Mikaela Mayer and William Zepeda Win Rematches And Lots of News and Heavyweight Nostalgia | Fight Freaks Unite Recap - Big Fight Weekend Boxing Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well off of a weekend and has seen follow up
rematch wins for Michayla Mayer and William Sapaida, plus other
world title action that we're going to go over. We're
ready to recap all of it here on the Fight
Preach Unit Recap pot. I am merely a somewhat competent
host TJ reeves. He is smiling ear to ear for
numerous reasons. Oh wait a minute, the Yankees just hit

(00:23):
another home run. Hello Dan Rayfield from the Fight Freaks
Unite substack and newsletter. Good to be with you. You've had
a heck of a weekend. Happy anniversary to missus, Rayfield.
Yankees literally hit like four home runs in the first
inning of a home game the other day. They're up
to like, I think ten or twelve home runs on

(00:45):
the weekend against Milwaukee. You're smiling about that. You're smiling
about duke basketball. You're smiling because we have lots of
fights to go over. You're smiling for a lot of reasons.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yes, sir, So.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Let's get into everything after we tell you thank you
for finding us. We are here completing the month of March,
believe or not. On the podfeed, usually twice a weekend
preview going into the weekend recap coming off the weekend,
which is what you're listening to right now. Subscribe follow
on Apple, Spreaker, Spotify. Let's get into it up first
for the weekend. Let's talk about the top rank ESPN show,

(01:19):
and as I said at the top, same song, second verse,
Mikayla Mayer wins a decision over Sandy Ryan to retain
the WBA Women's welterweight title. Pretty impressive, pretty easy decision
win for her. That's me saying that. What are your
thoughts in the recap motives?

Speaker 2 (01:35):
We again, I thought Michaela Mayer looked fantastic. I mean,
she looked about as good as she's looked in any
of her title fights anyway in her career. She dominated.
It was a masterclass the first fight that took place
last fall. You know, we know out all the controversy
with the paint throwing and the trainer tension because of
the trainer that was with Mikaela Kaikroma kay Caroma, who

(01:59):
ended up working with Sandy not telling her. She felt
agrieved by that, all the drama and everything related to that.
But when the two women got in the ring, they
put on a heck of a fight and it was
super close, and Mikaela won that fight, took the WBO
Women's welterweight world title, won a title in her second
weight division, and that was her coming off of a
loss against Natasha Jonas in a very close, another outstanding fight.

(02:22):
So Michaela's made a series of exciting fights and now
they did the rematch. She didn't have to give it
to her. I thought when Michaela spoke after the fight
and she said, in essence, you know, I wanted to
give Sandy the rematch because it was warranted. That's what
I believe. It wasn't a contractual thing. It wasn't, you know,
nobody forced it. She wanted it. I thought it was

(02:43):
a great fight. She deserved it, and I like that attitude.
If the rematch happens, it should because it was a
great fight and the fans want to see it, not
because of some signed piece of paper, regardless of how
the fight goes. So they did the rematch, and I
didn't think it was as exciting in terms of the
action as the first fight, but it was still really good.

(03:03):
It was still fun to watch, but it was way
more dominant from Mikaela Mayor. There was no crazy drama
or anything about it with paint throwing or anything like that.
The different set was sort of interesting. Was that Kay Caroma,
the trainer I mentioned, even though he helped prepare Sandy
for the first fight, he actually just was there at
the arena. I guess he had something else on the car.
He didn't work her corner on that fight night. For

(03:24):
this fight, he was her head trainer and he was
in the corner, and he had been with Mikala pretty
much since the beginning of her professional career and obviously
knows her boxing abilities and style just about as well
as anybody except maybe Al Mitchell, who was, you know,
her main trainer and had been with her from day
one and still is with her. Anyway, mikaeleb I thought
it was pretty much close to a shot up. I

(03:47):
scored the fight nine rounds to one. I know the
official scorecards were ninety eight ninety two and ninety seven
ninety three twice, so the two of the judges gave
Sandy three rounds. Actually kind of thought that was being
a little generous. She did have some nice moments in
the last few rounds of the fight probably the eighth
and ninth rounds, where the rounds where you might be
able to give it to her the most. Mikaela had

(04:07):
a good tenth round. She won the tenth round in
my opinion anyway. But she puts this rivalry behind her.
She's now looking ahead for bigger things. Remember a few
weeks ago you had the three belt unification between Lauren
Price and Natasha Jonas, one of Michaela's rivals. Price won
that fight easily unified three of the belts. Stood in

(04:28):
the ring after that match in London and said she
wanted to fight the winner of this fight between Ryan
and Michaela for undisputed. Mikayla said the same thing after
she won. Give me Lauren Price, Let's go for undisputed.
You know that Mikaela is fearless when it comes to traveling.
I don't believe she'll have any issue whatsoever about traveling
to the UK where it would be a bigger money fight.

(04:50):
She has fought in the UK in the past and
performed well. She has a profile among boxing fans in
the UK. That'll be that'll be one of the you know,
not be on the level of say, you know, the
third fight between Serrano and Katie Taylor. But as women's
fights go, that's about as big of a fight as
you can make in women's boxing right now. If you
match up Mikaela and Lauren for the undisputed title, just

(05:13):
a tremendous battle. But look Sandy Ryan, you know she's
a good fighter. But she didn't. She didn't come close
to even come close to winning. She didn't.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
No, no, not at all.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
I'll tell you one thing. TJ and Mikayla, who has
come up from one hundred and thirty. She's had one
fight at lightweight after she lost her title. She fought
one fight at junior welter wader like very slightly over.
Then she went to welterweight. She looked really strong, even
though she lost a close, debatable decision to Jonas. Now
she's really I feel like, grown into welterweight. She's looks strong,
she looked fast, she was accurate, she's got a good chin.

(05:47):
I mean, she's a I can still ring. I was
at her professional debut and I was sitting at the
ringside area and I'm sitting like five feet from the ring,
and Al Mitchell, the trainer, the whole fight the whole fight.
And I crowd with Al occasionally when I seen him
about this, just screaming. I can still hear it. Use
the jab, Use the jab, like the whole fight, like

(06:08):
like okay, I think she knows she's supposed to use
the jab. Okay, So to take her who was as
raw as could be, as prospected as there could be,
because who the heck knew if she was going to
develop into a top fighter or just you know, you know,
be gone in a few fights. From that moment as

(06:29):
a young professional, she has legitimately developed over these last
several years into one of the top handful of women's
boxers in the world, and that is a testament to
her hard work, to her team's hard work, to top ranks,
hard work, her manager, George Ruiz, Al Mitchell obviously now

(06:53):
Kofi John Tua, who was the guy that replaced Kay Caroma.
You know, Al's a little bit older, so he's not
the one in the ring holding past and doing the
on the myths. You know, I think he's a bit
too old for that at this point, but he's still
got an amazing boxing mind. And John Tua, who for
his time was a top junior middleweight contender. You know
he does that, that work in the gym. They got
a great team and uh, she's putting together. Uh in

