MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Instant Reaction: Jermell Charlo vs. Brian Castano | Morning Kombat

Episode Date: July 18, 2021

Brian Campbell is back with an instant reaction to Jermell Charlo vs. Brian Castano. What are the biggest take aways from this fight? Who's next? BC breaks it all down. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Yo, we're back at it. Instant analysis Saturday night. This is Morning Combat. Brian Campbell, one half of your MK Weekly Duo, or maybe three times a week. Or how about MK All Day?

Nearly every day, along with that gentleman, Luke Thomas, but no need to pimp for likes or subscriptions or immersed sales here. Let's get right into it. Undisputed championship bout, Showtime championship boxing, 154 pounds. We barked a heavy one this week that Jermell Charlo versus Brian Castagno had the potential to be dramatic, exciting, and competitive at the end of the day. And look, it, and competitive at the end of the day. And look, it was all three at the end of the day. And we're at the end of that day. And I'm tired right now.

BC, the BDE with the BBC. Some kind of letter combinations there. I'm tired because it's the end of the night. And I got more baggage under my eyes than the international tournament at JFK. But I'm tired of what became of this main event, which was a dramatic, fun, almost great fight. Despite a low

amount of output, it still had big moments. It was high skill. It was a chess match. And it was one hell of a performance from Brian Castagno and it's not the split draw which was the result that I'm upset about per se although I did score it 116 112 for Brian Castagno despite uh Charlo winning the last three rounds on my card eight rounds to four overall for Castaño. I'm upset about the hashtag that's boxing stain that we have once again on another great fight. Now, is it disappointing that you watch a great fight and you don't get a winner?

So, okay. Yeah. A little bit disappointing. If it was, if it was a little bit more even and competitive and it's a draw, you can't be that angry. Now, again, I said, I'm not here to argue about the draw, meaning I had an 8-4 to Castaño. You could have even gone wider for Castaño if you had wanted to, and I'll get into those reasons why.

But look, it's a close fight, a lot of close rounds. In fact, a good three of those rounds in the middle, I'm scoring for Castaño in some ways based on surges and flurries in the last 10 seconds. So that sort of shows you that it's close. So if you had it, a draw, or even if you found some kind of way to have it 7-5 Charlo. Okay. Like, I'm not going to be mad about it. I'll say, I would say at that point, it was a disputed decision. But when you get that absolute bullshit third scorecard that's almost copy and paste from the you know what's wrong with boxing playbook can i predict this coming in oh the more

marketable fighter you know he's gonna somehow get the benefit of the doubt jermell charlotte didn't get the benefit of the doubt he got all of it i mean get all of the benefits he got 117 111 for that third scorecard and i do want to this happens, get the name right so we can spread that name around, which is why we know certain judges in the past who have done that. Nelson Vasquez's nine rounds to three scorecard in favor of Charlo is so far off that it's not even like worth wasting the breath explaining why it's wrong or doing the you know teddy atlas like fueled overreaction of you know yeah it that's what it deserves that kind of overreaction it's a robbery this is an absolute

robbery again not that it ended in a draw but that we have another big fight like, you know, Canelo Golovkin won where you get that one left field score Adelaide bird scorecard. That is it's not it's it happens too often for it to be. Oh, wow. Bad night at the office for that well-known judge no it's it's it's bullshit it's it's it's past uh you know being inadequate at your job and it goes into that much darker territory nine rounds to three for charlo is is absurd so that's what happened and we get another that's boxing moment a great main event on what was let's give showtime credit whether i crash checks from them or not a fantastic triple header i mean this felt like big time boxing and the fights were competitive

they were fun they were wild this kind of stains uh you know what was a great main event mainly because you don't want your storyline coming out of it to be this controversy where the a side who's the much more well-known name, you know, survives by the skin of his teeth in a way that really doesn't make any sense that he could have. And now, you know, we're spending time talking about rematch, but not even that passionately. Now, look, I do think we will see a rematch.

