The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Boxing with Chris Mannix - Less Talking, More Fighting

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

Joining Mannix this week is DAZN broadcaster Ade Oladipo. Mannix and Oladipo discuss the future of boxing in the Middle East, the recent Twitter spat between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence, Dmitry Bivol's title defense against Gilberto Ramirez, another unification fight in women's boxing, the latest developments with Conor Benn and more; later, Eddie Hearn on Bivol-Ramirez, an update on Canelo Alvarez, the future of Anthony Joshua, more. #Volume #Herd #ColinCowherdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.

Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me.

Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfills of conversations with athletes,

creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to the Cliford Show on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast, And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok.

The volume. It's boxing with Chris Mannix presented by Fandul. Football season is underway. Basketball is right around the corner and there is no better place to get in on that action than Fandul. The app is safe, secure, and easy to use. Fandul always has exclusive offers. When you win, you'll get paid fast. Fandul has a lot of ways to play like the spread, money line, over unders, team totals,

player props and so much more. Jump into the action at any time during the game with live betting, combine multiple bets from the same game in a same game parlay and try out the same game parlay plus. So use the promo code boxing and download the FanDuel app today to make every moment more during this football season and get ready, NBA season is right around the corner. This is boxing with Chris Manning.

Or somebody punch him in the face. Anthony Joshua is a composed and ferocious finisher. Watch this. Ruis is the heavyweight champion. Hosted by S.I's Chris Mannix. That was my moment. Now with interviews, analysis, and everything going on in the world of boxing. When you have talent, you are given another chance.

Here's Chris Manix. All right, welcome back to Boxing with Chris Manix, part of the Volume Sports Podcast Network. We've got a great show for you this week. I am coming to you from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. I am here as part of the broadcast team. for the DeZone fight. Dimitri Bevo, Gilberto Ramirez, terrific fight. I'm going to get into that and much more with my guest this week.

Adi Oladipo, a broadcaster with The Zone, is a lot of other media over in the UK. He's going to join me. Eddie Hearn, the promoter of this event, he's going to join me to run through a whole bunch of topics. So we've got a lot to get to on this show. But I did want to start off the top by bringing attention to something I saw last week. Last week on the undercard of the show headlined by William Zepeda and Jojo Diaz,

you had a superbantam weight fight between two undefeated prospects. Hector Valdez, who was the Golden Boy promoted prospect, and Max Ornales, who is a free agent prospect, also undefeated, both 15 and 0. They fought in the first fight of that telecast. And look, I'm not going to sit here and say it was a great fight. But this was a fight that Max Ornales clearly won. He controlled the ring with his movement. He landed more punches.

His combination punching was effective. The eyeball test just told you that he won the fight. Yet at the end of the fight, two of the three judges scored the fight for Valdez 97 to 93. They effectively gave Hector Valdez seven of the ten rounds. That's lunacy. We're going to name these judges too. Iwo-Kaya Sr. was the judge. Alejandro Roshin was the other judge.

Two scorecards, 97-93. Outrageous, in my opinion, sitting there. I bring this up because this happens way too much in boxing. And when this happens, you've got the lives of fighters that are screwed, negatively impacted. I spent some time talking to Max Rone last during the week. he knew how big a moment this was for him. He knew that if he won this fight, he was probably going to get signed by Golden Boy.

He would be ranked in the top 10 in the 122-pound rankings, and he would have some structure to his career after operating without much over the last few years. Now he doesn't have it. He's not going to get signed by Golden Boy. He's probably not going to get a rematch. I give the WBA credit. They're one of the sanctioning bodies I criticize a lot.

But in the aftermath of this fight, they actually ranked Ornales in the top 10 because they saw what everybody else saw in that Max won that fight. I just bring this up because we can't forget when stuff like this happens. Because this is the true awfulness of boxing. Because at the main event level, if a guy loses a fight and the scorecards are iffy, more likely than not, guy's fighting in a main event, he's going to get other opportunities. It sucks for him. Don't get me wrong, but he's going to get other opportunities. Max Ornales may not get opportunities like that again.

He might not. Hopefully he does because I hope other promoters watching saw that he's a talent at 122 and deserves to be signed and promoted the proper way. But there are countless examples of fighters like Ornelas who have been robbed by judges and wind up losing tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars, some case millions of dollars in long-term earnings because of poor judging. Max Ornales won the fight last weekend. He did.

I'm not saying this to criticize Valdez, who's a good fighter, he just didn't know what to do with Ornelas in that fight. His movement killed him. He couldn't cut the ring off, and that's why he deserved to lose. Ornales deserved to win, and he didn't. And we need to pay attention when shit like this happens, because there's too much bad judging out there and too little accountability

when there is bad judging in boxing. So let's remember when situations like this happen, who the judges are, and what the response is from the commissions, from the promoters, from everybody involved when bad judging happens in our sport. All right, that's my speech to top the show. Now, my conversation with Adela Depot.

All right. Have you been able to sleep yet? No, struggled. struggled. It's just all over the place. There is no normal going to bed at 10, waking up at 7, getting my good 8, 9 hours. It's like waking up at 2. Why I'm up at 2 in the morning? I don't understand. I felt awful. We're recording this. Adela Depot is here. DeZone broadcaster does a great job for the network. We're recording this on Friday morning. I'm still completely fine. Is it Friday? It's Friday. Officially it's Friday morning in Abu

We are in Abu Dhabi, the site of Dimitri Bevel versus Zerda Ramirez, WBA light heavyweight title fight. And hopefully by Saturday night, I will be full, will be ready to go. And this is straight, like normally coffee does it for me. Like, you know, normally a pot, not a cup, by the way. A pot of coffee and I'm like, yes, but no, it's not, it's having the opposite effect. For some reason, how is caffeine making me fall asleep? That's when you know there's a problem.

Well, I've been waking up at like three in the morning, the last two nights. And like the only thing Netflix will let me stream is Seinfeld. So I'm just streaming old Seinfeld episodes. Yeah, that's crazy. It's something else. But we are here in Abu Dhabi where Bevel Ramirez will take place on Saturday on Dizone. You know, being here in this region, again, I was here for A.J. Ruiz part two. It got me thinking, like, is this the future of boxing where all big events are going to take place in the Middle East?

Because we've had A.J. fight twice here. Yeah. Beable Ramirez, Eddie Hearn made it clear. This is the first of several more to come. Championship series, championship level fights in Abu Dhabi. And it seems at least possible that Tyson Fury, Alexander Usik, winds up here at some point next year. Is this just kind of the future of boxing now?

Yeah, it seems so, right? I mean, look, I don't want it to be. I think you miss the hardcore fans, the working class fans that are needed in the sport, whether it be in America where you get the Mexicans, the Puerto Ricans, In English, you get the English fans, they're going to miss out. But yeah, I mean, look at the events that you just mentioned that have happened,

events that are going to happen. If AJ, so if Fury Usick happens, it will happen over here. The money and offers too big, and these guys seem to be able to splash the cash without no fear of the fight not making a profit. And once you can do that, and a promoter knows you can do that, they're going to want to come and bring their events here all the time. So, yeah, it's a shame. I mean, I was at the AJ Usik as well.

it's a different type of atmosphere as to what it was in Tottenham. And I know people are going to say, but Tottenham was the biggest thing. I mean, we've got to be clear. It's bad. Like, it's not good. Like, A.J. Ruiz 2, after being at AJ Ruiz 1, Madison Square Garden, which was one of, if not the best atmospheres I've ever been in all of boxing.

To go from that to A.J. Ruiz 2, where it just felt like you're, I don't know how to describe it. It was a bunch of people there that weren't really investing. in the product. And when you have that, you don't get any kind of real energy in the crowd. No, no, no. I'm not going to mention names, but I was out last night and speaking to people that are trying to get on the guest list to come, no interest in boxing. Just want to be at an event. Like, honestly, no interest in boxing. It was weird hearing the names. I'm like, you don't know or like boxing. But yeah, I just want to be here because there's an event in

Abu Dhabi, and that's what you're going to get. So it is a shame that it's happening. But look, boxing's a worldwide sport. And in order to grow the sport, I guess, it needs to go to places like here. Do you buy that, though? Like, Eddie says that a lot, like trying to grow the sport. Look, Eddie's a great promoter. I don't know that he cares so much about growing the sport as much as he cares about the big paycheck. No, no, no, you're right, actually, because I've questioned Eddie.

And I said, well, why are we not doing events in Africa? Where there are boxers out there and fans of the sport out there? why you're not going on it? The simple reasons because there's no money. So if you want to grow the sport, let's do smaller events in Africa to show and prove that you want to grow the sport. So I'm with you. It's a lot of BS, but it just seems as though this is all inevitable. You mentioned the championship series. They're going to do more events here. Every fighter seems to want to come here because they know the paychecks are bigger and I don't blame the fighters, but the promoters need to get a hold of it because we can't miss out on those big events

at the O2 arena in London, MSG, you know, traditional boxing hubs, and I think they're the ones that are missing out on great fights like this. Like, do the people of Abu Dhabi really care about Bivel Ramirez? You know who would care?

