Xander Zayas Wins WBO Title, Shu Shu Carrington Victorious + Usyk-Parker Update And More | Fight Freaks Unite Recap

Recaps

It was a lighter weekend with the biggest show being in New York city and our guys are ready to go over the prominent fight card there and more on the newest "Fight Freaks Unite Recap Podcast."

Host T.J. Rives and insider Dan Rafael of his Fight Fraks Unite Substack and newsletter are back aboard to go over the weekend and some news and more.

They start with:

Saturday’s final Top Rank ESPN show in New York
Puerto Rican junior middleweight Xander Zayas defeats Jorge Garcia of Mexico, and wins the vacant WBO title. What about his convincing performance and what's next for him now that he's won a world title? 

Featherweight Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington of Brooklyn wins over African Mateus Heita and he wins the vacant WBC interim title junior welterweight. Carrington looks good but Big Dan says hold up on annointing him. 

And, also on the Top Rank card, prospect Emiliano Vargas destroys Alexander Espinoza with a single punch a minute into their fight. What about his future following his world championship father's career?

Also, T.J. sounds off on what he thinks was lame ending to the Top Rank/ESPN relationship.

They briefly talk:
 
Saturday’s Salita Promotions DAZN card in Detroit
Claressa Shields over Lani Daniels by decision- retains women’s undisputed heavyweight title. But, these fights have become such mis-matches, can the dynamic continue to get her paid significantly at heavyweight?

Next, a Preview Wednesday’s Teiken Promotions card from Japan (DAZN in US and UK) Kenshiro Teraji vs. Ricardo Rafael Sandoval, 12 rounds, for Teraji’s WBC/WBA flyweight title. Teraji is a fantastic action fighter and the guys go over this matchup and his possible future? Plus, Antonio Vargas vs. Daigo Higa, 12 rounds, for Vargas’ WBA bantamweight title. And,  Erick Rosa vs. Kosuke Takami, 12 rounds, for Rosa’s WBA junior flyweight title
 
Next, some fight news
The WBO formally orders Usyk-Parker heavyweight mandatory next. This is an intriguing matchup, but what stands in the way?

Also, Jaron "Boots" Ennis and Matchroom Boxing announce a contract extension for the former welterweight champ. What's his next fight, realistically?

And, off their very controversial title eliminator, Irishmen Lewis Crocker and Paddy Donovan will meet in an immediate rematch for the vacant IBF welterweight title in the main event of a Matchroom Boxing card on Sept. 13 (DAZN) at the Windsor Park in Belfast, Northern Ireland,. It's Crocker’s hometown and this is the first-ever all-Irish world title fight.

Hear it all on the "Fight Freaks Unite Recap Podcast" and make sure to follow to follow/subscribe to our feed on Apple/Spreaker/Spotify, etc.!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well off of a weekend that has seen as expected,
Xander Zaiez get it done and win the WBO Junior
Middleway title. Also on the undercard of New York Bruce
Shoeshoe Carrington because becomes the vacant WBC Interim featherweight champ.
We're ready to recap those fights. Claressa Shields also successfully defended,

(00:22):
but that was about as dramatic as the sun setting
in the west and rising in the east. We'll talk
some about that. I guess We've got a prominent Japanese
fight card, including ken Shiro Taraji back defending two of
the Flyway crowns on Wednesday. We're ready to go over
all of that and more. It is the Fight Freaks
Unite recap podcast. I'm merely the somewhat capable host TJ. Reeves.

(00:46):
Hello to Big Dan Rayphiel, our insider. Fight Freaks Unite
is the substack after all, and the newsletter. Go get
on there, get subscribed, get all of his intel, his notebook,
his breaking news, the nostalgia. All that is. The good
to be with you. Full disclosure. I've been on a
quick four day vacation over to the East coast of
Florida into the beach. Yes, I live near the beach

(01:09):
on the west coast of Florida, but we went over
to the east coast of Florida and have now hustled
back and you and I are getting this done Sunday
evening into Sunday night. How is your weekend? Coming off
the weekend and we're about to be in the month
of August.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
My weekend was good. I watched all the boxing stuff,
or as much as I could possibly take of the
Claressa Shields fight, but I watched it.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, I understand. Thank you for finding us on the
podcast feed on Apple, Spreaker, Spotify. We preview going into
the weekend. Now, full disclosure, it's gonna get lean here
the next couple of weeks. There's not a lot, but
generally we preview going into the weekend, recap coming off
the weekend. We've got some special content coming up. You've
been doing a great job with the interviews of fighters.

(01:49):
We look forward in a future podcast to hearing from
Terrence Crawford, as you've been mentioning. Oh, by the way him,
he's back fighting Canelo Alvarez in September. We've got other
stuff going on and also find our YouTube channel as well. Dan.
We will say this because some people may not be
aware on the crossover and didn't watch us Friday. A
lot of people crossover, they watch our YouTube stuff, They've

(02:11):
been watching us on the bet Us Boxing Show. They
hear us on the podcast, So some of you on
the podcast maybe fans of ours on the bet Us
Boxing Show. So I'm just making everybody aware that bet
Us has decided they're no longer doing that show every Friday.
They may come back and do it for the biggest
boxing events. So I'm just alerting our podcast listeners stay

(02:34):
locked in on the podcast for the banter. Find our
Big Fight Weekend YouTube page on the same platform, and
you'll still get ray Field and Me preview mode, recap mode, nostalgia,
your interviews, etc. On YouTube the same way. It's not
like they don't have plenty from you and me on
podcasts and on our own YouTube page right correct, Yes,
as we move along. So I'm just making people aware

(02:56):
if they didn't see us say goodbye on Friday, that
that's not going to be in every weak thing anymore
on bet Us as it has been for the last
three years. All Right, all of that out of the way.
Top Rank Boxing on Sunday. On Saturday Night saw again
Xander Zaiez win a twelve round easy lopsided decision over
Jorge Garcia, the Mexican opponent at the Madison Square Garden Theater.

(03:18):
He wins the vacant WBO title. Let's get into that fight.
Can't say it was surprising. Speaking of the bet Us show,
you and I both thought he would win by decision.
He did. You had the fight, what did you have?
Ten to two? I think on the fight? All right,
give me your thoughts. Hey, Zia gets the title we
thought he would get.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, he thought. He thought a perfect fight. I mean,
it's exactly the game plan that they employed. They knew
they couldn't stand and trade with a big, rugged guy
like Orget Garcia. They had their plan, use your feet
hold strategically to put it nicely, let your hands go.
He was longer, he had a better jab, he had
a better technique, he did much better accuracy, and was

(03:59):
a much better by boxer, and frankly is a better athlete.
And you put that all together and as long as
he didn't get caught in the in the either too far.
He put it like this. He had either be all
the way in or all the way out. He didn't
want to get caught in the in between. He did
a great job of keeping the distance exactly right, and
he went and won that fight. I mean, he took

(04:19):
some hard shots. Garcia landed some nice right hands, landed
a couple of solid body shots. But Xander's eyes was
ready for this fight. He was in great shape. They
had a great game plan. You know, he was very
bullied by his crowd. A lot of the fans there,
of course, where Puerto Rican fans in New York City
supporting Xander, who was born in Puerto Rico, lives in Florida.
And he just fought an excellent fight. He won the

