Latest / Big Dog Lukie Boxing Podcast / Boxing Podcast: Daniel Dubois DESTROYS Fabio Wardley

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Boxing Podcast: Daniel Dubois DESTROYS Fabio Wardley · Big Dog Lukie Boxing Podcast

0:01
SPEAKER_02: What's up, everybody?
0:01
SPEAKER_02: It's your good friend, Lukie,
0:02
SPEAKER_02: and we have a special guest jam-packed show this week after a big fight weekend.
0:07
SPEAKER_02: Sherry Abbasi joins us.
0:09
SPEAKER_02: Sherry, what is your platforms?
0:12
SPEAKER_02: I know you have TKO Boxing.
0:13
SPEAKER_02: You've contributed to a lot of different outlets.
0:16
SPEAKER_02: Maybe I might get it wrong.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: Obviously,
0:18
SPEAKER_02: you were there last night just stepping all over the intro,
0:21
SPEAKER_02: but why don't you kind of give a preface to who you are and some of
0:25
SPEAKER_02: the outlets you're currently working with?
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lukie.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: So my experience sort of dates back to late 2014.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: There was a YouTube channel called Be Real TV in the UK that we're looking
0:37
SPEAKER_00: for people to interview on the UK scene and start going to Frank Warren,
0:40
SPEAKER_00: Eddie Hearn shows and sort of step into that media realm.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: And I sort of thought as a boxing fan, you know what, that could be a great experience.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: I was only 21 at the time,
0:48
SPEAKER_00: so I was quite young,
0:49
SPEAKER_00: but I had that sort of thirst for knowledge on the sport and I wanted
0:51
SPEAKER_00: to get involved.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: And I've always been a bit of a Inquisitive person, having conversations, learning from people.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: So I thought I'll give it a shot.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: And they basically worked in partnership with Boxing Scene.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of my content was shown on Boxing Scene at the time.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: So this is going back about 11 years, 12 years almost.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Starting to feel a bit old, Lukie.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you can respect that.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: And obviously through that, I've been with a number of different outlets.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: I've done freelance stuff for.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: I did some stuff for Fight Hub for a while in late 2019, early 2020.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: Boxing Social, Boxing King Media, a few other Big outlets that are around today as well.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: And then I've sort of dabbled in the writing side of things.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: So fights around the world, as we know, Abe, and then also NY Fights.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: When that was under, was it, what's the name?
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Woodsy.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Woodsy, my boy, Woodsy, there we go.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Woodsy, really, really good guy.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: He gave me a push to sort of give it a go.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: And I did the writing there as well.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: And I've done some stuff for Boxing News, writing on their website as well.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: So I've dabbled in both written media and sort of...
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Audio stuff as well and sort of video.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: And then last year,
1:55
SPEAKER_00: which is sort of a personal highlight,
1:57
SPEAKER_00: there was a show out in Pakistan, which is where my ancestors are from.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm born and raised in the UK, but obviously Pakistani ethnic origin, shall we say.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: And there was a massive show out there, a WBA sort of sanctioned nine fights over four days.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: There were 40 fights in total.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: So I got to commentate on that live for TV.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: So I sort of made my commentary debut there as well.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: So I've dabbled in a bit of everything, minus Lukie, but...
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Addicted to boxing.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: I can't really escape it, unfortunately.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: Well, fortunate enough for you, for us and my listeners, you can't escape it.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: You were there live.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: And normally, I guess I'll do my thing.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: My thing on the podcast,
2:34
SPEAKER_02: if you don't listen,
2:34
SPEAKER_02: is I do monologues, long winded, where I feel like I'm the smartest guy in the room.
2:38
SPEAKER_02: And I kind We're gonna try to set the stage up, maybe like an old television broadcast.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: And for me,
2:44
SPEAKER_02: this fight,
2:44
SPEAKER_02: obviously,
2:45
SPEAKER_02: we're gonna get into the fight you were at live, Daniel Dubois versus Fabio Wardley.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: I believe you have a relationship with Daniel Dubois and know him fairly well,
2:52
SPEAKER_02: so you can offer more insight.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: But I couldn't historically think of a fight,
2:57
SPEAKER_02: especially in the heavyweight division,
2:59
SPEAKER_02: where someone takes a brutal kind of one-sided beating.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: And my guy Tokers,
3:03
SPEAKER_02: love Tokers on X,
3:04
SPEAKER_02: kind of put it great where it's like Dubois started about as bad as he could have in
3:08
SPEAKER_02: that first fight and then ended up beating him up.
3:11
SPEAKER_02: And the fight probably went too long.
3:14
SPEAKER_02: Wardley probably went back to training camp two months after taking
3:18
SPEAKER_02: the worst beating of his career.
3:20
SPEAKER_02: By the way,
3:21
SPEAKER_02: he had been losing fights for the last two to three years and pulling them out
3:25
SPEAKER_02: with knockouts or power getting them out.
3:29
SPEAKER_02: So accumulation of damage dating back like you and me were texting to
3:32
SPEAKER_02: the Frazier-Clark fight where he has that nose damage, etc.
3:35
SPEAKER_02: dates back.
3:37
SPEAKER_02: To me, it just looked like,
3:38
SPEAKER_02: and I know Ben Davison is going to get criticism because that's the cool thing
3:42
SPEAKER_02: to do right now.
3:42
SPEAKER_02: Oh man, Ben Davison, can he coach?
3:45
SPEAKER_02: But to me, this just looked like a guy who was incredibly courageous and It feels like me.
3:52
SPEAKER_02: I'm fighting off a cold and I'm courageous.
3:54
SPEAKER_02: I want to work out, but I physically can't.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: And to me,
3:58
SPEAKER_02: this fight,
3:59
SPEAKER_02: as much as people wanted it to be the first fight,
4:02
SPEAKER_02: which to me, I think wasn't a fight of the year.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: I think that Dubois just started bad and then beat him up.
4:07
SPEAKER_02: But I think the surprise that people...
4:09
SPEAKER_02: But I'll stop and just we'll get to what your insight, which is more insightful than mine.
4:15
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes our bodies don't allow us to do what we want to do.
4:18
SPEAKER_02: And to me,
4:19
SPEAKER_02: that's as simple as what this fight was,
4:21
SPEAKER_02: was that Fabio Wardley had the courage and conviction to be in this fight,
4:25
SPEAKER_02: but he just physically couldn't come back from a loss like that that quickly.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to throw it to you because you were there.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: Give me your insight.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: 100%.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: I think you've summed it up pretty much there,
4:36
SPEAKER_00: Lukie, in the sense that the heart and mind were there.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: The body wasn't willing to comply with the instructions, essentially.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: Because Fabio is all heart, he's all will, all grit.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: And I've sort of said it a few times on social media.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: He's like the real life Rocky story.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: A guy who was working in an office,
4:50
SPEAKER_00: who had four white collar fights,
4:52
SPEAKER_00: then turned pro,
4:53
SPEAKER_00: British and Commonwealth,
4:54
SPEAKER_00: and becomes a world champion, being a top fighter in Joseph Parker.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think you mentioned it briefly there,
4:59
SPEAKER_00: where you said he's been losing a lot of fights,
5:01
SPEAKER_00: but he's come out with the knockout wins.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: And I know it's a lazy comparison,
5:04
SPEAKER_00: but people made it very quickly about Deontay Wilder,
5:07
SPEAKER_00: about he could be losing every single round and hits you one shot and it's done.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Wardley maybe wasn't necessarily as wild or risk as people made out,
5:15
SPEAKER_00: but a similar sort of thing where he was losing fights,
5:17
SPEAKER_00: he was getting hit a fair amount and he managed to pull it out of the bag.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you feel like you're sort of discrediting a fighter when you say that
5:23
SPEAKER_00: because you're acting like they've got lucky,
5:24
SPEAKER_00: you know, and part of it is luck and timing, but I appreciate that.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: But Wardley,
5:28
SPEAKER_00: I think,
5:29
SPEAKER_00: you know,
5:29
SPEAKER_00: like we said,
5:30
SPEAKER_00: during fight week,
5:31
SPEAKER_00: I found every time I sort of looked at him for long enough,
5:35
SPEAKER_00: body language and vibes, he seemed tired.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Now, is that The tiredness from overtraining is the tiredness from just physically
5:43
SPEAKER_00: the beating he took.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: Actually having been sort of rested out of him essentially.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: And I read an article about very briefly sort of whizzed through it about CTE
5:51
SPEAKER_00: and how much time you need to actually recover after a fight.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: And it obviously varies.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: It's case by case.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: Every person is different as well.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: But the sheer amount of shots from a massive puncher like Dubois that he took and
6:03
SPEAKER_00: the fact that Wardley isn't the most defensively aware fighter.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: His defense is a lot of the time just catching the shot and eating it.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Because he has a granite chin, essentially.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: And how much effect does that have on a fighter, especially in a five-month turnaround, Lukie?
6:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure in your experience,
6:18
SPEAKER_00: there's been plenty of cases or things you may have read about CTE
6:21
SPEAKER_00: and how those can affect fighters with a quick turnaround,
6:23
SPEAKER_00: brain injury, so on and so forth.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Even though his speech was slightly different,
6:27
SPEAKER_00: a lot of people noted it online this week in terms of the pronunciation of words.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: And over the last few months when he's done punditry, he's talking a bit different.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: And then it makes you think,
6:34
SPEAKER_00: you look at Derek Chisora,
6:35
SPEAKER_00: for example, whose eyes are now starting to look different.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: His eyes are sort of Sort of pointing outwards both ways,
6:41
SPEAKER_00: a bit cockeyed, not to make fun of his appearance.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he didn't look like that before.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: He looks like he's changed his speech also as well, slurring very badly.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: I was going to say,
6:49
SPEAKER_02: Chisora,
6:50
SPEAKER_02: maybe not the guy to mess with physical descriptions,
6:54
SPEAKER_00: you know, pretty big guy, you know.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, he'll come after me if he sees this.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: But for example, things like that, you know, these things aren't considered.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: I think we get so excited by taglines, the fight of the year returns, run it back.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Do we ever consider as a boxing fraternity whether is
7:08
SPEAKER_00: that something we should be celebrating now that it's such a quick turnaround
7:12
SPEAKER_00: or should we be saying,
7:12
SPEAKER_00: you know what, I don't know if this is the right thing to do.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, what we say isn't going to affect the fight happening.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: There's contracts in place, there's big money involved and there's venues being booked.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: We can't control that.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: But I think the conversation points around it,
7:23
SPEAKER_00: we can definitely add to that and sort of educate people.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: I think,
7:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:26
SPEAKER_00: people like me and yourself who we talk boxing and we try and sort
7:29
SPEAKER_00: of give different insights and essentially educate people.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: I think it's important to maybe talk about these things
7:36
SPEAKER_00: because these are human beings at the end of the day, Lukie.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: They fight.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: They're prize fighters.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: And if you put a number in front of them that they're happy with,
7:42
SPEAKER_00: they're going to get in the ring.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: But we have to also consider Fabio Wardley has been,
7:46
SPEAKER_00: as you rightly mentioned, me and you had a discussion on DMs.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Fraser Clark was March 2024.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: That was a war.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: It was June 2025.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: Justice Hooney was pinging him around the ring.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: And people always say, oh, Huni can't punch.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: The guy's over 200 pounds.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: If he's hitting you, you're feeling it.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: He could probably knock at anyone in that sense.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: He might not be a power puncher, right?
8:07
SPEAKER_00: But you can...
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Yes, thank you.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: Is that Jams from Red Corner?
8:10
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: And...
8:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there you go.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: He's one of my guys.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, James.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, Justice Hooney was, as you know, Lukie, he was just pinging him the whole fight.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: And then that right hand landed and it was over.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: And then after that,
8:22
SPEAKER_00: literally four months,
8:23
SPEAKER_00: five months removed from that,
8:24
SPEAKER_00: you're getting in the ring and having a war in the same venue in the O2 a year ago
8:28
SPEAKER_00: with Joseph Parker.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: And he pulled that out of the bag as well.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: So it kind of pays sort of credit to a lot of fighters.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: You know,
8:34
SPEAKER_00: when people talk about sort of the managing a fighter's resume
8:37
SPEAKER_00: and saying having too many tough fights in one goal, That kills a fighter.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: Where if someone like Tyson Fury,
8:43
SPEAKER_00: and this isn't to criticise him,
8:45
SPEAKER_00: if anything, it's kind of the cleverness behind the business of managing a resume.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: Where Fury has periodically had a massive fight, dropped back down in levels.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Deontay, the Sefer Seferi on his return was understandable.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: Pianetto was understandable.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: Massive jump to Wilder.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Then drop down to the two guys he fought in between Wallen and Schwartz and
9:07
SPEAKER_00: then back up to Wilder again.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: So you get your little tune-ups in,
9:09
SPEAKER_00: you get your rounds in,
9:10
SPEAKER_00: you get your ring awareness and fitness in and then you jump up again.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: Rather than Wardley, he's been put through it.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: And I think now,
9:18
SPEAKER_00: having gotten in the ring with someone like Dubois who's just brutal at every shot,
9:22
SPEAKER_00: I think he will be forever changed after this.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't think we see the same Fabio Wardley as well.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Not just the physical effects, the mental and the spiritual effects of a fighter.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Will you believe he is still that guy?
9:31
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: Sorry to go on my rant today, but yeah.
9:33
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to go on my own rant and then I'm going to propose some questions.
9:37
SPEAKER_02: So you're fitting in.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: You're basically going to probably become a UK correspondent for this show
9:42
SPEAKER_02: because you're just fitting in too perfect with like unwarranted rants and stuff.
9:47
SPEAKER_02: This is what this program's about.
9:49
SPEAKER_02: But to me, the second fight, Ward leaves me.
9:52
SPEAKER_02: Moving and he's looking to land a big right hand.
9:55
SPEAKER_02: And what happened was Dubois just has a fast jab and he throws a right hand.
9:59
SPEAKER_02: And it seems like the kryptonite for me
10:02
SPEAKER_02: with Wardley throughout his career has been he doesn't really understand the jab
10:06
SPEAKER_02: when it's coming at him.
10:08
SPEAKER_02: And he thrives in chaos where he's an explosive fast guy who can who can catch you
10:13
SPEAKER_02: in wild exchanges.
10:14
SPEAKER_02: And I understand the Wilder comparison,
10:16
SPEAKER_02: but I think it's a bit unfair because Wilder won a bronze medal in the Olympics
10:21
SPEAKER_02: and he had those looks.
10:23
SPEAKER_02: And Wardley is basically a guy who's freakishly athletic,
10:27
SPEAKER_02: who's able to pick up a sport and get to places he shouldn't be because he's able
10:32
SPEAKER_02: to do things average people can't and he's frigging tough.
10:35
SPEAKER_02: And in this fight,
10:36
SPEAKER_02: it looked like he was trying to counterpunch Dubois and Dubois beat him to the punch
10:42
SPEAKER_02: with that jab.
10:42
SPEAKER_02: And when the right hand landed, it looked like he said, oh, no, not again.
10:47
SPEAKER_02: Like it looked like his body said it, like his mind said it.
10:50
SPEAKER_02: And I have to agree with you.
10:52
SPEAKER_02: I think that even I want to get into Dubois in a second,
10:55
SPEAKER_02: but I think the story really is Wardley was this feel good British story,
11:00
SPEAKER_02: rags to riches and underdog, all that stuff.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: But there is a part of me that feels like he was playing with house money
11:09
SPEAKER_02: and he was living on borrowed time.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: And I thought this fight was going to happen with Joe Parker, to be honest.
11:13
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm like, OK, there's a skill set and he beats Joe.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: And I go, oh, my God, is he really a guy?
11:18
SPEAKER_02: And then he loses to Dubois this year.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I have trouble seeing someone take that sustained beating and then a quick beating.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: How do you have the confidence to do what you had done before?
11:31
SPEAKER_02: I just feel like that ability to be reckless is going to be slightly gone now
11:36
SPEAKER_02: because he's going to think about that durability.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: And in heavyweight,
11:40
SPEAKER_02: now to end my rant,
11:41
SPEAKER_02: in heavyweight,
11:42
SPEAKER_02: I feel like durability and the ability to take punches and physicality,
11:47
SPEAKER_02: it matters just as much as it does skill at time.
