Usyk vs Joshua: The best Boxing Tips and Predictions

T.J. Rives:

Yes we do so big action in Saudi Arabia of all places in the middle east. What will be Saturday afternoon, US time, Saturday night, late in the middle east, right in the middle of prime time in London. So we’re going to talk about that heavyweight title fight, but we’ve got action as well in the United States, Dan, just real quick as a general comment. In south Florida, there’s a Showtime boxing card that has veterans, Omar Figueroa and Sergey Lipinets in action. And then we’ve got a world featherweight title fight all the way out on the other side of the continent from Florida in San Diego, California involving a hard punching Mexican fighter, Emanuel Navarrete. Navarrete is a featherweight big puncher. He’s won 30 fights in a row. He’s in the ESPN top rank boxing main events. We are global. We are global my friend on the BetUS show.

Dan Rafael:

It’s a global sport and we got all the picks.

T.J. Rives:

Yes we do. So plenty of advice.

Dan Rafael:

We can get accurate picks in the United States and Saudi Arabia, wherever the fights are, we’re picking them. It’s all good.

T.J. Rives:

Whatever we need, whether it’s the far east, the middle east, Dan’s in the east, whatever it takes, I’m in the east, whatever it takes, we’re here for you. All right. So a couple of housekeeping things. We’re here Fridays, we’re live at one Eastern time on the, BetUS platforms, on the BetUS app and the BetUS YouTube channel. Again, you may be seeing us later on Friday or on Saturday, but if you want to participate in the live chat, if you want to get swatted like a troll by Dan Rafael sometimes the opportunity to do that live is one Eastern time on Fridays in the live chat on the YouTube channel. We’ll see your comments. We’ll get to those in a little bit and you can help us out. The audience has been growing and growing. The subscriber list has been growing and growing.

Let’s pump that subscriber list right now, let’s hit that light button. Let’s hit the bell. Let’s hit the subscribe button that you see right below us on YouTube. That’s going to help us share it out as well, more and more people will find it. And Dan, just by the fact that we’ve done this for so long, the heavy weights are a different thing. We’re going to get into fight number one in just a second, but we realize there’s a bigger magnitude when the heavy weights are involved, there’s more interest in this show. There’s going to be more people seeing this show live or after the fact, it’s just the nature of the heavyweights drawing more people in, the casual fan in as well.

Dan Rafael:

No question about it TJ, the old saying in boxing is as the heavyweights go, so go boxing. Not always true. Hasn’t always been the case, but right now it really seems to be, there’s always stars below the heavyweight division, whether you’re talking about the Canelo Álvarez caliber or going back a few years before that with Mayweather pack out, before that Oscar De La Hoya, but the heavyweight still captivate, still interests the mainstream population and when you’re talking about a global star like Anthony Joshua looking to regain the titles in a rematch with Alexander Usyk a fantastic fighter in his own right, it creates a lot of interest.

And that’s the reason why you have a place like the folks in Saudi Arabia, putting up tens of millions of dollars, perhaps even a nine figure site fee to bring this event to their country, to Jetta Saudi Arabia. But it’s the kind of fight that would generate a lot of money, no matter where they put it. Just maybe not as much as what the Saudis are handing out to them, but three heavyweight title bots. And for a lot of people, this is now going to be the defacto heavyweight championship, because if he’s to be believed, which I don’t know if he is, Tyson Fury says he’s retired and if he’s retired, he’s no longer the heavyweight champion. These are the next best guys out there.

T.J. Rives:

But you and I don’t believe that. I mean, it just, pick a day, pick a lane Tyson on whether you’re fighting, you’re still fighting. He wants to fight the winner of this fight, we know that.

Dan Rafael:

Obviously that’s this fight in boxing.

T.J. Rives:

Yeah. Yes. And this is a huge one. This is arguably the biggest heavyweight fight of this year, because again, Fury was in action earlier this year, but it was not to the magnitude of competition of Usyk and Joshua. He was expected to beat Dillian Whyte and did so easily, did Tyson Fury earlier in the year. So this is certainly the biggest fight on the back half of the docket, the back six months of 2022, this is a massive fight, even though it’s in the middle east.

All right enough about that. The peeps are ready for us to get into the picks. Let’s get into this, let’s show them the boxing odds . Let’s tell them what we think. Fight number one is the main event. It is the match room boxing rematch, Alexander Usyk victorious last September over Britain’s Anthony Joshua. And look at this, very even on the odds Usyk is slightly favored. You see, by KO, he is slightly favored. And again, by decision, the BetUS odds makers, at least anyway, think that Joshua’s got a tougher road to get to a decision. Our over under is 10 and a half rounds. All right. So the Ukrainian, Usyk is now the champ. Yep. He upset Joshua a year ago in England. They rematch in kind of a neutral area in Saudi Arabia, Dan Rafael dive right in. What do you think?

Dan Rafael:

I think that although the theme of this fight is always been, because it’s a rematch it’s repeat or revenge. Will Alexander Usyk be able to do what he did last time and neutralize Anthony Joshua or Joshua avenge his loss, and regain the titles and become a two time or a three time, I should say Unified title holder because he had the Unified titles. He was upset by Andy Ruiz. Then he beat Andy Ruiz and a rematch to regain them, made a defense and then had this loss last year to Alexander Usyk, who was his mandatory challenger, who was a, like Anthony Joshua an Olympic gold medalist. He was the gold medalist in the heavyweight division. Whereas Joshua was the gold medals in the super heavyweight division, became the mandatory. And when the Tyson Fury fight against Joshua did not take place because of Deontay Wilders winning the arbitration case, which forced a third fight.

Joshua was sort of pressed into this matchup with Usyk and went in as a big favorite in front of 65,000 plus at a stadium in his hometown of London. And he got beat that night and he did just lose by a little bit. He got beat up. He lost, as I have said all along, and I’m not the only one. He fought the entirely wrong fight against Alexander Usyk the first time. Here, you have a big, massive, strong, powerful heavyweight in Anthony Joshua against the master slick south pub boxer who’s outweighed by over 20 pounds. Who’s not nearly as long in terms of his reach, does have good footwork, but Joshua did not use his great physical attributes to his advantage. For some reason, he thought he could box with this guy and it turned out to be an absolute horrendous error. Robert McCracken and his trainer paid the price for that he was fired.

So Anthony Joshua goes into this matchup against Usyk with a new trainer in America, Robert Garcia, one of the best trainers known in boxing. Has trained something like 14, 15 world champions. This would be his first heavyweight. And that’s something that means a lot to Garcia. I question whether it’s not, I don’t question Garcia’s aptitude as a trainer or his abilities. I question whether they’ve had enough time to really have it make any difference where they’ve only been together for several months, as opposed to a long time, multiple fights to get to know one another. And I think that although he’ll have Joshua fighting a different style than the last fight, being more aggressive using his physicality to a better degree, trying to keep the fight where he can bully and push Usyk around. I think Usyk is so smart. He knows that’s coming. He’s not a dummy.