(04:40):
fight going away. I thought the eight to four scorecard
from one of the judges one sixteen one to twelve
was offlay generous, frankly in favor of Garcia. The one
eighteen one ten and one nineteen one oh nine, that
seems got fine. One eighteen one tennis oulied. If you
thought maybe you could give Garcia three rounds, I could
have saw one seventeen to one eleven. I thought eighty
four was offlay.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
General, I must confess I did not see all of
the fight. We were watching a movie on Saturday night
at the beach with the twins in me, and believe
it or not, they were not into xanders eye as
his attempt to win a world title. But I did
see probably the back seven or eight rounds. I didn't
think Garcia won any of those rounds unless he won
two or three of the early ones. It was virtually

(05:20):
a shot.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
By about the fifth round or sixth round. He no
longer had the steam on his punches that he that
he had earlier. He was he'd never had the greatest
technique in the world. He's kind of all over the
places are real awkward, I would say awkward, but he
like falls off balance, he falls in. His feet are terrible.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
You describe it. You're describing awkward, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Well, I just meant the way he punches, it's awkward.
I think of guys that move and dart around and
things like that. But however you want to describe it,
he was just kind of winging shots. There was really
no I didn't feel like there was a real plan
when I was watching. And then once you once you're
snapped of some energy and you lose some of this
team on the punches, that becomes even more of an
uphill battle. And so while he did connect and he

(06:01):
showed hard because he stayed in there and he tried,
he just was a mess technically, was technically a mess.
And Javiol Senteno, who was the trainer for Xander's eyes,
made the excellent point in his interview that they did
after the fight, which was, it's all about the footwork.
In this fight. We had to make sure we were
on our game in terms of our movement where we
were fighting the fight, and he had much better footwork.

(06:23):
He was able to do whatever he wanted. Essentially. He also,
Xander's not a big puncher. That's the one thing. He
doesn't possesses the big one punch power. But he kept
Carcia honest because he tagged him with some very solid
body shots and right hands, and it's a big win.
I mean, you can't overstate what this is about.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Here.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
You have a sixteen year old kid barely in high
school signs a pro contract with Top Break, one of
the great promoters in the history of boxing. He knows
he's not going to be turning pro until he's at
least seventeen. In the United States. He can't turn pro
until you're seventeen, and even then you usually have to
get the special waiver from whatever state commission here. And
so they signed the pro contract. They did some more
preparation for the pros. He had his debut at age seventeen.

(07:05):
It's been a lot of time and energy and effort
from everybody involved, the top ranked team, matchmakers, Xander's team,
his trainer, his parents, his manager Peter Kahan, all the
team together. They've given him the right fights. They finally
get him in the position they think he's going to
be fighting Fondora. Fondora opts to go and fight the
Tim Zoo fight instead, so he vacates the bo rather

(07:27):
than fight the mandatory against against Xander. He ends up
with hore Garcia, who a red hot fighter at that moment,
had won eight fights in a row, coming off the
biggest win of his career, a really good performance against
undefeated Olympian Charles Conwell, who was a very highly ranked
fighter in the one hundred and fifty four pound wake. Last,
he gets the opportunity and this is now the amount

(07:48):
of pressure with all of that in the storyline, and
you're in your home arena essentially Madison Square Garden the
Theater in particular, he's now fought there eight times, the
last four and in the theater and everybody is all
about you that night, it's the last ESPN card on
you know, a top rank. I mean, there's just a
lot of stuff going on right when he rose to

(08:11):
the occasion, and on top of becoming the world champion
of the WBO at one fifty four, which by the way,
is a great weight class, and because of his his
charisma and his backing and you know, his drawing ability,
you know, he's not gonna want for bigger fights if
he chooses and the team chooses to opt to go
that way. But he, at age twenty two, just blows

(08:31):
away the barrier of the youngest active heavyweight active world
champion in boxing right now. He's twenty two. He broke
the record of current guys anyway, of Brian Norman, Jinger's
you know a little over twenty four. So by two years,
he's the youngest active title holder in the sport. I mean,
and he's a very mature person, and he thought a
very discipline and a very mature fight. I thought it

(08:53):
was a brilliant performance.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yep, and I give him a lot of credits. So
let's just follow up. You said in the build up
to this, you don't think the Fundora unification fight would
be next. You can articulate on that. I've been thinking
this because they kept bringing it up on the broadcast.
Where is Bachrum? Who claber tim Zu back in October?
I know you love it when I do co sell.
I remember because I was there he clabered zoo Bro.

(09:20):
That was back before Halloween. Where is Bachrum?

Speaker 2 (09:24):
I'll tell you? So?

Speaker 1 (09:25):
All right, go ahead?

Speaker 2 (09:26):
So uh fundor Fandora Xander and his trainer Javio Santano
both said that they would like to fight Sowndora Xander said,
I'll be back in December. He's gonna take a few
months off. Obviously he'll be back before the end of
the year.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
I doubt that that will happen, but it seems like
they're amenable and willing and interested, but probably won't happen,
you know he u. Xander also did mention Martazalev. Now,
Bakraum's in an interesting situation because his promoter, Main Events
has no particular deal with anybody. They work a lot
with PBC, but they're not tied to anybody contractually in
terms of another promoter or a broadcaster. But it's hard

(10:03):
to get the guy fights because A and not a
lot of guys want to fight him. B. They don't
really have the outlet on which to mount these types
of events. That Bachrom fight you referenced against him Zu
was on a PBC card, and on top of that,
he just was ordered by the IBF to negotiate the
mandatory against Eric san Lubin. Now, Eric san Lubin has
been a contender for a long time, and so if

(10:24):
that fight happens next, so be it, and that would
probably be on a PBC card. Eric Sanlubin is associated
with PBC is also involved with the people at Probox. However,
in the IBF, if you opt to get a unification
fight before a fight goes to a purspit, you could
get an exception. So theoretically, and again I don't think
the timing's going to work out. But theoretically, if there

(10:46):
was a serious movement to try between the teams to
make Bachraum against Xander's eyes, they probably could do it
and he would have to do the mandatory afterwards. But
I don't think that's happening either. I mean, right now,
it's too soon to say. There's lots of good talent
in the division. Uh, the the unification fights are seemingly
not going to be next. Bob Aaron did say that

(11:07):
he's taken xanders Ayas for his first defense back to
Puerto Rico. They're gonna do it the old fashioned way.
I'm sure they're not gonna fight a bum, I don't think.
But they're not gonna look to fight some King Kong
top top guy. They're gonna go have a beautiful homecoming,
pack a big amount of people into an arena in
Puerto Rico, make him a bigger star in Puerto Rico.
And that's the name of the game. I'm not even
that about that. I mean, there's I got no problem

