5 Live Boxing with Steve Bunce - An Extraordinary Ten Days in Boxing

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

Has boxing experienced a stranger ten days? From Conor Benn’s departure from Matchroom to Oleksandr Usyk defending his WBC title beneath the pyramids, and the emergence of a reported $1 billion lawsuit, the sport has produced no shortage of surprises. Buncey is joined by Boxing Scene editor Matt Christie to try to make sense of it all.

This is Five Live Boxing. That's been a ridiculous last 10 days in the boxing business, especially the British boxing business. Connor Ben left Matron for Zuffa Boxing. Zuffer Boxing announced that it's going to be the promoter of Tyson Fury's next fight, and Ben's going to be on the undercard. Frank Warren is going to sue for $1 billion. Floyd May River is back at 49, and Alexander Usik, the best heavyweight in the world,

is fighting outdoors under the sun. stars in front of the pyramids in Cairo against a kickboxer. Ridiculous, I said. I wasn't kidding. I'm Steve Bunn, and this is Five Live Boxing. So as I say, it has been quite ridiculous. That's my favourite word at the moment. Let me just run through it.

Before I introduce you to the guest, the only guest that could have been in the big chair for this particular show. Let me just run through with you. Friday, February the 20th, Ben, as Connor, announces a Zufferdil. He's left match room. Wednesday, February the 25th, there's a no comment day from Frank Warren, as he announces, he's planning to sue Turkey Alashake and seller for $1 billion. Later that day, there's a crazy, quote, editorial from the Ring magazine attacking Frank Warren.

Zuffru announced that they're going to be the promoters of Tyson Fury against Arsenal Beck-McMoodoff, and wait for it, drum roll please. Connor Ben is going to be on that bill. By the way, it's on Netflix and not on DeZone, which Cosella and Turkey Outa Shake have a massive stake in. It's like a soap opera with this, don't where I'm not even started. I'm just warming up. On Thursday, February 26, it's announced that Floyd Mayweather,

who will be 49 at the time. He's 48 when it was announced. He turned 49 the next day. We'll fight Mani Pachia. Their fight back in 2015 was about seven years too late, and it was dreadful. I know, I was ringside. First round was okay.

The rest of it, absolutely rubbish. They're having a rematch at the sphere in, in Las Vegas on the 19th of September. It's a real fight, apparently. And just in the last few minutes, it's been announced that some legendary kickboxer from Greece, whose name I don't know, will fight Floyd Mayweather in Athens in June.

I'm not inventing this stuff. And then on Friday, February 27th, just before we thought we could have a nice quiet weekend, it was announced that Alexander Usik will fight Rico, the Hoven, the king of the kickboxers. That fight is going to take place in the shadow, in the shadow of the pyramids,

at Geysa in Egypt. Boy, oh boy. Then the WBC said the title was on the line. Then they said it wasn't on the line. They'd make a special bill with hieroglyphics and camels and pyramids. And then in the last, I don't know, 15 hours they've announced it is on the line. I'm exhausted from just reading out the facts. That's eight days. Now, the man I've got to go through it with me is the former editor of boxing news

and the current editor of boxing scene. Matt, Christy. First of all, Matt, how are you? It's difficult to keep your head straight with all of that going on. And, you know, we're going to talk about this. But how long have we got? Are we going to be here for three weeks? Because we're going to need it.

When I came in, I sent you straight away. And you didn't know, it happened in the last half an hour that Floyd Mayweather has announced his fight in this kickboxer, some George Zambides or something, who apparently is a legend. He's a genuine legend. 18 times world kickboxing champion. And that was announced since you sat down here with Paddy

and had a coffee waiting for my slightly late arrival. We better get this pod done quick before something else happens. Exactly. You're looking at Twitter. You're looking at social media all the time. And you're just concerned about what's going to come next. Because it has been insane. Now, you've been in the industry about as long as I've been alive.

I've never known a week like. But you haven't either. Listen, that's a really good point to make there is that this isn't normal. Some people have said to me, oh, it's normal. Connor Ben leaving wasn't normal. Frank Warren's initiated, he's confirmed it in the last hour, a $1 billion suit against both Zuzu for boxing basically, is seller. That's not normal. Heavyweight champions fighting in front of the pyramid against the man that's only had one fight for the real belt.

