The Ariel Helwani Show - Inside Boxing | Benavidez-Opetaia-Mikaelian mess, Keyshawn Davis fallout, heavyweight updates

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

Dan Canobbio and Chris Algieri open the show by reacting to Keyshawn Davis turning down the Devin Haney fight and the domino effect it‘s going to cause (05:09). Will Haney pivot to Liam Paro or Jack Catteral? Will Top Rank freeze out Davis? It’s a mess (15:04). After a historical conversation about the heavyweight division (20:30), they look ahead to Moses Itauma vs. Filip Hrgovic (31:37). The heavyweight division is in transition as Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua is likely headed to Madison Square Garden instead of Wembley Stadium (39:11). The David Benavidez-Jai Opetaia-Noel Mikaelian mess has gotten even messier, as Zuffa announced Opetaia vs. Mikaelian, while promoter Don King threatened a lawsuit claiming Mikaelian already has a fight scheduled with Benavidez (47:09). Claressa Shields fights Kaye Scott at middleweight this weekend in Atlanta. Could Shields fight Tamm Thibeault, recent winner of three middleweight titles (57:16)? Finally, sad news hit the boxing world, as Pritchard Colon passed away. The former contender suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2015 and spent the better part of the next decade trying to recover and become an advocate for fighter safety (1:00:50).

All right, everyone, welcome back. It's another episode of Inside Boxing, presented by ppv.com on Crown, Yahoo Sports, all that good stuff. We're back from our summer hiatus. Chris, haven't talked to you in like two weeks. I took a nice little summer break. It was much needed.

I was actually still working because the boxing schedule never stops. I was in Orlando for the MVP card. Still monitoring the boxing world. We'll get to a lot of topics today, all the things we missed. Miss you, Chris. That's what's most important. How are you?

I'm here. I didn't go anywhere. I didn't stop working either because boxing does not sleep on this side of the, I mean, country, bottom, southern part. Hemisphere? Yeah. You know, we're, yeah, I guess so. It's not quite the southern hemisphere, but it's southern part of the, of the country. But yeah, we've been busy down here. It's a big month for ProBox TV. We're starting that membership. So I've been active in the studio and posting and reposting. So the work never stops. I go to the boxing scene. website, it's your giant face with $5 next to it. Yeah, yeah, just $5, I can be bought. $5 for Crucese Algeria services. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. We're looking for volume,

you know, we're not looking for the big, the big high dollar viewership. We're looking for the, uh, it's a good deal. The common man. No, boxing, boxing is, uh, it should be, boxing is a, is a, is a poor man's, you know, to be a fan, but like, it should be a low barrier to entry, and that's kind of the idea. Also, I've seen you on Instagram over the last couple weeks, gloves on, throwing hands in the gym. So something you want to tell us? Nah, I've just been working with the kids over a Boca PAL. We've had a resurgence over here at the PAL. You know, pals are falling off and amateur boxing's falling off. And I've just trying to get more involved. I've been speaking with USA boxing about potentially working with them, trying to

get some things going with the amateur programs. And again, there's been an influx down here in Boca, so like our, the police are actually really helping us. Like, Pal means police athletic league. So you're supposed to have help from the police. We had the basketball ones here and the long out. And it's usually, you know, it's officers that help. So the officers are finally starting to help over here. Not finally, but once again are starting to help. We've had a big influx of kids. So we have, we have a bunch of studs that are getting ready to train. So I've been going down there wherever I can to work with them, donating some gear, buying some stuff. I'm trying to, trying to build up the, uh, the stars of tomorrow.

All right, so this is a, you're doing good in the community. This isn't for your personal comeback into the boxing world. No, no, this is just a, this is a give back to the community, not a comeback. Give back, not comeback. Love that. What else is going on? I was in Orlando for the MVPW card. That was a fun one, so Tam Thibo.

She's good. I like her, man. She's tough. Very good. Maybe she'll fight Colourcious Shields, who fights this weekend, down the road. Dina Thorsland, the Nordic? Wow. Non-stop.

Oh, my goodness. Non-stop. She's always been good. Don't get me wrong. She's always been good. But I didn't expect that kind of performance because Sharnika's been on a hell of a run lately. But Dina went out and showed out. I was absolutely taken back by performance.

Like throws punches and bunches, like comes at you, like kind of Pacchio. Like comes out you to your straight line by throat, but like, and she's got these short little arms. That was a fun much sort of. She's a bit of a throwback because she's a bit of a throwback. because she's like the generation right before the ladies right now. And there was a lot of that. Who was the fighter who gave Katie Taylor a ton of trouble? Tall, long fighter.

Pursune? Yes, yes. Similar type style. Just aggressive, throws a million punches. That was what won the day before the ladies of today who are really, really sharp. The ladies today are like sharp counterpunchers. They set things up. Volume, volume.

Right before us. Right from the opening belt. But even Amanda Serrano, she's a volume puncher. just hits really hard. So that generation right before the ladies we have today, that's what won the day back then. But Katie Taylor was like the transition from volume to being the smart transition that we're seeing now. Katie Taylor fights in Ireland. I think I believe in September, her final fight. Amanda Serrano going for the knockout record next weekend in San Diego, which I'm headed out to. The first ever championship fight on TikTok live, and I'm hosting it. That's awesome.

And it's in San Diego. San Diego. That's one of my favorite cities. It's in Pichanga. Not exactly San Diego. Close enough. I'm going to be driving about 35 minutes, 40 minutes. Dude, you're in Long Island.

35 minutes is like to go get groceries. That's nothing. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that TikTok event. Like, it's got some really interesting guest plan. I'll just leave it at that. You'll see soon. Like, guests you'll never think of in the million years to be joining me on a watch party for TikTok, an MVP, as they do.

What else is going on? the box. We haven't got your thoughts on Kishon Davis. I got Naji's thoughts. He guest hosted our last episode on the heels of Kishan declining the $2.13 million per spid, which would have been the highest payday by over a million dollars that he's ever had to not fight Devin Haney. I know you've just been stewing on this one. What was your reaction to this before we move on? I'm not just going to attack Kishon. Obviously, Kishon's the guy in the news or not. But this is this generation.

These guys talk and then don't fight. It's crazy. I don't think that fight was ever. I don't think he ever wanted that fight with Devin. And you went on a whole tour calling the man out, Dibbo, this. Where's Dibo making all these videos back and forth? You went to the Friday house. Yeah, and then you get the opportunity.

Three million wasn't enough. You push it back to purse bid. You know, the businessman obviously made a poor. business decision on that one. Even Bob's like, I don't know what this kid's doing. Bob Aram. I'm perplexed. Yeah. That's, when Bob says that, because, you know, Bob's a consummate from order. He's always pushing his guys. Even he, when he gets, when he gets honest and he's like, I don't even know what's going on here. It tells you things are, things are not good in the hood. But it's just, listen, I don't, this generation's weird. It's such a weird guys.

The way they move, I don't understand it. Trying to be tough. Like, tough guys fight. Tough guys call each other out and they fight. They fight when they see each other. They fight on-site. On-site's not a thing anymore. But also it's like, they got so many layers to protect them from actually fighting guys.

You can literally call anyone out anytime. It doesn't mean anything. Back in the day, who was that? Bernard said, anybody calls me out, I'm fighting them. He's fighting them. And Bernard was a million, multi-million dollar fighter, and he still lived by that.

