Ryan Garcia WBC Title Bout With Conor Benn And Dana White Joins Dan + Fury/Joshua Latest! | BFW Preview Podcast

0:00The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. Now here is your host T.J. Lee's. Yes indeed we get ready for a highly anticipated WBC welterweight title made of been in Las Vegas. It is time for Ryan Garcia and Connor Ben. So we think what's going on with Garcia? And we're waiting on with Garcia and weight rumors W E I G. We've been waiting W A I T I N G as I spell for this fight. Let's hope we can get it in the ring. We're ready to preview it. That and Jai Opataya in the co feature with Noel McKaylon. We're ready to talk about those fights. We've got Dana White here on the podcast with Dan fresh out of the oven. Talking about the car this weekend. The Zufo boxing business who he's feuding with today that he won't be feuding

1:00with tomorrow who he's not feuding with today that he will be feuding with tomorrow all of that upcoming and we have Joshua Fury breaking news. Dan's reporting some some interesting stuff that he's found out that the fight may not necessarily be in New York. Stay to and the date is going to change. Stay tuned. How's that for a tease? I am merely the somewhat capable host T.J. Reeves. Hello big Dan Rayfield as we welcome you in to the big fight weekend preview podcast for another weekend. You have been busy. You have been like stop bothering me for like the last two hours because of all the different stuff that you've been working on. Full disclosure we were working on getting the Dana White interview up on the YouTube page. So we got that done. You've been hustling and checking with sources on breaking some news. And now we're ready to chop it up here on the podcast. How are things as we head into the fight weekend? Busy and I'm tired and cranky. Let's do this. I can tell. But you know what? Let's perk up because this is this is interesting.

2:02By the way, thank you for finding us on the pod feed. Subscribe. Apple speaker Spotify. Follow subscribe there. Give us a five star rating and review. And also find us on the big fight weekend. YouTube page as we mentioned. That's where we have a lot of different content interviews on nostalgia, etc. We do some live stuff on that channel. Big fight weekend YouTube. All right. So I said it right at the top. They're having the press conference tonight. Eastern time while we are taping this podcast Thursday night into Friday for Ryan Garcia and Connor Ben. There are I mean, I don't want to dampen it right away. But there are concerns that Ryan Garcia is not is not in the let's say fittest of shape here. And or trying to do the wait cut. Listen, listen, listen, let's begin with that. What do we know? What do we think? Is it a concern at all? No. Well, well, hold on. First of all, both guys are having suffering making weight. And they both talked about it. That did that is not an unusual thing in any title fight or any fight.

3:02Frankly, that's not a heavyweight fight. The notion that the fight wouldn't take place is lunacy. The fight's going to happen. They got a chop arms and fucking legs off the fights happening. Trust me that there's zero chance this fight gets canceled unless somebody has. Some kind of incident that between now and the fight, which is, you know, I guess is conceivable. But despite it's happening, both guys are struggling. There's no doubt about it. It's who's going to be able to get down to the weight, who's going to be able to replenish better. You know, Ryan skipped the face off earlier in the week because he was in the gym. I was told trying to make the wait. He claims he didn't want to be there. But you know, Ryan is not the paradigm of truth. Connor Ben showed up. He's been on a record talking about the weight problem. We spoke about it on the podcast and he read that we posted my interview with. Connor from a few days ago. Ryan has spoken about it during his media day when asked about it. This is not a surprise. So stop trying to shock and all people that the fight's not happy. Fight is happening. I'm thrilled the fights happening mainly because in the United States, it is not a pay-per-view where in any other Euro HBO showtime without Paramount Plus, the zone, whatever. Maybe this would have been a pay-per-view undoubtedly.

4:03It is not. It is just normal subscription. The same way they showed on Paramount Plus. You know, any of the recent UFC events that is what Connor Mcgregor is. Return the White House card. All the big shows they've done. So that's a great thing for us boxing fans. And look, it shapes up to be a very interesting fight. Before we go to the fight and because you brought this up, it is disowned pay-per-view in the rest of the world outside of North America. I believe it is disowned pay-per-view in several territories that do not have Paramount Plus. It's specifically in the United Kingdom and Ireland. And then they announced earlier in the week a bunch of other territories. Do we have any idea what their charge is? No, I don't give a shit because it's not my word. I understand it's not our problem. But Connor bin is a draw obviously in the UK. Can we start talking about the fight? Let them fuck you. No, no, no, I'm with you. I'm just curious if they have it priced differently than the typical like we want $90 for this and the United States. No, it's not like that. It's probably similar to what the typical Brit-paper views are. It's probably in that, you know, $20, $25 or $25 round. Something like that. All right, let's get into the fight itself. Again, we're going to have a fight. I'm going to have a fight. I'm going to have a fight. I'm going to have a fight. I'm going to have a fight.

5:03It's not going to be that much more than $25 round. Something like that. All right, let's get into the fight itself. Again, we've gotten here. Connor bin speaking of not being able to make the weight. It's not been at welterweight now for his last three fights or so. Ryan Garcia is the champ. It's more than three fights. What is it five? Total. It was pro gray, you bank, you bank, dobson, erosco. All were either mid-o'weight or junior mid-o'weight fights. He's not been at a welterweight full-fledged. one forty seven or below since he fought Chris Van Heardin in 2022 that encompasses all the fights I just mentioned plus the time that he wasn't in the ring because of the uh... pdk city had with the british box board and a whole nother fascinating point he hasn't fought it well to win in his the number one contender for the wbc but there we go again ryan garcia has had a pd situation the past and you brought that up with counter band that some might think that that might tain all this okay all that aside what do you believe this comes down to here in addition to who's weight drain and able to recover the best

6:04what break it down a little bit here as we get ready for this for this bout if the guys are in good condition physically and are able to be replenished from the weight cut and there who we usually see and expect them to be uh... and this is not an industry spectacon or been ryan garcia is the more talented fighter he's the more explosive fighter he's the faster fighter he's the more technically skilled fighter but counter band has shown the heart of a champion ryan garcia if you ask some people has not shown art of a champion go take a look at the ending of his fight with tank davis so uh... there is that aspect i talk about on this pop the ass many times there are certain measurable unboxing and there are certain things you cannot measure net as a man's will and desire and heart and willing to uh... take what it need you know to do what needs to be done to win the fight counter band has struck me uh... particularly to take a look at the way he dealt with the crisis in the you bank first fight which you lost but still came through uh... and uh... and then things he had a deal with in that fight

7:05as a guy that has that type of inner heart you know very much like his father had uh... ryan garcia perhaps not but uh... you know on a technical basis he's just a more gifted fighter had a big amateur career you know he's fought by far the better competition as a professional uh... and there's a reason why he's a significant favorite in the fight so i expect if he is in good shape and you know a lot of the weight stuff a lot of times is a smoke and mirrors not that it's not real but people overestimate maybe the the toll that it takes it's not this is not the first rodeo for either of these guys making weight uh... so we shall see i expect it to be a a fun fight with a festive atmosphere it should be i think the styles of the two fighters are are uh... such that it should produce you know entertainment for whether however long this fight last and i i'm looking forward to watching this fight i mean i'm not going to sit here and tell you it's the biggest fight we've ever seen the way some people involved are trying to hype it up but it's a good fight is a worthy main event uh... you know some people have referred to it almost in the sense uh... it's like when they take the two heels and w w and they put them together

8:08they're both a quote on a quote bad guys uh... perhaps so but it should be like i said a good fight uh... it's been uh... they've done a trip you know done a lot of uh... ton of social media promotion on this fight if for a lack of the traditional promotion let's call it but between the the fighters who've been doing a lot of talking and that sort of thing dana white who's out there talking everybody uh... as people hear him and my conversation later in the show listen for the for the purposes of what zupa boxing is done and you know dine dain and i touched on this a little bit this is they they had their first prep and they did the canelo crawler fight in uh... in september of last year i was sort of like a test drive that was they were put in that position but since they've really been promoting shows regularly since january with their paramount deal they've been doing basically monthly shows they're nine months into it and for them to get to the point you know nine months in where they have an authentic genuine major fight uh... a pay-per-view level fight at a place like the team of the arena with two

9:09of the biggest names in the sport shows you they're not fucking around i mean they're here for the they're here to with what's the old saying to uh... kick ass and take names and then this is the first have what i believe will probably be through the next few years many of these type of major events they have car short his team she course even sin lined up uh... they sign they're going to i'm sure get him some type of something significant at some point they're going to come uh... to talk to other fighters that become for agents and sign them also this is i think the first of uh... several uh... major as we will see well said that aside because i got some follow up on that and when you talk to dana white you're gonna hear him talking about that points there's more to come back so i'm gonna bring this back to what ryan garcia are we gonna see like you mentioned he was beaten by tank davis now he came into that fight i'm not making excuses with a rib injury that he was hiding and he admitted in jogus and his trainer admitted that they hurt the rib they wanted the fight to go on and and uh... tank davis hurting early on in the fight with a shot to the ribs and then eventually finished him with another shot to the same right side of the ribs that's why he took the ten count that was it okay then we

