Libya Card Discussed, Moses Itauma Joins Us + Fight News | BFW Preview Podcast

A very light weekend of action in the ring, but plenty to go over and British rising heavyweight phenom Moses Itauma is with us,, too, on the newest "Big Fight Weekend Preview Podcast."

Host T.J. Rives is back with insider Dan Rafael of his Fight Freaks Unite Substack and Newsletter to give their takes and more.

First a quick preview of the Friday afternoon card in Benghazi, Libya (?) on DAZN
Mirco Cuello meets Sergio Rios Jimenez, for the vacant WBA interim featherweight title and
Albert Ramirez takes Jerome Pampellone, WBA light heavyweight eliminator. Dan has more on why these fights are there and what's worth watching?
 
Next it's the Itauma interview
He takes a big step up vs. former top contender and fellow Brit Dillian Whyte in the main event of a DAZN PPV on Aug. 16 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Is Itauma trending to a title shot soon? Hear him in his own words Big Dan.

Then, some fight news
A new date for Chris Eubank Jr.-Conor Benn rematch. Now Nov. 15 after Turki Alashikh previously announced it for Sept. 20th.

Former undisputed light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev is moving on, at least for now, from next facing unified champion Dmitry Bivol for the third time and will face Deon Nicholson on Nov. 22 on the big card in Riyadh headlined by WBC light heavyweight champ David Benavidez vs. Anthony Yarde. T.J. wonders for us all "What are We Doing Here?!" with Beterbiev?

Meanwhile, Oscar De La Hoya said he is not at all interested in making a rematch between Ryan Garcia and Rolando Romero and would prefer to match Garcia with Teofimo Lopez.

A big signing for Most Valuable Promotions – Junior lightweight Jahmal Harvey, a 2024 U.S. Olympian, whom Dan and many others are high on. He talks why.

And, former junior lightweight and featherweight titlist Oscar Valdez is going home. He will face Ricky Medina in a 10-rounder on Sept. 6 in his hometown of Nogales, Mexico. The guys discuss this and since he's a Top Rank main event fighter, what's going on with them finding a broadcast outlet?

It's all on the "Big Fight Weekend Preview Podcast" and make sure to follow/subscribe on Apple/Spreaker/Spotify, etc.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big
Fight Weekend. Now here is your host, TJ Leaves.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
All right, we get ready for a weekend that, let's
be honest, doesn't have a ton although hey, I've always
said when it's a lighter weekend, let's have a big
fight card in Libya of all places.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
We're ready to talk about that.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
And the rising heavyweight from England, Moses Etama, is with
our big Dan Rayfield on this podcast as well. Welcome
in here to the Big Fight Weekend preview. I'm merely
the somewhat capable host, TJ Reach. Hello, Dan Rayfield, we
are back again here together. I have survived. I we

(00:48):
got breaking news for you for me, for all that
I have survived being out as we're doing this pod
at Tampa Bay Buccaneer training camp on Thursday where it
was Dante's Inferno, sixth Ring of Hell hot. And so
if I start talking about the breakdown of the Buccaneers
and the Titans, please smack me figuratively and get me
back into the boxing snap here. So anyway that's going on,

(01:12):
We've got we've got preseason football in the United States
college football soon. There's it's a lighter month for boxing,
So we got a little bit here and there, including
Moses Etama fighting next weekend August sixteenth, not this weekend.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
But you're gonna hear from Moses on the pod. How
are you?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
I can see you're smiling, and I think I know
why you're smiling. Shall we go ahead and let the
peeps in on this. You're a smile, You're You're a
happy man. You're like a proud father right now on
the pod. You want to tell them why.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Well, it's not a secret. I've posted on my social media.
I'm very excited and very proud that I went with
my wife and we went to the bank and we
paid off the mortgage. The big deal, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
The thing is that this podcast has been so lucrative
over the course of the last three years. It has
allowed the ray Fields to realize the American dream of
being bona fide home. Aw By the way, you owned
the house right now, period, not the bank.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
You're not paying a bank anymore. You own the home now.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Well. I always make the payment online, but for whatever reason,
for the last payment, you either had to send in
like a certified check, or do a wire transfer, or
go to the bank branch and pay it. It's like chase.
I mean, they're all over the place. Okay, So we decided,
you know what, we'll make a family outing. And so
we went and I and i'd never been in that
bank branch in my life. I haven't set foot in

(02:32):
an actual bank branch and since probably the pandemic or
before the pandemic. So we went down to the to
the chase you know about I don't know, ten to
fifteen min's from my house. And I stood at the
counter and.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Young Rayfield is with you. It's a family event.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Young ray goes with us. He's excited because he's got
a lollipop at the bank, and I write the check.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I should have given you more than a lollipop after
you've been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars with interest
for a house.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
So anyway, so I gave them the check for the
last payment, which was actually less than it normally is
because I had been paying extra. And this morning, when
I double checked my accountancy the bank, the check had cashed.
And so I'm done.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
I always love this, like Applebee's Chili's, all the chains
did they come around with like one of those cakes
with a candle in it and start singing at the
bank like they do.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
There was no there was no singing, but I was
I was very I was very proud. Me listen, it's
a big deal. I'm done.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
He sent my mother, my father spent forty five years
in the church ministry. We are religious, despite the fact
that I have to put up with you. And he never,
he never in his life believed he was going to
own a home. But he paid off the home where
my mother and he live about seven or eight years ago,

(03:48):
and we did go celebrate with one of those little
cakes with a candle in it. I think after that
now missus reeves and I just to give a financial update,
because it's such a lucrative world of radio and podcasting,
should be able to pay off the home somewhere around
twenty forty four.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Look, it's just.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Just for the sake of clarity. It is not because
of the lucrative nature of the pot the podcast anything.
But I do it not for the money. Yeah, we
make a few dollars, it's not that much. We do
it because it's kind of fun, and yes, we enjoy
boxing and all that. So anybody that things were making
a fucking kill. No, not hot, not true. Well someday maybe, but.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Not from here on out.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
In the short term, I'm referring to him as homeowner,
Big Dan Rayfield. You own the home now, and hopefully
it won't be like you. Remember that movie in the eighties.
It was an awful movie, as it turns out, but
it had two heavyweight names, Tom Hanks and Shelley Long.
It was called the Money Pit. Remember, they bought the
house and he tried to fix everything, and he like
fell through the second level of the house down.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
I don't need that level. There's nothing I don't I
don't need anything that I need.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
You don't need any bad mojo. But you now own
the home. It's all yours now.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Oh so, even when I even in the bank, was
holding part of the you know, the loan, if something
happened in the in the house, they didn't come and fix.
But I had a fucking hole in my back patio
in my porch. I was the one that had to pay
for that to get it there.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
I understand, all right, enough about your home ownership, but congratulations,
well done on that. Uh, We've got a lot of
news that we're gonna get to. We do have one
fight card. Of note again, thank you for finding us
on the podfeed, Apple Spreaker, Spotify.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
We should make mention.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Again because there are people that still a couple more
contact to me. There is not a regular bet Us
boxing show on Fridays anymore. So we assume right now
you had to find this podcast and hear us. We
assume that some of you have joined us on the
pod feed, very similar to what we where you've been
for three years, very similar to what we've been doing
on the bet Us show, except you and I don't

(05:44):
handicap fights on this show per se. You and I
might come back around and handicap a fight card in
the near future if there's one worthwhile, Canelo Crawford, whatever,
But for right now, we don't have that anymore on Fridays.
But you can stay locked in on this pod feed
Dapple Spreaker, Spotify. You're gonna get twice the ray field,
twice the fun, all the insight, the analysis, the news,

(06:06):
the breaking news, the interviews. It's on the pod feed,
So stay stay locked in here with this and go
find our YouTube channel. Dan's interview with Terrence Crawford, which
which for us at the lower level has gotten a
ton of views and watches. Go watch him with Terrence Crawford.
I think part of it is and a compliment to you.
Not a lot of people have talked to him recently.