11:51
SPEAKER_02: And now he's starting to run into that how durable is he because he's just taken
11:55
SPEAKER_02: a lot of car crash-like fights.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Exactly that.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: And I think you saw a few points on the head there about the durability factor was
12:03
SPEAKER_00: that was the whole narrative and rhetoric around Hergovic saying,
12:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to outlast you to Itama.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: A supremely skilled young prodigy who we all believe is going to be the king in
12:12
SPEAKER_00: the coming years.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: We'll see if that's how it plays out.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: And Hergovic said, you know, you need to have a chin at heavyweight.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: You need to be able to take punches.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying everyone should model themselves after Hergovic
12:21
SPEAKER_00: and just eat everything on the chin.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: But he sort of epitomizes that a tough guy with some skill, with an amateur background.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: I know Wardy didn't have that, but the physical toughness piece, it sort of aligns.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: So there's that.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: And I think the point you made about as soon as he got hit,
12:36
SPEAKER_00: The mental headspace and the body language,
12:39
SPEAKER_00: he sort of shriveled in front of us and sort of shrunk.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: And he looked like he...
12:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to say he looked scared because that would be unfair.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: He obviously fought back and he gave it a go.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, he did.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: But you could see in his body language, he sort of turned away at points as well.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: It felt like he wasn't ready to go there again.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: And maybe he's been to the well one too many times.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: And this was the day where we saw that legend, that person no longer exist.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: And it also reminds me of...
13:01
SPEAKER_00: Before the Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder third fight,
13:05
SPEAKER_00: obviously Fury plays mind games and he likes to mess with people and he kept doing
13:08
SPEAKER_00: that with Deontay.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: And it was one of the press conferences when Deontay had the headphones on.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: He didn't acknowledge him,
13:13
SPEAKER_00: didn't look at him, just looking forward, bopping his head to his music.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: And Fury said,
13:17
SPEAKER_00: tell this guy,
13:18
SPEAKER_00: whenever he takes those off,
13:19
SPEAKER_00: let him know that as soon as I land on him in this third fight,
13:22
SPEAKER_00: he's going to go straight back to how he felt in that second fight when I landed
13:25
SPEAKER_00: on him and I dropped him when this bronze bomber sort of came to an end,
13:28
SPEAKER_00: essentially.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: And we saw in round three in that fight when he got hit and went down,
13:31
SPEAKER_00: His game plan went out the window.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: And after that,
13:33
SPEAKER_00: Fury was pummeling him outside of that fourth round
13:35
SPEAKER_00: when Wilder knocked him down twice.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: So it's a similar thing, isn't it?
13:38
SPEAKER_00: It's that superiority, immortality a fighter might feel they have.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: As soon as it's been cracked once, some fighters don't really ever get it back.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: And I think Wardley is going to struggle massively after this.
13:48
SPEAKER_02: What it's like to me, just to...
13:52
SPEAKER_02: Fury is like an all-time great heavyweight for me.
13:54
SPEAKER_02: And I get a lot of slack, a lot of stick for that because people say, what did he do?
13:58
SPEAKER_02: But like beating that version of Klitschko was like unbeatable at the time.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: It was like, oh my God, he beat Klitschko.
14:04
SPEAKER_02: And then,
14:04
SPEAKER_02: you know,
14:05
SPEAKER_02: that really fighting Wilder at that moment, Wilder had just beaten Luis Ortiz.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: He's this devastating puncher.
14:11
SPEAKER_02: And then to have that draw and then win the next two fights.
14:14
SPEAKER_02: But I will always go out that both Wilder and Fury took the rest
14:18
SPEAKER_02: of their careers out of each other.
14:20
SPEAKER_02: Because it was like that fight was so brutal, it took something out.
14:23
SPEAKER_02: And with Dubois, I wanted to get into this part.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: And I should make a timestamp because this deserves to be its own segment.
14:30
SPEAKER_02: Is Dubois...
14:32
SPEAKER_02: Had that fight with Joe Joyce,
14:33
SPEAKER_02: and he was viewed as,
14:34
SPEAKER_02: at least to me from a non-UK guy,
14:37
SPEAKER_02: as the future of British boxing in the heavyweight division.
14:41
SPEAKER_02: He loses to Joe Joyce, who's a pressure fighter.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: Could crazy absorb blows.
14:46
SPEAKER_02: And then the talk is,
14:48
SPEAKER_02: I believe it was an eye injury and everyone,
14:50
SPEAKER_02: kind of like a traditional boxing trope,
14:52
SPEAKER_02: or at least sometimes with fighters and sometimes even in media.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: Oh man, this guy is soft.
14:57
SPEAKER_02: It's like Victor Ortiz got his jaw broken.
15:00
SPEAKER_02: And if my jaw got broken, I would quit in an instant.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: If my eye was in danger, I'd quit in an instant.
15:04
SPEAKER_02: But then there's a lot of times where pundits feel far too comfortable questioning
15:09
SPEAKER_02: the conviction of a fighter around a serious injury.
15:12
SPEAKER_02: And I think the remarkable nature of Dubois is there was a belief that he was mentally fragile.
15:19
SPEAKER_02: And I've never seen a prediction be more wrong
15:22
SPEAKER_02: because it seems like he's actually mentally stronger than most of the guys in
15:26
SPEAKER_02: the era.
15:27
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not sure if because you know him, I'm not sure if that developed who he became.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: But I also feel like when he went into that Usyk fight and me and Tokars,
15:36
SPEAKER_02: once again, my guy, we're talking about this.
15:39
SPEAKER_02: Arguably the best win amongst the three pound for pound guys that summer.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: It's arguable
15:47
SPEAKER_02: that Usyk beating Dubois was more impressive
15:51
SPEAKER_02: than Inouye beating Fulton or Crawford beating Errol Spence.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: And I feel like Dubois has really had to blue collar it and earn it to
16:00
SPEAKER_02: a certain degree, whereas other fighters get anointed.
16:03
SPEAKER_02: He's had to beat the Hergovic.
16:05
SPEAKER_02: He had to beat Wardley.
16:07
SPEAKER_02: And for some reason, he was a sizable underdog.
16:10
SPEAKER_02: He had to knock out Joshua.
16:11
SPEAKER_02: And it feels like now he's in that place where like he almost is probably going
16:15
SPEAKER_02: to be a little overrated, in my opinion, because people had underrated him.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: Can you break down some of this journey Dubois has been on?
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, Dubois was the answer for Frank Warren to Anthony Joshua.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: And the whole sort of, again,
16:29
SPEAKER_00: the narrative around him with Frank was the story that he'd knocked out Joshua
16:32
SPEAKER_00: in sparring.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: And they wanted to build off that,
16:34
SPEAKER_00: especially because at that point,
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Joshua was a unified world champion at his peak when Dubois turned over.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: And Warren was maybe falling behind matchroom at that point.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: He was a box nation.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think this is before he signed the deal with TNT and BT Sports at the time.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: So he was getting left behind a bit.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: Dubois being a very different character,
16:51
SPEAKER_00: maybe not the same in terms of
16:53
SPEAKER_00: an Olympic gold medalist superstar like Anthony Joshua,
16:55
SPEAKER_00: a more humble,
16:57
SPEAKER_00: quieter lad who wasn't as comfortable in front of the camera and in front of
17:00
SPEAKER_00: the media and stuff,
17:01
SPEAKER_00: but when he gets in the ring, that's where he does his talking.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: And that's the type of character he is.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: I can't confess that I am best friends with Dubois because that's not the case.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: I've just been on his team this week helping out.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: His business manager knows me.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: He asked me to come on the team.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: But I've interviewed him before and I've interviewed people around him.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: And I know he's a decent kid.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: And he lives and breathes the sport.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: This is why from a young age, he's been an amateur.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: He's been through that whole circuit.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of skill that Dubois has developed over the years and sort of honed
17:29
SPEAKER_00: and essentially just built up on I remember very clearly the Joe Joyce fight because
17:34
SPEAKER_00: that was during COVID and those fights that took place then you sort of remember
17:38
SPEAKER_00: because they were empty arenas,
17:39
SPEAKER_00: very eerie and he was a big favourite going into that fight.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people thought he was going to smash Joyce And then what happened on the night?
17:46
SPEAKER_00: I think it was a fairly even fight.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: If anything, maybe Dubois was up on the cards, in fact, I believe, before the eye injury.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: But you have to bear in mind, Lukie, every person that steps in the ring, they're different.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: They react differently to different things.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: And you have to give them that bit of grace.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, he got the tag of being called a quitter and stuff.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: His eye closed.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: He didn't know how to react.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: He took a knee.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: And that was it.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: I think with Daniel, sometimes it's more of a mental thing.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Physically, toughness-wise, I don't think anyone's ever going to question him.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: And I think his size, his chin...
18:14
SPEAKER_00: He's never been flatlined.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: I know Usyk did knock him down heavily for the knockout win,
18:20
SPEAKER_00: but he was up before 10 and he walked
18:22
SPEAKER_00: to his corner casually like nothing had happened, right?
18:25
SPEAKER_00: So it's more of a mental capitulation at times that's happened with Daniel and sort
18:28
SPEAKER_00: of being overwhelmed by the noise and the chaos in those moments.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: But if he's coming downhill at you,
18:34
SPEAKER_00: I don't think he's someone that can be stopped in that sense once he's on top.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: I know the term that in America people use is flat track bully, right?
18:41
SPEAKER_00: Or a bully mindset fighter.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: Dubois very much that he's a confidence fighter.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Once he's on top, it's going to take something miraculous to stop him.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, Wardley dropped him twice very early.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: But once he got in his rhythm, we saw what happened as a beatdown.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't competitive.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Joshua, first round.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: Obliterated him after that.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: He didn't let him get a foothold in the fight.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: He's that type of fighter, Dubois.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: And the mental sort of growth for him, having those losses to Usyk and Joyce early.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: And then the second one,
19:06
SPEAKER_00: he's shown himself that not only can I come back from a loss,
19:09
SPEAKER_00: but I can become a world champion in very impressive fashion as well,
19:12
SPEAKER_00: which he's done.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: So I think now at the age of 29,
19:15
SPEAKER_00: he's probably either in his prime as a heavyweight or at some point in his prime.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't think he's near the end yet.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: He could probably go for another six, five, six years.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: I think 35 at least if he carries on doing what he's doing.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: And with the physical traits he has,
19:27
SPEAKER_00: the way he lives his life, I think he'll dominate this division.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: And I appreciate what you said about he's gone from maybe being underrated to being overrated.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: But again, shout out to yourself and Taka.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: If you look at his resume now and what he's done,
19:41
SPEAKER_00: That is going to age so well on Usyk's resume,
19:43
SPEAKER_00: similar to the way a,
19:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm not comparing him to the star power of a Canelo,
19:46
SPEAKER_00: but the way Canelo has, you know, is always going to enhance Floyd's win over him.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: This is always going to enhance Usyk's win.
19:52
SPEAKER_02: That was his tune-up fight.
19:54
SPEAKER_02: That was his tune-up fight for Fury was the best, possibly the best British boxer of the era.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: It was his tune-up fight.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly that.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, Dubois,
20:05
SPEAKER_00: I think, is in a position now with the belts having been scattered the way they are.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: He's already beat Hergovic once.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate he didn't knock him out.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: It was stopped on cuts.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: Some people say, you know, it was a dirty fight, elbows, headbutts, whatever.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes these things happen in boxing, right?
20:17
SPEAKER_00: We know that that's down to the referee to call and sort of manage.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: But Hergovic gets caught by pretty much anyone, even, you know, what's his name?
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Dave Allen caught him and he didn't even land a punch on him the whole fight for
20:27
SPEAKER_00: as long as it lasted.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: So Hergovic has those issues to deal with.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, Cabael is a brilliant body puncher and that's fine.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't even say Cabael's chinny, but if he's getting...
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Dropped and hurt in previous fights.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: I think someone like Dubois has a very good chance of hurting him as well.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: So I'd make him a sizable favourite to go on and actually unify the division
20:46
SPEAKER_00: and potentially push on for Undisputed.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: It just depends on what happens with that WBA title really, doesn't it?
20:50
SPEAKER_00: But Fury's not going to fight him if he wins.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think Joshua will look to rematch him if he wins either.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: I think Dubois is a guy that's going to sort of get all the titles together again
20:58
SPEAKER_00: and we'll see him and maybe Moses Zitauma maybe in two or three years at Wembley.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: That'll be a massive super fight in Britain.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: I think that might be the plan by Frank, to be honest.
21:07
SPEAKER_02: Here's a Lukie hot take.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: I think Caballel is really, really good.
21:11
SPEAKER_02: And I think because he resembles Joe Joyce, people are writing him off.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: But I think there's more to what he's doing.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: Yes, he gets hit.
21:19
SPEAKER_02: But like his style is a style that's annoying for heavyweights.
21:24
SPEAKER_02: It's like he's playing.
21:25
SPEAKER_02: He fights like a middleweight.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: He makes heavy because those big guys don't even Dubois.
21:30
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't like to fight at a fast pace.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: He wants to fight at like a you go, I go, let's hang out, we're big men.
21:37
SPEAKER_02: And the thing about Caballel that I think makes him, to me,
21:40
SPEAKER_02: the best heavyweight currently is not just his resume,
21:43
SPEAKER_02: which you could argue Dubois is the best as well.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: They're the two best guys to me.
21:47
SPEAKER_02: Is he forces guys to fight at a speed that I don't think they enjoy fighting at.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: And I think it induces panic and it induces guys to have to think too much.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: And I'm very curious to see what that looks like with Dubois.
22:01
SPEAKER_02: Because Dubois is one kryptonite, people say, is focus and how he stays engaged in fights.
22:08
SPEAKER_02: And it's an interesting equation where it's Caballel's chin.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: Versus how does Dubois do under distress if Cabael is able to force the pace?
22:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and this is where I sort of go back to the mental side of things.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: It's that...
22:25
SPEAKER_00: That adjustment for Dubois where he's not on top and can he see a route to victory or success?
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Again, Usyk's an all-time great and Dubois wasn't ready to face him the first time.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: He was still too green.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: And the second time,
22:36
SPEAKER_00: it was probably the best chance for Dubois because he was on top after beating AJ
22:40
SPEAKER_00: and sort of had that momentum behind him going back to Wembley straight
22:43
SPEAKER_00: in his last fight,
22:44
SPEAKER_00: going straight back there as a champion to fight for the first time in UK history
22:47
SPEAKER_00: for the undisputed heavyweight title.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think If you can't make him panic a bit, that's where you're going to struggle.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: There has to be something to panic about.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't think power on its own is something that bothers him
22:58
SPEAKER_00: because I think he's got a granite chin.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: And when I say granite chin, I know any man can be knocked out.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: What I mean is I can't in my head picture Dubois being laid out cold.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: I know he'll go down, but I feel like he's so physically tough, he'll always get up.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: He's the type of guy you're going to have to beat the fight out of in here.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: Sort of make that sort of misty and steamy for him and sort of create
23:16
SPEAKER_00: that chaos around him where he can't think straight and can't stick to his plan.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Once he's fallen out of that rhythm,
23:22
SPEAKER_00: then you've got a chance of maybe doing something,
23:23
SPEAKER_00: but you won't be a fighter who's known for maybe their power, if that makes sense.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: Joe Joyce, as much as he was a big guy, he wasn't known for being a massive power puncher.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: He was volume and just coming at you, the juggernaut, right?
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Doing his thing.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: And Usyk, similarly, fleet-footed, you know, the middleweight, as Fury calls him, right?
23:41
SPEAKER_00: The guy who gives you the angles and the fact that he's a southpaw,
23:44
SPEAKER_00: and we've seen that Dubois struggles a bit with southpaws as well,
23:46
SPEAKER_00: but obviously of a certain level, right?
23:49
SPEAKER_00: So there's going to have to be certain intangibles for a fighter
23:51
SPEAKER_00: to really make things very difficult for Dubois and to make him feel that sort
23:55
SPEAKER_00: of getting that headspace again.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: And just for me,
23:57
SPEAKER_00: the way I look at it,
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Kabayah,
23:59
SPEAKER_00: like you said,
23:59
SPEAKER_00: might be stylistically out of these champions and the guys at the top,
24:02
SPEAKER_00: the guy who right now may give him the most trouble.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: But I still think overall Dubois has enough to just push through and beat him
24:08
SPEAKER_00: and potentially Hergovic as well with the overall style matchup.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: Because there's not a guy like Usyk around and Joyce necessarily now.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: Here's a weird one for you.