We don't have that anymore. This generation, I think Tim Bradley's been saying, This generation's soft. I have to agree. The Twitter fingers just ain't it. We got to get back to boxing, man. It's very strange. And there's been a lot of fallout.

It's obviously happened like two weeks ago. So it's been a lot of fallout. He's been posting stuff on socials with the businessman hashtag. Comments are on. Comments are bad. What kind of businessman are you? Like, close down the business. If you're the businessman, then like going at a business sale.

Exactly. Now I've heard. some things where like top bring doesn't owe him a fight until next may so they can freeze him out they have to be a pissed off i don't have to hit up anyone at top rank so to get their official feelings on how they feel about kishon they have to be just at their wits end with this guy because this is not just the first like misstep you know we're talking about missing weight uh marijuana we're talking about what happened in norfolk where he blew up the whole event uh got to a fight in the backstage like we're talking about a multiple offender here

When he's good, he's great, he's bad, he's terrible. Bob loves him. He's like, oh, that's our future star. And then now he's like, I'm perplexed. I don't know what's going on. Like, yeah, it's, it's, with Kishon, it seems like it's always two steps forward, maybe three back, you know, because he really is not really making that much ground. He did. And then he just gets so much bad PR for himself, you know, each time out.

Or maybe it's three steps forward, two steps back. I don't know. Is he still inching forward? It doesn't really seem like it. He has stalled himself. And for people at home who don't know how contracts work, if you turn down a fight, that can count as a fight that was owed to you by the promoter. So that's why when Dan says they don't owe him a fight until next year, because essentially that was, that fight was a deal, it was done. It was offered.

It was an offer by Top Rank initially. He turned it down, obviously, ultimately, after the purse bid. So now that counts for Top Rank's offering. They don't owe him until, you know, the following year. I don't know what Cop Rank is going to do about that because he is a star. We do want them fighting, and they want them fighting as well. But I don't know. I think they got to do a little bit of a rebuild in terms of PR.

Oh, big time. Once again, like that. And like who is he going to go from here? Like enjoy fighting Frank Martin on like a top rank card for like $300,000. Also not an easy fight. It's also not a not. Frank Martin's good. He's going to be $2 million to fight Haney.

Like I don't know. He does not go for a title shot. He's not going to be handed a title shot anytime soon at $1,4. 47, that's for sure. Does he go back to stay at 140? There's a lot of things with Kishon, and it's not good. I was hearing. Like, oh, maybe he wants to go to Zufa. Maybe this is a way for him to stall out, but he's going to have to really wait then because Top Ranks is not just going to let him out of this contract. And he's not like it's Shakur or he became a free agent or Tiafima where he became a free agent. There were many, many fights on the Kishon Davis contract with Top Ranks. So the Zufa theory, I think, is he got some legs. Maybe he does. I just want to join Zufu to join his buddy Chagor. But I don't, that's not happening anytime soon unless he wants to wait until he's 30 because he's 27. He's not a kid. The thing with Zuf is, and I get it, because I've been, you know, like you said, I've been wearing gloves lately.

I've been in gyms lately. I've been in multiple gyms down here. My nephew was down here for a couple of weeks, so we were traveling around getting him smart. And I'm talking to certain guys and some former pros, some got pretty solid guys. They're asking, oh, I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about Zufa. They go, first of all, they go, what do you think about Zufa? and I'm just like, hey, you know, it's, it's, it's, you know, the initial first year we're trying to figure things out. He's like, I'm, do you think I should, I'm thinking about doing it?

I go, absolutely. I'm like, how old you? You're over 35 years old? Absolutely. Go get the money. Yeah. So I'm like, yeah, go, go, go fight. Yeah, perfect.

Like, making their debut or like guys that have been around? No, no, I'm talking about a guy with 25 pro fights and a former, like, a former South American Olympian, a good fighter. But, like, guys like that, I'm like, yeah, absolutely. Go, go and fight. Like, you know, go, go get paid. go get treated well. But then a guy like Kishon, who, as good as he is, hasn't done all that much, that's not the right move for a guy like that.

Even Hitchens, I'm kind of like, there were some really big fights for your career-wise. You could have accomplished before that. A guy like Shakur, because he's done so much, I get it. He's even said it. He's like, I'm a guy, I'm probably going to retire early because my skill type, my skills are based on my reactions, and those are the first things to go, so I'm not going to be one of those guys who's fighting for a long time. So, like, for him, it's like, he's already a four-division world champion.

He's, you know, he beat Tifima Lopez in a virtuoso performance, which is a big, big win. You know, he hasn't got the biggest fights that he wants or deserves, and this might put him out of the running for that for a little bit. But I understand, like, he's already got a stellar career, Olympian, medalist. He's got a lot. But Kishon, though, like, you needed these big fights. Hitchens, he needed, he needed that door. He needed those kinds of fights.

And now you go over there and you're handicapping yourself a bit in terms of what you're able to accomplish during your prime years. Yeah. It isn't over there, too. You said over there. It's over there. It's over there. We have that still.

Like we thought everyone under the DeZone banner, all the promotions, pretty much under DeZone, right, we're dumbed outside of the streets. And then it's like, not so fast. There's that street over there. See it in the distance? That's Zufa. Different block. Yeah. Yeah, it's still a chasm.

Casm. I can't like that word. Fuck. All right. It's spelled chasm. It's, how you just pronounce it? Casm? Casm.

All right, there's a chasm out there. And the chasm is, uh, there's a war going on between Yahoo. There's a war in the streets. Uh, uh, Phramount, um, DeZone. And, and Chikora's on that side. Um, Devin Haney, fallout of all this is, uh, still looking for an opponent. It's August 13th. Devin Haney hasn't fought this year. Devin Haney doesn't have an opponent. Liam Paro. I like that fight. IBF Chailed. IBF champion says that Devin Haney is ducking me.

He priced himself out. Jack Catterwall is in the mix who's been like a WBO interim, I believe, not the mandatory because that would have been Kishon. Caterwall in the mix. I don't know where Haney goes from here, but we've got to get this guy in the ring. Paro would, to me, unification would be a nice fight. Parro is the fight. I don't know. I mean, reports are that he priced himself out, which I don't know. So tired of this. Yeah, exactly.

Again, this is where I'm not calling any single guys out because it's just, it's too often. It's just generation. I don't know. Liam doesn't strike me as that kind of guy. He fights on the road, you know, like he's willing to take tough fights. He said it himself. So I don't know how true those reports are. I don't know if maybe, you know, priced out in terms of,

By whose take? By which side are you pricing yourself out? I can't even... Is that Bill going like, nah, I got it doesn't deserve that much? Let's go attract Caterall so Liam thinks that there's a trouble. This fight might fall through and then he'll come down and price. Maybe. There's a lot of ways to negotiate these kind of situations. It does muddy the waters.

I say it all time. Boxing is the best sport in the world. It's the worst business. Now we're seeing the business side of it, how ugly it can be. But Liam powers the fight. It's a unification. Liam's good. He deserves it.

Does he beat Devin? Probably not. I would favor Devin heavily. I think everyone would. And Caterall also deserving, but he's always like the deserving guy by default. Because he's just, he's always there. He's always willing to fight anybody. He doesn't really get his own shots. He gets, he steps in for people. And this is one of those situations. But he's just not a very exciting guy. And he doesn't like, Haney Caterall is inviting that ring on fire. Not at all. Haney Caterall is not something I have to see. Paro.