(06:28):
So go hear him in his own words about preparing
for the Canelo fight, et cetera. Plug away for it
again one more time, then go watch the interview in
full on our Big Fight Weekend YouTube page, but give
a quick plug on what he's talking about.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
So we just we spoke about his his efforts and
it was my perception that he sort of willed the
fight into being He's the one that thought about it.
Canelo was very resistant. He talked about, you know how
he just stuck to it, got Turkey into the fight,
got you know and obviously the money and the opportunity
for Canelo became a big thing. And talked about, you
know how he's gonna go about reshaping his body to

(07:00):
go from being you know, a welterweight that's become a
brief junior middleweight now going to super middleweight. Yeah, it
was just a good discussion of the historical nature of it,
what it means to him, how much is riding on
the fight for.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
This is we said this, this is the biggest name
surefire lock hall of Famer to date. You can say
that the Spence was a magnitude massive fight.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
It was.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
He had an undisputed title fight at junior welterweight. That
was an important fight. But in terms of biggest brand
name opponent, this is it. This is to this point
in his career, this is it. Everybody knows that.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
And it's not the same for Canelo because Canelo at
this stage of his career has faced already numerous Hall
of Famers and will simply be adding Crawford as another
Hall of Famer two his record because he has faced
you know, in no particular you know Mayweather obviously Triple
G twice and others, and now Crawford of course will
be the next one. And you know, he faced Shane Mosley,

(07:54):
granted not at the top of his game at that time,
but he faced you know, Miguel Coto when he was
still the middleweight champions. Face a lot of great fighters.
So but for Crawford it's the biggest one. So I
hope people check out this.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Go listen that.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Todd Grisham also publicly thank you to him again. He
spent time with you and me on Tuesday, talking about
the dis own recent shows that he has done, including
working the Oscar Duarte knitt Sim's main event in Chicago
this past weekend, Brida's recently.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
We had fun with him earlier that.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
It was him and I are reminiscing when we went
to the WWE show together.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yes, and him busting on Sergio Moura and Chris Mannix
as they always do on the show. What do you
refer to Mora as a fever blister that he can't
get rid of? That was tremendous, So check out Todd
Grisham as well on our YouTube page from when we
did this earlier. You can rewatch the interview. I got
several positive comments online and elsewhere enjoying that Q and
a more of that coming on the YouTube page. All

(08:48):
the promotions out of the way again, it is not
a plentiful fight schedule this weekend. But we're in Libya people.
We are in Libya on Friday. As we do this,
this is Friday afternoon of the eighth Benghazi Libya de
Zone is showing it. So as we release this podcast,
be ready to see this on Friday, either live in

(09:10):
the afternoon US time or time displaced Later in the day,
Let's talk first about the WBA Interim featherweight title. Nick
Ball is coming up defending right the whole version of
the WBA title the following week on the undercart of
the Atama fight. This is Mirco Queo helped me hear
Sergio Rios Himenez for the interim featherweight title for the WBA.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Did I get all that right? Tell me more? Go ahead?

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Well, first of all, just in the fact that the
fight is taking place in Libya. When I first heard
about this card, I'm like, that can't be right, but
you know what it is right? Apparently the government is
backing it there. They're i guess, sort of trying to
do what others have done in the past, whether it's
Saudi Arabia today, to bring attention and positivity towards their country,
as well as reasons why fights like you know Ali

(09:56):
and Foreman were in Zaire and why the Thriller in
Manila hosted Ali against Joe Frasier. Because these country is
not known for big events or tourism or anything. Are
putting up money to bring the world attention to these events. Now,
I'm not saying this fight in Libya is going to
have necessarily the world attention, but they're going to have
some attention on it, and so they're going to ben

(10:18):
Gazi Liby hit to do this card. Now, in terms
of the actual bouts, it's actually a pretty good card
if you like fights, Like I feel like this is
like it's not like huge names. But when I saw
that merk Okuayo was on this ground, I'm like, Wow,
Mark Oquael, that is a really good looking young fighter.
So he's a PBC guy. And if you go back
to uh February of this year when he was fighting
on the undercard when David Morrell fought against David Benavidez,

(10:41):
this was one of those fights that was part of
that prime video free stream, you know, of the prelemonaries.
It looks spectacular and getting a tenth round knockout against
Christian o'livi Olivi olivo and is exciting. I mean, he's
a good fighter, fifteen and oh twelve knockouts from Argentina
and he's fighting him then as I don't you know,
they're fighting for the interim title. It's that with that

(11:01):
to me, you know, my feelings about that, it makes
no sense they're basically fighting a few days before Nick
Ball defends the real title. Yeah, so it's it's an
interim title. I always feel like if you're gonna use
an image speak a third guys because he's injured. So
this is just one of these silly things. But whatever,
you know him and As I don't know a lot about,
but he is undefeated. He's nineteen and oh with seven knockouts.
He's a Mexican fighter. If you look at his record,

(11:24):
not a lot of name guys on it, but that
that's a I'm happy to watch on an afternoon where
there's nothing else going on.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
You know a young fighter that I actually when I
saw him fight it, I was at that fight against
you know when when he fought that fight in the
February show with Morrel and uh and then not Benavidas
with Morel and yeah Marrell and Benavidez that Uh. I
was like very impressed. And he's like a good looking
young fighter. He's with Samson Lucason. I was asking Samson
on him. You know, he thinks the world of him

(11:53):
and I always have had a massive respect for Samson's
boxing acumen in terms of the guys that he signs,
and then the other fight that's on the card that's
of interest. There's a bunch of fights on it. There's
like four or five fights, but the other fight that's
meaningful is a WBA light heavyweight eliminator between the outstanding
up and comer Albert Ramirez. So if you've watched the
Eye of the Tiger cards, that's his promoter. They're the

(12:15):
outfit from Montreal, but all of their fights before the
end of the Top Rank contract with the ESPN because
Ia the Tiger had to deal with Top Rank. All
of those cards streamed on ESPN Plus over the last
couple of years, so you've gotten to see a lot
of Albert Ramirez, who's been very active. He's a south
paw from then as well. He's undefeated at twenty one
and oh with eighteen knockouts, and he's been a very
good looking fighter, and he's really, in my opinion, you know,

(12:38):
made himself into like a real contender, like a lower
part of the top ten. And if you're not forget
about sanctioning byes anyway. So he's taking on a fighter
named Jerome Papillon in an elimination fight. So again, not
the biggest names, but beat the combination of Quao and
how exciting he was and how good he looked, and
some stakes if you care about the interim belt, and
then a young you know his youth, and then you

