Andre Ward’s PBC Verdict: Cruz vs Roach QUESTIONABLE DRAW & Fulton’s Tough Night

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2:25Welcome back to another episode of the Hall of Game. I'm your host, Andre Ward. Man, I'm yet again without my co-host, Roy Jones Jr. I need y 'all to pull out an APB on Roy Jones. I know he's traveling. I know he's moving around, taking care of business. But I need him back on the Hall of Game. Y 'all have been asking for him to be back on the Hall of Game. And I miss my brother. But I'm going to hold it down until he gets back. We got a great show today. It's a recap of Saturday Night's Card in San Antonio, Texas at the Frost Bank Center on the PBC pay-per-view card on Prime Video. We previewed this card going into the week, and it's a card that I was very excited about for a lot of reasons.

3:09Jesus Ramos Jr. and Shane Mosley Jr. fought for the WBC interim middleweight title. Erislandy Lara fought Johan Gonzalez, who stepped in for Genebek Aleem Honolulu because of a positive or adverse finding in his VADA testing. Shaki Foster fought Stephen Fulton. Stephen Fulton came in two pounds overweight, and for whatever reason, the WBC still sanctioned this fight as an interim lightweight title. And then in the main event, we had Isaac Pitbull Cruz against Lamont Roach for the interim WBC super lightweight title and that my friends was a good fight the fight with Jesus Ramos and Shane Mosley was a good fight for two fighters in similar spaces I had Shane Mosley Jr.

3:55on the contender series in 2018 Shane Mosley Jr. is a good fighter with good skills and believe it or not he has some of his father in him you see some of the fast twitchy type of punches and foot movement. He's a very tough fighter who can take a lot of punishment. I don't know if that's a badge of honor, but it's certainly something that you respect. He did take a lot of punishment in the fight with Jesus Ramos. He never quit. He never stopped trying to win. But when you're taking punishment like that at this stage in your career, when you're trying to get to a championship level, you got to start taking some hard looks at your career and see if this is something that you really want to do because things are not going to get easier for Shane Mosley Jr.

4:33They're going to get harder. But the future is bright for Jesus Ramos, just a good young fighter who has a great family and a great background. And he's a fighter that does a lot of great things. And I like what I've seen from him so far. And the sky's the limit for Ramos moving forward. And he's looking forward to fighting for the full championship WBC title in the near future. The fight that we were looking for, Erislandi Lara and Genebek Aleem Honolulu, wasn't the fight that we got. We said at the top of the show that Genebek had an adverse finding with his VADA testing leading into the fight.

5:12Genebek had to step aside as he's waiting for his B sample to come back. I'm going to reserve my opinions until that sample comes back, but that's not a good look for him and his team as this was the opportunity that he really wanted. Jennebeck was a guy who passed the eye test with flying colors, and it seems like nobody really wants to fight him. And what he's missing is the namesake or the type of marquee victory to get him in position where guys can no longer duck and they have to fight because there's enough money on the table. this is a huge setback for team jenibac if the b sample comes back positive he's got other issues that he has to deal with but there's always a replacement in the sport of boxing there's always a fighter somewhere he might be sitting on a couch or he might be in the gym and he's just a phone call away and that fighter was johan gonzalez johan looked very very strong and in shape and he was a he was a tougher fighter than many thought that he would be for arieslandy laura laura dropped gonzalez in the first round and then ultimately in the last round but laura sort of went back to some of his older ways where there's excess movement not enough punches and and i don't know you have to give him a little bit of grace laura because he didn't have a lot of time to prepare for Johan Gonzalez.

6:40This is Gonzalez's Super Bowl, and this is just another fight for Laura. He was preparing for another fighter and another type of fight, and it's switched in the fourth quarter. That's a lot to deal with, but you do expect a fighter of Laura's caliber and with Laura's experience to make those adjustments, and I think that Laura could have gotten Gonzalez out of there, and he's shown that in his older age, being over 40, I think Laura's 42, 43 years old, 42 years old, that he's willing to stand there more. He's willing to stay in the pocket. And he's surprised a lot of people because Laura's always had respectable power, but he's shown that he's got real power.

