Gabriela Fundora And Dalton Smith Win, Fight News + Mayweather, Canelo Nostalgia | Fight Freaks Unite Recap - Big Fight Weekend Boxing Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well off of a weekend that has seen multiple main events.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
All over the globe. You like England, you like.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
California, Hey, even like Russia. We're gonna recap all of it.
It is the Fight Preach Unit Recap pod. After all,
I am merely the somewhat competent host TJ.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Reeves. He is our insider.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Fight preach Unite is his substack and his newsletter. Make
sure you're following and subscribing on both of those and
locked in.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Hello Dan Rayfield.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Good to be with you, my friend, as we have
a lot to go over from action that includes earlier
on Sunday, as we're doing this on Sunday night, US times,
Sunday afternoon US time, Sunday night in England. We had
a main event. We got main events all over the place.
Good to be back with you, Yes we do. We
got some We got some good things to discuss, a
little news, little nostalgia and coming off the Easter weekend,

(00:49):
hopefully everybody get enough to eat off the Easter weekend
as well. All right, so all right, well let's begin.
By the way, make sure you rate us and review
us if you enjoy the content. I see Rayfield several
new reviews, we could use several more.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
They'll help us.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
They help us with the algorithms and the search, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
So if you like what you're.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Hearing, where are you seeing these?

Speaker 1 (01:11):
I saw him on Apple Podcasts. Somebody reviewed us as
well on Spotify. The reviews have been a little lean.
But if you enjoyed, like, for example, Al Bernstein and
Barry Tompkins with us in that special pod last week,
or the interviews that we have, the back and forth,
the banter of Dan and me, the kind of inside info,
you're gonna get some more inside info.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
By the way, on this, I gotta say this, if
you haven't listened to the interviews that we conducted with
Barry Tomkins and Al Bernstein, and you're even remotely a
fan of the Four Kings fight, in particular Marvin Hagler
against Tommy Earnsrew's anniversary was forty years ago a few
days ago, which is why we did those interviews. You're
missing a great interview, I must say so. I mean
not because we did it, but because those guys gave.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Some tremendous tremendous from them. So yes, if you enjoy this,
take thirty seconds and rate us and reviewers that will
help us.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
And we love the peeps.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
We love the savage is the audience, all right, So
let's get into the recap mode before we get some
news in nostalgia, and there's a lot to recap. Let's
start with the Boxer Sky Sports main event. That was
Ben Whittaker light heavyweight, unbeaten, very very flashy fighter, over
the top, arrogant in a lot of people's estimation if

(02:24):
you watch him. He did get a second round stoppage
of Liam Cameron. I have seen the stoppage. I have
seen replays of the stoppage. There's apparently some squabbling on
a Sunday night from boxing Twitter, from fans online that
maybe it was too abrupt. What are your thoughts on
this main event as as Whittaker is remains undefeated with

(02:46):
the second round stoppage of Liam Cameron.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Well, first of all, you have to go back to
what happened in October tj That was when they had
that wacky draw technical draw, when Ben Whittaker was apparently
having as rare end kicked all over the place by
an opponent he was a huge favorite against, and in
the end, because of the tanglement of their feet and
then then falling out of the ring and Ben Whittaker
injuring his ankle or his leg in some fashion and

(03:11):
the fight was not able to continue. It was ended
because of I don't know if they called it an
accidental foul, but either way it was rule. It was
going to the score cards, not because of an accident,
not because of a foul specifically, but because they had
already gone past the fourth round. So they went to
the cards and it turned out that it was in
fact they split rat one judge having it for Cameron,

(03:33):
one judge having it for Whitaker, and one judge having it.
Even so, at that point, because of how bad he
looked in the fight and the weirdness of the way
that the fight ended, some people suspecting he was kind
of shaman out and wasn't really injured. I don't believe
that personally, And because obviously it turned out to be
a draw, that the rematch was highly necessary and immediately
it had to be done. They couldn't like not do

(03:53):
this in the next fight, so that's what happened. On
Sunday they did the rematch. The headlined the boxer card
in Birmingham, England, and this started off, you know similar,
you know, just feeling each other out a bit. But
in the second round, you know, Ben Whittaker, who you
know has been taking a lot of flak for good
reason for his performance and his attitude and all the
stuff that goes into it, he landed such a nice

(04:14):
right hand it really badly shook and rocked and changed
Liam Cameron's world. He did the the stinky leg for
a quick second there, you know, he kind of dipped down.
He was badly hurt on the punch, and Ben jumped
all over him and backed them up and hit him
with another couple of good body shots, but it was
really the first right hand and then the second big
right hand that was the damage that was done. But

(04:35):
he had him in the corner, and as you mentioned,
he landed a whole slew of other punches body shots
in there, but also other big punches, and you know,
he was ready to really do some serious damage to
Liam Cameron. So I thought that Howard Foster, who was
the referee who we have been critical about in certain
other fights, and that was well, you know, deserved in
my opinion, but he got to give him props. I

(04:57):
saw some people get on Howard Foster's case. For this one,
I thought it was like literally the perfect stoppage. He
saved him from taking completely unnecessary punishment. He was gonna
get absolutely destroyed the way that Ben Whittaker was banging
up on him, and he saved him from that, and
it was the right thing to do with Some people
were suggesting that he should have called a knockdown because
the ropes held him up. That was not really what

(05:18):
then what that rule is about. That's if you get
hit and you bounce into the ropes and they hold
you up. He was just in a corner taking punishment,
so he.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Did have his The other thing is big Dan, he
did have his hands up, and he protested right away
and even showed I had my hands up.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
I didn't. I didn't see it as a major protest.
And even if he did protest, it doesn't matter. His
hands can be up. But Whittaker was going around the gloves.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
He was going he's clearly not firing back. We know
that he's not punching back, right it was.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
It was a big, big onslaught and the fight was over.
I mean, what can I say? I thought the the
stoppage was perfectly fine.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
It was.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
It was an important win for Whittaker. You know, he's
an Olympian, he was a medallist. A lot of people
think he has potential to be a world champion. I
don't think he's as great as a lot of people
say he is, but he certainly got the potential. I
think what rubs people the wrong way is the way
he show votes in the attitude. And I'll give you
an example. He knocked out Liam Cameron, who's a solid guy,
I guess, but you know, kind of a journey in
this kind of record and not a lot of big
wins on his resume and Ben Whittaker and I get

(06:18):
the emotion. Okay, I've watched boxing my whole life, and
I've seen and been ringside for and watched on television
a thousand guys, a million guys celebrate. But you know
there's something gonna be said for an element of decorum.
I get it. It's an emotional moment. That's fine. I've
seen guys win a lot bigger fights than Ben Whitaker
Over Liam Cameron. He did a celebration like you thought.
He just you know, won one hundred million dollars lotto

(06:39):
prize or he just won the undisputed heavyweight championship. Where
he's running around the ring shouting. He went to the
he was shouting in Cameron. He stuck his head between
the ropes and was shouting at Cameron's corner, which was
uncalled for. I mean, it's just ridiculous. I mean I
juxtaposed that and with seeing Mike Tyson knocked out Michael
Spinks and what was at that time the biggest fight,

(07:01):
uh money wise anyway in the history of boxing and
one of the biggest fights ever uh for the lineal
you know, heavyweight championship, both undefeated Mega mega mega mega
mega fight and Mike Tyson blitzed him in ninety one
seconds and simply spread his arms and said, what'd you expect? Yeah,
you should have expected it, right, that's it.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
And Kevin oone, he's hugging on him and he's not
running around the ring acting like an idiot or tawning
any of Michael.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, so he let it all pour out emotionally. That's
the way he's going to be. First care, He's an
emotional fighter. But at the end of the day, it
was a good win. Uh. He puts this uh this
uh situation behind him with Cameron, and now you just
hope he can, uh, you know, continue on and step
up the ladder and and but but but maintain the
emotion in the ring. Maintained that the corps act like
the professional act like.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
You've been there, and he's he's still several steps away
from the championship relevant, but he does get that win,
all right, So we're going chronologically. That happened last on
the weekend. Let's back up to Saturday night, US time
in Oceanside, California, the Golden Boy Dezone Show, where Gabriella
Fondora headlined and did retain her undisputed women's flyweight championship

(08:07):
with a seventh round TKO over Marilyn Badillo. And I
saw some of that fight and the TKOL. Right, what
are your thoughts as we discussed this in the preview mode.
This is now four knockedouts or stoppages in five fights
for her. So where a lot of women's boxing is
not ko's or stoppages, she is still delivering and maybe