People in Southern California. There you go. That's who would care. There you go. It's a massive, like, heavyweight fight. I've walked around, and I barely see a poster about it. People don't really know about it.

People don't know what's happening, so it's a shame. Well, there's a lot of branding on the way in, like on the drive from Dubai. to Abu Dhabi, it felt like every quarter mile. Oh, really? There was some kind of poster on the way in. So there was some decent branding. But as I'm driving in, I'm wondering, who are they branding to?

Like, it's not, there's a lot of buildings out here. Yeah. Not a lot of people in those buildings, I should say. No, no, no, right. I've tried to look at cheap property here because it's empty. Everything's available, right? But as long as the fighters, and I've always said the fighters first, the fan second, and I know it's probably a mix of that,

but as long as the fighters are getting paid, and they were happy to quickly mention, thank you to Abu Dhabi yesterday in their press conference. As they should, big check coming their way. As they should, big checks coming both, for all of them, everyone in the fight card. So I think to answer your initial question, this probably is the future of the sport.

Is there any way to counteract it in your mind? Because I've been thinking about this for a few days now. And for years, we had promoters trying to get into the Middle East. Eddie was, if not the first, one of the first, certainly the first to bring, a big event in many, many years to the Middle East. And now that we're there, the floodgates are kind of open now. And I don't know how you close them.

I don't know how you can convince fighters to take 60, 70 cents on the dollar in order to have an event in London or in New York or in Las Vegas. Vegas might be a little bit different because of the site fees. You can probably still get big-time events there. But as long as there are, look, I don't know, of what the total number of the money Abu Dhabi is putting up for this event, but it's got to exceed $10 million at least. Oh, yeah.

It's got to. Absolutely. And if you are a fighter, I mean, I heard so many fighters yesterday in a press conference saying, this is like a holiday. They're loving it out here. The families are out here. They're not going to not want to come out here. So, A, you're getting paid more.

The weather's great. They like being out here because they almost thought they can get their job done without being disturbed by friends and family. I find it difficult to convince a fight fan or a fighter apologies to not want to be out here and get a bit more cheddar or do it in Sheffield. No disrespect to Sheffield. What do you want to do?

Do you want to fight in Abu Dhabi? Do you want to fight in Sheffield or Leeds? You don't want to fight in Abu Dhabi. So, yeah, it's going to be difficult to reverse it. I just hope that some promoters or maybe some of the big name fighters that already get paid 20, 30 million can think, okay, look, we're getting paid enough. Let's do one at home.

But I doubt it. I sincerely doubt it. I don't think it happens either. I think this is where we're going to wind up coming consistently over the next few years. As long as Middle Eastern countries want to be in the business, they're going to be able to afford to be. That's the scary thing, by the way, as long as they want to be in the business. And listen, they do want to because they want it to use it as a tool to attract tourism. But how long do they want to be in the boxing business?

Is this just a thing for them? Well, it ain't change any time soon. Yeah. Well, let's hope not because, like, it's. It's nice. A lot of oil money still are out there. A lot of money floating around. And it's lovely.

I mean, as much as we, you know, as much as we, you know, haven't got our sleep patterns correct, just walking around, the weather, the food, it's a nice place to be. That's great, right?

Before I went to bed at five, I walked around. It was nice. Yeah, yeah. I want to get into the Bebele Ramirez fight and a couple other things, but I want to get your take on something we saw this week. Terence Crawford,

Errol Spence died on the negotiating table earlier in the week. Crawford signed on to fight David Avincian on a new net, called BLK Prime. Errol Spence is set to announce his next opponent at some point in the coming days. But these two guys, they got on Twitter and they talked all about hedge funds and who has a boss and who doesn't and certain amount of splits and revenue, all things. They've got to be honest, by the third tweet made my eyes completely glaze over.

What was your take on? I'm so happy you just said that because I remember the first tweet. I was like, oh, Terence was. woken up and he said, I want to have war. This is exciting. And then Errol responded and Terrence Twitter war. You meant to even Twitter war. As opposed to physically. Yeah. And I was like, I'm tired. I'm done. All I cared about was seeing you guys in the ring and not this, he said, she said, back and forth BS. Terrence, the idea of Terrence not fighting Errol for so many years was because he's on that side of the street. And I remember him sitting down right, it might have been

after the Brook fight and, you know, basically pointing the finger at Bob and saying, look, I'm leaving you because you couldn't get me the Errol fight. And although Bob, to some people, is a bit of a dinosaur in a sport, I thought that was actually quite disrespectful. And I was like, okay, this is it now, he's going to get the fight. He's already, you know, he's pointed at Bob, you couldn't do it, I'm going to go over there and I'm going to get it done. That was a year and a half ago. And here we are now, and there's no fight. There's no fight, and there probably will not be a fight. I mean, I like Terrence, but was he 34?

Errol looks like he's far too big for one four or seven now there was a time to make that fight and it's not happening boxing loses out because it would have been one of the best Worldweight fights we've ever seen it would have been that good so ultimately I don't know who's wrong and who's right but we miss out fight fans miss out because it was something special and that there that alone should be put in some sort of museum and it should be labeled boxing that right there's boxing right now

I think it was Michael Benson who kind of put together all the back and forth. Like you should just print that out. Yeah, yeah. And enshrined it. Boxing in 2022. 100%. That's what this is.

100%. It's embarrassing for these guys. Oh, it's ridiculous. Honestly, it's so bad. But this is kind of unfortunately what we've just come to expect. When a big fight gets announced, it's almost a jaw-dropping moment for us. Like, wow. You know, like, oh, Calipa-Plan's going to fight Benavides.

That's why I felt this morning. Yeah, what? Where's that come from? And that's how it should be. Forget all the negotiate. We don't, we, as much as, as, fans like to be carried along sometimes negotiating sometimes we just want a fight announced sometimes it is good to know what goes on behind the scenes because you know who's getting this and who's

getting that but ultimately all we want to see is a fight poster fight announced fantastic and that's how it should be all this back and forth crap blaming al haman blaming this person blaming that person i'm just tired of it and um yeah i feel like terence misses out more because terence as much as for me terence is one of the best fighters ever. You do look at the resume and you think, okay, where are those elite level wins? And he wanted one and he probably would have got one, I think. So he misses out more, but it's a shame it isn't happening. Especially since he moved up to Welterweight, the resume is incredibly thin.

It's not there, is it? He beat Jeff Horn for his title. He defended it against B-level fighters like Agus Cavalascus. Kelbrook in hindsight looks a little bit better, but Amir Khan. I mean, names, but not top level, top five. top 10 level opponents. He does miss out a little bit. I mean, I've always felt if he really is getting $10 million plus to fight David

Avanician on some network that's not going to sell more than 25,000 pay-per-view guys for it, more power to him. I would make sure I got that check in escrow. That's for sure. I'd want to make sure that money's up front. But if he can get that to just clobber David Avanician, which no one's going to convince me that's not going to be the outcome. David Avanese is going to walk into a bomb at some point and go down.

So if he can get $10 million for that, good for you. But I feel like that was the final nail in the Spence Crawford column. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it has to be. Again, as I said, one, because of age, two, because now there clearly is an issue with both of the fighters in terms of negotiating. So there's, like, beef between the two. And I honestly believe, Errol will probably fight Keith, and then I think Errol probably move up or do what Errol does. I can't believe Errol is still at 1.40. He was in the Olympics at 152.

Makes no sense. And he went down. You don't often see that from guys at the Olympic level. Usually it's the progressive move up. I mean, he is a huge 147 pounder. Massive. And look, we know for a few years he didn't live the life even, right? You'd see him out of events and just behaving like a bit of a kid.

But now he looks like he's sort of knuckle down and lives that life. But yeah, he's massive a 144-7. And that's why I felt like it had to happen now. Now. So, yeah, I think we miss out on it. And it's a massive shame for boxing. It really is because that's the fight. I mean, obviously, look, we work for the zone,

but I always tweet saying, that's the fight I want to see more than any other. Regardless of the network we're on. So, yeah, it's a big shame that we're going to see it. Well, the lesson and the takeaway to me is, don't do that. Don't go on Twitter and start, like, letting the receipts out on the table.

Stupid. You're not going to convince anybody. Like, people that believed Crawford was the reason for Spence Crawford blowing up are not going to be convinced by Crawford declaring that he had a $50 million offer from a hedge fund, which is a little shady to begin with. And meanwhile, Crawford fans are not going to believe Spence's take on it either. Like, all you're doing is further solidifying your fan bases

and doing it on a website that is just a cesspool for all forms of. Oh, it's the worst. Honestly, it's the... I'd love to know who's behind Crawford that made him think this is the right thing to do. I don't understand. Like, sometimes you've got that person, surely that says, just leave it. We know.

We know the real ones know. Just leave it. The idea of then going back and forth with Errol as well. And all Error hasn't responded so he must need them true. Errol then wakes up. What? I'm not responded. I'm going to respond now.

It's just silly. It's all dumb. All right. Let's talk about the event that is happening this weekend. Beowell against Ramirez. And this is a great fight and a great car. Great fight. I actually like this fight a lot better than the fight.

