Paul vs Diaz | The Best Boxing Picks, Predictions & Odds [August 4th]

TJ:

And as good a weekend as you and I might’ve had, Terence Crawford had a better weekend with how he beat up on Errol Spence and made a bunch of money doing it. So that was last weekend. We will tell you that coming up momentarily here, we’ll get into handicapping Jake Paul’s return, the social media YouTube star is back in a boxing ring, fighting a former UFC champ in Nate Diaz. We’re going to talk about that fight and the co-feature fight that involves Amanda Serrano.

We need to do a couple of things. We need to say thank you to the audience that finds us live at 1:00 Eastern Time on Fridays as we come in here and talk boxing again. Thousands and thousands of you watched last weekend, not only to the live show, Dan, but also to the segments that our crew hustles at BetUS TV behind the scenes to put the segments out. Thousands and thousands of you watch those segments, the handicapping segments, because presumably Rafael knows what he’s doing with the picks. Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. I don’t know.

Dan:

We did pretty well last week.

TJ:

We did all right. We did all right last week. Well, I had Spence, you had Crawford, but on the undercard I did all right with the Santiago win, et cetera, for the big fight card, Showtime PBC in Las Vegas. So thank you, thank you to the public. Here’s how else you could help us. Hit the like button right down below, make sure you are subscribed. We’re here Fridays, 1:00 Eastern Time live. You can see the show later on obviously on Friday and into the Saturday preview mode, but if you want to interact, and we’ve got Q&A with Dan Rafael in particular coming up here in a little bit, do it live with us at 1:00 Eastern Time on Fridays, and share the show out, publicize it. It helps us out here on BetUS TV. I already see live audience beginning to grow. There’s interest in Paul versus Diaz. Are you ready, my friend? Are you ready to handicap? Are you ready to get going?

Dan:

I’m ready. I’m ready.

TJ:

Let’s do it. Dallas, Texas is the site. This is the return of Jake Paul after he lost for the last time that we saw him in Saudi Arabia, he lost to Englishman Tommy Fury in that fight. So off of a loss, Paul returns, and again goes back to fighting non-boxers. You know I’ve been a little critical of this, Dan Rafael. This is Nate Diaz, decorated yes as a UFC star, but this is a boxing match where Diaz doesn’t have any experience. All right, interesting. Jake is a 3.5 to 1 favorite on the BetUS line. You see the prop for the knockout from Jake Paul, who does have a big thunderous right hand, look at it, a little tasty there on Nate Diaz, if you’re looking at the plus money for KO or decision. This is a 10-round scheduled fight, over/under 7.5. Give me more on Jake Paul’s return deep in the heart of Texas, Saturday night.

Dan:

Well, as you mentioned, he is coming off of his first loss. That was the first time he faced an actual boxer. That was when he fought Tommy Fury, the half-brother of the heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, in February in Saudi Arabia. It was a very close fight, but he did lose closely. I didn’t think there was any real controversy there. Tommy Fury got the victory, and it said to Jake, I guess, he didn’t go for the immediate rematch against Fury, and so now he goes back to fighting non-boxers. So he’s, what, 6-1 as a professional, six wins against either MMA fighters or other sorts of folks, basketball player Nate Robinson, another social media person, in other words, people other than professional boxers. The one time he fought the boxer, he lost. So now here he is with Nate Diaz, a decorated MMA fighter obviously, a world-famous MMA fighter for sure, kind of like Tyron Woodley to some degree, probably the other best known non-boxer, and of course Anderson Silva, maybe some people think is the all-time legend of MMA.

So again, those are good athletes and good MMA fighters, superstar MMA fighters, but they’re not boxers. And now we’re here in the same position. So whatever you think of Nate Diaz in terms of his combat career in the cage, it doesn’t necessarily translate into the boxing ring. So even though Jake is not the most experienced boxer, he does have the seven pro fights under his belt, to whatever degree that’s worth. He went the distance with Silva, he put the work in the gym, he went the distance with Tommy Fury, hung with him very closely, and now he takes on Diaz, who’s making his well-publicized exit from UFC, and now he’s turned his attention to boxing. Doesn’t have a lot of boxing experience. Obviously like every MMA fighter, he has some experience with his hands, given the nature of their sport.

And so they’ve been talking back and forth with each other for a while, and so it didn’t really come frankly as a big shock, particularly with Jake coming off the loss, that he would go back to fighting a non-boxer, particularly in a fight where he probably can make a lot of money, as can Nate Diaz, because there is interest in this match-up. Why? I’m not really quite sure at this stage of the game. I understood it a while ago when it was new, and you got people like Conor McGregor fighting Floyd Mayweather. I kind of feel like this has been played out. There’s still interest, though. I mean, I’ve had people asking me about it. I don’t quite get it, but it is… He’s got an audience.