(08:27):
part of it is the level of competition.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
But pick up on that.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Now, Yeah, I mean, I think that's fairness in no
way it's shape or form is that a negative about Fondora.
She's an excellent fighter. You can just tell watching her fight. Obviously,
she comes from a good boxing family. Your dad trains her,
her dad trains her older brother, Sebastian Fundora, who's the
unified title holder at junior middleweight. They spend a lot
of time on the broadcast talking about how they have

(08:51):
a younger sister who's just starting out who's maybe going
to be better than both of them. They maybe say,
we'll see how that developed. She's still, like, you know,
ten eleven years old. I mean, there's stull ways to go.
But Gabriell Fandora, she's a really good fighter. I mean, again,
the opposition in this particular fight may not have been
a huge step up or a big time level, but
she has wins over other very competent and known opponents

(09:13):
that she's done really well against. And as you mentioned,
the knockouts are not the most common thing in women's boxing,
so that is a little bit of a nice thing
to say. Marilyn Bidillo, who was undefeated in this particular fight,
she was a mandatory challenger going into this match, but
she was completely i mean overmatch beyond comprehension. First of all,
you know Svendors as a family here and her brother
are very tall for their weight classes, so she towered

(09:35):
over Bedillo, and Badillo just had every She just looked
petrified the whole fight. Basically she had absolutely nothing to offer.
I mean she tried, I guess, but it wasn't like
there was any competition. Fandora won every single round in
when she knocked her down, pretty rough knockdown in the
seventh round too Badio's credit. She did get up and
beat the count, but she basically was done. She basically

(09:57):
walked away. She wanted no more. Bit I forget if
the corner, I guess the corner was throwing in the towel. Anyway,
they called the fight off in the seventh round, and
Fandora retains the women's undisputed Flyway title. And it was
a very impressive performance because she's not just winning the
fights by knockouts. If you go back and you look
at her recent fights, she's winning basically every round of

(10:18):
the fights. She's winning virtual shutouts or legit shutouts, or
maybe she's lost around here or there, but she's dominating, dominating,
and then getting knockouts. So she's exciting and when you
think about it like this, DJ, she's twenty three years old.
The women who command the spotlight beyond her in women's
boxing today, people like Serrano and Katie Taylor and Claressa

(10:42):
Shields and Michaela Mayer and there others, Alicia Bamgardner. You know,
there's a number of excellent female boxers, but every single
one of those women who I just mentioned are pushing
thirty plus. Maybe bomb Gardner stole in her late twenties,
but Claressa's thirty plus, Serrano, Bob Michaela, certainly they're all
into their thirties. So you know, not to say that

(11:02):
their careers are over by any stretch of the imagination,
but if you look at some of them, you know
they're closer to the end. But Gabriella Fandora still in
her early days, I feel on the way up. She's
got a chance, you know, once some of those other
women I just mentioned maybe clear out in the next
couple of years, she's got a chance to maybe be
the face of women's boxing, because not only is she
knocking her opponents out, and she's got such a friendly

(11:24):
demeanor and a good personality, she's also going to obviously
at some point, you know, rise and wait over the
next few weight divisions. She's got a chance at her
frame and the way she punches, could become a serious
player and contender and champion, you know, in several more
weight classes down the road. So this was her first
main event, which she was excited about, and she did

(11:45):
a great job. What can you say?

Speaker 1 (11:46):
And she has been active, and let's see if that
activity continues to serve her well as she gets the
main event. When all right, and then in the cod features,
oh yeah, surprise, surprise. We're in the preview mode. We
talked about Charles Conwell. We talked about how he's trying
to work his way up the junior middleweight ranks. He's

(12:08):
a former US Olympian, and a funny thing happened on
the way to title contention, if not a title shot.
He is beaten by Jorge Garcia Perez in the co
feature fight on split decision. And I saw my Dan
Rayphael tweet of you agreed right away with the split
decision that it should have been Garcia Perez. He's the

(12:31):
deserved winner. So I have to confess I have not
watched that fight.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
What happened.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Was Conwell not effective? Was he not interested?

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Was Perez just much better than? Yeah, than what anybody thought?
All of the above, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
It's kind of like all the above. I mean, listen
to me, as I had posted on my social media
as I was watching the fight that I thought Conwell
was in a world of trouble and wasn't performing very well.
And I guess, you know, I'm not gonna say Garcia
is a superstar championship fighter, but he's not a bum.
But he's just a regular, you know, good decent opponent.
I mean, and he I think fought above what the

(13:10):
expectations were, and Conwall did not fight to his expectations. Now,
Conwell has been a number one contender in the WBC,
is highly ranked. He's on the presibsis of being a mandatory.
This is not a guy that's working his way up
the rank, so to speak. Other than though he hadn't
fought a lot of top guys, but he's been winning consistently.
He did have the Olympic background. He's gotten a little
more active because of his promotional situation, getting ironed out

(13:32):
and signing with Golden Boy. But there can be no mistake,
there could be no Monday morning quarterbacking. This is a
massively debilitating loss for Conwell because now no one's gonna
have a reason to fight him. He's coming off a
loss where he looked it wasn't you know, it's one
thing if you lose, but it's super exciting. You know
you're gonna get your phone ringing. I guess. But it

(13:53):
was not a very good fight, to be quite honest
with you. And in the end he lost. Yes, it
was close, it was competitive, but I thought that that
that he lost the fight. The two judges had it
one fifteen, one to thirteen in favor of of They
called him Garcia Perez, I guess is the mother's last name,
so he was going by Jorge Garcia. In any event,
he won on two score cards by that close margin,

(14:14):
and it was Conwell who won the fight one fifteen
to one thirteen, which I thought was sort of ridiculous. Uh,
and leave it to lou Morette to score for the
house fighter. I mean, that's just the way it's always been.
And I'm not even joking. I swear to God, if
you had said to me before the fight, if someone's
gonna give it to Conwell and he doesn't serve it.
I would a million percent have said it's morett no
doubt in my mind, and that's just it's par for

(14:34):
the course. But at least the other two judges got
it right. And uh it Look, it's a huge win
for Garcia. Uh. You know, he's got some losses, but
he just scored the biggest win of his career. Uh.
He'll probably get some more activity for Conwell in.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
The smell rematch.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Do they want to pay Perez Garcia Perez more money?
I have no idea with con get him right back
with Conwell to get the stink off of him later
this summer.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
I have no idea if Conwell had a rematch clause
or not. I have zero interest in seeing that fight again.
Conwell is not at a level where you know he
should be. He should even have a rematch, Go back
to work, try to get another good opponent in the ringing,
and then get your your act together and try to
come back strong. And either way, Well I say it's
a debilitating loss. It's not like his career's over, you know,
but it's not like he can instantaneously be find himself

(15:21):
into the world title fight. In my opinion, but he's
not an old fighter. He's only twenty seven. He is
with a good promoter. He does have the amateur accolades,
and he is a good fighter. I've always thought holly
of Conwell ever since he turned professional. This was a
bad night for him, have the story, and for his
opponent and your man, Jorge Garcia. I mean, what can
you say? He did what he's supposed to do again.

(15:41):
He doesn't have a big backing, doesn't have a big resume,
but you know what, I was glad to see that
they didn't rob him and that he got the victory
that he deserved. And if you win the fight, you
should get it whatever your affiliations are. And good for him,
he got a big time win. He was kind of
emotional after the fight. It means a lot to him
and it should because he's going to get bigger fights

(16:03):
and more opportunities and know, for his sake, hopefully a
lot more money.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
All right, So let's continue in the recap mode and
we go backwards to earlier in the afternoon on Saturday, Sheffield, England.
The match room to his own main events saw Dalton
Smith knock down Matthew Jermaine multiple times, including right in
the final round, but it ends up that Jermaine did
make it the twelve round distance, one sided win for Smith.
How much do we read into this to the positive

(16:29):
for him as again he's a star in in the
UK and is in the rankings at junior welterway. What
else do we make of this with Dalton Smith doing
what he was supposed to do in the main event.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
Yeah, I mean, this was the last fight before the
title fight. He's been the mandatory in the WBC. He
put that position at risk in this fight. It's the
you know he's done that before. But he came through.
He looked pretty. I mean I think, I mean he
might be a little disappointed in myself. I thought he
fought a good fight. I mean, sometimes you know you're
not going to knock a guy out. Matthew Jermaine came

(17:06):
to uh to go the distance and do the best
he could, and he did survive the twelve rounds. I
think a lot of people watching that fight, like I did,
saw him get dropped in the second round and you're like, Okay,
this is going to be a quick night at the
office for Dalton Smith. He's gonna get him out of
there and move on to the world title fight. But
to Jermaine's credit, he stayed in the fight. You know,
he was losing every single round. You know, in the end,
it was like two judges had a one to nineteen

