called fora low blow Made me laugh.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, sir us.
I don't know if you've ever seenlike when wrestlers supposedly
have like an injury to their uhabdomen absolutely and they've
wrapped themselves up like allthe way up with just bandages,
like that's doing something like, oh, now I can go in and
wrestle.
Uh, that's kind of what itlooked like.
It really was way too high.
But I was so happy like I likeJaime Munguia and to see him
(13:43):
have Ryan Garcia levels ofdefense.
In the past that was not thecase.
He had his hands up, he wasmoving a little bit better, but
then when he unloaded and wouldstart just letting off these
flurries it was, it was like yes, like this is what we've been
waiting for.
It was nice.
It was nice to see him makethose adjustments and grow as a
boxer.
We talk about every fight likeit's the first and last fight.
(14:06):
It's nice when boxers showgrowth, when and especially when
it's like younger guys I'm inMunguia looked good in this
fight.
I was.
I was happy about it.
But yeah, strauss in the in theshorts, he looked like an 80
year old man out there wearingthem that high.
It was a little bit ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
It was.
You know what I loved aboutthis fight too.
I don't know whether younoticed this, but at the
post-fight interview, jaimemcgea had his translator and the
translator took notes and then,while jaime mcgea was talking,
and then read it back and thenactually was taking notes and
actually giving a full quote ofwhat the guy had to say.
(14:44):
I'd never seen that before Aguy actually.
I mean, he looked like he waswriting, maybe shorthand or
whatever, but he was deliveringwhat was said instead of just oh
, this.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I'm going to sum it up for you, you know as somebody
who has translated tons oftimes for meetings and
presentations and speeches andall sorts of stuff, I have never
thought to do that and it'sfucking genius, Like why
wouldn't you do that?
And I appreciate that it is,but never in the last 44, almost
(15:16):
45 years of my life have I everthought I should write this
down and then just read it andtranslate it as I'm going.
It's genius and you know whatMore.
There are certain things boxingneeds for it.
We need to see the scores afterevery round.
We need instant replayeverywhere, just in case there's
some shenanigans, but maybewith some rules.
And then, yeah, guys that writeshit down before they translate
(15:40):
it, so that they don't justwing it and give some crappy,
half-assed answer.
Absolutely love it and less.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Joe Tessitore.
So after that Munguia fight, itwent into Badu Jack versus
Mikaelian.
All right, that's how you saidthis dude's name was McAlien.
It sounds like a toy you get ina Happy Meal McAlien.
I was like, are they saying hisname wrong?
But no, they kept saying it.
And here's what I'll say aboutthis Badu Jack's 41.
(16:10):
It's still fun.
Mcalien had like an awkwardstyle, so it made it a decent
fight.
But what I couldn't get my eyesoff of is, while the fight's
going on, turkey was right therein front row.
I get it.
It's his event.
He paid all the monies.
He gets front row.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
But he's standing up.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I think I know what you're going to say, just
talking to a dude in a redt-shirt and like half the fight
he's just standing there talkingDude.
If I had the seats behind him Iwould be probably decapitated
right now, because I'd be likesit your ass down, you piece of
shit.
You know, like I just paid 40million drachma for these seats
I don't know what kind of moneythat is, but I paid over $100
(16:51):
American for these seats.
You better sit your ass down,like that shit was driving me
crazy where I almost was, youknow, distracted from the fight
Cause I just thought that wasrude.
I don't care who you are, itjust sit down and let other
people watch the fight.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
You know what I think the first time that I ever saw
that was when WWE went over toSaudi Arabia and it's like oh,
wow, they're having a majorsporting event like in the
middle East.
This, you know, we haven'treally seen this before and when
(17:24):
I watched it that's what droveme insane that, like the first
couple sections of people, theybasically they had tables set up
for that event and nobody waspaying attention, like you would
have thought that they were ata piano bar and like oh yeah,
yeah, there's something going onbehind me.
I'm kind of of listening.
Why are you there?
Yeah, be off camera orsomething, but it looks so bad.
Same thing applies here.
Like that's cool, if you havesomething else that you got to
(17:45):
do, you're an important person,I get it.
Go, do it off camera.
You do not need to do it oncamera, but it is fair to say,
we've seen that a lot where Ifeel like boxing productions in
general don't pay attention towho they're putting there and so
you'll have some chick on hercell phone or some dude that's,
you know, texting his friends orwhatever.
(18:06):
It's just a bad look to havethose people there if they paid
cool that's perfectly okay.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
You're doing that in your seat.
I don't, I don't even care.
But to just stand up, not evenfacing the ring, talking to the
people in the row behind you,and it driving me nuts.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
It's like sit down or get out of the way and he
didn't pay for that seat, like Imean I guess he did by holding
the promotion he's, but he'smaking money off of it if, if
you're a non-paying person, theyneed to put those people
somewhere else.
You're so-and-so's girlfriendor whatever.
Have her off to the side andwhen she reacts, move the camera
to her over there.
But he doesn't have to be oncamera if he's not going to be
(18:43):
paying attention.
It's disrespectful and, to behonest, you know what?
Badu Jack, 41, almost the sameage as me and the way that dude
was going everybody should havebeen paying attention Like the
fact that he could move.
I hurt getting out of bed andthis dude was moving around the
ring with his fringe, dancingaround on the side of his shorts
.
It was glorious and you knowwhat Representation is important
(19:09):
for it in television.
It was nice to see a fellow40-something-year-old in there
still doing it.
He still got it.
Was it the greatest fight ever?
No, but it was still impressiveto see badu jack moving and the
way that he still does rightand it was way better than the
main event.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
I don't even want to spend too, much time on this
main event, franco?
No, because it was such aletdown.
I now hate william skull morethan I hate ryan romero.
All right, that's uh when youmash ryan garcia and rolando
romero together and make uh ryanromero I think that's illegal
(19:44):
yeah, I, I hate william skulleven more than that guy.
Like we talked about movement,fine move if it's the other
fighter's job to cut off thering, but this is the first time
I've ever seen somebodyliterally run like high tail it
and get out of there.
It was such a bad showing andthe fact that skull even thought
(20:04):
that he was winning makes mewant to see him Never box again.
I hate his face just for theshitty performance he put on.
If styles make fights, franco,this was a platform shoes and
leisure suits like just so outof style bullshit.
I hate it.
I hope he's wearing someflammable shit and you know he
(20:27):
has to wander the desert for therest of his life because he
should not box again.
It was an embarrassment.
And the fact that he keptshaking his hand after he had
landed two jabs in a round fuckyou, dude.
It was such an embarrassment.
And you know what?
Uh, I'll give another.