24:17
SPEAKER_02: And then we're going to go a little undercard rambling and then we're going to get
24:21
SPEAKER_02: a little Smith Puello before I get you out of here.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: Is he like the new Usyk in the sense that he just says some weird stuff from time
24:29
SPEAKER_02: to time and it's just genuine?
24:31
SPEAKER_02: He's not so viral.
24:33
SPEAKER_02: My favorite was the Tucker's clip of some guy's jogging and they run into him
24:37
SPEAKER_02: and he's like, it's Dan the man.
24:38
SPEAKER_02: And it's totally not even a joke.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: He's just a little awkward.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: He kind of reminds me of the stereotype of a jock who's really good at athletics and
24:48
SPEAKER_02: a little awkward.
24:50
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, just that clip of him playing the harp.
24:53
SPEAKER_02: They're like, do you play the harp?
24:55
SPEAKER_02: And he goes, I dabble.
24:56
SPEAKER_02: And it's just like there's something kind of...
24:59
SPEAKER_02: He's kind of endearing and unpretentious about Dubois that I think is...
25:05
SPEAKER_02: It's a star-like quality.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: A lot of guys try to do what he's doing, but it's...
25:11
SPEAKER_02: He's like the, are we not entertained speech where it's just weird.
25:15
SPEAKER_02: He's not normal and it's good.
25:18
SPEAKER_02: But to me, he's almost filling the void Usyk's leaving of, I am very feel.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, in a lot of ways, he's got a certain charm to him.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: He's witty and maybe in an unintentional way,
25:31
SPEAKER_00: like you said,
25:32
SPEAKER_00: where I don't think half the time,
25:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying every single time because sometimes he does actually mean it.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: But I think there's times where he probably doesn't realise that it's going
25:38
SPEAKER_00: to get clipped and it's actually going to be something that goes viral
25:41
SPEAKER_00: and be really funny.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: But he's definitely got that quality to him, I'd say.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's, like you said, the word I use is what you use.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: He's quite endearing because...
25:48
SPEAKER_00: He's not really someone who's causing any issues and headlines outside of boxing.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: You won't hear or see anything from him.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: He's not someone who's going to cause any drama or do a drastic amount of shit talk.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: The most he's going to say is, I'm the big daddy or I'm going to knock you out.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: That's just fighting talk,
26:03
SPEAKER_00: but it's talk that comes across maybe a little cheesy at times,
26:06
SPEAKER_00: but that's how he is in terms of that.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: That's what he thinks he needs to say.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: He's not a big talker, very humble, very reserved.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Obviously,
26:13
SPEAKER_00: with the people he's more comfortable with,
26:14
SPEAKER_00: he will open up and have conversations with, but I think his public persona...
26:18
SPEAKER_00: Is very much that.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think his persona is actually who he is.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: It's not a fake thing.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: There's no putting anything on or anything like that.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: But because sometimes for the cameras,
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Frank might say to him before and make sure you say something funny or,
26:28
SPEAKER_00: you know, X, Y, Z.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: Frank used to feed him lines,
26:31
SPEAKER_00: but you'd see him coming by his ear saying things to him on the table.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: That isn't happening as much now.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Dan's doing it himself.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: So any little sort of little gems we're getting are from him,
26:40
SPEAKER_00: whether he,
26:41
SPEAKER_00: whether they land the way he thinks or not,
26:42
SPEAKER_00: they're still ending up viral because it's Daniel DeVos.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Everyone finds it funny.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's added to his overall appeal, I think, definitely.
26:50
SPEAKER_02: I mean, like the big baby one's a great one where he's like, I'm your daddy.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: And he kind of like laughs like he caught himself laughing and it's like
26:57
SPEAKER_02: an awkward line and then big baby saying stuff.
27:00
SPEAKER_02: And he's or like with Joshua, Joshua says something to be intimidating.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: And he's like, wait, what did you say?
27:05
SPEAKER_02: And it's like he's like unintentionally like funny.
27:08
SPEAKER_02: And it's like there's I guess to me there's almost something I don't want
27:11
SPEAKER_02: to say sinister, but it's like there's a level of toughness in his confidence.
27:15
SPEAKER_02: Where it's like he's really showing up fight week relaxed because he's like,
27:19
SPEAKER_02: yeah, I'm just going to beat this guy up.
27:21
SPEAKER_02: This is who I am.
27:22
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's kind of a star-like trait.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: He's definitely got that confidence now as well, Lukie.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: I think you were saying during fight week,
27:31
SPEAKER_00: I overheard him a few times when we were around the camp.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm ready.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, this is easy work.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: I know what I need to do kind of thing.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say, I know I need to step this way.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: I need to throw this punch.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: He just said, I know what I need to do.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: I've already been in there with him.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think some fighters are like that, Lukie,
27:44
SPEAKER_00: where there might not be people who talk about their style and,
27:47
SPEAKER_00: you know, stylistically, I can do this, that or the other.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: If you asked him that type of question, I think he'd just ignore you.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't think he'd even respond.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: The IQ's there,
27:55
SPEAKER_00: and people might think, oh,
27:56
SPEAKER_00: because he behaves in a certain way,
27:58
SPEAKER_00: maybe he hasn't got the IQ, but he's most definitely got an IQ.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: He's not just a guy who just bludgeons forward and throws loads of punches.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: He's got an IQ.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: He did a lot of little things in that short time yesterday where he was sort
28:08
SPEAKER_00: of stepping in and out of range, you know, coming over the top.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: There was things he was doing,
28:11
SPEAKER_00: so he's educated,
28:12
SPEAKER_00: he's got a very good IQ,
28:13
SPEAKER_00: and it goes back to that amateur schooling once again, doesn't it?
28:16
SPEAKER_02: I think also,
28:17
SPEAKER_02: and I've got my second guest in here,
28:19
SPEAKER_02: we're going to hit on two topics and make him have to wait in the green room.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: Sadly, Mario Munguia is waiting, but we got big UK correspondent in here.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: So he just gave a thumbs up.
28:28
SPEAKER_02: But I think that Dubois has trouble verbalizing what he knows.
28:36
SPEAKER_02: And at times,
28:37
SPEAKER_02: sometimes it's even silly to him to explain it
28:40
SPEAKER_02: because it seems like such common sense to him.
28:43
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's kind of part of the allure is like,
28:46
SPEAKER_02: He knows how to be an athlete and react,
28:49
SPEAKER_02: but he's not really like polished as a speaker,
28:54
SPEAKER_02: but he totally knows what to do in the ring.
28:56
SPEAKER_02: And there's a level of like, why would I explain that to you?
28:58
SPEAKER_02: It's a given,
28:59
SPEAKER_02: you know,
29:00
SPEAKER_02: and that's kind of the charm is like a lot of times boxers are manufactured
29:04
SPEAKER_02: to give cookie cutter answers that are just very generic.
29:08
SPEAKER_02: And with Dubois, it's like, yeah, dude, I'm going in there.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: You know, I know how to beat this guy.
29:13
SPEAKER_02: I already beat him.
29:14
SPEAKER_02: Now I know what to do.
29:15
SPEAKER_02: I start out like this and he executed.
29:17
SPEAKER_02: And I think you and me agree, Wardley's career will probably never be the same.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: That's why the title of the show is Destroys because I think it really does.
29:26
SPEAKER_02: Final question on this topic.
29:27
SPEAKER_02: We did 30 minutes on it.
29:29
SPEAKER_02: Is the legacy of these two fights going to be the image of the second fight and
29:35
SPEAKER_02: the first fight won't be remembered as much of a classic
29:38
SPEAKER_02: as it'll be Dubois dominated the majority of the rounds?
29:42
SPEAKER_00: I think the sort of the fact that we got Dubois,
29:45
SPEAKER_00: like we said, dropped twice and then he sort of came back and dominated.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: But Wardley being as tough as he is is part of the story as well.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: The fact that he was able to eat all those shots and the narrative around
29:55
SPEAKER_00: the fight going on too long.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people felt it should have been stopped by about round eight.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: But the sheer toughness and the grit that Wardley showed in that fight is part
30:01
SPEAKER_00: of why it's going to be remembered, especially in British boxing.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: And the fact that Dubois, you know, he's a killer.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Every shot is a big shot.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: So I think the first fight will still have that,
30:09
SPEAKER_00: you know,
30:09
SPEAKER_00: the name around it,
30:10
SPEAKER_00: the fight of the year, whether it is or isn't, that's a separate matter.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: But it will still have that memory around it.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: I think the second fight will actually be forgotten,
30:16
SPEAKER_00: if I'm honest with you,
30:17
SPEAKER_00: because it was essentially a non-event, if we're being honest.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: It was over so quickly and it happened...
30:22
SPEAKER_00: It went badly for Wardley straight away and it happened so quickly.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: I don't think anyone's really going to remember it in that regard.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: And that's not to take away from Dubois' win.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: I just mean the overall memory will remain on that first fight because it was
30:34
SPEAKER_00: that good with the drama.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: And that's what you look for.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: You look for that drama, a comeback, a bit of back and forth.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: There was a bit of that in the first fight.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: So I think that first fight will definitely have its own space.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: And this second fight might drift away a little because the turnaround was very quick as well.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: So I want to touch on real quickly Michael Gomez Jr., Louie O'Doherty.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: My peeps on Substack want me to do film study.
30:56
SPEAKER_02: I just saw this as a clear Gomez win going in.
31:00
SPEAKER_02: Gomez did everything he could to lose this fight, if we're being honest.
31:03
SPEAKER_02: I know there's outrage, but he did not do himself favors coming down the stretch.
31:07
SPEAKER_02: And then obviously the two-time Olympic gold medalist heavyweight, Jolioff.
31:13
SPEAKER_02: At this point, is he just a career gatekeeper?
31:16
SPEAKER_02: Because it seems like he's taken a step back from being a ferocious puncher
31:19
SPEAKER_02: who had intrigue to now being a guy that when he hurts you,
31:23
SPEAKER_02: he's going to totally step off the gas, throw one punch at a time.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: And I just don't, I mean,
31:28
SPEAKER_02: maybe he could win a belt,
31:29
SPEAKER_02: but it doesn't seem like he's going to be a long-reigning champion.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: Him against Daniel Dubois, it just seems like two different temperaments.
31:36
SPEAKER_02: Him against Caballel,
31:38
SPEAKER_02: he doesn't seem to have the urgency that you look for in great heavyweight fighters.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: I want to get your observations on this undercard real quickly.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: So we'll touch on Jalla first.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, again,
31:49
SPEAKER_00: like you said,
31:49
SPEAKER_00: he dropped Solomon Day because,
31:51
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:51
SPEAKER_00: fairly early in the fight and the fact that it still went that long
31:54
SPEAKER_00: and ended up being the way it was,
31:56
SPEAKER_00: which a lot of people thought it was going to be a fairly boring-ish fight anyway.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: And that's OK. Solomon's, you know, he's a good pro.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: He knows his way around a ring.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: He can keep his shape.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: I think he did well in that regard.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: But the fact that Jalalov didn't,
32:09
SPEAKER_00: like you said,
32:09
SPEAKER_00: step to him more and push the pace and try and get him out of there,
32:13
SPEAKER_00: it says a lot about the temperament.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: But also,
32:14
SPEAKER_00: I think the fact that he's still not really committed to the pro side
32:18
SPEAKER_00: and he's been dabbling in the amateur,
32:20
SPEAKER_00: if you're not committing to one or the other,
32:21
SPEAKER_00: they are considered two different sports in a lot of ways, aren't they?
32:24
SPEAKER_00: So his style may be sort of lost in between,
32:26
SPEAKER_00: in fact, and he doesn't know how to commit to one or the other.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: So there could be that with him.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: And like you said, I can't imagine him in a ring with Daniel Dubois.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that they could do it,
32:35
SPEAKER_00: but I don't think it ends well for Jalalov,
32:37
SPEAKER_00: even though he's a big lad and he can obviously move around the ring
32:41
SPEAKER_00: and do what he does.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: But I can't see him giving anyone any real problems at the top.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Simply because I think he sort of missed the boat.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: He stayed in the amateur game too long and he's kept going back and forth.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: So I think he hasn't fully committed to the pro game for whatever reason.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: So I think unfortunately for him,
32:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't think we will see him sort of fulfil that potential people thought he had.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: And the Gomez talk, yeah, absolutely.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people, I like that.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: Cool headband.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: The Gomez talk, I think, is fair.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people did say,
33:06
SPEAKER_00: you know,
33:07
SPEAKER_00: he was sort of giving away the backgrounds
33:08
SPEAKER_00: and he wasn't really doing himself any favours, as you put it.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: And I think overall the sentiment online and within the O2 was that that was
33:15
SPEAKER_00: a robbery and it was a big robbery.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people felt that way.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: And early on in the fight,
33:19
SPEAKER_00: he was definitely, you know, he was winning pretty much all the rounds that I felt.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: At that point, I was backstage.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: I was watching on a screen backstage at that point before we went out.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: But I did feel that Gomez should have won that fight.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: I thought that was a robbery.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: My question to you,
33:31
SPEAKER_00: if I could throw it back before we finish, Lukie,
33:33
SPEAKER_00: as an American,
33:35
SPEAKER_00: we obviously view things differently when it comes to home cooking and stuff like
33:38
SPEAKER_00: that.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: Would you call what happened yesterday with that decision,
33:41
SPEAKER_00: in your opinion,
33:42
SPEAKER_00: would you say that was home cooking or was that incompetence in your opinion?
33:48
SPEAKER_02: I'd say it was like,
33:50
SPEAKER_02: obviously,
33:51
SPEAKER_02: when you have an undefeated fighter and they don't lose,
33:54
SPEAKER_02: there's always skepticism from a boxing observer because you're like,
33:57
SPEAKER_02: if the roles were reversed, would the decision have been the same?
34:01
SPEAKER_02: There's always that skepticism.
34:04
SPEAKER_02: I think Gomez has to take some accountability for this, too, because he did showboat.
34:10
SPEAKER_02: He didn't step on the gas at points.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: In a fight where you're coming in against an unbeaten fighter,
34:17
SPEAKER_02: You should really try to take it from them.
34:19
SPEAKER_02: You shouldn't just like I think he won a 7-5-8-4 fight.
34:24
SPEAKER_02: But you and I both know if you have a couple of losses and you're fighting
34:28
SPEAKER_02: an unbeaten guy, you never know what the scores are.
34:30
SPEAKER_02: So I feel like he deserves some blame,
34:33
SPEAKER_02: kind of like how Caterall deserves blame against Josh Taylor hot take.
34:37
SPEAKER_02: But Caterall didn't step on the gas at the end of that fight.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: And though most of us feel he won, he also was a little too comfortable stepping on the gas.
34:45
SPEAKER_02: And it's like,
34:47
SPEAKER_02: if you really step on it at the end,
34:49
SPEAKER_02: and then like,
34:49
SPEAKER_02: you know, For some reason, I wouldn't say incompetence, but judging is very hard.
34:56
SPEAKER_02: And I've had this happen to me with kind of lower level shows
35:00
SPEAKER_02: where I'm watching fights where no one is commentating on them.
35:03
SPEAKER_02: And I'm there live and I'm like, what the freak am I watching?
35:06
SPEAKER_02: I don't even know if I'm seeing it.
35:08
SPEAKER_02: So I'm sure that there's a level of...
35:11
SPEAKER_02: Neither guy is totally wowing you, and you never know the angle up close.
35:16
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, you're close to the ring.
35:18
SPEAKER_02: You get obscured, and you could possibly doubt yourself.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: And I think this was one of those fights where maybe,
35:23
SPEAKER_02: not that a dude should think this way, but you'd expect.
35:26
SPEAKER_02: I don't expect him to kind of look pretty good.
35:28
SPEAKER_02: He's not looking good.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: Am I seeing the right thing?
35:31
SPEAKER_02: And then there's kind of like toss up rounds.
35:34
SPEAKER_02: So I think it was just the perfect storm and it was situated so high on the bill.
35:38
SPEAKER_02: I think people were more outraged than probably they would have been if it opened the card.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that as well.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: And because it was a pretty much packed out arena,
35:47
SPEAKER_00: like you said, it was the back end of the card.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: So naturally,
35:51
SPEAKER_00: you've got a lot more people there,
35:52
SPEAKER_00: more people are going to be reacting to it, the noise, everything's amplified.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: And Michael Gomez Jr.,
35:57
SPEAKER_00: a bit like his dad, he's known to be a bit of a nut job in terms of his behaviour.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: So I think he's one of those guys
36:02
SPEAKER_00: that will always have opinions around him being amplified simply because of that
36:06
SPEAKER_00: as well.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: But I think before the fight,
36:08
SPEAKER_00: I was saying to you about, I thought maybe Lou O'Dahutty would pull it off.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: But in my eyes, yeah, I thought Gomes won that fight for me personally.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: But again,
36:17
SPEAKER_00: you leave it a bit open to interpretation at times if you don't really drive
36:21
SPEAKER_00: that point home towards the back end.