(07:16):
terms of women's boxing, a Hall of fame kind of resume.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Agreed, it's not everything, but I mean she's won some
important fights. She's headlined for good money, if not great
money in the UK and has some notoriety there and
has some rivalry there, and that's what kind of stoked
the Sandy Ryan thing. And now she is headlining again.
We probably bring this up. She is the first ever
female to headline for top ranked boxing and this was

(07:43):
I think the third main event that she's had headlining
one of their cards. So good for her.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
I mean, you had a Sinisa Strada headlined for them.
I mean, but it's uh, you know, it's she's She's
Here's the thing. It gets to a point now where
if I hear Mikhaila Mayer is fighting, I'm not thinking
about like, oh, it's just a women's title fight. I'm like, okay,
you know who's she fighting. I'm interested to watch it.
That's the big the biggest difference. Just to go off
on a very brief tangent years ago, when women's boxing

(08:09):
was sort of when I first started, and women's boxing
was still like a curiosity and you had great women
fighters like a Christy Martin, a Laila Ali people like that.
It was never about the matchup. It was about, Okay,
we're gonna see Lail Ali fight. We're gona see Christy.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Martin fight, right right.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
The sport is developed with an influx of talented women.
A lot of it to do with the fact that
now boxing is on the Olympics, so they've they've been
able to develop themselves with their skills. Now it's not
just about I want to see mikhale or I want
to see Sandy Ryan, or I want to see you know, Serrono, Taylor, Claressa,
you know you name it, the Jonas, pick a pick
a woman. Now it's about matchups. I want to see

(08:46):
Mayor against Lauren Price. I want to see the third
fight between Taylor Toronal And that's where women's boxing has
kind of turned the corner to become its own sort
of echosystem.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
I agree, so big win for her that headlined the
show and then the next two fights. Is I like
to say that we're gonna go over. We don't need
no stinking judges because they were both wipeouts. Brian Norman
successfully defends his WBO welterweight title, blasting out Derek Quavis,
and then we'll get to Shoeshoe Carrington and his knockout win.
So go ahead first on Norman, who you talked to

(09:17):
in the preview mode on this pod, and he delivered
and now has set himself up, obviously for a much
bigger opportunity financially and significance otherwise in the welterweight division.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
I'm not sure if you can watch boxing right now
and see what he did and the way he speaks
and the way he carries himself and go back and
watches beat down of Giovanni Santition. That was when he
won the interim belt that later became the full belt
when Terrence Crawford vacated and not be a fan of
his and interested to watch his fights. He's a compelling
fighter in terms of his personality. He's a compelling fighter

(09:49):
in terms of his boxing style in the ring. And
this was, as you mentioned, his first defense, coming off
ten months layoff, coming off of a hand injury that
was largely responsible for that layoff m HM, and he
took on Derek Kavis. So okay, he's not gonna be
on anybody's pound for poundless anytime soon. But he came
in with a good record. They made the point which
we discussed also had never been stopped. It just had

(10:12):
the one loss, had never been knocked down. You know,
seemed like he was energetic and interested the fight of
you know, going into the fight, not so much at
the end of the fight, you know, and he just
got beat down. I mean, Brian Norman took about a round,
as he said in his postfight interview, to you know,
I had to get rid of that Russ. But you
saw I shook that off real quick. He got he
got clipped with a left hook to the body in

(10:33):
the first round. That sort of seemed to maybe, you know,
catch him by surprise, let's say. But other than that
one punch, this was a absolute wipeout bye by Brian Norman.
He looked dominating and when he finally knocked him down,
you know, got got a equavis off his off of
his feet. When he got up, you know, he kind
of thought maybe the fight will continue. But he walked

(10:54):
to the corner, which is normal, but he never really
turned around face the referee Tom Taylor. I thought, who
was the ref who I think is the best referend
boxing right now? Showed restraint because he could immediately waived it.
He actually said to him, because you could catch him
on the audio, do you want to go on something
to that effect, and Quavis literally, you know one two,
never answered and at that point, when you're a referee,

(11:16):
you have no choice but to call it off. And
he did, and that was a dominating third round stoppage
for Brian Norman. A good way to get back in
the groove after a long layoff, to have your first defense.
And now at this point, you know, I don't think
his team, or our top rank, or anybody involved with
his career or himself at all, his father, who was
a professional as well as a fighter, nobody is going

(11:38):
to be worried about matching this guy up with a
top welter rate. He was talking about, I want to
fight a unification. He called out, you know, the winner
of what will be the fight on April twelfth between
Jeron Ennis and Amanta Stanionis who meet to unify the
IBF and WBA titles. Remember there was conversations before this
Quaves fight, before he you know, decided to withdraw because
of the injury that was still a problem with his

(11:59):
left hand. Uh. There was conversations about making the match
with the NS unification. It didn't happen, So that to me,
that's a prime type of fight. Uh, he says, the
left hand is healthy. It certainly looked that way. He
landed a tremendous amount of left talks. That was the
money punch. That's the punch that scored the knockdown. It
was a dominating victory. And you can count me as
a Brian Norman fan. I'm anxious and interested to see

(12:20):
him back in the ring as soon as possible, even
if he doesn't get a unification fight TJ because those
can take a long time right to make. But the
good news is because he just fought on Saturday, and
the unification fight between Stanionis and Ennis is only in
two weeks. They're basically on the same schedule obviously, so
there'd be if there's a desire on the behalf of
either a guy who wins in two weeks and on

(12:44):
Norman's team, that's a fight to get again.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
Call you crazy, call you crazy. It crazy. But Innis
has been talking about I want to be undisputed. I
want to collect the belts. They're fighting on the same
timeline they were negotiating before. Can we have good things
and we have good things at one forty seven.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
Let's see even if Stanionis is the winner, right, you know,
the ability for top rank and Stanionis's people he's with PBC,
for them to be able to work together is much
easier now than it's been in recent times. So there's
literally no reason not to do that match with Norman,
particularly if it's Ennis, because he's the one that keeps

(13:23):
talking about. Yes, he wants to be undisputed, but there's
also a time frame that is important to him because
he is having trouble making forty seven. He wants to
get done and get out of the division, to go
up to fifty four as quickly as possible. So right,
we'll see.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
All right, So Norman victorious by KO and Shoe Shoe Carrington,
who you talk to in the in the build up mode,
he delivered. Now say what you want about level of competition,
but goodness, the guy can talk, and the guy delivered
a spectacular performance with a third round TKO. So follow
up on.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
That, listen, Carrington This was the best he's looking a
long time, because if you remember, it was a couple
of fights ago where he looked very pedestrian against Sagawa,
a lot of people thought he probably didn't deserve to
get that win, even though he got a very close
majority decision. When he came back, he fought the fight
on in November, he boxed on the undercard when Mike
Tyson and Jake Paul fought. He fought a fighter named