(11:28):
with that. The kids, I'm years old, go do what
you gotta money and make your star power.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
But let me back up, just a couple of moments here,
and I love having fun going back and forth. Bakrum
has not fought in nine months.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
I'm not sass problem.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
I'm not saying it is okay. I don't care. I'm
not his promoter. When is the guy fighting again? If
he hasn't fought in nine months, and you're talking to
me about ericson lubin in PBC. Do they even have
a show on the books that they would put that
fight on in Well, they would have October November.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
I mean, whatever their situation is if there's no unification
fight and and the teams And I talked to Kathy Duva,
who was boxing's promoter, and I wrote this on my
substack the other day. They are talking, she said, and
they have a good relationship with PBC, so they can
they can make the match and it probably would wind
up on a PBC card. However, Uh, until there's a
deal and or a purse bid, you know who the

(12:17):
heck knows, But uh, he'll fight.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
But apparently he hasn't fought in nine months.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
But for boxers to go a year without a fight
as normal, unfortunately, So it's Tild's.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Play coming off of that knockout. He should have been
fighting somebody and he would his dollars would go up. Interesting,
but it hasn't happened.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
A right, But they don't have the money and they
don't have the outlets, so it's you can't get blood
from a fucking stonach.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Well, and the other thing is we're gonna get into
it in a couple of minutes. Top rank doesn't have
the outlet at the moment either. How much does that
complicate things? Stay tuned, all right? The co feature fight
Bruce Shoeshue Carrington did win Matteas Hata was the opponent
from Namibia. We well documented that he had never fought
outside of Africa. Carrington again was the better, more skilled fighter.

(13:03):
There wasn't much to this and he wins the interim
WBC Featherweight Championship. Right your thoughts.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
It was like a man and a boy in my mind.
I mean, the skill level was so wide between Carrington
and Hata. I mean it's not like Haya was terrible
or anything like that. He was a hard worker. He
seemed pretty sturdy. He landed a couple of good shots.
I could see him competing with some of the fighters
that are a notch below, you know, the world class level.

(13:31):
I do give him credit. Did fly all the way
from the Mbia to New York to fight Carrington in
his hometown. I'm sure he made his biggest perse ever.
Trust me, when I tie, there ain't a lot of money.
When you're fighting, you know, sup fights in Namibia, which
is where he fought all of his fights other than
one other fight in Africa until this fight, and he
tried and whatever I mean. But Carrington was so leaps

(13:52):
and bounds better technically, just did everything better. And while
it wasn't the most dynamic performance in the world, there
was no doubt who the better man was. The scores
were appropriate. One twenty to one O eight one nineteen
one oh nine one nineteen oh one oh nine. That
was dead on that. We you know, we talked about the
range of acceptable scores. It was either twelve zero or

(14:12):
eleven rounds to one. You know, maybe you could find
ten rounds to two, but that, you know, that was
the deal there, and uh, you know, Carrington wins the
fight going away. I didn't really like the fact this
was Carrington's first twelve round scheduled fight and it did
go to twelve rounds. I never liked when a fighter
says in their post id interview, you know I wanted
to go to the twelve rounds. No, no, no, nobody's
paying for a ticket to watch it go twelve rounds.

(14:34):
If you go twelve rounds, fine, that's the way life
goes but don't tell me you wanted to go twelve rounds.
We want to see knockouts. That's what people hate ticket
money for. If you can't get it, no problem. But
don't tell me your aim is to go twelve rounds
because number one, I actually don't believe that, and number two, right,
we want to see you.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Different way to phrase it is, I wanted to get
some rounds in. And once you've gotten some rounds in,
because you hear fighters say that, then get the knockout.
If you can get the knockout.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
But so he has the interim title, and you know, well,
I'm a big Bruce Carrington fan. Shusha was a lot
of fun to watch most of the time. He's got
a great personality, comes from a hard scrabble background like
lots of boxers do, and I give him credit for
dragging himself up from the bootstraps and all the difficult
things he's been through in his life. However, I am very,
very nauseous and ill and disgusted with the constant narrative

(15:20):
that a man who has only been a professional for
a handful of years, who's only had fourteen fights going
into that fight last night, has somehow been avoided and
ducked in dodge and can't get the title shot. I mean,
you think the guy's motherfucking Marvin Hagler. Okay, wed like
fifty fucking fights before he fought for the title. I mean,
give me a fucking break.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Now we're getting salty. Now we're getting salty on this.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
I just but the narrative that was in this. I'm
not even blaming Carrington. He's entitled to say I want
the title shot. I don't even have a problem with that.
And with all due respect to my former colleagues at ESPN,
who I love dearly, my boy Bernardo and Joe and
Kregel and Bradley, I love all of them. They're the best.
But that the echo chamber narrative that he's somehow been
aggrieved and has some of them to get the tunele

(16:00):
shot is just so preposterous. It's just ridiculous. So, Okay,
now he has an interim belt. He was calling out
Raphael Espinoza, who was ringside. Uh, there's probably zero chance
that that fight happens next. Unfortunately, that would be a
very intriguing.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
What reason, just while we're here for what reason? Because
Espinosa is gonna fight somebody else.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
Probably because they're making plans for somebody else for Espinoza,
and I don't think Espinosa wants that smoke right now.
He's got other things that are that are that she
can make bigger money and bigger events, uh than fighting him.
And my that's my opinion. And I know top rank.
I talked to some of the folks there. They're not
looking a rush to make that match. They're not worried
about putting Carrington in there, but they don't want to
lose a top attraction Mexican brawler who brings a crowd,

(16:43):
and they don't need to put them in together right away.
So we'll see. I mean, I hope it happens. It
will be an excellent fight.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
You know Angelo lio is there, who knows what he's
gonna do. He did just fight in the last couple
of months, so you know he might be available at
some point. Uh. But besides the the false narrative of
Carrington's aggrieved situation of not getting a world title shot,
he now does have a mandatory. It does give him
some juice in terms of getting a title shot. He
did mention Stephen Fulton the whole purpose why this in

(17:11):
Durham title was available theoretically was because Fulton, who is
the champion, was going to one thirty to challenge O'shaki
Foster for the WBC belt on the undercart of Tank
Davis and Lamont Roach in the remash that was supposed
to be August sixteenth, and then if he won or lost,
he would be able to decide if he's going to
come back down and defend. If he did, he'd have
to fight the winner of Carrington against Hada. If if

(17:33):
he decided to stay up with the heavier weight than
the chance than the in this case, Carrington would take
over the title. However, the Roach and Tank fight ain't happening.
I mean, it's totally messed up. It's definitely not happened
in August, and I think it's totally off altogether at
this point, and they're looking for other things because who knows,
you know, Tank is doing Tank things and Roach is like,
I'm not going to sit around and wait for the

(17:54):
rest of the year to get the dude in the rings.
So there's a very tenuous situation of whether Foster and
and if Foster and Fulton will happen. If it doesn't happen.
You know, I'm not sure what's gonna go on in
terms of that title. But Carrington's in a good position.
He fought a good fight and he you know, he
didn't He's still I mean, in my opinion, and again
I say this with all due respect, I love Carrington.