36:23
SPEAKER_02: And I picked Gomez to win the fight, right?
36:26
SPEAKER_02: But I also feel like at the end of the fight, he could have stamped it and easily won it.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: I just don't feel the sympathy there.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: Real quick,
36:33
SPEAKER_02: we're going to do some hot takes,
36:34
SPEAKER_02: and then Mario's going to come in,
36:35
SPEAKER_02: and we're going to do more talking,
36:37
SPEAKER_02: which everyone's like, dude, I love the lukie talk hour.
36:42
SPEAKER_02: Dalton Smith obviously making his first title defense over Albert Puello.
36:47
SPEAKER_02: It's taking place in Sheffield, England.
36:48
SPEAKER_02: Or is that Sheff...
36:50
SPEAKER_02: Sheffield, yeah, Sheffield, England.
36:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was like,
36:52
SPEAKER_02: I almost thought it was Glasgow,
36:53
SPEAKER_02: Scotland for some reason in my head because it's Steel City
36:57
SPEAKER_02: and I think they're both related to that in some capacity.
37:01
SPEAKER_02: Horrible first title defense, horrible kind of run for Smith.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: Smith gets a historic British win over Sabril Matias, who I think headband off.
37:15
SPEAKER_02: I think was like a boogeyman like figure.
37:17
SPEAKER_02: He gets a knockout on U.S. soil.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: And yet now nine months later, I think people have forgotten about it.
37:23
SPEAKER_02: He's going in with a guy that I think nobody really wants to fight.
37:27
SPEAKER_02: Puello is a very hard style, I think, for Smith.
37:30
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to be interested to get your feedback.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: But I feel like this is the classic...
37:35
SPEAKER_02: And I get it's a mandatory,
37:36
SPEAKER_02: but this is probably going to make Smith look bad or he's going to be one of
37:39
SPEAKER_02: the most,
37:40
SPEAKER_02: like if Smith wins this by knockout,
37:42
SPEAKER_02: he's a fringe pound for pound level fighter to me.
37:44
SPEAKER_02: That's how I feel going in.
37:46
SPEAKER_02: Give me the UK perspective.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think like you said about Donald Smith,
37:50
SPEAKER_00: the fact that he went in there with Matthias back in January.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: So it feels like forever ago, almost close to a year, isn't it really?
37:56
SPEAKER_00: I suppose we're kind of getting to that point.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: And then he gets injured, right?
37:59
SPEAKER_00: So all that momentum gets,
38:00
SPEAKER_00: not only does it get halted, Then it gets delayed all the way to October.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: So you got most of the year where you're on the sidelines while everything else is going on.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: But to come back to a fight like this,
38:10
SPEAKER_00: a former champion himself,
38:12
SPEAKER_00: someone who he fought Matthias on the undercard of Belanga and Shiraz,
38:15
SPEAKER_00: didn't he, over in New York?
38:17
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people felt like he should have got the decision there as well.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: Remind me, Lukie, if you remember, did Matthias not fail a drug test before this fight?
38:24
SPEAKER_02: So it was it was just a weird thing.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: And that's I think that was the undertone of Eddie Hearn saying justice will be served.
38:32
SPEAKER_02: But he didn't want to clarify that statement.
38:33
SPEAKER_02: He kept saying justice will be served.
38:35
SPEAKER_02: There was some weird because it's like you can't really speak on it if you don't know facts.
38:41
SPEAKER_02: But there was some sort of drug issue, but it was cleared up.
38:47
SPEAKER_02: But then there's a sentiment I feel...
38:50
SPEAKER_02: I'll just say it because I feel like sometimes I can be
38:53
SPEAKER_02: a controversial figure is sometimes when a fighter doesn't speak English and they're
38:58
SPEAKER_02: a power puncher and they fail a drug test,
39:00
SPEAKER_02: people are quick to accuse them of being a cheater because their side is not going
39:05
SPEAKER_02: to go out and explain what happened.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: And I feel like Matias had a boogeyman image from the Davoshev fight.
39:14
SPEAKER_02: And people were quick to kind of throw a label on him.
39:16
SPEAKER_02: And I'm quick to say, hey, like, you never know what this could be.
39:21
SPEAKER_02: Because being on the flip side,
39:23
SPEAKER_02: I've been around fighters who have been terrified about drinking a cup of coffee in
39:28
SPEAKER_02: a locker room.
39:29
SPEAKER_02: Because a cup of coffee at a certain point can make you fail a drug test.
39:33
SPEAKER_02: So you have to be very careful in understanding what is happening.
39:38
SPEAKER_02: The performance enhancing drug for a drug test.
39:41
SPEAKER_02: And it was a confusing situation.
39:43
SPEAKER_02: I'm not an investigative journalist.
39:45
SPEAKER_02: I'm a fight analyst.
39:47
SPEAKER_02: So that's my situation on that.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: And I think you sort of touched on it at the beginning before you spoke there at length.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: It was something around that where I think the reason the fight got
40:00
SPEAKER_00: so much hype afterwards was that it felt like justice was served and all that sort
40:03
SPEAKER_00: of thing.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: And that was part of the law of the fight afterwards was that he beat someone
40:07
SPEAKER_00: who was involved in something that they shouldn't have been allegedly or whatever.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: So I think Dalton Smith became a bit of a star or a hero for a little while
40:16
SPEAKER_00: because he went away to New York and won on American soil as well,
40:18
SPEAKER_00: which is a big thing because UK fighters haven't had the best luck in recent years,
40:22
SPEAKER_00: as we know.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: So Dalton Smith, 140 is a good division.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: He's got the WBC belt.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: He's an asset to Matchroom.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: Sheffield is a fighting city.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: All the Ingle fighters that came through there as well.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: Naz, Johnny Nelson, Kell Brook.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: Ketelle had a number of world champions through there.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: So I think Dalton Smith is a guy who's in a prime position to really capitalize on
40:43
SPEAKER_00: that fighting city and that wider area in the North Yorkshire region, as we call it.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: So I think he's in a prime position to really capitalize here.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: Like we said,
40:52
SPEAKER_00: the style might not be the best style for him to be going up against from
40:55
SPEAKER_00: a pretty boxing perspective.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: But if he goes out there and he's able to put a hurting on Poelho
41:01
SPEAKER_00: and actually potentially stop him or even beat him on a decision somehow,
41:05
SPEAKER_00: then I think we are looking at someone who is...
41:07
SPEAKER_00: Putting together a very,
41:08
SPEAKER_00: very nice resume at the top level at 140 with guys that aren't necessarily people
41:12
SPEAKER_00: who other people want to face.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: And that really helps with not only the in-ring experience,
41:18
SPEAKER_00: but it adds to their resume and it creates an aura around a fighter.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: So I think Dalton Smith will get a lot of credit for that.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: And as a Brit, I hope he is able to do that.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm quite intrigued to see what happens.
41:29
SPEAKER_02: Now I'm going to introduce Mario Munguia, another one of the contributors to this day's show.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure.
41:35
SPEAKER_02: Mario.
41:35
SPEAKER_02: Yep, there's Mario.
41:36
SPEAKER_02: Mario, do you have any thoughts?
41:38
SPEAKER_02: First off, thank you for joining the show, obviously.
41:40
SPEAKER_02: And do you have any thoughts on Puello versus...
41:43
SPEAKER_02: I did it again.
41:43
SPEAKER_02: I'm dyslexic when it comes to names.
41:46
SPEAKER_02: On Dalton Smith versus Albert Puello.
41:50
SPEAKER_02: What are your thoughts on this matchup?
41:52
SPEAKER_01: First of all, sure.
41:54
SPEAKER_01: Pleasure to be on the panel with you.
41:56
SPEAKER_01: Good to meet you.
41:58
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I think that ultimately what you have when you, and I'm listening to both of you.
42:10
SPEAKER_02: Uh-oh, audio TKO.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: Oh, is he gone?
42:20
SPEAKER_02: I think he might be gone.
42:21
SPEAKER_02: But, I mean, to me,
42:22
SPEAKER_02: the problem,
42:23
SPEAKER_02: and I'll just say this,
42:24
SPEAKER_02: and then it'll pop up on the feed at some point,
42:26
SPEAKER_02: is Puello's not going to be there to... Let me remove.
42:33
SPEAKER_02: Oh, there we are, Mario.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: Yo, can you hear me now?
42:39
SPEAKER_02: We can hear you.
42:40
SPEAKER_01: I think it was my internet.
42:41
SPEAKER_01: I think I froze out.
42:44
SPEAKER_01: Sorry about that.
42:46
SPEAKER_02: No worries.
42:47
SPEAKER_02: Just go back to the rant you were on.
42:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, my bad.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: Go ahead and ask me a question again.
42:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry.
42:53
SPEAKER_01: Let's start this over.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know what you heard and what you didn't.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
42:58
SPEAKER_02: So basically what happened was we're talking about Dalton Smith.
43:03
SPEAKER_02: So obviously being a boxing fan,
43:05
SPEAKER_02: you know,
43:05
SPEAKER_02: he's probably one of the most exciting British fighters coming up
43:08
SPEAKER_02: because he did what Kell Brook and Carl Frampton did.
43:11
SPEAKER_02: Coming to America, winning on American soil, it doesn't happen all that often.
43:15
SPEAKER_02: He gets a knockout over the boogeyman.
43:18
SPEAKER_02: And then injuries have delayed his return.
43:20
SPEAKER_02: He's fighting Albert Puello,
43:22
SPEAKER_02: who let's be honest, most of his fights are about as fun as watching paint dry.
43:26
SPEAKER_02: But he has wins over Gary Antoine Russell.
43:28
SPEAKER_02: He had a competitive close fight against Sandor Martin.
43:31
SPEAKER_02: And if we're being honest,
43:33
SPEAKER_02: He's the guy that you don't want to fight in a hometown fight
43:36
SPEAKER_02: because he's totally coming to just make you look really bad and really awkward.
43:40
SPEAKER_02: I'm interested to get your insights on this matchup.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: So the thing about Dalton Smith is there's a lot of commercial viability there, okay?
43:50
SPEAKER_01: This is a guy that I think can connect audiences.
43:54
SPEAKER_01: You know,
43:54
SPEAKER_01: one of the biggest problems right now in entertainment or sports spread across
43:59
SPEAKER_01: the world,
44:00
SPEAKER_01: but specifically in America,
44:01
SPEAKER_01: but across the world, is, you know, it's very polarizing.
44:06
SPEAKER_01: Everything's polarizing.
44:08
SPEAKER_01: A guy like Dalton Smith, I think he has that kind of – That appeal, right?
44:15
SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean generic or anything like in a negative way,
44:18
SPEAKER_01: but I mean like a mass appeal, right?
44:20
SPEAKER_01: And his fighting style,
44:22
SPEAKER_01: the way he talks,
44:23
SPEAKER_01: you know, his social media presence, all those kinds of things resonate to fans.
44:30
SPEAKER_01: The problem is boxing people,
44:33
SPEAKER_01: they want to see fighters fight and they want to see fighters fight tough
44:38
SPEAKER_01: and they want to see consistency.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: And that's been a problem for not just the division, but where he's at specifically.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: And so and listen, every fighter has their issues, right?
44:48
SPEAKER_01: Everybody gets to a point where,
44:50
SPEAKER_01: you know,
44:52
SPEAKER_01: maybe things aren't vibing in terms of Where the promotion's at,
44:57
SPEAKER_01: where the division's at, where your development's at.
45:01
SPEAKER_01: But Alberto Puello is the kind of guy that you can absolutely prove yourself against.
45:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm not expecting him to go out and have this high IQ chess game.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, I'm looking for him to show me that he's Been working, A.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: B.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: Has the ability and stamina to even be there in the second half when
45:29
SPEAKER_01: a guy like Pueyo is still making the fight very difficult.
45:32
SPEAKER_01: And so if he can go out there and just secure the win,
45:35
SPEAKER_01: just – I don't even mean go through the motions in a bad way,
45:38
SPEAKER_01: but do anything you can to get out to the other side.
45:43
SPEAKER_01: Because at the end of the day,
45:44
SPEAKER_01: he has enough backing – And I think enough raw,
45:50
SPEAKER_01: natural ability to be something meaningful in the division and in boxing.
45:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean,
45:57
SPEAKER_02: unapologetically,
45:59
SPEAKER_02: I think Puello's going to win this fight or he's going to make Smith look bad.
46:02
SPEAKER_02: Like, I feel like on paper, this is the worst one-two punch.
46:07
SPEAKER_02: Sherry, what do you think?
46:11
SPEAKER_00: So I can just repeat the last bit?
46:13
SPEAKER_02: Well, what do you think?
46:14
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm going out on a limb.
46:15
SPEAKER_02: I think Poelos is either going to win or people are going to look at this as,
46:19
SPEAKER_02: man, Dalton Smith got really, really lucky to get a majority decision here.
46:25
SPEAKER_00: I think it's likely we see something like that, to be honest.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: I think that is something that's very possible because the style matchup,
46:30
SPEAKER_00: as both of you have already kind of mentioned,
46:31
SPEAKER_00: but I also, again,
46:34
SPEAKER_00: as a Brit,
46:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping that Dalton Smith can make something of it and bring the heat
46:39
SPEAKER_00: and actually have a definitive win here as well in terms of Follow up on
46:43
SPEAKER_00: that momentum,
46:43
SPEAKER_00: all that last momentum,
46:44
SPEAKER_00: sort of gain back as much as possible and then push on from there.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: And this is a good name to do it against, as Mario sort of mentioned it.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: And the sort of the level that he is in that division with
46:54
SPEAKER_00: a player already having some sort of credibility in the bank as a good top fighter
46:57
SPEAKER_00: in the division previously.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: Those two wins back-to-back within a calendar year,
47:02
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a solid year,
47:03
SPEAKER_00: even with that injury and that elongated period being at the ring.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: If he gets it, it's massive.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: And like I said,
47:08
SPEAKER_00: that Sheffield and Yorkshire region that he's from,
47:11
SPEAKER_00: that just builds him as a genuine star around there.
47:13
SPEAKER_00: And then he can push on from there.
47:15
SPEAKER_00: Then one day, if it ever happens, you've got that potential.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: Adam Azim,
47:18
SPEAKER_00: if he gets to world title level,
47:19
SPEAKER_00: as people are expecting him and Dalton Smith potentially unifying here in
47:23
SPEAKER_00: a massive stadium fight, that's money.
47:26
SPEAKER_02: Sherry, I got two last questions for you.
47:28
SPEAKER_02: And then if you want,
47:29
SPEAKER_02: you can stick around for the rest of me and Mario talking about American boxing,
47:33
SPEAKER_02: which is just going to be...
47:34
SPEAKER_02: It's in such a good place right now.
47:37
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to ask you about two fights that I'm really, really excited about.
47:40
SPEAKER_02: Giorgio Visoli against Maxi Hughes.
47:43
SPEAKER_02: I will give my thoughts.
47:44
SPEAKER_02: And then Shannon Ryan versus Emma Dolan.
47:46
SPEAKER_02: I'm way too excited about both of these fights.
47:50
SPEAKER_02: Giorgio Visoli, to me,
47:51
SPEAKER_02: feels like a possible world title holder,
47:54
SPEAKER_02: but he's hit a lot of inactivity this year to the point where I'm very frustrated.
48:01
SPEAKER_02: With his,
48:01
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to let,
48:03
SPEAKER_02: oh, I was going to, I was like, I'm going to let Mario do that off, off camera.
48:06
SPEAKER_02: But he was, he was giving us a, like a Cribs house tour.
48:10
SPEAKER_02: Giorgio Vasoli, to me,
48:12
SPEAKER_02: checks the,
48:13
SPEAKER_02: does everything I'd want to see from a guy who could contend for a title.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: Yet now he's been inactive.
48:18
SPEAKER_02: Maxie Hughes fits the bill of a good older fighter who should be a gatekeeper.
48:24
SPEAKER_02: Yet he kind of wins these fights.