Eddie Hearn wanted, which was Beowell versus Boatzi. I think Ramirez is much more competitive. He obviously is much more deserving as a former 168-pound champion who has gone through whatever the WBA has told him to go through. Eliminator after eliminated. Yes, even though these guys he fought were terrible.

Like, that's who the WBA told him to fight and he ultimately fought him. The question is, how competitive do you think this fight is? B-Bowl is coming off the win over Canelo-Alvarez. Ramirez, I believe, is 5-0 since his move up to light heavyweight, but as I said, he has not fought elite competition. He fought what was left of Sullivan Barrera. He fought, you know, what was left of Yaneski Gonzalez,

Dominic Bosel. I don't know where he came from, but he fought him. How competitive do you think this fight's going to be? Quite competitive, if I'm honest of you. Although you reel off those names, and they're not by any stretch of the imagination, elite, like heavyweights, I think, I don't think we've seen the best of Ramirez.

I think there's still a few more gears to come from him. He's very, very big. I couldn't quite believe how big he was. I interviewed Bivel for the zone and then interviewed Ramirez immediately after, so I kind of gauge the size a bit better. And he's a big man.

He looks like he's actually struggling at the weight. I could tell he was almost too big. Oh, he's huge. Yeah. He's going to rehydrate above 200 pounds. Easily, easily. And he's going to try and walk you down. He's a south poor.

But I think Bivel could be a bit special. There's something about Bivel, He's now sort of found himself as well, I think. He's confident. His English is a lot better, by the way, which surprised me. Not that that helps his boxing ability by any stretch of imagination,

but I think he's just becoming a man in front of us and a very skillful man. And I think people's eyes were open to him from the Canelo performance, but people should maybe have done their homework a bit and looked at the other fights against Jean-Pascale and Joe Smith and realized that this is a good boxer. And when he needs to go through the gears,

I've noticed he can do it very, very quickly. Now when he needs to kind of, okay, I need to maybe do a bit more here. He seems to be able to do it. I think he'll struggle early just with the size and trying to work out Ramirez, but once he starts to kind of gauge distance and size and maybe test, maybe even get hit with something just to kind of fill the power, I think we are going to see a bival that is, I don't want to say the number one because I think that's Buturbia, but it's definitely number two in the division. The key to me is how does Ramirez use that size? Because he's going to try to walk him down. That's his game plan. All his team this week have talked about

that being his game plan. We've seen him do it time and again. Beaville, though, is really good against that type of style. I mean, we called the Joe Smith fight several years ago. Joe Smith is a pressure fighter. And besides that one shot in the 11th round, where Smith buckled Bevel and he gave him 10 more seconds, who knows what would have happened. But besides that moment, he lost every round. It was a complete wipeout. And, you know, talking to Bebo's team this week, they know he's got to move. He can't stand there in trade. He's not going to stand there.

Why would you? That's silly. So like if Ramirez is capable of cutting the ring off, walking B-Bull down, throwing the kind of volume combinations we've seen him throw in other fights, I give him half a chance, but that's going to be difficult. Like Ramirez, I think he's talented. His best wins, though, came against Jesse Hart. Like those are the best wins on his resume.

And at light heavyweight, he hasn't had the opportunity, not through his own fault. He's fought who he's had to, as we said. But at light heavy weight, he has not had the opportunity to test himself at the highest level. So this will be, I think, Gilberto Ramirez going from B-level opponents to an A-A-plus-level opponent in one fight. Yeah, which doesn't mean he can't be up there with an A-A-plus, right? Because he's beating all the B-level opponents, but you're right. I mean, it's probably the most misleading in 44-0 record there is, or has ever been in the sport, right? I mean, 44-0 sounds incredible, but then you look at the resume,

and it's Jesse Hart, it's Arthur Abraham at 168, and that's it. You can shut the door on the rest. Whereas Bivel is just, I just think he could be a special fighter Bivel. There's something about him. He's calmness. He's so confident now. I think we have something special, and I think he's going to, again, go through the gears. I think he'll struggle in the first three or four rounds, just adapting to the South Bowl,

adapting to the size, as you say, Ramirez will be in there plus 200 in terms of weight. but once he kind of gets all those things down, I think we're going to see something special and I think he's going to run away with it. I think this could be, I don't know, nine, three, eight four, something like that. And one thing I've seen Alibu over the years is that he gets up for a higher level of competition.

He got up for that fight against Joe Smith. He got up big time for that fight against Canelo. This is a former sparring partner of his in Zerdo Ramirez. It's a title defense. He knows what's next for him next year. if he wins, he can potentially face either Canello or Archer Better Beavre. Two massive money, massive prestige. Not a bad pick is it.

Not a bad pick at all. Plus, I also think it's a home run. If he beat Zerto Ramirez, Bebo's the fighter of the year. Like, I think, I don't think anyone. I said that to him as well. I said, I said, no, no, you are. I said, I'm the judge and jury. I don't know who is.

I don't know who's even close to them. Because guys aren't fighting mostly. Yeah, I mean, Madame Rodriguez has a shout, right? Free fights this year as well, you've got to have a shout for free fights. But, I mean, for you to beat Canelo, and then Zerdo, back to back, you have to be fight at the year. That's that's the question of my line.

Yeah. Highest level. Beat the former pound for pound king, beat none defeated, Zerda Ramirez, your top of the list. The co-main event is interesting to me. And that's because most women's fights nowadays

are interesting to me. Because women are doing it out there with making top fights where men are just talking about them. Jessica McCaskill, a lot of people that listen to the show in the U.S. have become more familiar with her. She did lose to Katie,

Taylor a few years ago, but since then, she's had two wins over Cecilia Bracus to become the undisputed champion at 147 pounds. Now she's dropping down to face Chantel Cameron for the undisputed championship at 140. For the record, nice bit of politicking by Matrum and Rick Ramos and the people involved with this because I don't know why is for undisputed. Like the other two belts were vacated by Kaylee Reese. Yeah. Because she got a better off from HBO to be an actress. How they've almost just grabbed those two belts? without people fighting for them and said, we'll take them and put them on this fight card.

It's strange, honestly. I find it weird. But look, ultimately, I do think it's the two best girls' potent, well, Chantel definitely at 140 because she's proven it. And I think Jessica McCaskill in the past is 4, 141 a title there. So ultimately, you are probably looking at the two best at this weight class anyway. Now that category is.

How good is Chantel Cameron? Because McCaskill, I've seen a lot of pressure fighter, good conditioning. I wouldn't call her heavy-handed per se, but in terms of she's not a one-punched knockout artist, not a lot of women in boxing art, but she can hurt you and has hurt previous opponents, including her last one,

who quite literally quit in the middle of a break in the rounds, and said I want to go home to my kid, I don't want to do this anymore. She effectively retired her. Unbelievable, I've never seen that, by the way. I was sitting ringside like 10 feet away. I'm walking over, I'm trying to get someone to translate what she's yelling at her manager down below.

It was wild to see that, but that was a feather in the cap of Jessica McCaskill. How good is Chantelle Cameron? Very good. Honestly, very good. It's weird. Everything you just said there about Jessica McCaskill pressure fighter come forward.

I was like, is he talking about Chantel there or Jessica? Because Chantel pretty much mirrors that. I don't think she has the power that Jess does, but not many fighters in women's boxing do. Baumgartner, Savannah, maybe. But Jessica definitely has more power. But I think Shantel's

definitely the better boxer of the two. I've seen Chantel spa guys and handle herself. And yes, look, they're not teeing up as they shouldn't do. But in terms of the movement, in terms of the clinch, she's strong, very big at the weight, which might not be a positive. We'll get to that just because I feel like she balloons up in weight a lot,

like really balloons up and weight and then sort of shrinks herself down to 140. But she is very, very good. And in the UK, people have been begging to see her versus Katie Taylor because they think she's the one that should and can beat Katie Taylor. So, look, she's very good, very confident, trained by Jamie Moore. She's in a good camp. She's around good people.

And I think they think this is her time. I think that, you know, Jess has maybe had her time. What's Jess now, 37, 38? Right around there, yeah. I think she might be 38, yeah. Yeah, and I think they think that Shantel is now sort of the fresher of the two and the one that's going to go on. But how concerning to you is that ballooning,

up and weight because I've heard that too from you know different people around matchroom and around the UK boxing scene and whereas you see McCaskill and even though she was fighting at welterweight she was fighting at 144 145 making 140 is not a problem for her she really is a natural 140 pounder with Chantelle like is it a concern that between fights maybe she's not as disciplined she needs to be yeah I think I always think I don't care who you are I think that will come to hurt you down down the line we've seen fighters live like that and it just it just doesn't work. I never understand it.