(13:01):
take into account the light heavyweight fight with some stakes
to put the winner in a position for a mandatory fight,
although we all know the light heavyweights are jammed up
right now because of the title being unified for the
most part. But again, you know that's all there is
this weekend. But I'm down for I'm down for Merkle Quao.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
I like it a lot, and again repeat for the
audience because a lot of people are hearing us Friday
morning or even Friday midday US time is when is
the start time of the card as far as we
know de Zonne And obviously they can watch it on
demand later in the day if they miss it live.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
But yeah, I believe it's at one or one thirty
Eastern time on his own from Libya. It's also on
like if you have like the satellite, certainly you have Dish,
not Dish Direct TV, which also has I believe the
Argentine station called TyC. It's being shown on that also
because Cuaeo's Argentinian. If you live in Russia, it's on
match TV in Russia.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
So if you live in Russia and you're listening to
us in English, good luck.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
We wish you well.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
By the way, libbya six hours ahead if you're if
you're needing to know that of Eastern time. For what
it's worth for the for the fight card on Friday,
I'm assuming there's never been a world championship. I was
full on world championship fight in Libya?

Speaker 3 (14:11):
Is that a sa I'll put it to you like
this JJ And anybody that follows my sub stack on
Fridfreetion night knows that I update the schedule every day,
but I blast out the new one every Tuesday, And
for fifteen years I maintained the schedule on a daily
based in ESPN dot com. And I can say to
you with very good authority in my recollection, never until

(14:32):
I added this card to my substack boxing schedule, had
I ever listed a boxing event in the country of Libya.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
So it's not even in Tripoli where our man Kadafi
who had all the problems and was a terrorist and
we had to bomb the crap out of him, he's
no longer around. It's not even in TRIPLEI the head
of them.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
But here's one other thing about it, not to belabor
the point, is I actually I was in touch with
Kimille l Stefan, who was the promoter, you know, from
Ia the Tiger, because at the time I was trying
to ascertain whether this was legitimate or and since he
was the promoter of Albert Ramirez, I asked him. I
emailed him and I said, hey, you know, Camille, I
see this fight card in Libya and it says your
guy Ramirez is on the show in this light heavyweight eliminator,

(15:10):
and you know, on what's the story with us? And
he wrote back and he said that it was accurate,
and you know, he was looking forward to having his
guy get the opportunity, and that he was staying busy.
It's his fort fight in twelve months. And he made
the point that boxing is is In fact, of course,
we know this intellectually. It's a worldwide sport and there's
lots of places that want to bring in these types
of events to help raise their profile, and boxing has

(15:31):
always been away historically for countries to do that or
cities to do that. And this is like the latest example.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
All right, Friday afternoon US time from Libya on his
own for those fights that Dan was just talking about.
Now a week from Saturday, it is the return of
Moses Etama. He is a big deal right now, especially
in the UK. He is now getting attention everywhere from
fight fans, but especially in the UK. He's about to
fight veteran Dillian White. You don't have to wait for

(15:59):
fight week. Dan Rayfield just spoke with Moses Etama. Hear
that conversation first right here, right now on this podcast.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
Well, it's my pleasure to welcome to our podcast this week.
For the first time, it's the heavyweight up and comer prospect,
some say contender. It's Moses Etama. Moses, I'll tell the
folks what's going on. You've got a pretty big fight
coming up, the biggest of your career. I would imagine
you're fighting the longtime contender, Dyllian White. You guys are
gonna headline the card and read Saudi Arabia on his
own pay per view August sixteenth, Welcome to the show.

(16:31):
Thank you very much for doing this today.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
Very much. A lot that introduction, I was literally just
saying that like the American people bring us different type
of energy. Everybody's like excited or whatnot. So I'm gonna
have to visit America one day.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
Well, we'll be happy to have you come here to visit,
maybe even to fight someday. But you mentioned, you know
you're a young guy making your way up the ranks.
I don't think you have that big of a name
here in America yet. Of course maybe you do so
in the UK compared to here for sure. So for
the folks that aren't that familiar with the time, I
certainly am tell us just a little bit about how
you sort of got your starting boxing.

Speaker 4 (17:08):
How I started in boxing. So my school, Greeneck Academy,
it was like a sports college and it happened to
be where like I think there we calculated it. It
was like nine European gold medals, like ten to eleven
national titles, a youth Olympic medal, like a world a

(17:29):
world medal. Couple professional boxes have gone have gone to
the gone to my school and my my older brother
he had to be he happened to be in a
classroom with I believe it's two or three other boxes
and my brother Carol, he wanted to get into the
into the talk of the boxing talk. And then he

(17:50):
went down to the boxing gym he won his first
national title, and then he said, bro, you're not doing anything,
come to the boxing gym with me.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
So how old were you at that time?

Speaker 4 (18:01):
Nine years old? I would have a ton in ten.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
So ever since then, you've been on the trail and
here we are now as you get ready for this fight. Listen.
At the end of twenty twenty four, I picked you
as the prospect of the year. I've been taking prospects
of the year for my publications for twenty five years.
A lot of people in the business picked you as
the prospect of your fans identified most of the timas
maybe the best prospect in boxing. And I wonder how

(18:27):
did that make you feel? Was it a sense of excitement?
Did you feel pressure to give you confidence.

Speaker 4 (18:33):
I didn't think I was going to win that because
I've really although he's firing one of my mates, I'll
do really right, Abdilla Mason, and I'll do really right
Amelion August. So I didn't think I was going to
win it, but I appreciate it, and I think I'm
thankful to those people that they vote for me. I'm

(18:55):
I'm trying my best with this box in and it's
nice to see that I'm getting recognition.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
Well, certainly, the other young guys you mentioned in Abdula Mason,
the million of Vargus, are you know, in that same level,
So there was certainly a competition. One of the things
about you that's struck me. You know, you're you're that
rare southpaw fighter with punching power. But yeah, a lot
of people were comparing you to Mike Tyson, not a
South pop but obviously made his name at a very

(19:22):
young age. I wonder that that sort of seemed unfair
to me, not just for most of the time, but
to compare any young fighter to Mike Tyson, Well, what
was your when you heard those or read those comparisons?
What did that make you think?

Speaker 4 (19:34):
I may not kind of put on myself. I think
the only comparisons that me and Matt Tussin have is
that he he was killing it when he was twenty
twenty one, twenty two, and it looks like I'm on
the path to do the same. So I guess that's
the kind of where the comparison has come in. Do

(19:56):
I like hit and know with a lot to change it.