48:25
SPEAKER_02: He beat Gary Cully.
48:28
SPEAKER_02: I compare him to like a zombie in a zombie film.
48:30
SPEAKER_02: You think the zombie's dead and then all of a sudden it's eating your arm and you're a zombie.
48:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:36
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
48:36
SPEAKER_02: Like Vissoli is this year's Jai Appetia to me.
48:40
SPEAKER_02: Last year, I thought 2025 was going to be a huge year for Jai.
48:43
SPEAKER_02: Felt like a step back.
48:45
SPEAKER_02: This year for Vissoli,
48:46
SPEAKER_02: it feels like the same thing happened where I expected him to take that leap,
48:50
SPEAKER_02: kind of be in the George Ledard spot.
48:52
SPEAKER_02: And instead, he's just been kind of on the back burner.
48:55
SPEAKER_02: What are your thoughts, Sherry?
48:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think what you said is valid in terms of that's exactly how it's kind
49:00
SPEAKER_00: of played out for him.
49:01
SPEAKER_00: I think he's someone that Matchroom is hoping he's going to,
49:04
SPEAKER_00: you know, Deliver on his potential.
49:06
SPEAKER_00: I believe he's managed by Sonny Edwards.
49:08
SPEAKER_00: So that's someone, a good mouthpiece to have.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: He would be able to talk him up as well.
49:12
SPEAKER_00: And the crossover with the American rivalry that he's got with Kamel Motta.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: I know he's not been active himself.
49:19
SPEAKER_00: And he hasn't proven anything yet.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: But that has kept both of them going back and forth on social media and videos and all sorts.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: That adds something for the future,
49:26
SPEAKER_00: potentially,
49:26
SPEAKER_00: if they're ever still around the same weight class where that's a big fight, right?
49:31
SPEAKER_00: Two good names.
49:32
SPEAKER_00: If they both do work up the right way and build their names higher up, that would be amazing.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: Because we know they've had a lot of back and forth in the gym and stuff.
49:39
SPEAKER_00: So that'll be interesting.
49:40
SPEAKER_00: And Giorgio, Maxi Hughes, like you said yourself, Maxi Hughes won the IBO title.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: I think he got robbed against Kambosis, didn't he?
49:47
SPEAKER_00: Remind me if I'm getting this right.
49:48
SPEAKER_00: Was that the one where everyone thought he won?
49:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was the one.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: He bought a cowboy hat in Oklahoma.
49:54
SPEAKER_02: That was hilarious.
49:57
SPEAKER_02: You remember that, Mario?
49:58
SPEAKER_02: He was rocking the cowboy hat and he, you know...
50:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so, you know, Maxi Hughes has been a great servant to the game.
50:07
SPEAKER_00: He's given his all and he's been in some good fights.
50:09
SPEAKER_00: He's lost some fights that maybe he shouldn't have.
50:12
SPEAKER_02: Can I add this?
50:15
SPEAKER_02: Tris, I believe Tris Dixon did this story where for the Cepeda fight,
50:19
SPEAKER_02: if I remember right,
50:21
SPEAKER_02: He flew to America,
50:22
SPEAKER_02: his papers didn't work and had to fly back to the UK,
50:26
SPEAKER_02: then flew back to America and fought Zepeda.
50:28
SPEAKER_02: So I mean,
50:29
SPEAKER_02: I get that Zepeda stopped him,
50:31
SPEAKER_02: but like that kind of feels like the fight from hell with the fighter from hell.
50:35
SPEAKER_02: So I think that needs to be brought up as well.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's context.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a very good point to make,
50:40
SPEAKER_00: Lukie, to be honest, because it adds a lot to the context.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: Jet lag is a thing.
50:43
SPEAKER_00: People usually fly out and acclimatize to the country they're fighting in, right?
50:46
SPEAKER_00: So if you have to go there, come back and go again.
50:48
SPEAKER_00: That's double, triple the amount of traveling and the actual physical toll it takes on the body.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
50:52
SPEAKER_00: But I think, yeah, I think Giorgio has had inactivity.
50:56
SPEAKER_00: This could be a banana skin.
50:57
SPEAKER_00: How do we know?
50:58
SPEAKER_00: Max Hughes is that guy where you can pull out these type of victories.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: You just don't know.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: But I think that they wouldn't have made this fight if they didn't actually believe
51:05
SPEAKER_00: that he's on the slide enough for Giorgio to get that win.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: So I think this is positioned for him to get a good world level or a guy
51:11
SPEAKER_00: who was fringe world level at the time and been in big fights,
51:14
SPEAKER_00: get him on that resume nice and early.
51:17
SPEAKER_00: So I think Giorgio should be able to do the job here.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: And then Shannon Ryan, she's rematching Emma Dole, isn't she?
51:22
SPEAKER_00: She lost her a few years ago.
51:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I guess I wanted to ask you this before I get you up out of here and me
51:27
SPEAKER_02: and Mario get cooking.
51:28
SPEAKER_02: Is...
51:30
SPEAKER_02: Shannon Ryan's obviously very attractive and she's been a lifelong athlete.
51:35
SPEAKER_02: But my question with her is she's struggled at a certain level.
51:39
SPEAKER_02: She struggled before she had lost with Emma Dolan.
51:41
SPEAKER_02: She looks like she's more making the turn.
51:44
SPEAKER_02: But I guess is this the question where we say...
51:48
SPEAKER_02: Is she someone that has a big following and is an interesting person and has a great story?
51:54
SPEAKER_02: I believe she sold cell phones while balancing a pro boxing career.
51:59
SPEAKER_02: She's really savvy with the internet.
52:01
SPEAKER_02: But is she just a great story and an interesting person who's almost like a fitness influencer?
52:07
SPEAKER_02: Or is she someone with the potential of being a world champion?
52:10
SPEAKER_02: Because I do believe, wasn't she a Taekwondo Olympian?
52:14
SPEAKER_02: So for me, she's kind of an interesting fighter in the sense where...
52:18
SPEAKER_02: There's elements of her that are almost like fitness model fighter
52:23
SPEAKER_02: where you think that's more of her.
52:24
SPEAKER_02: But then she kind of took a more traditional sports route.
52:28
SPEAKER_02: She just came to boxing in 2018.
52:30
SPEAKER_02: So I'm interested to see from your perspective,
52:34
SPEAKER_02: what is the talent component you see with Ryan,
52:36
SPEAKER_02: especially entering in with Emma Dolan, who would beat her?
52:41
SPEAKER_00: I think the fitness influencer thing is probably... She's more than that, definitely.
52:46
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't just call her that.
52:46
SPEAKER_00: I think she's definitely got something about her.
52:48
SPEAKER_00: Yes, she's an attractive woman.
52:50
SPEAKER_00: She's got sponsorships and she's got a good management team around her, which is...
52:53
SPEAKER_00: It was 258 Boxing, which was Anthony Joshua's friends who were in that company.
52:57
SPEAKER_00: She's had the links and the right backing and the cell phone company,
53:00
SPEAKER_00: I think you mentioned, it's called O2 and they...
53:03
SPEAKER_00: Decide to sponsor her for a while as well.
53:04
SPEAKER_00: So it's nice to have a link to her story there as well.
53:07
SPEAKER_00: So she's definitely athletically gifted.
53:09
SPEAKER_00: I think it's just one of those ones, Lukie,
53:10
SPEAKER_00: where you look at it and say,
53:11
SPEAKER_00: there are plenty of people who come through life and they are athletically gifted
53:15
SPEAKER_00: so they can step into sports and compete at a certain level.
53:20
SPEAKER_00: But once you start stepping up to the top,
53:22
SPEAKER_00: top levels of that sport,
53:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say expose, that's the wrong word, but So, yeah.
53:48
SPEAKER_00: We have levels for a reason and a lot of fighters will take losses.
53:52
SPEAKER_00: If you fight those type of fights,
53:52
SPEAKER_00: you're going to have other hungry contenders or even gatekeepers who are wily enough
53:56
SPEAKER_00: to see their way through a fight.
53:58
SPEAKER_00: Experience levels vary.
53:59
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's important that Shannon has had that sort of,
54:02
SPEAKER_00: you'd call it an internship, we'd call it an apprenticeship.
54:04
SPEAKER_00: She's had those learning fights.
54:07
SPEAKER_00: Yes, she took a loss.
54:08
SPEAKER_00: Has it been disastrous for her career?
54:10
SPEAKER_00: Not really.
54:10
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know if she,
54:12
SPEAKER_00: I don't get the vibe from her and from around her people
54:15
SPEAKER_00: that they believe she was going to be the next Katie Taylor,
54:17
SPEAKER_00: Clarissa Shields, you know, that type of level of fighter.
54:21
SPEAKER_00: I think she'll be able to compete for a world title maybe.
54:25
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if she'll win it though.
54:26
SPEAKER_00: That's my inkling at the moment, the type of feeling I get.
54:29
SPEAKER_02: Okay, Sherry.
54:30
SPEAKER_02: So we're going to say goodbye to you for today.
54:32
SPEAKER_02: We might bring you back for another big UK fight.
54:35
SPEAKER_02: Check your DMs soon.
54:36
SPEAKER_02: Now I'm going to shift over to my guy, Mario Marguia.
54:40
SPEAKER_01: Good talk to you, man.
54:42
SPEAKER_02: And we're going to talk some Fendora versus Ermal Hajabej.
54:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure I said that.
54:47
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely perfect.
54:49
SPEAKER_02: What were your thoughts on this fight?
54:52
SPEAKER_01: Oh, man.
54:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:54
SPEAKER_01: I loved it.
54:55
SPEAKER_01: I loved everything about it.
54:58
SPEAKER_01: I really did, because this is exactly what we needed.
55:02
SPEAKER_01: And Lukie, you were just graciously on my show this past week.
55:06
SPEAKER_01: You did an awesome job.
55:07
SPEAKER_01: Literally every day after you left, my community was like, where's Lukie?
55:12
SPEAKER_01: Text Lukie what he's doing today, because they're tired of hearing from me.
55:16
SPEAKER_01: And so...
55:18
SPEAKER_01: You and I, we talked about the importance of TNT and shows on those platforms doing big things.
55:27
SPEAKER_01: It's not just enough for them to be good.
55:29
SPEAKER_01: I wish it was.
55:31
SPEAKER_01: For you and me, it's good enough.
55:32
SPEAKER_01: For your community of hardcore fans that really know this sport, it's good enough for us.
55:38
SPEAKER_01: It's not good enough for the people that consider Jake Paul and Ryan Garcia two of
55:42
SPEAKER_01: the best boxers in the world.
55:43
SPEAKER_01: That community, they're called casuals.
55:47
SPEAKER_01: Better or worse, we need them, right?
55:49
SPEAKER_01: We need them for our sport to survive at the highest level.
55:52
SPEAKER_01: And in order for them to be engaged, they need fuckery.
55:58
SPEAKER_01: Excuse my language.
55:59
SPEAKER_01: They need, you know.
56:02
SPEAKER_01: They need all of the drama that makes up this sport that we love.
56:05
SPEAKER_01: And because this sport is so filled with emotion,
56:22
SPEAKER_01: Things like this happen, right?
56:24
SPEAKER_01: So what we got was an excellent fight, a war,
56:28
SPEAKER_01: a guy getting tested,
56:29
SPEAKER_01: and all the new eyeballs that haven't watched boxing in the last year,
56:34
SPEAKER_01: five years, decade.
56:36
SPEAKER_01: Maybe they happened to pass TNT and said, holy shit, what's going on here?
56:41
SPEAKER_01: The beauty of it is the very end.
56:43
SPEAKER_01: The controversy, that's the to be continued.
56:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm a huge comic book fan, right?
56:48
SPEAKER_01: Love comic books, can't wait for Doom.
56:50
SPEAKER_01: But I grew up in the old school era, right?
56:53
SPEAKER_01: I read comic books and I watched the old school Batman.
56:55
SPEAKER_01: And you know how old school Batman would end to get you to come back?
56:58
SPEAKER_01: Him and Robin would be tied.
57:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously Robin wouldn't have pants and that was a weird thing,
57:03
SPEAKER_01: but they'd be tied to like this ball and being lowered into a bat of Waba.
57:08
SPEAKER_01: And then the voiceover would come on and say, will the K Crusaders make it out of this one?
57:14
SPEAKER_01: Come back next week.
57:15
SPEAKER_01: And so when we have moments like this, where yes, It does mar the win a little.
57:21
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it does create controversy and all these things.
57:24
SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, what it also does is get people to tune in.
57:27
SPEAKER_01: So I loved it.
57:28
SPEAKER_01: They did a great job.
57:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad that it happened on TNT.
57:32
SPEAKER_02: So a few thoughts.
57:33
SPEAKER_02: I think that Fundora is now like this person that Keith Thurman was 10 years ago.
57:40
SPEAKER_02: Fundora is like the face of PBC.
57:42
SPEAKER_02: And he brought this up in the post-fight presser where Thurman was the guy that
57:46
SPEAKER_02: when they went on to network television, it was a Thurman fight.
57:49
SPEAKER_02: When they went to...
57:51
SPEAKER_02: It was like Thurman was the guy that rolled out the ball for a lot of things.
57:54
SPEAKER_02: And now it's prime video, late notice because of Thurman, but he fights Tim Zhu, gets the win.
58:03
SPEAKER_02: And now when they do the TNT deal, he's the first one entrusted to be there.
58:08
SPEAKER_02: I think Fundora is an interesting visual for someone that doesn't watch boxing week
58:13
SPEAKER_02: in, week out.
58:14
SPEAKER_02: It's the tall guy and he's going to hit really hard.
58:17
SPEAKER_02: And there's a level of intrigue of like, what's going on here?
58:20
SPEAKER_02: Who is this guy?
58:21
SPEAKER_02: This might be my guy.
58:23
SPEAKER_02: He looks vulnerable.
58:25
SPEAKER_02: There's something there.
58:26
SPEAKER_02: And I also think Fundora is starting to loosen up.
58:31
SPEAKER_02: And his interviews, I always found awkward.
58:34
SPEAKER_02: Now I'm starting to understand him more.
58:36
SPEAKER_02: And there's like a chirpiness to him.
58:39
SPEAKER_02: And it's like the way he fights is the way he talks.
58:43
SPEAKER_02: And what I mean by that is when he's enjoying what he's doing in the ring,
58:46
SPEAKER_02: he's smiling at someone while inflicting pain.
58:49
SPEAKER_02: Oh, man.
58:50
SPEAKER_01: Well said, dude.
58:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh, my God.
58:52
SPEAKER_01: Well said.
58:53
SPEAKER_02: When he doesn't like what you ask him,
58:57
SPEAKER_02: he says so in a nice way, but there's a level of like, I didn't like that.
59:02
SPEAKER_02: And it's like that combative nature to me is interesting.
59:06
SPEAKER_02: And we're rebuilding ourselves.
59:09
SPEAKER_02: We're rebuilding our sport, right?
59:23
SPEAKER_02: He's a little combative with the media to a certain extent or just reserved,
59:27
SPEAKER_02: which I think is good, right?
59:29
SPEAKER_02: Because what if there's a media darling against him?
59:31
SPEAKER_02: Then there's motivation, fuel.
59:34
SPEAKER_02: I think that him, his father, his sister, it's a very interesting fight team.
59:41
SPEAKER_02: I can't think of a team like that before.
59:43
SPEAKER_02: I will say...
59:45
SPEAKER_02: With Ermal Hajibaj, a lot of people are going to probably criticize his performance.
59:50
SPEAKER_02: I didn't love it,
59:51
SPEAKER_02: but hearing the post-fight interview,
59:52
SPEAKER_02: I think he was about as interested in the fight as I was.
59:56
SPEAKER_02: I think that he wasn't fully motivated.
59:59
SPEAKER_02: He knew we could hurt him at any time.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_02: And Hadri Badge is really good at being all the way out or all the way in.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_02: And that MMA background, I'm convinced, when he was on the inside, he knows how to wrestle.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_02: And he was able to leverage and maneuver Fendora around.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_02: And I think he was physically stronger on the inside,
1:00:18
SPEAKER_02: which posed some problems for Fendora because he couldn't just...
1:00:21
SPEAKER_02: Assert himself the way that he's used to doing when guys get to the inside.