(18:15):
He still hasn't fought anybody of any kind of consequence.
I against sixteen Nobody's basically.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
It's a hype. It's a hype train, and at this
point we need to see more from him.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
He does have the talent, Like I'm very convinced that
if you did put him in with some of the
other champions or top featherweights, he would compete with the
Stephen Fulton's and the Espinosa's and Leo, you know, and
Angelo Leo. I'm not saying he would lose all of
them or anything like that. I'm just saying they yet
haven't seen it. And the one time they put him
in with a guy that was somewhat reputable in Sulaman Sagawa,

(18:48):
he was life and death in a majority of decision
to win.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Fair enough, all right, on the undercards, I'm just keeping
it real, Hey, I'm gonna keep it real in a
few minutes to stand by on the whole top ranked
ESPN thing uh on the undercard as well. Emiliano Vargas
speaking of the hype train, we can't we can't get
enough of talking about him off of a one punch
essentially KO of Alexander Espinosa with a big right hand
early on in the first round of that fight. What

(19:12):
are your thoughts and what about that hype TRAINK.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Forty two seconds the right hand and over and owt.
Espinosa was a very experienced fighter compared to the other
types of guys that Emiliano has faced. Look, Emiliano really
does have legitimate superstar potential. He's fifteen and oh with
thirteen knockouts. He talks well, he looks beautiful. He comes
from a fighting family. His father was one of the
most popular and decorated fighters of his time, in Fernando Vargas,

(19:39):
who was you know, a huge fan favor and he
checks every single box out there, I think, and I've
maybe been guilty of this when he came along and
I watched him early, you know, he was scoring the
typical knockouts against the nobodies, and I'm like, I'm not
so sure about this. I've seen a lot of you know,
sons come along that weren't much and I'm like, okay,

(19:59):
i'll get chance, let's see what happens. But I was
not buying the hype. I was not on the bandwagon.
I never put him in my prospect of the air list.
I saw some holes there and this and that. I'm
starting to come around on the kid, and I think
some people might have like the reverse discrimination. They're like, well,
you must not be any good just because you've got
the famous name and the good looks and you're fighting
a bunch of nobody's. But I feel like he's kind

(20:20):
of turning the corner, like he's really handling you know,
guys who are not stars, not elite fighters, but competent pros.
And I would put Alexander Espinoza in that category. Yeah,
he was older, obviously, but that's a really if you
ask the people at top rank or anybody that's familiar
with him, I think that, okay, fine, you think that
Vargas is gonna win fair enough. I'm pretty sure that

(20:42):
nobody was saying he's gonna stop him in forty two
seconds on a clean knockout. You know this is a
guy that had won a couple of fights in a row,
not against top level guys, but he's been in the
ring with some fine, you know, with some solid guys
through the years, and I just was very impressed by
the way he did it and the way he handles
it and the way he talks. And I hope he
becomes a superstar because boxing could use a handsome, exciting

(21:08):
you know, with a with a pedigree like he has
from the father like that. That's superstar made to order
as long as he can fight. So it seems to
me like he's on a great trajector. He's gonna probably
fight at least, you know, once or twice more this year,
and next year's gonna be a big one for him
because at that point, you know, he'll be you know,
eighteen and o ish something like that. He'll have rankings

(21:29):
in the organizations and it'll be time to see what
we can do.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
And sometimes the descendants of the great fighters can put
it together. I mean, you were saying the same thing
similarly on these pods. Because I do listen to you
and pay attention to you. The Connor Benn early on
in his career didn't look like anything special, didn't look
like he'd be a world class fighter, but he improved
as time went on. Now there's a dubious footnote that
he was using pds, obviously potentially for a lot of it.

(21:59):
He got caught, but still, I mean, guys can improve
and can look better. Uh. And and we'll see, we'll
see what Emiliano Vargas well.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
I surely hope that Emiliano doesn't get caught using things
like his father did. Because as as outstanding and as
fun and exciting, as big a star as Fernando was,
you know, he got busted for using performance enhancing drugs.
It didn't help because it was the fight where he
tested positive after it Oscar del hoy and knocked him out. Uh,
but you know that's the way it goes.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
All Right, anything else or shall we move on to
the goodbye from top rank and right? So I'll get
your thoughts here in a second. But you know you're
already salty here. I'm just gonna I'm gonna keep it
real on the podcast. Pathetic. It was pathetic the way
that that went out. I don't know if there's animus

(22:49):
behind the scenes for them to say goodbye. They basically
really didn't even say goodbye on that State of Boxing show.
They certainly didn't have any kind of a highlight montage
that we saw when showed Time said goodbye or HBO
said goodbye again. I'm not privy to all of this,
but I do know behind the scenes at ESPN they
were done with this relationship earlier in the year because

(23:12):
of how much money they've been spending. But I really
thought that there would be some kind of send off
that and maybe and maybe it's an indication that it's
not really gonna be a full on divorce, and maybe
they're gonna come back with something on ESPN Plus, and
that's why they didn't do a full on goodbye. I'm
not privy to that. I don't know, but if that

(23:32):
is it for goodbye on the on the short term
of top rank boxing from the last seven or eight years,
how do you not have something ready to go that
shows Tyson Fury knocking out Deontay Wilder, that shows, you know,
the Manny Pacquiao upset like you referenced that began at
all to Jeff Horn that you have some great moments,
big moments, big calls. They had none of it.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
That was I wasn't surprised. It's just I'm not saying.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
I'm not saying whether you were surprised or not. I'm
just gonna call it what it is. That was a
pathetic goodbye. That was just were going on there goodbye.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
And they referenced it during State of Boxing, and they
referenced it I think before the main event they discussed
it for a minute. Here's the difference between an h
First of all, I thought the Showtime send off was
pretty weak, also because they didn't do a very good
highlight package. But put that aside, HBO as a boxing
broadcaster was just part of the fabric of the sport
for literally over forty years. Showtime not that far behind,

(24:31):
much much different. The level of fights they did, the
consistency that they did, did with they didn't only work
with one promoter, so they covered the entire facet of
the sport. I mean, granted at different times they were
working with other promoters, maybe not with this promoter, but
in general terms, the biggest boxing matches in the world
between roughly nineteen, you know, in the late seventies through

(24:52):
two thousand and fifteen eighteen, they all happened pretty much
on HBO. Showtime with exceptions of course, you know, especially
during the in the mid eighties and all that. But
the ESPN Top Rank latest incarnation was only eight years
one promoter, lots of good fights, but I didn't I
wasn't surprised in any way. Maybe it's because I spent

(25:14):
a long time working at the ESPN and it's not
their way of doing it. They're not working on something
for ESPN. Plus, to my knowledge, it is goodbye for now.
That doesn't mean, at least in my opinion, that ESPN
will be totally divorced from the sport for the long term.
Remember when when the original Top Rank series left the
air in roughly nineteen ninety six thereabouts, it was only

(25:36):
a year and a half later or so that they
created what became Friday Night Fights, and it had various
incarnations of Tuesday Night Fights and this and that. So,
you know, I do think that somebody else may fill
that breach at some point. I'm not saying it's going
to be at the same level or the same amount
of money, or the same regularity and all that. But
you know, it's hard for me to see the so
called worldwide leader in sports that has its hand in

(25:59):
every for you can conceive of not to do any
boxing at all. I just I feel like at some point,
again I'm not saying it's gonna be next week, but
in the near future, there'll be something related to boxing
on their air. So the fact they didn't do like
a big blowout goodbye not a surprise in any way.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
And no way, I'm not saying that they should have
thrown a parade.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
But but if you listen to what everybody was saying,
what what the broadcaster said, they're appreciative. I saw some
tweets from members of the not that they weren't. I
talked to Bob Aeron about it a couple of days ago.
He said, there's no hard feelings anything, but we're grateful
for the time we had. We put on a lot
of great events with them. We had a great partnership.
And you know, it's not because they didn't want boxing.