TJ:

Before you get to your pick, the reason is, Diaz was under contract from Ultimate Fighting, UFC, and they couldn’t make the deal until he became a promotional free agent to make a boxing deal. So you’re right, I think Jake Paul wanted to fight him a couple of years ago. So it’s taken a couple of years, now they’re fighting, so there’s the background on that. With that said, what are your thoughts?

Dan:

TJ, I’m not talking about why the two athletes would want to fight each other. I’m still trying to figure out why there’s any public demand, not for this bout in particular, just for the consistent boxer versus MMA fighter in a boxing match. Like I said, we’ve seen it play out. It’s very… I mean, in the higher profile ones, I’m sure we could probably find some example along the way, but does the non-boxer ever win? And in this particular case, say whatever you want about Jake Paul, he’s the boxer in this particular fight, because he’s the one that’s got the seven fights under his belt. He’s the one that practices and spas and trains in boxing on a regular basis, not Nate Diaz. So okay, it is what it is. To me, this isn’t a hard pick. I’m picking Jake Paul as the so-called boxer in the fight. If Nate Lands, you never know, we talk about that all the time. So I’ve got Jake Paul winning this fight, I’ve got him winning a decision.

And what’s interesting also about it a little bit is, when they originally contracted the fight, it was an eight-rounder, and then there was some back and forth between the guys and they’re like, let’s make it interesting, and they decided after the fact to make it into a ten-rounder. So Jake has never been ten rounds before. Nate Diaz obviously has never been ten rounds as a non-boxer. Jake did go eight rounds on a few occasions. So that adds a little bit of intrigue, but I’m still taking them by the decision, even if they’re going to be gasping and panting and dying by the time the fight comes to a conclusion. But that’s my pick. I think Jake Paul wins this one.

TJ:

All right. So again, we’re both going to take Jake Paul here in this instance, but we’re going to disagree on the how. We do this sometimes on the BetUS Boxing Show. You think this one goes the route of ten rounds, and it is interesting that most of his previous fights were either six rounds or eight rounds. I can’t recall, maybe you do. Was the Fury fight a ten-round fight? Or was that an eight-round… It was an eight-round fight, right?

Dan:

It was [inaudible 00:08:55] that’s why it makes this interesting. They decided to up it to a ten, where neither guy has ever boxed that distance before, certainly not Nate Diaz.

TJ:

I don’t think it gets there.

Dan:

[inaudible 00:09:03] in training, but sparring in training is different than the real fight. And one other note, just by the way, not that it is necessarily a huge deal as it relates to what will happen inside the ring, is Jake has taken on a new head trainer for this fight, the great Hall of Fame, former lightweight, former welterweight, former junior middleweight world champion, and that is Sugar Shane Mosley.

TJ:

Interesting. All right. So you and I agree on the who, but we disagree on the how. I think this is a Jake Paul knockout, and I got ten rounds to get that knockout in with that big right hand, or eventually just wear down and stop Diaz if that’s the case. So let’s see how it plays out here. We’ll lock it in, if I think we can see it, we’ll lock it in that you’re going to go in this case, if we see it graphically, you’re going to go by decision on the prop, and cash plus 275 if it goes [inaudible 00:09:55] for the Jake Paul win.

Dan:

That was part of it. When I look at the numbers and I see the fight probably going deeper into the fight, as my good pal TJ likes to say, that looks awfully tasty.

TJ:

It does. I’ll lay the 150 though on the Paul knockout, and I’m going to also go with the over. You like the over for decision. I think this is a late round stoppage. I was surprised on a ten-round fight that it wasn’t 8.5 on the over. I’ll take the 7.5 on the over still with the KO. So we’ll both lay 105 on that. You’ve got the decision, I’ve got a late round stoppage for Jake Paul here. And then where does he go from here? That’s a whole nother discussion. Does he go back to fighting boxers again or not? I think more people will be interested. By the way, the fight will stream several places including on DAZN. It’s an MVP Promotions DAZN show, ppv.com, one of our sponsors on our podcast, we’ll also stream the fight. You can check it out Saturday night from Dallas. Jake Paul, Nate Diaz. And just one more quick note, it’s not signed, but Jake Paul has said all along he would be willing to fight the first fight as a boxing match and the second fight in some kind of a cage, octagon, as an MMA fight, that the follow-up rematch would not be a boxing match. So, stay tuned on whether or not that happens. That’s not our cup of tea. We’re all about the sweet science [inaudible 00:11:11].