7:23The type of power that's knocking guys down and then knocking them out. And he showed that early with Gonzalez, and then he showed it late. If you could carry your power late into a fight like that, that tells me that Laura could have did more. He didn't get a great response from the fans. And that's tough because that could stop other opportunities for Laura. There's not a lot of reasons why fighters want to face a skilled, dangerous, experienced fighter like Laura, who's 42 years of age without some serious reason. And the reason that he's given these promoters and other fighters to step up is the type of fights that he's been putting on these knockouts and these stoppages where he's old enough where fighters will take a risk like a Jenna Beck where, OK, if I beat Alara, I get this on my resume.

8:14man I got a marquee name now and I can tell people that I have a marquee name but if if Laura continues to fight those kind of fights at this stage in his career he may start hurting opportunities for himself moving forward because it's an easy way for fighters and promoters to step aside and say oh he's going to run it's going to be a boring fight so I think Laura could have stepped on the gas and really stayed in the pocket was with Gonzalez in the mid the midway point in that fight and I think he really could have stepped he really could have got him out of there because though Johan Gonzalez was look strong and in shape he looked like he had been in the gym when he got the call I didn't see anything from Gonzalez that concerned me for Laura.

9:01I didn't see punches or a, you know, a game plan that made me feel like Laura, you need to box and get out of here, get your check, get the win and move on. That's not what I got from Gonzalez. So I don't know why Laura went back to those ways, but I'd like to see Laura stay in the pocket like he was. Y 'all know I'm a, I'm boxing first. That's what I believe in. That's what I was raised on. So I'm not a guy that is quick to call a fighter boring because they didn't stand there and take a lot of punishment. But when you see that you could do more, when you see that there are opportunities, you want to take those opportunities, especially against a late-minute replacement and especially when you're at this stage in your career like Laura was.

9:44But winning covers a multitude of sins. He will get another opportunity. And I'm excited to see who Erislandy Laura will get another opportunity against. I think the fight that I was looking forward to the most was the co-main event, even though the main event was exciting and that was also a fight that I was looking forward to. It's the Oshaki Foster-Steven Fulton fight, which was scheduled for Oshaki Foster's 130-pound WBC title. Steven Fulton was just coming up in weight from 126 to 130, but fight week or the day before the fight, he comes in two pounds over the limit. He comes in at 132 for 130-pound limit.

10:24And when you look at Fulton's body, to me, he didn't look like he had the cuts and the grooves and the type of body that you want to see from a fighter that's been in a long training camp and that's been making all the sacrifices. I had concerns with Fulton being two pounds over because you're moving up in weight. You're moving four pounds north of where you just previously were. not to say that it still wasn't hard for him to make weight because the misconception is that because a fighter is moving up in weight that they're still not draining themselves to make that weight even though it's a higher weight Fulton gets pretty heavy in between fights we talked about it right here on the hall of game he said I like my food I like to relax after my training camps I don't like to do much and I don't know what happened to Fulton in camp there's a lot of rumors circulating about personal issues or camp not going the way that it was supposed to i know he had issues making the 130 pound limit but the question is is why why was fulton not able to dial in and make the weight precisely the way he was supposed to as a fighter i'm asking why was his body not in the type of shape that he was supposed to be in this fight was a long time coming there was multiple cancellations there was a lot of back and forth I don't think it was real bad blood but it was boxing bad blood it's competitiveness you want to face fight me for my title you think you're gonna come up and wait and take what I have Fulton's like don't take it personal but yeah I'm getting ready to come get your belt they had all of the makings of a great matchup that night but as the fight unfolded the fight started out like the script that everybody had written was was thought was gonna get played out osaki foster the bigger more established fighter at the weight not walking down but putting subtle pressure on stephen fulton and many believe that stephen fulton had the box he's the smaller fighter he doesn't punch as hard as foster so he better be smart and that's what we saw in the first couple rounds but that's not all I saw I saw the script as it was written being played out but I also saw Fulton not being confident and I don't know if that's because of the weight issues because oftentimes as a fighter you don't always feel great going into a fight the goal is for everything to peak your sharpness mentally, your focus, your physical prowess, your physical body.