(26:41):
It's because ESPN has cut massive budget for us. And
this is not including Major League Baseball for that.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
Correct, Major League Baseball is going to be gone F
one whatever, So.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
You can get rid of F one at MLB. I mean,
boxing is like a pimple on the.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
S Yeah, and so I'm gonna do my ray Field.
So I've been in the media for thirty five years.
I've been in the national media for going on about
twenty two twenty three years, so I'm pretty astute at this.
I have a lot of different people that I talked
to all the time inside of big media organizations, including ESPN,
et cetera. Again, I'm going to say that was pathetic

(27:15):
television to end it. They should have done some kind
of highlight montage. You know, let's look back, even if
it's three or four minutes, let's look back on some
great moments that we've had doing this. They did none
of it announce.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Completely, and I usually liked those type of packages, like
I love the HBO one they did, but that was
different because of the things I mentioned in terms of
the historical nature of what they did in their forty
something years. So if you're upset about it at school,
I personally didn't move me one way or the other.
I couldn't hear less.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
And it basically epitomizes the end of the ESPN top
rank relationship that apparently it didn't move either one of
them one way or the other, and so they're done.
They're done. With that, all right, speaking of not moving,
we've run from my Hall of Fame segue. Speaking of
not moving this one way or the other. Claressa shields,
hey uh defends the women's don't laugh, Ray feel undisputed
heavyweight title against Lannie Daniels. Daniels from New Zealand, I

(28:09):
believe is also fun in Australia. I go ahead. I
didn't see it. I think I'm not alone in not
seeing it.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
The fact that they call this heavyweight's irritates me because
it's it's one hundred and seventy five pound fight, which
in normal parlance is light heavyweight. And it's just like
boxing organizations to try to change things up and make
you confused. But I still can't stand that they use
super welterweight in junior middleweight and all that whatever. But
the regardless of all that, she won the fight as expected,

(28:39):
and Lanny Daniels was, you know, is nothing spectacular. She
has a title at light heavyweight. She was basically at
that weight, you know, almost at that weight for this
fight anyway. And Claressa it was the best fighter in
the world in terms of women's boxing. It has been
for years and as a Verst Ballot Hall of Famer
and has all the accomplishments you could possibly conceive of.
Olympic gold medal, multi division world championships, multiple undisputed championships,

(29:03):
one loss ever in her life amateur or pro, avenged
against Savannah Marshall as a professional. I mean, I don't
know what else she can do. The problem is, as
I detailed you in the preview, if you take a
look at the organization rankings of the Big Four and
you add up the number of heavyweight women that they rank,
you're talking about literally eighteen women in the fucking planet,

(29:25):
and some of them overlap each other's rankings. So it's
not to put it on a comparable basis to some
of the lower women's weight classes where there's many, many
more boxers involved, and then to put it on that
same level as the men's side of the sport, where
it's not even close, is kind of laughable. I just
feel bad because she's such an outstanding, skilled boxer, but

(29:46):
she just has nobody that is even I said to you,
it's going to be a shutout. I wasn't even interested
in watching it fight. I struggled through some of the rounds,
I Frankly, I kind of turned it off because I
already had known the result because I had watched the
ESPN Top Rank car live, so I knew the result
by the time I clicked on his own to check
out some of the fight with Claressa. And the bottom

(30:08):
line is, and I'm not want to tell her to
go lose twenty five pounds rything like this, but if
she wants to get fights where people will actually give
a damn besides us her small contingent in the Detroit
area and Flint where she's from, it she did draw
a big crowd. She's gonna have to go down back
to the lower weights to find at least some semblance.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
I said that, I said that last week. Yes, I
agree with you.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
There's just nobody there. I mean, the girls that she's
been fighting don't compete with her, forget about winning. There's
literally no combination. The cards last night one hundred and
ninety ninety nine, ninety one on the other two when
she won the fight prior to that, when she fought
Danielle Perkins, who was undefeated only five and zero. But
you know, having a good amateur car one hundred to

(30:49):
eighty nine ninety nine to ninety ninety seven ninety two.
In the fight before that, she scored a rare knockout
against the Vanessa Lapage Joanese, a woman that was very
incompetent in the with her. You go back before that
when she was down at middleweight, she's beating up on
Marcella Carnejo. Shall I say one hundred ninety one hundred
ninety one hundred eighty nine, like she's not losing rounds,

(31:11):
the only one that even gave her competition and she
still won although it was competitive. Was she did win
the fight I mentioned against Savannah Marshall. Savannah actually won
four rounds on one of the scorecards. That's like a
miracle because Larissa doesn't lose rounds. So you know, to
fight before that across the board, Emma Cosen undefeated, a good,
good fighter one hundred to ninety times three. There's no

(31:33):
competition for her to fight. It's that horrible, all right.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
So but you just said it, and we can just
wrap it up on this. It's an A plus B
equal C type thing. If you're not fighting anybody that
anybody cares about, then you're not gonna have enough audience.
And then therefore not get money out of this. It's
gonna dry up, and I would think at this point
it has basically dried up in terms of who's watching this,
who cares.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
So there hasn't been a Savannah since the Savannah Marshall fight,
which took place in October of twenty twenty two. Claressa
has had four boxing matches and not one of them
have I been even remotely interested, that's the going She
also competes in PFL MMA right, which she's been balancing
between the two, so she sat a couple of MMA bounds.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Part of the problem is she had one of those
bouts that she got beat, so it kind of derailed
some of what they were trying to do. So stay
tuned on what happens next. I I just know this,
It's not gonna get any better if you stay at
heavyweight in non competitive fights.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
No, I'm not trying to compare them, but in some way,
I think of the days when when Roy Jones was
fighting at super middleweight or even at light heavyweight, uh,
and there was just nobody could hang with him. Nobody
could win rounds off them. Right, for different reasons, they
could never make the Mikolchevsky fight, and they basically forced

(32:56):
them to go to heavyweight. The difference between going to
heavyweight as a man, there's a lot of guys that
you can fight who are way bigger and stronger, and
he ended up fighting Jean Ruiz. Of course, Essa, there
are no women up at the heavyweight division that matter
or mean anything.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
I'm with you get back down to the lesser weight
and its potentially a little more competitive. We'll see. We
just gave that about five minutes, which is probably five
minutes than more than it should have gotten. What that is? Okay?
On Wednesday, as we released this podcast Wednesday morning US time,
Wednesday night in Japan, let's talk Ken, Shiro Taraji and

(33:30):
Ricardo Sandoval for the WBCWBA Flyweight unified titles. That's the
main event. A couple of interesting undercard fights as well.
So even though this is the fight freach and night
recap a little bit in the preview mode because before
we get back here, we got lessist in Japanese boxing.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Well, the good news here is that while this would
normally have been an ESPN Plus card, like a lot
of those Japanese cards that Teak and Promotions does because
of their relationship with Top Break. I actually thought they
might squeeze this one in under the wire because this
fight takes place on July thirtieth, but the Top Rank
contract with the ESPN actually expires on July thirty first,
But that's not happening. But the good news for those
of us here in the United States as well as

(34:10):
the folks in the UK, is that the Zone has
acquired the rights to this fight in those two territories.
So if you live in the United States and you
live in the UK, you can watch this fight on
his own. For the United States, they'll be the same
time as we see it normally when they were on
ESPN plus you know, on that five thirty kind of
time range. Taraji, for me, is the kind of guy

(34:31):
you wake up early to see if you can, because
he's super exciting. He's a lower part of the top
tenni ish pound for pound caliber fighter. He's won titles
in two divisions now he is a unified champion. In
his last fight that he won the WBA belt and
retained the WBC belt TJ. This fight was back in March.