Speaker 3 (19:59):
Yes, kind of. No, so I'm not going to crab right.
It seems like you're pretty realistic about it that people
are gonna say, you know, and listen, a lot of
the I would think, I mean, not just because you've
got obviously a big punching power, but the comparisons are
based on the age situation. As you mentioned, he was
twenty years old when he became the heavyweight champion. You

(20:19):
are twenty years old presently, obviously very young for the
position that you're in. But does it get tiresome of
having so many people when they talk about you talk
about it, make make your age such a big thing.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (20:32):
Well, okay, that was Buck. I'll calm control people's minds back.
The only thing that I've got and control is my
fias and I'm doing that to the best of my ability.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
Well, there are a lot of people that also besides
just again, like I said, unfair comparisons to Iron Mike Tyson.
They say, you know, this is a young man that's
going to follow in the footsteps of the great British
heavyweights Lennox, Lewis, Anthony joshuay Fury. When you hear that
in those comparisons, I mean, those are your countrymen, guys.
I'm sure you watched through the years. How does that

(21:08):
make you feel? I don't.

Speaker 4 (21:11):
I don't really know. I don't really know. I don't
feel a certain type of way about it. When I
came into this sport, Yeah, it was kind of more
like I've got introduced. I've got introduced to it with
my brother, and like it was just something that I
did and it just became a routine and then I
messed around, happened to get kind of good at it,
and then here we are, Like, like, I think the

(21:33):
one thing that I do love about boxing is that
it's well respected. Like when when when you're walking down
the street, every guy's like, okay, cool, that's that boxer. Yeah,
like let me not do you what I mean? Whereas
like whereas that with other sports you might not necessarily
have that. So that is kind of something that kind
of flashed into my eyes. But it was never a

(21:54):
thing where it's like I want that, I want to
be that. It was just something that I've always done
and if I don't do it, I feel like I'm
out of pattern. I feel like I'm out of rhythm.
I just I don't feel like I'm doing my purpose.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
Were there other fighters professionals that you watched as a
as a young man watching as you were coming up
the ranks, Guys that you emulated that you wanted to
model yourself after.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
No, No, Like with the Ben Davison team, we kind
of like tailor to the opponent. So for example, like
when I boxed Marius Whakia, I was watching a lot
of Manipakio and then even Devas Devas Shani. He was
like Moses Talma, like was moving like a heavyweight Manipakio,

(22:37):
but like I never mentioned many Pakio in no interviews
or nothing, but he knew that I was trying to
emulate what he was doing. And then it happened to
against Dempson McKean. It was sort of the same thing
with Anthony Joshua and in Ghanu. They done the same
thing and then the same outcome happened for this fight.
I'm not going to say nothing, but it's not It's

(22:59):
not something where thought, Okay, cool, I'm gonna box out
this one file. It's like I'm gonna taylor to the opponent.

Speaker 3 (23:06):
So as we mentioned, you're twenty years old and Dylan White,
who's at a long and outstanding career. He is thirty
seven years old, seventeen year age gap. How much of
a difference do you think that plays in the terms
of the matchup between you? Guess, I mean, I'll go a.

Speaker 4 (23:20):
Brother that's thirty seven years old Jan and he wouldn't.
I mean, it wouldn't be able to keep up with me.
So I feel like it will play a fact up.
But often he's got that experience where I don't. So
I guess it's youth against experience, and that's why it
makes it makes this fight such a good fight.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Well, and like I said, regardless of his age, he's
clearly a step up for you in terms of the
level of the opponent and what he's accomplished, his experience,
the types of opponents he has faced. He's only got
the three losses Anthony Joshua. You know, ten years ago
Alexander Povetkin in a fight he was winning where he
got caught with a great shot, and Tyson Fury, you know,
world champion and ship fight. Are there anything when you

(24:02):
when you looked at him or you think about the
way the fights in Is there anything about Dylan White
that concerns you.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
Yeah, man, any heavyweight has the ability to knock out
any other heavyweight, So Dallian, why it's always gonna pose
a threat more than more so than others. But at
the same time, like, I also prose a threat to Dillian,
So that's only one way to find out.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
And that's true. Uh, Like he's won since the Fury
loss he suffered. He has won three fights in a row,
but he's also been stopped in the three losses. And you,
of course are known for the big punching power. Is
a knockout on your mind at all? And you think
that if you don't get a knockout that people are
gonna put that even if you win negatively because you
didn't get the knockout and the other bigger name heavyweights.

Speaker 4 (24:48):
Did you know the reason why people feel pressure and
the reason why people don't perform the way that they're
supposed to perform is because they're too close to trade
on the result. Me, however, I'm concentrated on the game plan.
I'm concentrated on the fight. The result is going to
be what the results going to be. You have no

(25:08):
control over that. So am I do I want to
knock out yes, am I going to look for it. No,
do I want it to happen one hundred percent, But
is there is there a possibility that it couldn't It
could not happen and it could go tits up.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
I like that because a lot of fighters won't even
acknowledge that they that they'd like to get a knockout.
They're just like, whatever happens happens.

Speaker 4 (25:31):
You've got to be realistic. I think in the boxing.
What I love about boxing is you're in constant touch
of reality. Like if I go after this fight, Yeah,
if I go on a mad bender for four weeks
and they say, okay, cool, you're going to be fighting
Alexander Uzik now in ten weeks and I start sparring,

(25:51):
then four weeks that I was on the bend.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
That's going to show, right.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
So like.

Speaker 4 (25:57):
I mean, I'm in constant touch of reality, which is
which I like.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
Well, I'm gonna get to that. I'm gonna get that
at USK and just one quick sec I won one
other question before that, because you mentioned just a minute
ago about working with your trainer, Ben Davison, and he's
got a ton of experience with heavyweights. He trained Tyson
Fury when he was champion. He's trained Anthony Joshua. Tell
me a little bit about what it's like working with him,
what he brings to the table, because obviously heavyweights seemed
to be something that he excels at dealing with.

Speaker 4 (26:24):
No, he's he's obviously like a big part of my career.
I did pick very very carefully with when I was
going in the such for a new trainer.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
I think me.

Speaker 4 (26:39):
And Ben was definitely a link cup that had to happen.
I don't think my career would have gone the way
it would have gone well.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
Like I said, in terms of USIK, he's the undisputed champion,
and there's been a lot of pundits people have said
written that if Moses Tama wins this fight in decent
style against Dilan White, and he should get the shot
at the undisputed title next that uh, you know, in
the next matchup. Uh. Maybe some people might say it's
a little bit too soon, especially because there's other top
contenders who are in position Joseph Parker at Gikabiel, for example,

(27:10):
who have been in mandatory spots and have seemly earned
that spot. What do you think about the folks that
say that and you feel like you would be ready
for that level of opponent next.

Speaker 4 (27:20):
Yeah, I don't lose anything out of it.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (27:23):
I will not lose. I think it's a win win
situation for me. I don't lots to use the word
disove because obviously don't get we disove, you get we negotiate.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
Good point, and.

Speaker 4 (27:37):
But I would have to say that Jeoseph Parker and
Ajacabayel like I have charged enough to the game, whereas
I haven't. But then yet again, I'm come hit to
negotiating to disserve understood.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
That's a great place to leave it off. I'm always
thank you so much for your time today. I really
appreciate and I wish you into success in your fight
coming up.