That's not normal. None of this is normal. Let's get that right. These would be extraordinary single stories in any given year, let alone an eight-day period. You're absolutely right. When you were going through that timeline, which was never-ending. I was trying to identify which particular incident surprised me the most

because your jaws on the floor with the whole Conner Ben Matchroom News right at the top. Absolutely, yeah. Well, I thought it was a spoof at first. I don't know where you were at that exact moment, but I thought genuinely it was a spoof. Someone had sent me it via text message with the question, is this AI? Yeah, and that's what it looked like, didn't it? And it felt that way.

even when there was a pitch with them together, I still wasn't absolutely sure. And it was confirmed. It had happened. Of course, some repercussions from that. Eddie has said the door's not really closed. He's talked in a sort of, in a general way, about possibly there being some sort of recourse.

I've been corrected and told that Eddie did have the chance to match the offer, which he didn't, but that his comment about Connor not wanting to talk to him is true. And that's one of the most astounding things I found about that, in my personal opinion, Matt. Particularly when you consider the history between them. Now, I think Connor Ben has said hasn't he, he felt that emotions would be too high. And for now, or in that instant, they couldn't have a conversation. We could do it over text, but not, they can't have a conversation. And that, that's really hard to believe, given everything that Match Room have done for Conor Ben. I know it's

easy to kind of, particularly in this day and age with boxing, just to presume that the promoters the villain, but in this particular one, that whole thing has been flipped on its head. Yeah, we're not sure who the villain is here. But people, people... It looks like Connor. It looks like Connor. Absolutely. It looks like Connor.

But then, if you're offered that amount of money... 15 million seems to be the given figure and a one-fight deal, which means he would have the chance afterwards to cherry-pick where he goes with his fights. And, of course, the fight will be on Netflix. and Eddie will have nothing to do with it whatsoever. No, he won't. And when the news first broke, I thought that Eddie would be waiting around in the background

and then once that fight has occurred, then off they go again with their Match Room Adventure. But that doesn't appear to be the case, at least not the moment. I do think Eddie Hearn knows the boxing business really well. I think he'd be silly to slam the door in the face of Conor Ben, and he won't do that. It's not wide open, though, is it at the door?

Judging by his words, I mean, no, we can revisit it or whatever his expression is. We can revisit that at a later time, which is basically a nice treading water expression. It might happen, but it'm not ruling it out. No, but we've seen it in the 90s with fighters leaving Frank Warren and then going back to Frank Warren. And we've seen some of the biggest names in the sport back then.

Big names, yeah. And it happens, and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it happened. The thing that I'm considering now is, like, in terms of... Don't start considering, Matt, we're being all day. I'm dealing strictly in facts, no considerations. But in terms of Connor Ben, and initially you think, well, how could he do that? Well, why shouldn't he do that when you're being offered that amount of money? And the way you described it is, people won't remember me in 10 years.

I might have retired in 10 years. I'm going to earn as much as I possibly can. So the whole thing with that is that this is about, Conner Ben used the word emotion in that comment when he said he didn't want to speak to Eddie, so he knew it would be emotional. And in many ways, our heartstrings are being pulled because we know what Eddie did for Connor during the drug situation, during that period, loaning in money, standing by his side. And as Conover said in various interviews,

taking a kicking for me. So perhaps our judgment on it is slightly warped. Because you're absolutely right. A fighter leaving one guy when he's out of contract to go somewhere for an absolute fortune for a potentially easy fight. He's fighting Regis Prograde, potentially easy fight. You know, we shouldn't, as people in a boxing business,

we shouldn't, we should applaud that, shouldn't we, in some ways? We should do, but we've also got our own perceptions moulded by events of the last three or four years. Serious events? Yeah, serious events. And we know that Eddie Hearn did go above and beyond for Conner Ben during that. And I think you could make the argument, as Eddie Hearn has kind of alluded to since, that he kind of muddied his own reputation by throwing his arm around Conner as much as he did. He certainly threatened matchrooms sort of pretty, you know, pretty,

And his pretty boy image is a good guy by sticking behind a guy who had failed the multiple tests. Of course, the Connor Ben thing is part of what's now opening up into it. It seems an odd time to talk about it, but a bigger battle, a battle that's not that straightforward. Of course, we now know that Zuffa failed to secure Ban Rodriguez. Eddie had to do all sorts of shenanigans to keep him on side. And it does seem to be, to be, especially now that Conner's been added to the Zufa card, which will be the Tottenham Hotspur in April involving Tyson Fury in Arsenal and MacMudov.

