Speaker 1: Joining me now to discuss this as a man who's
Speaker 1: written about an opond on the sport of boxing for
Speaker 1: both ESPN and USA today today he's the founder, the
Speaker 1: owner of the publisher of what was it?
Speaker 2: Fight Freaks? Is that what it is?
Speaker 3: Fight free Unite on substat Steve that.
Speaker 1: Please got to let the audience know that the one
Speaker 1: and only Dan Rayfield.
Speaker 2: What's going on, buddy? How you doing?
Speaker 3: Great to be out with you. I kind of figured
Speaker 3: when this topic emerged we might be discussing it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know your thoughts when you saw Jake
Speaker 1: Paul going off showed the contract with the signatures on it.
Speaker 1: Even though he did that relatively quickly, by the way,
Speaker 1: I didn't get the chance to really really see it. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: that's what he said. He's implicating that Canelo Alvarez signed
Speaker 1: to fight him.
Speaker 2: It was supposed to happen.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to announce it February eleventh, but it
Speaker 1: did not end up happening. Your thoughts, your reaction to
Speaker 1: what you saw from Jake.
Speaker 3: Paul, Well, Jake is upset, honestly, But if you take
Speaker 3: a look closely at the document that he is supposedly
Speaker 3: signed that's supposedly the fight contract. If you take look
Speaker 3: at it closely, stephen A, what it was was a
Speaker 3: confidentially a confidentiality agreement. It wasn't a doubt agreement. It
Speaker 3: wasn't a let's sign for the fight. This was here's
Speaker 3: what we're working on. And then they take that so
Speaker 3: they can let the people that they're trying to sell
Speaker 3: the fight to know that they've got both sides on board.
Speaker 3: So that was maybe a little fast and loose with
Speaker 3: the truth. But the reality is Jake Paul wanted to
Speaker 3: fight Canelo Alvarez, and I don't think that Canelo was
Speaker 3: really truly that interested in the bout. That's been his
Speaker 3: sort of thing he's been saying all along. But I
Speaker 3: think what he did was he used Jake Paul and
Speaker 3: the people at his company, MVP, to raise the price
Speaker 3: that he was going to get from Turkey al Sheik,
Speaker 3: from Saudi Arabia, to do real fights, to do other
Speaker 3: title defenses, to do with the fight with Terrence Crawford,
Speaker 3: and that was used to sort of jack up the price.
Speaker 3: And if he didn't get the price yet, maybe he
Speaker 3: would have gone through with it. But Jake Paul felt
Speaker 3: that he was going to. It feels like he was
Speaker 3: aggrieved because Canelo has gone and done a four fight
Speaker 3: deal with Turkey al Sheik to bring his talents to
Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia for three of those fights.
Speaker 1: That sounds like the late dealings in the world of
Speaker 1: boxing as far as I'm concerned. That's how business goes
Speaker 1: from Tom to tom. I can understand why Jake Paul
Speaker 1: is a bit upset, but Canilo Alvarez is a four
Speaker 1: division is you know, this is four different weight classes.
Speaker 1: This man is one of the greatest in the game,
Speaker 1: arguably one of the greatest ever in a lot of
Speaker 1: people's eyes, and to me, him fighting Jake Paul would
Speaker 1: have made no sense whatsoever for him outside of just money,
Speaker 1: because Jake Paul, as much as I respect him and
Speaker 1: what he's trying to do, hasn't earned the right to
Speaker 1: be in the ring with Canelo Alvarez as far as
Speaker 1: I'm concerned.
Speaker 2: How do you see that, Dan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't disagree with that, but I think at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, Canello Alvarez has secured a
Speaker 3: certain aspect of his legacy. I don't think there's a
Speaker 3: lot more left for him to do in terms of
Speaker 3: the legacy that you mentioned, And so in terms of
Speaker 3: the overall reason to do the fight with Jake Paul
Speaker 3: is about the money. He's trying to put as much
Speaker 3: money in the bank before now you know, now in
Speaker 3: the end of his career, Jake Paul's doing the same thing.