(17:28):
t one oh five. One judge had a one seventeen
twente oh seven, which I thought was pretty generous if
you asked me. The only reason for the one nineteen
one oh five why it wasn't a clean shutout in
terms of the scoring at one twenty was because Dalton
Smith lost a point for a low blow in the
twelfth round, which was actually a legitimate deduction by the referee,
Victor Laughlin. But he knocked him down in the second round,

(17:49):
he knocked him down in the eleventh round, he dropped
him again in the twelfth round, and Jermaine just kept
getting up. He took a lot of punishment, and you
know what, for Dalton Smith was probably a good thing.
He hasn't been the most active guy, gets in twelve
solid where he wasn't in any particular danger. He now
knows he is the mandatory that will probably be the
next fight later this year. Whether you know, I couldn't
tell you the exact date. But he's now in the

(18:10):
position to be the next challenger for Alberto Playo. When
that mandatory comes due, player will have an interim fight
where we'll talk about that in a few minutes. Yea,
So Player will fight again. So if Playo loses, it
won't matter because Dalton Smith will be the mandatory for
the winner of that fight. So this was a This
was an important fight for him because he got in
some quality rounds. Even if he probably would have liked

(18:32):
the earlier stop, you know, get the stoppage because he
had him on the floor, but you know, he goes,
goes the route. He does it in front of the
home crowd in Sheffield, England. And look, Dalton Smith's a
very very solid fighter. I don't think he's I'm not don't.
I don't want to put this the wrong way. I
I like him as a fighter. I've watched him fighting
many times since he's being featured on these Mattroum cards.

(18:53):
He's got good skills, he's got a little bit of
tenacity in him. He you know, he's got a little
bit of a mean streak in there. Scored seen him
to score some nice, nice knockouts. How he does with
a more diverse and well rounded fighter at one hundred
and forty, I'm not sure yet, but we'll find out.
Because Pueo may not be a superstar, but he's a
handful because he's got some skills and a little bit

(19:14):
of pop and it seems like he's got a pretty
decent chin. So we'll see if he can if he
wins and moves on to that fight. But Dalton Smith,
he's going to get the chance, whoever it's against, and
that's all you can ask for.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
I always defer to our buddy, David Payne, the Boxing Writer,
got his own site, The Boxing Writer dot co dot UK.
David and I have been corresponding. We've had him on
the podcast et cetera for the better part of about
seven years. I said on Saturday, Hey, what do we
think about Dalton Smith? Here? Is this guy just kind
of in the way, et cetera, et cetera. He says
it should be easy and he goes by the way.

(19:46):
I'm not a big fan of Dalton Smith for what
it's worth, so okay, and maybe that's maybe that's kind
of the perception over in the UK that there are
some fans of his, but there's some others that want
to see more.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Well maybe that's always the way it is with anything fine.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Out soon enough, they're going to have much more interest
obviously in Connor Binn and Chris Youu Bank Junior coming
up than anything Dalton Smith was going to do in
that fight. All right, So on the co feature, Josh
Warrington did return after saying he was retired just a
few months ago and laying the boxing gloves in the
ring as you detailed, and as we talked about, right,
so he was back. He won his fight over Asad

(20:22):
A Sieve Cohn by easy decision. What do we make
of this? And and obviously Warrington will look to get
back in the picture with contenders at at one point thirty.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Right, Yeah, as you mentioned, he did come out of
his brief, ever so brief retirement that that he that
he had after he had lost the fight to Anthony Casace.
That was back in September, so not a very long
layoff at all. But the big thing for Warrington is
he he had lost three fights in a row, two
by uh well, two by by well, let's go back.

(20:53):
He lost the majority decision and his featherweight title to
Luis Alberta Lopez and he got knocked out by Lee
Wood in the seventh round of a fight. He was
otherwise ahead on all three score cards, and then he
had the really pretty poor performance if he asked me
and most anybody against Casace. So he lost three fights
in a row, and he had retired and he decided, OK,
I'm going to give this another go. He had moved
up two one hundred and thirty pounds for the Kasachi fight,

(21:14):
so this fight was at juir Lightwaight, and he decided,
I mean, look, I made that announcement of my retirement.
It was a little rash. Maybe it was I didn't
really spend some time thinking about it. But he had
gone back in the gym. Maybe he looked at the
tape and was like, I'm going to try and give
it another go. Now. He didn't match him with anybody.
That was pretty difficult, and a Khan who was coming
off of a loss to Michael Conlin, who also needed

(21:36):
a very desperately needed a get well win. He got that,
and anyway, but Warrington, look as Warrington fights go, I
actually thought he looked decent in the fight. I mean,
you know, there's still he's not what he was when
he was at his absolute peak. But who of us
are right? He scored a knockdown in the sixth round.
It looked like it was a little bit like behind
the head, but that was I think the other guy

(21:56):
kind of leaned into the shot. But anyway, in the
end he got in the ten rounds sport a knockdown.
He won ninety nine eighty nine, ninety nine, ninety ninety seven,
ninety one. I mean it was a clear cut victory.
You know, at worst it was seven to three plus
the knockdown. He also had a point deducted for losing
his gum shield at one point or that was con

(22:16):
who lost the point. Besides the knockdown, he also had
gotten docked that point by the referee Mark Lisn for
having his mouthpiece come out multiple times. In any event,
I'm not the interesting thing is, so Warrington gets to win, okay,
he's back in the in the positive side of the ledger.
I just don't know where it leads to. What is
what is the fight for him? It's not a rematch
with Lee would because Lee Wood is fighting Casace. That

(22:39):
fight's coming up, so you know, don't find something for him.
I'm just not sure exactly at what level and the
magnitude of the match, but he's certainly at the worst
case scenario. He's in the picture, I guess for anybody
at all that needs There you go, he's a named opponent.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
He's now a named opponent if he wants to continue
on and listen, being a named opponent means you get
an opportunity and you also get a chance to make
it decent.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
There you go, and you get a decent check for
me and that. So let's see if that's the future
for Warrington. Out of that, did we mention retirement with
Josh Warrington? I so one more fight to cover, and
that is Sergey Covlev, the former three time unified light
heavyweight champ, former unified light heavyweight champ. Right, he was

(23:24):
back in action in Russia on Saturday afternoon and defeated
somebody or Friday, I'm sorry, on Friday afternoon US time,
Friday night in the in the uh in what is
it sheelle Binsk, Russia and defeated someone named Arthur Mann.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
I don't know who that is.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
You'll you'll enlighten us more in a cruiserweight a bout
and more importantly, it says on my rundown, is this it?
Is it?

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Ever?

Speaker 2 (23:50):
It for these guys? Is it it? I mean for Covid,
I actually probably think it is. I mean, you never
know for sure. Listen if you go. First of all,
colev at one time was on high on the pound
for poundless. He was a three time light heavyweight title holder.
More significantly, he had unified three of the titles and
was involved in some very very big fights. He was

(24:11):
a staple of HBO. Donna Stevenson ducked him blatantly, in
my opinion, and if you go and take a look
at the ledger, the guy knocked out John Pascal twice
when Pascal was in his prime. He's got a shutout
victory against Bernard Hopkins in a unification fight. Bernard was
an old man at that time, but a lot of
people gave Bernard a chance out box this man. You know,

(24:31):
he has went to the UK, went to Wales, to
Nathan Cleverly's hometown when Nathan Cleverly was undefeated, and absolutely
destroyed him to win his first world title at light heavyweight.
That was way back in twenty thirteen. But he had
a distinguished career for many years, and then he had
the two big fights against andre Ward. The first fight
he lost the unanimous decision, but myself and many many

(24:53):
others thought that he did not get the right call
in that fight that he deserved to win, and in
the rematch andre Ward stopped him, perhaps with a little
bit of a low blowhelp in the situation. But ever
since then, even though he won another belt, it's been
sort of a downward spiral for him. He had the
loss against a leader Alvarez. He came back and won
the rematch to regain the WBO title. He scored his

(25:15):
last like serious win against Anthony Yard. That was in
twenty nineteen. That was a few months setting up the
big fight with him in Canelo Alvarez, where he actually
held his own and did well in that fight until
the very end when Canelo scored a Gargantuaan knockout in
the eleventh round, and ever since then it has been
kind of downhill. He came back a couple of years

(25:36):
later he won a non descript cruiserweight fight and then
in the Saudi Arabia card back in May of last year.
This was when Tyson Fury and Usik had their first fight.
He got on that card because he and Usik shared
the same manager. And he looked absolutely, downright horrendous against
Robin Safar and lost a lopsided decision, and you're like,

(25:56):
this has to be the end. But eleven months later
he comes back, he announced this is gonna be my
farewell fight. He fought in his hometown of Cellibin's, Russia,
where he hadn't fought since the Yard fight in twenty nineteen.
And you said, who's Arthur Man. Arthur Mann was a
decent opponent. Actually, I was kind of surprised he fought
that level of a guy. What was supposed to be,

(26:17):
you know, the farewell fight. Arthur Man, who had a
pretty decent record twenty two and four. He'd been stopped
three times. But again he had challenged for a cruiserweight
title against Myris Bradus back you know a few years ago. Yeah,
he got stopped on the early side of that. That
was four or five years ago. But he's fought some
good opponents and cove Lev and I look so bad,
but Covilev did a heck of a job in this fight.