He'll be the chief support on that. It is very much a confrontation. We're in confrontation, we're at war. It feels like it. It feels like it's been rumbling below surface for a little while. And in the last week it's exploded. It really has. And you kind of turn a bit of a blind eye to it

when one promoter is having another go at another promoter. Straight forward standard. It's been going on for so long, for too long, from my point of view. But all of a sudden, with the signing of Connor Ben after everything that Matrim had done for him, at the point where Conor Ben at last was the superstar that Matrium had long promised us he would become.

And then Dana White swoops in with what we're told or what we're led to believe, $15 million. And Conner Ben now goes over to, who has become, in the last six months or so, Eddie Hearn's biggest promotional enemy. Yeah. It's soap opera stuff, almost. It's confrontational, isn't it?

It's massively confrontational. It is. And I think anybody that thinks that or just presumes that the only reason they've signed Connor Ben is for his fighting prowess, his market ability. There's a much bigger play here. And that is Dana White establishing his perceived superiority over someone like Eddie Hearn. Because a lot's been said between them.

Absolutely. So when you look also at what Dana's done and what Eddie's. said and what Dana has said. In some ways, you can agree with both of them. Eddie Hearn has said, look, they're putting on fights that if I put on, people would ridicule me and they're calling them the best v the best. They've got a load of puppets inside the media to scream and shout about just how great these fights are when they're not. They might fool some people, but they're not falling us in the business. And then Dana, as meanwhile said, feels like I'm bashing up babies here. Feels like I'm beating up babies. Of course, Frank Warren's retort to that was, and we're not.

babies. Don't worry. And we're not babies, which shows you that there's more fronts to this. There's more fronts to this than straightforward AVB. There's a C involved. There's a D involved. There's an E over here. There's an F over there who doesn't know what side he's on. And also a lot of people to declare whose side they're on. It's never easy in war. I've been reading the book at the moment about the Second World War. It's never easy. It's never A, B, and then people line up behind A and B. No, they're all over the place. until basically between us. They can sense who's going to win.

Then you get massively behind that particular team. Right now, it's ugly. Okay, so we've got to be a little bit careful with this next bit. This came up last Wednesday at the Fabio Ward, the Daniel Dubois conference. We got news confirmation that Frank Warren would be issuing legal proceedings. They're still in motion as we speak, claiming a billion dollars because he claimed that he had a – he signed the contract. contract with TKO that gave TKO access to Queensbury's contract with Seller. Now TKO is an amalgamation

of the UFC and the WWE with some really powerful people including of course Dana White as part of it. So Warren's claiming that he basically taught the people at Seller all about boxing, allowed them in, they could see everything, he was doing business with them, and that he claims that the subsequent deal between Seller and TKO to full. formed Zuffer boxing was done behind his back, I think we can say. Now, that's a billion dollars. His actual comments are no comment with regards to it because it is in process. What's your understanding of that situation, Matt?

I think there's some exclusivity as well that has been breached, isn't there? In the when Turkey Al-L-Shake and Frank Warren were initially shaking hands and holding hands. was that it would be for the next five years. And with TKO coming along, that is the breach of contract there because it would appear that TKO in the form of Zouffer boxing are going to now be sole promoter. They've sold a five-year deal.