He understands what happened in the first fight. He’s been around. He’s fought a lot of top quality guys that I think he’s very capable of making whatever adjustment he needs to deal with that physicality. And while the actual fight may unfold differently in terms of how it looks in the ring. TJ, my pick has been since they made this fight and I’ve wavered a little bit here and there, but I am not going to change my pick. We talked about that off camera. I’ve done that once before and paid the price on a fight years ago and I determined I would never do it again. And so I’m going with Alexander Usyk to keep the titles bad decision, another good quality fight. But in the end, he’ll hang onto those belts.

T.J. Rives:

I know I joked with you on our big fight weekend podcast. It’s always like when we were back in school in middle school or high school and we had the multiple choice and they always told you, your instinct is always right on the first answer, don’t change your answers. So Rafael is holding firm. He has been thinking, believing, feeling Alexander Usyk to win the rematch, he’s sticking with that will lock him in there. And then you will see as they lock from BetUS, me in, I disagree with you, my friend. And let me give you a little background that I am somebody that for several years on our big fight weekend website coverage and podcast coverage, has not believed a lot in Anthony Joshua. I said, when he lost to American Andy Ruiz in June of 2019, that I thought he was exposed that night as having certain flaws and certain things that went wrong.

He obviously got his titles back, ironically, in Saudi Arabia, six months later, some of those flaws may exist, but here’s what I believe will be different. I think he will be more aggressive like you’re talking about. I think he will cut off the ring more. And I think he, as the bigger guy, the harder punching guy, will have more success. Listen to me in the position of backing Joshua to win on the BetUS show. I didn’t see that one coming when you and I began to break this down earlier in the week. I’m the one backing Joshua here. And I just want him on the straight money line.

So you love the decision prop for the repeat of a decision win by Usyk. I don’t know if Joshua stops him. I don’t think he can win a decision. So I guess I’m thinking that he stops him, but I’m going to protect myself here on not picking the how Dan on the show. And I’m just going straight money line, Anthony Joshua. How surprised are you that I am going against you my friend here and liking Joshua to regain his titles again in Saudi Arabia?

Dan Rafael:

You’ll learn your lesson one of these days. What can I say? But listen, I mean, it’s a heavyweight fight. We’ve talked about it many times. One punch can in fact change the fight entirely more so in the heavyweight division than most other weight classes. And so Anthony Joshua is a quality fighter. He lost against the more skillful Usyk when they fought the first time. In terms of what happened in the Andy Ruiz fight, that happens. And I don’t really hold that against him. I didn’t view that as he was exposed, I view that as there are a lot of stuff going on and he got caught. Remember he had Ruiz down in the third round, I believe it was, he was knocking them all over the place. And when he got caught with that big shot, he got a concussion basically. He was never the same.

He showed a lot of heart to stick in that fight for several more rounds, went down a couple of more times, but those things happened and he turned it around and boxed masterfully in the rematch against an Andrew Ruiz who was not in any way, shape or form focused on that fight either mentally or physically. And he got completely taken apart. Usyk is not that kind of fighter. Usyk is going to be prepared like Ruiz was not prepared. Usyk is much more versatile in what he can do. He has a good chin as he has displayed in fights against heavyweights as well as in the biggest punching cruiser weights that he faced. His power in my opinion is somewhat underrated. If you watch the first fight back against Anthony Joshua, which I did a few days ago, he actually had Anthony Joshua in a lot of trouble, a few times in that fight.

Now, Joshua to his credit, he hung on, he hung in there and he came back and he had a big rally in the last few rounds. Now he got hurt in the 12th round, but 9, 10, 11. He was really doing an excellent job. Those were some of his best rounds of the fight. Now again, if Joshua decides he’s going to be more aggressive and go after it, that’ll be good for him if he can land the shots, but don’t forget, there’s somebody else that’s also an outstanding counter puncher and Usyk can certainly be there to blunt that offensive mindedness of Joshua and punch with him and take away the so-called more aggressive nature and could, because of the way he could take care of business, he could force Joshua to go more into a shell maybe and become more defensive when he is getting hit upside the head.

It’s a fascinating fight. It’s a very significant fight and I’m not overstating it when I say that the fulcrum of power in the, I don’t mean power in your punches. I mean the power in the way, the weight class will determine so many other things going forward in the power structure of the powers that be let’s say, that this is a big deal. If because remember there’s no rematch clause this time, AJ knew last time if he loses, there’s a rematch clause, same thing with the Ruiz fight. And he got the titles back. If Joshua loses this fight, there is no more rematch clause. So I’m not saying he’s out of business. He’s still going to be one of the more marketable and popular heavyweights out there, but he’s not going to have an automatic path to the title. And so that will free Usyk who will have his belts go on his merry way and do his thing.

He’ll face mandatories, but of course there’ll be a giant ground swell. Whoever is the winner of this fight to face Tyson Fury for the undisputed championship, if you’re Tyson Fury, and frankly, if you’re just a casual boxing fan, the bigger fight is certainly Fury versus Joshua because it’s all Britain. They’re too much bigger names compared to Usyk but let me tell you if Usyk’s the winner that creates a very fascinating fight because he got this former cruiser weight who’s already taken on the big guy in AJ and Tyson Fury’s even bigger than Anthony Joshua. Tyson Fury’s a solid 6,9, 270 something pounds. It creates a very, very interesting fight. Obviously that we got to see what happens on Saturday, but a lot of things are going to change in the power structure of boxing with the result of this matchup.

T.J. Rives:

No doubt about that. And you see we’re going to move along. There’s an under card fight in Saudi Arabia we’re talking about, then we’re also talking about the main events in south Florida, between Omar Figueroa and Sergey Lipinets, as well as in San Diego, California, the ESPN top rank show has Emmanuel Navarrete taking on Eduardo Baez, kind of a lesser known fighter, but Navarrete’s a big puncher. So we’ll get to those fights in just a second. Let me also illuminate here that Dan is on the record. Obviously, if he likes the decision win for Usyk, he’s also taking the over he’s doubling up on the over. So you see that as minus 130 on the BetUS line here as well. Again, I’m not going to fool around with the over under of the 10 and a half rounds. I’m not going to worry about KO versus decision.

I’m just Joshua on the money line. So I don’t get as much value out of that. I just think again, it will be a different fight. Make one more reference to what you were talking about. When I watched it back, I’m watching the second round. I’m watching the third round and Anthony Josh was not busy. He’s not throwing punches. It’s almost like he’s tentative. He’s concerned about getting countered. He has got to be busier on Saturday evening in Saudi Arabia. He has got to be more aggressive or I’m with you. I’m wrong and it’s an instant replay. Usyk will box him. Will jab him. Will use that straight left hand and it’s big trouble if he doesn’t change the dynamic. So we’ll see if he does. I will tell you this, the audience Dan Rafael is swelling. I can see that in a good way. There are a lot of people finding us right now, live, get in the live chat.

