Figueroa vs Magsayo | The Best Boxing Picks, Predictions & Odds [Friday, Mar 3rd]

Dan Rafael:

Got March Madness coming up and we got some good fights coming up.

T.J. Rives:

And I should say for the record, I’ve been doing the live college basketball show, which you know Dan and I have had the Memphis Tiger hat on, so I officially have the hat here. I took the Memphis Tiger hat off for the boxing show and what little follicles I have on the top there. I’ve got the hat hair going, but you don’t care about that. You care about handicapping. You care about boxing, Blake, I’m all with you. Let’s go. Happy Friday. I’m loving that. So we’ve got a lot to get to here on the program including a very compelling fight in a smaller weight division that’s coming up in a main event on Saturday.

First, let’s take a look at our records and we’ll get into some handicapping of the action in Southern California on the Premier Boxing Champions card. You will notice that Dan Rafael continues to take victory laps right now as we look at the records here on how things have subs… At least I think we’re going to look at the records here in a second. You were what? 30 fights above 500?

Dan Rafael:

Oh, it was actually-

T.J. Rives:

I believe that is the case? May made closer to 40, above 500. Now last week we had a little bit of an iffy week, although we did have a couple of different results… Including we sat on this show last week, Subriel Matias and Jeremias Ponce would be an entertaining fight. You said it over and over again and it was from the first round on and I got the Matias KO in that one that I was looking for.

Dan Rafael:

Well, I think I got the KO also. It was just a matter is it going to go along? Is it going to go short?

T.J. Rives:

Right, exactly on that one. So we had some good action in that one and you really believe when we’re going to get into this first fight, we got some more here, but we’ve already had some good action fights in the first couple of months in boxing on the calendar, maybe not the biggest names. I know you keep emphasizing that.

Dan Rafael:

Well, I’ll say this, T.J., for the first two months through February, we’ve had off the top of my head probably about five, like legit good solid quality fight of the year type fights. There was obviously the Erika Cruz fight against Amanda Serrano on the women’s side of the sport. We had Emanuel Navarrete against Liam Wilson. We had Artur Beterbiev against Anthony Yarde, we had the Matias, Ponce fight that you mentioned that was last week. I know I’m missing one or two, but there it’s been a very good year for action fights if not the biggest fights.

T.J. Rives:

Yeah, no doubt about that. All right, so there we see the records, the guys and gals have it on the screen there. You see, look at how far above 500 we are on the show. And again, we’re making you money, that’s the idea. We want to make you money and we love that. All right, again, thank you for fighting us. If you’re in the live chat, we’re going to get to some questions in a few moments. First though, first things first, let’s get into fight number one, shall we? It is the main event of the Showtime Premier boxing champions fight card in Ontario, California. This is Brandon Figueroa, a Texan, a former world champion at what, 122 pounds right now moving up to featherweight to fight a Filipino fighter in Mark Magsayo. We see our boxing odds are fairly even here. It’s a fairly even fight, including on Figueroa to win by knockout or decision are over under his 10 and a half. Now, Magsayo, Dan Rafael used to have this WBC 126 pound title. He lost it to another fighter in Rey Vargas.

And so now this is the interim world title fight with Figueroa. Let’s explain a little more about that and then we’ll get into some prognostication, some picks on this fight, but pick it up there because this is an interim world title fight on Saturday night.

Dan Rafael:

Sure. So like you said, they’re fighting for the interim title because Rey Vargas is the featherweight title holder of the WBC, but in his last fight he did go up to 130 pounds, a junior lightweight to challenge for a title in that weight class, he lost that fight. A vacant title against O’Shaquie Foster by decision. And although he has not made it official in terms of actually sending the actual letter, I have spoken to Mauricio Sulaimán who’s the president of the WBC who says that Rey Vargas is absolutely going to be returning to the featherweight division to defend his title. So, whereas had Rey Vargas won that fight against Foster a couple of weeks ago, the winner of Magsayo against Figueroa would’ve claimed the interim title or perhaps Vargas would’ve vacated already and this would’ve been for the full title.

So now, that he is coming back to the featherweight division where he still has the belt, basically what Magsayo and Figueroa are doing is they’re going to put on a good fight, I believe, but they’re fighting for the interim title and for the right to be the next challenger against Rey Vargas when he comes back into the ring, whether it’s the next fight or one fight after that is not necessarily set, but it’s still an important fight because the winner is going to be getting another big opportunity beyond just this matchup. Now, the thing about this fight in terms of whether it’s for a real full title, an interim title. This is… I don’t want to sound like a broken record, T.J, we’ve been saying this over and over for a week. We just went over some of the excellent fights we’ve already seen so far this year, this one is another one that’s in that same exact kind of level of fight where if it was a bad fight, I’d be rather surprised these guys come to fight.