Yeah. The seller and Zouffer deal is now five years. Yeah. So you know as well as I do that if Frank Warren hasn't got a really good case, absolutely. He's not going to go this. far with it. If he didn't have what he considers a slam dunker, then I'll be really surprised he's

making so much of this. He must have, he must, he must be so sure. Given what the contracts that we're led to believe were there in the first place, then you can say that these are breaches of contracts. And if it's as simple as that, then there's, there's going to be some serious negotiating. If it goes to court, I'd be surprised. Yeah. But I think there will be some negotiating behind the scenes. And I fully suspect Queensbury to come out with. quite a handsome sum. It seems to me that the communication between Frank Warren Stroke-Koenix-a-shaec is over. However, Eddie Hearn has said that he is still talking to Turkey Alashake and that he admires in some way the way how easy it is to do business with Turkey

because it is very direct. You know where you stand because he's asked for something and you either deliver it or you don't deliver it, which is my understanding. But it's clear It's clear that the Frank Warren and Turkey access is Finito. Given the fighters that he's got, does he need Turkey, LL Sheik? And this is the question that's going to be answered, I think, over the course of the next few years. Hopefully not the next two hours. Hopefully not.

But it was the response to all of this that we then saw on the ring social media channels. I think is perhaps the thing that surprised me the most over the last week. This was issued a few hours after Frank Warren and let everybody know that he was initiating proceedings. And a few hours after Frank Warren formally announced Fabio Wardley against Daniel Dubois, the co-op in Manchester. I'm not a legal buff, even though I've lost in court and won in court and been sued lots of times and there are lots of stuff against me.

But there seems to be some really simple things there that need correcting. Was that diplomatic enough? I think it's diplomatic. I think you could look at that and say that there's probably a lawsuit in every paragraph. It's not even a lawsuit per post. It's incredible to me. I mean, the most ridiculous thing, which is what the majority of people picked up on, is that they are suggesting that ticket sales are slow.

Well, the reason they're slow at that particular point in time is because nobody could get a hold of them because they hadn't even got on sale. And then you've got the rest of it, which is kind of conjecture, the use of the word rumors, which is almost used as, justification to get away with it. Yeah. You see a post like that and you think it's from one of those nameless lunatics. Absolutely.

That you see on social media. What you wouldn't think is that that is from a reputable publication. Yeah. That supposedly is one of them is the most respected boxing magazine in the world. And that's why. And that's why I'm out of the bay, absolutely well added. That's why when I first saw it, I was amazed half an hour later when it was still there. I was even more shocked when it was there the following day.

And I don't think there's been any tickles in it either, as we call them, which I would call you, I'd say, Matt, change that to this, change that to that. We had to do it. In fact, we had to do it once with a Frank Warren story over Box Nation. Yes, I remember it. Fold in and George, George Warren called me up and there's no shame in this. So, Bunchy, that's not true. That actually didn't happen.

So I looked at it, yeah. And if George says it didn't happen, and it wasn't a major part of the story, it was a little tickle. It was a one-sentence tickle. I have no problem with that. I mean, we're not in the publish and be damned business. We are if we think we're absolutely right. But on a column, you've got no problem.

And that, in theory, is an editorial stroke column. That could have done with a little bit of a brush stroke. To put it mildly. And I'll tell you this now, we might both find ourselves having our knuckles wrapped over the next week or so, over just even suggesting that there was a problem with that. There was a problem of it. It was poorly written, for you don't mind me saying. So I'm not a big love of all the American spellings.

By I understand it's the Ring magazine. To be honest, if it, it was a little bit, in my opinion, it was a little bit, it was unnecessary. It was unnecessary. It was a bit childish, in all honesty. And I know there's good people, really good people at the Ring. Loads of really good guys working there. And I would imagine that they, they really, really cringed when they saw that because again to kind of just you know the ring

magazine had been around since 1923 I believe yeah something like that and to me now this just highlights how much the ring magazine its reputation its brand and its respect in the industry is being used simply as window dressing by some very influential people and of course ring magazine was bought and acquired and such a You know, by Turkey Alasheque in, what, late 2024, if I'm not mistaken. So we need to get that. So what we have here, then, is we have Queensbury and Frank Warren lined up firmly against Seller and Zuffer, it seems to me. And we clearly have Eddie Hern and Matrum lined up firmly against Zuffer with Turkey being on the sidelines there.