13:04As you made weight, you want to make weight the right way. You want to put the weight back on in the 24-hour period or less that you have to put the weight back on. You want everything to be clicking. But the reality is, even though you have a fight date, things are not always clicking the way that they're supposed to. It didn't look like Fulton was right going into the fight, and he didn't look right early on in to fight and what I saw was a fighter who had a lot on his mind who didn't have the best training camp this is just all speculation of what I'm seeing from my years in the sport but I also saw Stephen Fulton allowing Oshaki Foster who did his part he came in in tip-top shape he made the weight and he did what he was supposed to do and he actually showed more wrinkles in his game he was just supposed to be the puncher.

13:54Oshaki Foster was just supposed to be the bruiser, but he also showed that I can do multiple things and I'm gonna get to that in just a second. But for Fulton, I don't think it was just the training camp. I don't think it was just the weight cut, even though I know that had a lot to do with it. It looked to me that Fulton was allowing Oshaki Foster to win a lot of those rounds and ultimately the fight by his reputation. What I mean by that is the script I told you about, right? Foster being bigger, stronger, and even carrying his power leg. Foster has late fight, late round knockouts where he's getting knockouts in the 11th and 12th round.

14:34I didn't see Fulton taking the chances that he was supposed to take in order to try to get some respect from Oshaki Foster. I didn't see Fulton step to Foster in spots the way he was supposed to, to take some ground from Oshaki Foster that he was supposed to. I didn't see that Philly thing, that willingness to risk getting knocked out or risk getting hurt to put your game plan down, to put your stake in the ground and let the opponent, the fans, the judges, and everybody know that, yeah, I know I'm supposed to be boxing, but I'm going to get mine too. I didn't see that from Stephen Fulton. I didn't feel that.

15:15Like you can feel that type of energy and that type of mindset when it's being displayed. Like, oh, oh, he getting his respect right now. Oh, he just drew a line in the sand. You saw it with Terrence Crawford and Canelo Alvarez. You see the normal script playing out Crawford boxing and Canelo Alvarez stalking. But then all of a sudden you saw certain rounds where Terrence Crawford went off script and he drew a line in the sand. And as a fighter, you know, oh, he's getting his respect. he's sending a message to Canelo and to everybody watching that it's not going to be the way that you think it's going to be.

15:46I didn't see that from Stephen Fulton. I didn't see that kind of fight from Stephen Fulton. And it's sad because his corner was telling him all the right stuff. In the first two or three rounds, you could see that Fulton was still trying to process and figure out how to solve the puzzle of Oshaki Foster. but right around that fifth sixth round seventh round in between in between the rounds you started seeing Fulton just kind of drift you start seeing his mind drift you start seeing his mind drift you gotta you gotta stay focused in a fight especially when things aren't going your way it's very easy to start to give up mentally you may not give up physically you may not stop throwing punches but your mind starts to drift and you start becoming a spectator to your own event so your coach is talking you hear him but you really don't hear him your mind is on something else and that's what I started to see from Stephen Fulton in the middle of this fight and I think it was the sixth or seventh round he came out and he started throwing like air punches like they weren't reaching Foster but he just started throwing air punches as if he was like shadow boxing and that just let me know that this this is not going to be the night for Stephen Fulton I don't I don't know what happened man I have a lot of respect for Stephen Fulton I've stated that on this show and on this platform and i continue to i'm not a fighter who sees a fighter uh have that kind of showing or a fighter that doesn't show up the way he's supposed to and then i say oh he's trash he was never anything that's not me i have a lot of respect for folton but something went wrong in his preparation something was wrong the week of the fight and and something wasn't right with him on fight night.