(26:38):
He you know, if you're gonna go out. This is
a good way to hang up, hang up the gloves,
you know. He he's dropped him in the second round,
looked like he was in to get it out of
there early two. Man's credit came back a little bit,
made a little bit of a fight. But cove Lev,
on my opinion, was always sort of in charge and
taking care of the business. And in the end, after
he dropped him again in the seventh round, Man got

(27:00):
up at the corner, was like, that's enough and he
was bleeding. He had a bad cut over his eye.
Anyway to stop the fight, and uh, covid was able
to celebrate what's supposed to be, uh, the end of
what was been what is supposed to.

Speaker 3 (27:13):
Be the end.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
But you would think, uh, do these guys ever retire,
So kudos to covid Lev, especially if this is it.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
I mean, I think about it. But when you take
a look at what's out there and and and what
he accomplished, and in the way he accomplished accomplished it,
he's got a very very very strong case to be
in the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
You wouldn't know.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
By all accounts, he should have got the first win
against Ward, who was a no doubt about it. First
out Hall of Fame or win against Covidlev or a
loss against covial Lev. Uh. He has all those wins
I just mentioned against Bernard Hopkins. Uh, you know the
two knockouts on John Pascal's turf in Montreal. I mean,
the guy has beaten a lot of good fighters. Even
there is a case case. All right. He was a

(28:04):
scary dude. He was dominating for US several years. Uh,
and on that pound for bound list, and nobody wanted
to fight the guy. He was a wrecking machine, all right.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
So there you go on all of the recaps, full
recaps back and forth from Europe to the US, back
to Europe, et cetera. Gave you lots of that all
right news, and I was very interested. Sunday is not
usually a big news day, but I was right on
my ray Field substack.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
I was right on the fight freak to night substock,
late Saturday night, late.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
Saturday night, Sunday, I got the alert and I read
up and went, okay, wait a minute, we got a
July card.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Now that not only.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Is going to have Edgar Berlanga and Hams of Shiraz,
but now Shakur Stevenson and William Zapada are on this
as well as a couple of other entries.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Mixing up your time. That the Zapeida and Shakor fight
was announced a few days ago as being on this card,
it was the disclosure of the rest of the fight.
Say look is making this a Ring MAGA branded card,
and so he uses his ring magazine website publication to
announce the news that he wants to announce, and so
they put out on the Ring magazine that this was

(29:10):
the card. So in addition to the Chaquor fight against
against the Payda, which is a good fight, we all
know that it's the manatory we've been expecting it. That's
a done deal. The main event of this card will
be Edgar Berlanga against Shiraz who's moving up to super midweight.
We talked about it in the previous show coming off
the draw that he didn't deserve against a Damis for
the WBC Midleway title, but also him changing trainers to

(29:32):
work with Andy Lee. So Edgar Berlanga and Sharaz will
hook up in this main event. It will be a
WBC super middleweight title eliminator. And then you've got Chaquor
against the Paida and then, oh, by the way, they
added two other highly interesting fights. You got Alberta Pueo.
I mentioned earlier how when he's gonna be the champion,
that's going to have to make a mandatory against Dalton Smith.

(29:54):
But if he loses this fight against Sabril Mattias, the
former IBF title holder, whoever wins that fight's going to
Harrott Dalton Smith. But Peyo is fighting Matist. That's a
fight that kind of comes out of the blue. But
it shows you that Turkey is willing to go to
do some work again with PBC and vice versa, because
Pueo is a PBC fighter, Mattias is with his Puerto
Rican promoter. But Dey'll fight and on this card for

(30:15):
the WBC Junior Walter whit title. It will take place,
by the way, in New York City. They did not
announce a location. I asked Turkey about that on Sunday.
He said they were still figuring that out. But if
you take a look at some of the major venues
in New York, places like the Barclay Center and Madison
Square Garden, seems to me there otherwise occupied it. This moment.
So I think they're gonna They're not gonna do another

(30:36):
fight in Times Square, but maybe they'll find some other
interesting sort of location to do a fight. And then
the fourth fight is also an intriguing fight. It's a
light heavyweight fight between David Morrell, another PBC fighter who
was coming off of the exciting fight but a decision
loss against David Benavitez that was back early in February,
and he's taken on Imam Katiev, who is a fighter

(30:57):
a lot of people may not have heard about. A
mom Caadio is a danger's dude. He's a fast rising fighter.
He's thirty years old. I did put him on my
prospect list. That's a I made an exception because he
he had just turned thirty. But he's a bad boy.
He was a Russian Olympic medalist, ron's medal winner in
the in the Olympics and he now based out of Australia.

(31:18):
He signed with I the Tiger. You know, some of
his recent fights have been on ESPN Plus. He's a
dangers dude. This is a in my mind, this is
a really interesting matchup. So that's your four fights, and
they're going to make another big show out of it,
I asked Turkey. Also, by the way, is this going
to be Dizonne? Is it going to be his own
pay per view?

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (31:35):
Oh, the eternal question.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yes, go ahead, he said, that's up to the Zone
to determine that. But the interesting thing about it is
it's going to mean two major shows in New York City.
I'm back to back days because on July eleventh at
Madison Square Garden you have the Trilogy Fight with Katie
Taylor and Amanda Toronto headlining at the Garden on a
free card on Netflix and all women's card which filled

(31:58):
up with plenty of good women's matchups. And then the
following h the following day, on the Saturday, on July twelfth,
will be this card with Berlanga Or and Zepaida. So
it's a boxing boxing festival in New York. You know,
it's been a long time. It's been a while since
there's been two major cards back to back nights. There's

(32:19):
been a couple of times. I remember one time there
was a big show at Barclay Center on the same
night that there was an HBO card at Madison Square
Garden Theater that actually Sergey Kovlev was in the main
event on but it's it's not normal these days for
there to be you'd think in New York is such
a big market, such a big city, but the boxing landscape,
the fan base is is uh, you know, they don't

(32:40):
like to do that. So this makes it interesting, and
the two major shows in back to back days.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Especially if you're trying to charge pay perviews on both
of them, which in this case it's not as you
just explain, uh, and trying to figure all that out.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
So I'm talking about I'm talking about the tickets forget
about paper.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
I'm talking about out yeah, the for the second one,
because as you mentioned, the gardens taken up, and what
would the venue be for this one, because that's a
I mean, there's Berlina's got a following obviously in New York. Again,
Shakur has been relevant on ESPN, and you've got one
more no tool promotionally as well.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Oh, I'll get to that a second. The thing about
it is, it's forget about paper viewer. Otherwise, if if
you want people to come out to the venue, it's hard.
If you're putting on a cart at the garden on
Friday night and you're charging money for tickets, and then
you're putting on another card on Saturday. People might want
to go to both, but it becomes a cost situation
everybody can afford, and boxing tickets aren't exactly cheap these
days for the most part. And in terms of drawing

(33:35):
a crowd, Berlin is a New York Puerto Rican. Chakur
may not be from New York, but he's from Newark,
which is, you know, a ten minute train ride from
from Penn Station, you know, into Newark, easy to get
to and from. You have a Surbril Mattias who is
a Puerto Rican fighter. You have Alberto Player is Dominican.
There's a very large poor Dominican population in New York.

(33:57):
Kativa is a Russian. There's obviously a big Russian population
in New York. And David Morrell is Cuban. There's a
decent Cuban population in New York also, so you know,
it should draw you know, from that group. And they're
good fights, that's the main thing. I mean, even if
you're none of those nationalities, they're all interesting matchups for
a variety of different reasons. You mentioned about you Cors Stevenson.
So there's been a lot of conversation when he was

(34:20):
a free agent from Top Rank when his contract ended
and he ultimately signed with Matchroom Boxing and Eddie Hearn.
It was a two fight contract. Remember he was supposed
to fight Floyd Schofield on the Saudi Araby card. Scofield
got ill during fight weekend Withdrew and he ended up
fighting and knocking out Josh Padley. It turns out that's
going to be the only fight on this contract with
Mattrim because my understanding is that they had mutual ability

(34:43):
to get out of the contract that they wanted to.
Shakur apparently has opted out. He is no longer with
Matchroom Boxing and his manager. He's been with manager James
Prince for his whole career, and James has made a
deal and hired Lou de Bella to be as a
one off Chakor's promoter for this fight. So they'll pay
Lou a fee he'll probably make, I know, not probably.