(14:12):
Dana cool Well. I mean, he looked okay in that fight.
He looked fine. He won an eight round decision. You know,
he dropped him a couple of times in that fight,
but it wasn't like a dynamic dominant know, it was
a dominating performers, not all that dynamic, let's say. And
that you know, so he hadn't had a knockout in
a little bit, you know, two fights, which for him
was sort of unusual. But Enrique Vivas was a guy
who had never been stopped, who had had three losses,

(14:34):
but all against good opponents, all guys who had fought
for world titles. That Wardo Baya is Rubin Villa and
the very tough always in good fights. Joet Gonzalez. So,
as we mentioned in the preview, his mandate, if you will,
in this fight, which was a WBC official final eliminator
by the way, still pissed at it. It was a
ten round or not a twelve round schedule fight, but

(14:54):
that doesn't matter because he got him out of their
way before ten or twelve. But the point was his mandate,
so to speak from for himself and I and I
think from people that pay attention, was okay, this guy
Vivis has lost to these three guys who fought for
world titles and gave them not necessarily where he was
winning rounds necessarily, but was tough, tough as nails, you know,

(15:14):
made it, made it a fight. Can he do that
but also get rid of the guy? Can he separate
himself from those three boxers who had fought for world titles.
The answer TJ was a resounding yes, because he dusted
Vivas in three rounds. He was never in the fight,
He dominated, he stopped him. He looked really good and
and and then in the postfight interview, you know, again

(15:36):
it's marketability, but it has to go along with ability.
This kid as both. It feels like, so he's got
the ability to do what he did in the ring.
But then you turn to the post fight interview and
not just this one, what others you could listen to
in his career. He makes you want to see him
more because he's like, he looks right in the camera
and he's like, I'm gonna be real specific with who
I want. He said, I'm gonna greem that quote you

(15:58):
I want what I call these people? Nick Ball? Yeah,
I want that one WBC Stephen Fulton, Yeah, I want that.
Let's get that work, bro, I want to fight you all.
I'm top five and all of the sanctioned bodies right now.
Stop running, stop playing, Let's get this work. And so
then at that point, our good pal Mark Kriegel asked me.
He says, what about the tall guy? You know he
was referencing because Nick Ball is obviously on the on

(16:20):
the shorter side. He says, what about the tall guy
her stablemate at a top rank Espinoza, meaning Rafael Espinosa
of the WBO title holder. He says, I'll chop that
tree down too. Stop playing. You got to ask him
the question if he wants to fight me, the real question.
He said, He'll fight whoever, and I know what he
will fight whoever, I have no doubt about it. Now,

(16:40):
this fight was the official final eliminator for the WBC,
so it makes him the mandatory for Stephen Fulton. But
there's been a lot of rumors and circulating conversations that
that Stephen Fulton's on his way to one hundred and
thirty pounds and not going to stick around there. He's
been tied to a possible fight against top rank WBC
champion Oshaki Foster. But I'll tell you what, Nick Ball

(17:02):
probably waiting for that in a way lottery ticket. I
think the fight they could probably make the easiest of
the three anyway and put it on somewhat more quickly
would be if you were to they could make a
match between him and Raphael Espinoza. That's an all top
ranked fight. I don't really see what the issues are.
There's no mandatory things in the way, there's no there's
no reason why that couldn't happen. It's just a matter of,

(17:24):
you know, if Espinoza, like like he said, is he
wanted anyway, Carrington looked good. I mean, yep, if you're
gonna have fightstep end early that turn out to not
be competitive at least make it exciting, and that's exactly
what Bruce Shueshu Carrington did. That's exactly what Brian Norman
Junior did. And then obviously the main event, m Mayer
did what she did in an exciting fight that wasn't

(17:46):
that competitive but was very compelling after what they had
performed between her and Sandy in the first fight. So
there was a lot, there was a lot to offer
on that kind of show. But you can never beat TJ.
A good knockout and then some good job.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
We love that with Shoeshoe. He's a Hall of Fame
talker already and don't even have a world title yet.
We love that. Okay, So there's the top rank ESPN
card in Vegas. Let's go to the Dizone Golden Boys
show in Cancun, Mexico, where William Zapeeda did win, this
time a twelve round majority decision win over Tevin Farmer.
Very competitive in the back half of the fight again,

(18:21):
but Zapaeida does get the win. He retains his WBC
Interim lightweight title. He's the number one guy at lightweight.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
Number one, number one can tender, number one, number.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
One contender at lightweight in all four classifications, I should say,
all right, so what do you make of this? Where
Zapeida did get the win. It was close again, and
Farmer deserves a lot of credit because Zapeida, from what
I saw, had control of this fighting. You were wady,
both of you. You and I both had the ko.
We had the KO on the bet Us show, and
Farmer was too tough to let it happen. Go ahead.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
It was actually Farmer that that he that Zepaida almost
did get the knockout. I mean, it was looking really
good there early on. Look, first of all, let's I'm
gonna jump ahead to the end of the fight real quick,
because it was Kevin Farmer once again in his post
fight interview, feeling a grieve, like he was robbed, like
he was ripped off. It turn out that he had
lost a majority decision in this fight. And you know,

(19:13):
I know he put in a lot of effort in
the fight. He gave it a great effort. He made
it a good fight, obviously. But I get the sour
grapes start getting getting getting getting annoying to me because
he's he always finds just enough to lose, you know
what I mean. Like in the first fight, He also
lost a really close decision to Williams of Painton. That
was back that was a ten round fight that was

(19:34):
back in November in Saudi Arabia. That was a very
close fight. That was a split decision lost, and he
was moaning about that. Also, here's the reality. If you're
gonna give away a whole bunch of rounds, what the
hell do you expect? And again, I have nothing but
respect for Tevin Farmer as a fighter, as a person,
but you have to kind of have to take a
step back and be honest with yourself if you go
back and you watch the fight. Yeah, they were both

(19:55):
close fights. They were both good fights. You got him
in a knockdown in the first fight. He had him
in trouble in the second fight. But you didn't win
enough rounds, uh to win the bout. And and and
at his most base, if you're not going to get
a knockout, it only comes down to mathematics. Adding in
this you know ten to nine and ten to eight
if there's a knockdown or point deduction to that type
of thing. He just didn't win enough fights. But that said,

(20:17):
first five rounds he got dominated, correct, he gave the
I would say he gave them away. Part of it
was because he hurt his hand, his left hand, which
you know is hard to deal with the vire A
south ball, which he did in the first round. It
looked like so he point.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Is, if I can interject, it's a big hole when
you're down five to nothing.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Oh yeah, and there on.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
That's the point.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
And it wasn't like a five nothing where it's like
kind of a questionable five nothing. It was like, yeah,
that's a pretty easy five nothing. So then he comes
back and he and he almost and he almost knocked
he almost got knocked out. I mean, he's he's doing it.
He was definitely Yes, there's no doubt about it. I
mean Zepaida was just all over him with the with