Fuck you to the ibf for makingthis the mandatory.
Yes, eat shit like I love thatthe ibf enforces a mandatory,
(20:51):
but how the how this guy becamethe top guy the mandatory is
unforgivable.
It was garbage.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
I fell asleep twice during this fight and then had
to rewind and thinking maybesomething happened, maybe
there's a part where it getsdangerous.
He wasn't just running, soCanelo would try to cut off the
ring and then would just lungeat him and dude would literally
throw both hands up in the airand jump backwards like a scared
(21:20):
cat.
It was so ridiculous.
This was such a horrible fightand the only thing that made me
feel even slightly validated washow upset everybody was.
Like forget social media,forget the fans.
Canelo was upset, the promoterswere upset.
Turkey what's his face?
He, after the fight, he hadlike the special belt or
(21:41):
whatever to present thisridiculous belt and it was super
awkward.
But he literally he told Skulland his people he's like get out
of the ring and then presentedthe belt.
But it was awkward, it wasweird, it was giving like the,
the rich kid who buys hisfriends.
Nobody wanted to be there.
(22:02):
Canelo hated the fight.
All of it was just such a shitshow and so terrible that by the
time I was done actuallyforcing myself to watch it, I
forgot it was even Cinco de Mayoweekend, like.
Like I was so upset by thewhole thing.
The crowd sucked for a Canelofight.
The ring walk was not great.
Who?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
was the guy that was the ring walk, because I just
thought he looked like a Latino,patton Oswalt.
I was like he walked out byPatton Oswalt.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
It was Luis Conriquez .
Okay, it's a singer, is thatSpanish?
Speaker 2 (22:37):
for Patton Oswalt.
Yeah, yes, it is Because hedefinitely looked like Patton.
I was expecting him to do thetirade about Star Wars and the
Marvel thing for Parks and Rec.
That would have been at leastsome entertainment for that
night.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
That actually made me smile when I saw that this
fight.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I just sat there with a grumpy face the entire time.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
It was so bad entertainment for that night, so
that that actually made mesmile.
When I saw that, uh, this fight, I just sat there with a grumpy
face the entire time.
It was so bad.
I hope, and it looks like uhcanelo's going to be fighting
terence crawford on september12th.
Thank you sorry, uh.
Yeah, he's going to be fightingt-bud next, so at least this
led to something, and it soundslike it's not going to be in
saudi arabia, so hopefully thathelps the situation as well.
It's going to be in SaudiArabia, so hopefully that helps
the situation as well.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
It's going to be in Las Vegas pending, but yeah, it
looks like it's going to be inLas Vegas, which will be a joy.
Let's move on to a joy, francowhere we had Espinoza versus
Vasquez.
All right, that was the co-mainevent from top rank on Sunday,
and that was Espinoza is thetallest featherweight champion
in history.
All right, that was the co-mainevent from top rank on Sunday,
and that was Espinoza is thetallest featherweight champion
(23:39):
in history.
All right, this was just such awonderful fight, especially
after coming off of watching andhating William Skull more and
more by the second.
It reminded me like oh, this iswhy I love boxing.
This was such a good fight.
And I was like, oh, and this isjust the co-main event.
I'm like this is absolute fun.
So anybody that has an espnsubscription, make sure you find
(24:01):
the nioya anyway versuscardenas.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Um, you said it right the first time cardenas well
they kept saying cardenas in thefight.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
So it looks like cardenas, but they kept saying
cardenas.
So I'm gonna go with youbecause I'd love to disagree
with joe Tessitore any chance Iget.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, if anything, that's borderline offensive the
way he was saying it.
He's a piece of shit and theyshould drag him out back and
beat him with sticks.
Yeah, the Espinoza Vasquezfight.
He was not freakishly tall,just way taller.
But it wasn't like.
You know, when you seesebastian fundora you're like,
oh, I think there's somethingwrong with your tv.
(24:39):
This one he was tall.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
It didn't look cartoonishly tall over the other
six foot one and 126 pounds ispretty crazy.
You know what I mean.
That's.
There's a reason why he's thetallest ever to hold that belt.
The dude is it's an absolutemonster.
I thought this should have beenstopped in like the fifth round,
where cardenas was just tootough for his own good, you know
(25:02):
.
Or, um, vasquez was for his owngood, yeah, he was just taking
a beating but seemed likeunfazed by it, almost like cool
hand luke, where he's like no,you're gonna have to kill me.
Where finally, in the seventh,they did wave it off and I I was
relieved for vasquez, ecstaticfor espinoza, because I became
(25:22):
enough of a fan of vasquez from,just from the heart he was
showing he was having a littlebit of success early, but then
that faded quick.
He didn't stop trying.
You know he didn't go all right.
Well, I'm just going to make itthrough 12 and hope for the
best.
He kept trying and just did notend up being the better man
that day.
He took the loss but put on anawesome fight.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, if anything, it was just impressive that he
didn't get knocked out becausehe wasn't throwing a lot of
punches.
He was definitely taking a shitton of punches, but he
definitely wasn't throwing a lot.
But when he would, it's like,oh, maybe one of those catches
espinoza off guard, launches himoff of his mountain, but uh,
but never happened and then thatled us into the fight of the
(26:04):
weekend.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
We kind of hinted at it in our preview in our last
episode that this was going tobe just a joy, and it was nioya
inouye versus cardenas.
What was uh cardenas first name?
Do you uh ramon, ramon cardenas?
but he says ramon, like thatramon scored a knockdown, you
(26:25):
know, put anyway on the mat inthe second.
This is second fight in a row,or two out of the last three.
Yeah, something now that thatanyway has hit the mat.
But to his credit it wasn'tlike this thunderous knockdown.
It was a little more than aflash knockdown, but not like a
crazy where his marbles werescrambled if that makes any
sense.
(26:45):
It was kind of that in between,where he waited and watched the
ref count, didn't just springback up like, oh no, I'm fine.
He took the time that wasallotted to him and then stood
up and was ready to fight.
I thought even like that thirdround I was like this is
probably still going to cardenas, but that might be where I just
stopped giving any rounds tocardenas because, uh, after that
(27:08):
it was uh like all anyway.
What I didn't understand too inthis, like I know, I bitch
about joe testator, but in thisone, when cardenas was missing
shots, he was like oh, and lookat that, what's the shot that
didn't land?
Yep, stop it, you asshole.
Your stupid call is making thisfight less.
You know like it's the samestuff that used to drive me
(27:30):
crazy.
Any white socks fan out therewould know like early on hawk
harrelson was was cute.
It was like fine, but then itbecame more about him than the
sport and that's when it stoppedbeing cute.