(35:05):
I'm sure he'll make a lot less than what Eddie
would have been entitled to make as the actual contract promoter.
But they hired de Bella for a fee basically to
have his back to do all the stuff you got
to do, make sure, you know, you keep an eye
on on the other side, make sure that you deal
with the commission, make sure that things are appropriate, whether
it's whatever, the issues that come up. He's got his
staff and lewis very experienced, especially in New York where

(35:27):
he's based out of his team. His staff, they know
that commission inside and out, so they'll run interference and
obviously if you need a mouthpiece, you know, De Bella
is an excellent guy that will talk to the press.
So he's basically on board to just help the cause
and see what's up. And for Shakur, you know, people
are like, well he's free, you know whatever. I'm like, well,
he only had a two five deal. He had just

(35:47):
come out into free agency from a long contract with
Top Rank, and it actually seems like a pretty good
move for him because now he's going to get paid
multimillions of dollars for this fight against the PATA. He
doesn't have to share a percent with match Room. He'll
paid the Bella a fee that will be obviously a
lot less than what Mattrim would have been able to claim,
and he's a free agent when the fight's over. Yeah,

(36:09):
so he maintains that ability to work with whoever he wants, so,
you know, and by the way, it's not like Eddie
did a bad job for him. I mean, Eddie is
a good promoter and it's just unfortunate that the opponent
in scofiall dropped out and that was on a Sauty
cart anyway, and there you go. I don't think it's
really got to do frankly, between any issues between Kor
Stevenson and Eddie Hearn. I think it really is more

(36:31):
between whatever the back and forth has been in recent
weeks or months between Eddie Hurt and Turkey y'all. Sheic
to be quite honest. But regardless, Shakor got himself a
you know, a fight. They didn't have to go to
a purse bid and it's done a big show and
he's gonna get paid a ton of money. Go good
for him, and it's a good bunch of other fights
on the show also.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
And again we should point out too, he turned down
a multi fight, multi million dollar deal to stay with
Top Rank, to basically go out and try to find
better fights, get in bed with Turkey al Chic and
the Saudi card which he was on earlier this year,
and as you mentioned, if he wins this fight with Supaida,
he's got serious leverage now on whatever the next.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
Thing is after that very true day tune.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
Okay, as we put our podcast to bed previewing Thursday
night into Friday, I get up Friday morning, I'm doing
some different stuff and lo and behold on my social
media there's a Jake Paul post I'm back.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
I'm back in June.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
As it turns out, he's fighting on the Twins My
Twins Riley and Abbey's seventeenth birthday June twenty eighth.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
He will return.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
And we can't say that this name is unexpected because
Rayphiel we were talking about this last summer about ten
months ago that Julio Sayzar Chavez Junior, can I say it?
I Am going to say it, A bloated I was
there in person, a bloated Jay C. C Junior was
fighting on the undercard of the Jake Paul Mike Perry fight,

(37:55):
and the talk, the buzz was this could be a
future opponent after the ty and fight for Jake Paul. Well,
Lo and behold, Julio saysar Chavez Junior, is I see
you snickering? Is the opponent for June the twenty eighth.
All right, what do we make of this? And also
there's an intriguing co feature on this as well, and
we've been talking about Zerdo Ramirez and his next bout.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
He's in the co feature.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
But what about this announcement and what is your reaction
that it's Julio saysar Chavez Junior and Jake Paul.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
You know, and anybody who's listened to this podcast are
read my material that I've I've been nice to Jake Paul.
I've I've enjoyed the events. I've given him props. I've
not talked down about him or bad about him or anything.
I just it is what it is. I've never had
a problem with it. This one rubs me the wrong way.
Why because Chavez, Yes, he's not a former MMA fighter.

(38:50):
He's not a BKFC fighter. He's not a basketball player
that type of thing. He is not a fighter who's
been retired for twenty years and coming out of retirement
who was you know, had had sciatica problems and other issues.
You know, he's a quote unquote real boxer. The problem
is he hasn't really been a quote unquote real boxer

(39:11):
for quite a while right, and he was at his
best twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen. It's literally been
like a decade since he's been He's got the name
because his father is a legend and Julio Caesar Chavez Senior.
But he's best known Chavs for ped issues, for missing

(39:32):
weight issues, for getting arrested, getting in trouble, missing weight,
being basically having a lot of problems, and I don't wish.
And the thing about it is, if you ever just
like hang out with Julio Caesar Chavis jingor I mean
not that I've lung out with him, but I've met
him many times. I've been around in a bunch when
I covered a lot of his fights when he was
at the top level. He's actually a pretty nice guy,

(39:53):
that's the thing. So you kind of feel bad. He's
had a lot of issues with mental health problems and
addiction issues like his father had. Always bad on Julio Jinger,
but he's also shown a propensity when the tough gets
going to just quit in the ring. He's outright quit
on a number of occasions in his fights. So this
was not Jake Paul's plan. By the way, they had

(40:14):
him on that card as like a possibility. This is
really planned C. Plan A was to try to do
the Canelo fight. They were way down the road on
that and Canelo shifted up at the last minute and
went with the deal with Turkey, So then they switched
to Plan B. That was an exhibition against Tank Davis.
But when Tank Davis got the gift of the draw
against Lamont Roach, he exercised his right to the immediate rematch,

(40:35):
so that again was Jake Paul with no fight, And
so you go to Plan C and he picks up
Julio Sayzar Chavez Junior, who hasn't fought for a while,
hasn't looked particularly good for several years, and that's what
this is going to be. So and unlike the Tyson fight,
which was free on Netflix to subscribers, which is obviously
a mega mega event for a lot of different reasons,

(40:57):
this is a paper you fight at the Honda Center
in anahein California. So the charge premium money for a
fight that, yeah, it's against a quote unquote real boxer,
but I'm just not into this one, to be quite honest. Now,
the saving grace of it is the co feature, right
we'll get to the feature in a second.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Here's the here, as we continue to go over this
and keep track of this and keep scoring, here's where
I come down on what you just said. I'll elaborate
on this avenue. You went two or three avenues if
you are legitimately seriously trying to move up the ranks
of cruiserweight and beyond. And then remember he fought it

(41:32):
much heavier against Mike Tyson than cruiserweight, So now he's
gonna move back down?

Speaker 3 (41:37):
Is that what this is gonna be?

Speaker 2 (41:39):
Contact weight? It's a ten round fight, regular rules, regular gloves,
and it's a two hundred pound maximile, which is the
cruiser weight limit.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
But the whole idea of he's gonna move up the
ranks of cruiserweight and get a title shot, and blah
blah blah blah blah. And we saw him fight a
couple of people at cruiserweight that were complete knockovers. All right,
that's out the window. It's obvious. We're gonna make every
quick buck we can make. However we can make it.

(42:06):
The silliness factor. You can't take it serious that he
is serious about being a boxing world champion. If these
are the choices you keep making. I'm gonna fight Mike
Tyson and then I'm gonna come back seven eight months
later and fight Julio Saesar Chavez Junior, who's fighting thirty pounds,
thirty five pounds or more over the fight weight where

(42:27):
he was last relevant.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
I mean Chavez was a title holder at one hundred
and sixty pounds, that's right, and he only got it
because they forced Sergio Martinez to give up the title.
If you want to go back there, actually find out
the reasons why so it occurred.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
If if we're back to the farce fights of MMA
guys that don't have boxing experience or over the hill
this or whatever. I guess that's fine, public buyer, beware
there will be Here's here's the truth. All I'm saying
one more time is stop it with take me seriously
as a contender or a championship can because time and
again you're doing this.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
It's still actually as sick as it is and I'm
not I agree with you, okay, but just to be clear,
it is a step up from what he has been fighting,
but it's still kind of unfortunate. The last time. Let
me let me go through this for a quick second.
They're not the belabored forever. But I need to go
through this for a minute. The last time that Chavez
Junior was in a fight that was not only relevant

(43:26):
but where he also looked good was way back in
June of twenty twelve. DJ, please do the math. My
recollection says that would be ago, right, Okay, So that
was on the night where he stopped Andy Lee, who
was a top contender in the middleweight division at that time.
But now we're talking about as a trainer for guys
like Ben Whittaker and and now also with the Hamsi Shiraz.

