TMCP Ep 23: The Rise and Fall of Tank Davis

Jamieson and Classy are back for another fantastic episode where we blend boxing analysis and entertainment commentary. The duo discussed whether #TankDavis is causing his career irreparable damage by taking the bag to fight Jake Paul and what we might expect moving forward.

They also discussed the recent news of #TopRank's agreement with #Starz and how premium cable channels may get back into boxing broadcasting before broadening the conversation to address the future of combat sports on PPV. 

This week's Pop Pugilism segment featured: -Southpaw (2015) dir. Antoine Fuqua starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker & Rachel McAdams.

Watch the full episode here:    • The Mixed Company Podcast  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
In this corner standing it six foot five weight class
unknown hailing from Sin City, Las Vegas, Jamison Welch and
in this corner standing it five foot nine Wayne Town
with six wins.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Three losses, two arrests, four late.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Payments on student loans, and two total bankruptcies hits the classy.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I'll go home in.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Welcome back to another edition of the Mixed Company Podcast.
Of course, I'm one of our host Jamison Welsh, and
always I'm enjoined by the class all the classy.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
What's going on?

Speaker 4 (00:43):
Oh boy, Jamison, I am not happy today. We had
some news last week in between shows that has me
mortified at the state of professional boxing today. Just when
we're getting all hyped up for the Canelo Crawford match,
we have boxing's biggest joke swooping to embarrass the sport
yet again. And Tank Davis will be fighting Jake Paul
at an exhibition of course in November. Just a couple

(01:06):
episodes ago, we were talking about potentially what's next to
come for Tank, and I made it very clear that
if you fought Jake Paul, the man was dead to me.
So yeah, let's get into it. You know, I want
to get your thoughts on him signing up to this fight.
Tank fights at one thirty five Jake Paul's up to
two hundred pounds as a cruiserweight. You know, this to
me is absolutely ridiculous. Am I being dramatic? I'm exaggerating

(01:29):
what's going on here?

Speaker 3 (01:30):
No, you're not dramatic. It's more upsetting than anything. I
don't But here's the thing. I don't blame Tank as
crazy as aniles. I blame boxing for not having its
own house in order. I mean, you don't have your
own home in order. This is what happens when you
don't maximize the certain values of fights and certain things.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
This is what happens. You will allow this stuff to
take place.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Boxing has been its own worse enemy for the better
part of twenty five years.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Now.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
That being said, Tank Davis has been recorded saying, Hey,
I'm in this for the money. I don't care about
the legacy. He said it himself, like, I'm more interested
in making money than being some great, powerful pound all
time guy, he staid out of his mouth.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
So we gotta take that for what it is.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
However, we also have to understand that if someone's gonna
guarantee you fifty plus million dollars or one hundred million dollars.
I understand what he's doing. I don't like it, I
don't agree with it, but as long as boxing is
tripping over its own feet, this is what's gonna continue
to happen. Because if he gets a huge payday win

(02:40):
loser draw for exhibition, whoever else is next to gonna
do the same thing.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
For instance, win loser.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
Draw with Canelo in a couple weeks, if he gets
an offer for one hundred and fifty million to fight
Jake Parr whomever else, I can't falter for taking that
because boxing doesn't have his shit together and we keep
on giving by the past. We love it, but it's
too much inconsistencies, it's too much bs behind the scenes.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
And that has allowed this shit to happen. So it's
a lot of people's fault.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
It's upsetting, but I'm not happy.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
I'm not happy at all.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
I can understand everything that you're saying, and yes, boxing
as a sport as a business does have its issues
that are at fault here, but these guys are making
their own decisions, and Tank Davis has been one of
the more consistent stars lately. So the man is not
hurting for opportunities for cash. Yes, I get it, but
we have to have some standards here. We can't just like,

(03:38):
you know, just try to make this, try to legitimize
something like this every time when somebody just wants to
make a few bucks. You know, this is the greatest
sport in the world, God damn it, and it should
be treated as such. And Tank's legacy should have some
he should have some respect for his legacy instead of
doing this, instead of legitimizing this guy.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
That's what I have to say about it.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
So I've I think when boxing was covered differently, I
would agree with you. However, sports in general, especially boxing,
we do not appreciate people are undefeated. We find ways
to crack their resume and their legacy what it is
right now. We find ways to discredit guys right now.
So if you are undefeated and you've accomplished all that

(04:20):
Tank has accomplished to this point of his career, and
all you've heard is, oh, he hasn't fault this person.
Oh well he's in the wrong era. Oh well he
had knock out that person, And that's all you've heard,
instead of hearing a mixture of both praise and criticism.
I understand why guys like you know what, forget it,
I'm gonna do something different again. I do not like it.

(04:42):
I do not agree with it. But we don't celebrate
our athletes, and we definitely don't celebrate our boxers anymore.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
We do not.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
There was a time period when when you were undefeated,
you were celebrated as a champion.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
You were we love our champions.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Now we find any way to nitpick, criticize the all
on our champs. If you have any flaw that we
can make a case to where you should be this
or you should be that.

Speaker 5 (05:07):
We do it.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
And it's not fair. It's just how it goes.

Speaker 4 (05:10):
And I've always pushed back against fans who do that,
who always say, well, you haven't fought enough. Guys, you
fought nobody's you know, Yeah, you didn't have one hundred
percent knockout rating, one loss in you're a bump. I've
always hated that, And yeah, I think we are too
hard on our fighters, especially with you know, dude sitting
on a couch with their little twitter fingers who never
actually been in a boxing gym, never sparred, never been

(05:33):
in a fight.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
That's the one upsets me personally. But yeah, I mean,
I get this.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
Whole system is at fault here, but there's got to
be red lines, man, you know, to have a guy
that we have said Jake Paul skipped the line, didn't
actually put in work, you know, fighting at two pm
to get his name out there, traded on name recognition
for for showcases. You know, yes, he makes a lot
of money, but that can't be our only standard.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
And I feel that this is one of one of
the worst modern insults to the sport. I'll go ahead
and say it.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
You know, I know we we were upset with Keshan Davis,
you know, coming in, coming in Chunky, being disrepectful to
the fans, to the sport, and you know, with good reason.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
You know, I'm not saying that that was okay.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
But I think this is worse to be somebody like
Tank taking an easy payday again for a fight that's
not even a real fight one five versus what you know,
how low is Paul gonna go?

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Get to what I was thinking?

Speaker 4 (06:34):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's ridiculous. That's just absolutely ridiculous.
You know, it's the Dog and Pony Show. It's it's uh,
it's it's the cheapest. It's a talking monkey cartoon or
a talking baby cartoon that you know, shiny little keys
that you put in front of people.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
We gotta be better, man, We've got to be better.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
We do, but here's the issue, Like, here's the biggest issue.
When you're offering a certain amount of money that you
technically cannot pass up, it's very hard to be better.
But I think boxing could do that if we market
our sport better. We don't market the sport. We don't
do a good job of marketing it. They have dropped
the ball for all these years. The summer is a

(07:17):
dead zone when it comes to sports and content in general.
Every weekend from the beginning of spring break to the
end of summer should have a boxing match on regular
TV every weekend. We should be able to tune in
every Friday and or Saturday, say hey, such a fighting again,
let's take a look, and let's hop on whatever channel

(07:39):
is be able to watch that. We don't have that
no more. So, there's no anticipation, there's no buzz. I
give Floyd a lot of credit because he didn't know
how to market things, but also he created this monster
so it's tough man like. It's really upsetting because we
want to see boxer fight boxers. I want to see
Tank versus Report. I want to see Tank versus I

(08:00):
want to see Tank versus whomever's going to be the challenger. Uh,
And it's just not there anymore. Like it's we were
entering the very dangerous zone. When your spore can be compromised,
it's not good.