(20:56):
the body attack, and he was right on the verge
of stopping him. This is in the fifth round. He
was just hammering him into the body. The referee was
like poised to jump in, and I was like, okay,
this may be this maybe over and out.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Sin Reeves and Redfield cat exactly the beat Us show.
But it didn't happen. And Farmer's tough. We knew that.
But he did come back say I understand what you're saying,
but you can't belly aate. Then after the fight in
a close fight in Mexico against the number one fighter,
I get it. I get he did, but he did.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Farmer did come back even with the hand injury and
landed and kept throwing the left hand even though it
was obviously injured. In the sixth round, we had a
big round. So now he's starting to come back a
little bit. Now, Okay, he did land a couple of
nice shots at the end of the fifth round, but
not enough to win the round. So he definitely wins
the sixth round. That was his best round. So even
if you give him a few more of the rounds,

(21:45):
which he deserved, no doubt about it, but he didn't
sweep the rest of the fight. Didn't win seven rounds
in a row. So the way the scores were, I
felt like the drawscore card that one of the judges
had still was out of line because I still felt
like Zapeida, based on the punches landed, how hard the
punches appeared, and just his overall controlling the fight, even
though Farmer was game and was thrown back, just wasn't

(22:08):
enough to shade every single one of those rounds. So
for me, I feel like you could have scored that
fight easily seven to five for sure in favor of Zebeta.
Fout eighty four would have been a fair score. So again,
I understand the emotion. You put in a hard training camp.
You know, you came to Mexico, you took a tough fight.
You're now disappointed because you lost two in a row.
But the belly aching is just I get.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
So. Most importantly for Zappeida, realistically, does he get a
title fight in his next fight? We've been talking about
Shakur Stevenson. What do you think?

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Look, the Chakort fight was on schedule to happen and
then it ended up not happening because both guys ended
up with different kinds of injuries that caused, you know,
a shuffle of the schedule. Now that Zepeta is through
this fight, Chakurt, you know, won his fight recently that
was in Saudi Arabia, they're close to each other on schedule,
and so I would hope that the WBC would once

(23:04):
again mandate that fight, which they should because they had
mandated it before, and that the two sides can make
an agreement and they'll do the fight. Whether that actually
happens or not, I have no idea, because Golden Boy
may find another opportunity for him for some other belt
that maybe they'll be a better financial deal. Same thing
goes for Shakur, who's going to be in his next
fight of his deal with Matchroom Boxing. It's going to

(23:25):
be as I believe his last I think you only
had a two fight deal with Matchum, so that that
might be the fight they opt to do or not
opt to do. Business in boxing, it's like a chessboard.
You know, they're trying to make the right fights, but
it's all about what's the right opportunity, what's the right money,
you know. So at this moment in time, hopefully the

(23:45):
WBC orders the fight and they'll make the match. But
I wouldn't like necessarily bet like a stack of money
on it. I mean, who knows, But I will say this,
if they do make the fight, it's a very interesting
fight because the styles could not be more different. You
saw how much has struggled in two fights, even though
he won against a crafty southpaw like Tevin Farmer. Right,
with all due respect to Tevin Farmer, Chaquurse Stevenson is

(24:08):
many years younger, he quicker.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
He ain't skilled and and and uh and talented and
younger like I'm with you. I'm with you.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
So it's just going to be a matter if they
match it up ken chakor do that boxing brilliance or
is it paida gonna overwhelming in me aby to land
some good punches. Uh and and and dent that chin
of Chakurs. We'll see. I mean, it's a fascinating fight.
Hopefully it will happen.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
All right on the undercard, fun fighter. We talked about
it in the preview mode. Oscar Colaso gets another knockout,
retains the WBO and w BA strawweight unified titles. Uh,
tell me more about the ko. I gotta confess, I
did not see this. I just know the result that
he knocked out Edwin Cano and what is next for
Colaso real quick.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Well number one? Uh Kalaso continues to just sort of
romp through the strawweight division. Okay, granted it's not a
very deep division at this moment in time. Uh. He
obviously he was able to unify very impressively on that
same card in Saudi Arabia in November. That was on
the same card with Zapeida against Farmer Number one where
he beat your boy Neo. I'm trong to unify. This

(25:11):
was his first fight since then, and Cano was the
guy that was supposed to fight before they were able
to make the fight with the unification, and so they
brought him back into the Basically they were like, hey, wait,
one more fight. We're going to do the unification, but
we're still going to give you the opportunity. So that's
what they did. And Klauso, to me one hundred five
pounds or two hundred five pounds, is one of the
more exciting fighters in boxing. He's got a personality, he's

(25:33):
got good power, yeah, and he showed that power against Cano,
who gave it a good effort but just was no
match for the skills or for the power and the
right hook from the south paw Colaso was the devastating weapon.
And basically he just took us time. He broke him down,
beat him up, and then landed, you know, when he
was kind of already kind of tired out, and you
know he kind of could feel the end was near,

(25:53):
land in a beautiful body shot with the right hook,
and you know, Cano very dramatically in a way, collapsed
to the canvas, down to his all. I think it
was all fours. He spit the mouthpiece out and he
wasn't getting up. That was all she wrote. So Kalaso
racks up another knockout wain. Now you say what's next?
So he's now maintained the titles, uh exciting fighters, still undefeated,

(26:14):
has you know, I think a developing fan base at
home in Puerto Rico. I love the fact that he
was fearless. He just said fucking then went to Mexico
to fight the Mexican You gotta love, you gotta respect that.
So now the the the obvious he wants to be
on All these guys want to be on disputed. They
love to collect belt so that there has never been
an undisputed Straway champion in uh instory of the sport.

(26:34):
Number one. All right, So the obvious match in the match,
and I'm sure he would love is against Melvin Jerusalem.
Now Melvin Jerusalem has the WBC Straway title on so,
so Kalaso won the fight Saturday night. Kalaso he defended
the title in a rematch against uh uh Udi shig
Yoka in Japan. That took place Sunday morning, United States time,

(26:58):
and he won.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
That was a match where Melvin had upset Shigioka the
first time and and regained the title. And you know,
and Uh went to the went to do the rematch
and won again in a pretty wide decision. So if
you take a look at the Kalaso record, you'll see
that he owns a victory against Melvin Jerusalem.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
He took He took that win over Jerusalem and he
became the fastest Puerto Rican to ever in a world title.
What seventh pro fight stopped Jerusalem? And so wait a minute,
this is second time in the same podcast. Makes too
much sense for boxing that they're angling for this.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Well, it's not that they're angling, it's that it it's
like there's not like a deal in place, righty thing.
It just makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
It makes sense. It Colaso Jerusalem to the rematch, right.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
So here's the point. Though, Jerusalem and him fought in
twenty twenty three, and as you mentioned, it was Klasa
who knocked him out. He knocked him on in the
seventh round and won the WBO title. But this thing is,
since then, Jerusalem has been on a good run. It's
not like they're just going to make a rematch against
a guy that doesn't have any reason to be in
the rematch. Since that fight with Kalaso, Jerusalem has come
back and he has won four fights in a row,

