Benavidez Should Fight Usyk Next, Errol Spence Returns vs Tszyu & Inoue Breaks Tyson’s Record

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. What up, this is Roy Jones Jr. I'm hanging out with my man, Andre Ward. We two Hall of Famers will bring y 'all a show called the Hall of Game. A show where we discuss boxing, sports, life, and entertainment from our view. How much better neck can you get? Me and Roy don't always agree. The one thing you will get is a Hall of Fame worth the game. And we're back for another episode of the Hall of Game. I want to welcome my co-host Roy Jones Jr. from the great state of Florida. Roy, how you doing this morning coming off of a big, huge fight weekend this past Saturday?

0:44Doing very good, man. So glad to see that we finally have a new Cinco de Mayo carrier. I think Benavidez stepped in as the new Cinco de Mayo man. And I'm looking forward to his run as the Cinco de Mayo representative now. Yeah, because Floyd Mayweather, who is obviously not Mexican, has held that holiday down for a very, very long time and was a genius by doing it. You know, he had a lot of great Mexican champions and, you know, counterparts in his weight class. So he he held that hostage for a long time. And then when Floyd retired or stepped aside, then Canelo Alvarez took it over. So, yes, David Benavidez looks to be the new face of this holiday.

1:27And he put on a tremendous performance in his first fight at Cruiserweight. We had him on last week. We had Gilberto Ramirez in two weeks before the fight. And this is David Benavidez's first fight at Cruiserweight. And there were some questions about how would he look, how would he feel. And even though David Benavidez is a naturally bigger guy, he walks around very heavy. We talked about that. you just don't know until you see it. So I want to get into just the overall night before we get into the main event. It was a lot of great action-packed fights. Wasn't a lot of boxing going on in that arena, in T-Mobile Arena Saturday night.

2:06What was your favorite fight or your favorite moments outside of the main event? My favorite fight was Jose Sanchez versus Jorge Chavez. This fight, these two dudes, they did what Mexicans really do. They left it all in the ring. Mano y mano. went toe-to-toe basically. I mean, they started the night off right. They were before the Duarte fight. If you missed that fight, you need to go back on TV and watch it because this is the definition of two great Mexican fighters going toe-to-toe. These dudes fought like Mexican fighters fighting. And I think Sanchez knocked him out with 30 seconds left in the last round.

2:45He caught him and knocked him out. 30 seconds left in round 10. At 2.30 of round 10, he knocked him out. And at that point, you wasn't sure who was going to get knocked out. But you knew somebody was liable to because they left it all. They gave the fans what the fans really paid for. So if you missed that fight, I mean, David delivered, yes. But these guys right here, they showed you what the night was supposed to look like. Yeah, it was a back and forth type of fight all night long until it wasn't. And, you know, them kind of fights, people don't realize. It's like taking a old block or just a block and just chipping away at it.

3:22Each round, each punch, each combination. And it's a mental thing in that kind of fight. It's a physical thing. What type of shape you in, right? It's a lot going on in that type of affair. It's a lot of moments for a fighter to check out and or just get beat out. Where the fight just gets beat out of them. And that's what we saw in that fight. and that last punch landed and we saw the outcome. But those fights are very, very fun to watch. And I say this all the time. Casuals and hardcore sometimes, we try to, I don't say we, they try to pit styles against each other. In other words, nobody wants to see this and everybody wants to see this.

4:06And I think if you're a lover of the sport, I think it's okay to have a particular fight style that you like, a particular fight that you like to see. But if you really love the sport, you love it all. I wasn't trained to take two punches and give one. I just was. That wasn't what time it was. I would get the dirtiest look that my coach and my father could possibly give me if I got hit with the same punch two times in a row. If I got hit with a two or three piece, I would come back to the corner and spar. And I ain't talking about a fight. Man, what's up with you? You all right? But that being said, I can still appreciate what we saw on Saturday night because I know what it takes to get down like that.

4:43Not in sparring, but in a real situation. Jaime Mugia in the co-main event defeated Armando Resendez. That, too, was a good fight. Jaime Mugia did what he was supposed to do. You know, your fighter, Kevin Newman, I ain't going to get into the details, but, you know, he was watching very, very closely. Yeah, he was. And he was looking at Jaime, like I told him, though. Don't underestimate Jaime because Jaime is a really good fighter. Jaime gets really big for the weight class. Jaime was a former WBO champion 154. Yes, he was. Jaime is not an easy ride. So it's a very good fight for him, a very good fight for Newman, because Jaime is going to test him.

5:21You're going to find out how bad you want it. So when you're looking for Jaime, know what you're looking for for real enough because he's not laying down. So you better know what you're asking for. And I'm glad that Jaime won. It's a great opportunity for both of them. and I'm looking forward to that fight if it happens. So, yeah, he was looking at him closely, and I think he saw what he needed to see. But, you know, it is what it is. I feel that the Duarte fight could have gone either way. I really thought the other guy edged Duarte out, but it was a very, very close fight. They both put on a good performance, but I did think the other guy really outworked Duarte this time.

5:56But Duarte got the nod, so we're going to go with that, but I think he outworked him and really should have got this decision. That's the only fight I thought that was a bad decision that night. Okay, we're going to stay here for just a second. How do you, and this is for the viewers, how do you, like this close fight conversation, right? Like my fight with Kovalev, close fight. People are going to be arguing about this stuff probably long after I'm gone. And any other close fight that has happened in the sport of boxing, right? You said, I saw it this way. I thought Duarte got edged a little bit, and this is the reason why.