Speaker 3: And they would have both made tremendous amounts of money
Speaker 3: for this, But Jake Paul is respect him us why
Speaker 3: I enjoyed Jake's events, interviewed him about his events, and
Speaker 3: I have nothing but respect for what he's doing in
Speaker 3: terms of trying to make himself a better boxer. But
Speaker 3: it's not at the championship level boxing that Canelo Albers
Speaker 3: has been at for the last more than a decade
Speaker 3: decade plus decade and a half. And so to think
Speaker 3: about him going in the ring with Jake Paul, whose
Speaker 3: only advantage is his size, you know, obviously most people
Speaker 3: would look at Canelo overs and say, look, you can
Speaker 3: get him out of there easy. Now. At least in
Speaker 3: these fights, he's gonna be fighting actual championship level boxers,
Speaker 3: maybe not superstars. Like his first fight of this deal
Speaker 3: is against a very unknown fighter named William Skull who
Speaker 3: picked up the vacant IBF belt that Canelo was forced
Speaker 3: to that was stripped of him because he didn't fight
Speaker 3: the mandatory William Sculler was totally unknown and brought nothing
Speaker 3: to the table. Now he's gonna fight him, but he's
Speaker 3: still an actual professional fighter with real fights in his
Speaker 3: own weight class. So I get where where Canelo is
Speaker 3: coming from, and I get where Jake Paul is coming from.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Let's go to Canelo for a second.
Speaker 1: I'll get back to Jake Paul in a minute, but
Speaker 1: let's go to Canelo for a second. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't like, I don't root against him. I respect the
Speaker 1: hell out of him. I've interviewed him on a couple
Speaker 1: of occasions. I know what a great fighter he is.
Speaker 1: I know what he brings to the table. I've seen
Speaker 1: him against Triple G obviously, against Mayweather, obviously, against Charlo
Speaker 1: and others.
Speaker 2: We get that we's proven himself. Okay. The flip side
Speaker 2: to it, however, is that.
Speaker 1: There's a guy by the name of David Benavidez out there,
Speaker 1: the Mexican monster, that's got to move up to light
Speaker 1: heavyweight because Canillo won't give this guy a fight. As
Speaker 1: as an expert of the pugilistic sport that is boxing.
Speaker 1: Knowing what you know, how do you feel about Canilo
Speaker 1: avoiding David Benavidez and how foreign foreign is it for
Speaker 1: him to be avoiding David Benavidez.
Speaker 3: I mean being truthful, and I'm known as a Canelo
Speaker 3: guy Stevendy, But it's disappointing because that's the fight, that's
Speaker 3: the real fight that fans I think want to see.
Speaker 3: It's not like there's not other fights they'd be interested.
Speaker 3: And sure a Terrence Crawford fight will interest a lot
Speaker 3: of people in the mainstream because of all the history
Speaker 3: that goes with and where both those guys are in
Speaker 3: the sport. But Benavidez has earned the opportunity. He clearly
Speaker 3: is a top level fighter, whether it's in the super
Speaker 3: midiweight division or the light heavyweight division. He's now fighting
Speaker 3: in the light heavyweight division. Has made it very clear
Speaker 3: that where his body is now after having now had
Speaker 3: two light heavyweight fights, a really outstanding performance a couple
Speaker 3: of weeks ago against David Morrel, that he's not about
Speaker 3: to drop back down to one to sixty eight. So
Speaker 3: if Canelo will ever agree to fight him, it's going
Speaker 3: to have to be in the light heavyweight division, where Canelo,
Speaker 3: by the way, has had two fights in the past,
Speaker 3: the spectacular a knockout to win a wealth title against
Speaker 3: Sergey Kovolev, and he got out boxed by Dmitri Bievol
Speaker 3: who's a much different style than then Avidi's so I
Speaker 3: think that Canelo realizes, Look, he's I won't say he's
Speaker 3: playing out the string, but he's making more moves that
Speaker 3: are going to benefit his bank account than perhaps to
Speaker 3: give him another loss on his record. Taking on William
Speaker 3: Skull is not a big gamble, even frankly taking on
Speaker 3: a Terrence Crawford, who's a great fighter's own right, But
Speaker 3: the weight disparity is so great, right that I don't
Speaker 3: think that he and his team think it's that great
Speaker 3: of a risk. And then there's two other fight on
Speaker 3: this deal, which I don't even think are named in
Speaker 3: the contractor in the agreement, and he'll be able to
Speaker 3: sort of pick and choose, so he may be able
Speaker 3: to run the table on the four fights. But David
Speaker 3: Benavidez poses a massive threat. He knows it. You know it,
Speaker 3: I know it. Anybody who watches boxing knows it.
Speaker 1: How are we to feel about Canelo Alvarez fighting people
Speaker 1: other than David Benavidez when they're smaller fighters, like, for example,
Speaker 1: when he fought Charlo, clearly he had to move up
Speaker 1: tow weight classes to fight Canelo. We knew he didn't
Speaker 1: have the power to really fend off.