Figueroa and Magsayo, both are in good matches on a regular basis. Brandon was in a fight of the year, literal fight of the year type of fight against us. Stephen Fulton, which was a loss that he had in a unification fight at 122 last year. And now he has moved up. He has won one fight since he’s come to featherweight in the eliminator and now here he goes against Magsayo who has been a featherweight who won the world title of the WBC by bumping off in a big upset against Gary Russell Jr. And then he lost in his first defense against Rey Vargas. So he’s trying to get a rematch against Rey Vargas. Figueroa was trying to get the shot at Rey Vargas. But these two guys, let me tell you dude, they’re going to come forward and they’re going to throw a lot of punches. It’s going to be a fun fight. The crowd there in Ontario, California should see a nice show. Showtime’s got itself a good main event. I’m excited for it. And as far as who I’m picking in this fight, I assume you want to know that.

T.J. Rives:

Let’s do it. Let’s get on the record here.

Dan Rafael:

Let’s get on the record. I mean first of all, we do this show every week and there’s definitely fights where I have strong opinions on who I think is going to win. Then there’s others where you’re sort of like, “Well, I could kind of see it either way.” This is one of those fights where my opinion, I believe in my view, although I’m not a hundred percent sure I definitely could go either way, but I do like Brandon Figueroa, I like them by decision, which means I like them by the over. These are both two tough guys. They both take good shots, they both deliver good shots. I feel like Brandon is going to be a little stronger, a little bigger, a little more can bite down when necessary. And in the end, both guys are going to be in a good competitive fight. But I think Figueroa where he didn’t get the close decision against Fulton, if it’s close, I think he gets the decision this time.

T.J. Rives:

All right, and again, as we saw the comment there just a moment ago, it doesn’t take a lot of space for Brandon Figueroa here. He is going to come at Magsayo and try to corner him or keep him along the ropes and brawl. There’s not a lot of mystery there. He’s an action fighter and I believe, and again Magsayo we should mention’s a great story. Basically a kid from the streets of the Philippines, boxing was his way to kind of have a purpose in life. Manny Pacquiao took him under his wing. Pacquiao has trained him for a lot of his career, so there’s a Pacquiao connection to Magsayo. So I agree with you. This has got storylines.

Dan Rafael:

He was the promoter, not the trainer.

T.J. Rives:

Promoter, forgive me, but he kind of took him under the wing and had him in his gym even if he wasn’t actually training him to get him off the streets, et cetera. So this is a great success story, but I think in the end figure row is going to wear him down Dan Rafael, and I’m going to go stronger than you not decision, I think this is KO. The only thing that you and I will agree on, I’m going to stipulate. I think it goes longer and I will protect myself and take the Dan Rafael over you love the overs. I think this is a longer fight. We’ll both agree on over 10 and a half rounds of his scheduled 12 rounder. And again, as you laid out, the options are open big time for whoever wins this for a good payday because either Magsayo gets the rematch he wants with Vargas or in Figueroa’s case he’s fighting for a world title in a second weight division in a big time main event fight.

Maybe even a seven figure fight if it comes to it for Brandon Figueroa. All right, any final thought on that before we move on?

Dan Rafael:

I was just going to say one other thing as far as one of the reasons when you take a look at the two guys and how they’ve done. Now of course Magsayo has that big win against Gary Russell, but I’m not making excuses for Russell. He was compromised in that fight. He had injuries that’s required surgery afterwards. His father was on basically on his deathbed if you will, going into that fight. It was a tough time and so why don’t take away from what Mark did in that fight? Figueroa clearly has the better resume. He’s fought at the higher level, he’s fought against the better opponents and I think that’s going to show come Saturday and not by a lot but at the highest level of the sport, it just takes a little bit of space between you and your opponent to get the win.

And I think the combination of his experience level against the better opponents, the fact that he is a bigger puncher in my mind that all that together and he takes a good chin. I think that’s the bottom line. And I see that what I know, T.J, I’ll say it’s not you T.J, it’s the other.

T.J. Rives:

That is not me, that’s not my avatar. But this TJ’s got an interesting comment there. What do you make of that? That maybe Magsayo is a little overrated and Figueroa is a little underrated, you buy that?

Dan Rafael:

I’ll agree to a point I don’t think Magsayo is crazy overrated because they think he’s just a good quality top level featherweight, but nobody thinks he’s pound for pounder. He’s going to become some epic champion. And as far as Figueroa being crazy underrated, I think he’s not crazy underrated. I think maybe he’s a little bit underrated, but I think he’s rated pretty much where he is supposed to be. He’s an excellent fighter. He had a number of good fights in the junior featherweight division. He was a good champion. He had a good great fight with Stephen Fulton that could have easily gone the other way. And he is considered one of the best fighters at 122 when he was there. But at featherweight he is got some proven to do is the point and he can start with a win over Magsayo on Saturday.

