AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 1
Tune in to Talkin Fight with Holly Donovan as she previews this Sunday’s WBC Cruiserweight Championship fight between champion Ilunga Makabu of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and former world champion Badou Jack of Sweden. Holly will provide her analysis of the matchup, break down the fighters’ styles, and explain why this fight is a must-watch for boxing fans. She will also give her prediction on who will come away with the title. So don’t miss out on this exciting preview as Holly Donovan gets you ready for Sunday’s WBC Cruiserweight Championship fight!
#Boxing #WBCCruiserweight #IlungaMakabu #BadouJack #TalkinFight #HollyDonovan #JakePaul #TommyFury #PPV #DAZN
Transcribed
[, Music, ] foreign and welcome to this week’s edition of talking fight with Holly Donovan.
The preview show that gets you ready for the fight at the weekend.
So this weekend in London um it’s a little bit strange because it’s all exhibition fights so on Saturday night.
You’Ve got Floyd Mayweather, he is facing Aaron Chalmers in love, Island um and then on Sunday you have got the Tommy Fury versus uh Jake, Paul fight.
Finally, on um, now I’m not going to preview the exhibition fights what I’m going to do for you is I’m going to preview the world title fight that is happening on the undercard of Tommy, Fury and Jake Paul and think what you will of that? I think it’s it’s mental, but you know what it is so popular everyone’s really excited, but I wanted to shine a light on this world title shot for battle Jack against illanga mcaboo.
So that is what I’m going to be previewing for you today.
So slightly shorter show than normal, but hopefully I’ll give you lots of info about this particular fight.
Okay, so let’s go straight into it.
Shall we’ve got better Jack um? If I’m honest with you, I am surprised that he has been given this world title shot.
I don’t want to put him down because he do, I want to say, was or is a great fighter.
He was a really brilliant fighter.
Perhaps lately we have seen a decline um, which is why I am very surprised that he has his cruiserweight World title shot.
If you think about it, someone like Richard reactor Chris Bill and Smith, even Jack Massey, who put on a massive show against heavyweight Josie Parker like a month ago.
Those three guys in my opinion, have done a lot more to earn a world type shot.
Um I mean they’re storming through at the moment, particularly you know reactor anyway um, but our Jack’s got the opportunity, though, and so he’s got a chance to actually become three three weight Division World Champion um but, like I said a little bit surprised.
So, let’s go through it.
Let’S talk about his career because he is a great boxer.
I don’t want to put him down.
Okay, so um he has had uh 27 wins he’s had three losses and three draws uh the drawers.
I feel sorry for him.
You know if those have gone in a different direction, his CV would actually be like sparkling um.
Now 15 of his wins have come by way of knockout.
He is 39 years old, which probably explains the selected climb.
That he’s said about before now he’s known as the Ripper um he is from Sweden uh.
He moved to the US and now he lives in Dubai.
He says it’s a lot safer with his kids um.
Now this is for the cruiserweight World title WBC um.
Now he has been a former world champion in different weight categories, so he was super middleweight World Champ from 2014 to 17 and then he was right, heavyweight champion in 2017.
um now he began when he was 18 years old, which is much later than McAfee, which I’Ll talk about in a minute um – and he was Swedish national champion four years in a row from 2004 to 2008 and four of his uh wins each year.
Um we’re at middleweight and the other four were at light heavyweight.
So he is very used to going between those two um weights um.
Now in his amateurs, he had a really good amateur career with 150 wins only 25 losses um and he also represented Gambia in the 2008 uh 2008 Olympics.
His dad is gambian and he really wanted to make it sad, proud.
Um, Gambia hadn’t had an Olympian, so he was a flag bearer.
He was the first ever flag bearer so epic moment for battle Jack um.
Now, one year later, he goes Pro in 2009 um, and this is a cool story.
He uh moved to the US when he met two times heavyweight champion, Shannon Briggs, who saw him in a sparring session and was like yeah.
This kid’s really good.
Let’S move him over so off, he goes to the US and he begins his career really well so he’s on a five-win streak and he has this epic win um over Anthony Darrell um.