Where will we be in a week or so, Matt, in your opinion? back on planet earth hopefully good luck I think there will be whether it will be made public or not there will be another lawsuit I'm certain of it there's going to be another lawsuit about that particular social media post that we just discussed without question

I mean that is that's guaranteed I mean the libel there is staggering it is staggering it is staggering but you do wonder how all these pieces are going to drop ultimately you kind of have you kind of have you do on the one side you have Zouffer

seller, Turkey L. Sheik, the ring and then you wonder if they're going to do battle with something that powerful with all of those combined has everybody else got to get together? So you're talking about an allegiance between Bob Aram and Eddie Hearn who worked together at the weekend

and Frank Warren who supported Eddie Hearn over to Connor Ben's situation and then of course Oscar De La Jolla who's a wild card anyway but certainly will not come down on Dana a white side. So could they have an unholy alliance? Maybe the four biggest promoters,

the most successful, quotes, traditional promoters in the world, could they be, could they even form their own? And wouldn't it, wouldn't that be something? That would be good, wouldn't it? Well, you'd think so.

You'd think so. I mean, we've always said that the more that these guys work together, the better, but wouldn't it be interesting that one of the people that they're at war against, which would be Turkey Al-L-Sheek, is the guy that taught them all to work together in the first place. Oh, I'm going to slightly rephrase that,

told them all to work together in the first place. Can I have, can I have that, Ed? You can have it. I mean, as an egg, I'm going to ask you tonight politely. I'm going to argue my case for it. Told them they had to work together. Talk them's a lovely expression. You're a diplomat, Matzky, but he told them you work together,

or we don't work. I'll go find someone else. Which, of course, he did. You know what? It is a relentlessly changing and shifting landscape. And I'm hoping, I'm hoping, that as much of it can be released that's factual rather than just ridiculous claims and ridiculous comments.

Before we go, we've got to just have a little quick chat about Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pachial. Floyd turned 49 the day after this was announced. It looks like and sounds like it's going to be a quote, Real Fighter, the Sphere on September the 19th against Manny Pachia who was last year fought for a world title and looked old but not that old. Floyd, I see clips of him on a bag where people are going, wow, wow, well, I don't go wow, wow, wow, well.

It looks to me a bit like Mike Tyson did in those build-up fights. He said, like before Roy Jones and before Jake Paul went for seven seconds. He looks fantastic. But most fights don't last seven seconds. What was your thought when you heard that one? My immediate thought was this is just so unnecessary, to be honest. but then when someone like Netflix attaches themselves to it

and you know it's going to be generating millions and millions and millions. What's your take on the eyes on? Jake Paul says their eyes on, it's great. Traditionalists go, but there's 104 million people viewing none of them stay. What's your take? I think that I haven't really seen any hard evidence

that all of these people will stick around because where is everybody else when all the other boxing is going on? And I think you could look at the first Manipakiaw Floyd Man. Mayweather fight, that broke box office records. I think it was four point seven million people bought that, paid for that at home. That record still stands, which tells me that we did lose some fans with that particular

fight because otherwise the record would have been broken every single week. Again and again and again. So the danger for me here, or the fear, not danger, I'm not in any danger, hopefully, we're not to liberally heard this anyway, but the fear for me is that it's going to be an absolutely stinker and there is only so long in my opinion that people will come back to boxing. Yeah, come back to fights like that. Because if you look at Jake Paul

versus Mike Tyson did a stupid amount, not as many came back for Jake Paul versus Anthony Joshua. About a third of that figure in theory. No, you could have an argument there about whether AJ is more famous than Mike Tyson or vice versa but also common sense should really tell you that Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson was a load of nonsense and people don't

want to see it again and this is the thing, the more and more fights they produce like this which are a little kind of got that kind of pantomime element to them yeah there hasn't been one that's been particularly entertaining or has been a really good advertisement for the sport but they've been great events and they've also been and this is semi-devil's advocate they've been fantastic they've done great business for netflix if they haven't done 104 million households they've still done 30 million households and so which of course is which is great which is great business for them and they're still relatively cheap compared to a movie in in in in that sense.

Yeah. So to get their return, and I get to walk on the beach barefoot in Miami for seven days. So don't kill it just yet, Matt. I need holidays. I've lost my six holidays a year in Saturday, okay, which were like,

which were beautiful, like rehab. And now you're trying to make me lose my holidays with Netflix week-long shows. Please, have some sympathy. But you know what, though?