Speaker 2: Canelo.
Speaker 1: I was proud that he survived for crown out loud.
Speaker 1: When I look at Terrence Crawford, I think Terrence Crawford
Speaker 1: is a marvelous box arguably the best in the world
Speaker 1: pound for pound. But can you hurt Canelo? If you
Speaker 1: can't hurt I have no doubt he could out box him.
Speaker 1: My issue is, if you can't hurt him, what kind
Speaker 1: of a challenge can you truly truly pose?
Speaker 2: What do you say to that?
Speaker 3: No, that's listen, that's a great point. I mean, here's
Speaker 3: the thing. Sae Algrez has a historically great chin. Now,
Speaker 3: I go back way back when he first came to
Speaker 3: the United States and started boxing, and he found himself
Speaker 3: on an HBO pay per view under card years and
Speaker 3: years ago, fighting against the older brother of the great
Speaker 3: Miguel Coto. His name was Jose Miguelkoto, and he had
Speaker 3: gotten a ton of hype yet signed with Golden Boy Promotions,
Speaker 3: and a lot of those of us in the media,
Speaker 3: and I had seen him a couple of times before that.
Speaker 3: This is my first time seeing him in person, really
Speaker 3: paying close attention. And he almost got knocked out in
Speaker 3: the first round. And I remember steven A, all of
Speaker 3: us looking around at media row going what the heck
Speaker 3: is this off? Like about this man can't take a shot,
Speaker 3: He's gonna get drilled. He was lucky get the fight
Speaker 3: was over. You know that the round was over. In
Speaker 3: round oneter there might have been some much more trouble
Speaker 3: steven A that was like, I don't know, sixteen seventeen
Speaker 3: years ago, I've never seen him wobbled rock physically visibly hurt.
Speaker 3: Since then, he has an all time great chin going
Speaker 3: in the ring with tremendous punchers. Cove left two fights
Speaker 3: with Gonnadi, Glofkin and plenty of other fighters, so you
Speaker 3: know he has the great chin. And like you mentioned, Ken,
Speaker 3: Terence Crawford coming up two weight classes do any damage. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's a slick boxer and he's also a good cure
Speaker 3: in the welterweight division. In the junior welterweight division, in
Speaker 3: the lightweight division, but even at junior middleweight, which is
Speaker 3: where Terrence Crawford had his most recent fight back in August,
Speaker 3: when he moved up and he won a world title.
Speaker 3: He didn't blow the doors off. He fought a very tough,
Speaker 3: solid opponent named Israel Majimov. He gave him a good fight.
Speaker 3: It was very close. Magineow's people seem to think he
Speaker 3: might have even been able to edge it out. But
Speaker 3: if you can't hurt an Israel Maagimov at one fifty four,
Speaker 3: what the heck are gonna do with Canelo? Albert is
Speaker 3: the sturdiest guy in the world at one sixty eight,
Speaker 3: So that aspect of it is certainly a problem. You
Speaker 3: mentioned about Charlot Charlo was there to get his check.
Speaker 3: I know one thing about Terrence Crawford. He's not going
Speaker 3: to just come to turn up to get the check.
Speaker 3: Hill at least tried, and Charlo, I don't think really tried.
Speaker 3: There's a difference in mindset between Charlo and Terrence Croft
Speaker 3: and you.
Speaker 1: And I have a slight different opinion about the Shallo thing.
Speaker 1: I think that shallow hit Shallo hit this man with
Speaker 1: a shot in the first or the second round, and
Speaker 1: Canillo just walked right through him, and he said, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I cannot hurt this guy. I need to
Speaker 1: run for my life in the next ten rounds to survive.
Speaker 2: That's what I saw.
Speaker 1: But I hear you loud and clear back to David Benavidez,
Speaker 1: since you brought his name up, he wanted to fight
Speaker 1: against Morrell.
Speaker 2: I walked away more impressed with Morell than I thought
Speaker 2: I would.
Speaker 1: Be, because the kids got he could take a punch.
Speaker 1: He could take he could he could really really take
Speaker 1: a punch. And I was very surprised by that. And
Speaker 1: I was surprised that with the shots that David Benavidez
Speaker 1: was hitting him with, that he couldn't take him down.
Speaker 1: And then I said to myself, what if he goes
Speaker 1: against and it's not Bevold, it's better beef.
Speaker 2: I'm a little bit worried about that. Fordl for David Benavidez,
Speaker 2: what about you.