Dan:

We leave that to our MMA show friends.

TJ:

That’s correct. Our friends Lydia and Matty and Kyle with the UFC show that follows us at 2:00 Eastern Time. We’ll leave that to them. So there may be a sequel, but it’s probably an MMA fight if there is a sequel, depending on what happens with this. Okay. So lots of…

Dan:

By the way, that would probably engender a bit more attention, because it would be the boxer, if you will, going in the cage, which is extremely rare. It happened I guess with James Toney many years ago I think against Randy Couture, in a fight where he choked him out in like a minute or whatever it was. And James was way, way, way past his prime in boxing. So that would be more interesting, to see what the boxer could do in the cage, even though I think we all know what the result would be.

TJ:

All right. So that’s the backdrop for Dallas, Texas in the main event on Saturday night. Let’s continue from a handicapping standpoint, we’ll get to your questions and answers coming up, but the immediate fight preceding Paul and Diaz involves women’s undisputed featherweight champ, Amanda Serrano, Puerto Rican born but also out of New York, tremendous fighter. And she is now in a rematch with Heather Hardy, a fighter that she beat four years ago. Amanda is a whopping 25 to 1 favorite on the BetUS line. Absolutely none, zero value on her on the money line. However, take a look at the either/or on the KO prop or the decision prop. That is a lot more iffy, over/under 8.5 rounds on this ten two-minute round fight. Championship fight, ten two-minute rounds, 8.5 the over/under. All right. Serrano back in the ring here. Thoughts, Dan Rafael, against Heather Hardy and what… She’s supposed to win, so it’s more about how, when does it happen? Give me some thoughts from a handicapping standpoint.

Dan:

Look, this is just a terrible mismatch is what this is. They fought in 2019, Heather Hardy… Amanda Serrano just beat the living you-know-what out of Heather Hardy that night. I mean, all credit to Heather, she’s a tough woman, and I don’t know how she did it, but she survived the distance in that fight. It looked early on, she was out, she was getting just pummeled. For Serrano’s size, as a featherweight, she’s a very good puncher, and she just beat her up, beat her up bad. And she has since gone on to become undisputed. She obviously had the huge fight for the undisputed lightweight title where she challenged against Katie Taylor in the biggest boxing match there’s ever been in women’s boxing, a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden, they put on a tremendous battle, and Serrano came awfully close to winning that fight. You can argue she won, it was super close, but she went back down to featherweight to defend her title, and she’s won a couple of fights since then.

And Heather, she’s playing out the string. She’s over 40. She has had only, I think, two fights in the last couple of years. She’s also dabbled in MMA, but in terms of her boxing career, she just had a couple of fights, six and eight-round type match-ups, where she struggled and not fighting top opponents. And really this is a matter of Serrano, I guess, appreciating that Heather had given her a chance. This is back when Heather had one of the titles, when they first met each other, and she had promised her a rematch at that time. Now it was conducive in the schedule to fulfill her promise, and she’s given her her biggest payday, I guess, as a boxer. She’s given her the golden parachute. And with that golden… As I say, TJ, in boxing, they don’t give you a gold watch, they give you a beating.

And that’s what Amanda Serrano is going to give her on Saturday night, because I just see no way, unless it’s a flukiest of flukiest things that happen, that Heather Hardy is going to win this fight. She’s going to take a beating in my opinion. She’s got a couple of losses, and probably should have a couple more given the shakiness of some of those decisions. But in the end, she has never been stopped, until Saturday. I believe Amanda Serrano is going to take it to her, and what she did not able to do in the first fight, where she came very close to stopping her, she’s going to get the stoppage against the much older, much more faded opponent come Saturday. And I didn’t take… Usually I pick the over/under. As you would say, I didn’t mess with it this time. I just think Heather goes in there and knocks her out, whenever it happens, one through ten.

TJ:

Serrano, you mean. Serrano goes in there [inaudible 00:15:19].