We’re going to get some live chat comments going while we’re talking about the fights and in the question and answer that you see on our rundown. But as we suspected with a heavyweight title fight like this, there is more interest in our Friday show. So keep pumping the like button, keep hitting the bell, keep sharing it out. More people are going to find us live. And again, if you’re seeing us later on Friday, that’s okay too, or on Saturday, because we’re still good in the preview mode. We’re just live on Fridays.

All right. On the under card, heavyweights as well. This one interesting. A Croatian unbeaten heavyweight in Filip Hrgović against a Chinese heavyweight. This is kind of an oddity. He’s a humongous Chinese fighter in Zileh Zhang. All right so Hrgovic and Zhang were supposed to have fought Dan earlier this year, Hrgovic pulled out of the fight because of the death of his father. You see Hrgovic is the decided favorite. There’s the knockout props with an over under a five and a half rounds. This fight will immediately precede the Usyk Joshua fight in Saudi Arabia. Dan, give us some more insight. And what do you think happens here in this one?

Dan Rafael:

Well, TJ, as you mentioned, they were supposed to fight in this eliminator on the under card of the Canelo Álvarez, Dmitry Bivol fight that took place in May, as you mentioned, it was postponed because of Hrgovic’s personal situation with the death of his father. Zhang ended up fighting anyway against a late replacement, scored a first round knockout, so he at least got into the ring and went through all the things you do to go to the ring and has been more active than Filip Hrgovic, but they’re both good fighters. But Hrgovic is the younger man. Hrgovic is I think the more powerful guy. He’s the guy that everybody has sort of thought of as the next generation of contender. Both of them have Olympic medals to their credit. But the difference of course is that Hrgovic is in his early thirties and Zhang is pushing 40.

I think he’s 39 now, hasn’t looked particularly good in some recent fights, although he did score that first round knockout, but it was against a completely over matched Journeyman kind of opponent. The significance of this fight should not be understated. The winner of this fight will be the mandatory challenger for the heavyweight who wins the main event in the IBF organization. And the IBF is an organization that will strictly follow their rules. And that the winner of this fight eventually will get the shot either at whoever holds those belts or a vacant title, perhaps. But the point is big stakes because the winner is going to be in a tremendous position.

Hard to pick against Hrgovic in my mind, as I said, the younger fighter, the stronger fighter, I think maybe a very slightly better resume overall. Not that either one of them are decorated in that regard, but to me, Zhang has looked so bad in some of his recent fights and Hrgovic has looked very good in scoring knockouts against everybody. And I’ve been following Filip Hrgovic since he turned pro after his Olympic performance, he won a bronze medal. I just think at the end of the day, that the cream rises to the top and that he’s going to take apart Zhilei and he’s going to stop him because I don’t think that Zhilei has a great chin and I’m going to be proven right on Saturday.

T.J. Rives:

All right. So we’re both going to lock in on a Hrgovic knockout and here’s where Dan’s going to get ready to smack me because we’ve been down this road of disagreement before on the over under. Over under here in this instance is what, four and a half rounds I believe it was on our BetUS line. You’re liking it to go longer than me. I have been wrong on more than one occasion, including with Teófimo López last week on the under. I’m going back to the well again, brother, I like Hrgovic early and I like him with the under. So we both take the knockout and you’ll see, Dan is on the over for the Hrgovic KO. I’m sticking with the under. Value is about the same. I just want to be right. I think this is Hrgovic fairly quickly, Dan go ahead.

Dan Rafael:

Here’s the thing about that, heavyweight fights scare me a little bit because any heavyweight fight can be a first round knockout. Guys maybe aren’t as warmed up as they should be. They get hit with a bomb. And as I said, one shot can change everything. To me though, if guys can get out of the first round and get settled in, a lot of times these fights will stretch out a little longer. And so unless that happens, I do think that this fight goes into, not the later rounds, but certainly beyond the 3, 4, 5 round marker, because they will have gotten themselves into the fight to a certain degree. I also have never really viewed Hrgovic as a overly fast starter and with Zhang, not that, I mean, he did have the first on knockout in the last fight, but he was fighting such a decrepit opponent that it didn’t shock anybody, but he’s not also known as a very fast starter.

So I just think that again, if they can survive each other in round one, that this thing will go a few rounds, but it’s heavyweights man. You just never know. But again, as I said, I take the data that I can look at what, they’ve done in the past. My what my eyes tell me, I’ve watched these guys plenty. I’ve seen, honestly, I’ve probably seen every single one of Filip Hrgovic’s professional fights. I’ve seen far more Zhang fights than I wish I would have seen. And therefore my pick is definitely Hrgovic by the stoppage, but I think it goes a little bit.

T.J. Rives:

And again, the over under five and a half rounds in the last six fights for Hrgovic one of the six has seen the fifth round. Every other fight has ended in the second or the third round for whatever that’s worth for Saturday night in Saudi Arabia. He’s been getting people out of there. So you and I disagree on the, over under for Hrgovic and Zhang again, that’s the co feature and that is a 12 round fight immediately [inaudible 00:21:12]

Dan Rafael:

I’ll say that one of the reasons for that though is because the opponents that he’s been facing are not necessarily at the same level as Zhang, right? Say whatever you want about Zhang, but he’s certainly a better level let’s say, than some of those recent guys.

T.J. Rives:

And Zhang weighed like 265 at the Friday afternoon way in.

Dan Rafael:

277.

T.J. Rives:

277?

I believe that was what it was.

Holy smokes.

Dan Rafael:

But he’s not a guy, it sounds crazy to say this, but he’s a guy that carries 277 awfully well, he doesn’t look like he’s out of shape. It’s kind of like when Tyson Fury came in at 270 and he looked in good shape, he’s just a very, very large individual, as you said, he is a mountain of a man.

T.J. Rives:

Yeah. Well, and I see this all the time, just across over sports when I’m around NFL offensive and defensive linemen. They’re carrying 250, 275, 300, 325 better than everybody else. There’s no doubt about that. And fighters are the same way, for the most part. It looks different. They’re bigger. Their athletic, the heavyweights, sometimes a little different in terms of muscle tone. Maybe some flab if you will, but I mean Hrgovic is cut. When you see him he’s thick and a big puncher. So we’ll see in the co feature fight.

Again, get the questions and answers ready. We’re coming up to that. We’ve got two more fights to go over with more gambling picks. We have some agreement, some disagreement here on the BetUS show. Let’s swing out to San Diego, California. This will be late night, Saturday night, Eastern time prime time in the west. Emanuel Navarrete, who is the WBO Featherweight world champ 30 fight win streak for him against a veteran name, Eduardo Baez. That’s the main event in San Diego, California. Navarrete, big puncher, two division world champ defending his 126 pound title. Look at the knockout prop, only -105 to get the KO. Baez, a huge underdog to win this fight either by KO or decision are over under his 10 and a half rounds. Dan, a quick thought and prediction here on what do you think happens on the ESPN top rank main event?