T.J. Rives:

I’ve got another comment here too in the live chat again, keep the live chat comments coming, get some questions ready. We’ll have a few minutes to do that. We’ve got one more fight to handicap Earland think is the name here that has the question or has the comment in the live chat. He says, “Hey, minority opinion. But I personally thought Figueroa edge Stephen Fulton back in November, late November of 2021 in an all action fight in that one.” So here’s here’s another chance on a big stage, yes.

Dan Rafael:

Listen, Stephen Fulton against Brandon Figueroa was maybe didn’t win the fight of the year officially from the Boxing Writers Association of America or the Ring Magazine or from any of the various outlets that do those types of things for myself when I write those types of columns. But it sure as heck was in the top like three or four. I mean it was a really outstanding fight and these guys went added tooth and nail from the opening bell. And Fulton, I thought he won the fight, but by just a smidge it was like a one round difference kind of fight. Both guys did a great job. And I know look, Brandon wanted the rematch. He was supposed to get the rematch. They had made a deal for the rematch, it was supposed to have taken place, but because Fulton, who is the unified champion now got the opportunity to, rather than fight a rematch with Figueroa for one price point, low seven figures, let’s say, he now was offered the opportunity to go to Japan to defend his title against Naoya Inoue who was the number one star of Japanese boxing.

He just had won the undisputed bantamweight title, gave that title up to go to the junior featherweight division in an effort to win another title. And the money that Stephen Fulton can make to go to Japan or stay here to fight a rematch with Figueroa is difference by multi multi, millions of dollars. He’ll go to Japan, he’ll cash a check. I mean I don’t know exactly what the purse will be, but you’re looking probably at a four or 5 million dollar kind of payday I would think. Something along those lines. And I mean that fight is, they haven’t announced it yet, the fight is made. I think they’re still trying to hammer out the exact date and location, but I’m told it’ll probably be at the big arena in Saitama Japan. They’re looking maybe at the end of May, early June, but that’s a big time fight.

But the point is, Figueroa was almost had the rematch, it didn’t work out and maybe down the road, him and Fulton, whatever happens in these upcoming fights because that was a great matchup. People will want to see it. They can get a rematch on down the road.

T.J. Rives:

Again, you and I in agreement here on Brandon Figueroa, just to wrap it up, we just disagree on how you’ve got the decision. I’ve got the knockout for that matchup on Saturday. Immediately preceding that fight is a former world champion in the co feature that is Swift Jarrett Hurd. Hurd is back in action fighting as a middleweight in this case with Armando Resendiz. Resendiz out of Mexico. Hurd is a six to one, five and a half, six to one favorite. You see the over under is eight and a half. Hurd has been inactive for a while, Dan Rafael pick it up on that and let’s make some predictions, let’s do some handicapping on Jarrett Hurd in this Showtime PBC co feature fight.

Dan Rafael:

All right. So Jarrett Hurd T.J, was at one time the number one fighter in the junior middleweight division. He was as good as it gets. He had unified two of the titles. He was knocking everybody out. He fought with such an intense pressure style, he would just overwhelm his opponents. They just got to out take the heat because to use a cliche, his offense was his defense. He just threw so many punches and just beat his guys down with such intense pressure that they just wilted after a handful of rounds. He was just killing everybody. When he lost the title to Julian Williams, that was a setback form a hometown fight and he’s had some trouble since then. Now when he won the title and then unified against Erislandy, he unified against Erislandy Lara. That was the 2018 fight of the year. He had an injury in that fight that required surgery. He came back, he was successful. But then when he lost the title, it’s been a little bit of a rut form. A couple things about him.

Number one, he is coming off of a 21 month layoff. His father died during Covid from Covid and that was a huge hit for him. He did not realize as he… I interviewed Jarrett earlier this week for our podcast and for a story that I wrote that he didn’t realize just how important that father was to his career. Now after his dad died, he took a fight. About three months later he fought Luis Arias. That was Jarrett’s first fight going up to the middleweight division. They fought on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather exhibition match against Logan Paul. It was in Miami and it was in the middle of a rainstorm. And he attributed his training camp of having gone with his trainer at the time Kay Koroma, to try to alter his style a little bit because the constant pressure and just the wars they take away from the length of time you can have a career.

So the idea was, “Let’s try to use our boxing skills, our jab. Let’s move around the ring, let’s use the ring a bit more.” The problem he ran into was because the rain made the mat so slick and so impossible to have any kind of grip on the mat, it was kind of a real mess. He sort of had to go back to the other style and he admitted to me, he said, “I wasn’t in the perfect shape for that kind of fight and I hadn’t practiced for that sort of style fight.” And so therefore it was a horrible fight. Luis Arias got the upset win by a decision and he was still feeling the impacts of what had occurred with his father passing. And he took some time off and he actually said to me, he wasn’t even come back, but he was talking to a friend of his who was a boxing trainer also.

