The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Bill Belichick-Patriots beef, Melo & HOF Class of 2025, Canelo vs. Crawford | 09.09

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Bomani Jones reacts to Bill Belichick's ongoing feud with the New England Patriots and gives Dwight Howard and Carmelo Anthony their flowers after being inducted into the 2025 Basketball Hall of Fame. Later, he is joined by Corey Erdman of DAZN Boxing and Ring Magazine to breakdown the upcoming superfight between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford on Netflix. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave original. My name is Beaumani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. Coming up a little bit later, we got Corey Erdman of the Zone of Ring magazine. Get you ready for the Canelo, Alvarez, Terrence Crawford fight.

But first, we got a couple of little funny things that have happened in sports. Well, really, this is just the one funny thing. Well, some others. We just going to get to it right now. But anyway, a report was made on Saturday by ESPN that Bill Belichick has banned scouts from the New England Patriots from visiting the football facilities at the University of North Carolina. And when he was asked about it after their win over Charlotte,

his explanation was, I'm not welcome at their facilities. So why are they welcome at hours? I don't know, guys. Sounds like somebody's still not over getting fired. Could be wrong. Ryan, do I have this right? Does it sound to you like he's not over being fired? Because it sounds to me like he's not over being fired.

He is clearly not being over being fired. And he does not seem, the more he is in this UNC situation, he does not seem thrilled with it. No, well, he also, it feels like he thinks it's unfair that he got fired. Right. Like, yes. Like, what good what I did for you, how dare you run me off? Yeah, but I got to ask him this question at all sincerity.

Did he think it was unfair when he was ready for Tom Brady to get out of there because he thought he had gotten too old? Did he think it was unfair when he released Bernie Cozard in Cleveland? Did he think that it was unfair when he ran lawyer Malloy out with the Patriots? Like, this idea of fairness, you know how shit works, man. And those of you who listened to this show during that last season that he had, I told y'all early he was going to be fired, that the only way that this could possibly go was that he was going to be fired because he is stoked too bad and his owner was too old

to be out here trying to put up with that shit like there was no way around it he was going to wind up being fired my problem with him doing this is him saying well it's not he's saying this he claims that well if the scouts want to know something about his players they can call him they can ask him whatever that's fine but the people who are losing under this circumstance are not going to be the patriots if it happens to be that It's going to be his players. Now, I'm going to be honest with you. From that one football game, I saw the, what's called New England?

I mean, the Carolina play. I don't see why no scouts would really be coming there. Like, maybe they just want to watch a basketball game to say weekend or something like that. But I feel like anybody want to come watch y'all sorry asses. You need to be happy. You need to be patting them on the back, telling them thank you, make them snacks, whatever it takes.

Like, this is what it is that you need to do. this is this is this is wild stuff but it's not I'm trying to think when he'll get over it what it'll take because on one level and Ryan and I were talking about this maybe on one level what it'll take and I don't mean to seem more of it so is Bob Kraft no longer owning the team you know what I mean I think from what I read and from everything that's come out about Belichick I think he dislikes Robert Kraft and he's hurt by Robert Kraft. He clearly despises the son. That's what I was going to say, is that even if Bob Kraft no longer owns the team,

there will still be a problem if Bob Kraft passes the team on to somebody. I did. Jonathan Kraft, he clearly thinks Jonathan Kraft is Kendall. He does. The irony of this, of course, is he appears to have. his own overwhelmed children in positions of power within his own enterprise.

He got a son with a mullet. I tell you this, Logan Roy would have never allowed that and neither would Robert Kraft. No, not in a million years. No way you're going to be in my office with that fucked up haircut. You got son. That would never happen, ever. But you're right. Belichick, I guess we'll

have to see what it looks like when they win a game that they're not supposed to. Because I do think the difference between college and the NFL is success. Success in the NFL means the same thing for everybody. Success in college varies greatly from program to program to program. Like, Ryan, you're an LSU grant. Success at LSU is not the same as success in Mississippi State,

but it's also not the same as success is at Alabama, yeah. Right? It's all these different levels of what success means. I don't know if Belichick is built necessarily to understand that you got a job where nine and three might get you a statue, homie. Like, if you go eight and four this year. Seven and five would be a great year there. It really will.

I don't know exactly how he feels about this, but you are right. I don't, he seems a bit nonplussed. I feel like that's the way I use nonpluss, but not actually what it means, but you know what I mean? Yeah. If that doesn't work, how about this? He does seem to be a little bit over it. Just a just just just already already over it, already throwing fits.

And again, like, I can't imagine this. this ends well. No, no. Now, let's switch gears a little bit because you just talked there about a pro coach working in college. Now I'm going to talk now about a college coach working in the pros. And what I'm saying is, can you imagine if you never watched college basketball ever in your life and all you watch was the NBA? Can you imagine turning on your TV and somebody told you that Billy Donovan was going into the Hall of Fame? It would be a little shocking now, wouldn't it? But Billy Donovan did coach in college. He has three trips to the final four and two national championships. Erigo, therefore, he is in the Hall of Fame. But Ryan, I'm going to be honest. I turned on

and I saw his speech. And I was like, oh yeah, that's right. I guess he should be in what the hell is going on here? Then I was like, I didn't realize him and Bello were that close. Well, it was also a, we're really that old now, right? Because his first final four was 25 years ago. Like 2000 was that first final four. Those national championships next year will be the 20th anniversary of the first one. Right. Yeah. I was like, damn, this has really happened to us. But y'all looked up and saw it and I was like, oh, well, yeah, I guess, yeah, that would

check out. But two things from that Hall of Fame ceremony that I want to talk about. Number one, shout out to Dwight Howard. He said it, or somebody asked him about it and he said that the most heartbreaking thing ever to him was that he was not on the top 75 all-time list of the NBA. And that is the most indefensible decision. of that entire list, especially since it was 76. They had a tie to not put Dwight Howard on that top 75 list was absolutely absurd.