Speaker 4 (08:12):
Well, we're gonna have some conversations about the state of
boxing and paper view here in a bit. But at
the end of the day, speaking against specifically about Tank,
I said the words, God damn it. I said it
a couple episodes, and you know what I think, Yes,
he's doing this for the money. Yes, he's doing this
for the payday. I also think is because he's too
scared to fight Lamont roach again. Tank Davis, you are.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Dead to me. You're dead to me, and you are
ex communicado.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
I don't think he's afraid of fighting anyone. I just
think that if you have a fight where you can
make fifty plus million, you have a fight where you
can make fifteen, then you.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Take the fifty.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
Especially the way he's been, you know, acting out the
ring like its fight to fight with him because you
never know what might happen.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
So again, I don't think he's scared of any of
those guys.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
I think after he fights Shake Paul, I think he
probably gets in the ring of one of these guys, however,
being able to because here also, here's the thing, this
payday may not be.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Here for whatever reason in six months for something happens
to Jake Paul. Who knows. You just never know. So
I get I do not like it.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
But if you have a guaranteed fifty million dollars and
the year twenty twenty five, with everything going on, it'd
be very hard pressed.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
And I take it.

Speaker 4 (09:29):
I stand by my uh by my opinion about him
ducking Lamont roach. And you know you've made predictions on
the show with your whole chest to.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Come true both of the times.

Speaker 4 (09:37):
I'm gonna say he's gonna take he's gonna take the
Paul money, and he's gonna dip, and that's gonna be it.
That's gonna be the less to hear of him. I really,
that's what That's what I feel like. It's like, why
would you do this otherwise? Again, when you have opportunities,
when you have buzz and yeah, you know, forget forget
the Lamont roach rematch. If he didn't want to do that,

(09:57):
there's plenty of people that are still s There's all
kinds of people right right, there's buzz again.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
He's not hurting, you know, he's not.

Speaker 4 (10:07):
He's not like a David Benavide is getting duck by everybody.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
There's there's a chance for the ring. Yeah, so yeah,
that's how mean I think.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
Let me ask you, then let me ask so, when
this fight takes place, do you think that this can
make his value even higher because there's more non boxing
fans tuning in for the first time. Do you think
his buzz can be higher, his brand can be higher
where if he does fight after this one, it makes
his draw even bigger.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
I'm gonna say no, and here's why, because he's not
going to be the Tank that we all love in
that ring with somebody that's a cruiser weight.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
It's almost two hundred pounds.

Speaker 4 (10:42):
And then probably again there's gonna be a silent agreement
not to. I don't know that he could knock him
out because Tank is so much smaller, as much of
a knockout artist as he is at some point when
someone is just a bigger, beefier slab of meat. It's
just difficult.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
You know, it doesn't matter how skilled you are. Uh So,
I do not see, you know, the tank that we
all admired in the ring being the same tank that's
gonna show up in November.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
I don't think Jake Paul's are being hit by anyone
like this. When you have someone that has the power
of Tank, that's in their prime, that's not washed up
or not a non box or whatever, if it's a
real fight and Tank hits him, he's gonna he's gonna
drop like the man has power both hands.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
I don't I know the way difference is different.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
But when you get hit by one of those shots
and you're not use getting hit with those shots, it's
way different.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
It's true, true.

Speaker 4 (11:34):
And Tank also has the ring IQ to get in
right at the time to throw somebody else. Do With
Ryan Garcia, you know he knows exactly you know how
to hit the button and where and when.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
And the thing is like obviously you sparred boxing. I've
been around boxers, and I know a little bit when
you get hit in the place where you're not expecting
it and you're getting hit a certain with a certain
amount of power right on the screws.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
It don't matter your weight, size or whatever. You get
hit in the face or in the jaw with.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
A certain type of power, you're gonna crumble. And that's
gonna happen. So we'll see. I found I'm with you.
I don't know how to fight this is. I have
no idea what this is.

Speaker 4 (12:16):
And that's a fair point you just made, because yeah,
guys are bigger, guys are be frere, et cetera. But
also you're not made of anything different. You know, you're
still skit of boone so in muscle, so should still hurt.
So I can see that.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah, I I also don't want.

Speaker 4 (12:30):
Us to get into the trap that people say, Well,
I want to see you get pulled, Jake Paul knocked out.
I want to see him get put on the ground.
So I'm gonna watch this fight to get him, watch
him get his ass kicked. That's exactly what helps, you know,
bring more people into the shams, which is what they are.
And we can't play that game, you know. It's it's
he's setting the rules, that's his game. We can't be

(12:50):
there showing up thinking like, oh, yeah, he's gonna be embarrassed,
Like he wouldn't allow himself to be embarrassed right in
one of those showcases. Again, he's it's his game, his
promotion and whatever. You know, I have even no opinion
of that. All I'm saying is that there is a
particular brand, and he's gotten this far because he knows
how to work the brand.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
I don't even blame him as much.

Speaker 4 (13:13):
I blame Tank more than anything, like I said, But
that's that's just something we'll just have to talk about this.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
I'm not watching that shit. I don't know about you.
Are you actually going to tune in?

Speaker 3 (13:24):
I don't watch fake fights. I don't do preseason sports.
I don't do fake fights. I don't do that. Whatever
happens happens, But I'm not really I mean, it might
be on, but I'm not gonna be focused on that,
Like I'm not watching. It might be on the background,
but I don't watch or pay I'm talking on Netflix,
I guess, so don't pay for it.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
But I don't do fake fights.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
I don't do any of that. I don't partake in
the Tyson stuff anything Jake Paul. I don't really support
I don't do that.

Speaker 4 (13:50):
Excellent me either. So that's our statement for for this
particular fight. Weird did not participate, we will not watch,
and Tank Davis is ex communicado from the podcast. Moving
on to another topic, kind of on the same role
of you know what what the future of boxing is
going to be like? Financially speaking? You know rumors of
the top rank might sign a deal with premium cable

(14:12):
channel Stars with a Z. If you've never heard of it,
I don't blame you. They're a paid cable channel like
HBO or Showtime, but not as popular. They had one
big show called Power, which I've never seen, but they
were so happy to have a hit. They gave that
bitch like three spinoffs, maybe four, something like.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
That, and most of them have been pretty good. Power
has been on for over a decade, about twelve years now.
It basically kept Stars afloat. It's basically kept Stars alive
without Power. I don't know if Stars is still here
to even get to this point in terms of talking
about taking on boxing.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
Right and no disrespect to the show, you know, because
I've never seen it.

Speaker 4 (14:47):
I have no opinion on it, no idea, but let's
be honest you know, Stars wasn't a household name.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
It's never been a household name.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (14:55):
You know, I have those of us who've had illegal
cable boxes. You know, we channel surf come across Stars.
You know sometimes you know, they got a movie on
Saturday Night, something that you kind of have to pay
attention to. That's what Stars is. It's not appointment television.
It's not you know, Sunday night HBO kind of a thing.
And I'm just being real about it.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
You know.

Speaker 4 (15:14):
The rumors are that they're about an eleven million dollar
a year deal for Top Rank to airon Stars after
Top Rank left ESPN. Just from perspective, when UFC signed
up with Paramount Plus, that is a seven year deal
with over seven billion with a B dollars over that
time period. So it really goes to show just how

(15:35):
far boxing has fallen. And you know, in you know,
our eyes compared to UFC, which is the way more
popular support right now, I don't know. I mean, let's
say this is true. We don't know this for a fact.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
That's just rumors on the Twitter sphere.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
But if this is true, I personally think it's a
step backwards because you're going back to a premium channel.
You're going off regular TV, but you're not even going
some much with a prestige like an or a Showtime,
which you know, Showtime at least has some cachet. Even
though I'm kind of sick of Dexter and I don't
want to hear it about Dexter ever again, just let
that character die off. It seems like a you know,

(16:13):
like not even a good idea to move forward. If
you're gonna do it, or don't go full streaming, you know,
find some deal with something like a Paramount Plus or
a Netflix.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
But this seems kind of half assed to me. What
do you think? What if I told you this is
the best deal? Okay, that makes it kind of sad. Honestly,
it makesical bumps me out.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
The best deal and at least people know where Stars
is at. Stars needs it because they don't have a
lot of content on that app in general, or not
a lot of original content, so it's easy to pay
for Stars that app by itself. Most cable packages have Stars,
so it's not a bad thing. It's not the worst.