It's a good fight. Paro's a little more of an exciting guy, a little more, we'll take a little more risks. The Caterall Haney is going to be a complete tactical chess match. Caterallel has shown power. With zero buzz, though, Dan, no buzz. Zero buzz. Dane is looking for buzz.

Paro doesn't have much buzz either, but at least it's unification. It'll have some because you got Australia. Australia is like a huge market right now. It's really on fire. too. Oh, my God, yeah. I mean, even women's boxing. We had like three women's fighters from Australia on the last car.

Devin's been there, too. Devin, go back there. I'd go back there again. It would be a lot for him to do that. If Haney fights power in Australia, then you were just talking about how this era is soft. Crown the guy. Crown him once again.

Devin Haney, you're that guy. But I think he'd do it here. You would think, but I don't know what if it's going to happen. You know, Liam, I think they, what happened? They won the purse bit. That's why they did the title fight for Crocker down there, right? I think that was a car per se truce.

But listen, he went to Puerto Rico to fight Matias. He went into the Lions Den for that one to upset Mattias and win that title. So that was super impressive. So I tip my hat to power all the time because of that. Even when he came, he came to New York and knocked out Montana. Montana Love. Was it New York, Miami? Whatever.

Regardless. Regardless. He came over here. He came over here as an opponent for Montana Love. and he and he busted his ass. So Liam Powell is legit. I think he would be deserving of this fight. I think it's actually a good fight.

I think we'd like to see tactically how Haney would handle that. Haney's very good at dealing with Southpaws. But Paro is a little bit of a tricky Southpaw, and he's got some power. So it's, that's the fight. I hope that we do get that since we're not obviously getting the fight we really wanted, which was Kishon and Haney. And I feel stupid because we got so excited about this two weeks ago when we were talking about it. And of course, it doesn't happen.

I didn't see this coming, though. Like, I didn't see it going to purse bid number one. It's like, I didn't see that. I didn't see them finding, having a purse bit, like. Did you see Bill say that there was another million for Kishan and could have found it? Did you hear? On the next to see that? On the next to the sock drawer?

Where? Guy, sorry. Let me tell everybody this, too. As someone who's been on the other side behind the curtain, the money that we hear is not real. it's different. It could be higher, it could be lower, but there's always more money. There's always more money to find.

There's money in the bananas stand. Guys, there's always more money to find. If a fight really wants, if they really want to make a fight happen, like, for example, they really want, like Bob said it in the press conference at the Ruslan. They, I was the only option for Pacquil.

They needed me. I knew that. I held out. Found more money. A lot more money. I was able to negotiate that because I knew of where I was, there's always more money.

guys. There's always one money. But doesn't the perspid kind of limit? It's just like cut and dry. It's like here. No, the purse bid Fs things up. Yeah. It prevents more money to be thrown in. Yeah. But if you don't accept that, if you don't accept the fight, which Kishon didn't, there isn't like, all right, let's go back to it. WBO's

like, all right, we're moving on. We're taking him out of that ranking and we'll find another one. But we'll move on to a voluntary defense for him. If you, this is not the first time if you follow Dan, Dan Raphael, he said this. This was a bit of a mock perspid. This was already said. There was only two, there's only two bidders.

And one was the zone has all the networks. They're not going to have them. They're not going to have promoters driving up the price for the network that's going to be buying it. The deal was done. The deal was done. That's why you had Tfi Mal Lopez. He threw out what?

A million dollar or a million and a half dollars. And then you had top rank who threw out eight point, whatever. So the deal was already done. It was already established. Everybody knew what they were getting. Devin knew what he was getting from both top rank and DeZone because he has a deal on top of that. And Kishon had his money.

But again, there's other monies. the money's to find if you really want to... What if he just wins and how his life could change? Not for nothing. Three millions a good payday. I think it was two, but yeah. No, no, no. For the person, the initial.

The initial was three. That's another part that's just so aggravating is, it's just so mind-numbing and like why, for a lot of times we don't know exactly what goes on in negotiations and fans take sides without knowing the full facts. I can't believe this guy did this when he didn't even do that behind closed doors. But for this scenario, we knew all the numbers.

Like him turning down 3 million to only go to Perspit to get 2 million and turn that down, it's just unfathomable. It's one of the biggest missteps of the last 20 years in boxing in terms of business-wise. In terms of like pricing yourself out

or not taking a fight. You could just tell he didn't want the fight. Didn't want the fun. Why do those stupid-ass videos? Because he thought he was behind the Twitter wall and guys, cool guys out all the time and the fights never even come close to happening. I think this might have been one

like it started getting really close being like, All right. We're already past the threshold that people want this. Did he get bad advice? Like Jay Prince has a pretty good track record. I wonder if he got bad advice.

Does he think he could get this fight in a couple years? Does he think he's not ready? We saw Tio do this a year ago against Haney, too, by the way. There was a lot of money on the line for that. That fight was this close. And these guys...

Turned down Haney to fight Shikor and get 12-0ed. Yeah, and he was going to make more money for Haney from what I understand. And now he's back to his own... Tio with a big time contract. I never want to, like, get into the Benevita stuff next because I need to, like, cleanse the palate from what we just said.

So I'll get to the heavyweight news. Some other stuff that happened a while. Some good heavyweight news. Some good heavyweight news. Yeah, let's start with the good heavyweight news because there's some BS in here, too. Daniel Dubois, Fabio Wardley rematch set for October 17th.

Just a few months after their first epic clash, which is one of the best heavyweight fights that Frank Warren has ever been. put on, according to Frank Warren. Wow. Do you believe this is, do you believe that this is too soon for Fabio Wardley? We're only going to know when we see the fight. I can't say it.

I would have rather him. Or let me ask you this. Should have Fabio Wardley taken more time? Should he have taken a tune-up fight, then went to Dubois, or go right to it? I'm going to speak from my head and then from my heart. My head, yes. Get yourself reset. You know, get a little rebuild.

Come back. Maybe Dubois loses the title. You got to fight somebody else. You know, whatever. My heart, fuck. Wardley's the, he is in throwback. I love what he's doing. I love what he's done.

I love his whole career. I love it. He's so fun to watch. He fights like the 1980s heavyweights. I was watching, who was I watching? Or it was early 90s. It was, oh, man. Might have been Beau.

Might have been Bowleyfield. I mean, just killing each other. I'm like, oh, my heavyways don't fight like this anymore. Where'd these guys go? What happened to these guys? And then I was like, Wardley Dubois was like a early 90s, late 80s heavyweight title fight,

where both guys are just going for it. It should have went down the Trump Taj Mahal. Oh, so good. So good. They used to always fight like that. They used to always fight like that. Yeah, Holyfield Bow.

That was like my first introductions to heavyweight boxing when I was like eight or nine years old. I thought every heavyweight fight was like that. They were rocky movies. They were rocky movies. You were like second tier. and like guys like, what's his name, Iyibucci.

Ike Ayyabuchi. That was even a little later. I'm thinking guys like Bert Cooper. Oh, geez. Just, I mean, just, just killing. Who's the guy I'm thinking of the Samoan, not the Simone? But he was like a big, yes. David Tua.

David Tua. Oh, that was another one. David Tua, Hassim Rockman. There was clips of that one. I mean, good God. Just, just blasting away. Oh, remember Moscaev? Mosque.