10:10had the devan haney fight a couple of years ago where he was significantly overweight for that fight did a lot of partying whatever he ended up winning the fight in the ring but was the ultimate loser uh... with the uh... decision being overturned and then him accepting an extension for a full year for the pd use for the pd use correct then he had the fight with roly romero last may which is horrible where he went through the motions he again claimed after he had a hand injury to say that he went through the motions is to is is an injustice to the is it an injustice to the motions yeah it's an insult to people that go through the motions so so he got knocked down early in that fight now he was really good against mario barrios but i think it's fair to say we don't know what we're getting Saturday night are we getting a lot in focused ryan garcia are we getting kind of an out to lunch ryan garcia that may have an injury problem that we don't know about and on and on and on i don't know i mean i just expect that look mario

11:12barrios who was a good fighter but not a great fighter in some ways made ryan look like a gazillion dollars but part of that was because ryan was on his game and was in good condition both physically and mentally he had the right opponent in front of him he was highly motivated i guess it was a chance to win a major world title and uh... you know everything click for him that night that was the best that ryan garcia as an overall uh... performance probably the most complete performance of his entire career uh... for big states in the main event of a big show uh... you know i give him credit for that but like you said i don't know if it's that that uh... ryan that shows up or the guy that's stuck out the joint walk through uh... like like a sleep walker in the roller marrow fight in uh... may have last year so i suspect that he's not gonna be as bad as roly don't know if he's gonna be as good as he was against marios you know i like to say you're not your you know how you are on your best night is not how you always are and how you are on your worst night is not how you always are you're probably really somewhere in the middle so i think he'll be just fine and connerben uh... i believe has a big heart but somewhat limited skills uh... and we're gonna see you know which

12:13guys got you know who's gonna in some ways uh... it may be cliche but in some fights it's true is who wants it more uh... we shall see i think it's very important for both these guys i know connerben with desperately wants his win it would validate everything he's been through he would win that wbc title that he's so long coveted which uh... is a title that is father nijel uh... the recent hall of fame and ducty had one at one point in his career and uh... he certainly seems much more despite the weight-cutting issues and all that seems the more loose and uh... outgoing uh... extra vertus week and and leading up to the to the fight compared to what ryan's been doing but he just never know until the bell rings uh... two more points on this one of those is do you uh... i'm curious what do you think garcia is fighting a guy that has been fighting at heavier weights and taking punches from you bank and others at heavier weights for whatever extent he took them in the two genuine way fights he had before we thought uh... you banked the two times uh... last year

13:13so will he is punch have the same effect on a guy that's been fighting at bigger weights that's a curious that what do you think on that will let have the impact that is a good question i mean you know he was obviously scoring some sensational knockouts in the wilterweight division you know several years ago before the uh... pd situation draw the conclusion that you wish on that uh... it's not correct that since the pd suspension no those five fights have been in with the k.o. he had you bank hurt late in the in the rematch fight but he got no knockouts since the whole is worth yes his five fights since venn here in which was the fight prior to the uh... suspension were were all been decisions now you want to talk about does he have punching power okay so he has a score knockouts that's fine uh... he did in the ubank rematch score knock down in the twelfth round of that fight which he was way ahead in and that's just sort of the cherry on top for him um you know he dominated the uh... the fight against uh... regis prograce which was the fight that took place in april but did not score knock knock or a knock

14:13down in that fight that was a fight where he was just slightly over the wilterweight limit that was on him on the way down i mean remember after he had fought the ubank fight he made it very clear i'm going down to wilterweight but he's going to stop there in the middle and there was frankly no reason for him to make one forty seven for a non-title ten rounder so we made like one forty nine and uh... you i think program was like one forty eight so it was close and now he's going to fight for the title at one forty seven um... the power who knows i know one thing if you hit rying arcia he's been dropped in his career both to the body and to the head so it is certainly a possibility that he could land that type of shot and do the same damage all right that's the intrigue that's the main event the wbc wilterweight title is on the line uh... for that main event match up uh... all right now on to the co-feature i know Dana white in the interview we're gonna hear it keeps saying co main event co and main event can i just stop it it's not a co main event the main event is garcia and ben this is the co-feature fight opataya and noelle mccalean now you explain this before mccalean currently still has and i know you've been asking and

15:16checking on this he still has the wbc cruiserweight but the belief is they're kind of letting this go on and then they'll deal with him after the fight and even if opataya wins the wbc essentially is going to vacate the belt right for this match up before we get into the match up itself that's that's some of the backdrop of the organizations and zufa boxing and all of this right i have to know honestly okay putting all sanctioned body belts aside uh... these the at the moment trophies ufa belt aside which also is part of uh... the collection of jio patia all you really need to know here is this and this is not my opinion this is a fact-based concept uh... jio patia is the linear champion he won that he obtained that uh... that that level that crown if you will when he defeated myrice braitess and the first fight this will be his ninth defense of the of the a linole title he had uh... uh...

16:17sanctioned body titles in there but he was stripped at one point of the ibf then stripped by the ibf a second time after he regained that title but he is the man who beat the man who beat the man and he is the number one cruiserweight in boxing and no i'm a calean as a two-time wbc title holder coming off of a very solid victory in his rematch to avenge a previous very close lost the beddoujac and regained the wbc title he at the very worst case scenario you're looking at a guy that's like you know the top three probably in the cruiserweight division top four something like that so you're talking about the number one guy in the division against like you know one of the top two or three other guys in the division uh... and so and and they're both obviously good fighters opatai makes good fights it's a tremendous puncher got a got a you know a heart of a lion and a been a good chin he's you know fought through broken jaws and taken some big shots and has never stopped uh... advancing forward and uh... and uh... michelle and you know also a very solid good quality fighter has three losses uh... but had never been stopped before and he also has a loss to myrice braitas uh... it would dark check who's a former champion and he has the

17:21lost the beddoujac which he avenged so this is a high level matchup this is a fight that by all rights should be for saying cheingbadi titles in a perfect world not only would it be for the the lineal title and and slash the ring title but it would be a unification of the i bf and the wbc but the i bf got stripped away from opatai who was presently suing the i bf over that situation looking to be reinstated and you know he stood them recently in federal court and opatai uh... and uh... and mccalean he's the wbc champion at the moment they're very moment what they're gonna do i have a a very good relationship with marisa sullamon we uh... message and talk all the time uh... he has been less than uh... desire of the desire to answer my questions about this particular fight okay i've been doing the the job to ask as i tell any interview subject or anybody that i ask it is my right to ask the question it is your right to answer or not answer however you choose to do so so i respect that uh... but he was this is fact also prior to this fight being made he had been ordered to fight the mandatory against david benavides who is

18:25the wbc's light heavyweight champion and by that status he can ask for and receive the mandatory position in the next weight class above but he also is the two belt cruiserweight title there so it would theoretically have been if they fought in the mandatory uh... a three-belt unification as well as satisfying the wbc's mandatory they mccalean did not take that fight he opted for this fight they did not strip him uh... it is my belief they'll wait till after the fight to deal with that unless something changes later today or tomorrow or saturday i guess it's possible it's boxing should happens it's a fluid situation currently the wbc title is not at stake for either guy although i can't imagine of mccalean were to lose at the weight that he of course would be stripped uh... to my knowledge there's been no movement to have opataya try to win the wbc title although you'd like to seem to be able to do that but that would be the wbc going back on there uh... on their resolution about the fact that he had that that the counting out of fight against the best the best guess he's not gonna be introduced as the wbc champion they're not they're not going to introduce him

19:29he may but it's but but zufa is not looking to all right you know look they i don't know what they're going to say in the ring when the ring announcer you know gets in there but if you look at the previous history you know they they will probably say it's for the cruiserweight title they may even say the zufa cruiserweight title although i don't even know if mccalean who is not signed to zufa my knowledge if he's even eligible to win the zufa title so that's a whole thing with don the folks and who he signed with and you'll hear here's another tease you'll hear Dana white address that situation in just a few minutes when we played on the podcast discuss that briefly also don't can't send the cease and disassist later a couple days ago try to stop fight he says he has a contract with mccalean and they that he is not allowed to enter into this agreement uh... the league i i brought his whole story about it yesterday people can go on the substack and take a look at it but the bottom line is uh... the zufa people believe they're on firm ground uh... they're not budging they're not canceling this fight but no one mccalean says i have an adendum of my contract i know what it is says and you know we know i can't help with don king does uh... i made a mistake signing with don king is what he said he said it's ten times worse than