(16:54):
It could be better, but it's not the worst. At
least knowing the name of the outlet and the production.
That's a plus. People still don't know what de Zone is.
There's a lot of people out there who don't know
where to find it, don't know anything about it.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
People have heard of Stars, so Stars is a good thing.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
It's something where, to be honest with you, if that's
where we're at with it, I can live with it.
I'm not thrilled with it, but I can at least
live with it because at least we have a home.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
You can't argue much when you're homeless. That's a good point.

Speaker 4 (17:28):
Yeah, I mean I see it when I say, it's
kind of a step backwards. Like I said, it's just
falling in purceed ESPN. Yes, it's on regular TV, but
ESPN as a model, it's a brand, it's owned by Disney.
It's like, you know, it is still cream of the
crops sports entertainment, like you know, the ESPN.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
For whatever issues.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
People may have with it, it's not an LCO rat,
you know what I mean. I was actually it was
actually very surprised that UFC one of the Paramount Plus
because that's not something that I hear a lot of
people talk about, like you know who you know who
is Paramount Plus Star Trek fans because they have a
shitload of Star Trek shows and that's the home for
that stuff. So but other than that, you know, I

(18:08):
don't just run into people that just have that. So
that's also kind of me my lack of knowledge bias
whatever about you know, what I hear out in the world.
But yeah, I still feel that Star is kind of
below the the ischel on there on Paramount plus honestly.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
But I think it's better than the Zone though. I
think it's way better than the Zone.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
And also, if Stars is coming with the money, Like
if they're coming with the bag and they're going to
put money and resources into it, I think it's worked.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Because here's the thing. It's one thing to have a
company say, hey, we'll put your fights on. We'll just
have the content on. That's cool, But you need a
company that's.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Going to put effort and resources into your stuff too.
You need the before the fights, behind the scenes, the
build up, you need a full effort with whatever the outlet.
If Stars is going to do that, that's a great thing.
That will help a whole lot going forward. Or because
it's like anything else, if there's a fight on and
people know where to find that fight, they're gonna watch it.

(19:06):
The biggest issue we have now is a lot of
fights we can't find. We can't That's that's what a
firestick or you're gonna late. But a lot of fights
around I'm not talking about the main ones. I'm talking
about there might be a C grade fighter that you
just want to see fight that you just want to
see how he's doing. You want to see, Damn, I
see him fighting a couple of fights. What's going on?

(19:27):
Used to be that used to be a preliminary on
an HBO card or a top ranked car. It used
to be a is one of the first ones, you know,
not necessarily three pm one, but you know it was,
you know, it was one of the more for the
standards all the way field, but at least it was there.
That's not even the case, no moral, but whenever there's
boxing on TV, we only see the main event, and

(19:48):
there's a co main event, and then maybe somebody's really
up and coming, like somebody that's heralded up and coming.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
There's no a man. This dude was twenty one three
years ago. He took the loss of he's battles. But nah,
that's gone, that's out. That's long gone. So if Stars
is gonna be invested to where they're gonna constantly put
on boxing, do the background on for I think it's
a good thing we can build.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
We can start from there and go forward.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
But if it's gonna be oh, we're just gonna throw
the fights on and that's it, we've got issues at
that point.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, you and I will have will show up.

Speaker 4 (20:24):
You and I will sign up for Stars. I will
pay for Stars if they have boxing on it. But
that's not what.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
We need to do here.

Speaker 4 (20:30):
We don't need to just bring the guys that already
follow boxing and want to find where the fights are.
We want to get new eyeballs on it. And you
need promo, Like you said, you need to put money
not just into you know, Bob Aarum's pocket, but you know, commercials, ads,
et cetera.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
So I will say, if they do put on Stars,
Stars can cross market and cross reference to people who
are already on their app watching other stuff. Because so,
long story short, ESPN Plus doesn't make a whole lot
of money. ESPN Plus is basically the marketing tool for
ESPN and.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
All their products and programs. Et cetera.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
That's why it's there. Same thing with Amazon. Putting something
on Amazon doesn't make Amazon a lot of money. It's
the marketing for Amazon. They can market whatever they want
on there. So if Stars can for all their other
shows that people watch religiously, especially powered on the spin offs,
if they have marketing for fights that are upcoming, you're
gonna see that a few times before you actue your

(21:27):
your programming. That's actually good. That's better for boxing what
we have right now.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, that's fair.

Speaker 4 (21:34):
And Stars, I know that you can get the channel
through other subscription service, so like you can go through
Amazon and sign up for Stars there, you can go
through Apple TV and sign up for Stars there.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
So that's not that's not the worst.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
You know, you're you're kind of make me feel a
little better about the situation now that we're talking about it.
You know, I was kind of I was kind of like, oh,
Top Prage, what happened to you?

Speaker 2 (21:53):
Here?

Speaker 4 (21:54):
You were so you know, you were the crown jewel
of boxing and now you're going to Stars with a ze.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
So it's tough because we're entering an error where a
lot of boxers are in for themselves. Even if they're
on a promotion company. It's not Top Ranked, don King,
Golden Boy, et cetera, et cetera. It's now every box
is their own entity and they're doing the best for
their entity, et cetera. Was best for the brand. No

(22:21):
one really cares about the promotion company anymore. We've gone
away from that because back in the day, if it
was be between Golden Boy and Top Rank, then that's
what it was the whole night. If it was a
top rank production, it'd be eight top rank fighters fighting
on the cards that we see and that'd be that.
That's not the case anymore. Everybody is to the point
where we want to make the fights. I talked to you,

(22:42):
We set it up, and that's it. There's no more, Oh,
we gotta wait for this, We wait for that. No
boxes are taking things into their own hand more than
ever before, and I think we're seeing more and more
than that, especially with the Saudi's being involved and everything.
So I think it's more of a situation where you
have to adapt to that. I think you can have
fights on a case by case basis or the out

(23:05):
where was cover boxing gets in line with the Saudi's
and everybody in control banking the fights, and we can
figure it out because there's a pathway there to where
there can be a lot of fights on TV.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
We just got to figure it out, man, we really do.

Speaker 4 (23:20):
Yeah, you're reminding me that I kind of There's something
that I never really realized about boxing in general, is that,
you know.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
I always say it's I don't have to follow teams.

Speaker 5 (23:29):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
I can only follow whoever's in the ring. But yeah,
there were team sports there. You don't tell you top
the team Golden Boy.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
That's so Golden Boys slash Mayweather Promotions versus Top Ranked
was like bloods and crips.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Back in the day.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
You it was very fine line between who you rocked
with and who you were fan of and who you
supported because between the mid two thousands and like hell,
probably up until the mid twenty tens, a lot of
fights didn't get made because of that because if you
were on one brand, you were not getting the fight

(24:04):
with someone else's other brand. Until Mayweather and Pachuil fought
in fifteen, there was no mixture of the of the
promotion companies. The promotion companies have their own guys fight
their own guys, and Karen Crawford is the biggest victim
of all this. He didn't get to fight Spence until
way later. Imagine if he had a Mega fight five
years before that. His whole career is different, you know,

(24:26):
and that hurt. That hurt boxing a lot when it
was hey man, it's a Golden Boy event, so you
know it's gonna be all Golden Boy fighters and all
Midwather promotion fighters, you know, or so loud Bello event.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
You know, it's all his fighters and guys who don't
have approached you know, you already knew what it was.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
So like todp Ray had a strangle on ESPN, which
was cool because atleast they had a guy it'd be
marketed for the week before the fight. But you need
for boxing, you need matchups to be made consistently. You
need the names that people know, and I don't care
what brand may are. You need the names of, Like,
hey man, you know what f it, sir, cur you're