17:31But that being said, some of what was, and maybe most of what was wrong with Fulton in that fight was Oshaki Foster. We can't take away from the performance of Foster and the professionalism and everything that he displayed in that fight. He was sturdy. He looked very strong. He looked sure of himself, but he was smart. And I love to see a guy who's known as a bruiser and a puncher and the stronger fighter not abuse what he has in his arsenal. Foster could have easily not respected anything about Stephen Fulton and just tried to walk through him. And maybe he would have got the stoppage. Maybe he would have done better.

18:11I don't know. But I like what I saw from Foster. I saw a thinking man that night, Saturday night, against Stephen Fulton. I saw a man who was thinking through his steps and processing his moves. Foster was playing chess on fight night. He wasn't playing checkers. He was thinking two, three steps up ahead. And this fight is going to elevate Oshaki Foster as a fighter overall because he's got the toughness. He's got all the stuff. He showed that he got some flavor. He's shown that he's got range to his game. Great fight from Oshaki Foster. It's not a good fight for Stephen Fulton. And he's got to go back and he's got to retool and be honest with himself about what went wrong if anything went wrong in his personal life in training camp mentally if he just didn't believe that he could win I didn't see a confident Stephen Fulton you cannot knock a fighter who takes a chance to win and comes up short but it's tough and I know that Stephen Fulton's feeling this right now he didn't put himself in the best position to get that done and I don't think he really believed in himself once he got in that ring Foster was who he thought he was he may have been even better than he thought he was and I didn't see Stephen Fulton at one time toe that line and draw that line in the sand and let Foster know you're gonna have to earn this tonight I wish Fulton nothing but the best boxing is a sport of second third fourth fifth chances I believe that he's gonna get back to where he was.

19:44I'm hoping that he gets back to where he was and that he's able to make adjustments because everybody's story is different. Some fighters, they don't lose. Some fighters never have the bad night or the bad performance, but it doesn't mean they haven't gone through things. They had their own struggles in their own fight. Stephen Fulton has had his struggles and has had his fights in the boxing ring, but thus far, he's always overcame those struggles. And I'm hoping and believe in that he'll do it again. And the future is bright for Oshaki Foster. Oshaki Foster, he's got history with Shakur Stevenson.

20:17And his quote after the fight was, I want Shakur Stevenson. He said, I've been saying it for the longest, but it looks like he's gonna be fighting at 140. So I have to choose either 130 or 135. I'll see what happens and make a decision from there. Excited about the future of Oshaki Foster. He's earned the right to be in his position, man. And once again, man, big things up ahead for Foster. This past weekend, like every other Sunday, you were on the court with the guys playing ball. Just a pickup game, living out your hoot dreams. No triple doubles, but a mean set of threes. In between buckets, one of the homies mentioned, he closed on a new grid.

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23:47Visit BajaMar.com today and discover a vacation destination where memories are made for a lifetime. Bahamar, life spectacular. The main event over-delivered, though. Pitbull Cruz and Lamont Roach for the 140-pound WBC interim super lightweight title. This fight ended on a majority draw. 115, 111 for Cruz, and you had 113, 113 two times for a majority decision draw. I thought Lamont Roach had done enough to win that fight, but not by a landslide, maybe a point or two. The point that I always make is when a fight is that close, you can't scream robbery if it doesn't go your way, because there are swing rounds that can go either way.

24:36There are moments of the fight that judges look at in a particular way. Lamont Roach may be outboxing Cruz for most of the fight, but then all of a sudden, Isaac Cruz has a moment with 10 or 15 seconds before the bell rings and then all of a sudden that's the last thought on the judge's mind and they mark that round for Isaac Cruz I don't think that's the right way to judge a round I think the way you're supposed to judge a round is the totality of the three minutes but you have humans sitting across the ring that are judges and sometimes they like what they like or they see what they see and it sways them to give a round or two to a guy that maybe you thought or we thought as a viewing audience should have went the other way I don't think a draw is robbery I do think Lamont did enough and I'll say this about Isaac Pitbull Cruz I like Isaac Cruz he's a short stocky all muscle type of fighter he's got underrated defense because he is stout and he's short to the ground he knows how to tuck that chin He gives you the top of the head because that doesn't hurt as much or put him in as much danger as getting clipped on the chin or maybe getting clipped on the temple.