Like, this is a short career. Do whatever you want to do after boxing when you're done in your mid-30s. Fine, but in between fight camps, live like a fighter, live like an athlete. That's the problem with fighters in general. It's almost like they feel because they only fight two or three times year, like they're part-time athletes and they can do whatever they want. You can't, especially when it comes to making weight. But I think this camp, like seeing her fight Bustos and seeing a sort of in-between fight camp

and seeing her now, I think this is probably, as disciplined as she's been. So she's obviously taking this very, very seriously, and she knows she has to because in front of her is a dog in Jessica McCaskill, which surprised me why Jessica McCaskill was such an underdog in this one, but I think for this fight,

I don't think it will matter going forward. They've got to put a stop to it, but I think for this fight, she's really trained her butt off, so I think she's good for this one. I think she is. Where does the winner of this fight in your mind land in the Katie Taylor queue. Like, you know, Katie,

is Katie looks to 20, 23 and starts to assess what the best fights are for. Look, if she fights the winner of this, she'd have a chance to become an undisputed champion in two-way classes. You know Katie is consumed by legacy, consumed by being in big fights.

She's been in with Jessica before. That could be a decent US fight if she wants to go back and fight there, but I would assume a match-up with Chantel would be huge in the UK. Yeah, that's the one. I think if Jess wins, I don't think they're going to try and go down the Katie Taylor, Jessica McCaskill route again.

I don't know why. I know Jess is desperate for it. I don't think Katie is so much. Why would you go and revisit a fight you've already won? Maybe that's her thinking. But if Chantelle wins, she's desperate. My only sort of question with that, and I spoke to Katie about this already, about going up and wait again. She's only been up to 141.

So that was against Lina Dato, and she didn't like it. She got bullied in that fight a lot. So 135 is perfect for her. You get fighters like that. I've always thought, remember watching Carl Frotch back of the day at 16, 16, 8, never wanted to go to 175 when I thought it was there. Nope, 168 is my weight class. We just saw it with Golofkin in a way. There you go, right?

I don't think it made a big difference in the Canello fight, but he's 160 pounder. And I think Katie's that as well. Katie just, I'm a 135. So it goes back to that weight discussion with Chantelle. If Chantel wants to fight Katie, I think Chantel will have to go down to 135. She will. Or maybe you could do it at like 136 and call it for all the belts in June. I mean that's weight classes.

Yeah. That's kind of what they do. But I think they want the Chantelle one. Look, Katie wants to go to Croke Park. I spoke to her after her last fight and that's what she wants. The Shat, I know Katie's the star and Katie can probably do 80,000 tickets, but you need the right dance partner. And I think as much as Eddie will try and sell the Shantel fight, the only dance partner is Amanda Serrano. Well, be a meteorologist for me for a second there.

Like, when can you do a fight in Croke Park in the way? Otherwise, like when is it okay to do a fight out there? Because that would determine when she can fight there, obviously. Yeah, you're looking really between April and August. So that's the window when you get decent weather. Again, we're in Abu Dhabi here. You're not getting anything like this, no matter where in what time in Ireland. But around April to May is when you can do it.

And I think that makes sense for Katie Taney. So Katie Taylor, I feel like she might need longer camps now to get into it because she is coming towards it. You saw her fight, you were at her fight. She's still standing in the corner between rounds. And that's a leg issue. Like, I remember being in the locker room after the Serrano fight, and she had been standing for half of it, then sat in between rounds before.

And I asked Ross Emerit, her trainer, and he's like, it's because of the leg. The cat who we're trying to keep it from tightening up and causing her more problems. So her standing up between rounds was... Is that what it's for? It's a physical thing. Yeah, it's a physical thing. We've seen it a little bit of it.

I think, I mean, after the fifth round of the Serrano fight, you had to sit. down because you were just exhausted. But I think physically, there's somewhere there. And it's still lingering with her to the point where she has to stand up in between these rounds. So the clock is definitely ticking on the prime use of your crowd. I just wonder, like, she loves being active. We don't know what's going to happen with Serrano in the next few months.

She wants to get that fourth piece of the 126 pound title. It sounds like the WBA is going to accommodate her and order that fight to happen with Erica Cruz. But I'm missing something here, Chris, because I know Jake was talking about. this as well. Like she was undersized and look she clearly was undersized because she can make 126. She's taller but yeah she's taller and she's fought comfortably at 140 before. Yeah and I mean let's mean let's witness for lots of that fight she kicked taity taylor's behind so I'm like what am I like get back in there and do it again like most people like I thought katie might have nicked it but that

could be my sort of my bias towards katy taylor but a lot of people thought Amanda won that fight so I'm like roll the dice and go again honestly I thought katie was hurt numerous times and I I never really thought Amanda was her. She took some punches, but I never thought she was out on her feet. Katie is the puncher there. Katie is, as much as Katie kind of trained, this was my viewpoint of, as much she kind of trains to sit down on punch,

when she gets into the fight, she's just kind of not amateurish because she's adapting a lot of views. I don't even, she's a back foot kind of picking her punches. Point scoring. Yeah. Which, look, she's undefeated and she's won a lot of big fights. That works. Amanda sits down on a lot of her punch.

She throws a lot of punches too, more than Katie, even. but she sits down a lot of these shots. She's a hitter. One of maybe three, four women tops that are hitters and box. She can hit. Another name that they brought up for Katie is Alicia Baumgardner as a potential. I'd almost like to see her get that fourth, fight Choi for the fourth piece of a 130 pound title,

and then you can go up as undisputed or is undisputed. That to me makes more sense. If we're going to do an in-between fight for Katie Taylor, I'd rather see her fight Chris Cyborg. Like, give her the crossover fight. She's desperate for his sideboard. They wanted to do that in Vegas. like,

they were trying to make that this year. Didn't work out for various reasons. Cyborg wants the fight. Katie Taylor wants the fight. Katie Taylor wins lopside. I don't care. How much bigger Chris Cyborg is?

Katie Taylor wins that fight. Lopside. Chris Cyborg, tremendous mixed martial artist, not a boxer. Seems like a wonderful person too, but not a boxer. But that's what Katie deserves.

Doesn't she like give her the hugely popular gimmie over there where she can make a seven-figure paycheck and get herself a high profile, but easy win. Yeah, it's a great shout. I mean, they've mentioned her. They've mentioned Holly Home as well.

But yeah, I'm with you, especially Cyborg had a, she made her boxing debut, didn't she recently as well? So she's good to go. Funny, though, as much as Katie will destroy her, I'd love to have seen Katie versus sort of the version of Cyborg seven years ago when she literally just was a madman or a mad woman, apologies, just would have, she would have thrown up a thousand punches around. that sideboard doesn't exist anymore

but yeah I agree give her that an easy fight and then we wait for Croke Park we wait to see how all the pieces fall into the puzzle but I'm desperate to see her versus Amanda again I'm actually desperate to see at MSG and people got upset when I said that

at the interview just because Croke Park is 99.9% going to be Irish and I didn't mind the split at MSG half Puerto Rican half Irish and you don't normally get that at boxing events it normally is sort of one one fan base only it's very rare where you're going to get a 50 50 split and fans going at each other and I feel like it deserves that again but um look the money's going to be at

crook park they're going to go crook park or do they come Abu Dhabi do they come to the middle east I don't think she wouldn't think Katie's coming she would yeah you know I don't think that's not committed I don't think that for various reasons but I don't think Katie Taylor is is taking that that that route I will say this if she fights at croak park I'm going one way or the other. Because I hear that the Irish love it when Americans of Irish descent

roam the countryside looking for relatives. I hear they like that a lot. They love it. When you do your ancestral history, they're so proud to kind of show where Manix is from here and this is where your family were born.

That was an awful Irish. 99.9% I have like one relative from like Finland or something, but everybody else is Irish right there, the countryside. So I intend to roam the Irish countryside I'm looking for Maddox's. And you know, the funny thing is,

I'm sure there could even be in an Olo Depot somewhere down the line. But I hope that's her, if it is Croke Park, I hope that's her, I really do. I hope that's that. Yeah, I do. I mean, I watch her now. You guys, well, like, Bell, you said the same thing after the, well, he said after the Serrano fight,

he wanted that to be, he wanted Katie to retire then. Yeah, he was desperate for him to retire. You guys over in the UK seem to want Katie to walk away sooner rather than later. Yeah. Yeah, I think we've seen her sort of come out of the Olympics. and I just remember watching her early and how fast she was. And again, you mentioned that leg injury now. Obviously, that didn't exist.

And she was just everything. She was just so quick. And I watch her now. And she's been in wars. And I don't think we think of it with female fighters as much as we do with male fighters, but she's been in two wars with Delphin Pursune, a war with Tasha Jonas, a war of Linna Dato, a war, war, war, war of Amanda Serrano.