Dan Rafael:

Navarrete has been one of the best fighters in his weight classes, whether he was at 122 or now at 126 for the last several years. A dominating offensive talent. A really exciting fighter, really has done a great job, although he hasn’t faced top opponents, but Baez is in that same vein. He’s not a top opponent. So when you look at what he’s been doing against similar or lesser, or even slightly better opponents, hard to pick against Navarrete in this spot. The one thing about him though, he is coming off of a 10 month layoff. He’d been before that, one of the most active top fighters in the sport, he had fought something like 10 times in the previous three years, he was fighting on a regular basis. He had a little bit of a promotional issue with this co promoter. They got that all settled.

He signed a new contract with the other co- promoter, Top Rank. And now he’s back in action. He did say in the lead up to this fight, that one thing that might give you a small amount of concern as we do this, they haven’t actually had the weigh in just yet. He’s talked about how it’s been more of a struggle to make 126 pounds and certainly a 10 month layoff is not going to help that situation. So hopefully he’ll make the weight. It won’t be that, it won’t be an issue, but I certainly can see that maybe the next fight or another fight after that, that he’s headed north to 130 at some point. But I don’t think that even if he struggles a bit to make 126, that Baez has nothing in his background that would indicate that he’s going to give him any kind of particular issue.

It’s a massive step up in competition for Baez. For Navarette it’s about the same or lower level, frankly, than what he’s been fighting and mostly scoring knockouts. His last fight, he did go 12 against Joet Gonzalez, but Joet Gonzalez while he lost a decision that was a very exciting and dramatic kind of fight. And he took all kinds of punishment. Most other fighters would’ve been knocked out that night and Navarette just could not get him out of there. Joet’s got a great chin and he let it all hang out. But again, Navarette by knockout seems to be the obvious play. I would be an idiot if I picked anything different.

T.J. Rives:

Yeah, he’s a big time puncher, both hands. Again, former 122 pound world champ, was a very active fighter fought five times in one 12 month period, scoring impressive win after impressive win. You then mentioned he had a hand injury as well as the contract disputes. So he is only had maybe one or two fights in the last year and a half or so, but he is back on Saturday night and you and I are in agreement. This is Navarrete by knockout. And again, you’re not getting great value, but as you like to say, we want to be right here. We want to hit the single, we want to hit the double we want to be, right.

So this is going to be the knockout. You feel a little more frisky again on the whole under, over situation. And you’re going to go under for the 10 and a half rounds. Interesting. It’s a 12 round fight Navarrete known for the knockouts and yet it’s an over under of 10 and a half. That surprises me that it’s that high. And you’re saying, Hey, I want to take advantage. And I want the under here and you get pretty good value there. As we see on the BetUS line, plus one 10.

Dan Rafael:

If you look at Navarrete’s knockout, when he is scoring them, he’s not generally going late, late into the fights. I think when he had the knockout against Dogboe in their rematch, when they were back down at the junior Featherweight division, if I remember correctly, that fight went maybe 10 or 11, but the point is he’s scoring knockouts and it’s, he’s not wasting a lot of time taking care of business.

Now, if the over, under on this fight, if you had told me it was four and a half, five and a half, six and a half, I’d have to spend some time really sort of analyzing that and thinking about it. When I saw 10 and a half, I was like, this fight’s not going 10 and a half rounds. He doesn’t go 10 and a half with anybody other than Joet Gonzalez. And I guarantee a Baez does not have the kind of chin that Joet Gonzales has. So it seemed to be the, to make the most sense to me that everybody pretty much agrees it’s going to be a knockout. And I think that Navarrete gets out of there certainly before 10 and a half.

T.J. Rives:

All right. So I’m just looking in his recent fights at which ones went long. You mentioned Gonzalez went the 12 round route before that he fought Christopher Diaz and the stoppage was in the 12th round, also 12 rounds with Ruben Villa. So that’s where the BetUS odds makers had put it up, but you go before that six round KO in June of 2020. February of 2020, 11th round KO, before that a fourth round KO, before that a fourth round KO, before that a third round KO in defense. So, to your point, he has gotten some people out of there. It just hasn’t been recently. You’ll still play the under when Navarrete Mara here as well.

Dan Rafael:

Even Chris Diaz, who you mentioned that he stopped on the 12th round. Christ Diaz has been a good contender for a number of years. He hasn’t been able to get over the hump and win the title. He’s lost two world title fights, but he’s a better caliber opponent than Baez is. And so he was able to get to the 12th round. Good for him. But again, I don’t think Baez is anywhere near as good as Chris Diaz is.

T.J. Rives:

All right. And again, on our timeline, obviously the Usyk card, the Usyk Joshua rematch card is in the afternoon US time. Adjust your time zone accordingly. Main event, probably somewhere around 5:30, 6:00 PM, Eastern time. Something like that. The thing about this card we’re talking about now, the ESPN top rank card is, it’s much later in the night main event, probably not before, about 11 Eastern time, something like that 8:00 Pacific times. So you got time in between to settle in and get ready for the top rank card later on tonight.

Dan Rafael:

You got the ESPN card at 10:00 PM Eastern. But of course, we’re going to talk about a minute. You got the Showtime card that starts at 8 o’clock so you can space it out mostly, because you got to figure the heavy weights are done. If it starts around that 5:30 Eastern time, if it goes a distance, it’ll be off the air by whatever 7 o’clock at the latest, get a little break, get a little dinner, have watch the beginning of Showtime. And then you can certainly flip back and forth and hopefully be able to catch both main events because Showtime has a quadruple header. We’re going to talk about that main event.

T.J. Rives:

Yeah, we’re going to talk about that here in just a second. So again, one more time, Navarrete, big puncher, be there. Be there early for the 126 pound WBO world Featherweight champion.

Dan Rafael:

Watch me pass the under again, TJ.

T.J. Rives:

All right. You’re looking to hit that under on 10 and a half rounds there with that one. Okay. So let’s move on to fight number four before we’re done. And that is the Showtime main event again at the Hard Rock casino, Hollywood, Florida, just north of Miami/Fort Lauderdale. That’s where Omar Figueroa Jr. will fight Sergey Lipinets. This is an opponent switch. Figueroa was supposed to fight former world champion, Adrien Broner. Broner pulled the ejection handle and pulled out of the fight back on Monday, citing mental health issues as his reason. Figueroa has not been tremendously active. Lipinets has been more active, he’s been in with better competition at least recently. All right, Lipinets’ favored here as we see over on the right side of the screen against Figueroa. Our over under is eight and a half rounds. Dan, give us the breakdown. Give us a quick pick here.