(25:04):
fighting Boots. I don't care what promotion company you're on.
I don't care what's going on this the fight, figure
out the financials and in four months y'all fighting and
Massive Square Garden.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
This is what it is. That's it. But we went
We went went out. That's so here.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
The thing you and I are old up to remember
that if guys wanted to fight, they fought.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, it didn't matter.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
About what promotion company you're with. If we came up
in the eighties and nineties where if you want to
fight somebody, hey, set it up, let's go, let's get it,
let's fear out the money, let's go. Now, it was, oh, well,
I gotta talk to al Hamen, I gotta talk to
Al Haimen.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Ah, well, you know, uh, you know, God talked to Bob.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
You know, I got and I was like, nah, man,
I don't know, no, And we wasted a lot of
time avoiding big fights and that all all that ship
was a paper cut. When you have a bunch of
paper cuts, at least somebody bleeding out. And that's what happened.
That's why we have the ship we're in now.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
Cut. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (26:01):
What I've always loved about Boxing two is the simplicity
of it. You tune in the bell rings and that's it.
That's all you got to know.

Speaker 2 (26:06):
But also all the stuff that I'm learning doing the
show is fascinating.

Speaker 4 (26:10):
All this history that i've missed out on You know,
I had no idea that top rank in Mayweather promotions
were that.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Oh it was.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
It was the Cold War during a time where both
most companies had guys like That's the thing that sucked
is that both especially at like the Walter Wait middleweight division,
they had guys where if you would have made the fights,
you would have had dope ass fights. But it just
never worked out that way because so Floyd left top

(26:39):
rank and went the Golden War before he did his
own thing, so that in his self started a cold
world by itself. And then Floyd fought Oscar and seven
and that made and that was the last fight. Floyd
was the b side because Oscar was still Oscar name
wise and popularity wise. After that fight, Floyd did his
own thing and became maybe with the promotion Pretty Boy

(27:00):
Floyd the whole thing. That made a whole lot more money,
and that started the whole war between everyone. And then
you had so Floyd and then they did their own thing.
You had a top rank not going business with Floyd
because they broke up, and then Oscar and Bob had
their issues, so there was no big fights being made

(27:22):
between you. That's why the Floyd and pachyall fight was
a big deal. Not because it was the two biggest
names in the sport. It's because, hey, we can finally
new business. Now, we finally have a common ground. So
that's why over the last ten years you have seen
more fights be made, not as quickly as we want
them to be, but.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
They got made. So yeah, now that it.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
Was a big deal, and then we missed out probably
on ten semi mega fights because of that war, easily.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Well clearly, clearly. Yeah, Like I said that that bloodied
the sport.

Speaker 4 (27:52):
No pun intended to the point that it's it's I'm
not gonna say it's on life support, but it's it's
been hurting.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
It's been really hurting.

Speaker 4 (27:59):
And just because of that period, you know this, this
is why our show is rated E for educational because
of stuff like that, not just the audience. But I
love learning about this stuff too, because, as I said,
I had goggles off, I had blinders on.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
It's just like you two guys. Even today, I'll scroll
there's a random fight.

Speaker 4 (28:14):
I don't care who's fighting. I don't know, I don't
know their names. It doesn't matter. I just enjoy watching
a good match, you know, so that's kind of always
what I've been like, and I just kind of missed
out and all of this extra you know, politics of
it backroom deelans.

Speaker 3 (28:29):
It's tough because Floyd to hand picked a lot of guys,
and he had the leverage to do so once you
accomplish certain thing, you have the leverage to do whatever
you want to do at whatever time. He hand picked guys,
and it was he created this air that we're in now,
where you pick and choose, you take your time, you
do things on your own time.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
It was not always like that.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
But also a lot of guys come to Vegas and
train out here and don't necessarily stay focused. So guys
like Winky Wright, that's a guy that was a very
good fighter in his day. He'd fight whomever. But same time,
it wouldn't be the same when it came to you know,
for fights, it wouldn't necessarily have the same wide range

(29:13):
of options as if you know, if things were done
a certain way. And those are guys that there's a
lot of fights got missed, a lot of fights that
could have been made. Hell, there was rumors of there
was time where Sergio Martinez was trying to fight Floyd
and this was when we found out Sergio Martinez was

(29:33):
beyond his prime. And yeah, it was just a lot
of things, man, it was.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
It was wild times like we had.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
I remember when people said Floyd was afraid of Paul Williams.
This is wild man, This is really wild times wild
times man. So, uh, it's fascinating. But boxing has gotten
his own way so much that it needs to find
a home because everybody else has a home, like w
W has to deal with ESPN, they have a home,
UFC found a home. Boxing needs to find a home

(30:03):
quickly because we're gonna watch. But you need for anything
you're in, you need the non fanatics to chime in.
And if you can't find what channel it's on, or
if you can't find the link, you're you're asking a lot, man,
You're asking a whole lot.

Speaker 4 (30:20):
Yeah, people aren't gonna work that hard when there's so
many options for entertainment, you know, and not even just
talking about combat sports or sports in general, just anything.
I mean streaming movies, TV shows, anything people will get
you know, find an old TV show from the night
is on twov's that they'll get into. And that's just
that's what they're spending their time doing you know, watching,

(30:40):
I don't know whatever, like are you afraid of the
dark from when we were kids or something as.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Adult like that. You know, there's just so much as
out there right now.

Speaker 4 (30:47):
So yeah, everybody's competing for eyeballs more than more than ever,
and it's really.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Difficult for boxing.

Speaker 4 (30:53):
And I want to kind of continue on this topic
but expand it a little bit, talking specifically about pay
per view because UFC said on Paramount Plus no more
pay per views. Turkey Yella Shikh Saudi promoter said for
his events in riodd and the ring events, no.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
More pay per view.

Speaker 4 (31:11):
And I'm just curious what you think about, you know,
where pay per view is going to stay in with boxing,
because that's already taken a big hit.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Let me start here.

Speaker 4 (31:20):
Let me ask you this, when's the last time you
actually paid for a pay per view? And I mean
like didn't use in legal cable box in the nineties.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
Didn't use a link. Can you remember it was a
tank fight okay two years ago? Okay, it was on Showtime,
it was through Showtime.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
It was the same time as NBA playoffs in twenty three,
so it was spring of twenty three. Whoever he fought
in spring of twenty three is the fight I can
And the only reason I did it is I had
people over and I wanted to make sure the stream
was or that it was gonna be okay, like the
fight was gonna be.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
I couldn't.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
I didn't want to depend on those strings and the internet.
I had like six people over and I wanted to
make sure everything was cool. But that's it. Other than that,
I don't really recall paying for anything else. But here's
the issue. The economy is so bad right now. I
don't want to make this about politics, so that's not
what we're here from do. But the economy along with
the you got to read the room. When it comes

(32:20):
asking for one hundred dollars every other month or whatever.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
People ain't got it. So if people don't have it,
you cannot.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
You cannot go ahead and demand people pay one hundred
dollars one hundred and ten for HD pay per view.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
They just don't have it. It's very unfair to ask
for that.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
So yeah, man, it's a dead model at the moment,
and I don't think it's coming be back.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:41):
And by the way, that had to have been Tank
versus Anger. Seeah, because you're talking about agree, that's that's
when Well, I myself have never paid for a pay
per view.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
But also I've gone out.