25:46I like his style. He makes everybody work. He pushes everybody to the limit. And I knew it would be no different with Lamont Roach. But the issue that I have at Cruz is Cruz started the fight strong like he typically does. Then he fades or he tries to preserve energy. and then he tries to step it up at the end. Isaac Cruz does that not just because of strategy. It's also because of how he carries himself and lives outside the ring. I don't know his personal life. I say live meaning how he keeps his body. Isaac Cruz is a 140-pound fighter, and I would guess he gets to 170, maybe higher in between fights.

26:35This is just off me looking at his face, looking at his body and sizing fighters up for almost most of my life. He gets really, really heavy in between fights. Some on the Internet call that weight bullying. I call that a lack of discipline and lack of respect for the game. And what happens is when the fight starts, everybody feels strong. Everybody's strong for the first four rounds, but five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and then down the stretch, that's where you show your conditioning. That's where you show what type of life you're living in between fights, how much or how little you actually respect the sport.

27:24Isaac Cruz has to hold and preserve energy because everything that he did to his body in training camp is catching up to him. You cannot strip off 20, 30, 40 pounds and expect to be in tip-top shape and fight for a duration of a 12-round. We all take rounds off. We all take moments in the fight off. I'm saying you take four and five rounds off where you're doing just enough to get by or just enough to try to steal a round. That's what Isaac Cruz does oftentimes in his fights, and he would be a lot better. Maybe the fight with Lamont Roach wouldn't even be close if he took care of himself a little bit better outside the ring.

28:11Cruz, you got to live like a fighter until you retire. It doesn't mean that you can't have moments to enjoy whatever it is you like to enjoy, but you have to stay within your fight range your weight and fight range so you don't have to destroy your body completely in an eight week and and uh 12 week and four month training camp and you see fighters who have weight issues oftentimes they have long training camps they have three four five month training camps they need a pre-camp and they need a full camp and it's it's fat camp for most of the camp it's It's getting weight off. It's always feeling lethargic and tired, and it's less about game plan and strategy, and it's more about your weight issue.

28:58For a championship-level fighter, the primary thing should not be a weight issue. You should always check your weight. You should be on a scale multiple times throughout the day in training camp. The track, how your body is flowing. Man, I just ran. I just lost four pounds, so I know, man, I can lose four or five if I do a five or six mile run. Man, I just got done working out of the gym. I haven't hydrated yet. Man, I just lost six pounds. You start to understand your body by staying on the scale. But you shouldn't have to lose 30 and 40 pounds in training camp because it's going to come back and it's going to hurt you.

29:38And that's what I saw with Isaac Cruz. See, y 'all, I don't just look at punch or stone. I look at the things that a lot of people don't see because I've lived it. and those are the things that excite me about fights or that interest me about fights. It's the fight. It's the fighters. It's the matchup. It's the style matchup. It's the what game plans are both fighters going to implement. But then I've also tracked with the fighters leading up to the fight. He looks like he's focused. And he doesn't look like he's pump fake and he looks like he's really focused. Like I got that sense from Devin Haney when he was on the show with me and Roy.