1:00:25
SPEAKER_02: And I think it also kind of stopped him from punching at times.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_02: That being said,
1:00:29
SPEAKER_02: I felt like the drama was taken out of the fight by the seventh or eighth round.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_02: I know people talk about Thomas Taylor's performance,
1:00:36
SPEAKER_02: taking a few points, whatever the knockdown knockout.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_02: All of that to me is arbitrary because Fundora was going to win the fight and none
1:00:45
SPEAKER_02: of those things really, really mattered to me.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_02: Fundora made the adjustment.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_02: Fundora won and he did what guys like my co-host typically Dakota says.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_02: Sergio Martinez became a Hall of Fame boxer to me.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_02: Based on defending his belt against guys who had earned their spot.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_02: Hadribaj came in,
1:01:03
SPEAKER_02: wanted to win,
1:01:05
SPEAKER_02: and Fundora, if he didn't have it, probably would have lost this night.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_02: He came out,
1:01:09
SPEAKER_02: he started well,
1:01:11
SPEAKER_02: and Fundora took the fight out of him by
1:01:14
SPEAKER_02: a composed championship performance that's going to go underrated
1:01:17
SPEAKER_02: because people just don't know the guy, right?
1:01:19
SPEAKER_02: And I think that there is something to being able to have defenses against guys
1:01:24
SPEAKER_02: who it's the biggest night of their life and you have nothing.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_02: I say all that to say,
1:01:32
SPEAKER_02: it's Boots Ennis, Josh Kelly, and Fundora.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_02: Where do we rank the three currently?
1:01:38
SPEAKER_02: And what about that performance made you think that way?
1:01:43
SPEAKER_01: So first of all, I have to put boots first.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_01: I do.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just going to go off on a tangent just for a second.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_01: It's the whole Shakur argument, right?
1:01:52
SPEAKER_01: Like I can look at Shakur and everything I know about boxing,
1:01:55
SPEAKER_01: everything I know about fighting,
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: everything I know about athletics from my journalistic background
1:01:59
SPEAKER_01: to my own personal experience tells me that Shakur is possibly right now
1:02:05
SPEAKER_01: at this moment pound for pound the best.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_01: But I could never rank him in that way.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_01: Never, because you have to prove those sort of things.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_01: And by virtue,
1:02:13
SPEAKER_01: I think when you have boogeyman type names and you get into those moments,
1:02:18
SPEAKER_01: you have to get up for it, just like they get up for it.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_01: So when the best in the world that everybody's calling the best in the world has
1:02:25
SPEAKER_01: to show up just like you do, what happens?
1:02:29
SPEAKER_01: You said it best.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_01: Guys having the biggest moment of their life or the biggest fight of their life,
1:02:35
SPEAKER_01: what does it draw out of them?
1:02:37
SPEAKER_01: What kind of fighter is that when you don't have a ton of information on them, right?
1:02:40
SPEAKER_01: Because it's one thing to be able to watch film.
1:02:43
SPEAKER_01: It's another thing to have people like you who break the film down for people.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_01: Like how much of that is on a roll, right?
1:02:49
SPEAKER_01: Like we don't have this.
1:02:50
SPEAKER_01: You know, encyclopedia of what he was going to bring to the table.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_01: So if you're Sebastian Fundora and you're thinking exactly what you said,
1:02:56
SPEAKER_01: which was another excellent point about this guy being positioned in a way to be
1:03:01
SPEAKER_01: that face of PBC, that's a new evolution of the company.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_01: It's a new direction.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_01: You know, there is so much about that statement.
1:03:11
SPEAKER_01: That puts weight on the shoulders of someone like Sebastian Fundora.
1:03:16
SPEAKER_01: And so when you talk about being able to go in there and make the adjustments,
1:03:21
SPEAKER_01: that's what I think most impressed me and why I'd put him second.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_01: Because yes,
1:03:26
SPEAKER_01: there was a moment we were watching that fight where I said to myself,
1:03:29
SPEAKER_01: is he a birdie?
1:03:31
SPEAKER_01: Is he reverting?
1:03:32
SPEAKER_01: Are we seeing who I thought Sebastian Bedore was a person
1:03:35
SPEAKER_01: who didn't really use his height super well,
1:03:37
SPEAKER_01: didn't really use his reach super well,
1:03:39
SPEAKER_01: didn't use the God-given attributes that he has over his opponents.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_01: He's learned to do that.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_01: He's done it much better.
1:03:47
SPEAKER_01: So when I'm watching and I'm like, wait, are we seeing this guy taking a step backwards?
1:03:51
SPEAKER_01: But then he makes an adjustment.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_01: And those are the things that define you at the top level.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_01: And so for those reasons, I'd have him second.
1:03:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's weird.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_02: I thought this fight would determine a couple of things.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_02: If Vendora can cut the ring off pretty well in his ability to use distance,
1:04:09
SPEAKER_02: he can cut the ring off is what I determined.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_02: The distance, I didn't leave understanding because he said in the post-fight I chose to brawl.
1:04:18
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes guys say that when fights are frustrating.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_02: Yes, well said.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_02: I thought that was cat
1:04:24
SPEAKER_01: too, for real.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, there's a part of me that I think that that's what he believes.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_02: But as an analyst,
1:04:32
SPEAKER_02: you have to look between the tea leaves and say, like,
1:04:35
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:04:36
SPEAKER_02: are a couple of... Like,
1:04:38
SPEAKER_02: he fought Thurman,
1:04:39
SPEAKER_02: older fighter,
1:04:40
SPEAKER_02: Booker, notorious slow starter who's not, like, the most explosive guy.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_02: And Tim Zhu's kind of in front of you.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_02: And those are the three guys that he showed really good distance and range against.
1:04:50
SPEAKER_02: This is the first guy that was kind of like, okay...
1:04:53
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to move my head a little bit more.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to be kind of explosive and move around.
1:04:59
SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden,
1:04:59
SPEAKER_02: the distance and the ability to land the jab,
1:05:02
SPEAKER_02: which as they point out in the broadcast, I think it's a valid point.
1:05:06
SPEAKER_02: He uses it also as a deterrent.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_02: I view it as like it's oncoming traffic.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_02: He has cars going down the lane coming at you in Frogger.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_02: But I mean, it was a little concerning that...
1:05:18
SPEAKER_02: A guy who maybe excessively moves or does some awkward things,
1:05:21
SPEAKER_02: all of a sudden the distance isn't as much of a part of this.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_01: Well said.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_01: There's the kink and you're watching this fight and you're thinking, Well, shit,
1:05:30
SPEAKER_01: if that was Boots in there,
1:05:32
SPEAKER_01: or even Xander, and in these specific moments, because it's about fight script.
1:05:38
SPEAKER_01: The one thing that I used to do really,
1:05:40
SPEAKER_01: really badly when I used to work for the Boxing Voice,
1:05:43
SPEAKER_01: and I was still really new to all of this,
1:05:46
SPEAKER_01: is I would make so many definitive statements about fights.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_01: This is going to be this kind of fight,
1:05:52
SPEAKER_01: or they're going to fight on the inside,
1:05:53
SPEAKER_01: or he's going to try to keep on the outside.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_01: And while, yes,
1:05:56
SPEAKER_01: you can have an understanding of the sport to tell you this is
1:05:59
SPEAKER_01: the likelihood this fight will move in this direction, it's about fight script.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_01: Fight script determines things, right?
1:06:06
SPEAKER_01: And here's a fight script that didn't go the way that anybody thought, specifically fighting.
1:06:09
SPEAKER_01: I am saying the likelihood that it doesn't look at all like what we saw changes dramatically.
1:06:30
SPEAKER_01: You have to be able,
1:06:32
SPEAKER_01: like you said, to analyze where Fundora was vulnerable and you did an excellent job.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't sound like hating because simultaneously it's his job to remind you
1:06:46
SPEAKER_01: that he's in there doing what he wants.
1:06:48
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_01: We can live in the world that we have to analyze.
1:06:52
SPEAKER_01: He has to live in the world where he's the top dog, where he's the alpha.
1:06:56
SPEAKER_01: He cannot show up to the office,
1:06:59
SPEAKER_01: which is the gym,
1:07:01
SPEAKER_01: and have a mentality any less than he's in charge in the ring or he's going
1:07:05
SPEAKER_01: to do it.
1:07:06
SPEAKER_01: He has to maneuver that way,
1:07:08
SPEAKER_01: the same way Patrick Mahomes does,
1:07:10
SPEAKER_01: the same way Floyd Mayweather does,
1:07:11
SPEAKER_01: the same way all these guys who we interpret as narcissistic or ego,
1:07:15
SPEAKER_01: you have to have that ego at that point.
1:07:17
SPEAKER_01: So I think it's very fair for you to make those criticisms while at
1:07:20
SPEAKER_01: the same time acknowledging to be able to do what he was able to do and take
1:07:26
SPEAKER_01: the fight away.
1:07:28
SPEAKER_01: That's what he did.
1:07:29
SPEAKER_01: He took the fight away from him and he made it his own.
1:07:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you got to get credit for that.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_02: That being said, I think I favor Fendora over this version of Boots.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_02: You know, I have questions about Boots in certain ways.
1:07:43
SPEAKER_02: And I think that like it's a weird thing
1:07:44
SPEAKER_02: where this fight showed me Virgil Ortiz is probably a hard matchup for Fendora.
1:07:48
SPEAKER_02: Fendora is probably a hard matchup for Boots.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_02: Who knows what Virgil vs. Boots looks like and we probably will never get it.
1:07:57
SPEAKER_02: I do think that Fundora is evolving into a true main event star and it's kind
1:08:03
SPEAKER_02: of happened quickly.
1:08:06
SPEAKER_02: He got knocked out by Mendoza.
1:08:08
SPEAKER_02: He beats Tim Zhu and I think that for the last year and a half we've watched with bated breath.
1:08:14
SPEAKER_02: And then even beating Thurman,
1:08:16
SPEAKER_02: there's like this level of,
1:08:17
SPEAKER_02: you know, Thurman really didn't fight for the past decade.
1:08:20
SPEAKER_02: You know, he just did not fight all that often.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_02: I remember he fought Pacquiao and then there was like this long layoff.
1:08:26
SPEAKER_02: I think it was 2022 was when he came back and he like COVID had happened
1:08:31
SPEAKER_02: and you didn't even remember that.
1:08:33
SPEAKER_02: He had been out during COVID because he'd been so inactive in his career.
1:08:36
SPEAKER_02: He gets that Danny Garcia win, two-year layoff, and then we go into host Sito Lopez.
1:08:42
SPEAKER_02: So I don't know.
1:08:44
SPEAKER_02: I think it's fun with Fundora.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_02: I think he did the most that he could have.
1:08:48
SPEAKER_02: It was both a good and bad performance.
1:08:49
SPEAKER_02: Let's keep the show moving.
1:08:51
SPEAKER_02: Speaking of which, let's go to the undercard.
1:08:54
SPEAKER_01: Actually, real quick, I do want to ask you, though.
1:08:57
SPEAKER_01: What you thought about the stoppage.
1:08:59
SPEAKER_01: So much was made about whether it was a good or bad stoppage.
1:09:02
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you saw the viral footage of Terrence Crawford and was it Sean Porter?
1:09:11
SPEAKER_01: I forgot.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_02: It was Tim Bradley.
1:09:13
SPEAKER_01: It was Tim Bradley.
1:09:13
SPEAKER_01: That's what it was.
1:09:14
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
1:09:14
SPEAKER_01: It was Tim Bradley and Terrence Crawford just absolutely letting Thomas have it in
1:09:22
SPEAKER_01: a respectful way.
1:09:24
SPEAKER_01: But A few people have come out and have said that,
1:09:28
SPEAKER_01: you know, they thought it wasn't a bad stoppage.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_01: And those people have gotten a lot of hate.
1:09:34
SPEAKER_01: Mike Coppinger, one of them.
1:09:35
SPEAKER_01: But I wanted to ask you what you thought.
1:09:37
SPEAKER_01: Was it a good stoppage or a bad stoppage?
1:09:40
SPEAKER_02: I think it's just an unfortunate stoppage.
1:09:42
SPEAKER_02: I think it's neither good nor bad.
1:09:43
SPEAKER_02: I think that a very fighter-centric thing.
1:09:47
SPEAKER_02: And I think this is another point that I didn't discuss about this fight was Ermel
1:09:51
SPEAKER_02: at points wasn't trying to win the fight.
1:09:53
SPEAKER_02: He was trying to survive and he was doing things.
1:09:56
SPEAKER_02: And that also makes it hard to get stoppages.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_02: Whereas Tim Zhu and Thurman were trying to win.
1:10:02
SPEAKER_02: Which made them more vulnerable,
1:10:03
SPEAKER_02: whereas Fandora was landing punches on them,
1:10:06
SPEAKER_02: whereas Ermal was trying to survive at points and get to the next stage of
1:10:10
SPEAKER_02: the fight.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_02: I think there's a fighter mentality of he had gone all the rounds,
1:10:16
SPEAKER_02: the 12 rounds, there's one second left.
1:10:19
SPEAKER_02: Give him the benefit of the doubt of the unanimous decision.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_02: So then he gets other opportunities against other elite fighters
1:10:25
SPEAKER_02: because people are going to want to stop him.
1:10:27
SPEAKER_02: That'll be his calling card that'll get big paydays, big opportunities.
1:10:30
SPEAKER_02: I think there's a pride in not being stopped, right?
1:10:34
SPEAKER_02: That you went all the rounds and he essentially did.
1:10:37
SPEAKER_02: That being said,
1:10:38
SPEAKER_02: Thomas Taylor's the referee in the ring and he's not supposed to add context
1:10:43
SPEAKER_02: to any situation.
1:10:44
SPEAKER_02: He's supposed to look at the fighter's health and best interest.
1:10:49
SPEAKER_02: And I never feel comfortable making comments on judges or referees because
1:10:54
SPEAKER_02: the referee is the third man in the ring who is observing all the body language
1:10:59
SPEAKER_02: and all this stuff and me sitting at home fighting off a cold
1:11:02
SPEAKER_02: and How do I know anything more than him, right?
1:11:06
SPEAKER_02: And I think there's this naivete that, oh, you know, the referees want what's best for whatever.
1:11:14
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's as simple as Thomas Taylor has to evaluate situations and think
1:11:18
SPEAKER_02: about the fighter's best interest,
1:11:20
SPEAKER_02: and he's not allowed to place context into the situation that there's a second left.
1:11:24
SPEAKER_02: And with his...
1:11:26
SPEAKER_02: Decision-making process.
1:11:28
SPEAKER_02: He probably felt that he was on unsteady legs.
1:11:30
SPEAKER_02: He had beat the count.
1:11:31
SPEAKER_02: And that's his thing.
1:11:32
SPEAKER_02: Do I agree with it?
1:11:33
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
1:11:35
SPEAKER_02: I wasn't in there from the emotional standpoint of me watching the fight.
1:11:39
SPEAKER_02: I think Ermel had done enough to just see the final bell because it was one second left.
1:11:44
SPEAKER_02: And that would have been a moral victory.
1:11:46
SPEAKER_02: But at the same time,
1:11:47
SPEAKER_02: until you're in the ring and you see the demeanor and what's going on,
1:11:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to question that because we live in a world
1:11:54
SPEAKER_02: where everyone is questioning too much about everything.
1:11:58
SPEAKER_01: Well said, dude.
1:11:59
SPEAKER_01: Really well said.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I wanted to ask you the question because, you know, you...
1:12:05
SPEAKER_01: You do this.
1:12:06
SPEAKER_01: You do this.
1:12:07
SPEAKER_01: As long as I've known you, you do this.
1:12:10
SPEAKER_01: You look for a more rational, less emotional way of looking at things.
1:12:17
SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate that.
1:12:18
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that because I used to not do that very well.
1:12:22
SPEAKER_01: I remember a fight from my youth that I really didn't understand,
1:12:26
SPEAKER_01: but grew up pretending to understand.
1:12:28
SPEAKER_01: And that was the Chavez fight, Meldrick Taylor.
1:12:30
SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking, this sport is disgusting.
1:12:34
SPEAKER_01: It is corrupt.
1:12:37
SPEAKER_01: And Richard still must be on someone's payroll or he bet.
1:12:42
SPEAKER_01: All those things entered my mind.
1:12:43
SPEAKER_01: And those were like The thoughts of everyone that I knew that watched boxing,
1:12:48
SPEAKER_01: we all agreed with that.
1:12:50
SPEAKER_01: And as they get older and, you know, I played baseball.
1:12:55
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't good enough to play in college anymore.
1:12:57
SPEAKER_01: I started trying to umpire.