Speaker 3: Look, David Moreau may not have been well known to
Speaker 3: the masters, but certainly within boxing he's well known. He
Speaker 3: was a great amateur coming out of Cuba, and he
Speaker 3: has accomplishment. So don't be fooled by what the record
Speaker 3: was eleven and zero going into the bout against Benavidez.
Speaker 3: He's a really serious quality fighter and that was a
Speaker 3: really uh you know, matchup that a lot of people
Speaker 3: were excited for. And so I wasn't surprised that David Morrelle,
Speaker 3: you know, gave him a good fight. I mean, I
Speaker 3: take David Benavides to win the fight for a lot
Speaker 3: of different reasons. But you talk about the possibility of
Speaker 3: David Benavides facing off against the winner. There's the rematch
Speaker 3: for the undisputed title that takes place on February twenty
Speaker 3: second between Arthur better Bief who is the undisputed champ
Speaker 3: and Dmitria Bievo, who they fought at the end of
Speaker 3: last year and it was a very close fight and
Speaker 3: that was to unify the division. Turkey Alshk who runs
Speaker 3: the show with Saudi Arabians involved in the boxing with
Speaker 3: Rian season, he said he'd loved to see the winner
Speaker 3: of that fight fight against David Benavidees. Now if there
Speaker 3: is a fact that Beevo wins the rematch, he's also
Speaker 3: said maybe there'll be a trilogy fight. But if better
Speaker 3: bv is the winner, and they also he invited David
Speaker 3: Benavidez to come to their ringside and to check it
Speaker 3: out on February twenty second. I think that's got a
Speaker 3: really interesting and good possibility to happen. That would be
Speaker 3: a huge fight for David. I would hope they would
Speaker 3: do that fight in the United States. That's where David's
Speaker 3: got a lot of fans. That would do probably quite
Speaker 3: a bit more in terms of popularity, viewership, ay per view,
Speaker 3: et cetera. That if it was taking place in Rian.
Speaker 3: But you know, we're going to see the best fight
Speaker 3: the best if they can make that match, and David's
Speaker 3: up for it, I mean he'll fight it. You know,
Speaker 3: David Benabintez, He's never turned anybody down. He'll fight whoever.
Speaker 3: And he's on a really good run right now Andre
Speaker 3: and Caleb playing, and then of course what he did
Speaker 3: against Wodzick when he moved up and then this fight
Speaker 3: just a couple of weeks ago with David real he's
Speaker 3: not looking at duck anybody.
Speaker 1: Let me get back to Jake Paul before I let
Speaker 1: you get on out of here, and really appreciate your time, Dan,
Speaker 1: Jake Paul, listen, I respect him because he's his own promoter.
Speaker 1: He shows that you don't have to be at the
Speaker 1: mercy of promoters to make a fight happen, and I
Speaker 1: really applaud what he's doing for the sport of boxing
Speaker 1: in that regard. But as I've told him to his face,
Speaker 1: I'm not being a hypocrite here. You gotta fight fighters,
Speaker 1: and Mike Tyson at fifty eight years of age ain't
Speaker 1: cutting it no more UFC strikers or basketball players that
Speaker 1: ain't cutting it.
Speaker 2: You gotta get in the ring with some boxes.
Speaker 1: So while I listen, Canelo used him probably to up
Speaker 1: the ante, to up the on the back end, and
Speaker 1: I get that part. The flip side to it is,
Speaker 1: if your Canilo Alvarez, why should you allow somebody to
Speaker 1: get in the ring with you who hasn't really fought
Speaker 1: any contenders in the.
Speaker 2: Sport of boxing. To me, that's what Jake Paul has
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: So I understand his outbursts, which was the reason I
Speaker 1: had you on, but in the same breath, I'm of
Speaker 1: the mindset you kind of brought this on yourself because
Speaker 1: you're trying to get a shot at the crown without
Speaker 1: working through the process and fighting guys that are at
Speaker 1: least contenders to that.
Speaker 3: You say, what, well, I think part of it's because
Speaker 3: Jake knows that his events are big events regardless of that.
Speaker 3: And it's not like he's not working hard. He's not
Speaker 3: really cutting the line because if other people didn't want
Speaker 3: to watch his events, he wouldn't be in that position.