Oh, the big rush, big squarehead of Russian, who, who knocked, Rock Monturobes. Like, he was another one. Just, these guys are in constant wars. The fights were so fun. They were Rocky movies. And we've really gotten away from that because we've got these big super heavyweights.

But Wardley's not. Wardley fights, he is a big, athletic guy who puts it on the line. He might get ruined in these two fights, which would be a real shame. So I mean, he's 31. He hasn't had much of an amateur career. Didn't take a lot of punishment.

You know, doesn't have a lot of, miles on the odometer, a meteoric rise to where he is right now, where he was as heavyweight champion now trying to get it back. Got that going from. Listen, he's been a world champion in a very good heavyweight error. Like, you got to give him that. I was going to say, like, yeah, like it's more comparison up to the 90s, which when we did our heavyweight tier list, like the 90s is probably one of the 90s. 70s, yeah. 70s number one, 90s 2. And like, you could make a case for our, this most recent

era of heavyweights is the third best since the 70s. Unless you put 80s. We had Tyson, we had Larry Holmes, but like it didn't have the, it was a tweener. It was like, uh, yeah. Larry, Larry was like, he was the ball. He was the king. Mid-80s on, 85 on was really nice. Yeah.

Oh, that was the fight actually. Now that you said it was Larry Holmes, old Larry Holmes fighting of Vanderholyfield. And I mean, Larry's getting his ass whipped at the end of a fight, but he makes it to the the end immediately just throws up like a gallon of fluid out of his mouth. I'm like, this guy's fighting, fighting to the very end. He was in his 40s at the time fighting a Vanderholyfield, like rocking and rolling, like killing each other. Speaking of Foreman, I know you're not really an online guy.

You're not on Twitter. I wonder if this reached your desk. Our friend Ade Oladipo is in deep deep doo-doo. Oh, no. I like Adi. He didn't do anything wrong. He just had a horrible take. He was on a podcast, a BBC Sport.

podcast with him, a gentleman that I didn't know, and then Eubank's sister, never seen her before. And they were talking about marketability of boxers. And I think they had like a drab. Each person took someone and then gave their, stated their case why they're the most marketable fighter. And Adi had Ali, obviously, massively marketable fighter. later on in his career in life. Not early on.

No, not during his career. He was a very divisive. Very divisive. You're not drafted. You're not giving him a Nike deal. That's for sure. So, like, they get to, like, Foreman, and he's so dismissive of Foreman. He says this line, like, oh, just because you could sell grills.

You think you could fight. Whoa. The girl, the UBank says, you know, Rumble in the jungle, thrill, and Manila aren't even top ten pay-per-views. which is just a crazy statement because, like, there wasn't paper used then, like a billion people watched some of these fights because they were on, like, short, close circuit, like, cable TV. It was just like a very, very misguided type of clunky exercise on a podcast

that he thought no one was really going to see. It mixed around on Twitter. People are calling for this guy's head. Like, they're acting like it's a scandal. They're like audio or label, break your silence. How dare you? It was just the way he, you got to watch it. The way he kind of dismissed, like, Ali, I mean, excuse me, Foreman.

I think it was because he had to dismiss him because he was doing his little, like, exercise on the pod. So he's more taking his stance, defending his stance rather than actually, well, regardless. It's a ridiculous take. It's a crazy take to say it, number one, that, like, he's, he's just a guy that sold grills. Number two, like, he's, he was, I wouldn't say he was, like, the most marketable guy, but he was definitely a huge star.

70s, they thought he was going to kill Ali. He obviously wasn't like the jovial pastor selling grills in Mighty Key break pads, but like he still was one of the biggest names in sport in the 70s. Yeah. Towards the, you know, when he was fighting Ali. He was the sunny list of that era. And he knocked Joe Frasier's head off. Like he beat him like it was a hammer on a mallet on anvil.

It was ridiculous. Yeah, no, he was the scariest guy in the sport at the time. He was sunny Liston and Mike Tyson. You know, that's what he was. the scariest man in the heavyweight division. And then he came back and had a whole second career. And then he became actually very marketable, obviously, which, you know, the girls came out. It was kind of funny, though, he was like such a, he was looked at those, like, he got booed in the Ali Fraser too when they brought him into the ring. And he was looked at as an angry guy.

Like, he was mean. He was mean. He was a mean street guy. He was a mean. So now, then they seem in the 90s as like everyone's grandpa. Well, he found God. And he became a preacher and he got away from the sport for a long time. And he changed his life. And I think, I think both of those were real. I don't think. I think there's a, there's, I don't think he was playing a part. I think, I think that's the way he is. But regardless, in the ring, he was a killer. When he came back in the 80s and early 90s, he was an absolute monster, just knocking

dudes' heads clean off. Even that was huge. He's also one of the heaviest, heaviest, uh, punchers in heavyweight history. Him hitting that heavy back? No. No. And he was smart. He knew what he was, he knew, he knew how to fight.

Um, he was way smarter than he gave, he gave, he has credit for just because he had the ridiculous power. No, Foreman's A phenomenal historic legendary heavyweight I did contribute to the The piling on The visceral?

Yeah, I was like this is the worst tweet I've ever heard The worst take I've ever heard But like it's getting The vitriol, excuse me Vitriol, like take it easy on Idae Like he doesn't He isn't like brand new to boxing He hasn't been around forever

Yeah, doing his best Just we got to figure out a way, Dan That we gotta, how how can we get the new generation not to forget history? Because I've been in these gyms for 20 years now, and these kids don't know the generation right before them, let alone 70s. How do we get people? Just Mayweather? Basically, it's crazy. And I mean, like, good fighters. I think it's more than just a boxing thing. I just think that generation doesn't know history of anything. They don't know TikTok brains don't go back that far. Well, TikTok is probably the best way for you to learn about

stuff like that. Like, if a TikTok boxing account. I need to start a TikTok boxing. history channel. In your seat with your, in cigar, let me tell you the story of... That would be pretty cool, actually. I have a smoker's jacket, sit there. Highly edited. Back in the 70s. Let's go way back.

50s. I just think, not to get all on here, I just think, like, today's 20-year-olds or teenagers, 20-year-olds, they just don't care about the past. No, as much as we did. Yeah, but it's funny. Like, even Chikor, he had that take where he was like, oh, man, I didn't really as Marvin Hagler was just good. It was like, wow, come on.

And then we called him out on it. He's like, of course I knew who he was. Yeah, okay. You didn't. Yeah, revision is history. But anyway, we, I don't know, I think I need to work on that. I got a friend who's like a, like, he is a savant in terms of boxing. Like, you can tell him a location and a year, and he'll tell you which fight it was.

Or the other way around. You can tell, you ask him, all right, they fought, you know, when Sunny Listed and Ali, their first fight, He'll rattle it all. Maybe I'll do a show with him, do a little TikTok channel. You don't have to be, like, too deep, you know, like, a lot of these kids know Tyson, but do they know, like, Riddick Bow? Do they know Van der Leofield? Do they know the supporting characters?

But do they also know that these guys fought in the amateurs? Do they know Lennox Lewis was, you know? When's the movie coming out? Yeah, that's another. Fight for 84. When's it coming out? I don't know. Couldn't tell you.

They know, that's about my pay grade, bud. It's in, what's it, post-production? It's in post-production. editing. I think it's like, didn't they say it was the fall this year? I don't know. Remember? I don't know.