Speaker 4 (32:52):
I like going out to two bars that play the fight.
So you know, I'm not trying to say that I'm
stealing everything. That's kind of just how I enjoyed watching
boxing anyway. Yeah, I watch it at home of course,
but it's always cooler to me go out and have
a few drinks, have dinner, make a night out of it.
So yeah, like for guys like us, you know, I've

(33:13):
never experienced, you know, a lot of.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Pay per views. In the nineties, like I said, we
had the box. I remember paying for Goodnesses Chevins fights.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
When my family would get together, they had the legitimate
box where you called in with the code.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
Uh. But at some point in the mid nineties, you know,
it was all black boxes. It was oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:31):
I had a got my godfather, he always had fight
night at his house. Always, every big fight, every big
fight he had up until I was like seventeen. He
always had people over at the house. And then when
he didn't have it, my dad had a fight. Yeah,
every big fight we always watched. I never knew who
ordered how guys knew by Tommy got there and we

(33:52):
had wings on the plate.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
The fight was on the stream was it was on
the TV and we all watch.

Speaker 3 (33:58):
So no, it's uh, it's this is a die model
because I think you can market more when you have
a guaranteed amount of eyeballs. So the reason why Amazon
and Netflix work is if you can promise that there's
gonna be fifty million people worldwide watching something, if you're
marketing a product, you can act your advertisers for so
much more money then you can fend them on pay

(34:20):
per view. So you think about, like, okay, if Pepsi
wants to if Pepsi wants to market during this time,
we can charge x amount more because there's gonna be
so many more people watching this stream for three hours,
rather than hey, it's pay per view. You might get
a million buys if everything goes well, maybe a million

(34:43):
and a half everything goes well. I don't know how
you gauge that, but if you got a stream on
for three plus hours, you can market a bunch of
products to a lot of people who are watching casually,
people who are watching intensely and you can make the
money back that way, so that while we're seeing more
Netflix and Amazon and the Zone, we're seeing more of

(35:04):
those because there's more eyeballs. And there's more eyeballs, you
can charge more for the marketing and the ads more
than anything else.

Speaker 4 (35:12):
Well, for something like Amazon, it's not even only about
the marketing. It's hey, you want to watch this fight
on Prime Video? Sign up for Prime by the way,
free shipping, all the shit that we sell you. You know,
it's just it's like its own ecosystem. Netflix, Yeah, good,
it's for you.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
You're spot on.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
Because when they have NFL games on they don't really
care about the game itself. They have a game on
Black Friday, which is like the most business day of
the year for shoppers. They know that they can get
people to eventure sign up for Amazon Prime if they
show them enough commercials.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
Same thing.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
If you have a big boxing match on Amazon for
four hours, then yeah, you're gonna see an ad every
thirty seconds. You're gonna see something on the bottom of
the screen saying hey, if you're not a member scanning
this QR code, we can side you up.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Now.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
If that market it's more, they don't have to make
money on the fight or to.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
Make money on the fight, if you get what I'm.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
Saying, Yeah, oh absolutely, Well the pay per view model,
I know, like that's how boxers became some of the
most best paid athletes in the world. You know, they
got cuts of pay per view, And that part of
me was wondering, Okay, there's no pay per view. Does
that mean we're back to the conversation we were just
having about there's not enough money for fighters to make
or is it that Amazon Netflix have a shill lot

(36:25):
of money.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
They have so much money to burn.

Speaker 4 (36:27):
Because it's always a constant stream in and the back out,
in the back out.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
It's like they don't even like it. Feels like they
don't even think about it.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
They're spending you know, millions and millions of dollars on
original movies on Netflix that nobody watches and nobody likes
even if they watch them.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
Well, well, the Netflix model is tough because if you
put out a whole season worth to work at midnight,
by three pm the next day, I can watch the
whole season if I want to, and it's over, like
it's over, so you run out of content. So that's
why they need live content. That's why they've had fights
on They've had NFL gangs, because it gets to a

(37:02):
point to where, hey, man, if you don't have enough content,
people go to where there is new content at So
that's why Netflix is always in the running for these
things because they need live content.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
They need to be able to market.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
Not necessarily Netflix itself, but all the other advertisements they
have agreements with because they can make more money off
of that, and that's where that's where it comes from.

Speaker 4 (37:26):
Yeah, I guess the big question not even like something
we can answer, but is that is there enough money
with Amazon and Netflix to make big fights that you know,
guys don't want to fight each other?

Speaker 2 (37:38):
But also what kind of advertising are we going to get?
You know, what kind of promotion? Is it just guys
who are lucky enough?

Speaker 4 (37:44):
Is it Canelos, you know, signing up with Netflix and
taking a big payday and you know, let's see air
Canelos fights aren't always like fighting, you know, the biggest
challenger it could be you know, William Skull. People weren't
that excited anyway, He'll they can pay day for another
fight through Netflix. He'll make big bucks. But will the

(38:04):
people be there will they show up. I know they're
showing up for for a fight against Crawford, but what
about the rando British guy whose name I remember, John
Ryder who we fought, or a people gonna show up
for Canelo versus writer rebatch a Netflix?

Speaker 2 (38:19):
Are they going to care? He'll be happy marketing very well.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
The thing I will say is if Netflix has program
that's coming on soon, they will market it well across
all their platforms. So if you're there watching a sci
fi flick at eleven PM while you're waiting on your
significant other to come join you, you're gonna see a
promo of Canelo fighting promo in the fight, So it'll
be marketed better.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
But I don't know if that's enough. We don't. We
don't have enough research to know if that's gonna matter
or not.

Speaker 4 (38:49):
Well, and totally speaking, I don't see Netflix marketing their
stuff as well, because there are things that I hear about,
you know, a year late afterwards, Oh this this new
original film or regional series was on there, and I
was like, I didn't see anything online stuff that I
would be interested in.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
So their original stuff they don't really market that way.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
If they like to use word of mouth marketing for
their original content, but for like the live event stuff.
Whenever they have like a live event, they actually go
all in with the marketing on that.

Speaker 4 (39:16):
Okay, okay, Yeah, I haven't actually watched live it on
Netflix to be to be fair, so I wasn't aware
of that. Yeah, my relationship with Netflix is like, oh,
this director who I like, whoever, you know, just made
a movie a year ago that I would have gone
I would have rushed to see in theaters, but it
was buried on Netflix and it just sat there without me.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Reality. That's kind of my experience with them. But yeah,
with live events, I just I just don't know. But
I'm not a WWE guy, so I've never.

Speaker 3 (39:42):
Said, yeah, I I've changed my tune a little bit.
I take for what it is. It's not mess a
my forte. But I appreciate the entertainment value what they bring.
I think they they work very hard. They do what
they do. I'm not going to go out watch every
event and that's not what I do, but I appreciate

(40:02):
the effort they put towards their product, I'll put it
that way.

Speaker 4 (40:06):
Yeah, I've been to I actually went to one live
WW in Phoenix, a buddy of mine, shot up Dan Brunner,
who's no longer in Arizona.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
We were at a beer sharing.

Speaker 4 (40:13):
He was like, brill you know, is wrestling as it's
like the purest form of live vender Simon, we'll just
ghost to see it, and I was like, Zebra, let's
go see it whenever that we're going to go.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
I just I don't know. It was like, yeah, why
wouldn't I go see wrestling with this guy? I have
a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun.

Speaker 4 (40:30):
John Cena was there, you know, I like him, So
it was I understand why it's so popular. And yeah,
you know you say, oh it's fake, it's scripted. He's
still got to be a great athlete to.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
Be yeah's amazing. Yeah, yeah, you can't just be a
fat guy. That's like, you know, going into the ring
with with stone called Steve Austin.

Speaker 4 (40:50):
You know so, But yeah, I mean bring it back
to what we're talking about, you know, the pay per
view model.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
I honestly.

Speaker 4 (40:57):
It's it doesn't that's not gonna affect me because I
never paid for boxing anyway. If there's a paper you fight,
I want to see. I'm not gonna pay for it
to sit at home, even with friends over, it's not
the same. I'm gonna go.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
Out to a place that will play fights.