30:17And it wasn't any rah-rah that he was doing. It wasn't any one thing that he said, but it was a couple of questions that I asked him about Turkey and about the monetary side of the game. And everything that he said went back to the fight. I said, oh, he's locked in. He's locked in. He wasn't too high. He wasn't too low. These are the things that I focus on. And this is what I focused and saw with Cruz, that when the initial press conference got kicked off, I said, man, Isaac Cruz got a lot of weight to lose. man he's gonna he's gonna drain himself in training camp and he's gonna make this fight with Lamont Roach a lot tougher than it needs to be but I like the the type of shape that Lamont Roach was in though I don't like the game plan that he implemented when you face a fighter like Cruz you don't want to bang and fight with him early on in the fight that's exactly what he wants Isaac Cruz is the strongest that he's ever going to be in a fight in the first four rounds that's when you use your jab you make Isaac Cruz think more than he wants to think he's going to be aggressive he's going to throw big shots that's who he is and that's what he does but you don't have to oblige at least early on see people think that when you face an aggressive fighter when you face a fighter that can punch that you're supposed to just run from this fighter for 12 rounds and they employ the mindset that you can't hit what you can't see that's not really how it's done you can't avoid a big punch from a real puncher one that knows how to cut a ring one that has experience and one that knows his way around that ring he's going to land at some point so it's best that you just make your mind up that i'm gonna get hit but it's not gonna be enough i'm going to be able to take the shot you can't give in to what Cruz wants for the first four rounds Lamont Roach could have and should have box early on and you saw him trying to box in the first round or not trying but you saw him boxing in the first round but then something shifted round two three four where he's standing there early and he's trading punches with Isaac Cruz at his strongest that's the point in the fight where the rhythm for Lamont got out he got out of rhythm at that point because you start to fight a certain way and if you're Lamont Roach it's hard to go back to doing the boxing if you start fighting it's hard to go back to doing the boxing but if the game plan is to box first get your respect in spots meaning oh you want to rumble I'll rumble for 10 seconds, then I'm going to go back to boxing.

32:59I'm going to do it your way because I have an advantage because I have you all balanced. I'm going to attack you and I'm going to let you know that I will hit you and I'm not afraid, but then I'm going to go back to boxing. It's hard to go to that rhythm when you've gotten into a fighting rhythm. The crowd is involved. You have to weigh that. They're oohing and aahing. Now you get hit with a big shot. If you're a real fighter and you got that kind of dog in you, what do you think you're going to want to do next? you're gonna want to get that shot back right away sway the judges sway the crowd and the viewing audience at home that's where Lamont Roach got off he started to fight Isaac Cruz early and too often and now this goes from you boxing to now fighting and I can see the look on Isaac Cruz's face he loved every bit of it he loved every bit of it but what I what I did love about Lamont Roach even though I think he employed the wrong game plan was the heart he showed the type of conditioning that he showed you have to realize given the whole Javante Davis debacle and the fight being on the fight being off and him trying to find an opponent he's pretty much been in the gym this whole year most of what Lamont Roach posts and talks about is training or who the next fight is going to be You don't see Lamont Roach sway on a lot of different things.

34:21So you kind of get where he's at and what his mind is focused on. And for him, most of this year has been about training. It's been about fighting. And a lot of people, Isaac Cruz is not an easy fight. He's a fighter that when you sign to fight him, you know it's going to be a long night or a short night if you don't do what you're supposed to do. And I never saw Lamont Roach really have an issue with the Cruz matchup. In fact, I saw him excited about it. And I think that both fighters put on a great fight. I think Isaac Cruz, like I said before, could have done himself a service and he would have put himself in position to win this fight by living like a fighter in between fights.

34:58So he can be the fighter he needs to be in the fight on the night when the lights are bright and everything is on the line. And Lamont Roach, no question about heart. No question about grit. No question about mental toughness. No question about the lifestyle that you live outside the ring. I'm talking about your personal life. I'm talking about your boxing life. No question about that, because you showed us in the biggest moments. Isaac Cruz got a knockdown in the third round. It wasn't a traditional knockdown where you see the fighter hit the canvas, but it knocked Roach all the way back several feet.

35:32And that shows you the type of power that Isaac Cruz possesses and what he's capable of. The problem with him is he's not able to keep it up. He's not able to sustain that level of intensity that level of work rate or that level of punch count throughout the duration of the fight if Isaac Cruz dedicates himself more outside the ring and takes this more serious he's going to be even more dangerous than he already is and for Lamont Roach I think that was a disciplined thing in the ring where the game plan should have been he should have implemented at the game plan more in a disciplined way early in this fight.