All right. When I know, y'all or no, probably you guys are probably, you guys are probably know before me. That's going to reach a lot of people. I mean, it's on Netflix. Yeah, they called my nephew back in to do some voiceover work, so they're obviously still doing the pre-production stuff. Yeah, Fight for 84 movie that Chris was a part of last summer and fall.

A year ago. Going to be on Netflix, Jamie Fox. I trained the actors, wrote the fight scenes, and I play a, I have a guest cameo as a Moroccan referee. That's going to be amazing. Can't wait for that. Moses Atama Philip Hergavik fighting next week in London is now for the vacant IBF title. Frank Sanchez took step aside money in order to face the winner.

And now Moses Atama makes his bowels. bid to become the second youngest heavyweight champion outside of Mike Tyson at 21 years old. I expect him to beat Hergevik. Yeah. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Not mad at it. Very cool.

Big step up. My issue is that the slope just got slicker. This is a very... With him being a champion? Yeah. Because Frank Sanchez is no joke. You go from Hergovich, which is a big step up too. Ergovich is no joke.

I agree with you. I see, I see, um, Talma handling Ergwick, but like, it is a step up and is a dangerous fight because Ergwick can punch. But then going right to Frank, which is another step up in a different way, um,

in every way from, from Ergavik, uh, listen, when you're a champion, there's no more building. That's the thing. You got a,

you got a strap. The building, the building phase is over. Yeah. He's, he's going to be a 21 year old world champion and he's, and he is there for all the smoke at this point. So,

so do you think, think like if he was the champ at 21, if he wasn't a champion at 21, he beats Hercovic, this fight was never supposed to be a title fight as it is now. But then they give him Sanchez next. That would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I think, you know what I mean? It's like, were they, were they going to feed him a Sanchez level next anyway? Frank just destroyed Richard Torres. I wanted to see Torres in a town move, so we can, we can, we can move on. I think about Sanchez and sparring this past weekend that he was getting pieced up.

Not Sanchez, Torres. That Torres are getting pieced up? He's back sparring after the fight? No, no, like in the lead up to the Sanchez. Oh, oh, oh, well, I mean, I wish I would have been told that like beforehand. It doesn't, but, but Dan, I would tell you it doesn't matter. I've seen Colville get pieced up and sparring and they go out and blast the guy out in three rounds. Well, he was probably drunk.

I've seen Joe Smith get pieced up by Will Rosinski, and then when they fight. Joe is... Will Rizinski. Saw him. He's got a documentary out. Yeah, Will, Will's an awesome guy. Very, very awesome guy.

Good fighter. FDNY now. Yep. Yep, has been for quite some time now. Very, very good fighter. He won the Golden Glover's, what, four or five times, something crazy like that? Yeah.

He was good. Yeah, so Atama, Hergevik, which I think is going to be an awesome fight. I do like Atama inside six rounds. I think he's too fast. I think Hergevick is so plotting. Good, fighter. So slow.

Slow, sorry. I think the speed, we're going to be like, holy shit, Atama's so fast. Yeah, the speed is really the difference. It's the 28th. But it's going to come down. Listen, Ergovich has a lot of experience. And if he can set some traps, because timing beats speed, going back to George Foreman, one of the brilliant things that he said.

29th. So, yeah, 29th. It's the same night as our Pro Box show with Leson Ratinas. Good lot of boxing. It's also the same night as the MVP. Peek, Meyer versus Chantel Cameron. Also good fight. A lot of boxing that night.

A lot of boxing that night. Good, good weekend of fights. Yeah, I like that. Because it's been a little slow. Like, we took this time off in like, probably the, it's midsummer, dude. The world slows down. I know, but like, once again, was in Orlando working.

Scott Nicholson's with MVP now. She saw that. She came to the photo shoot. Which is good. There's a lot of good, there's a lot of good fights there. I feel like at this point, like, with Matchroom, teaming up with MVP, you got to. To get your ladies the best fights, because Matchroom has a lot of very good talented fighters,

to get the best fights in the world, which is a very small talent pool with the ladies, you got to combine forces. No, I thought it was really smart for Matchroom and MVP. Well, MVP has shown that they're willing to work with everybody. You see, this PFL merger. I got a big, a lot of information on that this past weekend being with MVP. It's just going to be called MVP next year. It's not going to be called PFL.

It's MVP MMA. So they're absorbed. it. Absorbing it. They're taking in like all of our marketing, our social team.

We're taking in 400 plus MMA fighters. They have that many on their roster? Wow. They're doing MMA events.

MVP MMA events with the MVP belt next year. Like it's going to be crazy. Don't have a broadcast home yet. Obviously they're looking at Netflix.

I think that was a big reason why PFL wanted this because it's a good merger. It's a good joining of forces, if you think about it. Because PFL has the fighters, but they don't have like the cool marketing and their brand has fallen off a little bit.

And the network. And MVP's got the network connections. They have Jake Paul promoting it. Hate it or love them. They have an unbelievable marketing team and an unbelievable messaging behind it. It's puzzle pieces. It's a puzzle piece.

I got what you need, you got what I need. Let's team up. Very smart. Yeah. So I got a crash course this past week on hearing about what next year is going to be like, a lot of MMA events.

A lot of, but still MVPW. They want some of the women boxers to potentially get into the cage. They want some of the MMA fighters to get into boxing. Dakota de Chieva, who is the... I interviewed her. She is tall and she is really good. And she keeps breaking her hands, though. She broke her hands again for the second time,

and I think as many fights, both hands, bro. I felt so bad for her. On Crown just did a documentary on her. It's out right now on the... Ariel's YouTube page. She fought last week, two weeks ago at UBS Arena here on Long Island. Had a great performance, broke her hands again, both hands. When I went to go shake her hand at the pool, she's like, I'm sorry, I can't shit.

My hands are broken. Dan, Dan, you don't know the rule. When you meet fighters, you don't shake. Really? That's why you knuckle, because our hands are sore, literally. I just watched her dominate. I thought she was fine. She was up the pool with her mom, no cast, son.

Don't shake, don't shake fighters' hands. That's why you knuckle them up. That's why we do that. Our hands are sore. Okay. I'll keep that in mind next time. So I, so my hand, I have, I had notoriously bad hands during my career. I broke my, both my hands multiple, multiple hands.

Never at the same time. So, but my right hand was always really, really bad in my thumb. I used to have a trick. So people watching at home, for you fighters who are watching home, when you got sore hands, when you shake someone's hand, you put your two fingers in the middle of your hand so they can't squeeze it too hard. So when you shake, you put your, you put your, You know, you go thumb to thumb and the thumb meet,

and you take your pinky and your ring finger and you put it inside. It keeps people from me able to squeeze your hand too hard. Have you done that to other people? Where? What? Have you tried that? That's what I used to always shake people's hands with. I still do.

Don't squeeze my fucking hand. I feel like if someone did that to me, I'd be like, yeah, what is going on? Like, why? Yeah, it feels weird. It keeps people from, because it's weird. You get two knuckles hit you in the middle of your hand, and you're like, and you don't, you don't squeeze her thing. Is that some secret boxing handshake that I don't know about?

some fraternity that you guys are in? I developed that when my hands were sore for, you know, for... It's pretty smart. Ten years, ten years of my life. Ten years of my life, my hands hurt, so... That's crazy. Did not know that.