Dan:

I meant Serrano, yeah [inaudible 00:15:19]

TJ:

So you’re going to go KO without testing the over/under, again of 8.5 rounds in this ten-round fight. I’m in agreement with you. I think this is a Serrano knockout, but here in this instance I think it happens quicker. Quicker than the 8.5 for the over/under. So let’s lock it in, Dan again on Serrano, as am I, both by knockout, so we’ll lay the 150. He will stay away from the when it ends, W-H-E-N, I will say that it goes under 8.5 rounds. And again, these are two-minute rounds. There is a question too, Dan Rafael, on a hand injury previously for Serrano too. She injured I believe her left hand, which that’s her best punch as far as I’m concerned. Is that somewhat of a concern here on this one? She’s getting older as a fighter. She had a previous hand injury which delayed her for a little while. Any thought on that at all to mix in here before we move on?

Dan:

I mean, boxers and hand injuries go like peanut butter and jelly, so I don’t think it has anything to do with a matter of age in that sense. She was supposed to line up in a rematch with Katie Taylor, that was supposed to happen earlier in the year. She had to pull out of that for… I don’t think it was one specific injury, it’s just like an accumulation of things that prevented her from doing that fight, which ultimately led to Taylor fighting Chantelle Cameron instead and losing in the fight for the undisputed junior welterweight title. So I have not heard anything specific about an injury. These are pro athletes. She wouldn’t be going in the ring, I don’t believe, if there was something that was that debilitating. That’s just part of the game, and I’m sure that if we really got into it, probably Heather Hardy has some kind of [inaudible 00:16:52] also we could talk about.

TJ:

Some slight injury. And this should be noted before we move on to the questions and answers, savages, and a lot of you are going back and forth about parley this with the Jake Paul result, et cetera. I see that in the chat. Amanda Serrano is to be credited here, and so is Jake Paul by the way for helping her out, because she was a championship level fighter who was struggling to basically get 10 grand, 20 grand maybe for a fight. She’s now fighting for seven figures. She’s fighting for seven figure deals.

Dan:

I don’t think she’s quite getting seven figures for this fight, but she’s…

TJ:

Maybe not for this fight, but the Katie Taylor one, yes, and she’s gotten much more on these fight cards. So Jake Paul’s to be commended for that. And this is probably as big a payday as Heather Hardy’s gotten, like you referenced earlier.

Dan:

Oh, yeah. [inaudible 00:17:40]

TJ:

So this is a bigger stage. Bigger stage, they’re going to be in front of easily 15,000 or more in the American Airlines Center, Dallas.

Dan:

This is for Heather, like I said, this is like the golden parachute. This is the annuity. This is the retirement fight in many [inaudible 00:17:53].

TJ:

But it’s amazing that easily Amanda Serrano’s making five times more, if not ten times more in the main event, fighting not only in front of a few hundred or a couple of thousand people, but she’s going to fight in front of 15,000 or more in the American Airlines Center in Dallas on Saturday night. So we’ll see what happens. Dan and I in agreement, KO for Serrano. When does it happen? That’s a little bit of a debate. We will find out on that.

All right, we’ve come to a fun time of the program, questions and answers. A lot of comments that have been coming along here on the show. Get them in question form as well while we’re here for a little while longer on a Friday afternoon. Gayle, by the way, Gayle Falkenthal, our buddy who we saw in Las Vegas, she gave us a shout-out earlier that she can verify, she was around both of us, we were around each other, great to see Gayle last week, and glad you’re watching, Gayle, on the show. Lucas is up first on a question. He says, “What happened to the Showtime card with Lara and Garcia that was supposed to be Saturday night?” This was an injury situation, correct, Dan? What happened?

Dan:

This was a fight that was talked about, that was talked about as a possibility for this weekend, but it never was finalized, and it was never happening. So there was some misinformation out there, and it was never scheduled officially, and maybe will happen in the future, but to my knowledge there’s nothing written in stone whatsoever about this fight. It was a lot of, let’s call it Twitter misinformation.

TJ:

Okay. Good enough on that one. This is the marquee card of the weekend. There’s a couple of other ones elsewhere. I know there’s a ShoBox Friday night card here tonight, we didn’t put that on the handicapping list, but in terms of interest, the Paul-Diaz fight card is the one with the most interest on that. There’s a lot of questions about the Terence Crawford-Errol Spence pay-per-view…

Dan:

Get that question off [inaudible 00:19:37].

TJ:

So for Hamed, he wants to know what’s the truth on the pay-per-view numbers?

Dan:

The truth is the fight did a minimum of 650,000 buys, and that comes from real people involved in this event, multiple sources who know what they’re talking about, who don’t have a reason to lie to me about anything, and that’s the bottom line. And if you don’t want to believe it, I don’t care.