I mean, the first fight was disappointing. Yes. It was disappointing. First round was okay, and then it just collapsed. I think round four wasn't too bad as well. I think Paciour attacked.

in round four. 10 seconds in round four, yeah. But there is a small chance that this will be better. Yeah. Given Mayweather's reflexes. Donkey Derby. Yeah, exactly. May not be a better exhibition of boxing.

It might be more entertaining. As I said at the top of the show, Mayweather will be having, I'm going to get to this guy's name, because it's really unfair not to read the guy's name out. Mayweather will be having a kickboxing fight against Mike Zambides, who I think is an 18 times former kickboxing champion. He's 45, Mayweather's 49, it's not a bad age.

That's going to be taking place in June. in Athens and of course a couple of months before that also somewhere exotic so I might get to go to Athens and then I could in theory be on the outskirts of Cairo at the pyramids in the shadow of the pyramids watching olexander uzek against rick overhoven who of course is trained by peter fury which is a nice little sideline he said one professional fight for hoven and that was in 2014 where he knocked out a guy who'd been knocked out five times and he knocked him out in the second round I think and then the guy retired with a six and zero

six knockouts defeats. You're kind of tempted to kind of to pour scorn on it and I think as a title fight quite how the WBC will justify this. Why is it? Because it started off as a WBC fight then it got downgraded

24 hours later. Then in the last 12 hours it's been returned to a WBC title fight. Now, what sure why do you think that's happened? This is a fight that's being made put together by seller so I'm not even sure if Zuffer might not even be the

promoters. I don't know if they're the legal promoters yet but it might be by the time this pod is released. And of course Zufa are at war with all of the sanctioning bodies because they've got their own belt which I'm going to say I'm not very impressed with. Well they're

at war with all of the sanctioned bodies as well as seemingly with some of the promoters and yeah they're under a lot of pressure, I think, Zufa, to make this work. I'm not saying they can't do it, but a lot of people have come along with grand ideas in the past. And the difficulty with this... They've got deep pockets and big boards. They've very, very much so. But the difficulty with the Zufa belt at the moment, which is first going to be contested in a few weeks, or is it next weekend? Saturday week. Yeah, next weekend with J. Apartea and Brandon Glanton.

Yeah, so that's the first one. But then you look at that and you're like, okay, so that's essentially yet another title. So we're going to have the Zufa, we're going to have the ring title, going to have WBC, WBA, WBA, IBF, that's before you even get into all of their... Turkey's undisputed, the interims and all of this. To me, it just muddies the water. So what they need to do is they need to create something that is far better than anything else so that it stands head and shoulders above everything else. Then you look at this, what the WBC are doing here.

And I think that the WBC are fighting for their lives here. They're trying to get everything out there. It's a bold move by them, saying this is our champion. It's bold. It's also, it's a racket. I mean, I was at the WBC Convention in December over in Bangkok. Great week. Maricio Suleiman, he's a great guy, but sometimes you do question some of these decisions that he makes.

And at the time, Alexander Yusick was there. He lets things get personal, Mauritio. Yes, exactly. And Alexander Yusick, he put in a formal request to make a voluntary defense of his WBC title. And at the time, that was accepted on the condition that it was Deonté Wilder. Oh, yeah, exactly, because the Deonti Wilder fight. This is another thing that we've lost over the last two weeks. Two weeks ago, if I'm not.

mistaken. John T. Wilder was fighting Alexander Usik in July in San Francisco in front of 150,000 people and it was going to go free to air on YouTube. So since the Conner Ben situation on the 20th, we've completely forgotten about that stuff. I know, I know. What a business, Matt. Where does start? Where do you end? It's incredible. It's incredible. But there will be a P-P people, quite rightly poor and scorn on this matchup for Usick versus Rico. And they're every right. to, but I think if you look at Alexander Usick and you look at the last six fights he's had in the heavyweight division, beat Dubois twice,

beat DeBois twice, beat A.J. twice. If there were ever as a man was entitled to a freebie. Exactly. If there was someone that deserved a low risk, high reward contest, Fury's done it against Francis Ngarno, AJ's done it against Ngarno and Jake Paul.