(34:51):
This is a clear candidate for Fight of the Year
to me, right now it's only a two fight discussion.
It's either that fight or it's Connor Ben against Chris Ubay.
There's other fights that we're outstanding, also Angel Fierro against
Pitt boll Cruz and others. But in terms of the
fight that could actually win the award, as we you
know are halfway through the year, it's Taraji against Sego Akui.

(35:13):
Spectacular action fight. Taraji with the dramatic twelve round knockout,
come from behind knockout. We have detailed in the past
how rare it is for there to be a world
championship fight where a fighter scores where he's down on
the cards and comes back to score a knockout in
a world championship fight. Very very unusual and highly rare. Anyway,

(35:33):
he's coming off of that fight, So in terms of
matching himup with Ricardo Raphael Sandobal not on that same level.
They've not given him King Kong. They know how brutal
then tough of that fight that he just had. So
but Sandobal is a guy you may have seen on
some of the Golden Boys shows. He fights for Golden Boy.
He's at a rialto California. Good record twenty six and
two with eighteen he's won like six fights in a row.
But if you take a look at the types of

(35:54):
fighters he has faced, he is taking a gargantuan step
up in competition. So you know Taraji, who's not getting
any younger. He's thirty three, he sat some wars. Maybe
he's not what he was at his absolute best, but
he's still an outstanding fighter, super exciting and we'll see
if sander bal has got a great opportunity to win
a unified championship. See being give him some competition and
making a fun fight. But I know whether he wins.

(36:18):
In the rare time when he did lose, Taraji always
makes a good fight. And that's the headliner of this
show that takes place in Yokohama, Japan on Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
Two other world title fights as well. Says something about
them for Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
So you have Antonio Vargas who had been the interim
WBA Bandon White champion. He was recently elevated to the
new full status and he's kind of a guy that's
flown under the raidar. He signed with top rank after
having participate in the Olympics years ago, didn't work out,
kind of floated under the radar, got with pro box.

(36:51):
He's now nineteen and one with eleven knockouts. He's twenty eight.
He's not getting any younger. But he was an Olympian
all the way back in twenty sixteen based out of
Cassie Me, Florida. And you know, he's done. He's done
what he's supposed to do. So now he's he's making
his first defense of the full title since he got elevated,
and he's going to Japan to fight. In this card,
he's fighting Daego Higa, who is a former WBC flyweight

(37:12):
champion who's got a good record twenty one three until
he's coming off of a draw, but he's always been
in good fights. I've seen lots of the Daego Higa
fights on because of my Japanese fetish for championship level boxing.
But this is you know what I like about Antonio
Vargas is what he's been saying in the build up
to this fight is that he's embracing the trip overseas.
He's really looking forward to that to have people get

(37:33):
to know who he is outside of the United States
or maybe even out of outside of Florida, because unfortunately
he's not even that well known within the United States,
but the Japanese fans they love their smaller weight classes
and it's a great opportunity for him. So and he's
fighting within the Japanese boxing culture, a fighter who's got
a name and some recognition in Higa. So we'll see
what he can do. And then you know, down you

(37:54):
get to the small small weight class. The junior flyweight
title holder of the WBA, Eric Rosa, who's only eight
to oh south, buff from the Dominican very good young fighter.
He's defending against a fighter named Kayasuki Takari. Can't say
I'm really that familiar with him, but he is undefeated.
This is a typical kind of fight you've seen in
these weight classes where if there's a champion that comes

(38:15):
from this part of the world, they've got plenty of
prospects and up and comers over there. They match them
up with typically they make good fights, and so you know,
as your Japanese triple header goes, you know, I'm in
the tank for these types of shows.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
So they all right. At least we got some championship
fights midweek, there's not a whole lot. Again, the next
couple of weekends, So we'll obviously talk more about that
when we get on the preview pod for this weekend.
We'll talk in the recap mode about those fights some
news before we are done. Not surprisingly, we've been talking
about this now in the aftermath of the Busik win
over Daniel Dubwah. But the WBO has followed through and said,

(38:51):
you need to fight Joseph Parker next.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
One hundred percent. And this is what they said when
they approved Busik to fight dubwa and to allow the
w belt to be at stake so it would still
be for undisputed. Parker was cool about it. Joe's a
good dude, He understands the business and he agreed to
step aside and not give anybody any problems. And this
is not a mandatory where we've seen many times where

(39:15):
it's a lesser opponent or a guy that maybe doesn't
really deserve it or has just been kind of sitting
on his ranking waiting around to get the shot. This
is the complete opposite. If there's a singular heavyweight in
the entire division, whatever organization we're talking about, who Lawrence
a shot at the undisputed Heavyweight Championship. It is Joseph Parker.
Now he is the WBO's interim title holder. He's a

(39:36):
former WBO full titlelder. He held that title from twenty
sixteen to twenty eighteen. He defeated Andy Ruiz and won
that vacant title. He ultimately lost it in a unification
fight against Anthony Joshua. He is no stranger to being
in big fights. He has won, you know, several fights
in a row, but he more particular his last three
fights since he got beat by Joe Joyce a few

(39:58):
years ago. You know, he's reeled off wins in a row,
but most notably Deontay Wilder, Zilly Jang and then a
devastating knockout of Martin Bucoley, you know, the supposed boogeyman.
People want to say, well Bacoley took the fight on
short notice. Well Joe Parker accepted them on short notice.
So I mean, it's it kind of is it kind
of evens things out. All I know is this the

(40:20):
w BO has done the right thing. And I saw
a post from from Turkey via the Ring where they
were making the point that read season and SELA, which
is the government group that handles, you know, the financing
of these events and Turkey runs. We're not interested in
doing the fight, and that's their proact. I don't know
why they're not interested. It's a very good matchup. But
even if they're not interested, I got all all this

(40:42):
stuff on social media like, well, they're not interested in
the fight, what's gonna happen. They're entitled to that opinion,
but they're not the only people in this sport that
bank roll fights and put fights on. So they don't
have to they don't have to do the fight. I'm
not mad about that. If that's what they decide to do, fine,
But that doesn't mean that Frank Warren, who is Joseph
Parkers promoter who put on it was also Dubois Broter,
who sold ninety thousand seats in a Wembley stadium. He