Dan Rafael:

Well, one thing that people should know, as you mentioned, Lipinets is a late replacement, but he’s not a late replacement who just took the fight a few days ago and wasn’t training for another fighter getting ready. He was on this under card in an eight rounder with the express knowledge that should there be an issue with the main event that, he would be the first up to step in. So he was training for the under card fight, but he knew in the same weight class, by the way, so the weight wasn’t so much an issue, that he knew that if there was some problem that he would be tapped to go into the main event. So he was prepared for that. He even said at the news conference yesterday that he was hoping that would happen. So he could be elevated to the main event, whether it was to be against Broner or against Figueroa. Broner, as you mentioned, pulled out, he sited as his mental health.

I interviewed Omar Figueroa earlier in the weekend. And while Omar has been a guy that’s talked about his own mental health issues that he’s been tortured by and dealing with for a long time, he said he had some empathy for Broner, but he said, the real reason that Broner pulled out was because he felt like what he had been hearing and his team had been hearing is a Broner had been partying, wasn’t in shape, wasn’t near weight and Broner has a history of having weight issues going into fights and hasn’t made the weight. So he was a little upset that the opponents which happened he’d wanted to fight Broner for a long time, but he certainly accepted Lipinets with no problem. Omar, is a former title holder in the 135 pound lightweight division. Lipinets is a former title holder in the 140 pound division.

And even though he’s the late sub, as you saw in the odds, that Lipinets is actually the favorite, they’re both coming off losses, but the loss that Lipinets took was more sort of, let’s say forgivable than what happened in Figueroa’s last couple of fights. He’s lost two in a row. Lipinets came up against in a [inaudible 00:31:22] weight fight against a fighter named Jaron Boots Ennis who is one of the great up and coming prospects/young contenders in the sport. Many people think that there will be a time in the not too distant future where you’ll see him wearing belts around his waist and on people’s pound for pound list. And he came in and took Lipinets apart and stopped him pretty spectacularly. That’s a forgivable loss in my mind. And when you’re losing to a guy that most people tap as a future pound for pound kind of guy. In terms of Omar Figueroa, he’s lost to not bad fighters, but not like top notch guys Abel Ramos, for example, stopped him.

He took a lot of punishment in that fight. I was ringside for that. A lot of people around me were sort looking around at each other, going, why are they stopping this fight? He was really, really taking a tremendous amount of punishment. And with Lipinets being the naturally bigger guy, as you mentioned, a little bit more active, also coming off a loss, but again, not like the worst loss of all time and just seeing how bad Omar looked. He’s such a nice guy, but he looks so bad in those couple of fights. He just didn’t have much left. The spirit had been beaten out of him.

And Lipinets in his heyday, at his best, he’s a really tough out for anybody. And I just feel like where they’re both at in their careers, that Lipinets just has more left in the tank and frankly, more a hunger to get the job done at this stage than Figueroa. And I just feel like that’s going to show and that you’ll see Lipinets take Omar Figueroa It won’t necessarily be in the first or second round because Figueroa is the tough as nails kind of guy and takes a good shot. But round after round with the inactivity and what has occurred in his recent fights, I think we could be looking at a Lipinets by a pretty rough beat down.

T.J. Rives:

All right, let’s lock it in here. Dan does believe the late replacement Lipinets will get the wind. These are junior Welter weights, 140 pound fight, not a title fight. Figueroa again, not very active. Only one fight in the last three and a half years as Dan was mentioning, is it over with, for him? You and I disagree though, my friend you’ve got Lipinets by a KO. I’m just going to take Figueroa on the money line. I think he mans up. I think he will find a way, he’s got something left. I’m thinking so. I know you’re shaking your hand. You’re warning me off and saying, no.

Dan Rafael:

I’m not going to sit here and tell you Figueroa is free money, but it’s kind of bordering on free money.

T.J. Rives:

All right. So you’ve got Lipinets in this situation and you’re getting decent payout again, the odds makers at BetUS believe it will be a knockout and you’re even going to go with the over on the knockout. And Dan, clarify for me again, 10 round fight or 12 round fight here. I believe this is still considered a 12 round fight for the…

Dan Rafael:

12 round fight. And when I take the over of 10 and a half, that’s my respect for the heart that Omar Figueroa has. He can take a shot and he’ll be in it I think, just not all the way.

T.J. Rives:

And again, you’re getting good value on that eight and a half rounds at plus one 10. So Dan doubles up on this fight as well. You and I just disagree. I’m going to go money line for Omar Figueroa, this is Showtime.

Dan Rafael:

You love that money line.

T.J. Rives:

Well again, because I don’t, I’m not concerned here with the win WHEN it’s going to happen. And I don’t think he’s going to knock him out, but I don’t know. So I’m just going to go money line for Figueroa here. So you and I disagreeing on two of our four on the slate. There’s some peeps going back and forth about what we’re debating about. It’s not always agreement here on the BetUS show and we’ll get to some of that with the questions and answers and we’ll regroup our picks here in just a second. One more reminder again, this is the Showtime boxing card we’re talking about right now in Hollywood, Florida. It’ll start what day in a quadruple header, right? Right around 8 Eastern time, they are going to have four fights on Showtime, right?

Dan Rafael:

It’s normally would be a 9:00 PM start time. But those who remember when they canceled the Jake Paul, Hasim Rahman Jr event from a few weeks ago, one of the fights from that under card between the young up and coming junior [inaudible 00:35:09] Brandun Lee was supposed to be on that card. So they were able to move it and reschedule it against Will Madera to take place as the opener. So instead of being at nine o’clock for three fights, Showtime expanded the event, made it four fights starting at eight o’clock. It’ll open up with the Brandon Lee, Will Madera fight and they’ll move on with the rest of their show, which is a, it should be a good, maybe not the highest profile fights, but the events that they have, the boxers they have on that event, on that card shape up to be action, culminating, of course, with the Lipinets against Figueroa in the main event.

T.J. Rives:

All right. You and I disagreeing on this one. We’ll see what happens Saturday night. Okay. Question and answer time here, peeps get some questions and answers in. I still see Dan, we have got what I think is record audience right now. So we’ll sit here live for a little while and take some questions and answers. If you’re seeing us later, make sure you’re here Fridays at 1:00 Eastern time. We knew with the Usyk, Joshua interest for the unified heavyweight title, there’d be more interest here on BetUS. Thank you for finding us. Keep hitting the like button, keep hitting the bell. Subscribe for us. All of that will help. This is not me, I promise on the screen. It’s another TJ that says, Dan, I get to ask you questions all the time. Why do I got to put a question in the chat to you? I got to ask you questions whenever. This TJ wants to know, who do you like for Hector Garcia, Roger Gutiérrez again, this is on the Showtime show where the top rank show, which show the Showtime show.