(28:04):
including two against Shigiyoka to you know, have the WBC titles,
so you know, look Strawwaight, the money options are limited
obviously if you're a Colasa or your Shigioka. I don't
think there's a bigger fight. You can make hundred five pounds. Now,
I'm not saying it's some mega fight, but it's absolutely
a fight that could be made. It fits the budgets.
Both guys can probably make their career best money. But

(28:25):
it still is not going to break anybody's bank that's
putting on the event. So they could easily do a
unification for the three belts, and you know what, I
think that would be one very interesting fight maybe.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
And again, good for Klaso that he's remained active, and
you've explained because of the budget and the money, he's
not making big money, but he's he's defended and and
Oor won another belt five title fights since the Jerusalem
fight in the last two years, he's fought six times
twenty two months. As a matter of fact, Colaso wait
to stay active. So and let's see if we got
something down around logical.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yes, you know, if they can have Golden Boy, and
I'm sure they'll try to do it.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
You know.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
To me, it's not a matter of getting Colaso to
do the fight. You got to talk to Jerusaleman, you know,
see what the appetite is from his perspective in terms
of the amount of money, because you know that would
be the biggest fight.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Now.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
The other fighter out there that's got a belt who
has got no real profile is Pedro Taduran, who is
the IBF champion. But commercially anyway or from my perspective
as a American boxing fan, I'm not I would be
happy with either fight. But to me, the Closeta fight
makes the most sense. He got stopped, He's won some
fights since then, He's beaten schig Yoga twice. Let's do

(29:32):
the rematch. He's got the WBC title, a more highly
regarded belt, if you will, probably than the IBF anyway,
So I say bring that on, all right.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
What we're gonna now bring on is some news and
then some nostalgia here off the recaps. Okay, leading things
we found out late last week. Deontay Wilder will return,
the former WBC heavyweight champion who has suffered some losses
even recently. And I keep saying it, you agree. I
believe he's not ever been the same since what Tyson
and Fury did to him in those two wins in

(30:02):
twenty twenty and in twenty twenty one. So wild are
going to be back. Give me some of the particulars.
I'm kind of shaking my head here. I realize your point.
And we've heard fighters say this all the time. They're fighters,
and this is what they do and this is who
they are. But Deontay's gotten a ton of money previously,
and after the beating he took against Jang late was

(30:25):
it late last year? I don't know that I need
to see him anymore. But he is coming back. So
give us the particulars coming later this year.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
You know what, You can have all the money in
the world, but like anybody, they want to have a purpose,
and so his thing is boxing, and I don't think
he wants to go out the way he did. Now
there's a differcing not wanting to and what the reality
of what you can still do as an athlete. Amen,
he's about to find that out, but I don't think
it's going to be against Tyrrell Herndon, who is his opponent.
Coming off the two losses in a row, he's lost

(30:54):
four of his last five, if you go in the order.
He lost by knockout fight number two against Fury in
twenty twenty, fight number three in their Classic in their
third fighting twenty one, had a year layoff, came back
SPT a first round knockout against Robert Helenius, then was
off for another what another fourteen months. He had the

(31:15):
loss by decision lopsidedly so against Joseph Parker, and then
he got absolutely knocked into oblivion by Zilly Zang. So
it's been a rough go for mister Wilder since twenty twenty,
but he wants to give it another go. He's thirty
nine years old. I would love to see him call
it a day. He's had a great career, made a
shitload of money, called the WBC heavyweight title for ten defenses.

(31:38):
I mean, there's nothing that's nothing to sneeze at, and
had I had a historic trilogy with Tyson Fury. That
won't soon be forgotten. But nonetheless, he is coming back.
It'll be June twenty seventh. He's fighting in Wichita, Kansas.
It's being put on by a an outfit that well
the fight. You can watch the fight on BLK Prime.
It's not a paper yew. That's the misnumber actually checked

(32:00):
with the folks that were doing the pr for it.
It's just part of you. If you subscribe to be
LK Prime, it's like six bucks a month. That fight
will come as part of that package. From what they
told me, so he's in a ten rounder. The organizers
of this outfit called Global Fight Collective, they're involved with
Alicia Baumgartner. They've worked with her over the years, and

(32:21):
so this is the opportunity to come back, and they
still him and his team still have the desire to
fight Anthony Joshua. I wish they would have had that
desire several years ago when it was the most meaningful
fight in boxing, when they were two undefeated champions at
their peak. It would have been for the undisputed title.
It never happened. I still believe if it happens today,
it's not even close to what it should have been,

(32:42):
but it will still create a lot of interest if
it does happen, particularly if Wilder goes in and scores
a spectacular knockout against you know, this lesser type opponent
in Herndon, and we'll see what Joshua's next move is
going to be. But look, the heavyweights in boxers in general,
they'll hang on till the end, but they still see
like that one last mega fight or big time event

(33:04):
against Joshua as a possibility which would still be worth
you know, millions and millions of dollars to do it.
And I don't think wild there's gonna be you know,
if he's in shape, not gonna be, and he's not
in a lot of harm's way. It doesn't seem to
me in this particular fight. Just so you understand, the
opponent he is facing in Herndon is he's twenty four
and five and he's won three fights in a row,

(33:25):
but he's fought against complete nobody's and just to put
him in perspective where he is, it was in twenty
twenty three where he got absolutely drilled by Richard Torres Junior,
a prospect coming up, you know, the Olympic medalist and
he's been stopped in four of his five losses. Now
you're stepping in with DeAnda Wilder, one of the greatest
punchers in heavyweight history. Whatever you think of where he

(33:46):
is in his career, he hasn't lost the ability to land,
you know, to to do damage if he lands the
right hand. So anyway, Wilder's on the comeback trail. We'll
see how that pans out.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
I just I shake my head. The people around him,
I think need to help him understand this. At thirty nine,
I'll say the line, what are we doing here to
what end? Because you're you said it kind of quickly there.
I mean, there is no real value in him fighting
Anthony Joshua when they're both damaged. They've both been knocked
out recently.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
What's the word when you say the word value? The
value to us as the consumer.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
I'm just I'm saying all of the above. I don't
have to see it. It was a great fight to
have back in the twenty teams. That's where that fight
had it sell. By date since then, they've both been beaten, repeatedly,
knocked out in both cases by multiple different guys.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
So I am not advocating for the fight Okay, let's
just be clear about that. However, from their perspective, they
believe that they can still perspective you're talking about that
they correct, they can still find a way to make
the fight. And if they actually could make the fight,
whether you or I are massively interested or totally not interested,

(34:58):
I promise you that fight will generate millions and millions
and millions of dollars, not as much as it would
have done it they've been for the undisputed title as
undefeated fighters back like five six years ago. But it
will still draw a crowd. Obviously, it would take place
either in the UK or Saudi Arabia, whatever, but they'll
sell out a stadium or an arena or whatever in

(35:20):
the UK if they are able to make that match,
and it is a business and they'll cast.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Huge students of business, and there's people I'm cynical, but
it is what it is. There's people around them that
see dollar signs, and I come right back with it.
I promise you. I'm just having fun with you. Neither
one of them need the money, especially Anthony Joshua. Neither
one of them need the money at this point.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Let me just say one thing I've learned in twenty
five years of covering boxing, I've never counted somebody else's money.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
I know you say that all the time. I come
right back with, neither one of them need the money, and.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
Anthony Joshua has conservatively made two hundred million dollars and
it may hold on and it may be closer to
three hundred million dollars plus that he's made. He does
not need the money to fight. Talk about twenty twenty five,
all right. In Wilder's case, he made over sixty million
dollars from the two Tyson Fury fights. I don't know.