(41:05):
can put the fight under some other entity that would
be out there willing to put on the fight. Not
every fight is a ninety thousand seats stadium fight. Not
every fight do you have to get paid seventy zillion dollars.
And may I add, by the way, the nonsense sets
out there on social media that that Alexander Usig made
one hundred and thirty two million dollars for the Dubai
fight is just blatantly fused. Well, I'm sorry, all over

(41:27):
it's all over the place.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
Wait wait a minute, somebody is saying he made one
hundred two million for the Dubois fight, or he's made
one hundred and thirty two million to this point in
his career on the run.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
No for the Dubois fight. What planet are we and
the Dubois had made like I forget what the number
what they were thrown after, like fifty million dollars that
is made up out of whole cloth. It is just
not accurate.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
It's idiotic.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
It wound up in like the the Ai thing, and
like if you google it, it's plain absolutely ridiculous. My
point is you you in the real world, not the
world where they just give out money. And like the
Saudi right, most promotions over the course of history is
you put on an event and the people who are

(42:13):
managing the event and doing the promotion and doing the
financial aspects of it try to do an event where
they pay whatever they have to pay for the purses
and the expenses and the undercart and all the things
that go into an event and hope that they can
make money back based on what they sell, either broadcast
rights or pay per view, or sponsors or international television,
or ticket sales or t shirts or whatever. So you

(42:36):
fight for what's there when they did plenty of fights
like that, You fight for your peace, and whatever you
can generate, you generate. So I see no reason why Usik,
who's been a great fighter and will fight whoever, not
ducking anybody. Joseph Parker is very obvious on his career
that he's not looking at duck anybody. That's the fight
that should be made. They can sell a lot of
tickets for that fight if they put it in the UK.

(42:57):
Because Usik has become popular, Parker is well known. They
could put that fight back in Poland where he'll sell
out a stadium. I mean, that's the fight. This should happen.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
And by the way, Frank Warren is savvy at this
and knows this. If you were to put it like
in the Wimbley Arena. Here we are playing matchmakers and promoters,
all right, and you pull a Moses to Tama, let's say,
on the undercard, and or you put another prominent British fight,
you'd sell that place out, probably just on the main event.
But you definitely sell it out with other fights, and
you'd increase the value of the tickets and the gate

(43:29):
if you made it smaller if you did that, and
there's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
I also think though that because of I mean, Dubois
is British and was a big reason why they drew
the ninety thousand. Obviously, Usik has become popular in the
UK also, he won his gold medal there in the Olympics.
He obviously fought Anthony Joshua there he beat him twice,
although once in Saudi Arabia. He's beat other fighters in
the UK, including Dubois, maybe not Wimbley. But could they

(43:54):
go to like where Connor Benning Ubank at the Tonhem Hotspur,
which is like sixty something thousand, and do aadium fight
for Usak and Parker. I don't think that's out of
the realm of possibility, or you could. He doesn't have
to be in a big state. You can't forget about
the the Wembley Arena. You can put that fight at
the O two Arena and sell twenty thousand tickets. I
have brought out of my mind so the mental gymnastics

(44:17):
that people are doing about why it shouldn't be Parker,
and I don't hear them say it should be somebody else.
I've heard some people suggested it should be a Tuma.
I mean, he's got a fight coming up. All due
respect to the young man, but that's that's he's proven
ready for that mandatory and.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
He's proven nothing on the championship level. Yet Let's see
Hi improve something on the championship level, and that's a
twenty twenty six fight if Usak's going to keep going.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
So my hope is very simple. Alexander Usik, the number
one fighter in the world pound for pound, the undisputed,
undefeated heavyweight champion, the Hall of Famer and waiting gives
the man that deserves the opportunity more than anybody in
the heavyweight division the opportunity. It is a mandatory. It
is Joseph Parker, a good guy and a good fighter.
He deserves and Usik has never been a guy to

(45:01):
duck guys that should one hundred percent be the fight.
It's not, in my opinion, there's no debate because there's
there's not even like a number two guy where you
can make the front of it. It's not like it's
close and it's like, well, maybe it should be. I
don't want to hear about a third Theory fight. I'm
gonna make the point I've made before. I'm not opposed
to a third usikin Theory fight at all. I'm opposed
to it being next new Blood. He's fought Joshua twice,

(45:24):
Duboa twice, Theory twice. Let's let's spread things out. Let's
give the guy that deserves the shot the shot.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
And let's let Tyson Fury proove something against somebody else
before he goes and fights Alexander Usik and loses again.
I'm just putting that out there on on the recap pot.
All right, Bootsanas has re signed with Matchroom Boxing a
multi fight extension. Uh what does this mean in terms

(45:50):
of lucrative fight or two next? What are you hearing
about what might be next? I mean, obviously this is
one of the dominoes that he re ups with them.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Yeah, I mean the contact was coming up. They've had
a good relationship. Gather Boots made the comments and his
his when they made the announcement that he likes, he
likes working with Eddie Herd and matrom Boxing and they
go to the you know, go to the mat to
try to make him a start. They've done a good
job in terms of putting him where it made sense.
They've had him fight two times in his hometown in Philadelphia,
in the major arena there, where they did a lot

(46:17):
of ticket sales. They brought him to the Boardwalk Call
in Atlantic City, which is only like a half an
hour away. They were able to get that fight done
with Amanta. Stanionis for him to unify the titles. So
those are the three fights he's had with Mattrim. He's
won all three. He looked pretty good in all three.
He's drawn big crowds for all three. He became a
unified champion, which was the goal that he had. Now
he's on to one hundred and fifty four pounds, and

(46:40):
and and Eddie made the point ed he heard made
the point that when they announced is that you know that, yeah,
he's fighting at home. But there's not a lot of
American boxers that you can say in their last three
fights sold like an excess of thirty thousand tickets. I mean,
there's maybe a few, but it's very it's a small
small group. So from that perspective, Boots is doing his thing.

(47:02):
But then you wonder who's gonna fight. There's been a
lot of conversations about he's turned down, this guy turned down,
that guy wants X number of tune up fights, whatever.
But if he's willing to fight the guys, there are
some outstanding matches in that division. Now there's Fandora. I
don't think that's happening.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
He ain't.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
No one's gonna let you.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
Want thirty minutes. You want me to say the name
Bachram again? That could Could that happen? Is it realistic?