I mean, you don't want to see someone take the part. punishment she takes. She's not a defensive-minded fighter anymore at all. She gets in there and now and she'll have a war of you. And I just feel like, I want to see her go out with all her faculties and plays good money in the bank and maybe continue the boxing journey from from outside of the ropes as opposed to inside them. So yeah, I'm, I'm like Tony. I don't know why I've got this connection with her. I feel like enough's enough. Well, it's funny. You're probably right, but she, and I said this on DeZone last week, she might be in the best position of anyone in men's or women's boxing because of all the options she has. The ones we mentioned,

Michaela Mayer is going to be moving up in weight. They've been rivals since the Olympic days. That would be a big fight. She mentions her a lot. Yeah. There's a lot of action for her. This is the problem. It's the worst time for her to call it quits. Yeah. Like right now with the price of the women's fights going up and her getting more money. It's seven figures for every fight. She probably does now. So you're right. There are so many options. But I can see her coming unstuck with someone that a few years ago wouldn't have even laced her boots And that's the best is boxing isn't I guess so we'll see she's got tough decisions to make Yeah, no question all right last thing for you the obligatory

What the fuck is going on with Connor Ben question at this point the latest development that we saw in the last week was Connor Ben admitting to testing positive twice Now for the same banned substance this fertility drug that is still has still not been explained how it got into a system. They've kind of transitioned to blaming the testing, blaming contamination. People listening in the U.S. that watched a lot of Major League

Baseball, we have seen this song before. We have seen this movie before. In Major League Baseball, you had all the great home run hitters from the early part of the 2000s. When they eventually got busted, they were blaming the testing, they were blaming contamination.

Most of them eventually came around and said, yeah, I did it. And, you know, cop to it, you know, 10, 15 years later. It just feels a little familiar to hear someone like Connor Ben blaming contamination and potentially blaming some of the testing. Where do things stand with Connor Ben?

And what's been your reaction to how he's started to try to explain this stuff away? He's not explaining it well enough. There seems to be, I will tell you, this is me trying to just paraphrase Conner Ben, I'm going to tell you something and then, oh, I can't tell you the full bit because of legal reasons. You even tell us or you don't tell us.

Like you can't just do this. this, I'm going to give you parts of the story, then stop when the questions get difficult and say out for legal reasons. I can't really go down that route because... They really aren't either. Like, I've asked legal experts this to it, like repeatedly over the years. Like, if you're innocent, you are allowed to scream your innocence from the rooftop. That's one thing I said immediately after.

I said, look, as soon as this came out, I said, and I've done a video about it and maybe Connor Ben's team weren't happy about it. But I said, look, if anyone accuses me, Manix, of anything that I've not done, there is no legal team in the world that's going to shut me up. I'm going to be screaming because my reputation right now is in the mud. I'm not going to rely on lawyers and Eddie Hearn to speak for me. I'm going to come out and speak for myself. And if I say a couple of things wrong, so what?

I'm going to speak. Hiding behind people, and I think that's the only way I can use it. Hiding behind people is just not working for Conner Ben. And it's got to the point now where no one believes him. So 99% of the British public, and bear in mind, you know, he's a British fighter and we tried to get behind our fighters. No one believes him anymore. And that's it. I said you might be able to prove somehow that you're innocent in the court of law because of legal ramifications, but in terms of the public, you're done because they don't believe you. If the public don't believe you,

the public can make or break you in the UK because they won't buy your fights, they won't put bums on seats and that's a problem. So right now it's looking really, really bad for Conner Ben, really bad. I'm not quite sure what he does. I think he's doing a media around on different broadcasters next week. He's going to be grilled by, you know, we, we as, you're actually quite different because you as a boxing journal, you actually asked the tough questions. In the UK, it's almost this full of boxing journals

are quite soft when it comes to the fighters. Like they're scared to ask questions because they might be blackboard and, you know, that's it, you're banned from events. He's going to go to places where proper journalists are going to ask him questions who don't give a damn about boxing. I want to see how he survives that. But I don't see, I can't see anything but a ban. And hopefully, look, if he's innocent and it's the big if, fingers crossed it comes out.

But I'm with you. I feel like in six or seven months it might just be a case of I Fed up guys. Yeah. Or, I mean, to my knowledge, nobody's been fired on his team. Like, you would think that there'd be a fall guy at some point. Whoever he's nutritionist is, whoever is in charge of giving him whatever he puts in his body, not to say it's their fault or that they did anything, but that would be kind of a typical move

by someone in Connor Ben's position. He's clearly known since what, late August when that first test came back, that this was out there. And here we are in early November, and there's been no reasonable explanation. That's wild to me. It's wild that you don't even come up with something.

Even Jarrell Miller had some bullshit for a while. Like he was spinning some yarns about some things. Like there's not even been like a believable. like I don't know what happened with Canello all those years ago. But the second the positive test came back, Canello came out and said

it's the meat in Mexico. There was testing of that meat. It turned out it was like 30% we're testing. So you could, there was a degree of deniability. Give us something. You could buy that.

Like I've not heard anything and you're close to a line. Have you heard anything that you buy this point? I've heard nothing. Like, and I'm sorry you said that because, I mean, everyone, I remember when Billy Joe Saunders was going to fight Demetius Andres

and he blamed it on. Nasel spray. And I'm like, whether you believe that on Not, okay, that's what you said it is. And I don't believe that nonsense for one second, but that's what it is. And Tyson Fury and the ball meat and the farmer

and rubbish story again, but you're giving us something. Nothing with Conor Ben. And like, how long can you keep silent for? So, no, I've heard nothing. And the longer it gets, the worse it gets. I felt that maybe they felt, and this is the team that the longer it gets,

it will start just to go away and people will forget. No, it's actually becoming worse. worse now because Chris Eubank Jr. is starting to talk and everyone now and even Eddie I've noticed it started to distance himself a little bit by saying things like well I'm his promoter I'm not he's you know if he comes back we promote his fights whereas before I felt like Eddie was willing to die on that hill with him now I don't think it is the case so yes it's not looking great at all he's obviously given up his British boxing board of control license

which again I'm guessing someone's advising to do and the conspiracy theorist amongst us are like well if he's done that is that because then he can't be back by them and what's the reason for him to give it up. So it's awful. It was a tactical move. Like Jarrell Miller wasn't initially banned for the Joshua test because he was, he never had fought in New York. It wasn't licensed yet in New York.

So it was a, it's a bit of a loophole. But whenever he tries to come back, we know this, he's going to get tagged. Like he's not going to be able to fight anywhere credible. I can fight somewhere to fight, but like he's not going to fight in, you know, the Caribbean or something like that. Like that's not going to happen. Agreed. Here's the last point I would ask you.

Do you think he fights in 2020? No chance. No chance. No, I just don't. I don't. I think they're going to be quiet about it, if I'm honest with you. Again, this is my conspiracy hat on, conspiracy hat on because boxing, as you know, is the Wild Wild West. I feel like he'll just be quiet and there might be a ban, almost like a silent band that we don't know. And then he just comes back and we're not quite sure what's happened, but he's, you know, behind the scenes, has been banned for 14 months. And he's just, oh, I'm back.

And no, it wasn't banned. Boxing. Honestly, boxing. It's so disappointing, though, because it was such a big fight. And it was one that sort of we as British fight fans needed. We needed a big fight like that. And it was going to set out the O2 arena. It was going to do good numbers on the DZone broadcast.

And for that, just to fall flat like that because of this. And so I think that's why it's almost unforgivable. And I think that's why the British public are really upset with him. just because everyone had been fully invested. All the shoulder programming was good. Everything was, I did a face off, which did over a million views. Like, people were really like, oh, my God, this is it. For that to happen four days before,

or for it to be canceled, at least four days before, is just a kicking a tea for everyone. All part of what's been a pretty crappy overall 2022. It's short as short. It has, hasn't it? From shore to short, it's been bad. It has, hasn't it? I thought that as well.

I was thinking that as well, like, what's really happened this year? And I'm not much. We had a decent start, kind of. Yeah. And then the last six months, nothing. The fall has been outside of what we're doing here on Saturday. And December, Chocolatito versus Estrada Part 3. That's a great fight.

Not a lot. It basically has been a very bare fall. And at this point, start of 2020-3, ain't looking a lot better. Yeah. I can ask you a question? Yeah. Any movement on the Ryan Garcia-Jivonte Davis fight? So what Oscar's saying is true.

that the deal is basically done. The framework is a deal. I reported this a week ago, a week and a half ago that it was done. Now the question becomes, how does it get done on the broadcast level? Is it, can it get done with a co-distribution, which is what DeZone wants?

Or is there some kind of financial package that PBC and Showtime can put together that it wouldn't be this, but it would effectively be buying DeZone out? Like, is there something they can do to make that happen? I mean, a lot of people have kind of glommed on to this idea that Ryan Garcia doesn't have an exclusive contract with the zone. Well, he does have one with Golden Boy. Golden Boy has one with the Zone.

It's a distinction really without a difference. And if it wasn't, there wouldn't be talks about a buyout of some kind. Obviously, I think DeZone prefers to do a co-distribution. Look, honestly, it's not that hard. It's not ideal for Showtime because they take a little bit less of the pie. But it's not difficult to do. And some of the biggest fights we've had in the last eight, nine years have been co-distributions. Pachial versus Mayweather.

Yeah. The two Fury Wilder fights. Big events. UFC and Showtime got together to do Connor McGregor versus Floyd. It's not difficult. It's just a little bit more pain for the networks because they don't get as big a slice of the pie. And boxing fans don't care about that. Like they don't.

If this falls apart because the networks can't figure it out, the network's going to take the backlash. Not the promoters. not the fighters. This has become a network issue that needs to be resolved. And look, we do, city are working for DeZone. People can say we're biased all we want,

but DeZone is trying to make it happen. Like they're trying to work and do a deal involving Showtime. At this point, May with the promotions, Al-Haman Showtime, are not inclined to do a deal with this side. It's crazy. Again, it's crazy.