You know, like when he calledmark burley's perfect game and
just kept screaming and yellinginstead of letting mark have his
moment, he made sure that itwas about him.
(27:52):
And that's what I think joetessitores does is just loves to
hear himself talk.
He has zero volume control andwas just going crazy on punches
that didn't even land.
So I was like is he trolling me?
What the fuck is he doing?
He's actually screaming about apunch that was thrown.
Yeah, it looked like it wouldhave caused damage if it landed
(28:14):
anywhere.
Didn't even land on the arms,it was a swing and miss, an
absolute fucking whiff and theguy loses his mind.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, I felt like they were kind of rooting
against Inouye.
It felt like that Totally Fromthe beginning of the fight.
I even thought like you realizewhy you're making money right
now.
It's not Ramon Cardenas, it'sInouye.
Like what money right now?
It's not Ramon Cardenas, it'sInouye.
What are you doing?
You should be hyping your guyup a little bit better and they
(28:41):
were not and, to be honest, itwas super annoying.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
They did admit at one point that Ramon Cardenas was
part of the camp of TimBradley's old trainer or there
was some kind of connectionthere.
So that at least made a littlesense why Tim was a little
biased.
But he didn't go nearly as overthe edge as Joe Tessitore was,
(29:04):
where literally punches thatwere missing it was.
It was driving me nuts.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yeah, and I will say I do like when Tim Bradleyley he
almost lets you know when he'sbeing a homer like it would be
like oh, this is my boy.
Like, yeah, and so I almostforgive it a little bit.
It's like, oh, they're buddies.
Like I would be doing the samething if fritz was in the ring
I'd be like look at this manlyman up there like it makes a
little bit of sense.
But yeah, I thought Inouyelooked great.
I loved how he came back whenhe did get knocked down.
(29:31):
It looked like a little kidthat spilled his milk, Like he
was more upset with himself,Like, ah, I can't believe I did
that and you know, totally notgiving credit to Cardenas but I
thought it was good.
It was a great fight.
I thought Inouye looked greatand I thought Ramon Cardenas put
on a great show.
Like he built up his brand.
He has more value now.
(29:51):
I'd love to see this dude fightagain.
He kind of looks like a reallymuscular version of my barber.
Even though my barber isJordanian, he's not Mexican, but
like that thick beard and thenlike the tapered fade going up
the mid fade, I thought Ithought Cardenas look great.
Inouye is like hittinglegendary status.
(30:13):
Now he's up there as one of thegreatest boxers in the world
but and this was the importantthing Set himself apart from
Canelo, where it's like it's notjust that he's good, it's that
he's entertaining to.
Canelo could not catch hisfighter.
Inouye put it all out on theline line.
Even though he got knocked downand he caught one, he ended up
getting it back and made surethat cardenas paid.
(30:36):
So it was such a good fight andsuch a great ending to such a
horrible long weekend of boxingnow there was a knock that
inouye scored his firstknockdown in the seventh.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
yeah, he was attacking high, attacking low,
attacking in between, like itwas incredible.
And then he gets the, the tkoin the eight.
But I want you to rewind justto the sixth round, where I
don't speak japanese, uh and I Iknow that you don't either, but
it feels like his corner maybesaid let me see how many body
punches you can land this roundand really just scramble this
(31:09):
guy's innards.
Because there was so many bodyshots in that round that I was
like this this dude might fall,this might be a body shot
knockout, like it was likespring break in Cancun, like
that many body shots werehappening.
Like it was, you know, like like, uh, my buddy Chad laying on
the bar in Wisconsin for bodyshots.
(31:30):
Like it was so crazy the amountof body shots so I maybe before
next episode, I learned tospeak Japanese.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
It was all cuss words , it turns out.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
That's all yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Like yelling out racial slurs.
You're like hey guys, no, don'tworry, Nobody speaks Japanese
anyway.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
If you don't have, I don't know, do you have anything
else to add on the anywayversus Cardenas fight.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
He's must watch boxing.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Uh yeah, go back, watch it on your ESPN app.
It's was absolute joy.
Just go to the main card,because the two fights are right
there and both of them areworth watching, especially if
you already have ESPN.
Now, franco, I'm giving youanother chance to get off the
mat on trivia here.
All right, so this is what Igot in honor of my new, least
(32:21):
favorite boxer on planet Earth,william the Runner Skull.
Roadrunner Skull.
This was his first loss when hefought Canelo.
Sorry, we all had to lose whilehe did too, but here are the
people he has beat.
List of four.
Please tell me who.
He did not defeat All right.
We got Sean Hemphill, DraganLePay, Wilson Fisk or Ivan Sokic
(32:45):
.
I'm going to go.
Dragan LePay, Dragan LePay, hedid defeat.
Ah that is not a real name.
Wilson Fisk is the kingpin,franco.
Oh, god damn it.
He cannot beat the kingpinBecause when he tried to run he
would just break his leg and thefight would be over.
(33:07):
So I'll get another one readyfor you next episode and for
anybody out there.
I don't think we're going to bemissing much.
I think we're going to be offfor a few weeks until caleb
plant is on prime video, notfighting charlo, but charlo's on
that card too.
Uh, there'll be a few thingsbetween now and then that I'll
(33:29):
pay attention to, and if there'sanything to cover, we will
definitely come back.
But probably the next timeyou'll expect an episode is
after that may 31st fight withcaleb plant.
Uh, return to the ring.
Did you see anything beforebetween now and then?
That would demand our attention.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
No, not really.
I saw some highlights of somerandom stuff, but also, just on
a quick note to if there'sanybody out there that runs
boxing pages specifically for,like, the big brands like Top
Rank and for DAZN, stop postingold shit, please, for the love
of God.
Start promoting the fightersthat you currently have.
(34:07):
Like, stop living in the heydayof boxing and it's good to
sprinkle it in every once in awhile but promote the fights.
There's so many fights that aregoing on, and maybe there's a
diamond in the rough and I'm notgoing to tune into it because
you're showing me Manny Pacquiaoversus whoever it's.
Just, they need to startpromoting this stuff a little
(34:29):
bit better.
On the other hand, theypromoted the hell out of Ryan
Garcia and Canelo, and that wasa big wet turd anyway.
So, yeah, not much that I'veseen since then.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Oh, just a quick mention because I know both of
us are big fans of Lee Wood, theman, the myth, the perm.
He came back just this pastweekend, took a loss, but,
franco, it was.
The exact reason why we likehim is that he just kept coming
forward, he did not try, he didnot stop trying and finally his
(35:00):
corner threw in the towel wherehe was just taking a beating.
He has zero quit in the dude.