And the friend was reminding him of the things that his father would say to him. And he was told me he is hearing his dad and his mind. He is like, “I just had to get off my rear end. And it started off, I went and did some jump rope, I went and did a few miles and I went to the gym and slowly but surely I said, let me only get off my rear end and come back.” And then when he watched Charlo become the undisputed champion in the 154 weight class against Brian Castaño, he said he heard another voice from his father about, “You can beat all these guys when you’re in shape.” And at that point he got serious about it. This is probably last spring, and he’s been in the gym working his new trainers, Andrew Council, who was a former middleweight contender who challenged Bernard Hopkins for the title back in the late nineties.

And maybe I’m a little biased because I had a long conversation with Hurd and I’ve known him pretty much since he’s been on the boxing scene as a top fighter and covered many of his fights. But he seems like he’s in a really good spot in his life and his career. And look, the bottom line here with this fight is, he’s coming back. This is not supposed to be some huge epic fight, big stakes, big titles or anything like that. This is, “I’ve been out of the ring 21 months, let me get rid of the cobwebs, let me see where I’m at. Let me see how I feel in this weight class. Let me be in my first fight with my new trainer and let’s hope everything goes well. And then we move on. We hope to a bigger fight.” He’d like to fight Charlo, we’d like to fight Gennady Golovkin. If the opportunity was present, he would love a rematch with Julian Williams or Arias even if that were the case.

But here’s the point, he’s supposed to win. So I think he’s definitely going to win the fight. The question is, “How’s he going to win the fight?” And I see Resendiz, who is the opponent, 13 and one very inexperienced against top level guys. The one loss was against Marco Hernandez who was just a regular fighter. He got dropped in that fight to my recollection. And it’s like jumping… I use the analogy if you’re a baseball fan, T.J, it’s like going from facing A ball pitching to facing a Major League pitching in the next game. And Resendiz is about to go from facing the A ball pitching to the Major League pitching and it’s hard to do. And so therefore I love Hurd in the win. I also like him by the knockout and taken him by the under the over under is eight and a half, it’s a 10 round fight.

I’m taking the under. Let’s see, I mean those over unders are tough sometimes because they’re right around what I kind of think it might go for, but I’ll go on a limb, I’m saying Hurd by the knockout and the under it’s been off a while. He’s got the lost to J-Rock, he’s got the one win after that and he had the lost Arias but he’s so much better. He’s so much of a better fighter based on what he’s done and where he is at. He’s not an old guy. He’s telling his early thirties, he’s always in top condition.

And the other thing T.J that I loved, I asked him about this and the interview, I said, “When you went to your sort of new style, obviously it didn’t work out so great for you and I know it’s maybe that it can be a detriment to your longevity, to your health even. But the Jarrett that we all fell in love with was the guy that just beat your guys and beat your opponent to oblivion with the monstrous output of punching.” And I said, “Can you go back to that? Do you want to go back?” And he says, “Back to what got me here baby. I’m going to destroy everything in my way, everything in the ring, all 12 rounds.” So he wants to go back to that very crowd pleasing pressure style that was so successful for him that got him million dollar paydays and had him at the top of the sport and had a number one in his weight class.

So if he does that kind of fight against this level of opponent, that’s why I’m picking the under and the knockout. Maybe I’m biased because I just talked to him a couple days ago and it’s in my mind but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

T.J. Rives:

All right, good stuff on that. We had a couple of comments in there about will there be a rust factor obviously for Hurd that could maybe push this fight a little bit longer? Dan doesn’t think so. So you’re going to go KO here on this and we see your comment there as well TJ. Dan’s going to go KO`, I’m going to go decision. I think it takes him a little longer and you’re right, Resendiz is stepping up big time in competition and maybe he gets hit with the big punches and that’s it. So I may be out of luck on this, but I’ll go with the decision and I will go with the over. You and I disagree you’re going to go less than eight and a half rounds. Obviously if I’m going decision, I’m going the full 10 round route on this and you get better value by the way as well on the under, here especially with the knockout prop.

And look at BHold_TheAssyrian has got a good point there too. “I hate putting money on fighters that disappear for years. I smell an upset.” You’re saying no chance. No chance?

Dan Rafael:

I mean you never say no chance. I mean it’s boxing and we always talk about every single week that you got a guy with gloves trying to hit in the face. There’s always a chance. What’s a great line from Jim Carrey in the movie, “So you’re saying there’s a chance?”

T.J. Rives:

“So you’re saying there’s a chance?”