Dan Rafael:

This is one of the under card fights on Showtime. Roger Gutierrez is the WBA champion at 130 pounds. And Hector Garcia is the mandatory challenger. He earned that position with a big upset against Chris Colbert who was sort of taking him on. I think he thought as a sort of a tuneup fight and he got beat and, Hector Garcia took his place. So this is a defense by Gutiérrez against Garcia who looked really good, just completely taking apart Chris Colbert. If we were doing the BetUS boxing show back then we would’ve gotten everything wrong about that fight because we would all pick Culbert who was a flashy skillful guy. And he just got completely out boxed and taken apart by Hector Garcia, who was not the most well known guy at the time. And now he is got the world title fight against Roger Gutiérrez who’s a good fighter, but not, I don’t think superstar level.

And to me, based on the way he fought Gutiérrez kind of inactive, I don’t. And there are fights that get made where you have strong conviction about what the result is and others where you’re sort of halfway what you think. So I’ll say in this particular fight, while I don’t have strong conviction on it, I’m leaning towards Garcia to pull the upset, or I think we’ll be, I guess, a minor upset. I think he can get the job done. I think Roger Gutiérrez is right for the picking. And that’s hard for me to look at the way Garcia boxed so beautifully against Chris Colbert and not think he can’t repeat a similar performance against a Roger Gutiérrez who’s a good fighter, but I don’t think has the same skill as a Chris Colbert. So I’ll take the mild upset in this one. We’ll see what happens, but I think that’s actually going to be a pretty good fight.

T.J. Rives:

Another question out of the live chat, Lucas is watching us. Thank you for doing so Lucas. Lucas wants to know what do we know about the judge for Usyk, Joshua and the referee and the judges, the three judges. I looked a little while ago before we began. I had not seen anything. Dan, you may have an update or it still may be a little, I can’t believe they would have it a secret into Friday night in Saudi Arabia, we got to know something.

Dan Rafael:

I have not seen who the judges and the referee is for the fight just yet, but the fact that it is being governed by the three organizations. And even though the Saudis don’t have their own official commission, if they do it in a similar way that they did with the Anthony Joshua, Andy Ruiz fight in the rematch, it also took place in Saudi Arabia. They had folks from the British Boxing Board of control who have run a tight ship in Britain for many, many years to regulate that fight, to make sure that they care of business. So I think we will see a very professional known judging and referee, judging panel and referee in this fight. I wouldn’t be surprised if they used judges that maybe an American judge. Again, I haven’t seen the listing just yet, but I’m not really that concerned about that. I know this is a worldwide event and there’s not, I don’t think we’re not looking at funny business, whatever the case may be. You’ll see a referee or judges that I think that you’re going to be familiar with from other big time fights.

T.J. Rives:

Interesting. There’s a list, I see the media reports there’s a list of five different referees, but we haven’t seen anywhere where they’ve picked which one it is. And hopefully it’s a veteran and hopefully there’s not shenanigans. And remember now heavyweights being different, I want to make sure it’s younger, maybe I’m being discriminatory here. I want to make sure it’s a younger athletic referee that can separate the fighters because they lean on each other. You got to keep breaking them you got to move them out of the way, whatever. Let’s see what they decide to do as this fight wears on. The referee may get taxed some physically on having to separate these guys and move them around, we’ll see.

Dan Rafael:

With three heavyweight titles at stake and those organizations involved in the world eye on it, perhaps I’m on a rose colored glasses’ situation here, but I believe we’ll see a very good judging panel and a known referee.

T.J. Rives:

All right. Pablo is watching us as well here and he’s got a question about the Lindolfo Delgado fight and Omar Aguilar. All right, Dan, we defer to you. You travel on all lanes, all circles. What about this fight?

Dan Rafael:

Rafael Delgado against Omar Aguilar is one of the fights that is on the ESPN top rank under card. It is not on the main card that will be broadcasted on regular ESPN, but it is part of the under card preliminary bouts that stream on ESPN plus, where they show all the fights. So if you really want to see that fight, you can certainly tune into the streaming service. Delgado is a former Olympian from Mexico, comes into the pros as a highly touted prospect. He’s been winning. He’s been scoring knockouts. He’s got a lot of potential, Top Ranked thinks, highly of him. He’s sort of like on the fast track and they match him with Aguilar who’s a vet, decent fighter, not like a superstar, but should be a solid test for the guy. But Delgado was sort of like on the move of the bullet. And I believe that they matched his fight, the way they did because they’re trying to get Delgado some rounds and some more experience.

But in the end he’s going to take care of business. Top Rank, no disrespect to the other companies in boxing, but when it comes to making matches and moving their guys along and developing them the right way, which means testing them, but not getting them beat, but making sure they’re in fights that they learn where they see different kind of things. Whether you got to put them in with a faster guy or with a south paw or with a guy that’s a good puncher, more of a boxer. They know how to mix it up. And that’s what they’ve done with this fight. They’ve got the best matchmakers in the business with Brad Goodman and Bruce Trampler. They know what they’re doing. They’re building Lindolfo Delgado, and this is going to be another one of those developmental fights where again, he might be tested, but he will win.

T.J. Rives:

All right. Fair enough on that. All right, so there’s another question coming here. I want to get the questioner’s name right? Winning, no it’s not winning football. Let me check on which one it is. I’m looking back here in the chat. Let’s see, somebody, I’m looking here. It’s a live show.

Dan Rafael:

I see the question.

T.J. Rives:

All right. So Theo has a question while I wait to find this other one and says, why doesn’t boxing traditionally have their biggest fights in the summer? I think it’s true. Most of their big fights in all divisions, including heavyweight are usually in the summer months. And some of that has to do with the American sports fan, having less. Now there’s exceptions to that. But a lot of the bigger fights seem to be like June, July, August. Do they not? Dan, what do you think?

Dan Rafael:

June, yes. But once you hit July, August, that’s usually… There’s always going to be fights, but the bigger fights are typically more in the fall or at a time when people are more tuned in right now, we’re in August. A lot of people are on vacation. They’re not thinking about that sort of thing. The sports calendar is pretty, I guess just some tennis tournaments, golf tournaments, this or that, basically the [inaudible 00:42:57] baseball.

T.J. Rives:

League baseball.

Dan Rafael:

Yeah, of course. So in terms of the calendar, the biggest fights are usually on non summertime. I mean, this is an exception. And remember the only reason for that is because this fight was originally between, Usyk and Joshua was originally ticketed to be much earlier this year, but because of what’s was going on in Ukraine, where Usyk is from. And he at one point joined the territorial defense over there to fight against the Russians, that fight, which was originally going to be in June, was delayed. And he decided, finally, he’s going to come back to boxing his, he talked a little bit this week, how he visited hospitals and saw wounded soldiers and his country, and all told him, listen, champ, you got to go and fight the fight, do it for our country, bring a positive light to this situation and make us proud. And so he thought about it and his promoter spoke about it at the news conference the other day that he took it to heart and he says, you know what?