If I'm DeZone, Ryan Garcia's our next big star, right? I mean, behind Canelo and AJ, he's that guy, that there's no way I don't want to be involved in this. Nor should they. They paid him like almost $10 million last year to fight. Like you don't just walk away.

Neither should Showtime, by the way. Showtime shouldn't have to walk away from Giovante. They've done his last 11 fights. They deserve to be involved in this fight as well. It's not Mayweather versus Pacquiao, but it's a fight that will exceed 500,000 pay-per-view bys. How many fights out there will do that? Crawford Spence might not do 500,000.

It's a better fight, but it might not do 500,000 people-views. Agreed. Ryan Garcia. as Javonte is just, it's what, it's the injection the sport needs. And I mean, look, if you be a trilogy. Oh, it could be anything. Honestly, could literally, these guys could fight at 140.

They could, Giovante doesn't have the frame for 1447, but he certainly has the girth. He could go up there as well. But yeah, I mean, if I'm, if I'm the zone and I look at the situation with Devon Haney where we came over and, you know, we built this Devon Haney fire up and then he's gone and become undisputed on another network, we're not letting that shit happen again.

There's no way. So, no, I think they, need to continue the fight for this one. It's a shame, look. Again, it goes back to boxing. It's a shame if it falls apart because of the networks, but I think both Showtime and Desone should almost be fighting for this one.

There's so much pressure on both sides because there's no good alternative for either guy. If Tank walks away, Isok Cruz too, does anybody really care, especially on pay-per-view? Ryan fights at 140. He's not going to fight one of the title holders or one of the top guys. So it's basically another tune-up fight at 140. I don't, this is the one fight.

Like Crawford walking away for the $10 million and that, I don't like it. I kind of understand it to a certain degree. This there's no understanding at all. This has to get done. Some way somehow has to get done. They both so desperately want it as well. Both of them, that they don't use the word hate a lot in boxing because sometimes just fighters trying to sell fights,

but they genuinely dislike each other. Yes. And they both have fight-changing power. You can sit there and say Gervantes more experience, whatever. Ryan's got his chin up in the air. But whoever lands first probably wins. That's just the way it goes. They both have completely devastating power. Two different fan bases as well.

It'll be fantastic. Where would that fight take place, L.A.? Probably L.A. Ryan and Javante do well out there. Ryan's a West Coast fighter. Javante, to his credit, sells anywhere. But Ryan has mostly sold in Southern California. It's a big fight in Staples.

No, actually, no, Oscar said this and he's right, Vegas. They actually have, and I was told they agreed. as part of the promotional pact in a January date in Las Vegas. So Vegas, they'll put up a big site fee for it. You'll get all the people in Southern California traveling there, just a major event. I can't allow myself to get excited about this.

I can't do it, I can't do it. Audio deLadipo, follow them on social media. Check him out on Saturday as part of the zone broadcast. Beville versus Ramirez. It's always good to catch up, man. Cheers, Robert, thank you very much. And when we come back, my conversation with Eddie Hearn. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged.

It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined.

And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment. And the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger.

So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking.

What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam Jett. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s.

To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because, of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you finishing that sentence. Yes.

I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your Well, the NBA season is underway, and it's the perfect time to download Fandul, America's number one sportsbook, because right now, new customers get a no-swet-first bet up to $1,000. Plus, FanDuel is the only sports book that's giving all customers three months of NBA League pass when they make a $5 bet. You guys know, from listening to me, following me, I am an NBA guy, and gambling has become a big part of the NBA landscape.

It's competitive out there at the moment. And at the moment, you've got some teams like Utah, Portland, teams that you didn't think were going to be that good, they're good, teams that you thought were going to be good. Philadelphia are quite as good, so some interesting places to make bets right now. Fandul has all your favorite bets from the money line to point spreads to player props. You can even combine your bets for a chance at a bigger payout with a same game parlay.

Plus, with live betting, you'll get updated odds on games that have already started. The Fandul Sportsbook app is safe, secure, and super easy to use. So download Fandul today and use promo code boxing to get your no sweat first bet up to $1,000. Make every moment more this season with Fandul, official sportsbook partner of the NBA. All right, Eddie Hearn is here. We are both in Abu Dhabi.

Eddie is in undoubtedly more luxurious confines than I am in at the moment. But we're here for the Dmitri Bevel, Zerdo Ramirez. as WBA light heavyweight title fight. That's a fight you can see on Saturday on DeZone. Eddie, you are becoming a mainstay in the Middle East. How are you enjoying this visit? It's been tremendous. I mean, look, we know, obviously,

there's a lot of people trying to do a lot of fights in the Middle East. Few ever materialize. Actually, I think we're the only promotional company that's managed to deliver any big fights in the Middle East yet. And we've had two experiences in Saudi Arabia for the World Heavyweight Championship. and Saturday marks a new journey with Abu Dhabi and the DCT here in a long-term partnership

for the champion series. And I think we've got a hell of a fight. You know, a hell of an undercard as well. We're going to have a huge crowd at the FDHAD arena. I'm really excited, you know. It's quite nice to be popular, Chris, really, for a week, you know? And just come somewhere where people actually are genuinely excited about what you're about to bring to their country.

And I really feel like the Middle East is going to be a pivotal market and territory for the sport of boxing over the next few years. and we're delighted to be here to stay. So elaborate on that a little for me because Adela Dippo and I were discussing this earlier, is this the new normal where if you have fights of a certain level, it's likely that they're going to wind up in Saudi Arabia or in Abu Dhabi? Is this going to be kind of part of the boxing ecosystem moving forward?

Well, it will definitely be part of the ecosystem. I mean, you know, there's only so many fight night that they're looking to do. So obviously there's, and there's a multitude of major fights a year. So it's not like, you know, we're going to see boxing disappear from the United States and the UK.

I just feel like this will be another stop on the map for global boxing. And, you know, obviously they're very aggressive. They want to bring the big fights here. And, yeah, I just think, you know, some people, you have to understand the world's a big place. place, right? And just because boxing's been in Madison Square Garden for many years and the

MGM grant doesn't mean that every big fight has to go there. Now, you know, at the end of the day, not every big fight can be housed in the Middle East. But I certainly think, you know, our plan will be to stage four events in next year, you know, and I expect to see potentially Ussick against Joshua, sorry, Usses against Buree in the Middle East, you know, in Saudi Arabia. So, yeah, they want to be players in the market for big fights. And with that being the case, you'll definitely see this become a solid destination for big time boxing. It's great that fights get made and this fight probably got made in part because of the financing from the government here. It's also great that fighters are getting paid, you know, good money as they are in this situation. But how do you

balance, you know, kind of taking fights out of organic locations and what you might lose as a result of whether it's a sold-out crowd at Wembley, a fight like this in a vacuum, it would probably do a really good crowd in Southern California where Ramirez has developed something of a fan base there. How do you balance that with being here and being in organic locations? I think it's just the start of the process. You know, every market that you go into where you see boxing develop and grow has to start somewhere. I mean, the fact is we'll have over 10,000 in the Etty Head on Saturday. And I think the atmosphere will be fantastic.

You've just seen UFC here two weeks ago. It's one of the best UFC that we've seen in terms of atmosphere. They did the NBA the week before. They've got Formula One next week. You know, at the end of the day, you have to educate the audience. Now, we know that in Los Angeles, there's a lot of fight fans. There's a lot of, you know, Hispanic fight fans. and Mexicans they were going to come out and create a great atmosphere.

Boxing is something that is embodied in their history and their culture. So obviously over here it's not, but it doesn't mean that, you know, people here don't watch boxing every week around the world. They do, and they're very excited to see it here. And I think you'll see that within the atmosphere at the weekend. I think, you know, again, we shouldn't just limit ourselves to, oh, you know, boxing is in London,

and it's in, you know, boxing is a global sport, and we have global ambitions with the zone. You know, I keep saying it, and I always normally say, you know, I don't want the credit, but I actually do want the credit. Like, we are the only global promotional company. You know, we are staging fight nights in different countries virtually every single week. Who is doing that? Who has ever done it before? You know, a couple of weeks ago, we were in the UK, then we're in Brisbane, then we're in Mexico,

then we were back in London last week. Now we're in Abu Dhabi. We're in Cleveland next week. We go back to London. Then we go to Phoenix for Estrada Chocolate Tito, Leeds for Warrington Lopez. Like, you know, this is a pretty special project and journey that we're on. And we have ambitions to raise the profile of the sport in every key territory

that we feel has potential. So, yeah, I don't, you know, I'm not saying you're going to get an atmosphere like you would in downtown L.A. for this fight, but you're going to get a pretty wild atmosphere. And there's a lot of people very excited to see boxing law. There's a lot of positives to what you just said there. At the same time, there's a lot of negativity right now in boxing. I mean, what we saw this week with the Twitter spat between Errol Spence and Terrence Crawford, I thought was the worst possible thing that could have happened

between those two guys. We're seeing less and less optimism, at least publicly, about Ryan Garcia and Tank Davis. How do you feel about where boxing in general is right now? I think how many times have we seen over the years in boxing, you know, you get a spell where three or four big fights that you want or one big fight that you want doesn't get made and everyone comes out and says, oh, I've had it with boxing. And then all of a sudden last night, you know, plant against Benavides gets announced, you know, whether that's a bit of PR or whether that's, you know, actually going to get an official date, which I believe the latter. fantastic fight, great for boxing. And you'll just see, I feel like being in the industry, there is a bit more added pressure and potential glory now for making some really big fights over the next couple of months.