And look, I understand this. Injuries got him. He had the back injury. And then the latter part of his career took some of the shine off the front half of his career. However, he is the best player on a team that made the NBA finals. And he made the Orlando Magic a contender for the NBA finals. finals every year simply because he was there. He was a force of nature while also being quite undersized for his position. He was that guy. He was an actual factual, real deal superstar at a time

where there really weren't that many of those guys where you said, we got a chance to win a title because that guy's on the team. And that was the kind of thing that you could say about Dwight Howard when he was 22 or 23 years old. Yes, they had some very particular matchups that let him do it. But Dwight Howard got to the NBA finals on a team whose second best player was Hito Turkleu and along the way sent the best version of LeBron James maybe packing. And when I say the best version, I think LeBron was a better player in Miami. But the 2009 playoff version of LeBron James, it seemed absolutely unreal. I don't know of anything that I have seen in the postseason that ever looked like that.

And Dwight and them boys sent them home. You bring up, you know, talk about Dwight Howard being undersized. Well, Brown's bigger than Dwight Howard. Yes. Like he like they're closer to the same height and he is certainly wire. Yeah. Well, that is one a testament to the greatness of LeBron James, right? Of course.

Let's put that there. But for Dwight, some of this of his own doing, like he'll never overcome what happened when Stan called him a liar and they walked away so that Dwight could come up and lie in front of everybody. Like, or he started the line before there. Yeah. You know what though? I appreciate about both of them that clearly they, you know, they're, Levitar used to tell me about this. Like, no, Stanton Dwight are friends.

Like, they got it back together. Shack and Dwight is weird, and I just don't. I don't know. We don't have to. And we don't have time. It would take forever to try to, like, tease that out. But I was glad for him that he got in on the first ballot. And a lot of you guys, because you just decided you didn't like Dwight,

a lot of you because Kobe told you not to like Dwight. I'm glad that he got that honor. And he said he went to the Hall of Fame twice because the O8 Olympic team also went in. But my. colleague here in Ways Sports and Entertainment also went in, and that is Carmelo Anthony. And I joke and talk a lot about how the first person to ever call me a hater for what I ever said on television was Carmelo. He was watching first take one day and he didn't like something I said and he said, let's toast to the hater. I talked to him about it. He didn't laugh as much as I was

hoping he would laugh about that fact. I hope he doesn't think I'm a hater now. But I do have to tell you this, and I do mean this because in working here, I have, well, first let me start here. There's something about watching Carmelo Anthony play basketball that is just special, right? Like, very few people have made basketball look as easy as Mello made basketball look. And one thing I don't think that you can really grasp on television. And Ryan, I think you may have noticed this from your first meetings with Mello. That's a really big dude. Yes.

Like, that is a power forward playing small forward more in the Terry Cummings mold than I think that people realize. Like what a special talent and basketball player he truly was. Right. Absolutely. And one of the great college players ever as well. Well, then there's that, right? Like second best player on that team is what? Jerry McNamara, Hakeem Warwick, right?

Like that's who we're talking about that got there. No, Mello was that dude. And in New York, I think Nick's fans are a little too hard on him. Amarst Stademeyer did it in his way before Mello got there, but nobody signed up for the weight of playing basketball. in New York quite like Carmelo did. Nobody did, right? Like, I was glad that the reception around him going into the hall, because look, man, the end was not necessarily the way he wanted it to be. Hell, when it didn't work out for him in Houston, I thought he was finished and said it

publicly, but obviously he adjusted his game in a way that I as a person from a distance didn't think he could to stay in the league for longer. Like, he did that. And he is a star among players and among fans that is very rare for you to find out. But I have to say, Mello and I do some business with our buddy Jesse Horton, separate business, but with the same company. And I've worked with him here at Wade. And that's a good dude. And in the time that I've had to be around him, I am like a good dude in a way that when you do this job long enough, you know kind of what you get often with dealing with former players of varying magnitudes. And Mello's his level of dude, as I think you could possibly expect, given what a big deal.

He is and has been basically since he was 18 years old. So I can speak for the whole company. I think they're happy for him, but I don't know y'all. Not that way. You know what I'm saying? I can speak for us over here, Matt. Heartfelt congratulations to Carmelo Anthony for getting into the Hall of Fame. And as much as people can talk about how the basketball Hall of Fame is unwieldy

and they let anybody in, they don't let everybody in, right? Melo's an NFL Hall of Famer. Yeah. Yeah. He was the third best player in the league for seven years. This is a no-brainer. There was no doubt when you looked at that list of people who were going into Hall of Fame, who was the person that was going to talk last, right? There was no question who that person was going to be.

And it was Carmelo. So congratulations to him. Shout out to him. Catch up with them. I guess I'll do this season's appearance on 7 p.m. in Brooklyn if they'll have me back. But wanted to throw that out there. and now join us and getting ready

for the big boxing match this weekend with my good buddy Corey Urban. All right. Joining us now, check him out. He's a commentator for The Zone. He is also a writer for Ring magazine and also had a big role in a little show

that we like to call it a morning Jones around here, Corey Urban. It is wonderful to see you. How are you, man? I'm good and it is, and will forever be weird that we don't wake up and do this every single morning.

Dude, it's, you know, I guess it's been so long now. It's been 15 years since we started the show, right? So we're at a place where there's a whole lot of people here who don't know what we're talking about and bad news for them. We don't do the show for you. This is, this was, I mean, looking back on this, the idea that somebody was like, yeah, we'll put a box in your house and you can do a radio show with these guys from Canada, except for the days that we forget to pay the bill. And we'll have, hopefully we will get you. It's been long

enough now that we can talk about that. It would just be days of waking up and being like, damn, they forgot to pay the full bill. I still remember that phone call, and it was days before that, getting on the phone with you and being like, the lights didn't turn on today. Should we be concerned about our employment? We were going through stuff that people didn't realize, like, sprinkled in, and then Mike Hitman comes on standing on top of a car because of Doberman has chased him on top of his car. And he doesn't even remember he's on the radio because he has just called us and left us on hold while the, madness of early morning Chicago transpires behind us. I don't know that you can replicate something like that these days, right?