20:33i thought it would be right i mean all due respect to don king why anybody would sign with him uh today yesterday last year last month five years ago i have no idea he brings absolutely nothing to the table anymore unfortunately and uh... there we go he's 95 and still litigious um but this fight's gonna happen and all right people really need to know the most is a good match up that's what we fucking care about and what do you think ultimately happens here opataya opataya maybe even by late stoppage i think opataya just uh you know i think opataya malls and wins the fight all right would be an upset if mccalean wins and like i said it's fascinating he's not signed to a zufa boxing deal ryan garcia as you've mentioned is an oscar de la joya for now the love hate there if if if uh if uh if uh if uh if uh zufa having perhaps an option on on uh hope on uh on uh mccalean would not surprise me okay and zufa will have nothing going forward with with uh ryan uh turkey may still have turkey al chic may still have another fight involving of him i'm not sure about that but you know we'll see well you said to us previously that regardless of the

21:37outcome of this that garcia's next fight if not his next two fights right have to be on de zone because they agreed that is my out of the way and he has a deal with golden boy in de zone and let this fight be on paramount plus right and you know the whole the whole uh situation between uh golden boy and and zufa for this particular event you know they've been non-existent in this promotion oscar de la joya has not been heard from for days and days and you know uh the rest of his staff not around they're not doing anything to publicize the fight uh you know oscar hasn't made any videos he wasn't at the press conference to my knowledge he was not at the at the media day the other day uh haven't seen or heard anything from him i did you know people can hear in a few minutes um be talking to dainna wait about that whole scenario um but he is the promoter and golden boys uh getting paid and they've got a fight on the undercard all right two other fights mark max cio andres cortes light weights and then also a preliminary fight with hosea ramirez and elixis rocha another golden boy fighter as well in a welterweight fight what about these two fights

22:40that are also on a card right and just uh uh not it's not at the type of fight we're going to spend time previewing but they added also a heavyweight fight as the opener for the main card between their zufa heavyweight uh de maize on van hooter who is a good prospect young kid in an eight rounder but in terms of uh the uh max cio andres cortes fight look these are two guys who are now with zufa they're both good fighters they bring a little bit of different things to the table max cio is uh is known as a former wbc featherweight champion he's a filipino it's you know been packed by mani pack out for a long time over the years um and court you know he's more of a legada come forward and try to mix it up and cortes who was long time with top rank next cio had previously been with pbc cortes u with top rank he's contract was up he signed with zufa really outstanding boxer he's 25 and oh uh these are two guys that are still uh you know not old fighters max cio is only 30 years old cortes is 29 um this is like the classic boxer versus brawler kind of fight cortes being the boxer next cio being the brawler uh as i as i was once told many years ago by the uh the uh the great philosopher

23:46Floyd may weather skills pay the bills and uh and that i would be if you're looking at this fight in that manner it would probably be cortes with the skills but it's a good matchup i mean you know i don't know how it's going to be when the bell rings but you know what these are two modified contender types two guys who are experienced uh exio has been a world champion he has moved up cortes has moved up they're fighting a lightweight they have been mainly in their careers of fought slightly lower either in the featherweight or the uh junior lightweight division but uh you know good matchup and the guy that is the winner you know deserves to be you know among you know the top handful of guys rated in the lightweight division and the other fight you mentioned this is the golden boy fight that they had on this car as part of the agreement to do this deal is hosey remeer is against allow us to elect his rocha uh this fight has completely been ignored by the promotion which is really ashamed because while i'm not going to tell you tj that this is like a humongous fight this is a very good matchup you know it wasn't that long ago this could probably have headline like at the zone kind of golden boy card for sure um and uh but it's also kind of like a

24:47shit or get off the pot and go home for the loser i bet fight i mean remeer as uh was the top junior welterweight in the sport for you know a little bit um he had unified two of the titles the obviously lost um you know in the in the unification uh when josh tailored defeated him in a very narrow decision to become the undisputed champion he's kind of struggled since then he's now at welterweight and look he is coming off you what we talked about how bad Ryan Garcia looked in that new york uh new york time square card yep and uh he lost a roly remeer well if anybody on that card look worse than Ryan Garcia was hosey remeer as i mean he took a loss to devinee and a decision where you want to talk about sleep blocking i mean he was to just miserably awful that particular we've talked previously how much is his heart still in it he got married right and all of that and and and for uh decided to forego a title shot because he was getting married and i thought he was like semi retired at one point yeah i mean this is this is i think you know if he doesn't win this he probably does retire it's kind of like the last rye he's made good money he's got some great

25:47accomplishments oh by the way outside the ring hosey remeer is a class person a wonderful guy a charitable guy you know has worked and done tons of stuff for his community which i have detailed throughout his career Alexis Rocha is more of a natural at that weight class um he is a guy who did not fight at all in 2025 for a variety of reasons but he did come off of a fight in march steady one whereas uh remeer has had him fought since that time square card that was uh you know a wild back that was may of last year um on the one in roach it did have a fight since on the other hand though we beat you know the very very very very very long fate of Joseph Diaz Jr uh this past march so this is the kind of this is like we're gonna fight for our careers kind of fight the guy that's gonna win is absolutely gonna be able to move forward and have some other significant fight the guy that loses your kind of like especially if it's remeer is you know it's probably the end of the road at least not that saying they're gonna retire but in terms of like these types of opportunities um and also as we always talking about most importantly when the bell rings dude this should be a very sound fight in my mind okay so that is the uh the zufo boxing paramount plus card that will be on

26:54Saturday night Dana white coming up in a couple moments you do want to make mention there's a Friday night pro box card in ocean side california where Giovanni Santiano and Abbas Barou are fighting a junior middleweight main event and there's also intriguing undercard fight there as well so what do we have Friday night before we ever get to the big show on Saturday in Vegas yeah it's a pro box card and you know when they started their their five dollar a month thing they promised some higher level main events uh this is i'm not saying this is some huge fight but this is a very solid matchup between you know two guys that have been uh you know uh true professionals if you will uh San they're they're both top rank fighters by the way and but they're fighting on a uh on a pro box card that's gonna take place in ocean side california in the San Diego area uh it's uh San Tion's second fight in the junior middleweight division uh there are Abbas Barou as a former wba title holder in that weight class so there there's something at stake here both these guys with a victory like this not it's not a formal title eliminated if you will but the guy that's the winner is certainly

27:54going to put himself in a good position in a weight class by the way where there's certainly going to be some business going on as uh as you know um look barou is coming off of that loss earlier this year he defended the title in a unification he went to portorico in his first defense you know does that no problem going on the road and uh taking a real fight in that defense this was back in the in late January he lost a decision to zander zias in portorico zander was able to unify the titles then later of course lost those belts to uh jr.an butsena so barou is coming off of that loss uh back in the ring and san tion uh you know he's he's uh he's one three fights in a row and that is that is since he got absolutely smashed by bryan normand in a fight that at the time was like people were kind of shocked you know brie normand i think was actually this the slight underdog in that fight and he went to uh san tion's home area and he literally just you know he bloody them up he cut them up and stopped them in round 10 that was an interim title fight back in uh 2024 uh so san tion he's back you know he's back in business he's at a heavier weight and uh

28:55this is like a i mean this like a 50 50ish kind of fight to me okay and the least alberto low pez in a junior lightweight fight is also on this card in california front so he's a recent pro he recently signed with pro box he's he's you know he's not taking on a top opponent but he's facing a daniel luco a fellow mexican 28 4 and 1 and it's a 10 rounder but uh lope as it's going to be his third fight since he got i mean anybody that saw this will remember this it was a knockout of the year candidate in 2024 when he lost the featherweight belt that he held to angelo leo in a spectacular knockout he ended up in that fight uh lope well with what was termed a minor brain bleed people were very concerned about his future uh i guess he's okay he's had three fights in so although not top level fights in vexico um you know he's won those fights uh uh you know most of them that didn't like three those have been like inside three round like quick knockouts um now we're gonna see what he can do they're gonna try to bring him back you know he's fighting in this uh way class now he always gives value for money whether he's