So people have to understand that promoters want to make big fights. Like, one, we have to do for our broadcaster, two, we have to for the sport. Three, we want two for the fans. Four, we want to make money. And the only way you can do that is a really, make big, you know, marquee nights. So you are unfortunately dealing with at times an inflated market. At other times, people taking advice from people that have absolutely no understanding about business or the numbers around the fire. And I stress before, you know, I don't often

feel sorry for Al Heyman. I don't feel sorry for him here. But the reality is, he spends Crawford. And I've had criticism for saying this before, but whatever you want to criticize me for, and the same with our Heyman. We know the business. We know the numbers inside out. And the reality is that Spence Crawford is not that big to the wild by the world. It is an unbelievable fight, right? In boxing, it's sensational.

But the reason Al Heyman won't put a guarantee up for that fire is because he doesn't even believe in the numbers. Right. So if you're budgeting that fire, I'm budgeting that fire at 350,000 400,000 pay-per-view vice. That's where I'm laying my guarantee at. these guys are being told by some bloke who works in the local store around the corner that it does a million buyers no problem right so and and this is the problem they're not prepared to take the risk on those numbers and sometimes when you've got a fight that he's supposed

to be of a huge magnitude you don't need to pay a guarantee i go back to fury joshua you know the crux of that deal was done no one asked for a guarantee because you know it's absolutely monstrous but with a fight like Spence Crawford you just don't know you know it can do 300,000 buyers it can do 800,000 buyers because neither of them have ever drawn on pay-per-view

I see Garcia against Tank as a much bigger fight than Spence Crawford people might disagree with me the fan bases are bigger the fan bases are totally separate as well you know Ryan Garcia has a very prominent position on social media if I'm backing

if I'm putting up money for fights I'm choosing that one to put my money up for, right? Now that's a different story, those negotiations. That's a different fight. That's more of a political situation between broadcasters. But the reality is, is a lot of these fights aren't as big as some of the fighters think they are. And fighters are, on occasion, being paid money well beyond their commercial value. You're seeing it with Crawford against Avanissian.

So it's quite a distorted market, and it's genuinely not easy. You know, fans don't really care, but we want to make the big fights, but sometimes as a business, we also have to make the right business decisions to say we're not comfortable going into a fight and potentially hemorrhaging four, five, six. I mean, look at when top rank did Crawford Khan. I mean, I know what Khan got paid. I was involved in that deal. I know what Crawford got paid.

They hemorrhaged millions of dollars on that fight. I don't think it barely, you know, surpassed 100,000 bites. So what gives you to confidence that spends Crawford? all of a sudden, that was 800 or a million. Well, that was a weird one, though. That was a weird one, though, because it sounds like neither guy was looking for a guarantee. It sounds like that was broken apart for some other reasons,

maybe some transparency behind what was all the revenue that was going to potentially come in. At least Crawford saying he was willing to take no guarantee for that fight. So I tend to agree. I mean, I tend to agree with you, though. Good. No, I did tend to agree with you about, But guarantees kill paper views.

They do. Like, you go back to the 80s, they weren't real guarantees for a lot of fights. You had fighters taking the large percentage of the split, which they should. But with all these guarantees, somebody's going to lose a lot of money. And I don't know how you change that. Crawford supposedly is getting guaranteed something like $10 million to fight David Avanesian.

Like if you're, I don't blame him for taking that money. No, for sure. That's a fight he's going to win by blow up. And if the alternative, you know, if the alternative is 15 million to fight Aeryl Spence, unless you really don't care about the money and you really are chasing the legacy, then you take the Avanisian fight. Because at the end of the day, it's a fight you could fight a thousand times. You'd never lose once.

And Avanesean is a good fighter, but Cawf is just levels and levels above it, you know? So, I don't know, Chris. I mean, but I do feel like we're all under pressure to make big fights. Like, you need to know that as well. under pressure for our own reputation and legacy and love of the sport. You know, like, I don't want to be a guy that couldn't make big fights. And I think there is a feeling seeing Oscar out here, you know, he's on good form out here. You know, I think we want to make a stand now and make good fights.

But we do need cooperation from the fighters and their lawyers and their managers and their representatives. That actually we know what we're doing and we do understand the fight. financials around valuation for events. All right, let's talk about this fight because it is a terrific fight. Bebel Ramirez, two undefeated champions, Bebel 175, Ramirez 5 and O since moving up from 168. This was not the fight that you initially wanted. You were trying to make Joshua Bozzi against Dimitri Bebel right out here in Abu Dhabi. How do you feel about it being Bebel Ramirez instead?

Pretty good now. I mean, I was very disappointed at the time because I really wanted. I really wanted to give Joshua Bwacki that opportunity. Obviously, he's our fighter and he's been with us since the debut, and that opportunity will come. But the buzz around the Ramirez fight, you know, on a global scale, obviously that was a big fight for the UK, but this is a big fight for the US.

Obviously, Bivow is very well known in the UK as well. We've got a big UK sort of appearance on the undercard from Barrett and Cameron and Yaffai and people like that. So I'm excited, you know, I feel like this is one of the best fights in boxing. And I said yesterday at the press conference, it's 20 and 0 against 44 and 0. It's right up there as one of the top fights. I mean, certainly in the division, but really in boxing as well, it's a fascinating fight. I think it's really good timing. You know, like you said, all fight fans who get down in the dumps. Well, tuning on Saturday night,

you've got a fantastic fight and a great undercard as well. And there's a real feeling when you talk about money, Chris, obviously both guys getting paid well this week. But there is a big feeling around this fight from the camps and the teams. that these are actually two guys that are very interested in legacy, you know, and actually believe in themselves and want to fight the best. I mean, certainly we've seen that from Dmitri Bivow. And being around Ramirez, I get that feeling as well, like, you know, you want to make money and sometimes you want to have a couple of, you know, run out fights.

But I think Ramirez feels like this is my time to prove myself now, become a two-time, two-division world champion. And he believes he can beat Bivol. Bivol's ice cold, as always. I'm sure he's been around him, you know, he just. I feel like there might be more levels to Dmitri Bivow, and I think the confidence he will gain from the Canelo Albrez victory may see a very special performance running on Saturday.

I think you're right that both these guys are consciously aware of legacy, that they are fighting for more than just a paycheck, even though they are getting big paychecks. And that's exemplified by Bevel, basically running around all week, saying he doesn't want a Canello rematch, at least not right away. he's been pretty locked in on potentially fighting Archer Better BF next year for all the titles at 175. I mean, you work with Canello. Canello has said publicly many times he wants the rematch with Bevel.

If Bevo wins this fight, what's your level of confidence that we see Canello and Beavill in the next one? Well, I mean, Bivel definitely has ambitions to be undisputed. I mean, listen, that might end up coming at 168. Who knows? You know, he talks about he looked very fresh on the scales today, that's for sure. And look, at the end of the day, legacy is important, money's important. And there is certainly a degree of legacy as well around any Canelo Alvarez, fine, especially to rematch.

But I believe Dmitri Bivow is the best 175 pounder in the world. And he wants to prove that. I mean, Bivow against Bessab is an unbelievable fight. You know, but when you look at the schedule, I think he's due to fight yard in early February or something like that. Then you have Ramadan coming, I believe, sort of end of March, early April. that's going to keep him out until the back end of the summer. So there will be pressure on Dmitri Bivol

should he win on Saturday to consider and negotiate terms of the Canelo Alvarez rematch. Canelo wants that fight. He's a winner. He wants to revenge that defeat. He feels like maybe he wasn't 100% or it wasn't his best performance, but it's going to be a very, very difficult fight.

So a long way to go. And I think a lot depends on the outcome and how everything plays out on Saturday. It was reported this week that Canello had surgery on that left hand, something he said he was going to after the Golofkin fight. Do you have any kind of information about where he's at with that surgery? How long it's going to keep him shelved? Yeah, I spoke to him after the surgery. I think he was very happy with how it went.

He talked about being able to punch in two months. So I don't see, you know, certainly he's given me no indication. I think it's too early to say, May he's fine. But I believe you'll see him returning. because if he's punching, you know, towards the end of December, there's no problem being ready for a May fight. He's already trained and he's already fit. Could that extend until September?