Did not know that. That's it from the heavyweights... No, no, no, no, no. The BS. We're into the BS section of the podcast. We started with the BS. Now we got more BS. There's probably more BS later, too,

because there's a lot of BS going on these days. Fury A. AJ is likely headed to Madison Square Garden. November 20th, Friday night, Netflix. Can't say I'm surprised. Can't say I'm surprised. Netflix got their mitts into this.

They're financing this with Turkey. They do not care. That's not the right term. They look at boxing events different. They look at boxing events differently than traditional boxing promoters. They don't care about the culture. No. Traditional boxing promoters would have put this fight at Wembley,

summertime, Saturday night. that's it. That's cut and dry. It's pretty damn obvious. Netflix looks at these events different. They look at these events like a corporate retreat. I put a video out on this to give up people like a primer or or give a people's heads up on what Netflix is all about. Like obviously they want the event to be great. They want the serve the boxing fans or as many as they can. But they also want it to be successful and they want it to show off all the stuff that Netflix has. They want to show off what we have this show. We have this entity cross-promote. And then also they want to have big-time parties and they want to have these events. Like when I was at Tyson Paul two years ago, it was like 300 Netflix employees there. There were parties around the clock. There were all sorts of meetings and all sorts of gatherings and all sorts of corporate stuff going on. And what better place to do that than in New York City?

It's a better place to do it than in Wembley in December. And also they want the fight at Eastern Time. They think Netflix thinks if we put the fight on Eastern Time Zone is going to bring in more subscribers than it would doing it at like 3, 4 PM Eastern Time, which would be primetime

Wembley. So that's kind of like the thought process. Obviously it's horrible. Like I don't agree with it at all. But that's why when Netflix is involved, this is Netflix. This isn't DeZone. They are an entertainment brand. Number one. not being at Wembley is an absolute travesty. Number two, New York ain't it.

This shows you how corporate greed doesn't care about people because New York is just too damn expensive. We got two Brits fighting, two superstar Brits. And the Brits come. They'll come. They're going to fly over. That's just the way they are. They're diehard fans.

They will fly all over. The amount of money you're going to have to spend flying into New York City and staying in New York City because they don't come for a day or two. They come for a week. That's how the Brits roll. And they drink and they party and they... So you got all...

It's going to be so expensive for all these fans to do it anywhere. Why are we not going to Vegas? You can get East Coast time in Vegas. We do it all the time. Come to Vegas. The Brits love Vegas. The Brits will stay in Vegas.

Vegas is so much cheaper. There's so much more to do. Vegas. Netflix is like... If we're not going to do it at Wembley because we don't want that time zone, we can hype up MSG as, you know, Ali fought here, Ali Frazier. It's the world's most famous arena.

You already said they don't care about the culture, so why would they do that? That makes no sense. Well, they don't, like, it's not their number one priority. They do care in some regard. They want to put on a good event. I don't think so. They want it to show up, but like. The amount of money, but also the taxes.

Now, okay, let's talk corporate. Taxes in New York. Why would you go to New York? No, but why? don't they care about that? I don't know. I think it's more about where can they pull off, where can they serve their entire company? Where can they serve everything? Where can we cross-promote? Where can we throw events? Where can we- Vegas is the easiest place to throw events possible, and it's so much cheaper. Vegas would be a second, Vegas, yeah, I'm a little surprised not in Vegas.

Like, I think the New York part. I think New York makes no sense. Did MSG, maybe MSG bid on it? Maybe MSG is putting up a site fee. Maybe MSG wants it. Another thing is, I am actually going to take the PTSD that Anthony Joshua has at MSG is real. So, like, I'm literally going to change my percentage of who's going to win the fight based on it being in New York City. Well, I gets knocked out even quicker, AJ.

What's that? Gets knocked out even quicker now, AJ. No, but I'm just saying, like, if I'm, if I'm going one way, like, say I'm 6040 Tyson, which is probably about right where I'm at. Yeah. You, you, now we put it in New York City, Yeah, I'm 65, Tyson.

70s 30, Tyson. Like, I just, I think that A.J. is such a mental guy. And putting it back there, the ghosts and demons that live there for him, bad idea. Definitely going to need a different dressing room. If you go back and watch that fight, they just, they have the camera on the door where they thought AJ was supposed to come out at a certain time. And remember that door just did not open. Yeah. And what I heard, it was ominous.

The full story. It was almost. You never get the full story. Maybe we'll get it after AJ retires. He always said he'd tell the full story. But I don't know. I heard some crazy stuff that was going on behind that door. Like he didn't want to make the walk.

I heard crazy stuff. His dad didn't want him to do it. Weeks, weeks prior to that fight. His dad didn't want him to go out. Eddie was fighting with AJ's dad. Dude, I was there. I fought on the card. I was behind the scenes for all of that.

Dude, he was super late to the way in. They both were. Like, he got rocked in sparring. I've been rocking. And sparring too, right before fights, too. It's part of the game. It happens. But the demons.

Yeah. But yeah, dude, it was crazy because, like, you know, we all had to make weight. They're heavy weights. They don't have to make weight. We waited for so long on the stage waiting for the way in. And there was like 10,000 people there to watch the way in. And he almost still won the fight. Yes.

Yeah, I mean, he started out for. Third round. Ruiz went down first. Wicked shot. Has Andy been down before? I think he has been. I think he has been, or since then, I think he has been down. But Andy's got a good chin.

He was going down. He went down against Ortiz. Was it? Went down against Ariola. Yeah, Ariola. But that was all after A.J. I don't think he went down before. Ariel.

Oh, yeah. So that should be announced any time, very soon, Friday night, because Netflix does not like to go up against college football. They like to have their own night. Listen, bro, this fight has completely went off the rails. Like, it's been an absolute dumpster fire the moment they tried to make it. between the Fury getting in the ring after and not having AJ come in, weren't on the same page,

to now Hearn, Dana White, Turkey, all jockeying for this fight to it not being at Wembley, to the disaster that was two weekends ago where Joshua was down in the first round, Fury looks horrible and whatever. My voice just came back from that. In terms of like the buildup for this fight couldn't go any worse. Yeah, but honestly, on one of the,

One of our boxing scene shows the other day was me, Paulie and Robert, and we were talking about it, and we were all going back and forth, back of it. I got super excited for the fight again. I just, I don't know.

The closer we get to the fight, that's all going to be. We're going to be tuning in, bro. We're sick of those. No, I'm not even talking about tuning in. I'm going to be excited about it. I'm excited for the fight still.

Well, now it's in New York, like selfishly. Like, no, I'm not going to go. If it's in Vegas, I'll go. I'm not going to New York for it. I was going to say, we've got to have another party.

We'll have a party. Yeah. Selfishly, like, I've been ripping this event since day one. I think it represents everything that's wrong currently with the sport. But now that it's going to be in New York, I was like, oh, shit. Like, down the block. I'd be able to fight. So now, that's the only good thing for, that's the only reason I would refer to you.

It's very selfish, very selfish. It's for us to do a party because. Right. Our New York listeners, our East Coast listeners. I think there'll be some people flying in from this from other states. A thousand percent. A thousand percent. Pretty big.

Driving and flying it? Yes. Should it be at Wembley? Yes. I think we all are in agreement there. All right. Lastly, this Benevides-Opetalia-Micholian situation. I actually had to write this out in like boom.

I was waiting for you to explain to me what's happening here. Like I was back in high school. I need the Cliffs notes. Yeah, it's Cliffs notes. See if I can even get this correct. Wait, whoa, wait, before you even get into this. Do people even know what Cliff's notes are? The Cliff Notes.

