AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 2
Tyson, Jones Jr, Holyfield and next up Riddick Bowe….Graeme and Kristian discuss whether these novelty fights are good for boxing?
Watch live on TalkinFight.com or YouTube.com/c/TalkinFight
Transcribed:
[, Music, ], [, Music, ], hello, boxing fans around the world.
Thank you for joining us once again, as we welcome christian von sponik from boxing 247 myself, graham from talk and fight, and we’re going to talk about the upcoming ridic bow fight that, i believe has just been cancelled.
Um, but anyway, let’s talk about uh.
What might have been and what has happened in the past, with respect to celebrity boxing and or crossover fights uh, these sorts of things? Are they good for boxing that’ll teach me for not coming onto or coming onto here without checking the news, so it’s been cancelled.
Has it uh, i literally was just on uh twitter and then here’s the quote from official celebrity boxing, who are the promoters all the best to former heavyweight champ bridge, bow due to backlash and being misled from bose management team about beau’s health.
Celebrity boxing is moving forward and having beau part of the event, but not as a celebrity boxer, lamar odom will take on another celeb on october, 2nd.
So now the problem with that is it’s.
You should be no surprise whatsoever that ridicbo has a problem with health.
This is nothing new.
It is well documented um, it’s not a surprise, not a shock um effectively.
That should be old news and why they had you know.
While this was going ahead in the first place, i really really do not understand, but uh hey ho, as they say, um, i’m going to say it as much as reddick bow’s not going to get.
I would have assumed a good paycheck um, it’s good to see him not in the ring and hopefully not in the future as well um, but with that said, obviously we had the holyfield fight the other weekend and uh all i can say.
I do hope that hollyfield does not fight again uh, as it appears he wants to and he’s still chasing the tyson fight which, looking at hollyfield’s performance um recently compared to tyson’s uh, there’s only going to be one winner for that.
It would be a shame that the third meeting would be marred by such a performance from hollyfield or non-performance.
Literally is the case um.
How do you see the whole thing with hollyford and tyson eric paul, graham she’ll, say i i mean there’s two obviously two well several ways of looking at this beyond two actually one um boxing is a sport, but boxing is also a business and there’s this gray Area of entertainment and sport, so mike tyson and the people uh, who are running these celebrity type events are admitting.
There is a there is a gray area between calling it an actual boxing match and or i mean they’re shy of calling it a fight, but that you know at the end of the day, uh mike tyson uh believed he was fighting against roy jones jr, whether He was or not wearing 16 ounce gloves is was to us at the time we called it a pillow fight and you know yeah, so you could argue it was a fight, but was it really a boxing match as we understand the boxing match, because we do Do take the sport quite seriously and i think the people who are promoting from a marketing perspective these types of events.
They recognize that, yes, there are legendary fighters out there who want to step into the ring, but who have retired long ago? Quite frankly, and are they going to make a quick buck because of these guys going into the ring? Yes, they will, even if it means 50 000 people, which is not a lot paying 10 bucks ahead.
There’S a half a million dollars.
You know so these guys are going to make anything for a buck and will these fighters get into the ring for a cut? Yes, they will that’s the answer.
So are these true traditional um fights that we should be looking at and taking seriously? The answer is no, absolutely not the big problem i have with this, and this is where you get these.
The problem with the crossover fights uh moving on to sort of jake paul, is that you know the argument for these fights is it brings um? You know new uh viewers, you know sort of new casual fans over to boxing, so people say that uh, you know hooray, it’s a good thing.
It’S bringing you know new viewers over to the sport i’m taking another example.
Tommy fury who’s been on the uk.
Uh was it uh something sex on the beach or something anyway he’s a big celebrity on social media.
He’S got a good following um, but all these things with social followings.
It’S bringing new people over because i’m sorry sentence but tommy fury at the moment, really can’t fight for toffee, not whatsoever, and that was demonstrated in his last line.