Speaker 4 (28:01):
About to have a good eaven.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
We're good. We'll come off of that and go to
the news. Here we go. You like that about the
kick with the candle? You know you did? Here we
go three two, Okay, So I'll go ahead and put
this out there.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
My buddy David Payne in England is riding a little
bit for Big Fight Weekend dot com as well as
his own site right now, and he is the last
one to engage in hyperbole, and he is cautiously bringing
it up. That is this similar to the rise of
Mike Tyson at this stage, the same kind of buzz

(28:40):
in England, the same kind of buzz in the UK.
He's not saying he is Mike Tyson. All right, you
just talked to him. How much of this is hype
and buzz? How much of it is warranted in your mind?
What do you think having talked to with Tomma Now, well, that's.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Like I said to him. I said, I feel like
that there are these comparisons being made between you and Tyson,
and I feel like, whether it's you or any other heavyweight,
it's unfair to invoke the name Mike Tyson with anybody.
And he was like, he kind of agreed. I mean,
people can just hear what he said. He agreed, He's like,
but I can't help it. So the one thing I
came away from this, and this is the first time

(29:15):
I'd ever spoken to most of the time, oh, i'd
actually written about and picked at the end of twenty
twenty four as my prospect of the year. I've been
picking prospects for twenty five years, and I really take
it seriously. And there was a few different people I considered,
but I ended up going with Moses E. Tama And
but what a what a very engaging and just chill,

(29:37):
very humble, nice young man. I mean, he's twenty years old,
but feels like from just you know, again, I can't
base everything on just a you know, about a fifteen
minute conversation with the guy, but mature and understands what
is in front of him and seems grounded.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
And he's not even twenty one years old yet.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
And he was very well spoken from what you just
heard there in the interview.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
So stay I can't say enough good things because the
combination of watching him fight, hearing him speak and answer
the questions in the manner that he did you have
to come away and press and makes like an easy
guy to root for it all right?

Speaker 1 (30:19):
Man?

Speaker 2 (30:19):
If he dispatches destroys Dillion White, the hype meter goes
up even more.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
On is he on.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
The USIK radar title shot radar in another fight or two?
Stay tuned, stay tuned. If that is the case, all right,
nice work on that. I will say to the podcast
audience that soon will put that video up on the
Big Fight. Weeke in YouTube page another plug. But see Rayphiel,
we got a method to the madness.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
You know this. We've been game planning.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
You heard it here first on the podcast, So there's
unique content that's going to go on the podcast first,
or like the Grisham interview that we did live that's
on the YouTube page first.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
We may replay it some on the pod.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
Some scribed to both find both Speaking of England and
speaking of news, we have a new date for the
Chris u Bank Connor Ben rematch. Raphael I wanted this earlier,
but it's now November fifteenth. Turkey Ala Chic had announced
it for September. Now the rematch in November was a
great fight earlier this year. I tell me more, what

(31:20):
do we know about why they're having to wait another
sixty days? Venue issue, promoter issue, what's going on?

Speaker 3 (31:25):
Well, none of those issues. I mean, it will still
be like you said. It was originally announced, it was
supposed to be September twentieth, and if you remember back
to the time when that was announced by Turkey, Chris
Ubank never said a word about it, was very silent,
didn't really acknowledge it wasn't on in social media, but
Ben was all over. It was excited and ready to go,
so right off the bat, you kind of, at least
for me anyway, my kind of radar went uple, and

(31:46):
that you're like, okay, well they announced it, and if
Turkey announced it, you know, it's usually pretty legit because
he's the one that's paying them money and making sure
everything happens. But for whatever the reason, you Bank was
not down with September twenty. Now, the one thing about
their original fight contract was was that the rematch, which
was a rematch, regardless of the outcome of the first fight,

(32:07):
which was a fantastic fight that took place earlier in
the year, which for my money is probably the fight
of the year at the moment, was the rematch had
to take place before the end of calendar year twenty
twenty five, and it was at their discretion, meaning Sela
and Turkey and those folks. So they opted for September twentieth.
But but you Bank, for whatever the reason, I don't know,
if he was nursing some minor injuries or what have you,

(32:29):
whatever the case, maybe he was not into that date.
So at the end of the day, they wanted to
have the fight, so they ended up changing the date
to November fifteenth. There's no magic to September twentieth. Then
there's no magic to November fifteenth, and so it is
what it is. It's not like they're waiting a tremendous
amount of time. They're both going to have both fights
in the calendar year of twenty twenty five. Neither guy

(32:49):
was going to probably fight more than twice a year anyway, obviously,
and so instead of doing it in September, they'll do
it a couple of months later in November. It will
still be by the way at the same location where
they had the first fight, at the Tottenham Stadium in London,
so they'll have I'm sure another big crowd. The only
negativity about that is you got to figure that September twentieth,
you're probably dealing with better weather situation, not maybe as

(33:10):
cold as it will become November fifteenth.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
But you know, that's uh, And that is not a
retractable roof.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
It's not a dome. That's an open air stadium.

Speaker 3 (33:20):
But Tyson Fury fought their outdoors and that sort of thing. Oh,
it's not the first time that they'll do that.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
And that was a tremendous battle everything I said this
earlier in the year, we can rarely say this. Everything
about that was perfect. The atmosphere was phenomenal, the fight
was phenomenal. How those guys conducted themselves with class after
the fight towards each other and everybody. It's like, hall lujah,
this can actually happen. So I don't know what's going
to happen with the second fight, but at least for

(33:46):
that first fight, there's a lot of intrigue and build up,
especially in the UK, we realize.

Speaker 3 (33:50):
The question and it'll be I assume it's going to
be another another good fight in you know, like I said,
just because they switched the date by two months. To me,
it doesn't make it happen in the scheme of boxing
now not a big deal.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Good segue inadvertently or not that The next week, November
twenty second, is the big card in Riod that has
David Benavitez and Anthony Yard headlining, but now it also
has Archer better BV not fighting Dimitri Bvol. Right, Phil,
you want me to say it, what are we doing here?
I thought we were waiting on Benavitez fighting Bevol because

(34:23):
he was going to Bevol fight Better Bev instead, but
now Better BV is fighting somebody else on Benavitez is undercard.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
What is going on here? But do we know? What?
Do we know?

Speaker 3 (34:33):
So they were supposed to have the third fight, so
much so that when the WBC ordered Dmiti Bible, who
won the rematch, to become the undisputed champion after Better
BF had won the unification fight in the first fight
to become the undisputed champion, the WBC ordered, did Dmitri
be able to make the mandatory against David Benavitez and Bevo?