1:12:58
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:12:59
SPEAKER_01: And so I made it, you know, it's a varsity high school umpiring and the game is so different.
1:13:05
SPEAKER_01: Seeing everything from the umpire's eyes changed the sport of baseball entirely to me.
1:13:12
SPEAKER_01: And then Not only did it change my idea of sports,
1:13:16
SPEAKER_01: then it started to change my idea of what it means to be in charge,
1:13:20
SPEAKER_01: what it means to be the person like a judge that's supposed to like live
1:13:26
SPEAKER_01: above societal standards and pressures and things like that.
1:13:30
SPEAKER_01: And I look at it and I see and if I'm Thomas and I'm the referee,
1:13:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at a kid who's done and he might have been done moments before he took
1:13:40
SPEAKER_01: that final punch that sent him to the canvas, not protecting himself.
1:13:44
SPEAKER_01: Didn't even really look like he was there.
1:13:46
SPEAKER_01: His eyes were super glazed over and the hands are so low.
1:13:49
SPEAKER_01: It's again, it's not even just that he's protecting himself.
1:13:52
SPEAKER_01: That is one thing, right?
1:13:53
SPEAKER_01: They say, oh, you have to be protecting yourself, meaning you have to be engaged in disengaging.
1:13:59
SPEAKER_01: But to have your hands down, leaned over, eyes glazed, that's inviting punishment.
1:14:05
SPEAKER_01: At that moment, the fight's over.
1:14:07
SPEAKER_01: That moment, all you're doing is waiting for the inevitable.
1:14:12
SPEAKER_01: If you throw a fastball 88 miles per hour down to a Major League Baseball player
1:14:18
SPEAKER_01: and he knows it's coming.
1:14:19
SPEAKER_01: That's out of the park.
1:14:20
SPEAKER_01: If you give a guy with all the reach in the world who is a professional fighter
1:14:25
SPEAKER_01: the moment to hit that shot, he will hit that shot.
1:14:28
SPEAKER_01: The fight could have been stopped before that last moment.
1:14:32
SPEAKER_01: And so what you said,
1:14:34
SPEAKER_01: being that third man in the ring,
1:14:36
SPEAKER_01: having those emotions disconnected from the audience because
1:14:40
SPEAKER_01: and this is all due respect to Terrence Crawford.
1:14:43
SPEAKER_01: And to Tim Bradley, who I absolutely respect.
1:14:45
SPEAKER_01: But they're fighters.
1:14:47
SPEAKER_01: They're fighters.
1:14:48
SPEAKER_01: They're fighters.
1:14:49
SPEAKER_01: And not only that, they're commentators now.
1:14:52
SPEAKER_01: And they're thinking of the people watching at home.
1:14:53
SPEAKER_01: So they're thinking of the show.
1:14:55
SPEAKER_01: And there's nothing wrong with that.
1:14:58
SPEAKER_01: That was in that ring whose job it was to stop things when they were out of control.
1:15:03
SPEAKER_01: And that was Thomas.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_01: And I think he did the right decision.
1:15:05
SPEAKER_01: At least I don't know if he did the right decision.
1:15:07
SPEAKER_01: I think he did the right decision for what he was supposed to be doing.
1:15:10
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:15:10
SPEAKER_01: And that's not always a matter of simple moral code.
1:15:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:15:15
SPEAKER_01: It's a very nuanced situation.
1:15:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:15:18
SPEAKER_02: So I just want to touch on this undercard.
1:15:21
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't very good.
1:15:22
SPEAKER_02: We got well, the.
1:15:26
SPEAKER_02: I've gone a whole show, 101 hour and 20 minutes without bringing up.
1:15:31
SPEAKER_02: Brandon Figueroa lost his belt on the scale,
1:15:35
SPEAKER_02: came in 1.4, I believe, pounds overweight, and then another 0.8 overweight.
1:15:41
SPEAKER_02: Two weigh-in attempts and then the day the fight fell ill, which I think is truthful.
1:15:45
SPEAKER_02: If you're struggling that much, you probably don't feel great.
1:15:48
SPEAKER_02: I saw a lot of people with skepticism,
1:15:51
SPEAKER_02: but it's like if you're struggling that hard, that's not great.
1:15:54
SPEAKER_02: But WBA featherweight belt is...
1:15:56
SPEAKER_02: Now free,
1:15:57
SPEAKER_02: more than likely if Inoue wants to move up,
1:15:59
SPEAKER_02: that would be a great opportunity for Inoue.
1:16:02
SPEAKER_02: Kind of opens the door for a Japanese grudge match between Tomoki Kameda versus Nao Inoue.
1:16:08
SPEAKER_02: Potentially, not that I know anything, but Kameda lost out on a big opportunity.
1:16:13
SPEAKER_02: Trains in Mexico, etc.
1:16:15
SPEAKER_02: That could be a fight, right?
1:16:16
SPEAKER_02: But Figaro loses the belt.
1:16:19
SPEAKER_02: Most interesting fight on the card gets thrown off.
1:16:22
SPEAKER_02: We get Armando Resendez versus Keon Muzio-Deer.
1:16:28
SPEAKER_02: Just did not feel like a world-class boxing bout.
1:16:31
SPEAKER_02: Resendez came in two to three weeks notice after Jamel Charlo is forced off of the card.
1:16:37
SPEAKER_02: And this just did not feel the caliber I was expecting to see.
1:16:41
SPEAKER_02: It felt like Resendez was picking his spots
1:16:43
SPEAKER_02: because he didn't fully trust his gas tank was my observation.
1:16:47
SPEAKER_02: And Mouzudier,
1:16:50
SPEAKER_02: who is a career 154 pounder,
1:16:53
SPEAKER_02: essentially,
1:16:55
SPEAKER_02: basically looked like he was fighting the fight of his life
1:16:57
SPEAKER_02: and had done two full training camps to beat Charlo.
1:17:00
SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, he was out.
1:17:02
SPEAKER_02: The problem with this fight is he was outgunned.
1:17:05
SPEAKER_02: He's the smaller man.
1:17:06
SPEAKER_02: He's doing as good as he can.
1:17:08
SPEAKER_02: Why didn't he get a fight at 160?
1:17:10
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:17:10
SPEAKER_02: Why not meet him in the middle?
1:17:12
SPEAKER_02: Why not let the guy get a fight at a lower weight?
1:17:15
SPEAKER_02: I thought he did as good as he could.
1:17:16
SPEAKER_02: I thought Resendez, it was a very uninspired performance.
1:17:20
SPEAKER_02: I did not really see anything that really said, man, this guy's.
1:17:24
SPEAKER_02: You know,
1:17:25
SPEAKER_02: I left more impressed with the guy who came in against all circumstances than
1:17:30
SPEAKER_02: the quote-unquote A side.
1:17:32
SPEAKER_02: Marco Romero texted with him this morning, super middleweight.
1:17:37
SPEAKER_02: He's listed as super middleweight, but he's working his way down.
1:17:39
SPEAKER_02: Really exciting puncher.
1:17:41
SPEAKER_02: You know, he's 16-0, 14 knockouts, all 14 of his knockouts in the first and second round.
1:17:46
SPEAKER_02: I have a story on the good fight about him.
1:17:49
SPEAKER_02: Really promising, but the thing about prospects is it's all about development.
1:17:53
SPEAKER_02: Don't fall in love with a prospect until you've seen the stages of it,
1:17:57
SPEAKER_02: but you can love the story, but don't necessarily marry the fighter just yet.
1:18:02
SPEAKER_02: Really intriguing guy.
1:18:03
SPEAKER_02: I like what we're seeing.
1:18:05
SPEAKER_02: He's going to come back December 12th is what it sounds like on
1:18:08
SPEAKER_02: the David Benavidez card that we're hearing whispers of.
1:18:12
SPEAKER_02: That's exciting.
1:18:13
SPEAKER_02: And then finally, promoted up was Jaime Osuna, beating Christian Canalosi.
1:18:21
SPEAKER_02: An okay at best fight.
1:18:23
SPEAKER_02: It was an off-TV fight between two undefeated fighters.
1:18:27
SPEAKER_02: They were about at the same skill level.
1:18:30
SPEAKER_02: My guy Mike Vellos trains...
1:18:33
SPEAKER_02: Kangalosi, the Italian boxer.
1:18:35
SPEAKER_02: It was a majority decision.
1:18:36
SPEAKER_02: It felt like he started too late and kind of let the fight get away from him.
1:18:41
SPEAKER_02: But it did kind of... And I'm Mr. Prelims.
1:18:44
SPEAKER_02: I love watching a good prelims,
1:18:45
SPEAKER_02: but this definitely felt like a prelim bout that got bumped up to the main card.
1:18:50
SPEAKER_02: Didn't have that sense of urgency.
1:18:52
SPEAKER_02: And that's a big thing I notice about prelim fights is the difference
1:18:55
SPEAKER_02: between typically a main card fight and a prelim is there's a level of urgency...
1:19:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know...
1:19:12
SPEAKER_01: I had to watch it twice, unfortunately.
1:19:15
SPEAKER_01: The first time I watched it,
1:19:16
SPEAKER_01: we had AEW Wrestle Dream on and I was covering that for FightsATW.com.
1:19:23
SPEAKER_01: Any wrestling fans out there, go to FightsATW.com.
1:19:26
SPEAKER_01: Check out my work as well as Lukie featured on there regularly.
1:19:31
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm covering AEW and I'm watching this undercard and I'm able to like Okay,
1:19:41
SPEAKER_01: so truthfully,
1:19:43
SPEAKER_01: I was diagnosed with adult ADHD super late in life,
1:19:48
SPEAKER_01: like super late, like already well into my 30s.
1:19:51
SPEAKER_01: And the thing was, I remember thinking, oh, this is why I can't do certain things, right?
1:19:59
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it is about boxing, but I can focus.
1:20:03
SPEAKER_01: There's something about boxing, the rhythm of it, the sounds of it.
1:20:07
SPEAKER_01: I can just focus.
1:20:08
SPEAKER_01: And I'm watching and I'm like, oh, nobody's liking this.
1:20:11
SPEAKER_01: Nobody thought Resendez should be on here.
1:20:13
SPEAKER_01: He is terrible for this moment right here.
1:20:17
SPEAKER_01: My thing, though, Lukie,
1:20:18
SPEAKER_01: that bothered me so much was that everybody's piling on
1:20:22
SPEAKER_01: to PBC like it's fucking 2018 still.
1:20:25
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, dude.
1:20:26
SPEAKER_01: Cards get messed up.
1:20:28
SPEAKER_01: Fighters have issues.
1:20:29
SPEAKER_01: Listen,
1:20:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to sit here and make excuses for Brandon Figueroa or any other fighter
1:20:34
SPEAKER_01: for not making weight.
1:20:35
SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day,
1:20:36
SPEAKER_01: there is an epidemic in this sport that has been going on for decades of guys trying
1:20:41
SPEAKER_01: to cut far too much weight, okay?
1:20:44
SPEAKER_01: And Sebastian Vendora is not one of them.
1:20:46
SPEAKER_01: And so when you look at these things and you ask yourself,
1:20:50
SPEAKER_01: who's the guy that was most likely in serious trouble in cutting too much weight?
1:20:56
SPEAKER_01: The guy who didn't make weight and then told everybody that he didn't do it
1:21:01
SPEAKER_01: on purpose so he could stay fresh and beat the guy or the guy
1:21:04
SPEAKER_01: that didn't make weight and then had to pull out the next day.
1:21:07
SPEAKER_01: That to me sounds like the guy that was seriously trying to make weight.
1:21:11
SPEAKER_01: But he's just unable to do it.
1:21:13
SPEAKER_01: But he pushed himself to the point of exhaustion, possibly costing himself a payday.
1:21:19
SPEAKER_01: That sounds way worse.
1:21:20
SPEAKER_01: That sounds like much more,
1:21:22
SPEAKER_01: I believe,
1:21:22
SPEAKER_01: Brandon Figueroa than I would like a,
1:21:24
SPEAKER_01: you know, and I'm just throwing names out there.
1:21:26
SPEAKER_01: Like a Ryan Garcia who would say something like, oh,
1:21:28
SPEAKER_01: I missed weight,
1:21:29
SPEAKER_01: but I was really just trying to – Floyd told me to do whatever, right?
1:21:32
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not going to rehash that.
1:21:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm just giving that as an example.
1:21:35
SPEAKER_01: And so I believe,
1:21:37
SPEAKER_01: Brandon,
1:21:38
SPEAKER_01: I think the card at the end of the day suffered what it suffered, and it sucks.
1:21:42
SPEAKER_01: It does.
1:21:42
SPEAKER_01: But – Listen,
1:21:44
SPEAKER_01: all I know is I had fans,
1:21:48
SPEAKER_01: casual fans in the house who saw that Romero knockout and were like,
1:21:53
SPEAKER_01: Mario, who's this?
1:21:54
SPEAKER_01: Who's this guy?
1:21:56
SPEAKER_01: Why haven't I seen him fight?
1:21:57
SPEAKER_01: And that's what happens when a casual fan or even a person who's less than
1:22:02
SPEAKER_01: a casual fan sees a knockout, right?
1:22:04
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned this the other day on the show.
1:22:06
SPEAKER_01: I had somebody else and I can't remember who mentioned this too.
1:22:09
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it was Andrew Green.
1:22:10
SPEAKER_01: He said, you know, it's the whole four corner thing.
1:22:12
SPEAKER_01: If there's a fight on one corner,
1:22:14
SPEAKER_01: baseball on the other corner,
1:22:15
SPEAKER_01: basketball on the other corner, football on the other, you're watching the fight.
1:22:18
SPEAKER_01: And at the end of the day, I love college football.
1:22:20
SPEAKER_01: If you can have all the Hail Mary touchdowns you want, nothing is more attention grabbing.
1:22:26
SPEAKER_01: Nothing is more memorable than a vicious knockdown or knockout on Saturday night TV.
1:22:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, look, it's not necessarily a PBC problem.
1:22:37
SPEAKER_02: It's just like we need to have younger fighters starting to get featured on cards.
1:22:43
SPEAKER_02: That's the big problem is we can't have 2016 fighters consistently relied on.
1:22:49
SPEAKER_02: It's a new era.
1:22:50
SPEAKER_02: It's a new decade.
1:22:51
SPEAKER_02: And look, the people that watch the fight and the fans of the sport are changing.
1:22:55
SPEAKER_02: There's people that are phasing out that were fans in 2016 that have less interest
1:22:59
SPEAKER_02: because there's new faces, new people emerging.
1:23:02
SPEAKER_02: Like Abdullah Mason is one of the new stars of this new era of And there's going
1:23:07
SPEAKER_02: to be some people that are like, I'm just not as into them.
1:23:09
SPEAKER_02: And I think the thing about sports in general,
1:23:13
SPEAKER_02: and I feel this about other sports, it's about where you're at in your life.
1:23:17
SPEAKER_02: And it kind of coincides with where you're at.
1:23:20
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes if you don't fully love the sport,
1:23:23
SPEAKER_02: you're going to go in and out of love with it, right?
1:23:26
SPEAKER_02: And you might just use a program like this to keep knowledgeable.
1:23:30
SPEAKER_02: Logan Little says, I agree.
1:23:31
SPEAKER_02: I do feel like Thomas Taylor involves himself in the fights a little too much sometimes.
1:23:35
SPEAKER_02: Good point.
1:23:36
SPEAKER_01: I agree with that too.
1:23:38
SPEAKER_02: Let's just quickly hit on Emmanuel Navarrete versus Oshaki Foster.
1:23:42
SPEAKER_02: What are your thoughts?
1:23:45
SPEAKER_01: Oh, my thoughts are I cannot wait to get to San Antonio.
1:23:49
SPEAKER_01: I got to cover the presser.
1:23:50
SPEAKER_01: I got to talk to both of them.
1:23:53
SPEAKER_01: And there's so much narrative for this fight, right?
1:23:59
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:23:59
SPEAKER_01: you got a guy like Navarrete who,
1:24:01
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:24:02
SPEAKER_01: he's at the point in his career where obviously he wants the biggest fights.
1:24:05
SPEAKER_01: And there's nothing you can do to put yourself in a position heading into 2027 more
1:24:12
SPEAKER_01: than beating an American world champion in a vicious way,
1:24:18
SPEAKER_01: right, in front of Texas boxing fans.
1:24:22
SPEAKER_01: And so – I am so interested in this because it's a double narrative.