TJ:

And that was domestic, and we were talking about this on the Big Fight Weekend podcast that you can hear now, first reference to that, that’s a win, and that’s domestic pay-per-views, and the pay-per-view may be a little higher outside the U.S. [inaudible 00:20:11]

Dan:

Let me touch on that for a quick [inaudible 00:20:12] I had a lot of people say that. So I reported yesterday that the fight did a minimum of 650,000 buys. Perhaps it will get… I’m talking about Spence-Crawford, that it could reach into the 670s, maybe even a little bit higher. And I reported that, and I did see my pals at Boxing Scene had a similar report. So we all talk to the same people, I guess, but here’s the thing about it. So I had somebody say to me, “That’s not very good. Jake Paul and Tommy Fury did 800,000 buys.” And what a lot of people don’t understand is that it’s apples to oranges. When I report a number, and I’ve been doing it for my entire career, the number that is like the de facto what you talk about, the apples to apples, the baseline if you will, is American domestic pay-per-view. Because that’s where I am, and that’s where most of the revenue is produced, is in the United States.

So the 650 number on Spence-Crawford, that is in the United States, and sometimes that includes Puerto Rico, perhaps Canada, depends on how the territories are divvied up, but it’s North America basically, not including Mexico. Jake Paul against Tommy Fury, that 800,000 number, which I’m not sure if that’s accurate to be quite honest with you, that is the world. That is around the globe. That is the United States, that is the UK…

TJ:

What did it do in the UK? What did it do in Europe? Right, right.

Dan:

All over the place. So it’s totally, totally different. So if you take the Spence-Crawford fight was available on pay-per-view in some other locations, it was pay-per-view in the UK for example, it was pay-per-view I believe in Australia, so if you add all that up, it will dwarf probably the Tommy Fury versus Jake Paul number. So you got to compare apples to apples.

TJ:

And in this case, most pay-per-views right now… We know the Ryan Garcia-Tank Davis pay-per-view was over a million buys and it did very well, very well comparatively to even a few years ago. Most of the recent pay-per-views, non-heavyweight especially, will struggle to get… Canelo Álvarez, another qualifier. But most of the other ones are struggling to get two, 300,000 buys, maybe 400,000 buys. This has got to be considered a victory for Showtime and PBC to have that kind of a number, the interest that was there.

Dan:

This is a home run. And the people are… I said it all along going in, I kept describing Spence versus Crawford as not… When I say the word “biggest,” to me that indicates commercial viability. So I didn’t really refer to Terence Crawford and Spence as the biggest fight of the year, I called it the most significant fight of the year, the most important fight of the year. And all along I said, on a multitude of occasions, that it would have no chance to break the numbers commercially that were done by Tank Davis and Ryan Garcia, both in terms of the gate and in terms of the pay-per-view.

And that has been proven out, but it’s still… The way you measure success of a pay-per-view really comes down to math, is how much does it cost to put the event on, and what do we reap in terms of the revenue from it? And in terms of both of the fights that we’re talking about, they both did astronomically well relative to what they cost, because Crawford and Spence did not have guarantees, so they just reaped the upside of the profits of the event. So there are expenses, undercards and the press conferences and the travel and advertising and any number of expenses, but Crawford and Spence, when all the money is paid out for expenses, both of those guys are going to make a ton of money. Good for them. They were the ones that put it on the line.

TJ:

And we were there, we can verify, there were tens of thousands of people in and around the event that did not have tickets. Some of them went over across the street, across the Las Vegas Strip, and were watching in the big TV setup of the MGM Grand, and a lot of them didn’t even go do that. They were just there to be part of the event. That’s how you know it was a big deal, not just those that were there with tickets for it, for Spence and Crawford. And then we got a lot of time to figure out, is there going to be a rematch or not? Will it be at 147 for the belts? Will they both move up to junior middleweight? We’ll see on that one.

Let’s continue with the Q&A on a Friday afternoon live. Love the handles of the savages, keep the questions coming. Bipolar Boxing Picks says, “Can Abraham Nova beat the winner of Valdez-Navarrete?” That’s a world title fight at junior lightweight for next week. You know who the perfect guy to ask is Dan Rafael, here on the show, because as we were leaving the T-Mobile arena last Saturday night, I’m walking out with Rafael, and you’re over there talking to Abraham Supernova with the orange… I’m like Rafael’s with Supernova over here getting some intel. Give me some of that intel.

Dan:

Supernova’s my guy. I mean, I love the guy, and he knows this, the reason I follow him closely is because he’s my Albany brother. We’re both from Albany, New York.

TJ:

There we go.

Dan:

And so when I met him years ago and we exchanged that tidbit, I’ve always followed his career.