29:56in with a top guy or a nobody you know he's good to see good to watch and uh that's the co-feature yeah leo's knockout was a boom goes the dynamite oh he's realized to joke joke around with the big left hand and so there you go that's Friday night again through pro box and as you mentioned their modest little uh pay-per-view subscription for these higher level cards that they want to do and that leads us to your conversation that you had on Wednesday as we released this Thursday and if buddy you grabbed Dana white as all the uh the media stuff was starting to crank up you grabbed him one on one intriguing stuff here folks he's gonna talk a lot about the Garcia bin fight the car jio pataya on it don't on king situation with trying to stop noelle mccaelian from fighting on the card and then you get into some other parts of the business aspect of what they're doing in the future etc so let's hear big Dan with Dana white right now well it is my distinct pleasure to welcome to the podcast this week it is done other than the zoofa boxing boss man Dana white Dana

30:56uh you are promoting your your first major fight in terms of paramount plus and boxing it's on Saturday night you'll have the wbc welterweight championship fight between the champion Ryan Garcia he is making his first offense against Conor Ben live on paramount plus not pay-per-view I'll say at the team mobile arena in Las Vegas welcome to the show thank you very much for doing this Dana appreciate it thanks for having me all right let's get into this you are nine months into zoofa boxing actively promoting cards you did of course the canelo crawford one but that was right before the paramount stuff started and I've heard your press conferences numerous times after your your paramount plus events saying judge us after one year we're now three quarters of the year through so I can reserve judgment for the year but I'd like to hear just your brief assessment so far of the product yeah listen I'm really happy where we're at I think that I am two years ahead of where I thought I would be you know this far into it and uh it's actually been fun for me there it does when I would talk to boxing guys and I would say what the hell am I

32:01doing am I out of my mind why am I even considering this but I'm actually having a blast so it's uh I and I'm looking forward to this weekend you know I love things like I will be in uh Arizona for no j u fc for a sold out event then I will jump on the plane and fly to Las Vegas for my sold out boxing event uh you know two two fights the same night and paramount plus is so good like you said no pay for view you go right from ufc no jam paramount plus right into the boxing event you only have to change the channel you mentioned how much fun you're having now with your boxing endeavors which is more fun for you is it boxing because it's still kind of newish in terms of the promotional game or is it so ufc which I guess is uh you know that's that's been the cornerstone of your career for so so many years yeah well it's all fun obviously there's a lot of things that I need to focus on and build and and and do with the sport of boxing yet you know while still trying to figure out you know how do I continue to break records and do the things

33:06that I do with the ufc i love the challenge of all of it in different ways let us talk a little bit about the fight you have in front of your tremendous match up between uh Garcia and Ben easily uh your biggest fight so far in terms of the paramount plus deal uh can you just give me your brief thoughts on the matchup and getting to the point now where zufa has a genuinely big fight i mean you've done obviously a bunch of cards you've had some tremendous fights maybe some that haven't been the greatest but this is certainly profile wise easily uh the biggest one and like we were talking about before in terms of my paper view certainly if it wasn't on paramount plus would have been absolutely a pay-per-view yeah yeah i mean jio patiah is the co-main event you know what it means uh it's a great card and i was telling Ryan Garcia the other day that uh you know when we put the the commercial up on uh paramount plus it did 17.7 million views in a week so there's tons of buzz and hype and energy around this fight i love the fact that you know the co-main and main event

34:06we get the showcase uh you know all four of these great fighters and then this is one of those cards that i've been talking about for years like what we do with ufc from the first fight of the night you know all the matchmaking is great every fight means up and every guy is uh is someone yeah i'll give you that i mean you do you do have a an excellent undercard we'll get to the opatiah fight of course but you also have guys like maxio and uh you know has been an exciting fighter for a long time uh been a former world champion so yeah you definitely have uh some some other stuff let's say as you say to uh to uh to check out but in terms of the the main event um with uh with Ryan against conor ben you were saying uh about how you know you had all those views for for that commercial i wonder uh from the business side of things what would what would be considered a success for zufa and or paramount plus in terms of the number of people that tune in or that subscribe because of this fight yeah we're all going to be asking about the

35:07numbers come on that you know that yeah you're looking for subs and and obviously viewers and you know i don't focus on that as much as what we want to do is put on the best fight so you could possibly put on what i want to do is build the trust with the boxing fans that i have with the ufc universe right i can put a card on sale and tickets will start to sell before you people even know who the main event is because they know i'm going to deliver that's what the confidence that i want to build with the boxing fans including uh you know not just the people who stay home on a Saturday night and and and waste a Saturday night on an event but the people who fly there by tickets i want them to have an incredible experience um at a live boxing event because i went to one a few years ago and i could tell you this it was not a good experience and my fun it was

36:08his first time going he's like yeah dad i don't ever want to come to one of these again hopefully hopefully you can get people to change that that viewpoint uh for sure uh when you when you uh are so heavily involved like you said promoting trying to get the buzz out there get the hype out there do a great job for your partner and paramount plus and bring eyeballs to their platform and subscriptions to their platform and then you show up on las vegas for the beginning of fight week and the star of the show Ryan Garcia the champion going into this fight the guy with you know the certainly more well-known in america than connerben uh skips the big photo op first photo op of the week on twosday uh supposedly uh having trouble with his weight he was in the gym i am told connerben showed up and took pictures and all that where he was at a little disappointing that that your star of the show didn't show up for the first photo op for this big fight week well he's been good as far as letting us get content and other things i mean this is the business we're at we're dealing with lots of different personalities and uh you know it's no

37:09difference than things we dealt with the u.s.c. too and in terms of uh ladies this is our first rodeo with this type of stuff oh listen i believe me i know that i was only thinking of the standpoint that in terms of your boxing endeavors your first big one for paramount plus and it's sort of kind of what i would think would be disappointing that the top guy didn't show up for the first face off that's all um yeah no these guys have been good um you know no promotion leading up to it is ever going to go absolutely perfect but these guys have been great uh the the the the pre numbers we're seeing you know just off the commercial alone have obviously been good paramount is happy and excited so we're good Dana talk to me a little bit about the your your because you don't you're not the promoter of Ryan Garcia obviously you are for this particular fight but the guy that you signed that Zufa targeted and went after was connerben you got him for the one fight against regis progary that took place in april uh paid him more money than any undercard fighter had ever been paid in the history of boxing it was a one fight they'll you

38:12follow it up you signed to a longer term extension um what was it that you and your team saw him that decided let's make him you know the guy we're going to sign and we're going to obviously spend a lot of uh resources and and uh and time on well obviously you know me and my match makers think he's a talented kid and he's an absolute professional man that this kid is one of the greatest athletes i've ever worked with a mind-fire career um you know i look for guys that you know you can't you're not master dumb as you can't you know predict whether they're going to win all their fights that's always something that you sort of you're sort of rolling the dice on but i like guys that you can build a business around and he is a guy you can build a business with and i would think that's also key because you have such important events that you're supposed to do in the uk as well yeah well not just you know paramount not just the uk but the rest of the world fighting is a global business and you know this was unheard of back in the day but i'm trying to

39:18think of what it was i just put on a fight think about this right now with your boxing knowledge and and all your history and boxing i just did a fight and filly with a uh a Muslim Russian and and an Irish kid okay at the main event you old out broke the records all the shit that's a US that's a USC fight right that was a USC fight right right yeah right so now in boxing if you had a guy you you'd have to fight in Vegas or Atlantic City if you had a Puerto Rican you could go to New York if you had a Mexican you could do LA you know you had to be very specific where you went based on who was the main event i can main event anybody anywhere and and and and the thing not only sells out the brexy arena records with regard to the fight week that you have there's been i know a lot of discussion over the last you know months pretty much since you started everything with this there's the constant back and forth data between yourself and the golden boy promoter oscar

40:19de la oi was at least for the moment Ryan Garcia's promoter uh have you had any contact with them directly they'll up to the fight and do you think you will during the course and the rest of the week is he gonna be there with the at the press conference or on the stage with you at the weigh-in and how's that gonna go if he is i've had zero zero uh interaction with him have a scene him talk to him and you know i really haven't had any back and forth with him or any hurt i mean realistically well you boy you guy hold on hold on you you talk shit about them and they talk shit about you they're pretty quiet do this whole thing but they talk shit about you and you talk shit about them yeah i mean there's a lot more talking on their side than there is my side at a fair point are let's talk about your co-feature because i was another fight that you're brought up between jio pataya who is the uh lineal champion he had been the i bf champion he has now uh your zufa belt uh he is defending or i guess he's defending the zufa belt uh but taken on uh the guy who was currently the wbc champion which is no one michelleian uh good quality matchup it seems to me uh