But going back to the argument of um, you know new viewers being brought over the boxing, which is great, but the problem i have with that uh double edged sword with this is the fact that, as far as i’m concerned – and i know this obviously doesn’t apply To everybody, but i think the casual viewer, the average viewer – has only got so much disposable income per per month.
You know and bearing in mind you know the pay-per-view um fights are anything up to what is it 60 dollars more than that um? You know if you’re doing two three in them, because you’ve got the the usual uh proper boxing matches, which land up on pay-per-view and then you’ve got the celebrity ones as well crossover ones, whichever it’s too much for the person to spend.
So it’s like, as far as i see it, the money is diverted and averting which everybody would look at it from the pro the pros of the game.
Who’Ve earned their craft over to you know: newbies, okay, fair enough.
Jake paul is one of the exceptions where he has dedicated, probably the last couple of years.
You know with proper training, to become a boxer, but you’ve got you know.
Is it the chap? You fought three times ago he’s a former mba player that got knocked out.
Headfirst um, you know to the canvas it was an awful spectacle.
It was absolutely horrible and people paid a lot of money to see that i think that’s the one which was on the uh tyson roy jones, undercard um.
But you know this is just awful um.
You know it’s it’s taken away money as far as i’m concerned from the the pro boxes that should be getting the pay-per-view or the money gets centered on to pay-per-view and away from the small halls.
You know i just think so.
You know people probably got so much money to spend on boxing, and this is just a new thing that hopefully touch wood will be a fad and it will disappear at some point, but sadly, i’ve got a funny feeling and for quite a while it won’t matter.
I think there’s a couple of things: uh that need differentiating one um.
There are a finite amount of boxing fans who will pay per view, but how many pay-per-view fights have really lived up to their hype.
I mean yes, we’ve seen uh some decent numbers in terms of several million people paying to watch.
Let’S say a mayweather, pacquiao type fight, uh ones that really live up to the bill fair enough.
But when you’re talking about a fellow like jake paul, his 20 million subscribers are going to pay for him to pay for to watch him open a can of beans.
If you ask me and they’re not boxing fans, so i don’t think you can truly draw the parallel between just because he has 20 million fans who have that money to watch him.
Do anything you know.
Are they considered boxing fans? Are they considered from a marketing perspective, uh potential uh candidates to be brought over to the real boxing world? I don’t think so at all.
I don’t think i don’t think jake paul is helping boxing at all the one thing i will say just in his defense.
Apparently um everybody i mean i haven’t seen any figures but um.
Apparently the wages uh as such per fight were good and they were cleared up.
Everything was done on time and apparently the report was, you know with him.
You know overseeing the payment side of things.
Everything was done and uh was done, uh very professionally, with no um grumbles from anybody, but uh i’m.
Certainly if i was available.
If we’d come back at 58 and putting up literally seconds worth of resistance or non-resistance uh, i’m sure he would have been a hefty uh well would have been paid hefty.
So i can only guess that so yeah.
I can see why i wasn’t complaining, but it’s all a farce um, as we briefly touched yesterday, uh off camera.
You know in a way: it’s it’s nothing new go back.
We had muhammad ali versus a wrestler, you had leon spinks uh versus it could have even been the same wrestler at the time, but so there was a number of these matches going on back then um over here in the uk um.
It was started off a number of years ago as well.
You had the the cricketer freddie flintoff versus american chap that came in uh, there’s a heavyweight belt with just uh a couple of wins and uh.
I mean it’s disputed win for flintoff, but uh.
He looks awful and they even showed like a tv program and an excerpt of him fighting and flintoff literally put his head in his hands because he was there just windmilling away at the chat.
You know this wasn’t pro boxing.
This is not something i don’t think would have been warranted on a white collar match.
I’Ve seen a lot of white collar matches which was far superior to that, but that was freddie flynn tough, and that was the senate.
He was actually trained by um shane mcguigan um.
It was a little bit of a surprise.
He was given six months to train but uh.
That was a very forgettable uh event, i think, was promoted by frank warren who, a while ago, was only uh dissing uh.