(43:49):
But anyway, so he stops Andy Lee on that night,
he retains the BBC title. He's never had a big
fight where he looked good and won since then. His
next fight, he lost every single round against Sergio Martinez
other than about ten seconds when he scored a knockdown
in the twelfth round. He had the two fights with
Brian Vera where he didn't make the weight in one
of them and was able to win the rematch, but

(44:10):
it was not exactly against a top opponent. He absolutely
quit like a dog against Andre fan Far in the
next fight, and then he fought a bunch of you know,
lesser guys. Two guys that were lesser guys that he beat.
Then he lost every single round against Canelo Alvarez one
hundred and twenty to one, a weight on all three cards,
was not competitive for one second time that he did

(44:31):
has managed to survive because he ran and Kenello couldn't
land the big shot and he forced that fight was
over Canelos weight. At that time he was still fighting
at middleweight. They forced that at sixty four. The only
drama of that was at the weigh in was whether
he's going to make the weight, because that's when they
still did real way ins and not the show showcase
bullshit wayans. And then from there he was off for
a while, off for two years, come back, fought to Shmir,

(44:54):
lost that won that fight, quit against Danny Jacobs who
stopped him because he quit in the corner. Won another,
lost the next fight against a nobody, came back one
another fight against a nobody, lost to Anderson Silva in
twenty twenty one, got dominated in that fight twenty which
Jake Paul basically beat easily when they fought, and then
he fought two more fights in his last two bouts

(45:14):
one in twenty twenty one, didn't fight again until twenty
twenty four. That was the fight you were at against
the MMA fighter in his second pro boxing match, the
former UFC fighter Uriah Hall and a six rounder where
he won. But he looked like crap in that fight. Now,
so this is where we're at, where now thirteen years
post Chavez his last fight, and on top of that,

(45:35):
we are forty almost forty pounds above where he was
at his best. So is it a real guy relative
to the guys that Jake has been fighting who are
actual boxers. Yes, but that doesn't make.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
It something that But we know, we know that Jake's
gonna fill the building regardless of whatever the rest of
the card was. He's gonna fill the building. All I
am saying one more time, we will have some interest
in this, but just stop it with that to be
taken seriously as a cruiserweight contender, as a cruiserweight championship
level fighter, when this is what you keep coming up with,

(46:08):
if if this was some kind and I know why
from a marketing standpoint, in selling tickets, you want to
try to sell tickets because this is the Hall of
Famer Sun that's the angle.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
So I'm, like I said, I'm not mad about the match,
but I just I don't like the hypocrisy like you're
talking about. And the thing is when he made his
quotes that he put out when they announced the fight
about how you know that he just defeated the baddest
man on the planet. You know, you beat a Tyson
who is the badest man on the planet thirty years ago,
number one, number two. You know he's taken on the
guy that Canelo couldn't finish. Yeah, the guy that Canelo

(46:39):
won in twelve out of twelve rounds against seven years ago.
I was gonna say almost a decade ago, you know, yes,
thirty five pounds less or whatever it was, So give
me a break. Anyway, the good thing about this card
is the co feature, and we'll see what else they
add to the card. And you know, to Jake Paul's credit,
they've usually actually done pretty good undercard. Yes, we'll see
what else say on besides this fight, that's the Zerto Ramirez.

(47:03):
I know everybody thinks that down the road at the
end of this year, maybe he'll fight a further unification
against Jaio patayef Obataya you know, gets past his next
fight that's coming up in a few weeks, but he's
taken on a dangerous guy, the Ko Doctor, who's got
a great nickname, and that's Janiel Dordegos, the Cuban fighter,
who is a former two time cruiserweight title holder, who
is a tremendous puncher. He did take some step aside

(47:26):
in a recent fight to stand down from messing up
the fight that that Zerto had against Chris Bilm. Smith
allowed them to unify with the promise that he would
get the shot against the winner. And now he's cashing
in and he's getting the shot against the winner. So
that's the co feature. I actually had reported a while
ago that that fight was ear mark for June twenty eighth.
I didn't know at the time that it was going

(47:47):
to be on a card that Jake Paul against Chavez
Junior was going to be the main event. But this
fight has been sort of in the works and been
you know, ear marked for that slot for the last
bit ever, you know, for the last probably a month
or so at least. So that's a good fight because
that's Zerdo in a real fight against a tremendous puncher,
I look at it like this. We know that Turtle

(48:08):
could take a shot at Superman aweight. We saw what
he could do to take a shot against guys who
are solid at light heavyweight, and now we're gonna find out,
I think, for real, if he can take a shot
as a cruiser weight. Because the guys he's fought a cruiserweight,
Bill Smith and Gomarian, I mean they're not like, they're
not bad punchers, but they're not the dynamic kind of
puncher of a Dordiko. So that's an interesting fight to me.

(48:29):
All right, good enough.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
One other quick news item.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
Then we got some nostalgia for Floyd Mayweather and back
to Canelo, not against each other, but stay tuned.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
That's coming in just a second. The announcement that and you,
I know you're high on this guy.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
Junto Nakatani, the WBC's bantamweight champion, is now going to
fight in a unification about with his countryman Ryosuki Nashida.
This is coming in June. This will be in Tokyo.
Give me something on this real quick. They made the announcement.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Yeah, listen, tremendous matchup. I mean, I know Nakatani and
a lot of people are waiting to see him fight
against in a way, and hopefully that will happen, you know,
sometime in the early part of next year, when when
finally not only when in a way you know whether
he I don't know when he's going to move up,
but hopefully what happens before that, because right now, in
a way, is the champ at one hundred and twenty

(49:15):
two and you got Nakatani who holds a WBC title
at one hundred and eighteen. That's a mega fight in Japan.
We've talked about it. The top ranked people and the
people that work with them in Japan have talked about
making this match, doing it at the Tokyo don't. But
they're not going to just sit around and wait for
that fight. Nakatani is going to do his thing in
Away's got his year planned out. But if they can
all get through it, hopefully we'll see at the beginning
of next year. But in the meantime, Nakatani's trying to

(49:37):
carve out his own legacy into the sports, as is Nashida.
But na Katani has been moving up to pound for
pound ranks. He's thirty, you know, with twenty three knockouts.
He's looks spectacular basically every time out. He's also won
titles at flyweight and junior banhamweight. I think some people
actually already have him on their lower part of their
top tens in terms of pound for pound. And look,

(49:58):
he's been taking care of business. He's he's made three
title defenses, he's won them all by knockout. He won
the title by knockout against Santiago back, you know what,
a year or so ago, and so now he's taken
on his own countrymen. And by the way, unification fights
among Japanese fighters are very rare. I mean, there's only
a few times that's happened. I think the first time

(50:18):
it ever happened. You got to go back to twenty twelve.
That was when y Gaishi had a unification fight against Ioka.
That's a long time ago, but it's very There's only
been you know, maybe a two or three at the most.
Overall that tis fighting a unification against Japanese against Japanese
and a unification fights, So it's a rare thing. But

(50:39):
that's the way. You know, the bandonmweight division has been
dominated by Japanese fighters. So if you want to get
a unification, inevitably you're gonna have to fight another of
your countrymen. So in Nishida, he's only ten and zero
two knockouts. He did score a big win when he
beat Emmanuel Rodriguez to win the title. That was like
about a year so ago. He's only made one defense.
I actually watched that actually on YouTube when was on

(51:01):
against the sort of a non descript opponent. So he's
going to be the big underdog. But it's great when
you can get these fighters to unify their titles. I mean,
that's still a big part of boxing. You know, young
disputeds are tough, but unifications. I'm glad they're able to
make this fight. And look, I love Nakatani's one of
my favorite fighters in boxing to watch. It's gonna be
another one of those breakfasts with boxing on ESPN Plus

(51:22):
because they'll do it.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
You know, we're in Japanese boxing.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Yeah, so wake up, wake up like four or five
in the morning, and you watch this Japanese card. They
got your boy attention. Nasa cow is going to be
on this card. I also want a bandon White fight.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
Why is he my boy?

Speaker 2 (51:36):
I've got seventeen boys?

Speaker 3 (51:37):
Why is he.