41:23tell me a little bit about what happened with don king he sent you guys a cease and desist letter he is the promoter of michelleian so he says uh obviously you're not you're kind of ignoring that you're going forward with the fight uh i that i assume you know you're on you believe you're on strong legal ground to do the fight but what was your take on the 95-year-old still the tige is don king trying to uh stop that fight literally the week of the fight yeah i mean obviously he's known about this fight for a long time sending a cease and desist days before the fight um and i liked on i've and and if you look at my 25 years of being in the fight business i've never gone after a fighter that we didn't have the rights to go after never tried to interfere with somebody else's contract or do any of that type of stuff um you know in in in a sport guys are going to pop up and become free agents guys are going to uh have opportunities and uh you know we will do everything within the legal right to to to put on fight so i'm not

42:25going to i'm going to go out and try to screw people over steal people when when guy when guys become free agents mm-hmm i'll be in there so there was never any particular idea like oh my goodness we got this letter we might have to cancel this fight no never okay fair point there uh the main event is a wbc world title fight uh you are gonna do jai's well i bf cruiserweight world title fight before he was stripped uh before the defense that was like the day before certainly that was not a zufa issue that was an i bf issue apparently a couple weeks ago you went to ira landing you had the i bf middleweight title fight in which uh air and mcna your fighter won in his own country of Ireland but back when you first started all this and you guys went out and did a ton you went out and did a ton of publicity we spoke on this same podcast and you talked about how you didn't want to work with the other organizations your your tenor was you'd like to put them out of business if you could uh but here we are nine months later and you've done now uh you know various or title fights with those organizations and this this one is also of course with the wbc so i mean

43:28which is it are you are you gonna are you willing now to work with these organizations even if you don't love it and you don't necessarily like put the wbc on the on the promo material or name the i bf but you're still doing business with them uh even if not actively promoting their belts can you sort of explain the change it seems in in the positioning of your views on doing title fights boy i don't think anything's changed my philosophy is this as we come into this sport or once into it months you know you you have these kids who have either titles or we're lined up for titles or have dreamt of of holding a title someday and um you know i'm willing to figure stuff out if they're willing to figure stuff out they're not going to come in and just tell us what we're going to do and what we're not going to do and you know this guy is a mandatory and this guy is that you know it's it's not going to work that way if if everybody wants to play nice and we all want to work together and if the fighter wants it right which is the most important thing to me what does the fighter want i felt like when you first started off it was and i'm glad to hear that but

44:34when you started off you've seen a little more because maybe you just hadn't gotten into it yet it seemed a little bit more like confrontation like you know i hear what i wasn't going to do either i didn't walk right everybody was like oh i thought he was just doing small fights and i thought he was doing this and i thought he was doing that you know we didn't tell anybody what we were doing we came in and we just started building our business and and however that works you know it's all the work and progress now part of that i think you tell me if i'm wrong that you were obviously you guys have been trying to uh get done the the legislation that will adopt the Ali Revival Act it has been passed by the united states house of representatives it is still hung up in the senate where you've had there's been hearings a Nikon testified on you on you know your company's bf it's still still stuck in the committee in the senate i don't know when and if it's going to come up for vote obviously if they pass it and it becomes the law that probably will change the way you do some things because it will make your zufa belt in your you bio you know lawful

45:35can you is do you have any update on the schedule for when that may go through the senate process to try to for them they try to bring it through the committee to the house for or is it just sort of up in the air yeah i i sit right here right now i don't know the answer to that um oh yeah everything you said is correct and that that's what we're uh working to do so is that is it am i incorrect to say that's at least in some way in peeding uh the the speed by which you like to do the things you've talked about doing with the ubo no no no not at all i mean if that was done right now we'd still be working the way that we're working now so you envision a future then where you'll if you that the ubo becomes lawful and you operate in that manner sort of the you know the same sort of setup you have with ufc but you would still depending on what the fighters want to do and what what opportunities are available similar to what you're doing on Saturday with a wbc title fight here or there or an ibf title fight you didn't Ireland that sort of thing correct i mean you know and you know do these guys want to work with us that they want to uh you know

46:40you know are are they going to be easy to work with are they going to be difficult either way it goes it doesn't matter to me how has it been then let's say for this week with the wbc as an example so far so good i'm glad they're there all right if you don't mind i'd like to ask you about just a couple other brief topics if you haven't been at about that uh yep you can't go anywhere and watch a dana white a video clip without him being asked about Tyson Fury and uh Anthony Joshua so i just want to just briefly touch on that Eddie Herndt says that their contract at least on the her and Joshua side says that Zufa cannot be involved in the fight you're of course on record talking about how you were involved in the site deal as well as in the deal for the Netflix situation um what's what's the disconnect there that i'm missing well it's a really weird thing man i don't know if i've ever seen a guy who was supposed to be the promoter of a fight hurt a fight more than this guy has it's it's it's fascinating to watch but um but i get it um and listen we've all learned a lot about Eddie Herndt of last uh several months um

47:48i mean like Frank Warren yeah Frank Warren is like a real guy you know the the more i see it because Frank Warren and i don't really know each other we met met his son uh but you know Frank Warren is a real guy it's been an interesting you know interesting seven eight months whatever it's been um but we'll see how the thing plays out he used the example in Eddie's comments that it would be like Zufa promoting Joshua and Fury would be like if he went and said to you guys i'd like to be involved in promoting restylmania meaning you know the your sister company the WWE do you sort of understand where he comes from on that standpoint listen there's a lot of things that i know that the public doesn't know and tell us in the tell us you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that Eddie Herndt is full of shit okay i don't know if i've ever seen a guy more full of fucking shit than this guy is and i don't know what we'll see i'll play

48:54can you give me can you give me an example this fight has to be in uh in England for the English fans and all this stuff how many times they have to be Joshua fought in south that's a fair point but i think when they made this fight they they claim they signed a contract it's said to you okay so okay i'll take them after word if they say that's the case i don't even think anybody's really disputed that so they're just i'm not defending them i'm just playing the doubles out of it they say okay if you if you want to change that then you have to you know pay the piper i guess and so it needs to be worth our while to make the switch i think they would like to deliver their country's biggest fight to their fans it seems logical i don't disagree with that i don't disagree with that at all so then just squash the fight and start over go do the fight in England and you know do you deal with his own and do it in wembley or wherever you want to do it in other words not not with netflix not at the garden i mean it seems like a heavy lift right there

49:56well they didn't do the network that that flexing garden deal understood although i mean it all it's not not to be disrespectful in any way Dana you know as well as i do it any heron could have walked into the garden done a deal with them in two seconds also he's done plenty of business with them through the years he's had fights in the main arena he's had fights in the theater then do it there do you think the largest and i'll end this topic do you think the fight will actually take place since you're obviously involved in some capacity let me ask you a question let me ask you a question and from what you haven't covered the sport a lot and any of that but from what you think you know of me do you think that i would fucking you know be like oh my god they said that they fuck oh we've got uh uh uh uh uh i would fucking wipe everything out and i would start over and i would do the whole fucking thing myself you know i do not think that you just talk out your ass about how you're involved in the fight i don't think you know you would want to be embarrassed you know i would sit around and line and cry and do eight hundred and fifty thousand interviews about why it needs to be

50:57get in there you're the fucking apparently the big promoter you're you know it would have you just said any hurt and walk into anywhere and do anything well i i was talking about the i meant i said i said the garden okay well hopefully or garden or when we are cut a tv deal or then do it do you think the fight happens that's the bottom line under the under the current situation and time frame i do think the fight happens yes i'm glad to hear that all right just and it just move on uh you recently signed Shakur Stevenson he's one of their best fighters in the world he's the junior wealth away world champion uh my question for you is when are we going to see him in his first fight with zufa boxing and and who can you match him with because you talk about want to have the greatest fighters and when i say soon will announce will announce the fight soon what i need do you have something already lined up that you just not saying it i'm not excited i'm obviously excited uh you know to have him and to uh

52:04to get a fight lined up and and promoters first fight i'm i'm very excited about it i don't blame you for that i look at your russia though and i look in the landscape of his division 140 or even 147 uh which he i don't think he's necessarily ready to go to yet at least not at least he says he's not going all the way up to that weight limit just yet who do you even have that you could match him with he says he doesn't want to fight who is a rio valens well uh judge me at the end of the year i know what we do this year okay there we go again uh all right and just one one more quick one for you there's a lot of rumors that you're a your man ritchards and hitches you've recently signed also that you're in the process perhaps of trying to make a deal for him to fight kishan davis who decided not to do a a title fight because he was unhappy with the way the purse did worked out uh is that accurate is that the type of fight that you're looking to do i've heard if it happens and in fact joshu and fury were to take place here in the united states could find its way onto that undercard what can you say about that particular situation uh nothing yet listen i don't like