All these celebrity matches, and then he puts forward um, uh, fury and uh who’s the heavyweight he put forward through it uh daniel dubois, who falls on the other latest card, seems like everyone’s sort of eaten their words of the money and, as the case is money, Talks, but as but as hollywood has proven year after year over the past 100 years, celebrities will attract an audience, no matter what those celebrities are doing, whether they’re dancing for the stars or quote-unquote fighting in a ring um.
You know at the end of the day your your average person out there will be attracted to a celebrity doing whatever celebrities do, and there are many television producers and broadcasters in the world who will pick up those feeds and pay handsomely for those numbers uh.
It is a lesson that the boxing industry needs to learn quite frankly, um, because we seem to be at the behest of certain promoters and those certain promoters.
I’Ll give you an example: uh when riddick beau and linux lewis fought at the olympics, i believe in 88, with atlantic’s winning the gold.
We were all waiting for a professional rematch quite frankly, and it never happened.
So you know the promoters have stood in the way of many great fights that should have happened.
That didn’t happen.
Those fans were waiting to happen and they didn’t happen.
So you know the boxing industry is broken and there are people like jake paul, for example, who say well.
You know i can take it to a whole new level and sure he is, but are those people interested in boxing or are they interested in jake, paul and the answers are interested in the latter.
So i think, there’s a whole other issue to be addressed when it comes to.
How do we fix boxing the sport of boxing as you, and i both appreciate the sport of boxing and it doesn’t involve celebrities yeah, and this whole thing as far as i’m concerned is absolutely unsafe.
Hollyfield looks absolutely awful.
I’M in the reports i mean the funny thing with the betting uh with the fight was that uh hollyfield um, going into the fight when it was announced, was the favorite and it was a day before the actual belt when he was doing a media workout.
He looked awful, absolutely awful and it changed from something like don’t quote me on this, but it was something like he changed to uh four to one favorite.
I think it landed up, come fight time reversed uh, with actually being a two to one underdog.
He looked that awful in the media workout, he looked even worse in the actual fight with a live person actually in front of him that wasn’t a boxer that actually wasn’t even young himself and was never really considered a major striker when he was in mma.
I mean this was just that was unsafe and you know people called the fight.
As being you know, just um, the referee waved it off too too quickly, no way that was about the best decision that could have ever happened because to me holly filled with every shot that he was taking, will not take it if it was just clipping him.
It was awful, it was dangerous, he was shaking his balance was off, there were just arm punches and i think that was being generous, uh calling them on punches.
It was awful, and i just think that uh well just going back to the bow um situation, which i’m glad has been uh called off.
That could have been even worse because he was last seen in a ring in when was eight years ago.
In my uh, my thai fight over in thailand and he looks pitiful, absolutely awful fat out of shape, and i could only guess eight years later he would have been even worse and he didn’t then back in that fight, even throw a punch.
I think he threw one actually there the whole the whole fight.
If you want to turn it as a fight.
Absolutely, but it’s you know, the the sad thing is that you know money talks um, like you say, people are there to see the the celebrity um.
I don’t know what would have happened in the fight because going against the chap that uh beau was facing uh odin.
What’S his first name, lamar yeah, i saw his one fight uh against some chap.
I mean he’s uh.
Was it six uh uh six foot? Ten? The champion was fighting with some singer, can’t remember his name.
I looked into him uh six, but there was nothing off of and it was just like something you’d see.
I don’t know a couple of drunks in the screen.
It was nothing more than that so, based on that, i felt a little bit better yesterday, knowing what would uh what beau was actually facing, but i just i can’t imagine in my head – i just can’t envisage how the fight would have gone.
How would it would look like it just would have been a complete and utter fast, but i do think um.
You know it could have been uh bo or somebody down the line.
Somebody is going to get hurt it’s a matter of time, but it is a accident waiting to happen for sure.
Absolutely one of the key considerations here is as a lot of fans and professionals in the sport were bringing up with respect to the licensing of these celebrity type.
Fights the other the other, and the other occasion i was going to mention is the health and safety aspect i mean in any other professional sport.