TJ:

If he was truly your Albany brother, you’d dye that beard orange, at least around Halloween. And I’m looking for that.

Dan:

Maybe I’ll do that for next week’s show.

TJ:

Nova’s got the orange beard, but continue on Nova.

Dan:

Nova’s a great guy. Like I said, I’ve known him for many years, I know his manager, and because he’s from my hometown, I started to follow him when he became a professional boxer. There was a couple of guys, it was Abraham Nova and also the one time featherweight contender Amir Imam, also an Albany guy. So he happened to be in Vegas, because on the night before the Terence Crawford-Errol Spence fight, he boxed on the top rank card that took place at the Palms where Seniesa Estrada defended her women’s strawweight titles in the main event. But Abraham Nova fought on that undercard, looked good in a win. I watched that after the fact, so congratulations to him.

And look, he’s with Top Rank, and they’re also the promoters of Óscar Valdez and Emanuel Navarrete, who are going to fight for Emanuel Navarrete’s title coming up August 12th. In fact, if you listen to our podcast, I had a very extensive interview with Oscar Valdez to talk about that upcoming match-up.

But I think if you’re Top Rank, and whoever the winner of that fight is, Abraham Nova is sitting there as a good contender that could maybe get an opportunity to fight for the title. I don’t see why that couldn’t happen in the future, because the 130-pound weight class is not the biggest star-studded weight class, there isn’t an obvious big time unification fight out there. There’s other good fighters. O’Shaquie Foster has the WBC title, Joe Cordina has the IBF title. They may be fighting each other at some point. That’s a match that Eddie Hearn has been talking about trying to make, because Foster has been a free agent and he has Cordina, but it’s going to leave the winner of Valdez and Navarrete out there looking for other fights. So I don’t think it’s an automatic, but I do think it’s not out of the realm of possibility. And I like that. I have to have an orange beard now. I got to talk to my wife about that.

TJ:

We’ll find out. At least for Halloween, do it. Keep firing the questions. We’re here for a few more minutes on the live Friday BetUS Boxing Show. Back to Lucas. He has a question about the upcoming Oleksandr Usyk-Daniel Dubois match-up at the end of the month and whether it has a rematch clause. He says, “Please say it doesn’t.” Dan, what do we know about possible rematch clause?

Dan:

[inaudible 00:27:15] rematch clause. That fight is a mandatory fight, which doesn’t mean you can’t have a rematch clause. First of all, there’s no rematch clause in a mandatory unless you negotiate it separately. In other words, for the right offer, you could get your mandatory to give you the rematch clause through a negotiation. Which has happened when Wladimir Klitschko was heavyweight champion, for example, he faced various mandatory [inaudible 00:27:41] a rematch clause and give the opponent a bigger slice of the pie. But in this particular case, there is no rematch clause, because this went to a purse bid, and the Usyk team won the purse bid, and neither side is obligated to give a rematch in a purse bid situation. So no, this is “winner take all” from that standpoint. And if Usyk is the winner, he moves on and does whatever he’s got to do, and if Dubois wins, same deal. There’s no automatic rematch for Oleksandr Usyk, and that is a gamble, and I’m happy there is no rematch clause, because we see what happens.

Now look, we all wanted to see Terence Crawford against Errol Spence, but part of the deal was, for them to get the fight made in the first place for us to see the first one, is they had to agree both to a mutual rematch clause. So the loser was going to get the right to invoke a second fight. After seeing what occurred on Saturday between them, is there really a big, big public desire to see a rematch? No, it’s just holding up the fight. We saw it happen last few months, when we saw what happened between, for example, Devin Haney went to Australia, he whipped up on George Kambosos, became the undisputed lightweight champion. But because George Kambosos had a rematch clause, we had to watch four months later Devin Haney do it all over again and win another 11 out of 12 rounds. I mean, it’s kind of a waste of time for everybody, if you ask me.

I’m glad there’s no rematch clause for this. I mean, rematch clauses are not usually a good thing in my mind. I mean, if it’s a great match-up, the public and the press and the fans and the fighters will demand it. Otherwise, no need. And now we’re dealing with the exact same scenario as it relates to Spencer and Crawford.

TJ:

And you bring up a great point on human nature. If you don’t have that rematch clause, you may fight differently, you may fight harder with all of it on the line. Just psychology is a part of sports. There’s…

Dan:

[inaudible 00:29:22] fight that happened earlier this year between Leigh Wood and Mauricio Lara, when Lara knocked [inaudible 00:29:25] out?

TJ:

Correct.