That's how I got through high school. Yeah, I know. I'm sure you. But now it's chat GBT. You could just, like, get any answer anytime ever. I would call you Danny Cliffs. You look like it's Cliffs' Nose kind of guy. Yeah, and the teacher's always caught on.

They're like, there's the clip notes. Yeah. If you didn't read, I never read the book. Like, you remember you had like two weeks to read the book? So people at home, for the non-readers back in the day, guys would get Cliffs, Cliffs' notes. And it was like, it was like notes on the book, so you didn't have to read the book. You'd get the gist, you get the plot. You'd get the...

Chat-GBT-T before Chat-G-T. Yes. It was written chat-Gee. for kids who don't want to do their homework. For idiots that just wouldn't, would just would not want to read a, like, catcher in the rye. Yeah, I was, I was voracious reader, so I always read everything. So I was never, that was never an issue for me.

Should have read more. All right, here we go. Here's Dan's reading comprehension from this Benevita's Obitaya Mikaliyan situation. Zufa announces a fight between Jayopataya, Noah McEleon. Noel, I keep calling him Noah. Noel McEleon, September 12th. It is the undercard co-main event to Ryan Garcia-Connor Bent. Don King says, not so fast.

I'm Don King, remember me? Maintains that he is a contract with Miquilian. And they agreed to fight David Benavides. For Benavides's two belts later this year for a reported $1 million purse. WBC felt Michelian took too long to make that fight. They allow Benavita to get a mandatory shot at the Cruiserweight Champion. which is unheard of. It is very, very, very, very rare that a reigning champion,

who is Benavitas, WBO and the WBA, becomes a mandatory for another organization. Like, they're not even ranked in other organizations. That's the one weird thing about these sanctioning bodies. So Benavita somehow becomes the WBC mandatory for Michelin while having two other belts, which is just unheard of. Once WBC got win that Michelin was negotiating with Opataya, they ordered the Benavitas fight. Now we wait to see how the WBC reacts with this all, because Zufa has announced that Michelin is fighting Opeti.

It's pretty clear what happened. It's right around the corner, too. Right around the corner. It's pretty clear what happened here, Chris. Zufa backed up the Brinks truck, went to Michelian around him, Don King, and goes, we'll pay you this amount to fight Opetia. Yep. It's a lot more than they were going to, PBC was going to pay him to fight him to fight.

fight Benavides. So then the WBC steps in and goes, wait, not so fast. Oh, Zufu's going to step in here. We're going to have our WBC champion fighting for Opitaya on a card with Ryan Garcia and Connor Ban with the whole thing that's going on with WBT there. Not so fast. We're going to make our boy Benavides, who we're very close with, we work very closely with, make him demandatory and put McAleen in a really, really bad spot here. So McAleine, he's either chooses the money, which he should, in this case, or he's going to get stripped. If he fights, Opataya, he's getting stripped. So now this Opataya fight

versus McAleon, which is the quote-unquote IBF champion, stripped, versus the WBC champion, stripped. It's a unified stripped fight. I hate it. Strip unification fight. I hate the timeline we are currently living in. The Cruiserweight Division

is just been hijacked by Zoufa and the sanctioning bodies. It used to be illegal to go to a fighter directly around their promoter. By the way. I will say this, before you jump in, Chris,

I think the WBC is in the wrong here. I think they are making rules as they go. I'm actually siding with Zufa, and I'm siding with Mikulian. I hope he fights Opetai and I hope he gets the bag. That's WBC doing WBC things. But Zufu is also in the wrong.

You can't go directly to a fighter and go around this promoter, which is Don Kane. You can't do that. Like, that's, that's, it's, it's, it's in our contracts. You cannot do that. There's no promoter who has a contract with a fighter.

Even if it's a big bag, though. Doesn't matter. You have to go through the... Well, apparently, Michaelian is saying that King made this deal with Benavitas without us. So there's an argument there too, but... mocked, maybe. That's an issue between Michelian and his promoter, McAllen, and his promoter Don. But Don is going to have grounds against Zufa because Zufa went directly to McAleon

to make this fight. And that fights around the corner. Poor McAleon, because I've been in these situations with a lot of promoter mucking up things, like right before a fight, it's really hard to focus. Really hard to focus. I have a, you know, famously fighting my promoter before the Spence fight and Fight Week, all the reporters are asking me about my promotional situation and not the fight. It was horrible.

It's just really, really hard to focus. Like, bad enough, you've got to fight Prime Al or Spence. Yeah, that's one thing. But listen, I fought a lot of prime studs. That's, that's nothing new for me. But then also having to fight your promoter who's supposed to be on your side. I'm fighting behind the lines and behind my own lines, you know, before I had to go fight, you a guy like that.

But yeah, it's, it's, I feel bad for McAulian, but at least he's making a big bag. You know, I made a big bag in that, that night too. But it's more than that. You want to, you want to win. Yeah, I don't know. This, this whole situation with Opataya and Zufa and WBC is really coming to a head. And it's just getting uglier or uglier. Like, we need to figure this thing out.

Yeah, and I think he's suing the IBF. Yeah. Opataya. There's another. You know that Charlie Day meme with all like the red strips and lines behind the end of the chalkboard? That's right now what's going on with this fight. Make that meme, Dan. Make that meme.

Everywhere. I don't know whose face would you put in the middle of that. Obataya, probably. It's a lot of faces in this. Benavides is in the middle of this. He's now probably going to fight for the vacant WBO title, or WBC title against Michael Sizzliak. I would say that Benavides is in the best position possible of anybody who's currently to do this, because he has two of the belts.

He's making a ton of money. He's going to get the WBC belt no matter what. Obviously, WBC wants him to have that belt. So even a McAllian... That's the part that I don't like about the sanctioning bodies. No, they play favorites. There's no questions. They play favorites.

And they don't hide it at all, which is crazy. I love the WBO, but we know the WBO, but we know the WEO is works closely with top rank. You know what amazes me is you have Zupa coming in and calling you out on all the things that we're talking about, but you still do it. You're just giving feeding, feeding your enemy ammo. And nothing's going to, they do it because there's no repercussions. No, because they don't care. There's no repercussions from the WBC making David Benavides, they're mandatory. Because there are probably some clause in their rules that say there's like, oh, we can meet our, our, whatever, they, their board can meet and we can come up with a decision.

And that's what they did here. But it's so clear where the best, the two best cruiser weights right now are, Benavita and Opitaya. And all this crap is going on between the sanctioning bodies, the promoters, other fighters trying to get in there too and get their fights too like McLean and others. But it's all going to lead one day, hopefully, to David Benavita's fighting Joe Bataya. You know the worst part of... You know the worst part about all this is, Dan?

These guys would fight each other tomorrow. Jai and David would fight each other tomorrow. That's a good fight. It's such a good fight. And they're both good champions. They're both exactly what you want in a champion. They will fight anybody. They're very, very talented.

They're the top of their weight classes, and they want their best fights. It's such a shame. All the bullshit keeps good fighters who want to fight each other. Because we opened up the show with good fighters who don't want to fight each other. Now we've got good fighters who want to fight each other. These other guys are using all the bullshit to not fight people. These guys are being kept from fighting each other. You got two vicious, you've got two vicious types.

in cages that are being separated by BS. I wish, I mean, hindsight 2020, but Opataya, I just wish he didn't sign with Zufa. Like, if he would have known that his own might have been throwing around, like, pretty good money. Yeah, he waited a year, but he'd been waiting for a long time and they weren't moving on the way that, I get, listen, I get it. You make moves, whatever, but it's something that I said earlier. I was like, what happens when you deny guys like Opataya for being able to fight for titles? and now your big signing's unhappy. You don't want your big signing to be unhappy.