53:07talking about things that that that i don't have done um that's fair because then what happens is you and i have a conversation on a podcast your podcast drops and everything is taken out of context clipped and stepped and and and you know it ends up just screwing things up when i get things done i announced them and then and then we move forward well cunner bin challenging rion gurs he is announced it is this saturday on paramount plus it's going to be i think it's going to be a good fight i hope it is a good fight dena i appreciate your time and wish you great success with your time and and all the galea that's true also another excellent fight dena thank you very much i appreciate it thanks for having me excellent get right there i know everybody is having a festival with interviewing dena white rion garcia connerban etc press conference on thursday you got him first there candid stuff did i hear him it's not like he was packing something in the background he was zipping up like a suitcase or something a couple of different times while you were talking to him

54:08you made it work excellent job i don't know what he was doing i because normally i do the we do our you know most of the interview is that we do now we do them all on a zoom or some of that with video platform right uh this one we did on on a phone basis which was fine so we don't have video of it but uh i don't i think he was already in Vegas so i don't know he lives in Vegas i don't know what he was doing i don't know either but we we did put part of the audio interview up on the youtube page there's the full audio interview couple of interesting things where he was talking about the don king uh situation and as you put it earlier in this podcast they don't believe there's any legal grounds that king has to stop the fight who knows as friday becomes saturday but that's the latest with what he said that anything else to kind of wrap up the conversation with dena white he was candid uh on a lot of i was very interested you know and he he won't say that there's been a philosophy shift at least to some degree all you got to do is look back you can and we have the evidence you can listen to the original podcast that i did with dena when they first announced uh all the business with zoofe that they were starting up and doing the paramount cards and all that

55:10and him and i had a a lengthy interview also where i asked them about you know they're uh what they were thinking about as far as would they would they work with the organizations and he railed against them and essentially says i'm not working with anybody else i want to put them out of business i mean that's me paraphrasing yes and then as i pointed out the dena hey i hear what you said but you're doing this wvc world title fight on saturday you just did about a month ago an ibf world title fight in irland where erin mccanah won the belt uh you are you are poised and ready to do the jio batai ibf world title fight against branding land that took place early this year uh and it was not a zoopa reason why the fight would no longer was ibf title fight that was because the ibf stripped them but you were ready to go so which is it are you doing the fights and what titles and and you know while he did not want to get into that i'm making a change in my philosophy uh if you listen to what he said he says listen you know what it depends what the fighters want to do worked will talk them do they want to play nice with us so i feel like you know if you were talking to a

56:14politician you know there he's making a little bit of a move to the center if you will like he changed his stance he's changed his vote which is okay by the way i'm gonna put it this way at this point they are conceding to this point they can't do this only on their own if they if they work conceding that they would continue to try to do this on their own at least for the time being the well but i'm i'm just talking about all we have to go on is they have changed philosophically he was making fun of the wbc he was making fun of maricio sulamon he realizes to get counterbend what he wants a title shot he's got for the wbc belt he's got to get along with them so that's a that's a it was the same thing with aron mccatna who's their fighter he was ranked number one for the you know or to be in a position to fight for the title he said to you in the interview we realized these belts are important to these guys and they've worked for them and in a lot of cases they have them and so were they've had to concede that these organizations are going to be part of this

57:15look and part of it now you know at the moment and this may change in the near future if they can get the alie reform act amendment through the senate which supposedly it's going to be brought up i mean this is in the since i did the interview on wednesday with danory claim he was not sure when the senate would bring it up and try to get it through their committee it's already been you know adopted by the house of representatives uh Ted Cruz who was one of the senators who involved with this on the senate side apparently they're going to get it through or try to get it through the committee you know this coming week i mean we'll see if that actually happens or not if it does then it'll come to a vote in the senate and then they'll have to if it passes they'll have to merge you know the house bill with the senate bill and if they can do that and vote on it then of course it'll go to the president's desk and undoubtedly the president will sign it but it's not done yet but in the meantime even if you and if he does get that done and they adopt that bill he did acknowledge that yeah we're going to have to probably do some of these title fights if that's what the athletes want and i want to do what the athletes want to do but we're not going to just like roll over and get involved with these you know crazy mandatory and stuff so no no hold

58:20their ground in some ways if they have leverage in other ways they want most significantly when i ask my daddy so okay how's it going this week with the wbc which of course is you know heavily involved in this running our c if i just find i was like glad to hear it there's no reason they got a war with them there's the update everybody's getting paid too everybody's making money off of this that always seems to smooth things over at least temporarily shall we get to some news hey do we have any news we have to know okay what how many times have you charged the phone today like three because you have been burning it up with text messages calls i'm sure etc let's get right to it fury joshua the first as i've been saying for the last month tj my favorite fucking topic i know but there is new news and you are now reporting and this is on the pod obviously it's going to be on your sub stack you're now reporting we got a date change we got a venue change from what you're hearing go ahead okay this is not done yet so let's not make it that it's set in stone i mean it's a fluid situation if it was a hundred percent don't i would say it's a hundred

59:23percent that is not a hundred percent done and perhaps everything i'm about to say may blow up and not happen but this is where what's the what's the vernacular of the day this is where it's trending is that that's the steps you were to probably use so it is trending this way that fury and joshua will in fact fight each other despite Tyson furious bullshit instagram videos saying he wants to fight somebody else but instead of taking place in New York city and instead of taking place in wimli stadium they are now looking to try to wrap things up they get the fight done to take place november 28th which will be a move from friday the 20th on Netflix to saturday the 28th on Netflix which puts it now even further into bad weather times and instead of taking place at win way they're trying to wrap up a deal at principality stadium and cart of whales which is still the united kingdom it's a it's a venue that has hosted boxing before for example anthony joshua defended the time of there against carlos tockum several years ago his unification fight against joseph parker was in that in that venue if you go back years

1:00:24before that it was the host to one of the biggest fights you know in in uk history when jokal zaggy and michelle kessler fought in their big time superman away unification fight so they're looking to do that it's it's better for the weather purposes because it is an indoor facility as a go well roost it doesn't hold the same capacity as a wimli which would probably be up to a capacity of about a hundred thousand for a joshua fury fight i'm looking and it's part of this about for boxing could be probably around eighty five thousand seventy four thousand for rugby events or a box and it could put ten thousand seats probably in and around on the pitch on the table you know you put the people seats on the pitch it's going to be way more people yeah so probably eighty eighty five thousand what's a few thousand it's not it's not interesting yet but uh... i and i was i talked to two people who have direct involvement in this whole scenario one of them i said so is netflix okay with that and the early again netflix is okay now if this has not been specified to me but if it's what netflix has been speaking about or privately saying the people

1:01:27all through this whole process they still want the fight to start in prime time american time as opposed to taking place at like five six o'clock you know late afternoon early evening so what that means is like other fights that have happened in the uk through the years that have been geared towards better time in the united states it would still take place at like two o'clockish or so in the morning in kardif and it's for all the people who have their arms up in the air about that like i get it i mean i would if i was there i'd rather have it at an hour normal time as an american i'd be perfectly happy if you had it at your time because i can watch that six o'clock instead of later in the evening but it don't act like it's unprecedented i could give you a bunch of fights that have happened like that calzaggy against kessler started at two in the morning for the purposes of hbio now go back to showtime when they were the the broadcaster for the big fight between cost of zoo and rickie hat and when rickie hat and became the junior welterweight world champion they did that fight in the middle of the night to accommodate the live broadcast on showtime in there there we go so you know frank uh uh uh uh uh Lennox Lewis against frank bruto years ago at hbio

1:02:29was another fight that took place in the uk that was geared towards united states uh broadcast time so this is not for the first time something like this has happened it seems that if if that is the the uh the uh the deal breaker for netflix that it must be uh accommodating to the united states time zones better to have it in the united states time zones and crazy middle of the night in the uk but still have the fight in the uk where people who have supported tyson fiori and antony joshua and who are their die hard fans to have it in their country getting the card of yes not not a have you left and uh you know at least that makes more sense than madison square garden well and one thing hern is consistently talked about is the build up will be different and better and it's deserved if it is there for the week leading up to the fight the days before the fight the day before the fight etc with the hype and so that is fascinating what you have found out again we will qualify that's not done as you were just saying i'll tell you one thing about the interest in they

1:03:29canceled the new york press conference which you said on sunday when we released the putt that's clue number one that there was movement afoot to move the fight go ahead well when i was going to say about all of that is this anytime you put out that type of information you know your balls are hanging out there till it's 100% true okay you just don't know because you know you i never like to be wrong right as happened over the course of a long career uh way way way way way way way more times i have that right but the way that i have learned that you know that you're right is when you put the information out and nobody calls you and nobody texts you and by the way you're asking and probably you're asking people privately can you comment on this can you tell me what's going on and they don't give you any info much less do they tell you you're wrong well that's what forget about whether they're gonna give you info not the sources who were involved gave me the info but the others who were involved if you if you really are and i've had this happen you know i guess sometime in my career when you when you get something wrong trust me you fucking phone rings and you get the text message and people to f mother fuck you to death and like why would you put that