Unless you're doing something on like, I don't know, what, Instagram live or something, that immediacy and the chaos and obviously the camaraderie and everything else that came with the show, I don't think you could produce that in 2025. It was the most amazing time in my life. Like when I do the math on all the amazing things that happened, it was just like, wow. And look, it's why you are. It's a big part of why you are where you are. It's a big part of why I am where I am.

Shout out to the Kang, Sasha Cargham, a man, Morgan Campbell, said he saw Sasha when he's up there. I think about Sasha all the time now because Sasha is from Hamilton, Ontario, the home of Shea Gilgis Alexander. The Hammer, I believe is what they call it. He would call it the Steel City. And every time life gets bad, I go check the price of gold. And I think about Sasha not getting that gold that he tried to get.

Listen, it is always weird. And I'm glad that you know about Hamilton because you can appreciate this. And we talk about it all the time. how bizarre it is that the most fashionable man in the world is from Hamilton, Ontario. Hamilton, which is the Pittsburgh of Canada. Correct. Yes. That's right. Like, that's the thing. The more I worked you guys in Canada, I realize we had so many the the blank of Canada. So, for example, Alberta, you are the Texas of Canada.

There is no other way to look at this. This is what you are. You are the Texas of Canada in every single way. Oh, okay. Got you. But Hamilton figured it out very quickly. And also, how you know, you don't want no problems with the Kang. Kang is the nicest man in the world. I don't think you want no problems. No, no. I'm sure his students feel the same way. Well, it also dawned on me that DeKang's oldest son has got to be like 16 or 17 now. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, man. It's wild. Like, I don't have to, it's a great privilege that I don't have to submit resumes too often anymore. But my position as producer of the Morty Jones is still on there. And listen, like what, like 12 people got invited to my wedding. You were one of them. And two others were. listeners of the program. That's how much has permeated our lives even 15 years down the road.

Corey, we had a wedding that we had to go to and to save a potential Fisticoff situation because over a dispute over money, Mike's friends were ready to show up. And I would tell people this, because it gets us into why we have Corey here. The last time I saw Corey was in 2022, I believe it was May of 2022, and I am walking through the Park MGM, and I have a mask on because it's still that time and I'm walking and I've got all this hair because it was still that time and I look up and I'm like oh shit I see Corey and Andreas Hale walking up but I've got the mask on and I've got all this hair and I walk up to Corey super slow and he is looking at me like what is about to transpire and I take the mask off it is like a super happy reunion the woman I'm with has no understanding as to why it is that I'm

so happy to see this little white dude in front of me but the occasion that he was there for I was there for a concert. He was there because I forget who Canello was there fighting, but Canello lost, and I had gotten word that Conello lost, which was very important information, because I was trying not to bump into any of the grumpy Mexicans that were walking around, not pleased that Canello had lost. I'm sorry, make sure I say he lost. He lost. As I recall, got his ass kicked. Like, it wasn't like, it was a disputable loss. And now, because boxing is just one of those things, but sometimes he gets your ass kick, now he's going to fight Terrence Crawford on Saturday, September. 13th. Yeah. That was Canelo Bevel and that was the saddest I have ever seen a casino in Las Vegas.

And that's including because there's the injection of the people that were there to see Silksonics. So they're kind of happy, right? You guys are coming out of the show. You're feeling good. But the people that knew the fight was going on and might have known the result were like you, not wanting to seem too happy, but then we saw one another. And, you know. Yeah, look, man, we've talked enough about, look, we got to be honest about this. Boxing, traffics in race play. And sometimes that makes things just a little bit dicey, just a little. But look, it's three years later. He's fighting Terrence Crawford.

I look this up. One, it feels like Connello is much older than he is. He's 35. He has won 62 fights. His fight that's like 62, 3 and whatever the draw number is. Terrence Crawford is actually two years older than him, but Terrence Crawford is undefeated. The last time I watched Terrence Crawford fight somebody, he put them paws on Errol Spence in a way that I don't think we thought was possible.

I have also seen Terrence Crawford fighting in person because ESPN used to have the top rank contract. So he fought one night right after the Heisman Ceremony. So we pulled up. This is when I realized how famous Desmond Howard was. All of us had really good seats except for Desmond Howard, who was in Terrence Crawford's corner. Corner, just in the corner. But what is like the first thing you think about when you know this fight is coming up is what? about this matchup.

Man, it's kind of bizarre that it's happening. And it's kind of a set of circumstances that, you know, with the injection of money and influence from Turkey Al-A-Shek, it's a fight that without this current boxing climate, just never would have happened. Because Terrence Crawford, he's technically moving up two weight classes, but really moving up three weight classes. It's only fought out 154 pounds one time. And he's going to be facing Canelo at 168.

But it's one of those fights that boxing fans, more casual boxing fans, and I don't use that as a pejorative whatsoever. I don't care what level of fidelity you have to the sport, come and tune in whenever you want. But people see them on the pound for pound list, and they argue about who's better, who's the best fighter in the world? Is it Canello? Is it Terrence Crawford?

Is it now you're in a way? And they want to put these two in there together. It's bizarre that it's happening, but it will probably, it'll go a long way to kind of defining who is the best fighter of this particular era. And I think you have to put this era in a silo that doesn't include Floyd and doesn't include Manny, because if you do, they're kind of clearly ahead. But for this modern era, this kind of defines who is the guy. And it's sort of unfair to Crawford in a sense because he's taking such a colossal risk.