Speaker 2 (51:38):
He's the former kickboxing star who's getting close to a
world title fight of his own. Uh, he's taken on
Victor Santian. That's another solid opponent frame as he moves up.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
But the bigger story is your boy Nakatani is the headliner.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
Oh yeah, exactly going to be stay chubed. So when
they announced that fight on Friday, on the same day
as Jake, Paul and Chavez was announced, in my mind,
the real fight that was announced was the band and
Wait unification. Fair enough, all right, let's move on to nostalgia.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
Interesting today is Easter Sunday, as we do the pods
Sunday night into Monday, April to twentieth, and look, there's
a lot to April the twentieth, I mean horrifically. The
Columbine tragedy with the two nut High school students is
April to twentieth. For those that are enthusiasts of cannabis
and marijuana, four twenty is a big day. You want

(52:28):
me to confess on the Big Fight Weekend podcast. Never
tried it, never tried it. Don't know about you, Rightfiel,
but I'm trying.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
For the potheads, this is a big day.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
Did you know on April the twentieth of nineteen twelve,
the first ever baseball game was played at Fenway Park?

Speaker 2 (52:46):
How about that for April the twentieth, I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
That's different sports, different sports, different things. If you're how
about that?

Speaker 2 (52:53):
All right?

Speaker 1 (52:54):
But April the twentieth has significance for both Floyd Mayweather
and Canelo Alvarez. Let's begin with April twentieth, two thousand
and two and Floyd Mayweather's win over Jose Luis Castillo
for the WBC lightweight title. Controversial decision. All right, so
what about tell me more about this Mayweather win.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
This is probably the most controversial decision that Floyd won,
and he didn't have a lot of them, I mean,
because he dominated most of his opponents. I mean, some
people thought it was somewhat controversial when he had the
victory in the first fight he had against Marcus Madonna.
I didn't really think that was all that controversial. Jose
Lewis Castillo, that was a close fight. A lot of
people thought Castillo legit won the fight. I was covering

(53:36):
boxing for USA today time. I don't remember why, but
I did not go to that fight.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
For some reason.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
I watched it on TV and I went back and
I knew we were going to talk about this, and
I looked up to see how I scored this fight.
I actually scored the fight seven rounds to seven, a draw.
They both had gotten deducted one point each, so those
sort of offset each other, so I had to fight even.
But the judges had it one sixteen, one eleven in
one fifteen eleven, one fifteen, one eleven four Floyd, which

(54:03):
seemed a little generous if you asked me. This was
Mayweather who had just completed a very outstanding run at
junior lightweight where he had beaten a lot of good guys,
including a knockout victory against Diego Corrals and a dominating performance.
He had beaten good quality contenders like Jesus Chavez and
Carlos Hernandez. And if you back up to the earlier
part of his reign, he had won the title so

(54:23):
impressibly against Gennaro Hernandez, he had knocked out angel Man.
Freddy was on a top you know, the top contender
at the time, just a couple of months after he
beat Jennera Hernandez, so you know, Mayweather was doing everything
at one hundred and thirty. He was taken on all
comers and taken names. Basically, he goes in the ring
with Castillo, who was a rugged customer, was best known
for being a Chavez Senior sparring partner, but he had

(54:45):
gotten a title shot against Evie Johnston, who was a
very slick boxer. I actually was the first fight main
event I ever attended in California. It was the afternoon
of the first fight between De la Hoya and Mosley,
and Castillo pulled the upset. It was that actually the
last time they ever had boxing on ABC on Wide
World of Sports. But Castillo won the title that day,

(55:06):
made a defense or two. Anyway, they were both with
top rank Floyd and Castillo. Castillo was the first opponent
when Floyd moved up to lightweight and he challenges for
the title. And Castillo was a big guy, strong, pretty
good punch, a great chin. And you know, we saw
Floyd deal with those types of guys at thirty but
a lot of people question how's he gonna do with
at one thirty five, And it turned out, by the way,

(55:28):
he had a tremendous amount of trouble in that fight.
Like I said, a lot of people thought that Castillo won.
Now not that this matters in the scheme of the
official scoring, but you can take it for his his worth.
Castillo was clearly the winner based on the compy box,
which again it's a guide that doesn't really mean that much.
But you know, Larry Merchant on HBO scored at one

(55:48):
fifteen one to thirteen for Floyd. You know, Harold Letterman
had Mayweather head by the two points, but there was
a lot of people that thought that he should have
lost the fight. It was so controversy at the time
that that he was giving. He was giving. He gave
Castillo a rematch in that fight, and so they did

(56:08):
it again, you know later that year. Actually made a
mistake on the scoring. It was actually, uh, it was
actually uh what do you call it? Uh, Harold Letterman
that had Castilla winning the fight one fifteen to one eleven. Interesting,
you know, and I'm looking I look this up other
you know, you can look it up on box wreck.
You have the ap having having him winning the fight,

(56:28):
having Castilla winning the fight.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
So it was it was a very tight matchup, so
it did compelled to rematch.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
Yeah, I made a mistake when I said the scores,
it was closed one sixteen, one eleven, one fifteen, one
eleven twice. I was looking at the rematch. In any event,
it was a close fight, that's the bottom line. And
they did it again and Floyd won the second fight,
which is also another close, tough fight. But this is
the one that stands out on Floyd. You take a
look at all those fifty fights he had, You could
count on less than one hand the number of times

(56:56):
where Floyd was in jeopardy, right, I mean, even fights
that were compe he still clearly won. Like the Madonna
fight was competitive, even though I think most people still
thought he won. The Koto fight was competitive a lot.
You know, nobody thought Koto actually won the fight. You know,
Emmanuel Augustus known as Emmanuel Burton at the time, gave
Floyd a very tough fight, but he ultimately got a knockout.

(57:17):
My point is this was the only one that went
the route where there was a clear a number of people,
be it fans, media, boxing, people otherwise, who really thought
that Castillo deserved the win, and Floyd gave him the
remachine and he got the win.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
All right.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
So move forward eleven years.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
To April, the twentieth of twenty thirteen, and that is
Canelo Alvarez winning the unified WBC WBA Junior middleweight titles
one hundred and fifty four pound titles and also the
vacant ring title and a decision over Austin Trout. Now,
I joked with you on my rundown that you know,
we tend to go on and on, and we've been
here a while for this. Can we write the history

(57:58):
of boxing without the Canelo Austin Trout fout?

Speaker 3 (58:01):
And you had to fight, You had to concede to me,
we probably can.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Write the history of boxing without remembering Canelo and Trout
in the ring.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
However, what was going on outside? Wondering where you're going
with this?

Speaker 1 (58:14):
You know I'm always going somewhere. What was going on
outside of the ring? Well, make it even more memorable
because you were not at this fight while working for
ESPN for a very good reason for Canelo Trout.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
But before I get to that, though, just to set
up why this was a big deal. A. It was
a unification fight. B. It was also for the vacant ring,
which was emblematic of the lineal title to most people.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
Second of all, Trout was undefeated. Golden Boy, which was
Canelo's promoter at the time, really didn't want him to
do the fight. That's not even a secret. Canelo insisted
on the fight. He wanted the test. He was trout,
was coming off of having defeated Miguel Coto to win
the WBA title in a big upset, so he had

(58:59):
every every deserving nature to be in this matchup. He
was a very good fighter at the time. He was
certainly among the top few fighters in the one hundred
and fifty four pol Way class. They put this fine
fight on at the Alamodome. It was like a really
big deal, live on showtime. Ah, it was like it
was a big deal.

Speaker 3 (59:19):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
And you say why was TJ? Just say why Rayfield
Wasn't there?

Speaker 3 (59:23):
There reason?