Dan Rafael:

Yeah, there’s a chance, but I mean the reality is in this particular case I think people forgot how good Jarrett Hurd was and there are right extenuating circumstances, certainly with the most recent loss that occurred and the reason for his layoff and the reason for the inactivity. And I just remember when he was… And it’s not that long ago, we’re talking like 2017, he went on a stretch of seven fights in a row against all good quality opponents. He knocked every one of them out. And even had made the point to me that in the fight of the year of 2018 against Lara, that was the unification fight. And I was at that fight, that was just a great fight. Go find it on YouTube if you’ve never seen it. Anyway, he was saying to me that up to that fight every time he’d been on television he had knocked his opponent out.

Now they’re going into round 12 of this big time unification fight, which was the main event of another showtime card. And this trainer at the time was telling him, “Jarrett, you got the fight. Just make it out of this round. Go box this guy, let’s get out of here. We’re going to win.” And Jarrett went… And this is not something new, he said this at the time, back at the time that the fight occurred, he was like, “No.” And he just wanted… He’s like, “Every fight I’d ever been on TV I got to knockout. I wanted to go get this guy, I wanted to knock him out. I didn’t want to leave it to the hands of the judges.” And he went out in the 12th round and he didn’t listen to his trainer and he went out there to try to get Lara.

He didn’t get the knockout but he scored a knockdown and as it turned out, the knockdown was the difference between a win for Jarrett Hurd to unify the titles and if he hadn’t have gotten the knockdown, it would’ve been a draw and they would’ve both retained their titles. So he went out there against his trainer’s wishes, he went after this guy the way he always went after opponent scored the knockdown, won the fight of the year, unified the titles and against a really quality opponent in Lara who’s been around for a long time and people forget how good he was and if he turns up that pressure and he still has it, and he’s physically good, which he says there’s no injuries, this was all a thing with his father and a lot of mental stuff more than physical stuff, he’s going to beat this guy into oblivion also I think on Saturday night.

T.J. Rives:

Okay. And there’s something to be said for world champion caliber fighter here on this, which is exactly what you’re saying and I was just thinking last week we didn’t touch on the Tommy Fury win that bonked both of us against Jake Paul last week, but on the undercard, Badou Jack, 39 years old moving up to Cruiserweight, he was the stronger, better, fresher fighter, but he still stomped on the accelerator, got an 11th round knockdown and then ended up stopping Makabu in the 12th because his attitude was, “Do not take chances with the judges.” Exactly like what you were just talking about. And so that mentality from her is interesting.

Dan Rafael:

I needed Makabu to last another two minutes, I mean I picked Jack in the upset. A lot of people were… Let me tell you, when I made that pick about Jack, I got people on my social media that were just vilifying me, “You’re an idiot. You don’t know anything about boxing.”

T.J. Rives:

Please.

Dan Rafael:

“Okay.” I mean Makabu is not exactly going through the hall of fame and Badou Jack in my mind, bigger even though he’s been fighting at a smaller weight class earlier in his crib, but a poor guy and a longer guy and to me I didn’t think that was that hard of a pick to me.

T.J. Rives:

But still the point is the mentality. The mentality was, “Do not leave it up to the judges. Go get the knockout if you can get it or at least do something impressive in the 11th and 12th round.” That should always be your mindset.

Dan Rafael:

Now I’m not going to downplay Resendiz and say he’s not going to come and try to do the same thing, but I feel like the difference in… And I saw the fight that he lost against Hernandez that was a televised fight. The difference in the talent level of a Resendiz and a Jarrett Hurd is vast.

T.J. Rives:

Good enough.

Dan Rafael:

You never know how the layoff is going to affect a guy, but I feel like it’s a little bit of smoke and mirrors that people are thinking that he’s all done.

T.J. Rives:

All right, so just one more time.

Dan Rafael:

See that to be in the case.

T.J. Rives:

Very good. One more time. Dan and I agree on the who Jarrett Hurd Swift Jarrett Hurd to win. We don’t agree on the how. Dan’s got the KO, I’ve got the decision. We can lock that in one more time if you want to see it on the screen. There you go. And then we also disagree on the over under. Dan has got the under eight and a half rounds. I will take the over eight and a half rounds. This is the co feature fight Saturday night Ontario, California Showtime and Premier Boxing Champions will televise it on the immediate undercard fight of the Figueroa Magsayo main event. One other question, so we’re good on that. Let’s get into Q and A. Our buddy, the boxing rider David Payne is watching in England and he asked, “Is this a catch weight situation at middleweight or this is a full middleweight 160 limit when they weigh in later on Friday?” He’s curious, is this a full middleweight fight or is this some kind of catch weight fight or what do we know?

Dan Rafael:

First of all, if you’re fighting again, it’s not a championship fight. Catch weight doesn’t really mean anything. They sign a contract for a specific weight. So it’s a middleweight fight, Now it maybe, is it 161 max? It might be 161, but there’s not going to be like you got to weigh 156 or 157. This is a middleweight fight according to what the bout sheet says and what the fighter said. So I don’t see any, he is fighting at middle weight now. Jarrett Hurd and Resendiz is also.