Maybe, you know, he's had a big run of fights, but I think he's very happy with how it went. And, you know, knowing Seoul, he'll be looking to and wanting to get back into the ring as soon as possible. Is he, I mean, he's never out of opponents, but, you know, in the aftermath of the Golofkin fight, which closed the chapter on that rivalry, you look ahead and you see Beevil out there as a revenge.

fight. I guess he could campaign more at 175 for more titles. But is Canello in any way kind of running out of really marketable opponents? I mean, he was chasing something a year and a half ago. That was the undisputed championship at 168. He accomplished it. What's kind of left for him out there? Well, I think he might be running low in terms of the kind of fights that really excited. You know, like one thing I've learned with him is it has to be a challenge. And it just has to be something that excites him, like voluntary defenses and stuff like that. I mean, it's all based on the fight. But certainly, you know, I think he's been calling out for the likes of David Benavides and those gone to charlo to have real fights and then build what would be a fight that would get him

excited. Listen, if Benavides beats plant, I think, you know, Benavides is a fight that would excite Canelo Alvarez. I agree. I agree. And it's good that that fight's been made. Same with Charlo. You know, he's never fought anyone. And if he comes into a big fight, has no problem fighting anybody. For me, I think one of the things left to do in his career is fight internationally. You know, I feel like he's a huge star. I'd love to bring him out to the Middle East. I'd love to see him boxing London.

Of course, what an event it would be to see him boxing Mexico, maybe Japan, Australia. That's what could be something that excites him, you know. But he loves real fights. You know, he wants tests. He's not interested in just having a run out. outfight. And, you know, I'm sure there are plenty options available, but certainly the rematch with Dimitri Bivow is one that is in his mind that he must overcome. A couple of things before I let you go. I was at the press conference on Thursday, and you are all in on Galalyafi. Like, you are all in.

Your chips are on the table with Galalyafi becoming a superstar in this sport. You call them the best prospect in boxing. There are a lot of good prospects in boxing. Why are you so high on Galalufioli? Well, it's the way that he goes about his business. I mean, firstly, anyone that wins an Olympic gold medal is a unbelievable talent. I mean, especially in today's world of amateur boxing. He breathed through that, really, to win that. And, you know, he's had two fights, right? He's had two 10 rounds straight off the bat. I mean, he's looked brilliant against, you know, top 25 in the world opposition. Now he has actually quite a big step up on a Saturday guy that's ranked in the top 15 with a couple of governing bodies. is I just see a fighter that goes about his work so effortlessly, you know, like, be like Jesse Rodriguez. And, you know, I look at that division now, and any division that you can take a foothold in, Jesse coming down to fight for the WBO, Julio C's a Martinez, WBC champion. You know, Sonny Edwards is over with the IBF, and then you've got Galaya fight to jump in,

whether that's WBA, wherever it's going to be. And I just see fights like Martinez against Yafi, Jesse Rodriguez against Yafi, like that big, big fights. But watch this kid on Saturday. You know, people that haven't seen him yet, watch the way he goes about his work. He's still, it's only his third pro fight. But, you know, at the moment, he's not too concerned about getting hit and that will have to change as he goes through the levels. But a real exceptional talent and ice cold as well, Chris, you know, like you get people

like Dmitri Bivol who, I don't think his pulse went over 40 when he was sitting in a change room about to fight Canello on Sinkidemiah. Yaffir's at the same mold, real special fighters. Yeah, no question. Bebole definitely was relaxed before that Canelo fight. It was surprisingly so in that sense. Anthony Joshua is going to be out here this weekend. We're into November right now. Obviously, he's not going to fight in December. But are you any closer to kind of locking down a Joshua schedule in the first half of next year? Yeah, that's really a lot of the conversations when he arrives here today, you know, sitting down and mapping out that time. Time moves quite quickly, you know, before you know it's December and, you know, and the plan really is. to fight in February. You know, I think the thing is with AJ, similar to Canelo,

he's not really motivated to have sort of tick over fights or whatever you want to call it. Every fight's dangerous. Every fight requires a big training camp and a big builder. So there's a very good chance that he could face the winner of Dillian One and Jermaine Franklin on November 26,

straight off the bat. There's also a chance he could fight a top 15 guy. I think Otto Wilden's been mentioned, Philip Hergovich, you know, these kind of guys. we have had a reply now from an August email from Shelley Finkel to say look we would be happy to discuss that fight which is encouraging whether he goes straight into a wilder fight or has won first probably the latter but that's definitely a fight for 2023 so it's just the case now of really pinning down that training camp and determining a date and we expect that to happen

in the next week has the landscape for wilder changed enough to make you more confident that fight could get done because DeZone you offered a lot of money years ago. I think that bearing in mind the pay-per-view results in the last fight, you know, I think it's going to be difficult for Deonté to land the kind of deal that he would want from boxing and now outside of an AJ fight or one of those U-Six or Furies. And we want that fight as well. It's a tremendous fight for boxing. I mean, Deontes are, you know, a very dangerous fighter.

He's a brilliant action to the heavy. division. And, you know, I've said before that Wilder Fury, sorry, Wilder Joshua might be bigger than Fury Agea. And some people dismiss that. And he's probably not. But I'll tell you what, you know, time that fight comes around. I mean, that is one of the great heavyweight fights of all time. And, you know, there's a lot of people, particularly out here who would really be aggressive to make that fight. And certainly one, I believe, will happen in 2023. Well, make sure you call Madison Square Garden before you make that fight anywhere. that's an incredible New York fight as well.

So make sure you make that phone call to Sal and all the guys over at MSG first. Last thing for you, a lot of people listening to this are U.S.-based. The schedule, this is a good fight coming up. You've got Chocolatito Estrada in December. How active do you anticipate being in the U.S. next year? Because we've seen kind of some of your stable winnow out a little bit.

You've seen some other guys like Andrade and others move on. How active do you believe you're going to be in the U.S.? that's active i mean i think we've ended up doing something like eight or nine shows in the u.s this year i think we've done five or six in mexico um so i i think a similar amount i mean we're finding our feet very well de zone as a business and a platform is in a tremendous position in america now you better than it's ever been the brand loyalty the brand recognition the profile is is at an all-time high and we need to capitalize on that and put a great schedule together again you know when you

look at the schedule coming off canello against triple g you know you move into um bivow against ramirez strata against chocolate tso three like we i still believe by a mile the zone carries the best schedule in american boxing and particularly in global boxing so america is a very important market for us we want to be as busy if not busier there next year and you know i feel like we're in a very strong position. So looking forward to a busy 2023. Eddie, appreciate your time. I know that you and Jake Paul have some legal issues going on,

but I was down in Puerto Rico in his camp a couple of weeks ago, and papered all over his gym are pictures of you with the caption, Fight a Real Fighter. So you are very much in the mind of Team Paul down there. Rem free. That's quite a, that's quite a. flattering but good luck to him and you know we'll sort the legal stuff out but fair play to him you know know i know the criticism he's not fault or real fighter and anderson silver was 48 but there's a lot of

prospects that fought nobody for 10 five i agree so um i like what he's doing i think he's bringing eyeballs to the sport and good luck to him and you've said this before but you don't foresee any issues with a serrano taylor talks with what's going on with with i mean too too big an opportunity for our clients to be childish. But the other stuff will get sorted out. Eddie, appreciate it, man. Good luck on Saturday. Thanks, mate.

Time not for this week's picks brought to you by Fandoul, and I am in Abu Dhabi this week, so I'm focused on the card headlined by Dmitri Beaville and Zerto Ramirez. But I am not gambling this week on Bevel Ramirez.

The odds just not great. I like Bevel to win that fight. You got to bet a lot to win a little in that matchup. So I'm going to look a little further down on the car. To the co-main event, the women's title unification fight between Jessica McCaskill and Shantel Cameron. This is for all the belts at 140 pounds. McCaskill, the undisputed champion now at 147.

Cameron, who has two belts at 140, they're going to fight for all the belts at 140 pounds. You got all that? A little bit confusing. But it's a big fight in women's boxing. I like the underdog in this fight. Jessica McCaskill is coming in as a plus 138 underdog. Jessica McCaskill has been on a role lately. She won the undisputed title by beating Cecilia Bracus.

That was a big win for her. She followed that up by winning a rematch against Breakus. So she had two defining wins over the last couple of years. Her last two fights, Candy Wyatt, she won by knockout. Alma Ibarra, she won by knockout. She's really been on a role since Luther. the Katie Taylor back in 2017. She's fighting Chantel Cameron, who is undefeated, who is very good, who does have eight wins by knockout. But I really like McCaskill in this fight. And I'm not

sure why she's the underdog. Plus 138, according to Fandul, bet McCaskill to win. That's some place you can make some money on. Take McCaskill to beat Chantel Cameron in this fight. Now, method of victory, you can make a little bit more. McCaskill by decision, is plus 2-10. I never bet on knockouts in women's box. They happen from time to time, but more often than not, especially at the highest level,

we see these fights go to decision. I think McCaskill wins by decision as well. So, if you want to make some money this weekend, look to the fight in Abu Dhabi, watch it on DeZone, bet Jessica McCaskill to win, bet Jessica McCaskill to win by decision. Those are my picks, courtesy of Fandul.

That's it for this week's episode. My thanks to Adi Oladipo and Eddie Hearn for joining the show. As always, subscribe, rate, review this podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you download podcasts. And I'll see you next week. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retired.

In homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Look Back at it podcast.

From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a hear, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s.

84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.