(36:11):
You speak better to this on what he made for
Hellnius and then what he made for Joseph Parker from
the Saudi's and what he made from Jiang from hold on,
I'll finish the point. If you're telling me in twenty
twenty five, which is four years removed from all the
money he made the two Fury fights, that Deontay Wilder
needs the money, then this is one of the stupidest things,

(36:32):
one of the stupidest things in the history of.

Speaker 3 (36:35):
Ile squandering their money. I am not just coming back
at you. I am not saying he needs the money.
I don't know that if it is or it isn't true.
What I do know is that Mike Tyson blew three
hundred plus million dollars.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
Long over a longer period of time, right whatever, And
Tyson was also in prison, not fighting.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
And listen, Vanderdolyfield blew hundreds of millions of dollars. There's
plenty of fighters. I'm only saying he wants to fight.
So you talk about the team. He's the boss of
his team. So the guys who work with him or
work for him have two options. Either do their job
and do the best they can, or walk away. I
don't see them walking away.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
But the team can also sit down and say let's
watch the Jang fight. Do that and say I don't
know that they didn't do that, and say what are
we doing here? All right, we'll see.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
Well taking this kind of fight against this kind of a.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
It's a joke to try to knock this guy over.
It's a joke, is what it is.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
But they're not asking for anybody to spend crazy money
for a pay per view or tremendous amounts of money
on tickets. They're making a fight to assess where he
is after a year against an experienced heavyweight, probably will
lose to see what he's got left, to see if
they can get one more score. It's cynical, but that's
boxing the way it is at the end of a
heavyweights career.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
All right, fair enough, let's move on with a couple
of more things and than the nostalgia. The IBF, Hey,
let's hear it. We said this at the time. There
should be a rematch for Lewis Crocker and Patty Donovan
after Donovan was controversially disqualified for hammering Crocker. The bell
rang at the end of the eighth round. He knocked
him down after the bell was it was it impossible

(38:15):
to hear the bell? Probably not? Was it a bang
bang punch? Eh? All right, so the IBF says, you
know what, let's do this again. All right, so tell
me more as as again. Crocker officially got the DQ
win and got the title, and so now they're.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
You didn't get the title, he got the eliminator position.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
The eliminator position my bat from the I.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Okay, so this was a pretty dominant fight for Patty Donovan. Uh.
You know two irishmen, you know, one from Northern Ireland,
one from Ireland proper, they're fighting in Belfast, huge crowd
going absolutely crazy and when the when the If you
read the IBF's resolution, all the things they wrote about
which I got a copy of, you know, they agreed
with the fact that the referee, Marcus McDonald, and the

(38:59):
two by boxers none of the three had heard or
were aware that the ten second clapper had gone, and
there was ten seconds left, and then here the bell
and the punch was fired in such a short split
second after the bell, after he already had the guy
hurt and Patty had dominated the fight that it was
viewed as not purposeful foul in any way, shape or form.
They did make the point that McDonald, as the referee,

(39:22):
was not in the proper position because when you know
around is coming to an end, you're supposed to move
in closer so you can be there to break them
at the bell. McDonald, whether just they their their belief
in the way that they wrote it was that he
didn't realize that the clapper had gone, so he hadn't
moved into position to be near the fighters, and then
of course what happened happened where you know, the bell

(39:42):
rang and Patty fired the last shot and he knocked
him out basically, and so the referee ruled it ruled
it at disqualification. We realized what had happened. So the
team for Patty Donod and mainly the attorney Keith Sullivan,
who handled the appeal on his BEF, not only appealed
to the Eye to order an immediate rematch, but also

(40:02):
appealed to the British Boxing Board of Control to get
the result overturned from a DQ loss to a no contest.
Because the regulator, the sanctioning rather the sanctioned body controls
the ratings and rematches and belts and that type of thing.
It is the local commission in this case the British
Boxing work. They're the ones that control the results. So
it wasn't like either, like the British Boxing Board can't

(40:25):
order a rematch, but the IBF can't change the result.
So he went both routes. Now the British Boxing Board
declined to change the result and so it will stand
as a DQ loss. But and I talked to Sullivan
about this over the weekend when I was writing some
stuff in my notebook about it. They got the one
they wanted I mean they wanted more. You know, obviously
they would have liked to get rid of the loss

(40:46):
on the guy's record, but what they really wanted was
the rematch because they want the title shot. So Crocker
is going to have to fight him again and he's
not going to get the immediate title fight. And again
this was just so we're clear, this was an IBF
eliminator for number one. The win was supposed to become
the boot sentis mandatory. So they they'll do the rematch.
I mean it's not set yet. Uh. The IBF gave

(41:08):
them a date by which the fight should happen in
the late part of July because of the matchroom boxing
schedule with the Zone and they're both with Mattroum boxing. Uh,
there's a probability that they'll go to the IBF, which
probably will be fine with it to move in a
couple of weeks into August to coincide with when they
have their next date that they can do this on.
Probably take the fight back to Belfast where they had
a crazy crowd. And by the way, the two guys

(41:29):
will get paid a lot of money again. They'll put
on the other the fight again and the winner will
emerge as the as the mandatory. But the reality was,
Patty Donovan was on his way to an easy win
and it's unfortunate that what unfolded did so in the
In the end, you know what, everybody did the right thing.
The IBF did the right thing by ordering the rematch.