So if lee wood ever boxed herein the States, I would go buy a
ticket because the dude is justfun and he's got the heart of a
goddamn lion.
So shout out to Lee wood Sorryyou lost, but you haven't lost a
fan on this side of the pondbecause you are a good boxer.
(35:20):
I want to thank everybody forlistening.
Thanks for subscribing.
Tell a friend, uh, write areview.
All those things will help.
We definitely appreciate it.
Thanks to Franco for doing allthe real work behind the scenes.
And you don't have anythingelse, franco, I'm throwing in
the towel.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Thank you for listening to Punches and
Punchlines.
Make sure to like, subscribeand follow and we'll see you
next week when we break down thebest in boxing with a sense of
humor.
welcome to punches and punchlines, where we break
down the best in boxing with asense of humor.
And now your hosts, fritz andfranco welcome back everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Thanks for joining us again this episode of punches
and punchlines.
Thanks for listening, thanksfor subscribing.
We have a lot of boxing tocover, franco from one weekend,
and some of it is good.
So, um, we're gonna save thebest for last.
We're gonna wade through sometrash.
There's a couple bright spotsalong the way, and then we'll
end on a high note.
(00:44):
From that Sunday of Cinco deMayo weekend.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, the weekend was like my love life.
For it it was awful andterrible and it hurt a lot, but
then at the end we foundhappiness and and at the end of
the day, that's all that matters.
But that's definitely how theweekend went.
But, yeah, let's go on aheadand wade through all of it and
show how we finally found truelove they tell us all the time
(01:09):
you can't play boxing.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
We prove them wrong every episode with the segment
called playing boxing.
If you're new to the program,thanks for joining us.
This segment's brought to youby the people over at zipix
toothpickscom.
Go over there, enter the code,punch 10.
They will give you 10 off your.
You can help you stop smoking.
It's a delicious toothpick.
Save a few years on your life,so it's not a bad deal.
(01:31):
Franco, this boxing weekend thatwe're going to cover started on
that Friday in Times Square.
All right, it wasn't at MadisonSquare Garden, it wasn't at the
Barclays Center, it wasoutdoors, and I think that's
because they didn't want tostink in the building.
All right, they had to let thisjust out in the streets where
it could air out a lot faster.
(01:52):
I didn't see any joy in now.
Granted, I didn't watch everysecond of it, but nothing
watching the replays made mewish I had.
It made me joy that I didn'tpay for this crap.
It was Devin Haney versus JoseRamirez.
All right, haney looked sotimid in this fight.
There was more fire from hisdad afterwards for people saying
(02:14):
he looked timid than Haneyshowed at all during this fight.
I don't give a shit what BillHaney has to say.
His boy looks scared and,granted, this is his first time
coming back after just gettingknocked down and beaten up in
what was the first loss of hiscareer.
And then he sued to have itremoved.
So I agreed that ryan was acheater, so I'm glad that he
(02:36):
didn't get to keep the win.
And then tiafema lopez was onthat card as well.
He was way better than barboza.
There wasn't anything in thatfight that I was like, oh, this
is great, I'm, it was more justokay, it was.
You know, the hot and cold thatwe get with tiafema lopez is
just exhausting.
Where you're just like, allright, which one are we going to
(02:56):
get this time?
And this time around we got theokay tiafema, not the guy who
fought Josh Taylor and came outgangbusters.
You got the guy that was like,yeah, it's in New York, it's
outside, I'm just going to gofor a stroll.
You know he acted like he wasout at Central Park for a walk.
I thought it was fine, allright.
And then my last thought thatI'll give you Ryan Garcia versus
(03:18):
Raleigh Romero.
I wasn't rooting for either oneof these.
You got one guy who is aconfirmed cheater.
All right, he got busted fortaking, you know, I think it was
38 000 performance enhancingdrugs and allegedly, and another
guy that's just been accused ofbeing a scumbag.
So that's part of the reason whyI didn't want to rush and get
(03:42):
in front of my tv and pay forthis, because I'm like I don't
want to give money to a cheaterand a scumbag.
And I'm glad I didn't, becauseRyan looked timid in this one
too.
You know he got knocked down.
Romero has a decent right hand,but that's all he's got and he
still managed a one arm.
Romero was able to beat RyanGarcia, so I don't know where
the hell he goes from here.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, you know, with this fight, I thought, with that
main event, I thought that itwas going to be a lose lose
situation for us, where it's twopeople that I absolutely cannot
stand, like the two boxers thatI despise the most fighting
against each other.
Who do you root for?
You know, I joked last episodea double knockout.
I think we might have gottenthe best case where not only did
(04:23):
Ryan lose because he couldn'ttake his performance enhancing
drugs, this time allegedly buthe lost to Raleigh Romero, whose
luster has already been lostfrom previous fights.
So you're fighting againstsomebody who doesn't have the
drawing power and then, on topof that, it just kind of
solidified that your defensesucks.
(04:44):
He still still has power, he'sstill super fast.
But just watching this fight,as much as I hate raleigh romero
, he was moving, he was weaving.
You could see his head movingaround, he was stepping back and
ryan was just keeping his headon the line.
He hasn't fixed anything.
He's still got that one strongshot that he relies on.
But if they're waiting for that, nothing's going to happen, and
(05:08):
so it was like his game planwas like oh, I'm gonna try a
left hook.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Oh, that didn't work.
Uh, maybe a left hook.
Oh, he was ready for that one.
You know what?
I'm gonna try, uh, a left hook,that that, that was his game
plan.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Oh, and then the other thing that I forgot about.
So I'm saying how much I hateRaleigh Romero, I completely
forgot one of the things thatgot me to hate him before I ever
heard him ever speak in aninterview or speak after a fight
.
Oh, yeah.
Oh my God, it was like EricCartman choking on a chicken
(05:43):
wing up there.
It was so effing annoying and Iforgot about it.
And so, man, it was justhorrible.
It was boring.
The only fun thing was seeingRyan get knocked down, but then
I wanted to see Raleigh getknocked down.
I just wanted to see them bothjust keep knocking each other
out until their careers wereended.
I do not like these dudes.
I think that they had to relyon a gimmick like oh, we're in
(06:07):
Times Square because of theweekend and because you're going
up against two of the biggestnames in boxing.
But Ryan Garcia, I feel likehis name still has some kind of
power, some kind of draw.
It's almost like Jake Paul orsomething, where it's just such
a gimmicky joke at this pointbecause they have such a big
social media following that Ryanended up getting pushed to the
(06:28):
moon before he was ready for it.
I don't think he was mentallyready for it.
I don't think defensively hewas able for it.
Hopefully he just goes away now.
I don't ever have to seeanother Ryan Garcia fight, but
he's worth too much money.