Dan:

Well, they made no bones about the fact that Ben Davison, who was the trainer for Leigh Wood, said, “Look, we knew we had the rematch, so I’m not going to let my guy take a beating.” I’m certainly not in favor of watching guys take a beating, but clearly the fact that they knew that Leigh had the automatic rematch partly was one of the reasons they elected to stop a fight at a moment where I personally didn’t think it should have been stopped.

TJ:

It’s a great point that you make, if you know you have that in your hip pocket, that’s for sure. Michael is watching us on the Q&A here, and he is curious for the thoughts after Crawford’s performance against Spence, where is he on your pound for pound list? Now, if you were with us again on the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed, you know the answer, but for the audience on BetUS TV, I got to believe he’s number one. Is he number one on your list on pound for pound?

Dan:

Number one. I know that there was a lot of groundswell on Tuesday of last week after Naoya Inoue put on a spectacular performance and stopped Stephen Fulton moving up from bantamweight, where he had been undisputed as the champion, to go into the 122-pound weight class, really rout and destroy Stephen Fulton to take his two titles in that weight class, who was at the time the number one fighter in that weight class undefeated. And everybody was saying, “Crown him, pound for pound number one.” And forgot that, by the way, four days later we’re seeing Spence and Crawford fight each other, and we got to wait to see what happens in that fight. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking a deep breath and waiting to see what happens a few days later. No-one’s going to live and die if you don’t make a pound for pound list 30 seconds after a particular fight is over with. And we saw what Terence Crawford did.

Now, Terence Crawford beat a top fighter in Spence who certainly was more accomplished than Stephen Fulton was, and he did it in I think even a more dominating fashion than Naoya Inoue did his win. I don’t think there’s any way you can have Terence Crawford anything other but number one. And the people that are still insisting it’s Inoue, who’s a great fighter by the way, he’s going to be a Hall of Famer, he’s got tremendous accomplishments, et cetera, as I mentioned on our podcast, I just think you’re being stubborn. So for me, and I think for most people that really know what they’re looking at, Terence Crawford’s the best fighter in the world right now, period. End of story. [inaudible 00:31:28]

TJ:

Where do you slot… You don’t have to give me the whole list, but where do you slot Canelo in that fold right now, pound for pound? Is he in your top five?

Dan:

I actually haven’t done my… I’m going to do my list and I’m going to publish it on my Substack on the Fight Freaks Unite in the coming days. But the guys at the top are not that complicated. To me, it’s Crawford and Inoue, and then after them there’s a larger gap between them. And you’re talking about fighters, in no particular order. Oleksandr Usyk, Dmitry Bevol, Canelo Álvarez, they’re certainly among those top fighters. You have people like Shakur Stevenson, you have Devin Haney. I mean, those are among those top fighters out there. I have to think about how I’m going to slot them.

TJ:

Good enough. JC watching us, thank you JC, my initials namesake for watching us. He said [inaudible 00:32:17] it’s Eridson, if I have it right, Garcia. They are fighting the ShoBox Series Main Event in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on this Friday night, if you’re watching us live here. They are what weight class, Dan? Junior lightweights? Do I have that? Junior lightweights…

Dan:

[inaudible 00:32:33] have to check, I don’t have it in front of me.

TJ:

I do have it. It’s White-Garcia ten-round junior lightweight main event tonight in Showtime. What, if anything, do we think or know about either one of these guys as prospects?

Dan:

Like a lot of what ShoBox does, when you have these types of fights, maybe not the most known guys, maybe not considered like the elite prospects of the sport, but what they have done, and this has been the hallmark and the reason why this series has been popular and been so outstanding for more than 20 years at this point, is because they make match-ups like this in the main event, where you really don’t know who’s going to win the fight. It’s not Amanda Serrano against Heather Hardy in a rematch, for example.

And so it’s one of those fights where I’d be less than honest if I said I knew everything about either one of these guys. But when I looked at it when they made the announcement of the fight, and I wrote a little bit about it, and you look at the records of the guys and the types of opponents they have faced and their records, it seems like a pretty dead even fight to me. So I don’t really have a strong opinion one way or the other. I guess if you made me pick, I might lean slightly towards White for whatever reason [inaudible 00:33:35] a strong pick. I’m actually looking forward to watching that. That whole card is a pretty good… Again, not the sexiest names and the biggest events, but they do their job. A shout-out to my man, Gordon Hall at Showtime for helping make these match-ups to make them interesting, and to see some good competition, which is what I expect.