He's basically having to transform his body. Moving up three weight classes is no joke. Going from 147 to a muscular 168 is something that some people take years to make happen. And Terrence Crawford's going to do it and try and fight someone. Well, are you surprised that they didn't meet somewhere in the middle on this? A little surprise, but at the same time, you know, as big of a star and as great as Terrence Crawford is, Canelo Alvarez is really the nucleus of the boxing world. And he can call the shots. And I'm sure that he did not want to have any concessions when it came to wait. But also, Terence Crawford has that thing where I think he wants the biggest challenge possible.

And it's something that was kind of, he was denied that operative. in some senses while he was fighting with Top Rank because it was during a period of time in boxing where there was some severe separation in terms of networks and promotions and they just wouldn't work together. It wasn't Top Rank's fault. It wasn't ESCN's fault. But there were all these fighters over here on PBC that Terrence Crawford never was able to match up with until he finally got that Aerospace fight. And I think there is that thing in Terrence's mind where he's thinking, hey, I'm 37, 38 years old. I want to go for the biggest challenge possible. And if I can do this, if I can move up three weight classes and beat Canelo, I'm in a different stratosphere when it comes to

how I'm remembered after I retire. Now, you mentioned the risk, obviously, of just, we're just talking about going up the weight classes, but we're talking about going up the weight classes with somebody who's calling card is power, right? Exactly. Yeah. And that's what makes this a really fascinating style matchup as well. If the fight starts and Canello isn't immediately physically overwhelming to Crawford, it becomes really interesting because Canello's calling card these days is more power. The younger version of Canello was a lot more mobile, the version we saw at 154, 160. The version we've seen at 168 and during his dalliances at light heavyweight is a lot more judicious with his punch output, you can kind of nonchalantly walk forward, pick shots off, and then throw power shots,

and everything he throws is heavy, and everything he throws is meaningful. The question is whether that approach can work against Crawford, who is going to be more nimble, he's going to be more immobile, and I don't know that the level of nonchalance that Canello has been able to have in recent fights, I don't know if that works against someone who's as intelligent and as mobile as Crawford. So we're going to have to see a version of Canello that we haven't seen in at least a couple fights. So how does the power game work for a guy like Crawford going up in the fight, like his own power? Because I'm talking about this at first in the context of, okay, now you're dealing with somebody with heavy hands and now you're going up to that fight. But I'm trying to

think to myself, like, for example, you know, and I'm not nearly as versed in this as you, obviously, but like I think of when Roy Jones went up to, you know, to fight as heavy. weight. None of us were expecting Roy Jones to knock down, even though we had watched him knock out just about every light heavyweight and cruiserweight that had been ahead of him. So what is the power translation for a guy like Crawford going up? I would say it's not the most likely result that he hurts Canello, but Terrence Crawford, even at 154, he can keep you honest with his shots. And there's a difference. You know, you look at Floyd Mayweather in the latter stages of his career, you know, the Money Mayweather era of him. No one would think of him as a power puncher, but just saying, oh,

he doesn't have knockout power. Well, that didn't mean that guys could just rush in on him and go after him and say, oh, this doesn't hurt at all. I'm just going to do whatever I want. It doesn't work like that. Like, even if Teres Crawford doesn't knock you out, you're going to feel his shots. And Canello has one of the best chins of this era. He has an all-time great chin. We've really, maybe one time seen Canello even buzzed in a fight, and that was a long, long time ago since before he was fighting on the main card of HBO. So as I would say, it's probably unlikely

that we see Crawford hurt Canello, but that doesn't mean that he can't get Canello's respect with his power. You're telling you, Corey has been kind enough through the years, especially as I've been in New York, to help me get in and check out some of these fights, and I watched a fight. I think it was a Triple G fight with Corey's dad,

and we sat next to each other, And I think that was the fight when I learned something I've talked about on this show before. That ain't nothing more underrated in sports than the jab. We think of the jab is just this thing that you do to get these dudes off of you. Man, I was watching. It was that fight with the dude that had the bullet in his spine. That was the fight before the Triple G fight. Right.

It was some dude with a bulletin spot and they couldn't do the regular. The cat scanned on it because they were afraid the bullet would start moving. And he would get paralyzed. and the theme of this fight night was Kazakhstan defeats African Americans. This dude with debiladed his spy was getting his ass kicked by whoever the next Kazakh Greek was supposed to be.

And then Triple G went up and hit some dude with a body punch uppercut the knock about against the ropes. And I was like, we are really underselling how hard these cats are hitting. But I was watching those jabs. And I was like, oh, we got to change the way we think about all of this, right? Like even a Floyd Mayweather. It's kind of like trying to hoop against somebody

that's in the NBA. but they only average 17 points a game. They're going to get for 50 hooping against you. Listen, any fighter that you see on TV, if you don't know how to fight and they hit you with a jab, that is the end of your work week at minimum. Listen, I don't advocate for street fighting, but I will say if you ever had to get into a street fight,

if you could just learn to throw a correct jab, you will get yourself out of a lot of problems. No, I told you about that time when Calvin Brock was fighting, I had to cover, I went and covered his camp in California, Pennsylvania, and I walked in there, and it was a dude. This is what I love working with you because you knew all the boxes were. David Caddieu, he was a French-Canadian heavyweight, and I walked in and he was hitting that heavy bag. And brother, I was listening to that chain shake. And I was like, oh, man, I have drastically misunderstood the magnitude of what's going on in these boxing matches.

Like these cats are throwing. And so then when you start talking about somebody like Canelo at 168, and it's a, you know, even when he was, fighting at lower weights than that. He's one of the few guys that to me when I would look at guys fighting in those weight classes and I'm looking at how built they are. He looked big at 154. Yeah, he's always been stocky and well built. He's just, his frame has moved up perfectly every step of the way. And at 168, he's very, very comfortable. Now, he's been there for a couple of years now. And again, even flirted with 175 pounds. So 168 for Canello is, is wound tight and, and in perfect condition at this point.