So I know we're going to seehim again.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I just don't know what they do with him next.
Yeah, without a doubt I.
I know that I went through thethree fights on that card.
Uh, did you?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
have any.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Any, you know like I feel like I went a little long,
so if you had any thoughts on onhaney versus ramirez, tfmo
versus barboza, I apologize oh,no, no, uh, I had nothing to add
because.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
so, for anybody who might have missed the weekend of
fights there, there was aspecial with DAZN where you
could order the Ryan Garciafight for like 20 or $30 more on
top of the Canelo fight, and Ididn't pay it.
I was like it could be $5 moreand I'm not going to pay because
I know that they're going toget money from it.
(07:23):
It's kind of like not shoppingat Walmart or protesting Target
like people are doing.
I kind of felt the same wayabout this one where I was like
I don't want either one of themto get my money.
But if I wait and I'm patient,I know I'll be able to see the
full fight other ways.
But that was the only one that Iwatched and it looks like it
was a good decision.
I don't think there were anyknockouts on the night.
(07:52):
Maybe it was too chilly intimes square, but it was a bunch
of unanimous decisions, justlong drawn out fights, I don't
know, and there were big nameson this card, but it still
wasn't enough for me to be ableto pull the trigger.
For what?
Two value meals at mcdonald'slike exactly so.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
That led us into saturday, where I went in with
high hopes, franco and I sat.
I sat down and I watched thefirst fight on the very first
fight, and that ended up beinggood.
I didn't take too many notes,but I was like, all right, this
is fun.
And then I thought to myself oh,I only have maybe an hour left
to sunshine, I'm gonna go snag acouple bass.
(08:23):
So I did that.
I snagged a couple bass andthen I came in in time for now.
Did you enjoy any part of thefa jogba versus martin piccoli?
Speaker 1 (08:33):
uh, you mean, besides him walking out the dude who
walked him out, who walked outfa jogba?
It looked like where's waldocombined with shaba Ranks.
Do you remember Shaba Ranks forit?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I can't remember it because I don't know that I've
ever known it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
It was a bad 90s rap, slash reggae, nonsense Like
Informer, like Snow, but blackOkay, like not a white Canadian
dude.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Oh wonderful.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I don't know, it wasn't a bad fight.
It wasn't a bad fight.
I thought that they took alittle bit long to get started.
I thought it was fine.
I don't know if I got burnedout, because I did watch the
entire card, like from the verybeginning, and I kept waiting.
I'm like this is a big card.
This is Terrence T, budCrawford and Saul Canelo Alvarez
(09:21):
Like the asshole the nightbefore, and all these big names
yeah it just it kept beingpeople that I had never, ever
heard of in my life.
It started getting a little bitlong, like the night started
getting a little bit long.
So by the time that fight rollaround, uh, I was like half
awake, half asleep.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Um, just for our listeners, it's not anything you
would have to go back and watch.
We watched FAA jog, but fight,fight.
And we've seen really good fa ajogba.
We've seen really shitty fa ajogba.
All right, I stood next to himin the lobby at the virgin hotel
in las vegas and the dude is agigantic monster, all right.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
So many boxers have you stood next to in?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
vegas.
Him and jared anderson were inthe lobby okay yeah and uh.
I was like, oh, my god, theseare big human beings.
All right, so I was rooting forhim in this a little bit, but
neither one of these dudes mademe think like, oh, I can't wait
to see them on.
Uh, on another card.
I was like, all right, theywere both boring and a jog about
(10:22):
.
The only way he could win wasby moving.
All right, so he, he did moveand I thought he did enough to
win.
So take your notebook out rightnow and write down.
I don't hate somebody that'sgoing to move, because later on
I'm going to have somecomplaints about it.
But in this fight, his only wayhe was going to be able to win
was to kind of move around,because piccoli came in looking
(10:43):
like the Goodyear Blimp or theyou know Michelin man.
He did not look in shape, so hewas just trying to.
You know, land bombs.
A jogger was smart enough tonot just stand there and trade
with them, so they ended upbeing a draw where I was like
all right, well, I'm glad I uhglad I made it back in for this
one.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Let me ask you this.
So this fight was in SaudiArabia.
Like I said in the last episode, I was worried about a Canelo
fight or even a Canelo cardbeing in Saudi Arabia.
So there's a lot of Mexicanfighters.
It sounded like there was adecent Mexican contingent there,
but this did not feel like abig fight night and even during
the Bacoli fight fight it waslike half empty.
(11:25):
It felt like we were watchingthe espn covet bubble or
something right.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
it was really a weird vibe for this one I have a
feeling that, uh, turkey, Ishall leak, or what.
Uh, I'm probably saying hisname wrong, as people came back
like you were given tickets andyou're like, all right, you're
mexican, all right, so you'recheering for this guy, this guy
and this guy it depended on whatsection you had, and you know
(11:49):
90 of the remia was givenmexican tickets.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
So like like medieval times with boxing exactly
exactly what they did.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Now that fight led into a much better fight where
it was the rematch of JaimeMaguia versus Bruno Saras.
Jaime Maguia was coming backoff of his the first knockout of
his career, getting knocked out.
When it started as slow asJaime Maguia was going, I was
nervous that that's how it wasgoing to continue.
But he got a little morecomfortable as the Browns went
(12:23):
on and then you could see him gomore to his offense but was
staying much more responsibledefensively where he was having
his way with Saras in the firstone, but got laxed on his
defense and Saras landed thatperfect shot.
They always say that puncher'schance and that ended the first
fight.
Munguia was smart enough andlistened to his trainers and did
(12:46):
not that let that happen inthis one and was just a much
better fighter.
What made me laugh was sarascomes in with shorts that were
like pulled up just under hisnipples, all right, and at one
point munguia gets called for alow blow that was above the
belly button, like that's sureit was below the belt, but the
belt was right below his nipple,so it's like the ref needed to.
(13:09):
You know, make that clear earlythat, hey, this whole area in
here is fine to see somebodypunch somebody above the belly
button and still get called fora low blow Made me laugh.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, sir us.
I don't know if you've ever seenlike when wrestlers supposedly
have like an injury to their uhabdomen absolutely and they've
wrapped themselves up like allthe way up with just bandages,
like that's doing something like, oh, now I can go in and
wrestle.
Uh, that's kind of what itlooked like.
It really was way too high.
But I was so happy like I likeJaime Munguia and to see him
(13:43):
have Ryan Garcia levels ofdefense.
In the past that was not thecase.
He had his hands up, he wasmoving a little bit better, but
then when he unloaded and wouldstart just letting off these
flurries it was, it was like yes, like this is what we've been
waiting for.