Speaker 4 (41:10):
So but I don't see that being, you know, an
ongoing thing, like you said, maybe ever again, that might
be another era.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
Yeah, it's it's gone.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
It's everything comes in waves, and unfortunately at this time
that wave is now gone.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
It's and we're not it's not coming back.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
It's it's one of those things where you can't ask
people to spend that kind of money where they.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Don't have it.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
And the average person does not have one hundred plus
dollars to lot to pay for a single fight is
don't have it.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
I don't know, but maybe it's our age now. You know,
we're both late thirties, early parties, but I don't have
that many friends anymore to bring over to a fight.

Speaker 4 (41:55):
Back back in the day, you would split up a
pay per view with like eight guys and you know,
a couple and stuff, you know, ten people to want
to pitch.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
In ten bucks or brain food or whatever. Yeah, yeah,
I can't.

Speaker 4 (42:06):
I might have been able to do that back in
my twenties, I think now now I'm thinking out I'm like,
who the hell am I gonnavite that?

Speaker 3 (42:11):
And also it's like the fights haven't been that great
to do that. The thing is you have buyer's remorse
once you pay for the final. A lot of times
you spend the seventy five or one hundred or whatever,
and you're like, yeah, this is it.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
I No, I don't know. So I'm with you there,
I'm with you.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
Hell, I've seen fights at at bars that I'm and
you have a good time going out, you know, having drinks,
having food.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
But I know I watched that fight.

Speaker 4 (42:38):
I'm like, if I had paid for that eight bucks
at home, I would have a pissed would have pissed.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
So I get it. And that's probably why too.

Speaker 4 (42:45):
I'm just kind of like I don't want to risk
spending that much for that, for that experience.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
I'd rather make it all inclusive.

Speaker 4 (42:53):
But yeah, I mean, here's here's another thing that I
worry about that I think we might have our pulse
on the our fingers on the pulse of you know,
boxing fans and how the people are these days with
the economy, et cetera. But I don't know that a
lot of these companies, how about this, It wouldn't be surprised.
Wouldn't surprise me if Top rank goes to Stars and
still tries to do a pay per view because they

(43:14):
don't realize how they can't.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
The reason why is this, you've already forced people to
down to buy an app, to sign up for the
monthly subscription of an app. You cannot accept a pay
per view. And also, here's the thing, we don't have
any pay per view stars anymore. There's no one up
and coming that the pay review is star. Like Tank's
been on pay per view, but he's not star to
where he's doing two million plus. That's not happening. I

(43:39):
don't know if he's done a million on a pay
per view, and if he did, it was with Ryning because
Ryan was popular. But it's not like, oh he's doing
one point five and he's under thirty years old.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
We don't have that.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
So that option is saying available, like as good as
your core Stevenson is, he can't find a pay per view, can't.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
There's no way, There's no way.

Speaker 4 (44:01):
I guess the biggest name is Canelo, but even he
signed up with four fights with three Yazeason and if
they're sticking to their word, of not you know, doing
pay per view, then the biggest, the biggest pay per
view guy of recent memory is just not.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Going to do that.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
So he's getting compensated very well. So, yes, that's just
what it is in a that's the case, that's what's
going to be, And I don't see it changing anytime soon.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 4 (44:22):
I guess I don't see fans, you know, having to
go back and say, well, let's just say just these
couple of years, you know, again with Saudi money being involved,
and you know they're they've got a big well there,
people say, well, why the hell am I going to
start paying for pay per views in twenty twenty six,
twenty seven when we've had these kind of crazy years
of UFC on paramount kind of leaving that model.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
So let me ask you, is there anybody below the
age of twenty five that's no matter the division. Is
there anyone you can forecast being a super duper star
to where it even makes sense even put them behind
the pay per view payball?

Speaker 2 (45:01):
No? I mean, I like Xander's eyes a lot.

Speaker 4 (45:03):
I think he's a very talented fighter, but he does
not have that kind of cachet.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Schakour is Yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
I mean he Shakour had his best performance just like
a month ago or whenever it was too right.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
Oh yeah, he's you know.

Speaker 4 (45:19):
If he does has a lot more amazing performances like
that going forward, maybe, but that's still a long ways
into his career, and you know, he's he's still a
very young guy. But no, man, I'm trying to think
of any anybody I've seen lately in the you know,
the not the three PM fights, but like six or seven.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
If there's somebody young and somebody that we don't know
yet that's gonna be the future pay per view star, Yeah,
it'd be somebody that we haven't heard about yet or
that's not boxing.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
It.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
Like, there's no one that we know of at the
moment that's capable of putting it on not just one
pay per view, but every time they fight, they on
pay per view. There's no one yet. Now, the lie
I will say is that there is somebody. He probably
has to be Mexican or somewhere from a country that
really supports their fighters.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
It will It can't be a regular American guy. That
won't work.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
Has to be somewhere where there's a lot of different
people involved. But even then, I just don't see it
because the market, the way boxing is marketed now, it's
way different than what it was fifteen. You know what,
all perfect example, Canelo Alvarez was on Golden Boy, when
Floyd is on Golden Boy. When Floyd fought Canelo will

(46:29):
be on undercards. We don't have that no more. Like
those are things that growth sport, Like, Hey, this guy's
coming up next. You may want to pay attention to him.
He's coming, you may want to be on the lookout
for him. Those are the things get we we've went
away from. Those are things we've gone away from. So yeah,
I don't see anyone being a paper I just don't

(46:51):
see it.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
That's very true. No, I agree.

Speaker 4 (46:55):
I mean, I guess the industry is going to screwed
itself out of it for people.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
It's kind of doesn't have it.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
Doesn't have the infrastructure to continue expecting people to pay
pay per views, and it's been downhill in the last
few years.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
You know. Furyousic was like a big, big deal. But
in the Zone.

Speaker 4 (47:13):
Yeah, they did the thing where they said sign up
for the app, no paper view.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
They lied, They went back on that and it started charging.
But I think they went back again.

Speaker 4 (47:21):
I don't know if they're they're doing a pay per
view for anything, if you already sign up for the.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
App, I don't know at the moment.

Speaker 4 (47:30):
But yeah, but the biggest the only person I watched
on his zone really was Canelo.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
And he's you know, I was.

Speaker 4 (47:36):
Hanging out with Satis now so hard to say, man,
I mean, I uh, as long as I can still
find good fights at a bar that I can go
out and have a good time, you know, I'll show up.
You know, if it's like subscription only apps whatever, you know,
that's kind of my thing. Like I love boxing and
I love watching it at home as well, But what

(47:58):
I want most out of it is that a collective experience,
a communal experience of going out, even the hell, even
if I'm out of the bar talking to people at
the while having some drinks and they don't care about
boxing and I'm watching it, that's still cool. That's kind
of like my ideal boxing scenario. So obviously we lost
that with ESPN since top Rank left. So for me,

(48:19):
as long as I still can still get that experience,
I would be.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
Happy, absolute absolute.

Speaker 4 (48:26):
Oh right, let's move on to a recurring segment that
we call pop Pugilism, in which we discuss a feature film,
a TV show, or documentary about boxing. Today we're talking
about Southpaw from twenty fifteen, directed by Antoine Fuqua, starring
Jake Gillenhall, Forest Whitaker, and Rachel mcdadams.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
For a little bit. I have to admit.

Speaker 4 (48:43):
I totally got this movie confused with something else. I
thought it was based on a real guy, but it
is not. Yeah, it's a fictional character named Billy Hope,
who is the undisputed light heavyweight champion.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Movie starts off He's on top of the world. He's
got a lot of money, he's the champ. He's got
a family.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
After a personal tragedy, he loses everything, his career, the money,
the house, the daughter. He has to claw himself back
to the top from nothing. Jamison thoughts on this flick,
what do you think it was.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
A typical cookie cutter boxing slash combat boxing movie.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
It was very cookie cutter.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
It was I it was nothing special to me, Like
I wasn't like, oh my god, I gotta go do
rush and watch again, or I don't remember it really
coming out either, Like but hold on before I go
any further, what movie did you think this was?