And his power has built over the years. And he's kind of, he's evolved from a guy that I think at one point wanted maybe, wanted to be seen as more of a defensive wizard, was kind of taking some tactics that he learned from Floyd in that loss that he took against him, was a little bit more of a backfoot fighter at a certain point, and now has kind of blended it into this perfect fusion

of the guy that's moving forward, which is always pleasing for the fans, and it's pleasing to the judges too, because they see you forcing the fight, and that goes a long way on the scorecards, but he's able to defend while moving forward, which is one of the most difficult things you can do. It's a lot easier to defend while you're moving backwards. When you're moving forwards and you're thinking offensively and trying to pick shots off or slip them, it's an unbelievably difficult combination of skills to put together. Now, this is a broader question than just the fights, and we may. get back to like fight stuff, but this is a question I wanted to ask because I think

those of us who observe it from a distance can notice this. I think as Americans, we lose sight of a lot of things about the world. And one of the things about the world that I think we lose sight of is that Mexico has nearly 150 million people. Like this is Mexican Independence Day fight. Floyd used to love to fight on this weekend and Cinco de Mayo because he was a troll, but also because there are 150 people just in Mexico itself before we start talking about. Mexicans in the United States. Speaking in the economics of fighting, like how important is somebody like Canelo Alvarez?

I mean, listen, he is, so I'll introduce a topic that maybe we'll get into also, but the boxing version of Jordan versus LeBron, the goat debate that you could just bring up any time. It's not actually who's the greatest boxer of all time because most people agree that Sugar Ray Robinson. It's tough to argue against it. the argument that you can have ad nauseum is who's the greatest Mexican boxer of all time.

And you could put Canello in that conversation. You could put Julio Cesar Chavez in that conversation. Some people like Mike Tyson think that it's Salvador Sanchez. What is absolutely true is that this is the first time that, and I use this phrase before, the nucleus of boxing, the biggest star in the sport, the central focus of it, has been a boxer from Mexico, the cash cow, is Canelo Alvarez. every time he fights, and my understanding is that this fight won't be on TV as TECA in Mexico, but every other time, basically, every notable fight that you've seen of Canelo airs on live, free television in Mexico, and each and every time eclipses 33 million viewers.

It's a massive, massive audience that is integral to the health of the sport. To give you another anecdote, I just came back from Mexico, where I was calling a great fight down DeZone between Eduardo Nunez and Christopher Diaz. If you're bored and you want to see a banger of a fight, go back and check it out. It was in Los Mochi's Mexico. We did the four fights that were a part of the DeZone broadcast. We were on our way out the arena. Bo, there were 14 more fights that night, and no one left the arena.

The world title fight was over. There were 14 more fights. I don't even know that they knew who the guys were that were walking up. They were walking guys not with ring music while people were still in the ring to get more fights out there. No one left. That is the level of dedication and the fervence of the fandom for boxing in Mexico. It's out of this world. And until you're there, you can't really fully understand it. Well, is Canelo also, and you and I have talked about this, and I remember at one point, it felt like we may have been being a little too general. And then I went on a tour of the Mayan ruins in Mexico. And I was like, oh, this is where it.

comes from. Our Mexican brothers and sisters, as much as they like people who win fights, they also really like people who take punishment. Like the idea of the Mayan idea was you pay homage to the gods with blood, right? Your own blood. Like that is the sacrifice. Your, your willingness to endure punishment is what makes you a hero. And so it's interesting when I hear you talk about Canelo as being a defensive wizard because that's almost counter to what any of us think about when Mexican fighters. Yeah. No, that's a really good point. Some of the most beloved Mexican fighters of all time. They don't have pristine records necessarily. And they are loved, even if they lose, they're loved for simply for being entertaining. There are names from

Mexican boxing history. A guy like Jorge Arce is on the Hall of Fame ballot may or may not get into the Hall of Fame. But there was a five-year period where he was one of the three most popular fighters in the country. And it's because he bled, he took punishment, came to the ring on a horse with a lollipop. There were like the theatrics and the machismo of it just appealed to the audience. And I think Canello, he talks the right way and he delivers fantastic knockouts every once in a while too. And again, like I said, this new version of Canello, you see him moving forward. And sometimes just even being the nominal aggressor, the guy who is on the front foot chasing after someone, sends the right message to the audience. And that I think has helped,

especially in this portion of his career to further boost his popularity. You know, as I hear this, I now think that maybe the infamous Julio Cesar Chavez, Melger-Taylor fight was the perfect fight for a Mexican fighter, get your ass kicked, and somehow win. You get it all at one time. That's precisely. Yeah, exactly. I need to go back and watch that fight because I just remember at the time people talking about it,

how could this possibly happen. And now that I know more about the world, the idea. that it could be two seconds left in the fight. Ah, never mind. We've had enough. What? Can you imagine in this conspiratorial era that we have right now if that would have happened?

Dude, if, yes, if that fight happened, like, if that happens, if Terrence Crawford does that, it gets stopped by Connello in that fashion, let's say, on Saturday night, your timeline will be filled with conspiracies for the next several months. All right, we're talking to Cory Arvin. Coming up next, we're going to talk some more about fights, but some of them that don't actually count right here on the right time. All right, we are back with Corey Erdman of the Zone and Ring Magazine, talking some boxing, and we are in the season of the exhibition fight.

If I am not mistaken, was it your wedding day when Floyd fought Connor McGregor? Yes, it was. However, that was not an exhibition fight. Wow, that is so crazy. It was a real section boxing match. It was so wild because Corey invited me to his wedding, but it was a little bit late, and it was on my birthday, and so I couldn't quite make it,

but then what I wanted to do fell through, and so I was stuck watching that travesty, just mortified at the idea that people were taking this seriously. And then we go from there. We are in the Jake Paul era, which has its own quirks and things that come with that. We have got, is he going to fight, Javante Davis, I think is the next one.