Speaker 3: Because he's got a certain popularity and he brought in
Speaker 3: I mean, you looked at the Tyson fight that he
Speaker 3: had on Netflix. They did gargantuan numbers, brought up all
Speaker 3: kinds of that was the plan. So he has that
Speaker 3: in his back pocket. He brings money, and he brings
Speaker 3: notoriety and a lot of eyeballs to his events. Whether
Speaker 3: you think he's put in enough work in the gym
Speaker 3: to make himself into a quote unquote real fighter. Now,
Speaker 3: if you step back prior to the Tyson fight, you
Speaker 3: know that he did have dude to one fight against
Speaker 3: the BKFC fighter in Mike Perry, but that was because
Speaker 3: Tyson was dealing with his illness and they had a
Speaker 3: postpone the fight. But prior to that fight, he actually
Speaker 3: did take a step back. I was sort of happy
Speaker 3: about this. He fought like actual boxers, not big names,
Speaker 3: but guys that maybe had quality amateur backgrounds that were
Speaker 3: of around the same level of professional experiences in As
Speaker 3: he said to me in some interviews, I'm trying to
Speaker 3: build up myself as a fighter to get the reps in,
Speaker 3: to get in the experience. Here's the problem. Those fights
Speaker 3: did not do big business, so he's kind of stuck
Speaker 3: between a rock and a hard place. He can fight
Speaker 3: those developmental fights, but nobody gives a dart about him,
Speaker 3: and they don't bring in the kind of money. So
Speaker 3: he's going to be fighting these bigger names, whether it's
Speaker 3: MMA guys or boxers who maybe are past their best,
Speaker 3: or try to lure a Canelo win who maybe is smaller,
Speaker 3: because that's where the money is and the fans flock
Speaker 3: to it. How could you take a guy who's fighting
Speaker 3: Iron Mike Tyson and does bazillions of viewers on Netflix
Speaker 3: and say, well, now you should step back and fight
Speaker 3: a guy in an eight rounder that nobody ever heard of.
Speaker 3: I understand the predicament he's in.
Speaker 1: I definitely respect that, and I appreciate that perspective as well,
Speaker 1: because that makes sense.
Speaker 2: This is the money business. You're trying to make as
Speaker 2: much money as you possibly.
Speaker 3: Can Steven as Price fight.
Speaker 2: It's prize fighting, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: But last thing, I'll say this much because I get
Speaker 1: where he's coming from.
Speaker 2: So where does he go from here?
Speaker 1: Because my mentality is, Okay, you want to make the money,
Speaker 1: you definitely want to do that.
Speaker 2: You don't want to do things.
Speaker 1: And I applaud Jake Paul by the way, because he
Speaker 1: promotes the hell out of his fights. He shows up,
Speaker 1: he honorts his commitments. He's more professional than a lot
Speaker 1: of the professionals.
Speaker 2: In that regard. I give him a lot of credit
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 1: But what are we to make of his future now
Speaker 1: that he said what he says, particularly when he says,
Speaker 1: I promise you I will generate more money. My events
Speaker 1: will be bigger than Canilo Alvarez, I'm not so sure
Speaker 1: about that, Dann Rayphiel to that.
Speaker 3: You say what, yeah, I mean, look, he's already played
Speaker 3: the Tyson card that that happened and it was huge.
Speaker 3: Canelo obviously is not happening. That would have been big,
Speaker 3: whether people loved it or not. There would have been
Speaker 3: a massive amount of people, for perverse reasons perhaps interested
Speaker 3: in it. And so now you say, who else can
Speaker 3: he fight. He's fought all kinds of former MMA or
Speaker 3: you know MMA guys across from the boxing. I just
Speaker 3: don't know the answer. I mean, he is there another
Speaker 3: famous boxer that's looking to come out of retirement to
Speaker 3: fight him that would actually move the needle? You know,
Speaker 3: I don't know about that. I mean, was he gonna
Speaker 3: get Oscar de la Hoya to come out of retirement?
Speaker 3: I mean, or Floyd Mayweather? I doubt that. So the one,
Speaker 3: the one name that's out there. Then he's brought it up,
Speaker 3: and I mean it would be a big event. I
Speaker 3: would personally not like to see it. He's talked about
Speaker 3: Connor McGregor. I mean that. I'm just saying that. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's where we're at here, Steven Ay, what can I
Speaker 3: tell you?
Speaker 1: I mean that, I mean, come on, I mean they
Speaker 1: I will say this, nobody would eclipse them promotetionally. That
Speaker 1: I will admit nobody would. It would would eclipse them promotionally.
Speaker 1: But outside of that, when it gets down to the
Speaker 1: beer bones of a real fight, now, I'm not feeling that,
Speaker 1: not at all. Dann Rayfielder, Dann ray Phiel obviously fight freaks.
Speaker 1: You not appreciate you buddy, Thank you so much. Man,
Speaker 1: you bet Steven anytime, all right,