TJ:

Again, Jordan White is 14-1 with 10 knockouts. Eridson Garcia is 17-0 with 11 KO’s. So they are ready to go tonight in Pennsylvania. That is the prospect series ShoBox that is on on Friday night. Quickly, Hamed had one more question. He wants to know about Artur Beterbiev and Callum Smith. This one postponed because of a jaw infection for Beterbiev, the three-belt light heavyweight champ, after some dental work being done. Ouch, babe. You can’t get in the ring with a jaw that hurts already before you’ve been hit. What do we know about a timeline on when they might fight again?

Dan:

So he had a tooth extracted apparently, he had some kind of issue with a tooth, and when that happened he got an infection in the bone in his jaw near where the tooth was extracted. That’s the way that it was explained to me by the folks from Top Rank who are the promoter for Artur Beterbiev. So he was supposed to fight this mandatory fight against Callum Smith in Quebec City later this month. Really good match-up. For my money anyway, if it’s not Beterbiev against Bivol for the undisputed title, and you’re looking at other match-ups in the light heavyweight division, seeing Beterbiev against Callum Smith is one of the better match-ups in my opinion.

TJ:

Good stuff on that.

Dan:

As far as when it’s going to be rescheduled, they don’t have an exact date. I was told by Top Rank that they hope that he’s ready to go and able to go and they would reschedule the fight hopefully sometime in November. But that’s all going to depend on the health of Artur Beterbiev. So it is entirely possible, given the dates that they have in the schedule, because remember when it gets towards the end of the year, they have a certain number of dates that they do in a calendar year, but it’s a little bit less frequent when it gets to the late fall, partly because of the conflicts between when they want to do their events, plus obviously they compete against college football, and those are huge events, and so you notice there’s a little bit more of doubling up of dates in the spring and the summer when it’s not quite as competitive. So there is a chance, depending on what happens, that this fight may end up slipping to the early part of 2024. Hopefully he’ll heal up quickly and they’ll be able to do the fight sometime in November. It’s still a good match-up.

TJ:

Yes. And so good stuff on that. And again, ESPN has a bunch of channels. They have ESPN+. They wanted to have this fight, though, on ESPN if I’m correct, so that’s what they’re trying to do.

Dan:

Yes, for sure.

TJ:

Trying to work it out. Okay. Good stuff on the questions and answers. Let’s go back to the beginning of the show. Thank you all for the Q&A. Let’s see what we’re on for the best bets. Two fights, it’s the Jake Paul-Nate Diaz pay-per-view in Dallas, Texas. Dan and I both agree on the who, Jake Paul, the social media YouTube superstar turned boxer. We just disagree on the how. Dan thanks decision, I think KO. We both are on the over. Dan obviously has the over if he thinks it’s a decision fight for the ten-rounder. We both agree on Amanda Serrano to get a knockout in the co-feature fight defending her undisputed featherweight crowns, the four titles there. I like the under. Dan did not mess with the total, did not mess with the over/under on rounds. I will go under in that one. With that, great live audience again today on an August Friday. Find us every week at 1:00 Eastern Time. Anything else in closing, mighty one, that we did not cover here on the program?

Dan:

I’m just going to kick back and watch the fight this weekend.

TJ:

There’s lots of good stuff.

Dan:

[inaudible 00:37:07] the biggest fan of the crossover fights, but I enjoy Jake Paul’s events, and I’m going to be tuning in.

TJ:

Be a lot of fun there on pay-per-view. A reminder again on our Big Fight Weekend preview, we not only preview these fights, but you can hear from Óscar Valdez. Go find it wherever you get podcasts. Big Fight Weekend podcast feed. Óscar Valdez and Emmanuel Navarrete will fight next weekend. Hear Óscar Valdez right now on our podcast feed, and we’ll obviously handicap that fight next week.

Dan:

That’s going to be a terrific fight.

TJ:

I agree with you on that. So hear from Valdez, the former two division world champ right now, right after we’re done here. Also after we’re done, as you’re watching us live, UFC coverage coming up live with Matty, Kyle, and Lydia. They’ll be talking UFC live on this channel at 2:00. Again, help us out. Hit the like button before you leave. A lot of you have been in here. Hit the like button, make sure you’re subscribed. We’re here at 1:00 Eastern Time. Dan Rafael, have a good weekend.

Dan:

You too, TJ. Thank you, sir.

TJ:

There we go. Antonio and everybody else behind the scenes, Francisco, Bruno, everybody behind the scenes, Danny, we love it at BetUS TV. Don’t forget to check out our sportsbook website. We thank you for watching as well. Enjoy the fights.