Speaking of two guys who are absolutely not, anywhere near the same way class and they're going to have this fight um who's mike tyson going to fight um fighting floyd mayweather that's yeah that is it um what what is your read on all of this because one thing you and i talked about before the show that has to be remembered is wild exhibition fights are not new but they do feel very much of this time in a way that is not quite positive. Yeah, they are, they are extremely trendy right now, but they are absolutely not new. And in fact, like if you go, if you go back to kind of like the, you know, the 1900s, so let's say like the beginning of Queensbury Rules boxing, Jack Johnson, for example, fought mostly

exhibitions, right? Like, there was a period of time where fighters basically would travel from town to town doing these exhibitions where they would fight, you fight all comers at the circus or or whatever and then would have the real fights at some point. And there have been all of your favorites. I shouldn't say all, but many of your favorites have had exhibition fights through the years. Mahamad Ali fought Lyle Al-Zato. He fought Bertie Semenko, you know, the hockey enforcer. George Foreman fought five men in one day. People have fought bears before. Like this is this is a trend that has always been there in boxing, but it is particularly popular in a economy that values virality above all else. And when you go back to the genesis of Jake Paul's boxing career,

I remember him putting out a video where he kind of had this hit list, like a wish list of fighters that he wanted to face. And the names on there, many of them he did wind up getting in the ring with him. But when you look back what he had correctly identified, which was really obvious that other people didn't find out, he just figured out who the people who would pop the algorithm the most would be. Who were the most popular fighters online? Not necessarily the people who would be either the most dangerous to him or anything else. It was the people that would sell the most tickets and get the most eyeballs. And Tank Davis is one of them. Dervante Davis is one of those boxers, and there's a handful of them that crosses over outside of the sport. There are people

that watch Jervante Davis fights that don't watch much else except for these big major productions, something like a Canelo Crawford. And so to get him in the ring is a guaranteed financial blockbuster. So regardless of what the fight winds up looking like, it's an incredibly wise financial maneuver for Jake. All right. First question. What is a is it about Davis that makes him cross over? I think that he has, so, Gervante has been promoted by Al Heyman. And you and I have had some conversations about this, but Al has been somewhat of a, it's a controversial figure in boxing. There are some people who, you know, ascribed all of boxing's ills to Al Heyman. But one thing that a lot of people don't understand about Hayman is that

He is one of the most important music promoters of all time. He has promoted Janet Jackson tours, Beyonce tours, some of the biggest festivals of all time. The Budweiser Superfest, if I'm not mistaken, is the Al-Haman claim to fame. Exactly, right? So what he knows is how to sell tickets and he is a master promoter in terms of getting things into the mainstream. So while you might not think that Jervante Davis is a big star, he, absolutely is. There was, when he fought at Barclays Center, the last time, he did numbers that were on par with Name Your Top Pop Music Act in terms of ticket sales. He just, he, with, with Al's help and

with his appeal, and I think some of his appeal is his upbringing. People have kind of seen Gervante Davis as the like child poet protege growing up in the Mayweather gym, and they want to root for him. They want to root for the 130-pound kid from Baltimore to make it big. And he did. And now I think people have been continuously invested in that journey. So when you combine that with a master marketer like Al-Haman, placing him in spots, you know, he has a connection to hip-hop music.

He gets referenced in songs more than any other boxer. There's just something about Tank that is different from other fighters in terms of his popularity. Do you also notice that all these people say they don't like, Al Hamid, but everybody I meet that is actually met Al Havenas like, yeah, I like Al. How many people do you know that have met Al-Hamman? Because I don't actually know that many. Actually, not that I think about it. It may just be one or two.

They're all boxers. The only people I know are boxers. Well, one of them was Ross Greenberg. Who would know Al-Hamon. Yes. I was just posted up in Cleveland, right? Somebody who suggested something to me about meeting Al, and I was like, yeah, he's like, cool, he's got to go to Cleveland. Ugh. Really?

I'll take that trip for you. Yeah, yeah. As I tell people all the time, I went to Cleveland to meet Jake Paul, which is a story that I believe I have told you and have not told everybody else. But the double tree ain't had no cookies. That's all I'm saying.

And let me tell you this, too. Whenever that Jim was that Jake Paul was there to meet up with us at, brother, brother, brother. Cleveland, I don't know where the good part of town is, but it was not between the double tree and there. Good part of town's at Huntington Bankfield, baby. Go Browns. That's right.

Corey, inexplicably, grew up in Kitchener, Ontario, and is a Browns fan. Like, your other choices, your being a Tigers fan eventually kind of sort of paid out was like a little bit strange. The Blackhawks thing I could halfway get. You just opted for misery on the Browns. Yeah, I did. For whatever reason in Kitchener, we would get Browns games and we would get some Cleveland TV and Cleveland Radio. And I don't know why I did this to myself when they left the NFL. I decided I'm not cheering for anybody.

And then they came back. And it has been exactly what it has been ever since. Now that I think about this, 2025, like the last two, three years for the Morning Jones have been the wildest thing. Whoever would have thought, Sasha's from Hamilton, you are from Kitchener and basketball players from those two cities would not just win championships, but be integral parts. Jamal Murray is from Kitchener, and I will tell you later about my, I met Jamal Murray in Las Vegas story. And Shagulles Alexander is from Hamilton. The Board of Jones was all over it. And it's wild seeing that those towns could produce that level of talent because let me tell you the caliber of high school basketball when I was in high school.

There was no Jamal Murray's playing on the St. David's Celtics. Let me tell you. Now, I want to ask you this, though, about Javante Davis. You explain how he has reached the magnitude that he has, but isn't this a little bit beneath him? I know boxers could always use a little extra money, but isn't this a little beneath him? So I think one of the reasons that this was compelling to Jervante is that before his most recent fight against Lamont Roach, which was a little bit controversial. A lot of people thought he lost that fight. He was talking about not wanting to fight anymore and was starting to really consider what life was like after boxing.