Yeah, you've got lawsuits. The Zufa title is on the line, even though it's not really a title. You've got to pay for those lawsuits, by the way, guys. Opataya is coming out of his pocket. I think Zufa might, I've read some right on this for sure. I read that Zufu's helping with that. They want to get him his title back,

which is hilarious because they're famous. Now they're spending money to get the titles back. Until this Ali Act gets into shape, they are a regular-ass promoter. Like, they're putting on title fights. It's like Ryan Garcia and the main event on that night is still for the WBC title, which is hilarious. The main event is for the WBC title,

but the co-main event is going to be, they're going to be stripped. McLean's going to be stripped of that title. Yeah, but he's not being stripped because of Zufa. He's not being stripped because of the fight that you're supposed to have with Benavides. That's a whole different thing. But Obataya was stripped for IVF because of being on a ZUFA card. So there's that aspect. WBC could just not strip McAlean, but then they would just go back on making benefit

because they probably, the deal they already have wouldn't allow for that. I get that one from the WBC. What a mess. What a minefield. Claritius Shields fights this weekend against K. Scott in Atlanta. In a good card, by the way. It's a good card. Dmitri Cilio Mercado is on that card.

Yeah, Demetri Cilita Promotions is doing a really nice job. You're not working at, are you? I'm not working out it because I, uh, that's a DeZone. That's a DeZone feature. So they got the DeZone guys do that one. But yeah, it's a really good tart. Ateef is on there.

I really, really like him. Tito Mercado. Emmanuel to go, the spoiler. Yes, Emmanuel to Go, who is a tough, durable guy. He's kind of like, at this point of his career, he's kind of like, you know, what can you do with him kind of guy? But Tito has been blasting everyone out. He's super, super talented.

A really good signing for Salita. That kid's a future star. your champion for sure. Like I said, Atif is on there. Clarissa is got an interesting fight, but Clarissa's Colissa. I mean, she's the quote.

Nobody's beaten her. So it's good card, top to bottom. And Clarissa, no, she's the vote. I don't see anyone beating her anytime soon. But the card's good. You know, you've got Troy Isley, who had a really good performance. His last fight.

He's on there as well. So it's a pretty good top, top the bottom card. Deweeatio Solita Promotions doing a nice job, putting some good card together. you know, Tito Mercado's on there. Atif Olberton, he's a guy who really got to watch. He's entertaining and beyond even the rate. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, like 6'4-3 light heavyweight, South Paul from Philly. He can really, really fight. He's a guy who really keep an eye on. Yeah, I like that card. And Shields is, like, becoming, like, a legit ticket seller in the U.S. I've worked. I mean, there's not a lot of ticket sellers here in the U.S.,

and she's on the list. I've worked like. I've worked like. says about her. Do you like her or not? Yeah, I've worked like three of her last five fights. The places are packed. Well, Tim Thibault fought this weekend on MVPW. She's 5 and O with four knockouts. She now has three belts at middleweight. She beat Desley Robinson. She has the ring belt, and she has two of the other belts. Shields has the other ones. This is Shields' first fight at middleweight in quite some time. Like, I don't know if Tebow's exactly ready for

Shields. We talk about this all the time in men's boxing. If you have a belts like you have no time to marinate. And also women's boxing, they don't marinate fights in women's boxing. Like K. Scott has six fights. K. Scott lost to Desley Robinson, who Tam-Tibo just beat last weekend. So like

if we want to entertain a Shields Tebow fight, which I put through on Twitter and I got a lot of traction, people will tell me, no, no, no, Tebow's too green, she's not ready. She has like 400 amateur fights, Tito. She fought in two Olympic games. Like, it's women's boxing. There's not a lot of in there. As if Shields wants that fight,

She can get it. If Shields doesn't want it, she's not going to get it. It's as simple as that Shields, she does, you know, has that power in women's boxing. Yeah, that's the fight to make. I mean, listen, I don't know who's going to really challenge Clarissa. Like, that fight, Michaela Mayer is another fight they were talking about. I wouldn't mind seeing that. Yeah, that would be mayor moving up to 160. Yeah, so the issue is the weight on that one. But I think mayor in terms of skills is probably the most difficult fight for Clarissa. That's probably way more lucrative and like easier to make. Yeah, agree.

Like, no one knows who Tibbo is. Like, she's just burst on the scene. They will. They will. She's so good. Guys, she's so good. She's six foot. She's legitimate six foot south fall. She looks like a WMBA player.

She's an athlete. I'm happy that we didn't lose her to WMBA because she's a big, tall, athletic person. We got a, you know, we got a very good fighter there. Yeah. That's this weekend. I have to end the show on a sad note. Pritchard Cologne passed away. A sad story in boxing.

This is something that is a part of the sport. I know everyone doesn't want to talk about traumatic brain injuries. Big time part of the sport, 2015, Pritchard Cologne suffered a traumatic brain injury in his fight with Terrell Williams. And from that day on, was never the same wheelchair-bound. Just tough life he led from that day on. Ultimately lost his battle. And I know you had some run-ins with Pritchard and his family. Just sad, man.

Just a really sad ending to... It's part of the sport that you're just like, shit, man. The sport is real. Boxing takes no prisoners. Pritchard was a guy who came up in my era. He was a little bit behind me in terms of, you know, I was already a world champion. About the time he was starting to make noise right before his traumatic injury. But, you know, that one hit close to home because he was a guy that I saw down here in Miami.

He was a guy I've seen, I've seen many of his fights. It was a guy that I was even looking at like, I might fight this guy one day because he's coming up real fast. And, yeah, it's a real shame. good, good family, good kid, all the runnings ever had with anyone around him was always very, very good. And very talented. He was good, man. He would have been a world champion.

He would have been a guy that we'd be talking about. So it's a real shame, you know, that at that end of the way it did. But again, this is, we sign up understanding that this is a possibility. So anyone who likes to talk shit about fighters, you should always understand that we are out there putting our lives on the line. So, you know, keep that in mind. This is not, this is not Patty Kemp. cakes out there. This is a combat sport.

People are getting hurt and potentially die. 33 years old. Horrible. That's tough. I know there was some updates over the last couple of years. Like he was like he was, what? He was 22 when this happened? Yeah. Oh man. I was last five was October 17th, 2015. Fairfax, Virginia.

There were some updates like he was still not verbal, but he was He was responding to verbal commands. And then, like, he never got past that. Never regained his speech and all that. Brutal. I remember when they were talking about pulling the plug in his family, it was like, absolutely not.

There's a fighter, through and through. Yeah, and he did. He fought and he fought. I mean, the fact that he was, you know, 11 years like that, but that's a shame. That's tough. You're absolutely right, Chris. Don't talk shit about boxers.

Don't get personal with boxes. You've got to have a problem, you know. It's a very, very, very, very, very tough sport. I hate to end on that note, but such is life, such as boxing. This is the sport we love. Protect yourselves at all times. Keep your hands up at all times. Stay out of those DMs.

We'll see you on Sunday.