Who was the current world champion and undefeated, and this is where Bat Out Jack he won that super middleweight title um.
He then also defended it against uh George Groves in another epic fight.
It was a split decision, but a really tight, brilliant fight with two Champions going on it, and he also then attempted unification of the super middleweight titles and in a really great fight against James degale in 2017.
.
Now, if you haven’t watched it and watch it, because it’s one of those fights where it’s it’s just really exciting, and it’s so so so close um, which was shown at the end, because it was a draw like I said, there’s a lot of drawers that just Kind of messed up battle – Jack – you know he could have.
He could have had so much more um, so uh after 2017.
With that failed attempt of the unification, he decides to go up to light heavyweight.
He knows he can do it.
He did in the hampshires.
So he then has a great fight against Nathan, cleverly in 2017, where he wins the title and then he begins to draw.
Then we go into losses so we’re starting to see that little bit of a decline um.
However, the first off I’m going to talk about I’ve decided it’s not his fault so from watching it um.
So there was a fight against Marcus Brown.
Look it up on YouTube right.
You know what, if you just put in battle Jack, uh, Marcus Brown, you will see what happened and there was accidental head clash in the seventh round and I can honestly say I have never seen a cop like it in a fight that I mean it’s horrific.
I have no idea how that ref, let that fight carry on um it I mean it was insane just look it up.
It’S it’s just awful um, so that ends up in obviously a unanimous decision loss for bad or Jack, but how on Earth he thought through that.
I have absolutely no idea so obviously, in a different situation that may well not have been the case um and now his last Elite fight, a lot of people have been arguing about.
This um is probably against John down.
That was back in 2019.
So since then, he hasn’t had many tough uh fights and actually that the lead fight with John Pascal was a loss.
It was a split decision again, though, so it was those split decisions.
It’S an awful lot of those I feel, like luck, has not been on his side throughout quite a lot of his career, or at least a second half for sure um.
So after that he decides I’ll go to cruiserweight um, so he has had a five win streak so right now he is coming off five wins.
However, looking at the CVS looking at the fights watching them, there aren’t any fights of, or Fighters or opponents that cruise away of no but oh yeah, he was great.
You know he’s proven himself and he hasn’t really had that opportunity.
Um, the last time he was out was a win, but a split decision win um I mean he he could have just as easily lost that fight in my opinion, and that was against Richard Riviera um and that was in Saudi Arabia last summer now, when I Watched that I remember watching that and being like, Oh about Jack, because he’s still got that name.
You know everyone’s like oh he’s great it’s about our Jack um.
It was if I hate to say it, but it was really like boring fine, and you know I was it was disappointing.
It was very disappointing um.
I expect a lot more.
You know um.
He has been active uh throughout the uh the last couple of years and he’s really highly ranked that’s how he got this this fight.
You know, despite the very obvious decline he he is still really highly ranked um.
He said an interview earlier on he, you know he wants these big paydays he’s absolutely going for it.
He wants to to make history, be you know, Champion, there’s three different weight divisions, um he’s well up for it, and he may well surprise us on Sunday night like that’s why I love boxing.
You’Ve always got that chance.
There’S always the opportunity and people.
Surprise you.
I mean a couple of weeks ago.
You know no one expected Eubank Jr to be knocked out like you did um except me.
I won my bet, but what I’m saying is Anything Could Happen.
He is a great fighter, it is in him so and his style.
I would say things that let him down is that he doesn’t necessarily take risks early.
I think he needs to against mcavo um.
He takes a while to warm up before putting on pressure um now maccaboo on the other side of this is really powerful.
So I’ll talk about his Five Star as well, but if he lands you’re out so he’s had 29 wins only two losses: 25 of his wins have come by way of knockout he’s a natural cruiserweight he’s bigger um.
He has more power, he’s 35 years old.
So four years younger than uh Bello Jack, so I mean that’s not really a lot in the grand scheme of things, but he is the current WBC Cruiserweight Champion.
He is also a Southport.
So as we know they can be tricky um.
He is from the Democratic Republic of Congo um, but he lives in Johannesburg and I’ll tell you about that.
