ICYMI This week
The transcript… Unedited
Hello. Good morning. It’s me. I hope you guys are doing well and I hope you guys are enjoying these short bulletins. Guys, it’s been an interesting 48 hours. I feel like I’m going to be saying stuff like this every time because it doesn’t really stop. There’s a constant flow of work and things that need to be done.
Sadly, in the end of it, yesterday, I didn’t get to get George Groves. I think we will try for tomorrow. If I don’t get George tomorrow for Total Boxing’s YouTube channel, I think I’m going to go for Tundi Ajayi, who I was messaging yesterday, who obviously is Anthony Yard’s coach.
And he is going to be ringside tonight at the fight between Joshua Boatze and Willie Hutchinson, which I’ll get onto in a bit. I’m actually not going to any fights tonight. Not even because I can justify it and say I’m going to Mexico tomorrow, but I just don’t feel that either
of these fights or shows justify the outlay in terms of me being on the ground. Obviously, I might be wrong and I’m referring to the Zufa boxing show as well, but it’s been an interesting week. You guys can see, obviously, with the work I’ve put out with Jack Rafferty, Alex Arthur, Stee Clark, Boatze, Willie Hutchinson,
I’ve obviously done a lot for that Manchester show, but I actually think the show in London is equally good or certainly very strong. And by the way, just about Groves, I think obviously, hopefully we’ll get something tomorrow. His cruiserweight, Lucas Roerig is on that bill, the Zufa bill.
And also one of the reasons why I think I didn’t get George yesterday and I hadn’t realized, but he’s part of the Sky team that’s covering the show tonight. So he’s a busy guy with obviously Lucas on the bill and then working the bill separately.
And just interestingly, um, I swapped a couple of messages with Teddy Atlas yesterday. Teddy is back in the commentary booth for the Solita show on DAZN tonight. So I said, sent him good wishes. I’m aiming to finish up a feature with Teddy today, hopefully ahead of his return to the broadcast booth.
Um, and then I actually had a missed call from Lou de Bella. Um, uh, we played phone tag a couple of times, but I kept missing him. So I need to speak to Lou. Um, Lou, if you haven’t seen, by the way, obviously I know I’ve written an interview on Total Boxing,
but if you go over to the YouTube channel, you can see an interview that’s done really well. It’s like 15,000 views deep for a new channel. And people have been very complimentary to both Lou and myself about the piece. I’m wondering if Lou was phony about the death
of former USA Today writer John Saraceno, who was A top, top, top writer, really good sports writer, excellent boxing writer. And my paths only crossed with John a little bit when we overlapped really at the start of my Time at Boxing News on the staff because USA Today was owned
by Gannett, which owned News Quest, which owned Boxing News. And so John and I banged our heads together a couple of times to see how we could work together and create some kind of content synergy, particularly over Muhammad Ali’s passing, we were sort of talking about what might happen
when Ali passed and how we might prepare for that. But John was always a gent to me and people knew him far better than me. And everyone raves about the type of man that he was. Also, I filed my Hall of Fame ballots. It’s quite interesting.
I think there’s some people on the ballots, by the way, now that just, I can’t believe they’re not in. Brendan Ingle, it just blows my mind. There’s still not one UK trainer. In the Hall of Fame. It’s staggering to me. And I got Brendan onto the ballot and it shouldn’t have to take
that for Brendan Ingle to be on the ballot. A couple of my votes are Israel Vasquez, Wilfredo Vasquez, Mikel Kessler, Darius Mikulczewski. I think they’re all deserving to go in. There’s a couple more that I’ve ticked off as well. There’s some people on that ballot. I just don’t even see why they’re on the ballot.
Sven Oka, I know he was unbeaten, but he had so many hometown decisions. Arthur Abraham, not just that he’s... He benefited from some hometown cities. I just don’t think he’s Hall of Fame worthy. Sergio Martinez is on there. He possibly is. Obviously, that Paul Williams knockout, a huge body of work, including some early fights over here.
Rocky Lockridge, Kelly Pavlik, they’re on it. Sean Porter’s on it. Mikey Garcia’s on it. Mikey Garcia, for me, was a first ballot Hall of Famer if he hadn’t done all the stuff he had jumping up and down and waiting, taking weird fights. Chris Eubanks on the ballot, Steve Collins on the ballot.
And by the way, There is, I’ve alluded to this, but I am looking to do some long form sit downs, boxing life story style stuff on Total Boxing’s YouTube channel. And Steve Collins will be one of my first sit downs. He actually lives near me now.