You have concussion protocols in place and i don’t think redick beau would have even passed the most minimal of requirements.
So there is an absolute massive safety concern here that we all should be cognizant of and we’re the vast majority of those people who are willing to pay for a ticket there to watch a boxing match or where they were there to watch a train wreck.
You know, and at the end of the day i would argue for the latter um absolutely yeah.
So i i i it kind of surprises me um – that some of these commissions do not step in and say, let’s put a stop to this because i mean the other thing that we have to take into consideration is the brand there aren’t too many professional boxers Out there building their brand and this isn’t their fault per se.
I mean they’re trained as boxers they’re trained to fight they’re trained to hurt people and, at the end of the day, what they’re not trained to do is build their brand, whereas people in the celebrity business have been trained to build their brand and know how to Speak uh to an audience and how to perform in front of an audience uh, you know.
So this is something that needs to be taken to consideration as well um.
You know we can’t just sit back and allow uh celebrities to take over our sport.
For the sake of it, because they’re able to because of the numbers uh it’s easy to generate numbers, quite frankly in in the world of the celebrity, but it’s not easy for the boxers.
I mean how many boxers have made millions a handful truly yeah um.
You know, but how many youtubers have made millions right.
Many too many to number.
I mean more than a dozen more than probably more than a hundred, it’s probably more than a thousand i’ll bet who are youtube millionaires, and i don’t even know uh.
Maybe carl from last bell could answer that question see he’s a big fan of jake paul but uh at the end of the day uh.
I just think that not that we can stop it, because it is a very capitalist, driven, uh event celebrity boxing, that is uh, but we should.
We in the boxing industry should take lessons uh from what we are being taught and how to drive numbers uh, whether it be through social media or whether it be the various platforms that are available to us um, and these.
These are something to be taken quite seriously.
If you ask me going back to the safety aspect of this and if some apparently some crafty association, which was uh overlooking the the redick bow fights, um, never heard them looked looked at them and they do exist, but nothing to do with boxing.
But the thing that i found gutting just going back to the hollyfood fight and the safety aspect at the end of the day.
What i’m trying to say here is that yes, money talks, it looks like we’ve got to live with it for the moment with his celebrity boxing and you know matching other other sports and everything else mma and boxing, but as long as it’s safe now, the problem Is i do not believe that safety is the primary factor in this and my example with this was, and i find it’s absolutely appalling, with the trailer fight with hollyfield? What happened was that it was originally built as an exhibition.
Now they wanted to make it professional.
So they could drive pay-per-view sales up now the commission um didn’t approve, it said absolutely no way so what they did to get around this.
They moved it over to florida.
Different commission lower um um leniency with with what was uh uh required and i’m sure money talks and there we have it change of area or change of venue.
Change of area change of commission money talks, green light fight goes ahead, professional, but there’s a but after the fight was um finished or the rest of it.
It came out.
I think it was the next day they actually wasn’t then made as a professional fight.
Why? I’M not sure, maybe it’s hollyfield not wanting that disastrous result on his professional record um.
I did check it originally did when they announced it wasn’t a professional fight.
It did show up on box rake and then it uh magically disappeared.
But but just my point of this is is, to you know, loopholes they’re, trying to get to make the fights happen.
You know they would go down to a you know, a different governing body to a different era that would change venues just to get the green light that is unsafe.
That is wrong and if it was safe and if it was the appropriate commissions that were passing the various physicals and everything else – and you know, we’ve got to live with it.
As we said then fair enough, but no completely against this unsafe accident waited to happen.
Awful that’s right and, as i say, one one of the thresholds should be the ability to pass one of these concussion protocols.
I mean that there should be a governing body as a co-partner to these events, who have those kinds of levels available from a medical perspective.
Who can step in and say no someone like a riddick beau does not meet that threshold.
You cannot put him into this fight.
You cannot allow him, otherwise the insurance companies are at fault, quite frankly, because if the insurance companies step in and say no we’re happy to ensure this fight, then they’ve made a mistake and uh.