Eusek's got every right to do it. But therefore, if it is that, should it have a title on the line? Not in my opinion. No, and you know what? It doesn't, I mean, I understand what Mauritio has done here. He's making a stance against the people that want to strip the belts and want to make them all extinct.

That's a quote from Turkey, if I'm not mistaken, from last year. But he could have just given it because he'll still make the special belt with all of the camels and the hieroglyphics. You'll still make that belt anyway. And all jokes aside, one of my favorite fighters over the last three or four years,

it's been Ajit Kabayel, who's obviously now incredibly popular. in German. He's the interim champion. We know he should have got a crack. But just like we know that Fabio Wardley should have got a crack and someone else should have got a crack. You know, this is not a fair business boxing and it's never been. Asiqqabial should have had his world title fight last year. Let's be absolutely brutally honest. He's been overlooked for too long, but he'll have to take a back seat here and wait for something. I mean, in fact, I'm talking to Frank Warren last week, I think they'll go back to Germany for another

Cabayel fight where, I mean, I don't know if you, I didn't get out to that fight in January, but it looked incredible. But it isn't good when a man who's an absolutely massively deserving number one contender and interim champion has to take a back seat to a 30, what, seven or eight year old Dutch kickboxer who's like been the undisputed king for something like 18 years. I mean, they're not messing around with his stats, my son. They're saying he's undisputed for not one, not two. 18 years, Matski.

Well, he is in the kickboxing world. He's a legend. He's a great. Is he bigger than Zambides who's going to be fighting Floyd? You tell me. I don't know. I've no idea. I'm only asking, let me ask this keys on the escalator, baby.

He knows. But the thing is, the problem here is that you have Cabiel, who has more than earned his shop. And the other problem as well from Usyk's point of view is because Ucic, there's a lot love for Alexander Usick. Yeah. And he was, he was, he was forgiven

for the Fabio Wardley situation. Like, hang on a minute, you've had a tough run of fights. If you don't want to fight Fabio right now, yeah, fine.

Fabio Wardley earned his shot. Yeah. Cabielli's earned his shot. And while these people are waiting, and Yusick, for my mind, the world, everyweight champion, the only world, every white champion out there.

For my, and he doesn't need a Zuffabot, does he? He doesn't need one. I hope, I hope not. He doesn't need one. But then when he is

fighting a kickboxer, instead of fighting more and these deserving fighters are there, that's when you will start to get all of those people that adore you sick slowly start to turn on it. It's some business when in an eight-day period

the undisputed, the so-called the real undisputed, the number one heavyweight champion in the world, fighting outdoors in front of the pyramids against the man having only second professional fight who's a professional kickboxer. It's some boxing well when that's not even in the top five stories

of the last week. Really is. And it's not even in the top. top five, is it? No. Where do you start? Where do you end? Matt, listen, I tell you what you've been absolutely sensational tonight. It's been lovely sharing this platform with you, knowing that you're probably never going to work in boxing again, but you've had a good run, son, as they say in the trade. Meanwhile, I'm going to just throw my body at the feet of the lawyers at the BBC and hope I'd

do okay. Now, it's been a really serious week, eight days, nine days, ten days in boxing. We've maybe treated it a little bit lighthearted, but some of the giant stuff, when, when, famous boxing promoters, Hall of Fame boxing promoters, are threatening to sue people or have issued proceedings for a billion dollars. When fighters like Connor Ben, with all that loyalty and love, walk out on Eddie Hearn. When fights get made in front of the pyramids, just a ridiculous time. And it's got, as they used to say in Fleet Street, it's got legs. And as I said in a column recently, it might have legs,

but we're not sure if they're two or the four-legged version. if they're human or dog. I've been Steve Bunce. He was Matt Christie, and this has been Five Live Boxing. Five Live Sports. The Six Nations. Rugby's greatest championship.

What a day of the Six Nations it's been. Live commentary of every match on BBC Sounds. I don't think he has to try. Just a stunning score. One of the all-time great tries. The Rugby in a weekly podcast will be daily throughout the tournament with all the best insight and analysis and the biggest names in the kids.

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