I think you have to see a rematch. And, you know, at the end of the day, we get a second great fight between these two. I mean, look, they're getting paid. It's not the end of the world, but it's not the way the world should be and we accept a lot of this shit in boxing because of the disorganization uh this broken sport that we love that we forgive all the time because it's so deep in our blood and it's such a freaking great sport that you know we get those morsels we get that reminder you know we take a few beatings, but then once in a while,

boxing will buy us a gold chain again and, and, you know, prop us up a little and we'll all be like, Oh, I remember that feeling. Right. That feeling's great. Yeah. Well, don't forget this feeling too. Like it kind of ruined, you know, I'll dispute a championship out. You saw a close and fun fight, but you knew who outperformed the other and to have a you know it's like anytime the situation like this happens i would much rather have that had been 115 113 across the board for charlo still would have been the same disputed still

would have said castanho you know got, got robbed or, or, you know, got screwed or whatever, but it wouldn't have had that third scorecard even though we're only a couple of rounds apart on that third scorecard. I'd almost rather have three scorecards for Charlo that I didn't agree with than that one, just middle finger of a scorecard to the sport, to the, to everyone that tunes in it's it's frustrating. It's, it's fricking frustrating. And this is where we're at. And it's not that Charlo fought horribly. Although I do think, although Castaño, I thought box brilliantly.

I think the, you know, the major theme here is I don't think Charlo did enough and that had been, that'd become a continuing trend of late, you know, the loss to Tony Harrison in 2018 was kind of explained by him not doing enough, despite the fact there was a lot of talk about disputed scorecards there. And it was a disputed scorecard.

I thought Charles had won that fight, despite not looking great and not doing enough. He didn't do enough in the rematch either, but to his credit, he turned it on and he got Harrison out of there. And there's been a few other fights, even the knockout of Rosario last year. I'm like, you know,

Charles kind of a little too willing to give away rounds like this. So, you know, the storyline is that, you know, a great fighter, a pound for pound level fighter came out in a really big fight and didn't have his best performance and, and, and sort of, you know, left that Achilles heel open and let's give Castaño credit. He filled that, but we don't, you know, we don't get that storyline coming out of here. We're instead talking about rogue judges, you know, Nelson Vasquez and,

and, you know, even Steve Weisfeld, who was a great judge and a consistent in veteran, you know, he had a one 14, one 13 for Castaño. So he got the winner, right. But, you know, he scored round 10, Charles, maybe Charles best round, probably his best round when he right but you know he scored round 10 charlotte maybe charles best round probably his best round when he clearly you know had castanio hurt with that with that huge left hook off the ropes where charlotte is back to the ropes and counter with that left hand and then he backed castanio up with big right hands but didn't knock him down didn't look like he was you know i mean look like he was doing something but didn't look like it was destruction

per se that's a 10-8 round from steve weisfeld now it's a footnote now because it didn't affect the scoring but could you imagine if if that scoring of that 10-8 round as opposed to 10-9 which is what what it deserved you know had prevented castanio from winning or prevented him from getting a draw it's um it sucks if you know if you're if your team you know if your team argentina here and you it's like you almost didn't have a chance from the beginning but you know i'm not going to spend 30 minutes going down you know sitting in that shit puddle but just know that it hurts me like you know i hurt myself today watching this okay um johnny cash no no no i don't even like that for you know that that cover i think that's just a weird gross song so you know i'm

sorry right good job rick rubin but not you know whatever um all right let's talk about castanio did um in the biggest fight of his life he was great i mean he was freaking great okay was he aided by charlo almost not playing to his strengths enough yes he was freaking great. OK, was he aided by Charlo? Almost not playing to his strengths enough. Yes, he was. So here's the deal. Charlo is such a dangerous counterpart. Charlo did a great job, by the way. The first three rounds, even though I didn't give him all three, I give two of them, I think, to Castaño. But Charlo did a great job early of just lowering Castaño's output. So Castaño wasn't able to be that full on pressure fighter that he is all

the time. The guy he was against Iris Landilara. Why? Even though he was, he turned out to be the aggressor in this one. Why was he not that? Cause Charlo's power is fricking for real. No one's doubting that he's his, his speed and power and accuracy and ability to quick twitch, get at you. I get why he gets seduced by his own power, but he got really seduced by his own power in this one because Castanho's had the perfect balance where he made sure he was the aggressor so that,

that I didn't think there was a doubt on the judges scorecards. In fact, in those middle rounds of some of those key ones, like four, five, six, I thought it was Castanho's flurry late in every single one of those that stole a close round. But even more than that, he balanced responsible defense for a guy who's known for being a two-fisted aggressor known for sometimes squaring up a little too much inside,

leaving himself open. There was none of that. Castaño's defense and footwork was fantastic. It was super elite. It was great. And he figured out a way to find a weapon where it's not easy. You know, look at trouble. He's got great defense. It's not easy to land on Charlo. I think that's why he's able to be so efficient and effective in that counterpunching role. Even