1:24:28
SPEAKER_01: As important as it is for Navarrete to go in there and look strong,
1:24:31
SPEAKER_01: Oshaki Foster's kind of behind the eight ball in a situation where he's got
1:24:36
SPEAKER_01: an action fighter who we've seen time and time again judges will prefer.
1:24:40
SPEAKER_01: It was kind of the point that I forgot to make in the – Alberto Cueo fight is,
1:24:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:24:47
SPEAKER_01: sometimes you can be the better fighter and someone like Lukie understands that
1:24:51
SPEAKER_01: and can rationalize it and see it because of his vast knowledge of boxing.
1:24:55
SPEAKER_01: The problem is that's not really,
1:24:57
SPEAKER_01: those aren't always judges like,
1:24:59
SPEAKER_01: you know, MMA, boxing,
1:25:00
SPEAKER_01: a lot of times, I mean,
1:25:01
SPEAKER_01: not a lot of times,
1:25:02
SPEAKER_01: but there are some judges that really aren't very good at this
1:25:05
SPEAKER_01: and they don't know what they're looking for.
1:25:07
SPEAKER_01: And so it's like really hard to like understand and kind of I don't know what
1:25:13
SPEAKER_01: a fighter's thinking in terms of that.
1:25:15
SPEAKER_01: But when you have a guy like Shaq,
1:25:17
SPEAKER_01: who has been in positions where we thought he should have gotten the decision
1:25:21
SPEAKER_01: or he looked like he did enough, and the judges held his style against him, right?
1:25:27
SPEAKER_01: Will Shot go in there and will he attempt to take it out of the judge's hands?
1:25:33
SPEAKER_01: Will he be different enough or push it enough early on that it takes himself out of
1:25:39
SPEAKER_01: the fight and gives Navarrete a chance to do something bold?
1:25:43
SPEAKER_01: All I know is this is a combustion type fight and it can go in any direction.
1:25:50
SPEAKER_01: I don't anticipate a fight that's just going to be... No,
1:25:55
SPEAKER_01: I think it's going to be like One through three are going to be probably
1:25:58
SPEAKER_01: a little more action-paced.
1:25:59
SPEAKER_01: I think we get a little more methodical in the middle rounds, right?
1:26:02
SPEAKER_01: I don't know when this ends.
1:26:04
SPEAKER_01: It could end at any time, and it could go to the decision.
1:26:06
SPEAKER_01: This fight has everything you want because of the style matchup, right?
1:26:12
SPEAKER_01: It's not to say that Shaki does everything great
1:26:14
SPEAKER_01: or Navarrete is this world-class offensive fighter.
1:26:17
SPEAKER_01: It is to say that when you have these two styles fighting each other, it often leads to magic.
1:26:24
SPEAKER_02: Are you ready for a hot take?
1:26:26
SPEAKER_01: Go for it.
1:26:27
SPEAKER_01: I knew you were going to do it.
1:26:28
SPEAKER_01: I knew you were going to do it.
1:26:30
SPEAKER_02: I think it's a one-sided fight.
1:26:32
SPEAKER_02: I think Foster's just a lot better than Navarrete.
1:26:35
SPEAKER_02: And I think that Foster's resume dating back to Frank de la Alba,
1:26:39
SPEAKER_02: to fighting an undefeated puncher,
1:26:41
SPEAKER_02: John Fernandez,
1:26:42
SPEAKER_02: to going to Dubai to fight Jakobov,
1:26:44
SPEAKER_02: to beating Ray Vargas,
1:26:45
SPEAKER_02: who has some similar traits,
1:26:47
SPEAKER_02: to being long and awkward as a Navarrete,
1:26:49
SPEAKER_02: to fighting the best version of Abraham Nova we've seen.
1:26:55
SPEAKER_02: The weird stuff with Hobson Ketseisau where he felt an unjust decision.
1:26:59
SPEAKER_02: Then beating Ray Ford in an emotional fight.
1:27:02
SPEAKER_02: Stephen Fulton was supposed to be a big fight for him.
1:27:04
SPEAKER_02: It feels like Foster's consistently fighting the best out there.
1:27:08
SPEAKER_02: And people keep saying, yeah, but he's not that good.
1:27:11
SPEAKER_02: And then Navarrete on the flip side lost to Baron Cech in a fight
1:27:14
SPEAKER_02: that no one will ever rewatch when he didn't drop Ketseisau.
1:27:19
SPEAKER_02: He lost pretty much every round in that fight.
1:27:22
SPEAKER_02: He was getting outboxed.
1:27:23
SPEAKER_02: He struggled with Liam Wilson.
1:27:25
SPEAKER_02: And the real fights that he's looked good in have been guys that come to him
1:27:29
SPEAKER_02: and he's punched with them.
1:27:30
SPEAKER_02: Oscar Valdez and Sugar Nunes.
1:27:33
SPEAKER_02: So to me, I see a big invite.
1:27:37
SPEAKER_02: And I just see guys at two different points in their career.
1:27:41
SPEAKER_02: I think Shock is kind of ascending and becoming a pound-for-pound level guy.
1:27:44
SPEAKER_02: I think Navarrete...
1:27:47
SPEAKER_02: He's probably a little over the hill,
1:27:49
SPEAKER_02: but he's so frigging good, tough, and physical that he's capable.
1:27:54
SPEAKER_02: But I think that his time has passed, but people are more aware of his name.
1:27:59
SPEAKER_02: So this is more of a name value fight where I think that Foster just is in his prime.
1:28:04
SPEAKER_02: He's focused.
1:28:05
SPEAKER_02: I think that there's a real chance he stops Navarrete between the 8th and 10th round
1:28:10
SPEAKER_02: because I have a funny feeling he's going to target that body.
1:28:14
SPEAKER_02: Navarrete has done years and years of undisciplined behavior,
1:28:17
SPEAKER_02: and I don't think you can just do a year and make up for it.
1:28:24
SPEAKER_02: I just can't unsee the Denis Baranchek fight, right?
1:28:27
SPEAKER_02: Yes, he's a lightweight.
1:28:29
SPEAKER_02: Yes, he's a Ukrainian Olympian, but he greatly troubled Navarrete in that fight.
1:28:35
SPEAKER_02: And then Foster's basically a lightweight at 130 who does the same things
1:28:41
SPEAKER_02: as Baranchek, And he's better.
1:28:45
SPEAKER_02: So to me, this just screams of a fight that's going to be a remix of what we've seen.
1:28:51
SPEAKER_02: Ford and Fulton where everyone's excited fight week.
1:28:55
SPEAKER_02: You know, this is a close fight.
1:28:57
SPEAKER_02: And this is basically the third fight in a row where Foster's entering a 50-50 fight.
1:29:01
SPEAKER_02: He wins definitively and people go, yeah, I just don't know if he's good.
1:29:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:29:06
SPEAKER_02: How many of these does he have to win?
1:29:08
SPEAKER_01: Everything you said is fair.
1:29:10
SPEAKER_01: And I'll be honest with you,
1:29:12
SPEAKER_01: I would actually agree and take your take and let it become mine
1:29:19
SPEAKER_01: if this fight was like in Vegas or like even like if it was like in Nebraska
1:29:23
SPEAKER_01: or something, right?
1:29:24
SPEAKER_01: But the fact that this fight is in Texas,
1:29:27
SPEAKER_01: a place that has two reputations,
1:29:29
SPEAKER_01: one for terrible judging that favors people with Hispanic surnames,
1:29:35
SPEAKER_01: and two for Judging that favors action-packed fighters with Spanish surnames, right?
1:29:41
SPEAKER_01: And so the idea that Shock is coming into this very aware of where he's at, right?
1:29:48
SPEAKER_01: Even though he's H-Town and he's a Texas boy, that's for sure.
1:29:52
SPEAKER_01: Texas, this ain't going to be on enemy territory,
1:29:57
SPEAKER_01: but he will be the not-fan favorite, slightly, right?
1:30:03
SPEAKER_01: He will have the minority crowd there.
1:30:05
SPEAKER_02: I mean, Foster's going to bring a lot of boys from H-Town to the fight.
1:30:08
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, 100%.
1:30:09
SPEAKER_02: So it's going to be a good atmosphere.
1:30:11
SPEAKER_02: It's a Texas guy fight.
1:30:14
SPEAKER_02: I just think that Foster really, really has a chip on his shoulder.
1:30:19
SPEAKER_02: And Navarrete is kind of,
1:30:21
SPEAKER_02: I think he's the guy that,
1:30:22
SPEAKER_02: when you look at fights like this on paper, who's satisfied, who's unsatisfied?
1:30:27
SPEAKER_02: Foster's unsatisfied with where he's at in his career.
1:30:30
SPEAKER_02: I think Navarrete's pretty fine with where he's at.
1:30:35
SPEAKER_01: That's the best way to say it.
1:30:36
SPEAKER_01: Even talking to both of them there,
1:30:39
SPEAKER_01: talking to Navarrete,
1:30:41
SPEAKER_01: it almost felt like this fight was something he had to do to do something else.
1:30:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm just making jokes here,
1:30:52
SPEAKER_01: but just the vibe,
1:30:54
SPEAKER_01: it felt like anything else could have been fashion or something not sports at all,
1:30:59
SPEAKER_01: not even close.
1:31:01
SPEAKER_01: That resonates with what you just said, but Foster, on the other hand, right?
1:31:06
SPEAKER_01: I ask him the question,
1:31:07
SPEAKER_01: you're in Texas,
1:31:08
SPEAKER_01: you've been on the side of bad judging,
1:31:10
SPEAKER_01: you're going to have to come out of yourself,
1:31:12
SPEAKER_01: are you going to have to change how you present in a fight and how you approach
1:31:18
SPEAKER_01: a fight?
1:31:19
SPEAKER_01: And he said something that makes me feel like he's winning, and that was...
1:31:23
SPEAKER_01: No, Mario, he said that wasn't the judging.
1:31:26
SPEAKER_01: That wasn't the refs.
1:31:27
SPEAKER_01: That was me in a position where I could have ended those fights.
1:31:30
SPEAKER_01: I could have separated myself.
1:31:33
SPEAKER_01: And he took that responsibility on.
1:31:36
SPEAKER_01: Very few fighters.
1:31:37
SPEAKER_01: In my 10 years of interviewing fighters and talking to fighters,
1:31:40
SPEAKER_01: actually longer than 10 years, just journalism.
1:31:42
SPEAKER_01: I've known fighters my entire life.
1:31:44
SPEAKER_01: That is not something they do very well.
1:31:46
SPEAKER_01: It's take accountability, right?
1:31:48
SPEAKER_01: Not until they've hung up the gloves and they can kind of like step back outside
1:31:52
SPEAKER_01: of themselves and really look at things.
1:31:55
SPEAKER_01: But you don't really hear that.
1:31:57
SPEAKER_01: You don't hear them take accountability like that.
1:31:59
SPEAKER_01: And the fact that Foster's in that kind of mindset tells me he's more ready for
1:32:07
SPEAKER_01: a potentially bad fight script.
1:32:10
SPEAKER_01: Or not a bad fight script, but a fight script where he has to dig deep.
1:32:13
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
1:32:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, real quick, I got to do something.
1:32:16
SPEAKER_02: So I got to go through this undercard real quick.
1:32:19
SPEAKER_02: We got Albert Chop Chop Gonzalez taking on Edward Kidd Vasquez,
1:32:24
SPEAKER_02: the only person to really have a dominant performance against Kidd Vasquez,
1:32:27
SPEAKER_02: a known spoiler, who gave Ray Ford and Joe Cordino.
1:32:30
SPEAKER_02: I think Chop Chop is the goods.
1:32:33
SPEAKER_02: I think he's a future star.
1:32:34
SPEAKER_02: He's a guy at featherweight.
1:32:35
SPEAKER_02: I want to see an investment in Steven Navarro and Emmanuel Moreno is the fight.
1:32:40
SPEAKER_02: I think people think Navarrete versus Foster is that is a battle of two.
1:32:44
SPEAKER_02: Two guys that fought in the 2023 U.S. National Championships.
1:32:48
SPEAKER_02: They're fighting three years later.
1:32:50
SPEAKER_02: I think that this is a fight that was taken because Navarro took an early loss,
1:32:55
SPEAKER_02: which should have been a no contest.
1:32:57
SPEAKER_02: And Moreno's team feels confident.
1:32:59
SPEAKER_02: I think they're from Texas, if I believe.
1:33:00
SPEAKER_02: And this is a let's skip the line type fight.
1:33:03
SPEAKER_02: I think there's going to be tons of emotion around that fight.
1:33:05
SPEAKER_02: And then two notables that I think everyone should be aware of.
1:33:09
SPEAKER_02: Derek Scooter Davis,
1:33:10
SPEAKER_02: pretty solid prospect, and Sammy Contreras Jr., I'm going to have a story about him.
1:33:15
SPEAKER_02: If you remember the golden boy prospect,
1:33:17
SPEAKER_02: Cesar Diaz,
1:33:18
SPEAKER_02: who was like his big brother who passed away, God, maybe eight years ago now.
1:33:23
SPEAKER_02: That's my quick hits on the undercard.
1:33:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.
1:33:27
SPEAKER_01: Chop Chop Gonzalez.
1:33:29
SPEAKER_01: I got to talk to him at the presser.
1:33:32
SPEAKER_01: And I got to talk to Robert.
1:33:34
SPEAKER_01: And it just feels like Robert's really in that place now.
1:33:41
SPEAKER_01: There was a time when I was watching boxing where Robert Garcia was a known fighter
1:33:48
SPEAKER_01: and then he was becoming a known trainer and the family was known to be such
1:33:54
SPEAKER_01: an important, rich history of boxing, specifically in the West Coast.
1:33:59
SPEAKER_01: But over the last decade,
1:34:02
SPEAKER_01: Robert Garcia's made a transition into something more than just a trainer,
1:34:09
SPEAKER_01: something more than just a former fighter who mentors kids.
1:34:13
SPEAKER_01: This is a guy who really understands the sport at the highest.
1:34:18
SPEAKER_01: That's fucking dope as hell, bro.
1:34:21
SPEAKER_01: Yo, look at that guy.
1:34:22
SPEAKER_01: Monster, bro.
1:34:24
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, he knows what he's doing with Chop Chop.
1:34:27
SPEAKER_01: But more than that, he has a vision for him.
1:34:29
SPEAKER_01: And Chop Chop really believes.
1:34:30
SPEAKER_01: That's the big thing is you can have a vision for somebody, right?
1:34:34
SPEAKER_01: Like Floyd probably had a vision for Tank or even Moten.
1:34:38
SPEAKER_01: But those guys didn't have the same vision, right?
1:34:40
SPEAKER_01: And so they were never going to work.
1:34:41
SPEAKER_01: And I knew that,
1:34:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:34:42
SPEAKER_01: from – But at the end of the day,
1:34:45
SPEAKER_01: when I see these two guys with Chop Chop and the way that Robert's trying
1:34:49
SPEAKER_01: to guide him and how he's maneuvering his career,
1:34:52
SPEAKER_01: he talked about putting him on the card with Abraham next year and coming to Texas
1:34:56
SPEAKER_01: and really branching outside of that West Coast Hispanic love and into
1:35:01
SPEAKER_01: a broader Hispanic territory, right,
1:35:04
SPEAKER_01: where Chop Chop becomes,
1:35:06
SPEAKER_01: you know, possibly, you know, the next fucking Vargas or the next De La Hoya.
1:35:12
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so that's the show.
1:35:13
SPEAKER_02: Mario, where can people support you?
1:35:16
SPEAKER_01: Yo, InfightingFX on YouTube and Twitch would be like the ones I would prefer y'all to follow.
1:35:23
SPEAKER_01: But TikTok and X, I rock out all the time there, InfightingFX.
1:35:26
SPEAKER_01: But please, FightsATW.com if you're a fan of boxing, wrestling, all combat sports.
1:35:32
SPEAKER_01: Go to FightsATW.com, check it out.
1:35:33
SPEAKER_01: In my opinion, one of,
1:35:35
SPEAKER_01: if not pound for pound,
1:35:37
SPEAKER_01: the best combat sports staff right now in all of combat sports.
1:35:43
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:35:43
SPEAKER_01: maybe a lofty opinion,
1:35:44
SPEAKER_01: but, you know, if anybody wanted to challenge me, I could definitely back it up.
1:35:48
SPEAKER_01: But, yeah, FightsATW.com, Infight and FX.