This is surreal. Steve Collins was up there as my main idol when I was a kid. He now lives two or three miles from me. We’ve been for... Two coffees in our local pubs and it’s wild to me. It’s beyond strange, but it’s brilliant as well. It’s brilliant.
And Steve is really good company and it’s great that he’s out here because no one else lives around here boxing wise. By the way, just a couple of other ticks in boxes for these Hall of Fame ballots. Steve Bunce is on there of Tick Buncey. I think his lifetime in boxing is worthy.
How Bob Canobio, the founder of CompuBox, isn’t in yet, I’ll never know. Same for John Shepherd, who is the founder and owner of BoxRec. Glyn Leach, the longtime Boxing Monthly editor. And Tom Cushman, the Philly boxing journalist, those all got my ticks. There’s a few other contenders and runners and riders in there,
but those were the ones that really stood out to me. And then in the old timers, I’ll only share two, and it’s pretty two obvious ones. Not everyone votes for this. I think you’ve got to be a certain type of boxing buffing to get this paper.
But two of my obvious choices have been Marvin Johnson and Eddie Mustafa Mohammed, two light heavyweight Excellent stars. And you can’t have a Hall of Fame with Matthew Saad Mohammed in, Victor Galindez in, and a couple of others from that generation and not have Eddie Mustafa and Marvin Johnson in. You just can’t do it.
Marvin was a three-time champ. Eddie, one of the best of his era, obviously had a win over Matthew Saad Mohammed in his career and a win over Marvin Johnson for that matter. I don’t see how you can not have those guys in if you have the others in as well. They made that generation extra special.
Anyway, so on to tonight, Chris Billum-Smith fights Shev Clark. This was a fight that I sort of speculated about, but I soon knew, once it was in my mind, I soon knew it was nailed on. And I messaged the guys at Zufa and I said, is this a fight? And they said, nothing signed yet. But...
I did write it in Total Boxing. You can go back ahead of time. And it was one where I said it was going to come like the Ryan Garner, Jazza Dickens fight, which I also broke ahead of time in a note section of my column.
So keep an eye on those columns and the note sections, because I am breaking stories in there. I’m doing it subtly because I’m not into the clickbait stuff, but this was one I broke ahead of time. And it was just when I started to think logically, who’s out there for Chris Billum-Smith?
And I thought, well, they just fought on the same card. A news guy wanted Jack Massey to get to the Chris Billum-Smith fight. And obviously with Massey being upset by Shev Clark and Billum-Smith and Shev Clark fighting on the same bill, then that It sounds logical, but I don’t think that’s what they were looking at.
Obviously there’s an amateur rivalry there now. I left the Chris Billum-Smith fight with Ryan Rezicki in Bournemouth earlier this year thinking I did not want to see Chris Billum-Smith box again. I’ve been at so many of his fights where he’s had hard fights and I know
that he’s not a man who wants five Bentleys on the driveways, Porsches, Lamborghinis. He has modest means and he doesn’t want the earth. He just wants to be comfortable and sat with his family. At Cruiserweight, there’s not many fights that can do that. And I kind of felt, unless he fights a Benavidez for a seven-figure purse,
I don’t see the point in continuing. Maybe this is me overreacting. I just didn’t want to... He’s taken a lot of shots. But... Shev Clark has not dazzled as a pro. He’s found the going quite tough. And this is a really interesting fight.
And I will go so far as to say in my head, it’s a 50-50 fight, but actually I could see why people would make Bill and Smith a slender favorite, but I would actually think about making Clark the slender favorite. However, It’s a very hard one to pick because when it was first made, I thought,
you know what, Shev might have that. But then when I think of Billum Smith and how disciplined he is, how he works, I’ve looked at the weigh-in and the press conference stuff this week as well. And I look at how measured and experienced he now is on these big stages.
I actually think Chris is going to do it. And I think he might get a stoppage late, but He might have to climb off the deck. Could be an interesting, thrilling fight. I’m going to have two screens open while I’m at home today. This is how I’m going to work, cover the fights or watch the fights.
I might not cover them, but watch the fights. And obviously elsewhere on this build, by the way, Denzel Bentley. And if you guys haven’t seen my Built Different show, we’re about to take a Um, a season break from it. We’ve just had six episodes out. Denzel Bentley is on it in the current one.