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Even the realistic fight, the fight that I believe is
the most doable, that makes a lot of sense for everybody.
That would definitely draw a crowd in a multitude of
places where you could put it. They've already had discussions
about the fight in the past, and it is a good,
good style matchup. I mean, honestly, if you were making
a list of like your top ten or fifteen fights
in boxing you'd want to see. I dare say a

(47:49):
lot of people would put this on their list. And
that's Boots and it's against Virgil ortiz j. That's a
can't misfight. They've already been talking some ship with each other.
They're both exciting fighters to watch. They both have different
skill sets, they both have different things that they're They're
good at everything, but they both have different things at
they're best at. Like Boots is a really skillful boxer
even though he does punch. Virgil is a good boxer

(48:10):
but has got tremendous punching power. I just think that's
a fantastic fight, and Junior midlewaight, it's a very good division.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
Knowing realism meter, is that a six or a seven
that it realistically could happen later this year, early next year.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
I mean, well, Kurk Turkey's already offered to do the fight,
so I think absolutely it's doable. To me, it's not
even about Virgil Ortiz, It's about whether or not Boots
Ennis will accept that fight without saying he needs to have,
you know, fourteen tune up fights. I mean, if you've
given up your world championship to go to the next
weight division. By the way, I'm not opposed to having
a tune up fight, right, but a tune up fight

(48:42):
is in a time where you're not fighting once or
twice a year. You want to fight three times a year, Fine,
take a tun enough fight, get yourself used to your
new weight division that's going on with it. I always
think to myself, this is just one example. When Shane
Mosley was lightweight champion and he decided to vacate the
title and he was going to wealthy, he skipped over
one hundred and four and in the longer term there
was there. Everybody was sort of working towards making the

(49:04):
fight with Oscar de Laya, who at the time, you know,
was the superstar in the welterweight division. He took two
fights against very credible opposition, he won them, and then
they didn't mess around and they right away made after
that second tune up fight or get used to the
new weight class fight, whatever you want to call it,
they made the Oscar fight. The Boots wants to have
a tune up fight, so called tuna fight at one
to fifty four, I have no problem with that. And

(49:25):
then go into that fight saying we're doing this fight
and we've got the Virgil Artist fight done for whatever
the date is, uh, and you know this location as
long as I win and I'm on.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Making too much since again Rayphael.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
But but Boots, I'll say this, whoever he fights, Uh,
he's gonna be a problem for a lot of guys
at one hundred and fifty four because he's got the speed,
he's got the experience, the league.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
He gets hit a lot. So stay tuned now at
the bigger weight and in particular an Ortiz fight or
a backroom fight that stay tuned.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
But keep in mind about Virgil Ortis. Virgil spent most
of his career as a fifty, as a forty seven,
and a forty pounder also, so he's not a you know,
he's obviously put on the weight and he couldn't make
those weight classes anymore, but he's also come up from
the smaller weight classes.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
Stay tuned. Okay, one more thing before we're out of here,
and that is an intriguing British fight rematch where Lewis
Crocker and Patty Donovan will meet for the vacant IBF
welterweight title. And this will be in September, and it
was a controversial disqualification in the last fight, so elaborate

(50:31):
on all of it, including the date and where so.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
They will fight. This fight will be on his own.
It's a Mattrium card. It's September thirteenth. It's going to
take place at what they called the Windsor Park in
Belfast and outdoor soccer state of holds about eighteen to
twenty thousand. You may remember from several years ago Carl
Frampton fought fight there that was a big deal, Joe,
big crowd. So in terms of Crocker and Donovan, both Irish,

(50:56):
it's going to be the first ever all Irish world
title fight, which is amazing when you think about it,
when you think of all the Irish fighters and all
the world title fights that have taken place among the
Big four organizations. But disapparently is gonna be the first
time two irishmen will meet for it. You always Ireland
proper one is from Belfast and Northern Ireland, so you
know the two Irish countries if you will.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
But this and this, by the way, is the belt
that Boots in us vacated one of them to move up.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
Okay, so I was going to get to that. So
when they fought the first time, this was a fight
that took place, you know, several months ago. That was
the title eliminator to produce Boots Ennis's IBF mandatory challenger.
And obviously Boots has decided to move up and wait,
so we vacated the title, so before he vacated the
title once that fight had taken place. So if you

(51:41):
remember back what happened, they were trying to become the
mandatory and Donovan had totally dominated the fight, was kicking crockers.
We're in, had dropped them in the eighth round and
and had heard them, and then later in the round
landed a tremendous right hook. It landed like a split
second after the belt ended the round. Marcus McDonald, who

(52:02):
was the referee, was way out of position. Nobody the
referee or the two boxers heard the bell because it
was so loud in the arenas, and it wasn't a
very loud bell, and it was an unfortunate situation, and
clearly no one was trying to do anything on purpose.
It was not a purposeful foul, but it did land
like a split second after the bell, and Marcus McDonald

(52:24):
disqualified Donovan. Donovan's team protested to the IBF at they
weren't looking for a title shot necessary, They were just
looking to have the IBF order an immediate rematch in
the title eliminator. The IBF did that, and after that occurred,
I believe I have my timing right. Boots decided I'm
vacating moving up, so it only made sense. And if
you're going to put these two men in the ring,

(52:44):
Donovan and Crocker for the eliminator and the guy who's
the champion vacates, okay, you know what, forget about the
eliminator status. We're just going to make this for the
vacant title. So that's what's that stake here. They fought
the eliminator, now it's for the vacant title because Boots vacated.
Donovan was totally dominating Crocker. But Crocker, you know, understandably,
you know, he's like, hey, I did get hit after
the bell. You never know what's actually gona happen, even

(53:06):
though he was really hurt in that fight. And so
here they go, they're gonna do this fight. Donovan is
fourteen and one with eleven knockouts, but in my estimation,
much better fighter than Crocker, who is undefeated at twenty
one to zero. Look, Donovan is is is from like
I said, he's from Ireland. Crocker is gonna be in
his hometown. He is from Belfast, So that's gonna make

(53:27):
it crazy. You know the Belfast fans if you've watched
you know the Frampton fights are Michael Conlin fights, like
they're very passionate. You gotta love it. And you know what,
because of the stakes and now that it's for the title,
because of the location, they're gonna have it in this
Windsor Park, which is going to be quite the scene,
all the stuff that happened in the first fight, with
the with the wild ending, like I'm interested in to fight.

(53:49):
Here's the only bad part. It's on the same day
as Canelo Alvarez against Terrence Crawford, so I'll be probably
watching that on a day or so delay put it
you like that.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
It'll be earlier in the day though, and you intend
to be out in vade me. I know you will be,
but let's just see what happens. But right, it'll be
a big deal if and when that happens. We're September,
but the.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
But it'll create a crowd, and you know what, this
is the type of drug.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
We say this all the time. This is you were
talking about Japanese boxing earlier in the pod. We say
this all the time. The sport is worldwide. We love
the fact that it's worldwide. This is a big deal
in the UK and in Ireland in particular, so we're
going to be on that. We love it. Whether we're
talking about Australia, South America, you and I live in
the United States. We obviously primarily lean towards that. There's

(54:37):
fifty seven other shows that lean towards England, Europe and
the UK, so we get that this will be a
big deal in the UK, that is for sure.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
All right.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
With that, we have been here a little while. I
think we are good to come off the weekend and
to head into the month of August. Are we not
including the Japanese fight card that will wrap up July
midweek before you and I are back?

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Correct sir, I.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
Think we are there. We go. He's merely Dan Rayfield.
Fightfreaks Unite is his substacking newsletter. Go find it there.
I am nearly TJ Reeves. Thank you for being with
us here on the podfat podfeed. Go find us as
well on the Big Fight Weekend YouTube page. Great original
content there interviews Dan and I going back and forth,
preview mode, recap mode, nostalgia, Big Fight Weekend YouTube page.

(55:21):
Subscribe and like us there and help us out. If
you enjoy the content and again follow, subscribe and like
us here on the pod feeds, Apple, Spreakers, Spotify. For now,
we're good off the weekend on the Fight Preaks Unite
Recap Pod