(41:50):
The British Boxing Board or did the right thing by
not changing the result. I didn't think it rose to
that level. And they'll they'll live to do it again,
and the fans will enjoy the fight and both guys
will get it up there.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Here's one more right thing. Marcus McDonald shouldn't be working
big time fights anymore because.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
I'm willing to I'm willing to bet this win.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
I'll set it up properly. We don't know who the
referee is going to be for Donovan Crocker two.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
Now finish the sentence, but we know who the referee
isn't going to.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
Be there there there we go, alrighty, all right, one
more news item, and that is that we were looking
forward to at the end of last year, the Puma
Martinez Kasioka WBA Junior Bantamweight title fight. But remember Fernando
Martinez traveled to Japan and then got sick or got

(42:39):
sick on the way there and was sick the week
of the fight and could not fight. So now they're
going to put this fight back on, and you're intrigued
because earlier in twenty twenty four it was a tremendous
first fight. So give me the details on when this
Puma Martinez, Fernando Martinez and Kazioka battle is going to happen.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yeah, I'm really excited. I mean when their first fight,
when they did fight each other, this was in a
unification fight in the junior and bandaweight division. This was
back in July of twenty twenty four. Fantastic, fantastic fight.
It's if you can find it on YouTube, tremendous battle.
Maybe not the biggest names in the world, but if
you like a good action fight, these guys produced that

(43:19):
big time and it was you know, I thought it
was a legit fight of the Year candidate. Martinez ended
up winning the fight by decision. It was to unify
the IBF and the WBA title that you know, they
were going to do a rematch, and that made a
lot of sense, as you mentioned, you know, December thirty. First,
that's a traditional New Year's Eve, traditional time frame for
big time fights in Japan, and he got sick. Unfortunately,

(43:41):
he got sick the week of the fight and they
had to put it off. Ioka, you know, was ill
and it just wasn't happening. So they've now got to
fight back together. They're going to do it May eleventh.
It's going to be still back in at the Oda
City General Gymnasium in Tokyo where there's been lots of
fights where they fought the where they were supposed to
have the rematch, but then it was postponed. So look,

(44:03):
tremendous battle. Now it's not for the two titles because
in the wake of that fight, it was Martinez who
vacated vacated the wb Was it vacated that one of
the titles? I guess it was the IBM in.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Order to have the rematch, right, in order to have
the rematch, yeh, because he wasn't going to.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Be tied, yes, tied to the UH. He vacated the
IBF titles so it was not to be tied to
a mandatory again that was worth a fraction of the money.
So he kept the WBA title, which is what he
had won in the unification against Ioka in the first fight,
so he'll defend that title in this rematch, so it'll
only be for one of the belts, but that doesn't
matter to me. I know these two guys arena put
another heck of a fight. And I've said this before

(44:40):
because Kauzuto Ioka, even though he did not win the
first fight, if you take a look at his resume
and all the things he has done in his career,
he is thirty one, three and one. He has got
sixteen knockouts. He has won titles in four weight classes,
and it's not just a hollow four weight classes like
you know Adrian Brohner's hollow four weight class titles. But

(45:00):
he has been a number of quality fighters, top contenders, champions,
former champions. So the point I'm getting at is that
I view him already as a borderline maybe even an
actual Hall of Famer at this point. You win, you
come back, and you and you avenged a lost to
Martinez and regain another title in the junior manaweight division,

(45:20):
and that goes a long way to your candidacy. So
I never want to say, like this fight is everything
it means to be a Hall of famer for that
part of your legacy. But I'll tell you right now,
if he wins a fight, it's gonna go a pretty
damn long way to seal in that legacy in my book,
And I'm a voter very well.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
And that leads us to a little nostalgia. To wrap
it up. It was twenty five years ago on Tuesday,
April first of two thousand, where Chris Bird scored an
upset win over Battally clitch Goo to win the WBO
heavyweight title as a short term replacement in Germany quarter
of a century ago. Rayphiel, we got double nostalgia on

(45:57):
April first, in terms of the heavyweight title. But the
first one up is the Chris Bird knockout.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
Both, by the way, yeah, both of the WBO heavyweight title.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Yeah. Correct. So let's start with Bird Clitchkow twenty five
years ago, April one.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
I remember this really quite vividly. This was uh, this
was in the early stages, if you will, of when
the clitch Goos were starting to make their impact around
UH and places other than just in Germany, because they
were starting to get a lot of attention start to
be televised. This fight between Batally Clitchco and Chris Bird
was on HBO, for example, which was just starting to
sort of dip its toe into the Clitchico business. And

(46:31):
remember at this time in two thousand, uh in the
year two thousand, there was still like a lot of
debate who's the better clich Goo. Vladimir had won the
Olympic gold medal in Atlanta in nineteen ninety six, Batally,
you know, had won a title already was big and strong,
and you know a lot of people didn't know the
difference between the two of them. That was like a
big thing like which this guy is which? In any event,

(46:53):
he was supposed to be on HBO Ittalic Clitchko to
defend the WBO title against Razor run Remember Raiser Udick,
who had yes who lossainst with a long time contender,
and that was like a name. So this to me
is when we talked about like reasons why fights fall
out and what happens in certain fights and they get canceled.
Razor Ruddick pulled out of the fight for reasons that

(47:17):
were related to what had occurred or side effects or
something to do post a vast sectomy. That's all I'm
gonna say. I don't really know the the rest.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
Of the there can be some side effects from that.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
I don't want to know the rest.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
We don't know, we want to know the full details.
But I do remember this, and again you've been over
there's one hundred different reasons why fights have been called off,
and this is right up there on why he couldn't
fight that fight exactly.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
So he's supposed to defend the title. HBO and the
German promoters and broadcasters are trying to save the fight.
And Chris Byrd at that time a dramatically different kind
of opponent than a Raiser Ruddick. You know, Chris was
a pesky southpaw, a much smaller guy, you know, probably
barely weighed, you know, two hundred and five to ten pounds,
you know, soaking wet.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
He takes the fight on short notice. Credit the Clitchko
for accepting a completely different, pesky pain in the as
opponent like that as southbaw to boot and Chris Bird
went over there and he fought Clitchko. Now Clitchkow was
pretty much dominating the fight, having his way with him,
but Bird was still it was still doing some good
work and still doing his thing. The problem was Clitchkow
suffered a rotator cuff tear. Uh, That's not the kind

(48:23):
of injury that you see. It's not like I break
your you know, if I if I, if I mess
up your eye or I or you You can see
a guy twist in his hand because he's got a
hand injury or some type of severe severe cut.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
You know.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
This was like the this this the injury that you
can't see. And so when Clitchko sat down on the
stool after round number nine and quit, it was like
if Twitter was around back then, like this would have
been the biggest thing in the world. I mean, I
can still remember the derisiveness directed towards Klitchkow. Quitch Goo,
they called him bitch go, they called him, I mean you.

(48:58):
It was bad. It was very, very nasty. And Bird
won the title. Obviously did not get an immediate did
not do an immediate rematch with Chris with with Clitchko
because they had a contract that had the rights that
went to the Germans to control Chris's next fight, so
they didn't do him any favors. They fed him to
Vladimir Klitchko, and that's when Vladimir won his title by
by outpointing Chris Uh.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
You know.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
Several months later later that year, Uh to win the
WBO belt, so they called it Revenge with the Brother.
But this first fight hadent against vitally.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
You know.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
It was as shocking of a result as you could
ask for to see this man Klitchko, who was a
tremendous specimen, a big puncher, Uh just sit down, very
meekly and quit on the stool. Nobody really knew what
the time what was wrong. It wasn't until much later
that we found out that it was such a severe
rotator cuffin you know, and the German and and and
not just in Germany, but I mean in Eastern Europe.