It was nice.
It was nice to see him makethose adjustments and grow as a
boxer.
We talk about every fight likeit's the first and last fight.
(14:06):
It's nice when boxers showgrowth, when and especially when
it's like younger guys I'm inMunguia looked good in this
fight.
I was.
I was happy about it.
But yeah, strauss in the in theshorts, he looked like an 80
year old man out there wearingthem that high.
It was a little bit ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
It was.
You know what I loved aboutthis fight too.
I don't know whether younoticed this, but at the
post-fight interview, jaimemcgea had his translator and the
translator took notes and then,while jaime mcgea was talking,
and then read it back and thenactually was taking notes and
actually giving a full quote ofwhat the guy had to say.
(14:44):
I'd never seen that before Aguy actually.
I mean, he looked like he waswriting, maybe shorthand or
whatever, but he was deliveringwhat was said instead of just oh
, this.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I'm going to sum it up for you, you know as somebody
who has translated tons oftimes for meetings and
presentations and speeches andall sorts of stuff, I have never
thought to do that and it'sfucking genius, Like why
wouldn't you do that?
And I appreciate that it is,but never in the last 44, almost
(15:16):
45 years of my life have I everthought I should write this
down and then just read it andtranslate it as I'm going.
It's genius and you know whatMore.
There are certain things boxingneeds for it.
We need to see the scores afterevery round.
We need instant replayeverywhere, just in case there's
some shenanigans, but maybewith some rules.
And then, yeah, guys that writeshit down before they translate
(15:40):
it, so that they don't justwing it and give some crappy,
half-assed answer.
Absolutely love it and less.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Joe Tessitore.
So after that Munguia fight, itwent into Badu Jack versus
Mikaelian.
All right, that's how you saidthis dude's name was McAlien.
It sounds like a toy you get ina Happy Meal McAlien.
I was like, are they saying hisname wrong?
But no, they kept saying it.
And here's what I'll say aboutthis Badu Jack's 41.
(16:10):
It's still fun.
Mcalien had like an awkwardstyle, so it made it a decent
fight.
But what I couldn't get my eyesoff of is, while the fight's
going on, turkey was right therein front row.
I get it.
It's his event.
He paid all the monies.
He gets front row.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
But he's standing up.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I think I know what you're going to say, just
talking to a dude in a redt-shirt and like half the fight
he's just standing there talkingDude.
If I had the seats behind him Iwould be probably decapitated
right now, because I'd be likesit your ass down, you piece of
shit.
You know, like I just paid 40million drachma for these seats
I don't know what kind of moneythat is, but I paid over $100
(16:51):
American for these seats.
You better sit your ass down,like that shit was driving me
crazy where I almost was, youknow, distracted from the fight
Cause I just thought that wasrude.
I don't care who you are, itjust sit down and let other
people watch the fight.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
You know what I think the first time that I ever saw
that was when WWE went over toSaudi Arabia and it's like oh,
wow, they're having a majorsporting event like in the
middle East.
This, you know, we haven'treally seen this before and when
(17:24):
I watched it that's what droveme insane that, like the first
couple sections of people, theybasically they had tables set up
for that event and nobody waspaying attention, like you would
have thought that they were ata piano bar and like oh yeah,
yeah, there's something going onbehind me.
I'm kind of of listening.
Why are you there?
Yeah, be off camera orsomething, but it looks so bad.
Same thing applies here.
Like that's cool, if you havesomething else that you got to
(17:45):
do, you're an important person,I get it.
Go, do it off camera.
You do not need to do it oncamera, but it is fair to say,
we've seen that a lot where Ifeel like boxing productions in
general don't pay attention towho they're putting there and so
you'll have some chick on hercell phone or some dude that's,
you know, texting his friends orwhatever.
(18:06):
It's just a bad look to havethose people there if they paid
cool that's perfectly okay.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
You're doing that in your seat.
I don't, I don't even care.
But to just stand up, not evenfacing the ring, talking to the
people in the row behind you,and it driving me nuts.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
It's like sit down or get out of the way and he
didn't pay for that seat, like Imean I guess he did by holding
the promotion he's, but he'smaking money off of it if, if
you're a non-paying person, theyneed to put those people
somewhere else.
You're so-and-so's girlfriendor whatever.
Have her off to the side andwhen she reacts, move the camera
to her over there.
But he doesn't have to be oncamera if he's not going to be
(18:43):
paying attention.
It's disrespectful and, to behonest, you know what?
Badu Jack, 41, almost the sameage as me and the way that dude
was going everybody should havebeen paying attention Like the
fact that he could move.
I hurt getting out of bed andthis dude was moving around the
ring with his fringe, dancingaround on the side of his shorts
.
It was glorious and you knowwhat Representation is important
(19:09):
for it in television.
It was nice to see a fellow40-something-year-old in there
still doing it.
He still got it.
Was it the greatest fight ever?
No, but it was still impressiveto see badu jack moving and the
way that he still does rightand it was way better than the
main event.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
I don't even want to spend too, much time on this
main event, franco?
No, because it was such aletdown.
I now hate william skull morethan I hate ryan romero.
All right, that's uh when youmash ryan garcia and rolando
romero together and make uh ryanromero I think that's illegal
(19:44):
yeah, I, I hate william skulleven more than that guy.
Like we talked about movement,fine move if it's the other
fighter's job to cut off thering, but this is the first time
I've ever seen somebodyliterally run like high tail it
and get out of there.
It was such a bad showing andthe fact that skull even thought
(20:04):
that he was winning makes mewant to see him Never box again.
I hate his face just for theshitty performance he put on.
If styles make fights, franco,this was a platform shoes and
leisure suits like just so outof style bullshit.
I hate it.
I hope he's wearing someflammable shit and you know he
(20:27):
has to wander the desert for therest of his life because he
should not box again.
It was an embarrassment.
And the fact that he keptshaking his hand after he had
landed two jabs in a round fuckyou, dude.
It was such an embarrassment.
And you know what?
Uh, I'll give another.
Fuck you to the ibf for makingthis the mandatory.
Yes, eat shit like I love thatthe ibf enforces a mandatory,
(20:51):
but how the how this guy becamethe top guy the mandatory is
unforgivable.
It was garbage.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
I fell asleep twice during this fight and then had
to rewind and thinking maybesomething happened, maybe
there's a part where it getsdangerous.
He wasn't just running, soCanelo would try to cut off the
ring and then would just lungeat him and dude would literally
throw both hands up in the airand jump backwards like a scared
(21:20):
cat.
It was so ridiculous.
This was such a horrible fightand the only thing that made me
feel even slightly validated washow upset everybody was.