I can do more for the spirit and to uplift our country’s spirits by going through and doing this big fight than just by being part of the group of others who were also doing the defense. So he decided to come back. And so therefore the fight was rescheduled. Trust me, they were not hoping to do a fight in August in Saudi Arabia. The idea was to have this fight much early in the year. So in terms of the question about why the big fights, not so much in the summer, this being the exception, it wasn’t supposed to be in the summer. It was supposed to be really more towards the earliest part of the summer, sometime in June.

T.J. Rives:

All right. And a couple more points on that. This guy’s a national hero in Ukraine, a country of 40 million people that has gone through a horrific last six months of being invaded and having military and civilians killed by the thousands in that country. So it’s not an over exaggeration to say they need some uplifting news. They need some good news. And in Europe, this is a massive deal. It’s a big deal if you’re a boxing fan in the US, but this is a massive deal because of Joshua’s star power and Usyk having beaten him. The fight will also be, it’s on pay per view in the UK, but the fight will be on for free in the UK, in the Ukraine, Usyk’s home country for them to be able to see it.

It’s on the DAZN streaming app, everywhere else, including in the US, not on pay per view. You don’t have to worry about pay per view if you have DAZN. But I think that’s a nice touch as well that the Ukrainian people, those that are able, and those that are caring, will be able to see this fight Saturday.

Dan Rafael:

And that was something that Alexander Usyk, my understanding is he requested that because the folks in Saudi Arabia that are putting up all the gazillions of dollars to bring this fight there, they also had the rights to sell the foreign TV rights and streaming rights all around the world. And basically as a solid, as a favor to Usyk and they understand what’s going on in the world, I guess, I mean, say whatever you want about the way they run their own government, but they took the request from Usyk to make this available for free in his country, given the circumstances that you just described. And they were like, okay, we’ll do it. And so therefore, if you live in Ukraine, the fight, I am told on free television. And as you mentioned, UK, pay per view as usual, like all of the Joshua fights and pretty much everywhere else around the world in something like 200 territory/countries on the DAZN app, which I’ll be watching on the DAZN. I do all the DAZN fights.

T.J. Rives:

There we go. And I will as well. Yeah, the Saudis in terms of a government and PR they need some easy wins right now, figuratively. That’s an easy win. Put the fight on for free in the Ukraine. Get an easy win.

Dan Rafael:

But by the way, even if they sold it to Ukraine, when you consider the amount of money that they spent to bring this fight, what they would get in return for selling those rights would be, I don’t know what they get. Maybe like low six figures if they’re minimal. So for them it’s like…

T.J. Rives:

Take the win, take the W.

Dan Rafael:

Exactly.

T.J. Rives:

Take the win on that. Fun question. All right. I had it right, winning football is the guy in the chat, winning football wants to know what about England’s Callum Smith and he puts it or the French dude. I’ll help out the French dude’s name is [inaudible 00:46:54], it looks like it’s how you would say it or [inaudible 00:46:59], [inaudible 00:46:59]. All right. So Callum Smith, former world champion at 168 pounds from the UK, he’s on the under card of the Usyk, Joshua fight. Thought real quick, Dan.

Dan Rafael:

So this is the fight that will be on the show prior to the Hrgovic eliminator against Zhang and Callum Smith against the French dude, as he said. This is an eliminator to become a contender for the WBCs light heavyweight title. And in terms of Callum Smith, as you mentioned, he was the 168 pound champion. He won that title against his countryman, George Groves in Jetta Saudi Arabia, which was the last big time fight that they had in that city back a few years ago in what was the final of the world boxing super series tournament. So he returns to a place with great memories.

He’s had one fight in the super middleweight division, I’m sorry, in the light heavyweight division since he left the super middleweight division. Scored a spectacular knockout against, just a devastating knockout. And this is now his next fight. And he can get in a title opportunity with a win. He’s a big favorite, and he should win the fight. I mean, Callum Smith may not have shown much of anything when he got completely out boxed and taken apart in a loss to Canelo Álvarez but he’s rebounded well with that knockout victory I just mentioned. And he’s on to this fight and he’s still a class fighter. And I think he gets the job done. The French opponent has nothing in his background that would indicate he’s up for the challenge.

T.J. Rives:

Good enough, by the way, we’re going to keep going for a couple more minutes, send more questions, because I am seeing record audience right now that is watching us here on the BetUS live show on Friday. Keep it going. Blake wants no thoughts on Albert Puello is on the under card in the Showtime card, correct, in south Florida. Tell me more about what we think of his fight and him.

Dan Rafael:

So, that is one of the four fights on Showtime. He is fighting a fighter named [inaudible 00:48:56] and that is for the vacant WBA junior [inaudible 00:49:00] title. Those who followed the sport know that Josh Taylor became the undisputed champion. He won all four belts in a Unification fight against Jose Ramirez. Then he defended them all against Jack Catterall in what was a very controversial outcome. And when that fight was over, the various organizations all have their mandatory challengers and they were ordering the mandatories. And Josh can only do one fight at a time. He wanted to have a rematch with Catterall because there was so much criticism about the result of their first fight. That that’s probably what’s going to happen later in the year. What that meant was that he cannot make the WBA mandatory and he also could not make the WBC mandatory. So those titles became vacant and so Puello and [inaudible 00:49:36] will fight for the vacant belt of the WBA.

Now you say who’s going to win that fight. Now Puello is a Dominican fighter who he’s not that well known. [inaudible 00:49:46] has had one fight where you fought for a second tier title against Mario Barrios a few years ago in a fight that I was at. Barrios got the win and me and many others, I was sitting around at ringside, we all were like, that is one of the worst decisions we’ve seen in a while, and that they kind of robbed him of the decision.

So even though he is got that lost in his record, I think this is actually a very competitive matchup. I kind of lean towards [inaudible 00:50:09], but to me, it’s sort of a flip of coin kind of fight. I tell you one thing about it though, TJ, I definitely expect this one to be a pretty entertaining fight based on what I’ve seen from these two guys, it’s a tough pick. I didn’t, to be honest, didn’t look and see what the line was. Because I knew we weren’t having it in our main rundown of what we were going to do, but I actually look forward to sitting back and enjoying this one. I think this actually on that Showtime card, I think it could steal the show in terms of excitement.

T.J. Rives:

All right. I’ll try to find that line for you in just a second. And we are still, thank you to the audience, we are still gaining momentum, gaining live audience, keep hitting the like button, hit the bell, make sure you are subscribed. We’re here Friday at live Eastern time. We have flown by our live audience record right now and I suspected there would be much more interest with Usyk and Joshua. So I have a question in the question and answer just real quick, along the lineage of Michael Spinks, moving up from light heavyweight and beating Larry Holmes in the 1980s. My God, we’re talking about 40 years ago now, but it’s true. Then we’re talking about Evander Holyfield moving up from light heavyweight to cruiserweight, to heavyweight champion. Where does Alexander Usyk belong in this, Dan Rafael if he gets the rematch win, how do you put him in that mix with Spinks and Holyfield in the recent history of guys moving up to heavyweight and winning the heavyweight title and even hanging on to the heavyweight title?