T.J. Rives:

All right, so moving up in weight on this one too. All right. Go ahead.

Dan Rafael:

It’ll be a second fight at middleweight. The Arias fight was a middleweight fight also.

T.J. Rives:

So he has already been there as well. All right, let’s get to some questions and answers shall, while we have a couple of moments. Blake is watching, he’s interested in the Tank Davis, Ryan Garcia fight, it’s now announced for April 22nd in Las Vegas. He says, “How will the price of Tank versus Garcia tickets compared to Tank’s last fight or one of Canelo Triple G or a Mayweather fight?” Because it’s a Vegas fight here, is it comparable to those other names that he’s mentioning Canelo and Floyd Mayweather on? He’s talking about the actual get in price to the [inaudible 00:26:58]

Dan Rafael:

I mean look the tickets will be they… First of all, the main thing is because they haven’t officially selected or finalized the venue that does have an impact on the ticket prices. The bigger the venue, the more ticket availability. So if they have this fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, which is one possibility that holds about 16,500 for boxing. If they have the fight at the T-Mobile Arena, which holds around 20,000 for boxing, there will be probably some variances in the prices.

There’s also been some conversation about having the fight, which would be the first time ever for a boxing match at the new Allegiant Stadium, which is the football stadium where the Raiders play in Las Vegas, which is a dome a has as a retractable roof. And that would be a whole different ballgame that holds obviously a huge amount of people. So what they have done internally, is they know what the ticket prices would be and what it would scale out to firms of the gate at the various locations. But they haven’t made those prices public yet. I don’t know what they are, but they’re not going to be cheap. That’s the bottom line. This is a big time Vegas money fight and if you want to be in the seat in the arena be prepared to pay for it as the bottom line.

T.J. Rives:

Okay, another question here, this one from Lucas. He says, “Dan, why does Josh Taylor, this is the 140 pound champ, get stripped almost immediately of his three belts. But Charlo meaning Jermall Charlo, the WBC middleweight champ is exempt after a two year layoff. Not quite two years yet, but he’s working on what, like 21 months that he hasn’t fought.” I’ve been banging the drum on this. When is this guy back in the ring and how is he still holding on to the WBC Belt? Almost two years later. All right, what about that for Lucas?

Dan Rafael:

So it’s a fair question. Josh Taylor’s situation is the following, when he fought the fight against… Well he first he became undisputed against José Ramírez to unify all four belts. At that moment he had different ator with organizations. The WBO was first up, which was the Jack Catterall fight. That was the very controversial victory that Josh had last February to retain the undisputed title. Once that fight was over, he then was faced with the next mandatory, which was in the WBA and he was ordered to fight Alberto Puello. That fight was worth very little money. There was so much controversy raging over what had occurred in the scoring of the fight against Catterall, that and being that they’re both from the UK, that was going to be a very big rematch, a very heavily demanded rematch from the media fans that TV network was interested.

They were going to in the UK put that on pay-per-view on Sky Sports. And so, Josh obviously not, it wasn’t his fault what the scores were, he was the fighter, not this judge. But anyway, he felt like it was the best decision to go and let’s do this big rematch. And once that occurred he ignored the WBA order for the mandatory. So he was stripped of that title or vacated or whatever you want to say, semantics. Then, there was another mandatory that was due and then another one. And so, that’s what happens. I mean we all, as boxing bands love to see when a guy can become disputed, it’s extremely difficult for you to have multiple title defenses of that belt because of what happens with mandatory. He was able to get in the mandatory against Catterall, which was the WBO mandatory to retain all the belts and it’s very infrequent.

Devin Haney was able to do it when he had the rematch against George Kambosos. He’ll actually be able to do it again if Lomachenko fight is finalized. But once that is over with, he’s going to vacate for sure. And even if Loma wins that something’s going to get stripped away at some point because of mandatories. So that’s what happened with Taylor. You can’t fight three guys at once or four guys at once, so they went away. Now in terms of Charlo, the only thing he had was a WBC title. There was no other pressures of other organizations. So it’s not an entirely apples to apples comparison.

T.J. Rives:

Right.

Dan Rafael:

I believe he did get some kind of exemption from the WBC as it related to the injury. He also didn’t have a mandatory that was due just yet because there is a certain amount of time you get to make those fights.

And because of the fact that he was going to be out of the ring, they allowed an interim title partly because he had claimed an injury that went to Carlos Adames and then at their convention they made the following order. When Charlo comes back, you’re allowed to have an optional fight. Adames won the interim title, you’re allowed to have one optional fight, which he’s going to have against Luis Arias coming up or no, I take it back against Julian Williams on one of these upcoming showtime cards and Charlo was supposed to be back in the ring this coming June, opponent TBA and after that they’re supposed to fight.