(34:53):
This was like six weeks after the fight, and so
his undisputed status was done after six weeks because he
vacated the WBC belt, so he's only had now the
three belts, So while still the number one white heavyweight
in the world and the lineal champion, only had the
three of the belts, so no longer undisputed. But the
reason he said he did that was because he had
committed to Turkey and to Better Beef to give him

(35:13):
the third fight. Okay, that's honorable, that sounds reasonable, and
now that's not happening, so whether it's and then there
was this whole weird thing that happened about a month
or so ago where Turkey was like, you know what,
you guys can go do it if you want, because
they had I guess asked him if they could have
this unnamed entity put the fight on and cover the money,

(35:34):
but to do it in Russia, where both of the
fighters are from, and Turkey said okay, and so then
it was like, all right, they're gonna do the fight
in Russia. But there was no date, no set thing,
no announced a promoter or venue or anything like that.
So it's sort of seemed a little squirrely. So now
I guess better beef you know who was then complaining
on social media about supposedly feeling like that Bibbo was

(35:56):
avoiding him and like, you know, kind of dragging his
feet to schedule this third fight. I feel like what's
going on here is that he's taking this interim fight
because he doesn't want to let himself get too rusty.
You know, he's going to be forty one years old
in January. Now. I asked Dimitri Biebeles manager that Dian
Kornilov about that, and literally right before we started to
tape this podcast, I had sent him a text like

(36:16):
a second one earlier in the day, just to double check, Hey,
what's going on with this. He's like, I'll have some
news about what's up in a couple of days. So
I feel like both of them are exactly So it
seems like he's gonna have the better Be as fighting
the fight November twenty second. He's added to that card. It's,
by the way, you know, not to say not the
Better Be is fighting a huge name opponent. He's taken

(36:38):
on a Dion Nicholson who's not a particularly well known fighter,
got a good record, but never fought really anybody of consequence.
I actually just saw his last fight because he fought
on the Deontay Wilder undercard that took place, you know what,
I'm two months ago, a month and a half ago.
So that's like kind of a stay busy fight for
better Be. I think you can't even argue with that,
because you know, he is not the champion at the moment,

(37:00):
and he hasn't had a soft touch fight in like
years basically, So that's just like an added addition to
a card that already has Benavide's in Yard and Brian
Norman Haney and Bam Rodriguez and a unification against Puma
Martinez and Abdula Mason against Sam Noaks and Stas against
Dalton Smith. And so you want to throw on Better
BF too. I'm down for that. So he's gonna fight

(37:21):
that fight in November. Maybe Beevile will have another fight
of his own sometime, you know, before the end of
this year. And then I assume if everything goes okay
and there's no injuries, that the guys will have their
third fight or at the beginning of next year.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
Or we've seen this like five times already this year.
What happens if Better BVV loses possible it's boxing.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
So he's taking a risk. How big a risk?

Speaker 2 (37:42):
We got more time to dissect that, and we got
a while before we get to November anyway, But that
is amazing.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
TJ's risk or not. You can't just have guys just
sitting not fight.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
I don't disgree, just not good and you on that,
and it.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Made it made me wonder whether they're angling that if
Bevil doesn't want to come to whatever agreement that you've
got Better BV and ben Avitas on the same car
and now they might end up fighting who knows.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
But don't stay tuned. It's boxing, none of it.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
And by the ways, for the record, they also have
if he's going to take an inter fight. Also, remember
he's got a mandatory with the IBF that has to
get dealt with also, And I know their camps have
been talking. But if they if they're allowing better bev
or a better vie on his own, is just take
an interrovite, maybe they just go ahead and do uh
the mandatory in the IBF and be done with it

(38:31):
and then move on to the to the nd.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
Maybe that's what the Beeble announcement is. If they're going
to do that, I don't know, stay tuned. Uh, we
do know this.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Oscar de la Hooya gave an interview on that Dez
owned Golden Boys show this past weekend, and he made
it very clear that he doesn't want to see Ryan
Garcia rematch Roley Romero, who beat him back in the
first weekend in May in New York. All Right, so
gimme gimme more on what Oscar was saying on that broadcast.
Of course, he and Ryan Garcia apparently aren't I to

(38:58):
eye most of the time. I'm including on this because
garcias Garcia is making fun of Oscar. I saw the
videos again this week, mocking like Oscar, lose my phone
number and I'm paraphrasing, unless I get twenty million dollars
for my next fight, blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
He did come out and say that wasn't that was
him just goofing around that he didn't.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Of course, But I mean, all right, so Ryan Garcia
probably most likely not rematching Roly Romero.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
What's realistic here? What was Oscar talking about?

Speaker 3 (39:24):
Well, at least not yet. I mean, I'm not saying
they should never have a rematch. I mean, you always
want to get back and you know, do it. But
I thought, I listen with Oscar. I don't always agree
with what Oscar says, and sometimes a lot of what
Oscar says is wacky, do you know. But in this
particular instance, I couldn't agree with mister de Laway anymore
because he made a great point. This is him doing
an interview during his show with Chris Mannix on the
Dionne broadcast when Duarte had to fight the other week

(39:47):
against Kenny Simms. He made the point, if you're a
promoter and you're doing rematches, it's because there's a reason
for it. People want to see it. I mean, nobody
want to see Ryan Garcia and Roly Romero a second time.
And he may make stunk and stunk and that's he
didn't say stunk, but he said it.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
Wasn't saying you're saying stunk.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
Well, here's all you got to know about that fight.
They combined to throw four hundred and ninety punches. It
was the fourth lowest output combined in a twelve round
fight in the history of copybox track fights for forty
years that were twelve rounders. So horrible fight. One moment
in the fight where Romero got a knockdown against Ryan Garcia,
and other than that they both slept walk through it.

(40:26):
You know, you know, congratulations Romero. He won the bout,
he got the regular WBA title, and now he's since
become the only WBA champion of the welterweight division because
Bootennis is moving on up and you know, we'll be
vacating and then in the near future. But the point is,
or maybe he has vacated already. Yeah he did that kid,
I guess. But anyway, the reality is nobody really cares

(40:49):
about seeing that fight again. So Oscar was like, I
don't really want to do that fight. I'd rather go
and do a fight that I feel like will be
a lot more entertaining. So he named specifically a fight
against Tiathimo Lopez Junior, who is the junior welterweight champion
who has talked about in the recent times about moving
up to the welterweight division. So it's not like there's
some kind of.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
Crazy one on that same car exactly, and looked at
least decent on that ring Fatal Fury Car.

Speaker 3 (41:13):
He was probably the one that looked the best of
a of a card that didn't really feature a lot
of outstanding performances. But the size is not a big
deal because Garcia has fought plenty of his fight career
at one So if Timo goes Fimo goes up, and
you know it's not a championship fight, but you know what,
there'd be a lot of people interested in that fight.
To you, probably a good amount of money for everybody involved.
That was That was what Oscar's point.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
Was one other factor, and.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
Also and to make sure that Ryan was healthy.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
That was just going right. Ray Phield, We've been doing
this for three years. Will you let me get to that.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
I was finishing point.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, but let me get to the point where I'm
going to follow up with the question that you go
ahead and blurt out the answer to which is we
understood more that Garcia was weird after that fight. After
that fight, he was like, that is what it is.
He was standing there in the ring going credit to him.
He wasn't disrespectful of Romero winning. And then it made
more sense to me. I'm not making excuses, but it

(42:06):
made more sense to me that we found out he
had hurt his hand in training, and now it made
some more sense on why he looked as bad as
he looked. So what did he have to have hand surgery?
You're the ultimate insert do we have any idea? So
we had another hand surgery, and so that's a factor.
That's a factor here too, And what is he going
to look like off of the hand surgery.