Like forget social media,forget the fans.
Canelo was upset, the promoterswere upset.
Turkey what's his face?
He, after the fight, he hadlike the special belt or
(21:41):
whatever to present thisridiculous belt and it was super
awkward.
But he literally he told Skulland his people he's like get out
of the ring and then presentedthe belt.
But it was awkward, it wasweird, it was giving like the,
the rich kid who buys hisfriends.
Nobody wanted to be there.
(22:02):
Canelo hated the fight.
All of it was just such a shitshow and so terrible that by the
time I was done actuallyforcing myself to watch it, I
forgot it was even Cinco de Mayoweekend, like.
Like I was so upset by thewhole thing.
The crowd sucked for a Canelofight.
The ring walk was not great.
Who?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
was the guy that was the ring walk, because I just
thought he looked like a Latino,patton Oswalt.
I was like he walked out byPatton Oswalt.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
It was Luis Conriquez .
Okay, it's a singer, is thatSpanish?
Speaker 2 (22:37):
for Patton Oswalt.
Yeah, yes, it is Because hedefinitely looked like Patton.
I was expecting him to do thetirade about Star Wars and the
Marvel thing for Parks and Rec.
That would have been at leastsome entertainment for that
night.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
That actually made me smile when I saw that this
fight.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I just sat there with a grumpy face the entire time.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
It was so bad entertainment for that night, so
that that actually made mesmile.
When I saw that, uh, this fight, I just sat there with a grumpy
face the entire time.
It was so bad.
I hope, and it looks like uhcanelo's going to be fighting
terence crawford on september12th.
Thank you sorry, uh.
Yeah, he's going to be fightingt-bud next, so at least this
led to something, and it soundslike it's not going to be in
saudi arabia, so hopefully thathelps the situation as well.
It's going to be in SaudiArabia, so hopefully that helps
the situation as well.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
It's going to be in Las Vegas pending, but yeah, it
looks like it's going to be inLas Vegas, which will be a joy.
Let's move on to a joy, francowhere we had Espinoza versus
Vasquez.
All right, that was the co-mainevent from top rank on Sunday,
and that was Espinoza is thetallest featherweight champion
in history.
All right, that was the co-mainevent from top rank on Sunday,
and that was Espinoza is thetallest featherweight champion
(23:39):
in history.
All right, this was just such awonderful fight, especially
after coming off of watching andhating William Skull more and
more by the second.
It reminded me like oh, this iswhy I love boxing.
This was such a good fight.
And I was like, oh, and this isjust the co-main event.
I'm like this is absolute fun.
So anybody that has an espnsubscription, make sure you find
(24:01):
the nioya anyway versuscardenas.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Um, you said it right the first time cardenas well
they kept saying cardenas in thefight.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
So it looks like cardenas, but they kept saying
cardenas.
So I'm gonna go with youbecause I'd love to disagree
with joe Tessitore any chance Iget.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, if anything, that's borderline offensive the
way he was saying it.
He's a piece of shit and theyshould drag him out back and
beat him with sticks.
Yeah, the Espinoza Vasquezfight.
He was not freakishly tall,just way taller.
But it wasn't like.
You know, when you seesebastian fundora you're like,
oh, I think there's somethingwrong with your tv.
(24:39):
This one he was tall.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
It didn't look cartoonishly tall over the other
six foot one and 126 pounds ispretty crazy.
You know what I mean.
That's.
There's a reason why he's thetallest ever to hold that belt.
The dude is it's an absolutemonster.
I thought this should have beenstopped in like the fifth round,
where cardenas was just tootough for his own good, you know
(25:02):
.
Or, um, vasquez was for his owngood, yeah, he was just taking
a beating but seemed likeunfazed by it, almost like cool
hand luke, where he's like no,you're gonna have to kill me.
Where finally, in the seventh,they did wave it off and I I was
relieved for vasquez, ecstaticfor espinoza, because I became
(25:22):
enough of a fan of vasquez from,just from the heart he was
showing he was having a littlebit of success early, but then
that faded quick.
He didn't stop trying.
You know he didn't go all right.
Well, I'm just going to make itthrough 12 and hope for the
best.
He kept trying and just did notend up being the better man
that day.
He took the loss but put on anawesome fight.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, if anything, it was just impressive that he
didn't get knocked out becausehe wasn't throwing a lot of
punches.
He was definitely taking a shitton of punches, but he
definitely wasn't throwing a lot.
But when he would, it's like,oh, maybe one of those catches
espinoza off guard, launches himoff of his mountain, but uh,
but never happened and then thatled us into the fight of the
(26:04):
weekend.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
We kind of hinted at it in our preview in our last
episode that this was going tobe just a joy, and it was nioya
inouye versus cardenas.
What was uh cardenas first name?
Do you uh ramon, ramon cardenas?
but he says ramon, like thatramon scored a knockdown, you
(26:25):
know, put anyway on the mat inthe second.
This is second fight in a row,or two out of the last three.
Yeah, something now that thatanyway has hit the mat.
But to his credit it wasn'tlike this thunderous knockdown.
It was a little more than aflash knockdown, but not like a
crazy where his marbles werescrambled if that makes any
sense.
(26:45):
It was kind of that in between,where he waited and watched the
ref count, didn't just springback up like, oh no, I'm fine.
He took the time that wasallotted to him and then stood
up and was ready to fight.
I thought even like that thirdround I was like this is
probably still going to cardenas, but that might be where I just
stopped giving any rounds tocardenas because, uh, after that
(27:08):
it was uh like all anyway.
What I didn't understand too inthis, like I know, I bitch
about joe testator, but in thisone, when cardenas was missing
shots, he was like oh, and lookat that, what's the shot that
didn't land?
Yep, stop it, you asshole.
Your stupid call is making thisfight less.
You know like it's the samestuff that used to drive me
(27:30):
crazy.
Any white socks fan out therewould know like early on hawk
harrelson was was cute.
It was like fine, but then itbecame more about him than the
sport and that's when it stoppedbeing cute.
You know, like when he calledmark burley's perfect game and
just kept screaming and yellinginstead of letting mark have his
moment, he made sure that itwas about him.
(27:52):
And that's what I think joetessitores does is just loves to
hear himself talk.
He has zero volume control andwas just going crazy on punches
that didn't even land.
So I was like is he trolling me?
What the fuck is he doing?
He's actually screaming about apunch that was thrown.
Yeah, it looked like it wouldhave caused damage if it landed
(28:14):
anywhere.
Didn't even land on the arms,it was a swing and miss, an
absolute fucking whiff and theguy loses his mind.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, I felt like they were kind of rooting
against Inouye.
It felt like that Totally Fromthe beginning of the fight.