You know when someone gets seriously injured and or sadly dies because of stepping into the because they’re allowed to step into the rink, because they were given the green light they were approved to fight.
Then someone’s made a big mistake and someone will end up paying so at the end of the day, uh, the the commissions are at fault for not stepping in and putting their foot down and saying.
We won’t allow this because it doesn’t meet these minimum health and safety required thresholds and b.
The insurance company should step in and stop these fights as well now, because someone might get hurt and they would be at fault for allowing them better time.
Well, who else is coming out the woodwork who’s going to be next? Well, apparently, oscar de la hoya is going to be continuing and he wants the original opponent.
Uh he’s even thrown out a challenge to uh mayweather as well.
Um.
A lot of people have been actually um quite harsh, on de la hoya with this because of this they know he got beat so um.
It was a beat down in the first four or it wasn’t a beat down.
If i remember right correct me, if i’m wrong, it was a split decision win for mayweather.
I thought you know, because i watched the fight live at the time.
Um oscar de la hoya did really well um.
That’S one fight which i don’t know safety 47.
Can he pass the physical if he can fair enough, because there’ll be a lot of a lot of money around that one very much so if you can pass the physical buy, a proper commission green light, not a problem but uh, really, no! No van der hollyfield! No, no, no, especially for tyson.
He looked good in that roy jones fight um.
I i think uh take those pillows off of his hands.
Um he wow z40.
Sorry, 54.
55.
Wasn’T it um got ta [, __ ], look like him and be like that.
A couple years time, i’ll be i’ll, be very happy, but um yeah, it’s uh that goes off got over to mike tyson and it goes off to him for what he did.
I mean that was a long time out of the ring and what he put you know his body through um in a negative way.
Obviously, at the tail end actually brought to tell him his career for about halfway through the career but abused.
The body haven’t been in the ring for many many years.
He did really well and the funny thing with that fight and as much as it was declared a draw with roy jones um.
He really did shoot himself in the foot with that fight because originally the rounds were going to be three minutes now.
The consensus for the tyson camp was that we’ve got to be a bit careful here, because roy jones had actually fought more recently and so they’re a bit concerned as much as tyson was looking good explosively um.
You know in all those videos he put out, etc.
They were worried that he might burn out if the rounds are too long, so they were in control of the whole promotion.
So they brought it back to two minutes and he really did shoot himself in the foot with that one, because at the end of the day, if it was longer than two minutes, i thought he would have actually caught up with voy jones because amount of times I was watching that fight.
He looked really good, yes, big tyson fan, but he was there getting to jones a couple of openings and the bell rang very frustrated like women’s boxing.
Um yeah shots himself this, but i think he’s one of the exceptions because of what he’s uh from a positive aspect, what he’s put his body through to get to how he wasn’t that fine um he’s looking good, you don’t know what his punch resistance is like, But uh holly field matched up with tyson.
Now, no, no, no please hollyfield retire uh, i’m sure he must have some money left.
There’S got to be something surely hanging around.
Thank you so um.
Where do we end up on this one? It’S a bad thing! I hate it, but i think we’ve got to live with it, but all my final words.
My final thoughts are commissions pro and properly regulated, and at the moment it is not loopholes that is nasty.
That is dangerous no way until they get that sorted out and that kind of underhand business practice out the way that i’m against this but uh i’ve got a funny feeling for a while.
We’Ve got to live with it, but it’s an excellent way to happen.
It’S just a matter of time.
That’S my thoughts yeah.
I think economics dictate what will happen next.
Uh it’d be interesting to see whether the fight between riddick, beau and lamar odom was cancelled simply because there weren’t enough sales after the announcement of the event um, because that’s that’s one of the things that crossed my mind, um and the other thing is, is you Know is linux lewis going to come out of retirement that great community that great canadian boxer, [, Music, ], english, canadian or jamaican? You can uh pick which country, depending what type of bout it is and what it is.
It’S uh uh, but i think it did take a lot of money to bring him out uh him against vitaly klitschko again.