Speaker 2 (49:34):
I don't remember.

Speaker 4 (49:36):
I want to say maybe maybe like Miles Teller had
a boxing movie where he played a real guy.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
Actually, you know what, I might as well look it up.
I'm actually like, I don't have a computer in front. Yeah,
I'm curious what you thought it was. Because I'm watching
the movie.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
I'm like, this isn't really what we would watch, Like,
this has nothing to do with anything that about well, you.

Speaker 4 (49:59):
Know that's it's about boxing, you know.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Yeah, so like trying to be creative, like it's somewhat
rovant or anything. It's just like a boxing movie.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
It's just a it's a cookie cutter Hollywood production of boxing.
What they think boxers go through, right, They start off good,
make a bunch of money, something crazy happens, they lose everything,
and then they're on the they're on the road back
to glory basically, and then that's kind of how it is.
But yeah, it wasn't, like I said, for me, it

(50:29):
was not special. It was just a regular movie. I
wasn't really moved by I stomach through the movie and
I moved all my life, but yeah, it was nothing
special to me.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
Okay, figure it out. Uh, it's called Bleed for this.
It's a movie with Miles Teller from twenty sixteen, so
that was about you know, maybe that helped confuse me
because this was twenty fifteen, but he played a guy
named Vinnie Pezienza, so uh, that's what I thought this was.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
And I was just like.

Speaker 4 (50:55):
Oh, yeah, I've been meaning to you know, let's do
let's do another biopic and I just this one.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
But yeah, I agree with you, very just middle of
the road.

Speaker 4 (51:07):
The most interesting thing, and I say that I use
that word loosely, is that it was written by Kurt Sutter,
who is best known as creator of Sons of Anarchy,
and it was supposed to be written for eminem As
the starring role. Ah okay, it makes sense for a
movie like this, And if you've ever watched Sons of Anarchy,
it's like, Okay, there's one person on a letterbox in

(51:29):
the movie review. I have to call this white trash
rocky and that's the perfect encapsulation, right.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Kurt Sutters as a writer, he's very agro.

Speaker 4 (51:38):
He has a lot of agro characters, bad tattoos, just people.
Just it's a groedy movie, a term that we used
to use back in the dates.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Jack jen Law.

Speaker 4 (51:47):
Isn't just he's all bruised up and battered and he's
spitting blood.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
And he's all sweaty. He looks disgusting in this movie sometimes.

Speaker 4 (51:54):
Yeah, just gross and it just the movie just looks
as a grossesthetic.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
Of course that's also you know, due to Anton Fuku
with the actual director.

Speaker 4 (52:06):
But yeah, I mean it makes sense why this turns
out the way it did. It's very overly mellow, dramatic.
Oh Jake Jilldenhall. He does put in a good performance,
but it's also a lot of just.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Like a lot of yelling.

Speaker 4 (52:22):
There's a lot of just like I said, very agro,
just big, big performance, and that's kind of like the
basic bitch approach of oh that's a really good actor.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
Like well, he's also just being at like a hundred.
You know, every time, you know, like.

Speaker 4 (52:35):
Really good performances, you're in a hundred, sometimes you're at
sixty thirty, seventy five. Right, He's just like up there
just throwing things, breaking stuff, you know, tossing crap and
throwing chairs.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
And I didn't really like this character.

Speaker 4 (52:50):
I don't have a problem with unlikable protagonists. I'm actually
I actually think we'd need more of them. And you know,
just guys can be scumback that's perfectly fine, but this
guy is just kind of a brick. I wasn't really
wanting to root for him. You know, he's he said,
he grew up in a foster home. He's an educated
you know, he's uh, just just you know, just kind

(53:13):
of a regular guy. And he's like yelling at a
at a judge because they took his kid away, and
he's like cursing in there, like you know what a
courthouse is, bro, especially if you said you've been in
jail before.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
That's kind of stupid, right right.

Speaker 4 (53:26):
The thing that bothered me the most is that he's
supposed to be this not very technically skilled fighter. He's
just a brawler, you know, he's that's his style, and
that's cool. And when he loses everything, he meets Forrest
Whitaker and gets retrained from scratch, literally showing him like,
here's how you slip and roll. Okay, supposedly he's the

(53:46):
light heavyweight champion of the world, undisputed. You do not
get there without knowing how to slip and roll punches.
Man or how to how to have defense, like yeah, yeah,
especially yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (54:01):
Deontay Wilder never been the best technical fighter, you know.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
But that's different though, because he had things you couldn't teach.
He had power you can't teach so Ay the heavyweight,
so you can get away with being inexperience in that
division because of the things he had no one else had.

Speaker 4 (54:21):
Sure, but that man still learned how to step and
slip punches like yeah right, yeah, yeah, yeah, Like he's
still he still had to come up with, you know,
the technical aspects and work the pads. Fine, then how
about this Tyson Fury. I've said it before.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
You know, he doesn't have the technical aspects that people
think he does because he is a champion. He has
been a lot of dudes. He's a big brute.

Speaker 4 (54:41):
He's tough, he's strong, and he it took a very
specific technical fighter to bring him down. But again, you
don't get to where he was without knowing just like, oh,
you use your shoulder to block the punches so they
don't hit you in the face. I'm like, bro, shut up,
that's so stupid right that that that really bothered me.
But yeah, I mean, what did you think of the

(55:03):
actual fights, I thought they were pretty They didn't look
too bad.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
They were pretty.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
Brutal in this movie for a movie, like for a movie,
it was best for a fiction for like a non
like biography or a non like storytelling movie.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
It was cool, like it was better than average.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
And you know what, boxing it's kind of hard to
when you actually have to script fuel the boxing movie.
You actually got to find people who actually bought. You
can't just get rid of people to act in boxing.
It don't work that way. Normally the boxing movie they
find guys who are lower in the ranks to do that.
Do those scenes that makes sense?

Speaker 4 (55:38):
Yeah, I mean I think the Hall looked pretty good.
It looks like he did train. I mean, he's jacked
the ship, so he looked like he put in.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
A lot of work for the role.

Speaker 4 (55:44):
But he still looked good in the in the fight scenes,
like you could tell that he took it seriously. And
I've seen we have seen way worse looking actual matches
in movies than this.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
So yeah, but yeah, I mean.

Speaker 4 (56:01):
Very cliche. It also, like you said, didn't move me either.
Terrible soundtrack. Eminem actually produced the soundtrack. He has one
song during a training montage that is absolute garbage, even
for his standards. It started off with like, actually, this
is when I realized I made a mistake at the beginning,

(56:23):
because there were so many red flags. First of all,
the first thing you see is Weinstein Company. I'm like,
oh boy, of course you know that that was back then.
You know, a lot of stuff didn't come out back then.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
Then.

Speaker 4 (56:32):
It was the old English font that just looked like
really bad tattoos that I was like, oh no, this
aesthetic is happening. And then the next thing you see
is Curtis fifty sent Jackson, which you.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
Know, speaking of power, you know my man, I've never
seen Power, but my man is not a great actor.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
He is so Power is actually good. The original Power
series is fine. Some of the spin offs are cool,
but Power.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
It'll get you.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
It's worth watching if you have time and you're trying
to kill time. It's worth watching.

Speaker 4 (57:03):
Okay, okay, I'm always looking for new recommendations of good stuff,
quality stuff. But but yeah, in this movie list, at
least fifty cents looked lost to see. Just don't know
why he was even there. Maybe but he had eminem
were friends, right, were they?

Speaker 2 (57:18):
Like in the.

Speaker 3 (57:21):
He credits him and them forgetting them where he's at life,
so that will always be a thing. But also remember
Fifty was also involved in boxing as well for a
short amount of time.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
Did I know that?