1:04:30out it's not right blah blah blah blah i mean i've had a ton of texts and calls and all the bullshit that emails in this net but in terms of that particular report nothing to anybody involved saying that you're wrong i'm right on this one all right so Saturday night November 28th we begin we believe is the day cardiff and the principality stadium we believe is the site but stay tuned because guess what maybe maybe maybe maybe it does wind up back at winboy and the other thing is you may be correct for tonight and you're right and maybe they switch again and decide we can have it at winbly because don't they have to have that waiver don't go get that worked out the same but i don't believe it applies in cardiff i don't think the same waiver has tears the important part okay is that most likely this fight's gonna take place in the UK that's the important part if it goes the cardiff great if it does wind up back at winley which Eddie herren said publicly a couple of days ago was still a possibility fine but the point is it deserves and belongs in the united kingdom it does not belong or deserve here in the united states period shall we go to what else you've been working on you've been busy you've you've met yourself coming and going at the entrance

1:05:34at the rayfield office uh a jeet kaba yell has an opponent oh you're boy okay but wait a minute it's interesting because the opponent and the fight in germany could factor into this joshua fury fight day really well but go ahead winzberry promotions is going to is planning to do agit kaba all against nelson heisa a 25 and no Albanian who is 42 years old with a heavy punch who people might be familiar with because if you watch the most is it time i fill a part of it's card a couple of weeks ago he got a knockout on that undercard uh that is the fight they are making the contracts have been sent to both sides heisa will be the opponent uh and it will take place in germany i am told that the contract is supposed to be for november 28th which of course is the same night on netflix that they'd be doing the joshua fury fight uh however and in frank warren obisies involved in both fights but the reason why i don't think that's that big of a deal is because if they do the fight at the time conducive to the united states prime time meaning around nine ten o'clock eastern time

1:06:39meaning the middle of the night in kardif the fight between kaba yell and heisa will already have been over because it would be a german time which would be you know in that five o'clock or so range so i don't know if they'll have anything to do with each other the point is kaba yell uh is going to be making his first wbc heavyweight title defense since he was elevated from the interim champion level when uh oles and rusek vacated the titles he did a big big crowd in germany when he defended the interim title uh against uh damian keneba that was back in janguary he's since been elevated destroyed niba keneba in three rounds and uh and heisa uh look he you know i don't know i don't think heisa is like this mr skill or anything like that but he's got a heavy punch he's caught a second round knockout against hummus narmo this was on that undercut i just mentioned in london on august 20th august uh 20 second i guess it was in any event uh that's the fight all right stay tuned if that's the date how is frank warn obviously not going to be involved and be there because he's going to be at the Tyson fury anti josh will fight so stay tuned all on that but there's more you've got more reporting

1:07:42and you mentioned the name jiran boots in his earlier we've been wondering if innis would try to get a unification fight and it looks like that is now going to be happening give me more of the details what are you reporting about innis and josh kelly win where okay so this one is not like a total surprise because all along ever since uh after boots ennis uh won the unified title against azain or zias and then it was uh not that much longer that you had a josh kelly in his first title defense uh against uh uh agiarco and uh they were you know he's calling he was calling uh innis out for unification after that fight the kelly has the idea of dealt he had made his first title defense the thing about it was that in that fight against a yarcho he had suffered a terrible facial cuts and a very very deep and very rough cut across the bridge of his nose and so it wasn't a matter I don't want the fight it was really more a matter of uh am i going to be medically good to go to participate in that level of a fight you know and get back in the ring before the end of 2026 so it was sort of touch and go uh apparently he's going to be good to go and they've made the fight

1:08:47I don't know if it's officially signed but that is absolutely what they're planning to do it's a fight that both guys are interested in uh you know for kelly it's going to be by far his biggest payday and an opportunity to win two other titles in for ennis you know he has designs i'm becoming the undisputed champion and if you if you're not going to fight the other title holders you can't do that so he'll be a big favorite against kelly um so that's not a surprise that they've made the fight that sort of not even the diggers of uh that's already sort of been out there if you will but what I reported that was the new stuff was that the fight will take place uh at state farm arena in alanta which is where they're planning to do this event the date is not set it will be in November or December i would imagine because the end of november is sort of getting clogged up right now that you're probably looking at the early part of December on that fight um but going to a place like elana in a in a first class arena like state farm arena makes a lot of sense i mean boots has sold well in fili where he's from uh he did a good crowd with his and her in new york and if you want to bring him to some place that's a little bit different you know go fish with the fish are what i mean by that is go to a place that is supportive of black american boxers and the two best cities to

1:09:51do that if it's not your hometown or even a place like new york in my estimation is to do a fight in nutlanda or do a fight in washington dc and uh they they had talked about either one of those as a possibility uh they i guess have worked something out to do this fight in alanta and uh good for a land and good for them to take in the show on the road two guys were not from there but they're going to probably turn out a good crowd and uh put on a significant fight and uh you know hopefully put on a good undercard and it is it's a good star pardon me and uh has been mixing it up remember he was on that uh the um coverage of the fight the anti-ruis uh caniba fight he was on exchanging barbs with boots in us uh Terrence Crawford uh and and in his words so there's some speculation that Crawford may try to come back and fight in this at some point hey one other note on your reporting so this is interesting if it is it lana if it is the state farm arena which is the downtown arena where the Atlanta hawks play the if you're not doing it on the 28th with the 28th is already what you're talking about with potentially two big time heavyweight fights even though

1:10:54they're overseas the next weekend the southeastern conference uh college football championship game is regularly and always in it lana the first Saturday of December so that Saturday is December the fifth i don't know that they would have to fight in Atlanta that date either so we might be looking at December the 12th like the next week while we're playing detectives whatever you're I don't know what they're going to do anything later is better for Kelly because it just gives him more time to make sure he's healed up from that is true and he's got a whipping more than likely coming from taran and his stay tuned we're a little slanted on that but I think we all believe that in us would whip up on Josh Kelly stay tuned on whether it's December the fifth December the 12th Christmas Eve or whenever it is so stay locked in on Dan's sub stack and on his social media because we just gave you a whole bunch of news let's cover a couple of more things and then get out of here unfortunately uh we got news earlier this week that a hall of fame former two time undisputed lightweight champ has passed away tell me more about ishmael laguna i don't really know that name from back in the day as a lightweight world champion back uh 50 years ago or so go ahead

1:11:59laguna was one of those stalwart top fighters of the 1960s he boxed from 1960 to 1971 so not a long career in terms of the number of years compared to a lot of other guys but he had a lot of accomplishment uh passed away at age 83 in his home country of Panama where uh probably the not probably absolutely the biggest superstar boxer ever from Panama is the great Roberto de Rand but in the next group of guys below de Rand laguna is one of those fighters but went 65, nine and one with 37 knockouts in that career he was inducted into the international boxing hall of fame rightly so in 2001 and uh look he scored some huge wins by becoming the undisputed champion this is back when there was two belts uh to do so the wbc and the wba has a humongous victory against carlos Ortiz this was in 1965 in front of the home crowd in Panama city to become the champion and unlike champions do today he actually took two non-title belts after he won the title one that was uh you know or i guess he had a draw actually one of them and one the other one uh he

1:13:00then had a rematch against uh the great carlos Ortiz uh one of the great fighters of all time from Puerto Rico lost in that rematch seven months later by the way we talk about activity he wins the has two non-title fights and then has the rematch all but then seven months uh lost a decision these are 15 round fights back in the day that was in 1967 uh or i'm saying the back that was later you know in 65 in 1960 70 had uh the third fight the rubber match against Ortiz to try to regain the title he also lost that fight um but he he became a two time undisputed when he defeated uh by knockout mando ramos that was a fight that took place in los andals in 1970 he defended it by a 13th round knockout against a uh top japanese fighter guts ishi Matsu uh and then because boxing was still fucked up back then like it is today he got stripped of the wbc title uh and then later uh went and defended the one belt the wb up wb8 belt against the hola famer kenbu cannon lost a really brutal like a rough harsh uh kind of i mean it was a very very close fight that he lost i don't when i say brutal