So so we do there’s been so many pro fighters that have come out of the woodwork, the other offering james tony for one of them um.
I think some some people have gone.
I just think into their 50s better than others um i mean look at razer ruddock.
He had a comeback.
What was about five years ago, um respectful actually because the last fight he had was at 52 and he lost to the canadian national champion dylan carmen.
If i remember right, that was the third fight is come back and he lost, he was knocked down, became a good effort, but it just you know the punch resistance just goes um.
He was physically, quite good uh, but that somebody else i just got a funny feeling might come up with work as well.
I think they’re all coming out uh i mean especially uh.
You know with amounts of money, that’s been, you know, whispered to be paid and whatever else it’s uh there’s a long queue.
So they’re gon na never have a shortage of volunteers or anything but uh yeah.
We see who’s uh next uh and especially for james uh.
Jake paul’s but jake paul as well, didn’t he say he was retiring on social media.
What happened there? He did and uh, but as we’ve all found out, you can’t really believe anything that comes out of his mouth um.
I think there’s more than enough uh quote-unquote, legendary boxers who’d love to come out of retirement and have one last kick at the can uh, but i don’t think the true boxing fan out.
There is waiting for that to happen.
I i think, just for example, in the heavyweight division.
You’Ve got a huge massive blockage that needs to be unblocked and once that is unblocked, we’re going to see some great fighting once again at the heavyweight level.
Uh and – and we won’t have any roo as real boxing fans – won’t – have any room in our lives or money in our pockets to view all those celebrity type.
Legendary fighters coming out of retirement type fights anyway, uh there’ll be more there’ll, be more than enough.
Great entertainment in the real boxing rings anyway around the world for us to watch and keep us entertained very good point.
Absolutely if the heavyweight scene was a bit more alike, maybe you know you wouldn’t have to look at.
You know, fighters from yesteryear to uh.
You know wet the uh, the juices of people’s mouths and get them celebrating over proposed matches of you know, fighters from long time ago, um, i think, with the two fights which are coming up respectively, obviously uh this saturday and uh october.
The 9th, if things are unlocked um, i think the heavyweight division is going to um open up um.
Yes, i’m hoping, obviously, four.
I know we’re going off of titan now, but i know we’re hoping for fury to win and joshua twin, obviously to allow the big brits fight um.
But if it wasn’t them, two which are gon na, be the winners of the respective fights.
It’S got to open up uh everything with all the people that are waiting, because it’s just like a domino effect all the way down the heavyweight rankings.
At the moment, everybody is just waiting to see what’s happening, everybody’s parked up, and i think the lack of what’s been happening there as well has affected.
I think people looking elsewhere for a bit of excitement because we haven’t had it uh so much of it in the heavyweight uh fights recently so um.
Maybe that might help the situation as well.
Maybe unless you live in mexico and uh, yes, was it christopher, lovejoy, yeah, okay, yeah, victor mexico, christopher lovejoy? Yes, he’s proudly announced that he’s made his uh first million.
Okay.
Well, stick to mexico, don’t victory out of it, because the first time he has he got knocked out very quickly, so yeah leave that one there but uh! Yes! So that’s it! I think this saturday can’t wait october, the 9th my birthday and the big fight.
I’M looking forward to that one even more people are dissing.
You know fury while the three oh before to it.
What a great birthday present um i’ll wait till then looking forward to settling right.
Well, thanks very much for uh having this conversation with me appreciate it very much christian um getting ready for the next show coming up in uh 30 odd minutes, uh featuring all the news fit to print from boxing 247.
, i might add uh, you guys are doing A great job over there and uh keep it up um.
So i guess with respect to you and i think we’ll see each other again tomorrow.
At the same time, uh new knees from standard time, i believe, 5 p.
m.
Your time absolutely we’re in the uk live at 5.
live at five or 12 over in canada.
Yes, new tagline live at five there.
We go all right thanks very much for joining us remember to share subscribe and uh hit that notification bell.
Let you know when we’re coming up next, thanks christian.
Thank you.
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