Speaker 3 (57:33):
So when he was hanging out with Floyd Very Tough,
they had a falling out and Fifty got to the
boxing game.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
He was I'm not mistaken. He was promoting.

Speaker 3 (57:43):
Gamboa okay at a time, he was promoting in behind
a couple of his fights.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
I'm not mistaken. Yeah, okay, interesting, No, I know, I
don't know.

Speaker 4 (57:57):
Wait a second, is that what the clip was the
meme where he says, why do you say fuck me for?

Speaker 2 (58:02):
He was talking about Yeah, yeah, yep, yep, that's right.

Speaker 4 (58:08):
I completely So I didn't know that Fifty was actually
in boxing, but I do know that.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
So when Floyd went to jail, there was some dealings
that Fifty thought he can do. There was some stuff
behind the scenes where he thought he could take over
the business side because that's where the money was coming
in from. And that didn't happen because what's my guy's
name was, Leonard? Leonard Lerbie was like, nah, it's not

(58:36):
how things were done. Fifty thought he could do something similar,
and he had like Gambole and I think somebody else,
but I remember Gambole was the biggest name that he
had and it didn't work out.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Well okay, okay.

Speaker 4 (58:49):
Well not only with boxing, and if he's buddy with
eminem he might have signed on when that was the
plan for this movie.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
So he's not in a lot.

Speaker 4 (58:56):
But yeah, I mean I I isn't very impressed with this.
I like there are things in it that I liked.
Using southpaus the title is kind of dumb for one reason.
If anybody doesn't know, if you're a left handed boxer,
you called the southpaw because that's a particular stance. If
you're a right handed you're called orthodox dance. And he

(59:17):
learns how to throw one or two punches in south
past dance and that's how he wins the fight. And
that's it, Like that's why they named it, which is ridiculous.
Plus just using like something so common in boxing. Again,
very basic bitch of it is Like as the title,
I was like, I don't know, it's like making an
NFL movie and calling it Jersey, not like New Jersey,

(59:39):
like like like a Jersey where like calling it helmet.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
I'm like, I don't know, that's just whoever's left headed
they call it. Felt like they didn't have a title
until way later in the film. That's a good point.
That's a really good point.

Speaker 4 (59:52):
Yeah, and they were probably calling it, you know, Badass
Boxer goes Hard bro just titled.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
It was untitled until they got to a certain point
in the film. Jake Jillenhall Boxing movie.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Yeah, you know, uh, sorry Jameson, sorry for picking this
one and thinking it was something else.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
But oh it's too long too, it's over two hours.

Speaker 4 (01:00:12):
It didn't that's sorry. You cannot get that shit back,
And I'm sorry. I will said I I no matter what,
I love watching movies for the show and talking about them.
But when it was like, you know, still like fifty
minutes left, i paused to take a break out of
the bathroom, I'm like, ah, shit, fifty minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
So yeah, that was not the worst movie I've ever seen.

Speaker 4 (01:00:38):
Not the worst boxing movie I've ever seen. Definitely has
a it's it has a particular style. If you like that,
that's cool, It's just not my thing. Also, let's be real.
My man directed The Trading Day, great movie. His career
has not been good since then, Like he did Shootout
with Marky Mark, the Equalizer, Trilogyesus, Snooze Fest. Is there
anything that he did that's like really, you know, people

(01:01:01):
remember as exciting and good quality.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Off top. I don't have a list in front of me.
I would need to see a list.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
I mean he Uh, he's a solid director. Don't get
me wrong. I'm not talking shit about him. It's just
I don't know his career just s had them that good.

Speaker 4 (01:01:19):
Oh I saw the Magnificent seven remake that he did
pretty boring. Uh that Gerard Butler as a Secret Service
Olympus has fallen movie a Gerard butterle of doing an
American accent badly.

Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (01:01:33):
Yeah, just nothing really the kind of lights, the room
up or anything. Training Day was the best of the Uh.
The best thing is filmography and never gonna.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
It's gonna be hard for any day, very very hard.

Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
I'm better even saying I'll do it. I'm just saying
make something else that's like, yeah, yeah, apologies Jameson, but
if you learn to rate this movie out of four gloves,
what would you give it?

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
I can say two, and I'm being very nice. I'm
being like very very nice. I could go one seven five,
but I'm gonna go two. Just because it was a
halfway decent Hollywood production.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
I'm gonna say two, and I'm being very nice when
I say two. Same. I like the cast. I like
Jiln Hall Forest, but is always good.

Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
I've always liked Rachel mccadams and things, even if she's
not in it for very long, and she's doing the
New York accent there, so that's kind of funny and
we're gonna do with that. I like that Rachel mccadams
is an American actress doing that accident, and you don't
get a Britishers. They usually just have a British to
fake New York but or fake Boston or whatever. So yeah,

(01:02:41):
I would say being generous, and you know, we're trying
to end this off on a positive note.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
I started off super angry.

Speaker 4 (01:02:47):
Also, we got something exciting coming up to talk about
in the next episode. So let's let's say two Gloves
and you know, just say next Anton Fuqua movie, maybe
we skip it, you please, right time?

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
Yeah, exactly. Here's the thing.

Speaker 4 (01:03:03):
Okay, even if we got the right movie, there's only
so many Bucks movies.

Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
I would have picked this one eventually.

Speaker 5 (01:03:08):
Anyway, it's slim pickings out there for real, Like we
might be better offstead of talking about movies, like going
back and watching an older fight and hey, do you
remember this?

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Do you remember?

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
And I'm not saying go back to the sixties, because
that's not sure, that'st thing necessary. But we can go
back over the last twenty five years and talk about
a fight. If we're gonna run short on movies eventually,
why that's just how it goes. But there are certain
fights where it kind of changes things or something happened
in that fight, and we can talk about that because
that's something that's relative to what we do.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
I like that. I like that a lot. Plus everything's
on YouTube.

Speaker 4 (01:03:47):
Plus there's some fights that you know, classically are cemented
in pop culture. It's still pop pugilism. So yeah, yeah,
let's uh, you know, we like to keep the show fresh, evolving.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:03:57):
Speaking of which, before we wrap up, I just want
to give y'all a quick little preview of what's coming
up next. We only have one more show until the
Canelo Crawford fight on September thirteenth, So Thursday, September eleventh,
the Mixed Company Podcast will be celebrating with an extravaganza
that's going to be all about Canelo Albarez versus Bud Crawford.
We have been talking about this fight potentially being made

(01:04:18):
literally since our pilot episode, so the arc of this
entire show has been tracking this fight.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
So I'm stoked.

Speaker 4 (01:04:25):
We've got a lot of fun stuff in store for
episode twenty four, So please, you know, tune in on
September eleventh.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
And Jamison, where can people find you? On social media?

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
On Twitter at v Jamison. Yeah. One of the people
we're in line to get is a very classic name.
I cannot give it out because nothing's confirmed yet, but
somebody we're in talking of getting is a Hall of
Fame person in the sport of box and I'll just
leave it at that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
Yeah, exactly, So very exciting.

Speaker 4 (01:04:55):
So follow me at the Classy Alcoholic on Instagram and
Blue Sky as its own Twitter and Blue Sky accounts.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
They're both at Mixed co Podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:05:04):
Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Amazon Music.
Leave us a five star review. It won't take some minute.
It helps us out more than you can possibly know.
It helps us get bigger name guests for y'all, so
watch us on YouTube. The link is on the show notes,
or find our playlist on the nineteen Media Group channel.
We have an official show email address. If you have
questions for the mailbag, fun stories about watching boxing and

(01:05:25):
Mixed Company, or predictions for Canelo Versus Crawford, send it
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mixedcopodcast dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
We drop new episodes.

Speaker 4 (01:05:34):
Every other Thursday, so never forget to join us on
nine to eleven when we cover the biggest fight of
the modern era. It's going to be a blast. We
have been the Mixed Company Podcast, a nineteen Media Group production.
Thanks so much for listening and oo