Dan Rafael:

Well, Michael Spinks his case. There was no cruiserweight division back in those days. He moved up from light heavyweight, which was the more traditional way to go. And it was very hard for light heavyweights to win the heavyweight title. It’s not something that is done too frequently. Roy Jones won a belt years later, having moved up from the light heavyweight division, but it’s hard to do. There’s a difference, especially now today where the heavyweights are so much bigger, but Alexander Usyk, I wrote a column of maybe a month or so ago where I identified the act of boxers in this sport today, who I already felt had whatever they were to do the rest of their careers, would already be in the hall of fame and Alexander Usyk, even though he is only got 19 fights that I felt like he had done enough to become a hall of famer.

He totally dominated and destroyed the pathway towards the cruiser rate undisputed title, which had only been done by a Evander Holyfield before that. And now he did what… Back up for one second, Alexander Usyk when he came into the pros, his idol as a Evander Holyfield, I remember interviewing him years ago and he said his goal was to be the undisputed Cruiserweight champion and also to follow in the footsteps of his idol, Evander Holyfield, and become the undisputed or at least win a heavyweight title, which he has done.

T.J. Rives:

And we should make mention Holyfield is at the rematch in Saudi Arabia. He is there, and so that’s got to be a neat thing for Usyk to be around him, now go take care of business, but finish your point there, go ahead.

Dan Rafael:

100%. So he accomplished the goal at Cruiser weight, became the undisputed champion, became, because of that won, by wide acclimation in all people who do it, give out the fighter of the award, including from the boxing writers association of America, the Ring magazine, and now he’s into the heavyweight division. Now he doesn’t have a lot of experience in the heavyweight division, just a few fights, couple fights, three fights. When he got the big one done against Joshua and he’s already stamped himself as a highly significant fighter. He may not have the biggest fan base in the world at least terms of in the United States or even throughout Europe, certainly in his home country he’s an idol because of what he’s done in as well as winning an Olympic gold medal. But Alexander Usyk is, I can’t stress this enough, he is a truly, truly outstanding fighter.

I kind of wish that he would’ve turned pro a little bit earlier and we would’ve seen a few more years of Vegas from this man. And even though he is into his mid thirties, to me, he has not lost a step. He still looks fresh and that’s after a ton of amateur fights, he comes off that Ukrainian Olympic team where his practically best friend is Vasiliy Lomachenko a two time gold medalist. Who’s won championships and three way classes who was pound for pound king. Also on that team was Alexander [inaudible 00:53:58] who became a light heavyweight champion. And that was just the three of those guys. And there was other talented fighters too. They’re the main ones.

But if you can pump out a team that includes [inaudible 00:54:07] Usyk, and Vasiliy Lomachenko, that’s doing something right in terms of what they teach in their amateur system and then Usyk is just… There’s really other than the fact, and this is not his fault, that he’s not as big as some of the other heavyweights. There’s no fault in his game. He does everything at an above average level, whether it’s the speed, power, his jab, his upper cut, his body shots, his chin, his defense, he does everything superbly. And it’s going to take something special in my opinion, for Joshua or anybody to beat this man.

T.J. Rives:

All right. But you and I disagree on that and that’s a perfect segue here. As we wrap up the show to circle back to our best bets, we got a lot of audience that’s been joining us over the course of the last 20 or 30 minutes that may have missed all of the picks. So let’s go back to our best bets and recap it. Dan is on one side of the aisle saying Alexander Usyk will get the decision win, will retain his WBO, WBA, IBF world heavyweight titles, the three belts.

And he automatically, obviously, if he has the decision, has the over there as well. So he doubles up. I disagree folks. I like Anthony Joshua on the money line. You see that we do agree on Filip Hrgovic to win. We disagree in that heavyweight co-feature on Hrgovic getting it done before the middle of the six round or after the middle of the six round. In the Top Rank boxing show in San Diego, we both like Emanuel Navaratte to win by knockout. As we looked at page two, Dan also likes not only the Navaratte knockout, he’s going to take the under. He thinks that it will happen in under 10 and a half rounds. Then in the Brandun, Figueroa, Lipinets Showtime main event that’s in south Florida, Hollywood, Florida.

Dan Rafael:

Just so you know, Omar Figueroa, Brandun is his brother. I know you didn’t say that on purpose.

T.J. Rives:

My bad, I’m sorry. Omar Figueroa Jr. The son of Omar, senior, who was a fighter and is now the problem. So this is Omar Figueroa, Serge LIPT. Thank you for the correction. You and I disagree again. You’ve got Lipinets by KO and we see the line there. I’ve got Figueroa on the money line. Dan’s got plays all over the board. He’s got the over as well in Lipinets, Figueroa. So we’re going to need a calculator to calculate all your wins and all your correct picks.

Dan Rafael:

All I know today is, I have the cash in left and right. That’s all I know.

T.J. Rives:

You have a plus what, plus 17 I think, coming into the week, if you’ve been following the advice. So there you go by means of recap. There you go on the show and we disagree on a couple of these again, boxing from Saudi Arabia to south Florida, to San Diego, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, Saturday night, late, depending on your time zone, we’re looking forward to all of it. Again, thank you to the fans that have found us. We have sent, we have set a live audience record on the August Friday afternoon BetUS show here at 1:00 Eastern time. Thank you for that. Thank you to all of our friends at BetUS Antonio, Francisco, Danny, Natalie Alejandro, everybody that helped us out here on this show. Dan, any thoughts in closing before we’re done? We’re excited to see Usyk Joshua the rematch. I think we’re going to see some fireworks in this fight. Any closing thought from you before we’re gone?

Dan Rafael:

I just say after a little bit of a slow stretch where we’ve had a few good fights, we got a weekend with a whole bunch of stuff. It’s going to be a busy Saturday and I can’t wait for it. I’m totally pumped up for it. I’m glad the shows are spaced out. It’s interesting, we’re starting with the biggest one first, but you know what? That’s cool. Anytime you got the heavyweight title at stake, it’s a big deal and that’s happening on Saturday and I can’t wait for it.

T.J. Rives:

No doubt about that. All right. Great stuff, audience. Thank you. Keep hitting that like button. Keep hitting the bell. Subscribe to the show. We’re back next Friday at 1:00 Eastern time. Make it a point to be with us at 1:00 Eastern time on Fridays. Great job everybody. Dan Rafael enjoy the fights. Thank you brother.

Don’t forget to check out our sportsbook website.