So you go to the, go to the built different YouTube channel and it’s me training with Denzel Bentley. We trained for two and a half hours and it was rank and you can see me pulling up in it. I actually got spasms in my abs during the workout
and you could see these lumps coming out of my abs. Um, But yeah, that was interesting. But Bentley is in great shape, fit as a fiddle. He was obviously the middleweight champion of the world when we filmed it. He’s no longer the middleweight champion of the world with the WBO.
And I think, well, he’s going to have his hands full with Shane Mosley Jr. Shane Mosley has that great win over Serhai Boachuk. And it’s a real, I don’t want to say live underdog, again, 50-50 fight. It’s a cracking fight. Denzel is one of the nicest guys in boxing.
If you haven’t read the Don McCray piece with Denzel from earlier in the week, I’d implore you to go back and read that as well. Really good about getting to the crux of the Denzel Bentley story. Couldn’t recommend it highly enough, but I’m going to edge towards Shane Mosley for that one. I am in a minor upset.
And then over in Manchester, I suppose, at the top of the bill, Joshua Boazzi, Willie Hutchinson. It’s so interesting because when we had that fight before, we didn’t need to see it again. Boazzi won in decent fashion and that was it. We all move on. But we got the rematch.
When the rematch was made, you kind of thought, well, why are we getting this again? But then they’ve been able to add the WBC World Light Heavyweight title to it. It’s changed everything. And I think the more you look at it, you see Joshua has run a form since.
He’s gone life and death in that hell of a fight with Callum Smith. He seemed to come out of the Zack Parker fight with a decision win that people didn’t think he merited. Willie Hutchinson has blasted out Mark Jeffers and beat Ezra Taylor. So they’re in very different form and everything’s changed from their fight in 2024.
To the point now where obviously people are now calling this a 50-50 fight and people are saying that they can make the case for Willie to win. And you can, you really can. And, you know, I know people who’ve been very strong about Willie Hutchinson’s talent all the way through.
But then you also look at Joshua Boazzi winning a medal at the Rio Olympics. And it’s not like he’s cannon fodder, is it? He’s only lost that one fight to Callum Smith. And the title is on the line. Like, it’s a fascinating fight. Really, really good.
And based on not much in particular, apart from maybe the first fight, I’m coming down on the side of Boazzi. But it’s not a certain pick by any stretch. And I don’t think he stops Willi. And Willi could outwork him. But I’m going to go for Boazzi. But it’s tough, very tough.
Obviously, I’m not trying to cover myself. It’s just a cracking match. So you could see how it would go the other way. I know Lee Eaton, by the way, thinks that the fight between Jack Rafferty and Havana’s Marta Ostian could steal the show. I’ve also heard people talk about Zach Miller and Gulley Power being
the possible fight of the night on that Manchester bill. I’ve also written a piece on Billy Dennis, by the way, along with Alex Arthur Jr. and Steve Clarke. And by the way, I was offered interviews with Brad Ray and Ezra Taylor, but they were on the days when I actually went off and did the high rocks
with my son. So I couldn’t do them. But Brad Ray’s a great character. He’s obviously best mates with Connor Walker, which is a great little boxing friendship. So yeah, some really good fights tonight. And I can’t speak with any certainty, but if I was putting on a betting triple, which I would never do, I would go to,
say, Bill and Smith late stoppage. Shane Mosley points. Boatsy points. But there’s as much chance of me going 0 for 3 as there is 3 and 0. But yeah, there we go, guys. By the way, the WBC convention, I went there... I’m going there expecting to get some of those big names I mentioned,
Chavez and Duran, some of the Hispanic greats. I’ve subsequently seen that also Lester Martinez, the hot super middleweight contender, is going to be going out there. Robert Garcia, the trainer, is going to go out there. So everything that I write from that will be paywalled and put behind the paywall here on Substack.
So guys, I hope you are looking forward to that content. I’m certainly looking to fill my boots out there in... I’ll be back tomorrow after a night of huge fights, wherever you are. I hope you enjoy them. Let me know in the comments below how you think the fights tonight will go.
Be interested to know your thoughts and reasons as well. And yeah, have a great weekend, guys. And if you aren’t subscribed to this podcast, hit subscribe. And if you are enjoying everything and you’re a free subscriber, just click on that paid subscription one. Pay £8 a month and just have a look behind the paywall.
Peek behind the paywall and see all the stuff and have a read of a couple of the longer pieces. I’d love you to check it out. But I hope you guys have a great weekend and I’ll be back soon.