Speaker 2 (59:24):
And one of the reasons. It's one of the few
Canalo fights in America anyway, you know, not the Mexico fights.
But that I missed because of a damn good reason. Uh.
April twenty was actually the due date when my wife
was scheduled or supposed to, according to the doctor, give
birth to our son. So for obvious reasons, my plans
changed and I was like, I'm not going to the
fight because uh, he's gonna you know, there's a good

(59:47):
chance he's born, you know, in and around that fight week.
So my my good pal Kieran Malviny, who was also
working at ESPN at the time, who was like basically
my backup guy on boxing. Uh, they sent Kieren to
cover the fight San Antonio, and he did a great job,
as he always did. And Rafael was home. But my
son actually had been born several days earlier, so we

(01:00:07):
had just gone home from the hospital. I forget if
it was that day or the day before, and there
was two boxing as my wife is like upstairs, she's
like resting and you know, trying to recover, and she's asleep,
and so I'm sitting in the living room with this
two day old or three day old baby on my lap,
not knowing what the hell I'm gonna do. Earlier in
the day from the Madison Square Garden Theater on NBC

(01:00:30):
or NBC Sports that I forget which it was. You
had Tyson Fury pre championship against Steve Cunningham where Steve Cunningham,
the former cruiserweight title or, knocked Tyson Ferry down. Fury
got up and ended up winning the fight, So that
was officially, I guess my son's first ever boxing match.
While he was asleep on my lap. Later that night,
I'm watching again. He got him on the lap and
he's out cold, and I'm watching. Wife is upstairs. I'm

(01:00:53):
watching Canelo do this fight against Austin Trout and it
was a good fight. I mean it was. You know,
Austin Trout have ever become like some mega superstar, but
he gave Canelo a good run that night. Some people
thought that he might have won. I didn't think so,
but uh, look, Canelo was in a real fight against
a tough guy. This was, in my mind, the first
like real guy that he fought like When he had

(01:01:15):
won the title against Matthew Hatton, for example, that was
a bazillion to one type of fight. He had made
defenses against guys like good names Ryan Rhodes, Alfonso Gomez,
even Kermit Cintron, but never did I think that he
was any danger in those fights. Then they matched him
with Shane Mosley, who was obviously a great name and
a Hall of famer but way past his best days,
and he absolutely annihilated him on points. And then he

(01:01:37):
took on Jos Seedo Lopez, who was tiny compared to
him coming up like two or three way classes to
fight him coming up from like one forty. Basically, Trout
was a real guy at fifty four. He's just beaten
Codo for a title. He's got boxing skills, he's been
around for a bit, he's undefeated, and this was like
a real fight. This was the fight that preceded when

(01:01:58):
Canelo fought Mayweather. By the way, he did a very
good job. Canelo dropped Trout in the seventh round. He
ended up winning one eighteen one oh nine on one
scorecard that was maybe a little bit gift dish towards Canelo.
The other two seem more in line one fifteen to
one twelve, one sixteen to one eleven. And he won
the fight, unified the titles, and became the The Ring
Magazine and lineal champion of the one fifty four division.

(01:02:22):
And Rafael was home with a three day old bang.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
This begs the question, were you diaper changing Dan at
that point? Yes, so right away you didn't have to
be coached instructed. You were ready to go on fight
night if need be, and probably as it needed to be,
like several times, probably so.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
My in laws did come in the next few days
to stay with us for a while to help out,
and I also uh, when they were gone, I actually
did something, and I was it's the greatest investment I
ever made. Fortunately I could afford to do it. I
hired a we hired. This was a a boxing friend
of mine gave me the suggestion, so, if you can
afford it, this is the way to go. Hire a

(01:03:05):
baby nurse. So I had hired a baby nurse to
come to our house from this company that did that.
And the nurse we had like two or three over
the course of a month or so that we used
this company. They were all tremendous and they basically taught
us how to make them sleep and all the things
you need to do, and they were wonderful with him.
But that wasn't on the first day. So I was

(01:03:25):
hiring a baby nurse. They were coming to my house
and like you know, like six in the evening and
basically staying till like seven the next morning. You know,
that helped my wife nurse and the whole thing. Wow,
that was a great start. But on those first few
days I was on my own, my wife's upstairs, like
chocked out, and so yeah, I had to change diapers.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
I had to figure all that out.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
Well, I didn't change a lot of them, but I
changed a bunch of them. Irlin, you got to do
the bottle.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
You gotta do the diaper. You got h wait a minute,
can I just knock trout down? And then the baby's away.
All of that happening now back twelve years ago on Sunday,
Happy Birthday, by the way to Young Rayfield. Yes, by
the way, also April to twentieth, so it follows up
the famous now two hundred and fiftieth two five zero,

(01:04:09):
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the midnight Ride of
Paul Revere. It was actually on Friday. But this is
you can trip people up with this. This is a
fun fact. Paul Revere did not make it up to
New Hampshire where he was trying to go. To warn
everybody involved, not the British are coming ray Field, the regulars,

(01:04:33):
they called him, the regulars, the regulars, the Brits.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
He was riding through the streets of San Antonio, yelling
Canelo he was not. It was actually.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Samuel daw Samuel Prescott and William Dawes are the two
people that had to go to New Hampshire because the
British troops had caught Paul Revere, believe it or not,
and stopped him.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
So the other two guys got to New Hampshire to
warn them.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
All right, So Day one of the revelution Lutionary War
is Saturday the nineteenth yesterday, and the Battle of Boston
began two hundred and fifty years ago on April twentieth,
seventeen seventy five.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
We got boxing lessons and we got revolutionary war lessons.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
And Finway Park would later open in Boston in nineteen twelve,
believe it or not, on the twentieth of April. All right,
So great stuff. As always with all of the recaps,
you got a bunch on that. You got some news,
some exciting fights coming obviously for this summer, and the
nostalgia as well.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
Anything else. Are we good?

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
Are we ready to attack? The final week? Essentially just
about the final week of April. Final weekend of fights
will be next weekend in April.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
We got the big one this weekend this past we.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
Connor Big and Chris you bank Junior or you Bank Junior,
Connor Band, whichever you prefer you're ready to attack the
week Are you good?

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Are we good off the weekend? I'm looking I'm not
fighting like I always say, so, I'm looking forward to
checking that one out.

Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
I think we are all looking forward to everything that's about.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
I have to say to him a little bit, I'm
a little uh, not concerned is the wrong word, but
it's you look at the way the pay per views
are stacking up. You got Connor ben on pay per
view with you Bank this coming Saturday. Then the following
Friday you have the Ryan Garcia New York City Times
Square trip letter that's pay per view, and then the
following day in Saudi Review, you got Canelo as a pa.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
Now, yes, the Zone is offering where you can buy
the May second and May third in one package for
a price that would be much less than if you
bought the two separately. But it's still even if you
buy the package. Listen, it's not it's not easy being
a boxing fan from a financial perspective. I mean, I'm
I'm lucky I can afford it, and I hope everybody
else can also.

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
But to make the tough choice, what's gonna ultimately happen
here is the The pay per view market will buckle
if there's too too much saturation and not enough people
buying them, and you got to you gotta do better
with the pricing and or the fights not being on
pay per view.

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
It's it gets to be too much. And I've never
been somebody that said, oh it shouldn't be pay per view.
You've never heard when they put fights like you know,
mega far But look, we just said it. Nobody upset
about it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
The market will dictate how much longer, and how many
of them and at what price.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
Because here's the thing that I don't quite get when
when when I'm talking about the United States, because that's
where I live, and that's where Washington where I have
done most business. When they put a fight we were
talking about Canelo against like I say, Canelo against Mayweather,
that's how I was a true mega fight when they
put that on pay per view, Nobody nobody complained about that.
You knew it was a pay per view fight, Sayoul

(01:07:38):
Mayweather pack even when they raised the price on may
their packet.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
It was also in an era if we can, if
we can elaborate on this just for another second, where
there were maybe five or six pay per views in
an entire year, maybe even.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
If you There was times when HBO did tons of
pay per views. Also, I'm not going to put on
the rose colored glasses, but even in more recent years
when they were doing like you know, Canelo against Caleb
plant on Paper or any of Canelo's fights in pay
per view, people just understood that's on pay per view
because of who Canelo is and even the types of
fights he's fighting. The problem is you take a fight

(01:08:09):
like and I'm not knocking the fight, please don't make
that mistake. Connor Ben against Chris Ubank Junior. That is
a pay per view. Obviously for the British public. I
get that. What I have troubles with is why is
that a pay per view In the rest of the world.
That doesn't make any sense. Like as an example, when
they did back a couple of years ago on his
own they did Devin Hainey against Regis program in the

(01:08:32):
United States, they made that they made that a pay
per view, which I didn't like, but I got it.
But if you were in the UK and other places
around the world, it wasn't on pay per view. It
as part of your regular subscription, so it blows my
mind that a fight like you Bank and Ben is
on pay per view even in America and other locations
right and it should be a normal subscription.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
In my opinion, we've reached the saturation point with all
the pay per views and more to come.

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
More pay per views are coming, more time.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
To dissect that with have a good week. Thank you, Dan, Rayphiel.
As always, we appreciate it. Yes, sir, there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
There's Big Dan on Merely TJ Reeves Again. Make sure
you rate us and review us, follow and subscribe on
the pod feed, especially if you love the interviews you'll
be hearing from Canelo Alvarez coming up. Our future pod
with Big Dan one on one stand by for that.
For now, we are good. Here for the latest edition
of the Fight Freak Nighted Recap podcast

All Episodes

Gabriela Fundora And Dalton Smith Win, Fight News + Mayweather, Canelo Nostalgia | Fight Freaks Unite Recap

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Gabriela Fundora And Dalton Smith Win, Fight News + Mayweather, Canelo Nostalgia | Fight Freaks Unite Recap