Speaker 3 (42:26):
Well, Oscar's point was at the end of the comments
was while he was talking about making Ryan against Tiafimo
or some other bigger name and not doing Romero, he said,
but the main thing is, you know, we need Ryan
to be in great health first before we do anything.
So he did have the surgery. He has been back
training to some degree, if you believe the videos that
he's posted. I'm sure he's not using the hand full

(42:46):
blast just yet. But it wasn't, by my understanding, the
type of surgery that was going to keep him out
for months and months and months. It was just sort
of cleaned things up a little bit, you know, in
terms of the seriousness level. You know, if five is like,
oh my god, you got to have your hand removed,
you know, this was probably like about a one, a
one and a half thing. So it wasn't too bad,
all right.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
So we'll find out more about Ryan Garcia's next About meantime,
Most Valuable Promotions has signed a large prospect off the
twenty twenty four US Olympic team. They announced that this week.
Tell us more about Jamal Harvey here and what you.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
Think of him.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
This is a great signing for MVP. In my mind,
I kind of had been thinking, not like recently, but
at one point I thought to myself, a guy that
when I watched the Olympics, and I watched every single
bout basically of the entire games, and definitely watched every
American fight that of the American team, the two guys
that stood out to me as a fighter. So I

(43:45):
felt like, and admittedly not a great American team, but
a team where you know, no matter how good or
bad it is, there's going to be a certain, you know,
ranking of who you think are the best pro prospects.
And so when I looked at the US team and
followed their progress in the games, win or lose, the
guys I thought were the best guys that would translate

(44:06):
into the professional ranks. Where Omari Jones, who is now
signed with Matt Troom Boxing, has already got a handful
of fights and the pros under his belt. And Jamal
Harvey who had not yet turned pro, and I wasn't
sure if he had turn pro, if he was going
to go pro, if there was an injury, or was
just taking some time off. But at the end, he
wasn't sure if he was going to turn pro what

(44:26):
I was told. But he's only he's a young guy,
he's only twenty two years old. He's from he actually
it comes from right close to where I live. He lives.
He's based out of Oxen Hill, Maryland, which is a Washington,
DC suburb. It's probably twenty minutes from my house and
it's right by where the MGM National Harbor is, which
is a venue where they've hosted plenty of fights over
the years. So my hope is that if he develops,

(44:47):
that MVP will come and do a show in that
outstanding venue and it'll be a home game for Rayfield.
But look, he's a junior lightweight, a SUPERB prospect. This
is a guy that is massively decorated. Besides just getting
to the quarterfinals the Olympics in Paris last summer, you know,
he's been boxing since age thirteen, ten time US national champion,

(45:07):
but also had experience besides in the in the Olympics,
other impressive performances on the international level. He won the
twenty twenty one Amateur World Championship. He was the first
American man to do that since two thousand and seven.
That's like a pretty big deal. And he was also
he did that as one of the youngest fighters in
the tournament, whatever the weight class, and when he won

(45:28):
the and that's one of the other besides the World
Championships and the Olympics, probably one of the most prestigious
tournaments you can win, at least in this part of
the world is the Pan American Games and in twenty
twenty three, he won a gold medal in the Pan
American Games, which automatically qualified him for the Olympics. So
this is a young kid that's decorated besides just fighting
the Olympics, he's won everything as the amateurs and been

(45:51):
involved at that highest level. And I think this is
a great signing. Like I said, I didn't the he
was going to sign up, but I said when I
saw him fight a year ago about in the Olympics
that him and Omari Omari Jones were the two best
pro prospects that we had on the United States team.
So I'm actually looking forward to seeing them do his thing.
And I'll tell you, you know, I know MVP right

(46:14):
now is known because they're signing all the top women
and they've been doing that and they're doing a great
job with it, and they've signed tons of the top
female boxers. But you know, don't sleep on what they're
doing besides the women, because they've gotten themselves a nice
little stable that they work with besides their own fighters
and the fighters they team up with that are with
box Lab where they do all these events in Orlando, Florida.

(46:35):
So anyway, as far as Harvey concerned his professional debut.
They've added him in his so he's also he turning
pro in a six rounder, not in a four rounder.
He's going to be added to their They've got their
MVP Prospects here, So their MVP Prospects fourteen card, which
takes place August twenty second at the Crib Royale in Orlando.
They're actually doing events back to back lights. They got
a prospect show on the twenty second, and then they got

(46:57):
a non prospect you know, with some world title and
that sort of thing, on the twenty third. So he'll
turn professional on that August twenty second card on his own,
and I say, welcome to the pro ranks. And I'm
gonna be very interested to follow his progress because, like
I said, really seems like a guy that can go
a long way as a professional, all.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Right, So keep an eye on the debut upcoming in
a couple of weeks of Jamal Harvey. One more news item.
Former two division world champ Oscar Valdez about to be back.
He is going to fight Ricky Medina coming up in
early September. Tell us more about the details. And of
course this is a top rank fighter, so I saw

(47:36):
the nugget I read my Rayphael Substack that Valdez is back,
but we're still trying to figure out how we see
this fight because Top Rank doesn't have a broadcast deal
at the moment.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
So go ahead.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Well, the main thing is that that Valdez, who's coming
off that very harsh loss in the rematch against Emmanuel
Neverrette where he got stopped, and an Oscar you know,
who has been a credit to boxing for many years,
a two time Mexican Olympian, a great amateur fighter. As
a professional, as you mentioned one, two world titles, both
in the junior lightweight and in the featherweight division, has
never ducked anybody, fought a lot of good guys, never

(48:08):
at Tay twice. Of course, Stevenson, that's the good news.
The bad news is he lost all three of those fights.
But he's also been in some really exciting fights. You know,
I'm maybe biased because I'll never forget and always have
mad respect for him for what he did that night
I was there in Los Angeles and Carson, California, rather
when he defeated Scott Quigg. In any event, he wants

(48:30):
to give it another go. Top Rank is like you know,
I think, you know, privately, I think Top Rank was
kind of thinking maybe he should call it a dane
and retire. But they have so much respect for Oscar.
He's been with them since his professional debut. Top Rank
is promoted his entire career, all thirty five of his
professional fights. He's been extremely loyal and they're like, if
the kid wants to give it another go, we're gonna
support him. So they even without a TV deal, they

(48:52):
have had for decades a very close working relationship with
Fernando Beltron and his company's and for promotions and Zanfer
promotes regular was in Mexico and they have a deal
down in Mexico where their fights are on broadcast. And
so they're putting him on this card and he's gonna
fight Ricky Medina. It's not a top top name. Ricky
Medina's sixteen and three, not a guy that's super well known.

(49:14):
He's three and three in his last six fights. The
first time he ever lost was in twenty twenty two
at featherweight. He gave a good go but lost a
decision to Raymond Ford, who would later go on to
become the WBA featherweight Champion and you know, about three
fights later or so. So this is a matter of
Valdez getting back in the swing of things, trying to
make another run. It's a big deal for Oscar because
as as notable as he was as being a two

(49:37):
time Mexican Olympian, in his entire career, he's only fought
two times in Mexico. He fought in Mexico in his
professional debut, and then in his eighth professional fight, he
fought in Mexico. All the rest of US fights have
been in the United States. He might have had a
fight in Macau, but whatever, he's been fighting primarily in
the United States of America. And so for him, not
only is he going back to Mexico for this fight,

(49:58):
he's going to his hometown, which is No Gallas. So
he's super pumped up to be fighting in front of
the home crowd and hopefully for his sake, if he
can get the job done, put himself in position perhaps
to win another title or at least fight for another title.
At one hundred and thirty pounds, they're going to do
this fight a little bit over the weight. I talked
to his manager, Frank Espino's it's a ten rounder. He
said it's going to be contracted at one hundred and
thirty two pounds, but that he still plans to fight

(50:19):
at junior lightweight and we'll see if he has anything
to offer after this and as far as the broadcast goes.
So one of the things that's been going on with
the top rank, you know, they're putting guys on different
cards while they get their broadcast situation squared away. But
this particular event in Mexico and other places in Latin
America is going to be on the series called ESPN
Knockout yep. And so if you were we were talking

(50:42):
about this before we started taping. If you remember just
recently when they had to fight in one hundred eight
pound world championship fight, when Carlos we.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Talked about it.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
We talked about on the recap back Sunday that it
was in ESPN Knockout for Canazalez's win, in concluding on
the app, on the ESPN Plus app.