(49:51):
The mentality is a little bit more different when it
comes to boxing. They're not out to like I have
to die in the ring to preserve my title. It's
kind of like in the MMA, UH, a philosophy where
a tap out is acceptable. And that's basically what he
did in this fight. And he was criticized for years
and years and years for quitting against Chris Bird. And

(50:12):
finally years later, many years later, he made up for
that when he fought Lennox Lue. Well, not many years
you know seven a few years later where he made
up for it when he showed all the heart in
the world against Lennox Lewis and was begging to continue
after suffering such a terrible cut UH and lost that
opportunity to win the title against UH against Lennox Lewis,
but that that was sort of the bookend when he

(50:32):
was just ruined by quitting against Bird the way he did.
But talked about We've talked about against Lennox Lewis, what
he did.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
We've talked about this fight before. And a torn roadchator cuff,
even a Parson torn roadchator cuff. It is not something
to sneeze at that. You can't. You can't realistically, we
just didn't know and fight You just didn't know it
at the time. And as you point out a few
years later when he fought Lennox Lewis, you can't question
the heart and wanted to go on uh with the
with the awful cut boxing.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
You know what happened on the night of April first,
two thousand is is way below or way back or
way not no nearly the close the biggest thing that
he's done because post boxing, he's gone on to become
you know, one of the leaders in Ukraine. He's the
mayor of Kiev. He's very active in at the forefront
in terms of the public awareness of the war they're

(51:24):
waging or they're defending against Russia. And so he's he's
got a lot more important things in his life than
what he did as a as a boxer. But the
first time he really became internationally known, I guess there's
certainly in the United States, was unfortunately for this incident
where he quit against Chris Burton, basically yielded the heavyweight
title or a heavyweight title, but went on to the

(51:47):
win title again and have a tremendous career. I mean,
here's the other thing about it. The guy only lost
twice in his career, both by injury stoppage, once in
this one against Bird and then the two thousand and
three five Athletics with the cut. But other than that,
you know, retired for four years because of an injury
to his knee and his back, came back, regained the
WBC title and kicked everybody's ass, made like another nine

(52:08):
defenses against you know, pretty good group of guys, Samuel
Peter and Jan Carlos Gomez and Chris Ariola and Shannon Briggs,
et cetera, Thomas adamc you know, Derek Tesora, macmuchar whatever,
and so this is part of that legacy. And looking
back now, you know what, he lived to fight another day,
and boy did he all right.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
So now advance forward six years to April first, two
thousand and six, so that is nineteen years ago now
as we do this, and Sergei Layakovich and Layman Brewster
battled for the same WBO heavyweight championship, and Rayfael puts
on my rundown. What's probably the best heavyweight title fight

(52:50):
of the decade other than Lennox Lewis and Klitschko. Why
did this one make so much of an impression?

Speaker 2 (52:56):
Oh, it's just a fantastic you know, if you watch it,
it's just a fucking great fight. I mean, these two
big guys just slugged it out for twelve rounds non stop.
You know, Brewster was in a lot of sneaky good fights,
uh Laikovich, you know, he he wasn't known for that.
He had a kind of a much shorter prime unfortunately
for him. But this was a tremendous mettal. This was
live on showtime. This was a Don King card. He
did it in Cleveland, which is where Don was from.

(53:19):
Uh and it was you know, I can't say it
was the biggest promotion in the history of the world.
But Bruster was a well known guy. He had had
his fights with Klitchkow in the past, and in this
particular fight against uh against Lakovich, they just let it
all hang out. I mean, there was you know, Laikovich
got knocked down, but he came back and he won
a close fight against against Brewser. You know, I'm looking

(53:40):
at I just looked up the scores card. Two of
them were one one, fifteen, thirteen, twelve, seventeen, one ten.
But putting the scores aside, it was just the way
that the fight unfolded, just I mean from.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
The from the late first round of the second round on,
there were bombs being thrown in this fight. I know,
you put me on to it years ago when we've
done this and this was underrated, not really thought of much,
and then wow, a lot of action early from the head.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Brewster was had the title, he was making his fourth defense,
so it wasn't like, you know, he wasn't you know,
racking up a few defenses. Lai Kovich was at the
time considered like, you know, he's a good fighter, but
I don't think people viewed him as necessarily heavyweight championship
material at that point. And uh, tremendous fight. I mean again,

(54:28):
they didn't have a trilogy, they didn't have a rematch.
I don't think a lot of people have. It's the
kind of fight where if you if you said, what
are the best fights of the two thousands for heavyweights,
you know, I think a lot of people would, Yeah,
they would say clinchical Lewis because it's such a famous
fight for a lot of different reasons. I think unless
you're the real diearch, you kind of be hard pressed
to remember the Brewster versus Laikovich fight. So I like

(54:48):
to give those types of fights a little bit of
love because I don't think they should be forgotten. They
should be revered. They should be remembered, and they should
be watched, and they should be remembered because these guys
let it all hang out. Neither guy was ever really
the same when this fight was over, unfortunately, and they
just they put on a great show.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
And we hopefully put on a great show because we
began with all the recaps of the Mikaalea Mayer rematch
win and also the Williams of Paya rematch win, impressing
Ko Norman. So we try to put on a great show. Goyah.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
Just what our thing about the Brewster fight. I mean,
Brewster's career became known because of the eye injury that
he suffered that kind of hampered him later in his career.
And there was a lot of controversy that when he
fought which go in the rematch, he'd been sent over
to Germany with the damaged retina. That original injury happened
in this fight against Sergeielayakovich, where he said he couldn't
see in his left eye after like the first or

(55:39):
second round and ended up having surgery. So this was
the fight that you know, he won the battle so
to speak, by uh, you know, having a great fight,
even though he ended up losing the title. And that
really was sort of the end of his career at
the top level.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
And that's because of that fight for Layman Brewster. All right,
great stuff here. I will be making my way to
San Antonio with Someone's Duke Blue Devils for the college
basketball later this week. We will reconvene because there are
a bevy of fights this weekend to go over, including
the return of Tim Zoo. We got Joe Joyce and
Philip Hergovich fighting this week. We got all kinds of

(56:16):
stuff this weekend. So why don't we have a good
week we go into April, and why don't we reconvene
in the preview mode later this weekdnd Rayfield, how's it sound?

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Sounds good?

Speaker 1 (56:25):
There he is our insider Fight preach Unite is substack.
Read him there, get on the newsletter for all the intel,
the notebook, the fight schedule, the memorabilia, all of it again, follow, subscribe,
rate us, and review us on this podcast. Fad for
Dan Rayfield on TJ Reeves. You've been listening here to
the Fight preach Unite Recap podcast

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Mikaela Mayer and William Zepeda Win Rematches And Lots of News and Heavyweight Nostalgia | Fight Freaks Unite Recap

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Mikaela Mayer and William Zepeda Win Rematches And Lots of News and Heavyweight Nostalgia | Fight Freaks Unite Recap