if he's not throwing enough, he typically gets the knockout in the end or wins the round just by landing the bigger shots because he's so great at that. Castaño found a way to work in sort of that looping lead right hand that consistently landed and really set Charlo off. It was a punch he would get surprised at. He didn't see it coming, and it sort of just would – it wouldn't hurt him as much as it would just sort of offset him. And that's when Castaño would find openings to to do what he couldn't do normally which is kind of square up a little come in and start to throw combinations and not all those

combinations landed again you know uh charlo's defense was very good but you know enough did and those were the significant bursts of output in these rounds so castanho was brilliant in his boxing i didn't think he had that same type of technical prowess and IQ, you know, that Charlo does and that, and that he would have needed. I thought he was a overachieving, not brawler,

but overachieving pressure fighter in some ways. No, no, he's might be the real damn deal here. And, and he showed a great chin despite getting rocked a couple of times in this fight. And he never went down.

So it's a great performance for for the I'm looking down. Cause I'm checking out the CompuBox stats over 12 rounds. Again, CompuBox doesn't tell you who won the fight, but it certainly can help support your argument and help, help get some clarity. Castaño outlanded Charlo 173 to 151 overall, but here's the key in power shots, 164 to 98. So Castaño landed 173 overall and 164 of those were power shots.

That's an incredible percentage. So this is not a guy who really worked hard to establish his jab. He didn't. But here is a guy who put a lot into his shots. He went to the body a lot on Charlo, which I think in those middle rounds was having its way there. And just, you know, a surprising performance. I thought you heard my preview. I told you that this was a possibility that he could outwork Charlo

or that he could be in this spot. But to see him do it this way without needing to take a ton of punishment, he didn't. He didn't take a ton of punishment. That was great. Now, what Charlo did wrong was he abandoned his jab a whole heck of a lot, too easily in a lot of ways. And worse, Charlo pinned himself on the ropes repeatedly

and allowed Castaño to set up these sequences where both fighters are pawing, but not committing. And they're trying to make the other one, uh, throw and they're trying to faint to pull something out of the other. But, you know, usually it would be Castaño that would end these little dance offs by getting off three punches. And again, you know, two of the three are typically getting blocked,

but the ones are getting through and those are adding up and they were, he was able to start freezing Charlo by doing that little faint dance and then was able to sort of easily push him to the rope. So what Charlo did wrong was way too willing to stay on the ropes. He doesn't have the same leverage on his shots and where it gives you that visual to normal judges. And it's not that these three judges are abnormal. And again, close fight, good fight, couple of rounds.

You could have swayed the other way, but these judges missed thought from me watching at home what what what you should have saw what everybody else saw and that was you know maybe charlo certainly didn't have the urgency certainly didn't have the realization as this is becoming a a trend here and it's a trend i've talked to him about in interviews and other people have tried to bring up to him and he gets a little defensive or just sort of says well look my power takes care of it but I guess it is I don't want to say disappointing but it showed a uh a key weakness here in Charlo's overall game that he doesn't see the same urgency that he thought well you know I was getting off and hitting some shots and he was and by the way the rounds in which he established

his jab and used it it's's quick, it's accurate. Even if Castaño is covering up it again, it gives that image that you are taking the fight to your opponent and some judges in their own strike zone, they overvalue aggressiveness all the time. So it's something you have to know coming in. And that's a little bit of, I guess, pride and arrogance on Charlo's side to not see that, you know, this guy's doing some good stuff and I'm really not throwing much in return as I'm trying to, it's not that Charlo's getting closer to setting up that perfect fight ending or fight altering shot, but he has a, a, a blind spot and not being able to pick up and realize, uh, that these rounds were a lot closer. And, you know, I, I kind of jumped on

Derek James was the trainer of, uh, Jermell Charlo toward the beginning of the second half of the fight. I just didn't feel there was enough urgency in the corner to Derek James credit. He picked it up late and, you know, he's straight up telling, uh, Charlie, like, look, they got you down on the, you know, on the unofficial scoring and you're down by like three rounds. And, oh, by the way, like you need a knockout to win. And so here's the deal. It's like, Charlie responded to that perfectly in round 10. Again, he hurt, uh, uh, Castanho and, and seemed to be close. Like I said, to getting a knockout or a knockdown or, you know, even be close to stopping him.