1:14:05i don't mean the combat i mean the way the decision went down he lost a split decision in 1970 that kenbu cannon was a hola famer lost those titles and uh at that point his career was sort of petering out uh he fought four more times and finished his final fight in the bid to regain that title against kenbu cannon and he lost a decision in the rematch but he fought a ton of top guys uh even before he became champion or or in a non-tunnel fight he had a draw with uh uh nically loche who was a top fighter for a long long time uh you know he was a true great he every bit does hola famed recognition he deserved it and uh you know he passed uh at age 83 all right and you did an excellent job there with the the obituary the uh the ring accomplishments etc a hola famed fighter uh dying after a long life by the way at 83 years of age two other notes and then we'll get out of here as you mentioned to us on the previous pod Raymond morataya was moving up and vacating the ibf lightweight title but the ibf now says they want a Russian to fight a cuban andy crews and andy crews was apparently set to move down we've been talking about that to

1:15:10junior lightweight but alas there's a title shot involved remember he fought morataya and lost for this same ibf belt and he's apparently going to go forward again against a russian explain more yeah i mean when he lost the title when he lost the title match as the mandatory against meritaya earlier this year who is it one of the best fights it's just a tremendous fucking fight all action very close competitive you know i got i know he took his first loss but nothing to be ashamed of he lost you know a tremendous battle and as you said he was talking he then he came back and he got he got one win uh in july knocked out abor him on toya uh his contract with matchroom was up he's been a free agent um they're still talking even though technically he's a free agent he may resign with them we'll see what happens uh he i guess could still get offer some somebody else and perhaps they'll match it but regardless of whatever his promotional situation is uh he's not going to go down and wait as i talk to somebody on his team about that he says now that this title shot is here he's obviously going to take it so the way the ibf works a lot of times and leave the number one spot vacant in case there's an eliminator so the number one position in the ibf is vacant but this will fill the title and it's between their number two fighter a uh undefeated but untested and unknown

1:16:14russian fighter named Arthur i'm going to try to pronounce him tj sub hank kulav how'd i do i think you did good sub hank aloft so that is the opponent uh so and so he's number two in their ratings and he cruises number three they made the order uh they have a period of time about a little less than three weeks to make a deal uh which is hard to make a deal if you don't have a promoter because you're not sure who's going to negotiate on your behalf so that's one of the reasons why i mentioned about maybe ill resign with a matroom boxing but in any event if it doesn't uh if they don't make an agreement that'll go to a person but whatever he'll get an opportunity to fight for the title uh against uh against the the guy that's right ahead of him in the rankings and one more nugget on amanda sarano the uh lineal and uh two belt women's unified featherweight champion she just fought recently and won and what was a controversial uh decision she is at the end of her career she acknowledges that and she's now talking about when her final fight will be pick it up on that

1:17:15yeah it's kind of like uh maybe she was she was watching kate taylor her very rival bow out in such spectacular fashion last week with that spectacle uh in uh Dublin not a spectacle not so much in terms of the actual fight itself but in terms of just all the hoopla that surrounded it in the crowd and just the emotion and everything that came through that night um so she she has been saying uh sarano that she's planning to retire she never had any more fights left and so she did go on her social media and say that she's going to have her final fight in jennyry's there's no date there's no site i think if she had it her way because she said this in the past she'd like to close things out by having a fight in port auriko where she is from uh and uh you know bring up bring a fight like that home she's also you know we'll see who they pick as the opponent uh but she still hopes to score a knockout because she's sitting there with 33 career knockouts tied for the most all time for female boxers with the great christie martin so she can pick up number 34 and what she claims will be her last fight obviously she would become the the sole uh record holder in that particular category although i can think of a lot worse things if you're a professional boxer and one of the best

1:18:17females of all time to wind up in a tie of the christie martin but sure yeah so sarano is planning to uh to bat I would also mean her and her and taylor both had uh you know great careers and uh both them are at the end and kady had her farewell and hopefully uh and sarano will also get the to send off that she deserves and sarano was class she wrote that uh it did that social media video where she wrote a letter to kady taylor and congratulated her in the whole bin and i would not be surprised if taylor does something similar for sarano's farewell farewell fight there's a lot of respect there. Oh yeah um and so there you go man this has been a busy show. Can we get it in the ring with ryan garcia and conner bin. Have a look. You're so so worried about that shit. I don't know well gee because ryan garcia showed up three pounds overweight for the devan handy fight. The fight's still going to happen. By the way we should make mention while we've been doing the pod tonight they've been holding the press conference and ryan garcia spent part of the press conference chowing down on boiled eggs making fun of conner bin's claim that his p.e.d. violation was due to tainted eggs. So let me ask you a question when uh conner bin was there was he poking needles in

1:19:21his arm to simulate ryan garcia right and how did he come with it with an i or come with an i.v. Like he had after the uh the weigh in illegally uh with devan handy that helped getting suspended. So yeah I don't know uh but anyway we find that very rich that a guy that failed the drug test mocking the other guy who also found the drug test. Well from his perspective maybe he was hungry and just decided to eat a couple of uh boiled eggs coincidentally. Uh anyway this fight again paramount plus in laws vegas saturday night late we will come back off the off the weekend here and recap it uh with everything that's going to go on can conner bin follow in the steps we didn't really play it up on this pod in the in the steps of his father Nigel bin and become a WBC world champion um his father in the hall of fame or will ryan garcia derail that and beat him on uh on saturday night and there's always the drama with oscar de la joy and ryan garcia too uh stay tuned for that uh big damn one other note we are very much aware of this and you are a New York native although you live now in Virginia and obviously uh I live here in florida friday is

1:20:24the 25th anniversary of september 11 um I still remember being on the radio on the five day a week radio sports show in tampe Bay is all of that unfolded and the and the president george bush was in a sarasota florida era elementary school about 30 miles from my radio studio and uh and obviously you were in and around all of this uh covering the sport by the way you say I'm in New Yorker but I live in the washroom you see are you do it crashed into the pentagon that is correct night I went to the office in arlington virginia where we still had the us a today offices and uh because it was all hands on deck and they brought in dinner for the whole staff we all went up to the executive dining room at one point or another to eat dinner and the way that that was situated if you looked out the window that looked directly down the patoma griver we sat there and ate down there and seared in my mind for the rest of my life we of me and a bunch of our my colleagues and staff members had dinner in the executive dining room overlooking the patoma griver down the river towards the airport in the pentagon and we could see the smoke going from the top of the pentagon crazy my my my New York roots uh yes but I've

1:21:28made my home and I've lived in virginia in uh washing these sea region for the better part of uh you know the entire uh uh two thousands I moved here in the march of two thousand so or you know this is where where where it hit and it's funny because not funny but one of the things I remember so vividly about is the when the when September 11th happened I was supposed to travel the next day on September 12th to go to New York City on the Amtrak train to New York City to cover Bernard Hopkins and Felix Trinidad in the middleweight tournament final obviously the fight was postponed for two weeks until the 29th which I then went to and so I was in New York in the lower Manhattan you know at or midtown Manhattan really at the garden right after this happened and I can still remember seeing all the flyers on the train station wall of people looking for loved ones that who had not been accounted for after what happened you could still smell it in the air I can remember coming up on the elevator from a pen station to go to the hotel and you get into the into the you know the afternoon air and you could smell you know the burning in the when

1:22:34you know this is pen station this is a couple weeks later too right this is two weeks later but we're also like you know you're at like you know 34th Street 30th Street whatever where the garden is and pen station you know the the world trade centers all the way downtown so you're you know you're quite a ways away from it but it was still in the air you could see it you could smell it it was I mean you just don't forget you like that no doubt and there's a tremendous documentary blurb on the Trinidad Hopkins and how boxing resumed there and how sports resumed obviously with the Yankees game and with the NFL and everything else the transpired I pledge 25 years ago on the radio and in doing radio shows in a couple of years after that in local radio in Tampa I pledged it ever since doing national radio whenever I've been on around on September 11th we should never forget we should I cannot believe I'm now saying it's 25 years later we should never forget what went on September 11th 2001 in the heroes and the victims that died that day from those terrorist attacks so there we go so we pay a little homage to that well done big damn my goodness

1:23:38busy show let's let's see what happens with Garcia and Ben find find the big fight weekend YouTube page as well you'll hear Connor Ben see him and hear him on that interview and big damn why don't we come back off the weekend Sunday night into Monday and recap whatever happens here with this with this match up for the WBC Walter Waite title Joe Jio Pataya in the cold feature fight with Noel McAleon let's recap all of it off the weekend sound good and that's not good and we'll also have my interview with the WBC in a real way champion the East and Strangles was going to fight on the 19th on the PVC zone card so you'll hear that Sunday night is busy busy on this weekend big damn have a good weekend thank you for always there we go there's Dan Rayfield on merely TJ Reese follower subscribe on this pod feed help us out with a five star rating and review you've been with us on the big fight weekend preview podcast