I even thought like you realizewhy you're making money right
now.
It's not Ramon Cardenas, it'sInouye.
Like what money right now?
It's not Ramon Cardenas, it'sInouye.
What are you doing?
You should be hyping your guyup a little bit better and they
(28:41):
were not and, to be honest, itwas super annoying.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
They did admit at one point that Ramon Cardenas was
part of the camp of TimBradley's old trainer or there
was some kind of connectionthere.
So that at least made a littlesense why Tim was a little
biased.
But he didn't go nearly as overthe edge as Joe Tessitore was,
(29:04):
where literally punches thatwere missing it was.
It was driving me nuts.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yeah, and I will say I do like when Tim Bradleyley he
almost lets you know when he'sbeing a homer like it would be
like oh, this is my boy.
Like, yeah, and so I almostforgive it a little bit.
It's like, oh, they're buddies.
Like I would be doing the samething if fritz was in the ring
I'd be like look at this manlyman up there like it makes a
little bit of sense.
But yeah, I thought Inouyelooked great.
I loved how he came back whenhe did get knocked down.
(29:31):
It looked like a little kidthat spilled his milk, Like he
was more upset with himself,Like, ah, I can't believe I did
that and you know, totally notgiving credit to Cardenas but I
thought it was good.
It was a great fight.
I thought Inouye looked greatand I thought Ramon Cardenas put
on a great show.
Like he built up his brand.
He has more value now.
(29:51):
I'd love to see this dude fightagain.
He kind of looks like a reallymuscular version of my barber.
Even though my barber isJordanian, he's not Mexican, but
like that thick beard and thenlike the tapered fade going up
the mid fade, I thought Ithought Cardenas look great.
Inouye is like hittinglegendary status.
(30:13):
Now he's up there as one of thegreatest boxers in the world
but and this was the importantthing Set himself apart from
Canelo, where it's like it's notjust that he's good, it's that
he's entertaining to.
Canelo could not catch hisfighter.
Inouye put it all out on theline line.
Even though he got knocked downand he caught one, he ended up
getting it back and made surethat cardenas paid.
(30:36):
So it was such a good fight andsuch a great ending to such a
horrible long weekend of boxingnow there was a knock that
inouye scored his firstknockdown in the seventh.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
yeah, he was attacking high, attacking low,
attacking in between, like itwas incredible.
And then he gets the, the tkoin the eight.
But I want you to rewind justto the sixth round, where I
don't speak japanese, uh and I Iknow that you don't either, but
it feels like his corner maybesaid let me see how many body
punches you can land this roundand really just scramble this
(31:09):
guy's innards.
Because there was so many bodyshots in that round that I was
like this this dude might fall,this might be a body shot
knockout, like it was likespring break in Cancun, like
that many body shots werehappening.
Like it was, you know, like like, uh, my buddy Chad laying on
the bar in Wisconsin for bodyshots.
(31:30):
Like it was so crazy the amountof body shots so I maybe before
next episode, I learned tospeak Japanese.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
It was all cuss words , it turns out.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
That's all yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Like yelling out racial slurs.
You're like hey guys, no, don'tworry, Nobody speaks Japanese
anyway.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
If you don't have, I don't know, do you have anything
else to add on the anywayversus Cardenas fight.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
He's must watch boxing.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Uh yeah, go back, watch it on your ESPN app.
It's was absolute joy.
Just go to the main card,because the two fights are right
there and both of them areworth watching, especially if
you already have ESPN.
Now, franco, I'm giving youanother chance to get off the
mat on trivia here.
All right, so this is what Igot in honor of my new, least
(32:21):
favorite boxer on planet Earth,william the Runner Skull.
Roadrunner Skull.
This was his first loss when hefought Canelo.
Sorry, we all had to lose whilehe did too, but here are the
people he has beat.
List of four.
Please tell me who.
He did not defeat All right.
We got Sean Hemphill, DraganLePay, Wilson Fisk or Ivan Sokic
(32:45):
.
I'm going to go.
Dragan LePay, Dragan LePay, hedid defeat.
Ah that is not a real name.
Wilson Fisk is the kingpin,franco.
Oh, god damn it.
He cannot beat the kingpinBecause when he tried to run he
would just break his leg and thefight would be over.
(33:07):
So I'll get another one readyfor you next episode and for
anybody out there.
I don't think we're going to bemissing much.
I think we're going to be offfor a few weeks until caleb
plant is on prime video, notfighting charlo, but charlo's on
that card too.
Uh, there'll be a few thingsbetween now and then that I'll
(33:29):
pay attention to, and if there'sanything to cover, we will
definitely come back.
But probably the next timeyou'll expect an episode is
after that may 31st fight withcaleb plant.
Uh, return to the ring.
Did you see anything beforebetween now and then?
That would demand our attention.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
No, not really.
I saw some highlights of somerandom stuff, but also, just on
a quick note to if there'sanybody out there that runs
boxing pages specifically for,like, the big brands like Top
Rank and for DAZN, stop postingold shit, please, for the love
of God.
Start promoting the fightersthat you currently have.
(34:07):
Like, stop living in the heydayof boxing and it's good to
sprinkle it in every once in awhile but promote the fights.
There's so many fights that aregoing on, and maybe there's a
diamond in the rough and I'm notgoing to tune into it because
you're showing me Manny Pacquiaoversus whoever it's.
Just, they need to startpromoting this stuff a little
(34:29):
bit better.
On the other hand, theypromoted the hell out of Ryan
Garcia and Canelo, and that wasa big wet turd anyway.
So, yeah, not much that I'veseen since then.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Oh, just a quick mention because I know both of
us are big fans of Lee Wood, theman, the myth, the perm.
He came back just this pastweekend, took a loss, but,
franco, it was.
The exact reason why we likehim is that he just kept coming
forward, he did not try, he didnot stop trying and finally his
(35:00):
corner threw in the towel wherehe was just taking a beating.
He has zero quit in the dude.
So if lee wood ever boxed herein the States, I would go buy a
ticket because the dude is justfun and he's got the heart of a
goddamn lion.
So shout out to Lee wood Sorryyou lost, but you haven't lost a
fan on this side of the pondbecause you are a good boxer.
(35:20):
I want to thank everybody forlistening.
Thanks for subscribing.
Tell a friend, uh, write areview.
All those things will help.
We definitely appreciate it.
Thanks to Franco for doing allthe real work behind the scenes.
And you don't have anythingelse, franco, I'm throwing in
the towel.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Thank you for listening to Punches and
Punchlines.
Make sure to like, subscribeand follow and we'll see you
next week when we break down thebest in boxing with a sense of
humor.
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