But there were even points in that round where I feel like Charlo took his foot off the gas a little bit too much. And it's not that I would question, does he have three-minute stamina or 36-minute stamina? No, of course, he was in incredible shape. And I've seen him in some fights in which he's had to throw a lot more. And that's not the question here but i thought even in 11 parts of 12 even though i scored the final three rounds for charlo and i'm comfortable doing that even though they were close um you know there was a the difference in this is charlo didn't fight like he needed the knockout to win even though his corner was saying that he was still fighting like i just need to win the rounds now you know you can make a full-on argument hey bc

stop crying he kind of saved the day right he won the last three rounds and all three scorecards and he prevented a loss yeah but he he had to take a draw he had to take a controversial draw so you know they were talking on the broadcast you know you hope mandatories don't get in the way you know and that's look the reason why you don't see a lot of undisputed championship fights in this modern era is because they're they're hard to do first of all because you gotta you know you win one you gotta win three more but in a lot of ways uh the sanctioning bodies don't typically make it easy for you to do that and why because they don't you know all of them don't want their titles uh clogged up in one person.

What if that person's taking, you know, some time or is not fighting that active? And what does that mean? It means every time a fighter who's a defending champion wears that belt to the ring and calls themselves a champion, they have to pay a sanctioning fee.

I mean, it's really like the mafia-like business here. They got to pay a sanctioning fee, which is a percentage's really like the mafia-like business here. They got to pay a sanctioning fee, which is a percentage of their purse, which is why at certain big fights, Canelo and Floyd at certain times when he was angry at the sanctioning bodies was like, I'm vacating this title and I'm not fighting for it,

so I don't have to pay you the, because I'm making so much money on this fight that I don't want to pay you the sanctioning fee. And there were times when the PBC first launched where certain fighters like Danny Garcia, that for almost no reason, they'd fight one pound above their weight division. And it almost didn't make sense.

And I'm wondering sometimes if it does have something to do with not paying sanctioning fee. I don't even know. But the whole point here is that that's why the sanctioning bodies have power. And that's why they so badly want their belts being defended often so they can keep making money, especially from the fighters who make larger purses because that's a higher percentage of that and uh oh sorry i mean i i'm gonna keep having these just you know

so because of that we don't tend to see a lot of these undisputed fights. That's why, you know, WBA creates the stupid regular champion and the interim champion, the vacant interim champion. It's all bullshit for extra money and extra sanctioning fees. Yet we got through that bullshit and we had an undisputed championship fight. We just had one at 140 and, you know, we just had one a couple of years ago at Cruiserweight. And we're in this like good role right now. It's like a trend and it's great but what makes it hard or what makes it hard to do a rematch right after is that you know the mandatories are due and the sanctioning bodies put sometimes these like really quick turnarounds and you know you must defend the title by this time and sometimes it's

great when you want to see a fight other times it's sort of like it makes no sense because typically who's the mandatory some guy you never heard of from a fight other times it's sort of like it makes no sense because typically who's the mandatory some guy you never heard of from a lot of times from some country and you look at his resume and you're like there's no way this guy should deserve this title shot and why is this guy not ranked in any of the other sanctioning bodies only this one and he's number two and even though i've never heard of him and he's from you know some random country and has never fought out of that country. Yeah. Boxing's full of shit, man. As the great Pauly Malinowski used to say,

there's a lot of that yet again, we swam through that shit and we got four titles on the line in one night. And not only did we not get an undisputed champion, I don't know if there's a guarantee that we're going right back into a rematch and that's, that sucks. So let's hope we can get that secured. Let's hope Jermell Charlo would look at this as a, as a almost like a blemish as a, as a negative survive in advance. Yeah. You survived in advance, but it's a negative. It's a,

it's a you escaped. And then, and you know, you can argue that over time people don't remember the specifics as much. And you know, if Charlo never loses again, is everyone going to bring it up i don't know dude floyd's unbeaten floyd mayweather and i thought he lost the first fight to castillo and you hear a lot of you know hipster boxing fans always bringing that up and jose luis castillo and 50 and one you know 49 and one and all that floyd lost that time nobody else talks about it but the hipsters right no you know you got you got people all the time now regularly on camera saying Floyd's arguably the greatest fighter of all time, which, you know, Floyd's among the greatest, but he's not.

He's not, you know, the best. But now there's talking heads all the time sort of casually saying it. Those same talking heads don't bring up the Castillo fight. So my point on that long ramble is we may not talk about this, especially if these guys don't fight again. This may just be looked at one day as a, Oh, remember that draw? Yeah. Yeah. Didn't, didn't, didn't Charles get a whack scorecard. Oh yeah. You know? And, and I think that's what happens too often is that this happens too often and then nothing changes. Why? Cause some of the state commissions are inept. Yeah. Yeah. But why? Because we don't have a organized national sort of, you know, yeah. Sanctioning body. Yep. That, too. But I think one of the major reasons why this keeps happening, meaning these rogue third scorecards and then that same judge keeps coming back is, yeah, lack of accountability with the state commission.