So again, as far as the mandatories and why one guy was tripped and one guy wasn’t, one guy had four titles and had a lot of obligations. One guy only had one title, didn’t have an immediate obligation and they were able to work it out with Adames who was his mandatory challenger. Hope that makes right.

T.J. Rives:

Good answer. Nope, you did well on all that. I got a couple more quick questions from fans and then I may have one more myself. All right, so Mike is asking, “Did you cover the Gassiev fight?” Which is tonight? This is a heavyweight, this is in Armenia. In fact the fight I think is happening shortly as we do this live on Friday because the time difference in this, we did not talk about it as of yet and I don’t honestly know this is why we defer to you. Tell me more about Murat Gassiev, who’s in the main event.

Dan Rafael:

Well Gassiev was the unified Cruiserweight champion. He had two of the belts. He fought Oleksandr Usyk in the final of the World Boxing Super Series to become the winner would become undisputed and Usyk won that fight and he just win the fight. He won like a shutout 12 rounds of zero and embarrassed Gassiev to be quite honest and became undisputed. And as I mentioned about the other issues with [inaudible 00:32:27] defenses at the different weight losses, Usyk was able to make one defense of all the belts and then went up to heavyweight in the case of Gassiev. He has since that loss, went to heavyweight, has had a lot of layoffs, he’s had injuries, he’s had promotional issues, he’s had different periods of time off. He’s only had maybe, I think maybe two fights as a heavyweight so far, but he is supposed to fight Mike Balogun who was a American fighter in Armenia, I believe that’s like you said, taking place approximately.

Now, they couldn’t do this fight in Russia, which is where Gassiev is from for obvious reasons, but the war that’s happening between Russia and Ukraine. And so, compared to the heavyweights that Gassiev fought since he went to the weight class, this is a big step up because Balogun is a quasi, I can’t really call him a prospect because he’s much older, but he’s undefeated. He’s had a couple of decent wins and I guess Gassiev will should be favored in the fight. He should be, but it’s at least a small test relative to the type of guys he’s fought since the lost Usyk.

T.J. Rives:

All right, good enough on that Juggler23. We’ll get to a couple more quick questions. He is watching, he says, “What about Davies, Ritson?” This is Ohara Davies and Lewis Ritson in the UK a thought on that, these that fight, and I’m just double checking on what you have that is tonight. So it’s coming up in primetime here in a little while, eastern time in the United States, probably in about two or three hours. That is the WBA junior welterweight eliminator correct? With Davies and Ritson. Any thought, Dan?

Dan Rafael:

Yeah, I mean as they say, it’s a good domestic dust up, if you will in the UK. Ritson at one time in the lightweight division was considered like a good top 10 contender. He was beaten down by Jeremiah Payne, who we talked about it was the fighter that fought against Subriel Matias last week for the vacant title in the junior welterweight division. He beat Ritson to get that opportunity and Ritson did not look good in that fight. He hasn’t since moved up in wait and they’re going to do this fight with Davies, who’s another British fighter, had his ups, had his downs. It’s a solid fight. I mean if I had to pick, I actually kind of favored Davies a little bit. Ritson I think was really exposed by Ponce. I can’t say I paid close attention to what he’s been doing since then. So my opinion’s not strong. But if you care to watch that fight in the United States anyway, and I think also in Britain it is available as a small pay-per-view on the FITE app for, I think it’s in the United States, I think it’s like 15 bucks.

T.J. Rives:

All right, interesting. On that, beatfanatic1987, this is on the Showtime PBC card. He says, thoughts on Vidal and Garcia. Vidal and Garcia will be part of the Showtime broadcast and those are middleweights. Any thought Dan on that real quick?

Dan Rafael:

Yeah, that’s an opening fight on that show and neither guy has got really much of a profile or a big name, but the die hards and the insiders and all that they really like this fight. Garcia, my memory is correct. He’s only 19 years old, undefeated and taken a big step up and people think really highly of him and that should be a good fight. I don’t have a strong opinion on the winner. I’m not familiar with Garcia in terms of having watched him fight too much. Vidal has shown himself to be a guy that may be able to do something. He’s been on Showbox before. So if you watch that series on Showtime, which features prospects, you’ve seen him fight, this is one of those fights that Showtime they got with PBC and it’s kind of like these guys they got to take a step up and they’re not going to get babied anymore.

You want to get into the bigger fights you want to get on in the higher level shows not just being the opening fight but advanced to a co feature perhaps in the due time to a main event, fight for a title. You got to go through this type of fight. And this is… Again, I’m not going to call it a crossroads fight because they’re younger fighters, but the winner of this fight is going to make a nice little name for himself in that weight class. And it should be interesting. And middleweight is not the deepest weight class at the moment and one of these guys can really emerge.