Now he won his title back in 2020 against Michael says, like that was a unanimous decision and, as we know, Michael says like who is a weight of note, very good opponent.
Um now you might know about alanka makapu, he’s kind of a lesser known of the cruiserweight champions I think um.
However, his name was thrown about in the headlines when uh Canelo Alvarez, you know when he went on that trip where he was like.
Oh I’m gon na go through all of the weight.
I’M gon na go up all of the weights and I’m gon na win them all, and everyone believed him, because it’s Canelo um and then when Dimitri people beat him, we were all like work and then that idea of facing you know macaboo, followed by Alexander using Kind of drizzled away um, but that macaboo was the person that Canelo was targeting quite openly, so it was in all the papers, so that might be where you’ve heard his name um.
So his last fight ilanga maku, his last fight uh was last year, so it was in January last year, so he has actually been active for 13 months um.
Now that was a very controversial Split Decision, win um against uh, fabzone, tunu, um, again great Fighter.
Um.
Now, interestingly, this fight was actually a rematch of a fight that originally took place in 2015.
, so this rematch took seven years to come.
Um now, in their first fight, Macabre did get a TKO in the 11th round.
However, he was behind on the points cards.
So Machinery wanted that opportunity to prove you know he was a better boxer and he wanted to come out and do that.
However, seven years later he didn’t quite manage it.
However, it was a split decision, so a tough fight, watches good fight um, so he is coming off.
Those wins and – and he interestingly also challenged for this spell back in 2016 – and this is one of his uh two losses and it was actually against Tony bellew.
Good old uh, Tony from Liverpool, and that was a loss, a brutal loss.
It was a KO in the third round, but since then obviously made his way back up to being um World Champ.
Now he grew up in the DRC.
Um.
He had a super boxing family, so his dad was the boxing champion of the Democratic Republic of Congo and he was actually nicknamed uh, maccaboo, Foreman, obviously off George Foreman um, his family rule boxes and so ilanga started boxing when he was just nine years old.
So nine years earlier than uh battle, Jack did and now at the time boxing was thriving in South Africa and so a little bit later on in 2006, he decided to move there.
Hence why he now fights out of hansberg um now uh in his first ever Pro fight um.
He was actually stopped inside 30 seconds.
So that’s the only other loss he has had um in interviews.
He said he learned very quickly to throw punches fast and not wait around.
I don’t know what he’s waiting for, and he also said it was really important for him to learn English, so he did that and then got on his winning streak.
So his only losses are his first ever fight, which he totally just says.
You know he was totally out of his depth, didn’t really know what was happening and then against Tony bellew.
So he’s a pretty strong Champion, you know um, he did have a two-year Gap in 2020.
Obviously we could blame covered for that.
Um, however, Barry Jack managed to fight twice um.
This is the third defense of his belt um he’s on that 10 fight winning streak.
Um fighting style I’d say he I mean he’s jab heavy he’s pretty slick, um he’s got good speed and he’s got very, very heavy, punches um, interestingly as well.
These guys have spotted each other back in 2016 um.
So that was actually when he got knocked out by Tony value.
He sparred value, Jack and battle.
Jack has spoken about it in an interview um, and he said that he felt like his power um, so yeah.
I wonder if he’s still got that all these years later um, so I think this is going to be an exciting fight, uh, I’m obviously going to tune in for Tommy, Fury and Jake Paul, because I want to know what’s going to happen, I really do I Want to agree to win so much um, but if you want that profile, if you want to see two absolute Professionals in the ring for other reasons, other than Instagram and social media, then watch these two um.
You know, I think that you will notice, particularly if you watch the whole fight night, a massive difference in skill um, so battle Jack against ilanga mcaboo.
They are on the undercard just before the headliner of Tommy, Fury and Jake Paul.
This is Sunday night not on Saturday, and it is on design ready to watch across the world.
I believe so.
Uh have fun with your fight weekend and then I’ll be back and next week, uh same time for another preview.
Show of the fights that’s happening next weekend, I believe Hannah Rankin is back, so I will make sure I cover that, for you take care.
Have a great night and I’ll see you soon.
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