Some people think, you know, are they taking a load of the envelopes too and all i mean look there's a lot of bullshit boxing but i think the biggest problem is that the commission does not answer for it afterwards every single time in a mandatory setting what do i mean by that if there's a controversial ending with a referee or in this case a judge on a like rogue scorecard uh 100 i believe the judge should have to go at the press conference after on camera in front of the media and face the music you know it's what happens in baseball when there's remember that umpire that blew that call at first based on that no hitter perfect game like 10 years ago uh there was a play at first you know exactly what i'm talking about even though i can't remember the teams or the pitchers involved.

But, you know, that guy did a shit ton of interviews afterwards like he should have to just explain it. And he ended up, you know, saying I blew it. I just need these judges to when they're in these high profile play spots for big money and they make good money. And when they screw up this badly, I need them to face the music and i need the athletic commissioner right there too and even if nothing let's say gets done on to match the outrage meaning there's not suspensions or you know people were moved from their jobs or whatever at least there's public accountability at least you're gonna go i know that name and that face and oh yeah remember those excuses he gave none of those made any sense um I think that's a step forward, but this sucked.

Yet the fight was great. And that's boxing. Hashtag that's boxing. And by the way, we'll get into this more morning combat on Monday, but in that co-main event, Raleigh Romero, Rolando Romero, he knocked out Anthony Yigit in a wild sloppy fight. And a lot of fouls. This was Roley Romero 101 in terms of why he's becoming like a train wreck variety must see TV.

He's just a different dude whose mind is in another lane. And he's got sick power and, you know, crude form. And you can question a lot of things about his game. But this dude believes in his power more than anyone I've ever met believes in anything. Right. And, you know, after the win, it's like, man, I want your font. And I want right now at 140 and I'm going to knock him out. I love that spirit.

I mean, bring bartender, bring that shit to me, please. Like, how do I inject that inside of do I have, do I have to grow a Mohawk like a Vitor Belfort 2013 and, you know, eat testosterone all day? Cause, uh, please, can I start acting like that? Um, you got to see more of them. So that was, that was fun. And in a, in a fun three fights altogether. So that's our situation. We got, we got, we got a little honest. We got a stain. We got a little on us by the way, on my wedding day night, well day, by wedding day, I wore white with white vest and white tie, not a white jacket though. I wasn't like that kind of asshole. If that was you, I'm sorry, but you know,

you're an asshole if you got married in a white jacket, but everything else was white. And the first bite of this incredibly great catered penne, a la vodka, you know, I'm just like, man, And the first bite of this incredibly great catered penne alla vodka. You know, I'm just like, man, hitting at the wedding table, you know, that it's euphoric and you're throwing down drinks and you just got hitched, man. You know, and everyone's there for you and the DJ is playing badass music. And first bite, the the the the pasta, the penne, you know, which is like bright orange, just, I almost opened my mouth and I must have come up like when you shoot a free throw and you come like a foot and a half short and you're just like, yeah, what do you want from me? Dude, what do you want?

Go ahead. Go ahead. Off with my head. Please kill me uh but uh that was uh a massive stain across my tie shirt vest on a white tie shirt and white vest you know he could sell ketchup popsicles to a woman wearing white gloves uh no the the ketchup got all over the penny got all over me and you know there's a pit crew of aunts and grandmothers and, and, you know, it's like, I'm like this patient and they're just, Oh,

they're scrubbing it out, trying their best to get that out for the, I think we'd already taken pictures, but you know, the rest of the night you'd be dancing, you have your jacket off, you, you know, you don't want to see that shit. And that's what happened to us tonight with thank you, Nelson Vasquez for, for handing them that scorecard. Because you just spilled penne, all the vodka, all over our white vest, tie, and shit.

Only it wasn't penne. It was shit. Okay? We got shit on. Hashtag, that's boxing. My name is Brian Campbell. Hope you enjoyed the fights, because did despite the ending seen this movie and this way you know it's as if like imagine if every movie in hollywood watched that awful awful movie million dollar baby with that awful swerve ending and

we're like that's the new ending bro all the movies are going to end that way we've seen this before in boxing and we're like, that's the new ending, bro. All the movies are going to end that way. We've seen this before in boxing. Probably to see it again. Hope to see you again, though. My name is Brian Campbell and I'm one half of Morning Combat. Hey, it's you. Yeah, it's you.

There you are. You're there. That's it. Thank you. Thank you for being a friend, you know, traveled down the road back again. Yeah. All right. We out.