He had an interview with Lil Yadi that was quite revelatory oddly. This is 2025, man. Where he opened up about a lot of these things. And listening to it, you got the sense that this was genuinely someone who was tired of everything that had been asked of him and wanted an exit ramp. and this is quite a profitable exit rep if he could do it. So I think it does make sense understanding what Gervantes' mentality seems to be that this type of fight would be compelling to it. You remember that time a 30-year-old boxer walked away?

Because I don't. Right. Just ask it. There aren't. No. Listen, other than there are very few examples of guys who said they're going to walk away and the real, Marvin Hagler is the shining example, right?

You, after the Leonard fight said, I am done with this. I'm going to go be an actor. I have been betrayed. I have been betrayed by this sport in a way. I can never forget. Y'all know I didn't lose that fight. And they left.

It never came back. You know, he would come around. You would see him at the Hall of Fame and whatnot. But very few people have that kind of conviction on that front. And a lot of people admire Hagler about that. A lot of people cite Hagler as one of the, their heroes. Everyone wears the war hat and everything, but not a lot of people would do what Hagler did. The other part of it too, and I'm going to say this in case Gervante happens to be out here

listening, highly unlikely circumstance, but just in case. But young man, you'll probably learn this already, but if you didn't, I'm going to put you up on this game as you need to know, as I've learned in various stretches. The only thing that don't cost money in this world is going to work. like I don't know like what kind of spending he has grown accustomed to what kind of lifestyle he lives but the lifestyle that you live while you work unless you really been planning to quit brother you know and I got you know maybe you can get out here get on the mic you know what I'm saying be on to be on the call with you talk about these fights but uh the I'm going to quit and not work I've had that idea of any times and then I look and then I look around and some of this stuff I be

doing and I'm like oh yeah yeah I don't think that's going to help you think that's going to work the way you think of Will, brother. The problem is his job, the base level requirement, is to get hit with one of those jabs. Yes, that is a great point. I just can't imagine the idea. And I think I told you when I did that story on Calvin Brock, and I met his guy, Yankello, I think his name.

Tom Yankelo, yeah, yeah. And I asked him, I just wanted to know because the story on Calvin Brock was he lost a fight to Klitschko, which kind of sort of ended his career, as I recall. like a detached retina was involved or something like that. Now, fun part, I flew all the way to Pittsburgh, well, flew to Pittsburgh to go to California to interview a guy who lived in my neighborhood in Durham. It was the wildest thing, which I learned once I got up there to interview him. And so I asked Yankello, I'm like, look, man, and Brock was a banker. Like, he worked at Bank of America.

I'm like, what are you doing this for? Like, why are you out here getting hit in the face? And he said, he just loved to do it. He never thought about losing all of this stuff, right? So I asked Yankello, man, how hard it is to get jabbed in the face. And I care. remember if he said it was like getting hit with a 25 pound weight drop from a 20 story window or like getting hit with a 20 pound weight dropped from a 25 story window but do the details really matter uh no and in fact listen you referenced terence crawford versus errol spence right there was a knockdown in that fight that was from a jab erl spence got knocked down by a jab right if if someone knows how to throw that jab you're in serious serious danger and if you again like for a regular person

who doesn't get punched in the face, if you get hit in the nose, your eyes are gonna water, right? Like, everything is gonna go out the window. So the base level requirement, again, of boxing is learning how to get hit with that and not tear up, right? That's the first thing that you have to learn

as you start to fight. That's that, because if you do, if you can't get past that and some people can't, you can't box. Yeah, if I thump you in the nose like that, it is entirely possible that your shit go fill up. And it's not because of anything wrong with you. It's a defense mechanism.

It's your humanity trying to push through. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's your body sending a signal to the other person to say, leave me alone. All right. So I have pulled up Hagler in the wiki, and this is his life after boxing paragraph, the whole thing. After the Lost of Leonard, Hagler moved to Italy,

where he became a well-known star of action films. His roles included a U.S. Marine in the films Indio and Indio 2. In 1997, he starred alongside Terrence Hill and Giselle Blondette in Virtual Weapon, Those sound like awful movies. Hagler also provided Boston commentary for British television. Another foray by Hagler in the entertainment field included work on the video game

fight night round three. We ain't talk about no boxing. The other part that I find interesting in this is although he owned a home in Bartlett, New Hampshire, Hagler lived in Milan. This is not the post-fight life that we hear about. This is not Larry Holmes taking it back to Easton. No, no.

And Hagler is a more interesting character that some people give him credit for because a lot of people love, they love that image of the prime Hagler who wore the combat boots and would train in a shack and sequester himself and whatnot. But then you have this really cultured guy

who wanted to live in Italy. And even during his boxing career, you know, people always talk about the Spartan training techniques of Marvin Hagler and they'll always use him as this kind of avatar for, you don't need all this modern strength of conditioning stuff. Like look at what Marvin Hagler did. But then, like, just Google Marvin Hagler ballet.

Marvin Hagler, at a certain point in his career, was like, I'm going to experiment with ballet. It might make me a little bit more flexible and whatnot. Like, we sometimes use fighters or anyone as these avatars of masculinity and ignore a lot of things that they did. Like, Marvin Hagler was a lot more complicated, a lot more culture. Oh, that's right. He did the right guard commercials that would kind of parody all that stuff.

Right. I will say this for Hagler, Hagler, until he was thinking, 13 lived in Newark and then when the riots hit Newark Hagler then moved to Boston and all I'm saying is I'd be trying to blow this pop stand

too. Like after all this happened as soon as I got my opportunity to get the hell out of Dodge I'd have been long gone baby. Yeah, he moved to basically to Rocky Marciano territory, right?

That's right. Yeah. That's right. Hey, man, I'd be ready to fight all the time too. That reminded me. I was going to say, I was writing the other week about, and this will tie back into the fight, about Mackie Shillstone, who wound up being Serena Williams' strength and conditioning coach, kind of helped Peyton Manning in his later stages of his career, but he was kind of the architect of how we understand moving up in weight now.