Speaker 3 (50:57):
In the United States, it was on ESPN the port
Days and on ESPN Plus. So while they haven't made
any determinations on where this fight's going to be in
the United States, it's probably a decent bet that it
would seemingly also appear on ESPN Deport Days and or
ESPN Plus. And I say that because, in addition to
the Canazalas fight that we already saw under that circumstance,

(51:19):
they just recently. You take a look on the ESPN
Plus calendar and you go to boxing, you will notice
that there's a boxing card next week on the sixteenth
in Mexico that is a title eliminated between Rguie Cortes
and Andrew Maloney. It has been added to the ESPN
Deport Days and ESPN Plus schedule. So it feels like

(51:40):
in the wake of the exit of Top Rank, they
are at least picking up some of these ESPN Knockout
programs that are in Mexico to show them domestically here
in the United States. And the Valdez fight's already been
advertised in their promotion when they announced the fight that
it will be on ESPN Knockout in Mexico and other
places in Latin America. So I would hope that it
would also turn up also on that program on and

(52:03):
we may.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
I mean we got two or three weeks, we may
hear an announcement from Top Rank that they have a
deal and somewhere else to put it out.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Uh, stay tuned. I don't know. I will just say this,
I've been doing this a long time, just like you have.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
You would think at this point they have something in
the works and they're trying to roll it out. They
are too big of a company. It's been doing this
too long. You would think that they're gonna roll something out.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
I'm just I'm just saying that so stage, but.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
I am very very confident that they're gonna wind up somewhere.
They're gonna have a company. It's still gonna show fights,
it's still gonna be copviser stream. I know there's people
at the company who've signed NDAs out of that effect,
so they don't talk about it. But there's look, I'm
not fucking stupid. Something's happening. It's just gonna it's playing.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
That it might and it might not be September, but
it would shock me. I'm just saying this on the pod.
We keep it real. It would shock me if Top
Rank doesn't have some kind of deal October November to
put a fight card starting then on, because they've been
doing too much regularly to stay out of sight, out
of mind for month after month after month, and they
have known for months and months and months.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
We got to have somewhere in August September.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
And Easier said, well, you know, they want somebody to
pay you, but they have the bottom line is people
can say whatever they want, but I know what I know,
and I know in the top rank has a lot
of talented fighters under contract who you want to see,
whether they're contenders and champions, or their young prospects coming up,
or you know, guys just on the verge of being contenders.

(53:38):
They have too much talent at that company on the
executive level, whether it's you know, the coordinators or the
promoters or the matchmakers to not be somewhere. And I
was thinking about this just the other day, and I'm
going to give them a plug because if there's even
one like aspect of the legacy that they left with ESPN,
because ESPN, if you go on ESPN Plus, they basically

(53:58):
wipe the entire library, and I'm sure that was contractual,
so you can't even go back and watch like Dezander's
Eyes fight from a couple of weeks ago. Everything has
been purged from the library, but there's still a lot
of the Shoulder program and that remains because that was
obviously something that ESPN was also the owner of. If
there's one thing they did do is they did the
two seasons five episodes each of what's called The Fight

(54:21):
Life Right, and they both focused on different fighters in
each episode, and the second season rolled out right at
the end of their contract, and that whole series all
ten episodes. It's absolutely spectacular. Why am I saying this.
I'm saying this because if I am top ranked and
I'm going to other broadcasters and I'm trying to get
a deal, and I want to try to and succinctly

(54:42):
explain what I have to offer you, I show them
that she too. Now you can watch amazing documentary stuff
about their people that they can build around, whether it's
Abdulla Mason and Emiliano Vargas or it's MICHAELA. Mayer. If
you're involved in Women's Box, they did episodes on you know,
Jared Anderson. Now he may be diminished, but the episode

(55:04):
was fantastic. They have Raimi Mungia. I know he's got
his problems, but again, the way they did that, it
shows you what they're capable of doing. Keisha Davis, obviously
who's got some issues, but it's like, it's a perfect
thing to try to sell your company. And they also
have an episode like about in a way you know
from the first season and other fighters that they've worked
with Tia Fimo Lopez. It's it's it's the perfect way

(55:26):
to go and sell gotcha and show them what you're doing.
So that's what they should be doing, sitting in those
executive suites saying, hey, let's take twenty minutes and watch
this show.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
I again close by saying I would be shocked if
they're not on somewhere October.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
I'm just I don't have that on any authority. I'm
not reporting it.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
There are too many powerful, smart people with a bunch
of money that have been working on this for them
to go, like some people are saying hypothetically, they won't
have a fight card the rest of the year. Who
are you kidding, Take a take a breath and understand
something about out the business.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
They're working on something and let's see and.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
Here's the other thing about it. By the way, even
let's just say for the sake of argument, that they
don't have their own shows between now and the end
of the year. They're they're under they they know they've
got fighters under contract that they have to provide for.
So just last weekend they've got some prospects. They had
three of their prospects that were put on cards in

(56:23):
on a card in California, Chop Chop Gonzalez, who's a
good young young prospect with with Robert Garcia and a
couple of their other young fighters, and they've they've been
able to farm out here and there. This Valdez fight
is another example where they're working with Zandford to do something,
and there'll be others. They've got fights of course that
they're done with Turkey. So like when they're Abdullah Mason's

(56:46):
taking care for his next fight. He's fighting in Saudi Arabia,
So no one's gonna cry. There's no violins necessary for
Bob aram Er top rank. They know what they're doing.
They're big boys, and I'm sure they're gonna be just fine.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
All right, busy show here again.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
The Libbyan fight card is Friday afternoon US time. Peeps
that Dan was previewing those two fights. We'll talk some
about that off the weekend. Enjoyed you with Moses Etama
here on the pod feed. You got a little news
there as well. Engage on the YouTube page for all
the content there. At the Terrence Crawford interview that's there.
I know we had it on the podcast feed as well,

(57:21):
the Todd Grisham Live show that we did the other night, etc.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
We'll be doing more stuff on the YouTube page. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
Hit subscribe on the YouTube page, hit the like button.
There a lot of you engaging that helps us out
with that.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
Enjoy the weekend.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
You and I will talk off the weekend. Homeowner Dan Rayfield,
thank you as always.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
You bet my man.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
There is Dan Rayfield. I'm merely TJ Reeves.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Again you've been part of the Big Fight Weekend preview
podcast