T.J. Rives:

All right, good enough on those. Thank you for the questions and answers and the peeps, the savages are still kind of going back and forth on some of the thoughts of some of the different fights. There’s another heavyweight fight involving Agit Kabayel who is an unbeaten, a fighter in Europe and he is fighting, I’m just double checking tomorrow night, right? I’m trying to make sure on when Kabayel is fighting, that’s another heavyweight. He’s on the WBC like top 20 list, but he’s not a top 10 fighter, right? Kabayel?

Dan Rafael:

Yeah, he’s fighting for the European heavyweight title, traditional kind of title stepping stone oftentimes to getting a bigger title shot. If you take a look at some of the top heavyweights from Europe in the last couple of decades, take for example Lennox Lewis, he had become a European champion. Wladimir Klitschko had been the European champion and there’s all, Derek Chisora I think was a European champion, that type of thing. So these are guys that are at the higher end of European boxing and Kabayel’s been around for a while, hasn’t had a chance to step up and this I don’t know that much against the opponent. I mean I think Kabayel, I don’t look at what the betting line was, have to believe he’s the favor that’s taking place basically in Kabayel’s backyard, not available in the United States to my knowledge. Don’t have a strong opinion on the outcome.

T.J. Rives:

All right, I’m going to look for a line there. Kabayel again is undefeated. He’s not ranked in the top 10, so it’s not that big of a noteworthy fight, but anytime it’s the heavyweights, we’re interested and he is of Kurdish descent, Kurdish heritage, but he has lived in Germany and fights out of Germany. So that’s a fight card in Germany that’s coming up. All right, so while I get that line, let’s take a look back ahead.

Dan Rafael:

He’s still on the younger end of things. He’s not an old used up guy. So I think some people think that in terms of German boxing heavyweights, he’s got a chance to maybe become a decent contender.

T.J. Rives:

We have been theorizing for two or three years in and around bigfightweekend.com in the podcast that Tyson Fury would end up fighting him at some point as just an opponent, just a guy. Now he chose to fight Derek Chisora obviously instead, and Fury is looking to fight Usyk and Kabayel is probably at least six months a year from getting a shot at the WBC champion if at all while we discussed this. And I’m just looking to see if there’s a Saturday line on that fight for him as a heavyweight if you’re interested. Gassiev, by the way, that fight has not gotten underway yet, but it’s supposed to get underway here in the next hour. In Armenia, he is a 16 to one favorite if you need him. And I’m looking to see if there’s a Kabayel.

Dan Rafael:

Did you say that that Gassiev is a 16 to one favorite on over [inaudible 00:39:16].

T.J. Rives:

16 to one is what I’m looking at on BetUS. It’s 16 to one.

Dan Rafael:

I mean I’m not saying that Gassiev isn’t going to necessarily win the fight, but I might be like take a flyer 16 to one because [inaudible 00:39:28] solid man, he can fight a little bit.

T.J. Rives:

All right, and the over under on that is four and a half rounds. Again, that fight’s coming up as we do this live in just a little bit. Kabayel, by the way, if I saw it is a six to one favorite and the over under is five and a half rounds. He’s got a decent punch. And again, let’s see what we have for you. Best bets short term investing right here. Pay attention to the column on the right because that’s the man that’s 40 picks above 500. Dan Rafael he likes Brandon Figueroa by decision and thereby likes the over.

I like Figueroa by the knockout. I get a little better value on that. I agree with Dan on the over. We agree on Swift Jarrett Hurd to win in the co feature in Southern California. I have the decision though maybe a little rusty fighter off of a layoff. Dan likes the knockout, he’s going straight in and he’s going for the under eight and a half rounds. I’ll take the over because I’m taking the decision in that. With that final thought from you on this first weekend in March. Dan Rafael before we are gone.

Dan Rafael:

I just hope T.J, that when Jarrett Hurd told me that he is going back to his old pressure bricks pipe style, that he meant it because if he did, I’m winning that one on the under.

T.J. Rives:

Going to kick the knockout and get it on the under.

Dan Rafael:

Hey, I’m going to have to have a word with him.

T.J. Rives:

All right. And again, go check out the Big Fight Weekend podcast. You’ll hear Dan’s interview with Jarrett Hurd great stuff there some more analysis, news and insight. Always Big Fight Weekend podcast feed, Big Fight Weekend, preview out every weekend. We are here Fridays at one Eastern Time. Dan Rafael, have a great weekend. Thank you for the insight and the analysis.

Dan Rafael:

You bet T.J. Enjoy the weekend, my man.

T.J. Rives:

All right, and also thanks to Alejandro and everybody behind the scenes at BetUS keeping us in line here for a Friday. That’s a full show here on the BetUS Boxing Show.