And he helped Michael Spinks when he moved up to beat Larry Holmes. but it reminded me of the classic Larry Holmes press conference when he's talking to Rocky Marciano's family. And again, when people talk about Larry Holmes as this like uncharismatic guy, like they forget Larry Holmes was an A plus plus trash talker. Go back and watch that press conference. Rocky couldn't carry my jockstrap. They asked the wrong man, the wrong question at the wrong time. Because that's right. The Spinks fight, he was supposed to pass.

Marciano, right, for the most? And he was not having any of it. Rocket couldn't carry my... And it was hilarious. Like, you can say what you wanted by the timing. It was hilarious. And oh, by the way, guys who walked away from boxing, never to be seen again, number one on that list is Michael Spinks.

At least I've seen Marvin Hagler since then. I didn't know until this very moment that Michael Spinks was still alive. He took that L from Mike Tyson and was like, why am I ever going to do this again? Oh, yeah, he got out of here real quick. And again, the way that it ended for Spinks, moving up to heavyweight, they're getting knocked out by Mike Tyson, people forget he is one of the greatest light heavyweights of all time.

This is an all-time great fighter, a bad, bad, bad man, but that's a clip that he's never going to be able to escape. Well, first of all, he beat Larry Spinks. I mean, Larry Holmes twice. Yes, back to back. did not realize, right? He beat Larry Holmes twice. He did it for the people and beat Jerry Cooney. We just, you know, we just, we needed to, we needed to do something about that. You know what I'm saying? He went ahead and he did that. And the thing about the Tyson fight with him is that part of why

the Tyson Spinks fight resonates is because Michael Spinks was so good. Like this wasn't Peter McNeely that he did this too. And it was just the look on his face going in there. Like, whatever film he watched, told these guys who think they could beat anybody, let him know, you are hopeless. Yeah. And it's, it rarely do you see that in, because boxers have great poker faces for all the reasons that we've been describing throughout this episode. But I don't think that we're, that anyone is editorializing when they go back and watch that fight and the camera pans to Spinks after Tyson had walked in the rig to surmise that

this is a man who was a little bit afraid of what was about that. Have you seen the David Weyer's routine about what he would do if he had to go fight Mike Tyson? He'd be like, weighing it at 185 pounds and standing in a puddle of his own piss, David Weyis! Come on, man, come on. Like, what? Because, and maybe this is something, I need to find some way to do something about. It's just to replicate the terror that Mike Tyson inflicted upon the world.

for a good five years, five solid years. Like, there's never been anything like this. Like those of us who grew up and came of age of boxing with that, it was really hard to adjust after the fact there was just nothing like this. Like maybe the George Foreman people could remember something similar. But even Foreman, it wasn't this. It was something different. And again, you go back to the ringwalk, right?

And the fear that he instilled in his opponents, it just came from him because Tyson ring walks, he wasn't riding to the ring on a tank. You know, he didn't have any theatrical. It was him with a towel that he cut with some scissors in the back and some, you know, some DMX or Tupac and him just walking to the ring. And it was like he didn't need to produce a spectacle to make you nervous about what was happening. It was just that you were about to fight him.

And 80s Mike Tyson was literally. the black person that people were afraid of. You notice I didn't say white people, right? Black people were afraid of him too. Why? Because he might have punched your grandmother in the jaw to steal her groceries. Like, it was wholeheartedly,

it's amazing that Mike Tyson thrives in existence society in the way that he does right now because no one has ever been more terrifying than Mike Tyson was. Like how crazy it is, that Snoop exists? like he does now? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. That has nothing to do with what, that's nothing on Mike Tyson. I mean, it might have something to do with both people, people just want to smoke weed

with both of them. That is true. That is, there's something to that. One thing I was going to say about Mike, though, too, is like, in addition to him being terrifying, when you look back, you also realize, and you've made this point, I've always remembered this, you made this point about Ali and how photogenic he was, how cool he was. Mike Tyson was really cool. And when you back at Mike in that era, like the stuff he's wearing, you put that fit on today and like, you're, you're getting compliments. In a, in a, but it was a brooding cool, right? Like, it's at, like, Mike Tyson walks in the room.

He's that guy because don't nobody want to smoke. He is the ultimate, don't know, nobody. You wouldn't want to smoke with him, even if you didn't know he was the heavyweight champion. Ah, yes, yeah. You would just know what he walked in. You don't want to smoke. Yeah, the guy in the overalls and no shirt. Yeah, don't want to mess with him.

With the powdered donut all over his must. I guess the thing about it, it had the nerve to be like really badly on cocaine. I guess, yeah, we can joke about this. He's pretty open about everything he did. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing, man. Like, it's all. The wildest thing about him is there's only one thing he won't cop to. And it's the case in Indiana.

That seems pretty clearly to be what they said it was. Yeah. But the most compelling. argument on his side is he copse to everything else. Right. Yeah. He does not cop to this one. I would also point out whoever's job it was to be like, let's bring Mike in front of the beauty page and contestants. That was not what I would have recommended. It's something that probably wouldn't happen in 2012. Wow. I should say that. It might very well happen in 2025. Everything. T'allon is possible in 25, my my brother.

I'm practicano a little. Oh, yes, see, see. I'm,

you to do me days, car a semester. For two years, now the

Jake is up for me. Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty slow. I can, I'm growing. But you've been

down there in real Mexico. Cory be hit me up like, yo, I'm in a walka. You need to come check it out. Like,

all of the spot. Yeah, I'm not at the resort, man. I'm not, I'm out there. Let me

you about Hermesio. Let me tell you. You are in Estescares. That's where you are in these streets. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the great Cory Urban. Check him out at Ring Magazine. Check him out at Zon, Talking Boxing. My brother, I love you and I appreciate you spending the time with us, man. Love you, bro. See you soon. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the right time. We do this a few times a week. Ryan Brumley handling everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Remember, follow the right time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars.

I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. We'll talk to you guys in a couple of days. Take it easy.