6:29but in a close fight like that is it really a robbery is it can can can a fight that close really be considered a bad decision even though you saw it or the judges saw it slightly a different way i didn't call it a robbery i said it could have gone either way all right but i'm saying that's what people will say anytime it's a close fight but i'm saying i'm using how you described it but i'm saying people will call that a robbery can you call it that you could you could call it a robbery because if you go back and look at the numbers this guy really to me i thought he out worked or two i know he out worked or two if you go back and look at the numbers but i didn't really pay that close attention.

6:58That's why I don't really like to call it a robbery because sometimes I look at what I'm seeing and I see the momentum shift about round four, about round five and I see a guy run on and run on and run on from that point. Then to me he dominated the last six rounds. I thought he probably won the fight but yeah but it could have been something I missed. That's why I didn't say he got robbed. I just said I thought he could have went either way but I thought the other guy really deserved the victory. I thought. But I may have missed something. That's why I said it that way. In the full ride of things, it's like Duarte knows that he didn't really convincingly win that fight, I should say, because you could tell by the way he was acting too.

7:34And the other guy really felt like he convincingly won the fight. You could tell by the facials at the end of the fight. Most of the time, guys know when they really won a fight or when it was edged out. That did. The other thing, one judge gave it to the other guy. One judge gave it to Duarte. Pretty decent. Then the last judge had it basically four rounds. I mean, it basically had it six rounds, I think, to four for Dorte. And that's impossible. So I just didn't like the last score. I thought the last score really should have been a lot closer, too. Because when you see it that wide, that means y 'all wasn't meaning for the other guy to win.

8:10That's why I think it was a robbery. A lot of times the judges are watching two separate fights. You see them score cards. You have 116, 112, one way. Eight rounds of four. They have 116, 112, another way. And I'm like, brother, it don't work like that. Like, y 'all can be a round or two off, but you can't be four rounds, five rounds, six rounds off. So the judging and the scoring, we got to come and do, we got to sit down probably on the ward room and really break down how to score a fight. I may, we may have to sit down and break down some close fights, including my fight with Kovalev, one, because, you know, it's something that fans don't understand.

8:43It's called swing round, meaning it's a round that can go either type of way. If you're judging a fight, you got your pin up and you're like, man, he did that one thing at the end, landed that one shot. I'm going to give it to him. That's around. You can't. It's an argument that can go either way. So I just think we got it. We got to come back and educate a little bit. That's what we here to do. Right. We don't know everything, but we know a lot. We've been in this thing a long time just to help. People that watch this sport. Just become wiser and smarter about how this game is, is, is, is talked about and how it's looked at, because just because your guy lost.

9:16Just because you was bragging at work at the water cooler tomorrow, man, I'm telling you, man, I bet. anything and your guy lost don't mean your guy got robbed we got to look at it the right way so we're gonna come back and talk about that thing but I'm gonna say this too about that facial expression some of my critics say that about my fight with Kovalev about you look surprised and it's like well hold on when I go back and look at that number one I had the scorecard whispered in my ear before they said it right but I know boxing it be tires I'm up eight rounds to four and I still don't know if I won because I just this is boxing I don't know what they looking at how they feeling about me on any particular night.

9:52You know what I'm saying? I don't know these judges like that, how they feel about me. But my thing was, can I not look excited and happy that I just won the biggest fight of my life? Did it have to be because I got a robbery win? So the facial expression, man, I get you, but man, they've been misreading me on that since 2016. I can believe that too, but like I said, this guy, neither one of these guys were my guy. I didn't care who won the fight, but I did honestly think the other guy I edged it out. And I do understand, like you say, I didn't have my pen. I don't know how many swing rounds it could have been.

10:26It could have been more swing rounds than I thought. So I can't say the judge necessarily robbed him. But I know that I didn't think it was six to four or eight to two by no means. So one judge had it so far apart that I was like, it couldn't be that many points apart. Yeah. Yeah. Scoring a fight and judging a fight and talking about a decision in a particular fight, especially a close one, is like the pound-for-pound conversation or the all-time great conversation. You're going to get a fight. It's going to be an argument, and it's going to be a lot of disagreeing, and nobody's going to be willing to budge.

11:00But I want to get into another pound-for-pound discussion with David Benavidez. He put on a pound-for-pound performance against Zerto Ramirez. And for me, it looked the way I thought it was going to look. I'm going to always have questions. Okay, how does this look? How is he going to look at the weight? These are legitimate questions that should be raised before a fight. And David Benavidez, I don't want to say he had a slow start, but he took his time in the first round or two, and then he started letting off them clips. And what I mean by that is not two and three, but four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, punch combinations.

11:38And for Zerto Ramirez, you got one guy that got a V6, and you have another guy that has a V8. And we knew that going into the fight. You just wonder if the V6 can have enough gas in the tank to wear down the V8. Is the V8 going to get out there too fast, too early and start to wear down? And maybe it's the perfect storm where the weight, maybe you're not carrying it as well. Maybe I've been at the weight. Zerto was at the cruiserweight limit a lot longer. Maybe that favors me. And maybe it can offset you having a V8, Benavidez with your speed, your quickness, and the clips that you get off and me having a V6.

12:11But that just wasn't the case. When Benavidez started to make up his mind that he wanted to let those punches go, man, they started landing heavy. I think David Benavidez landed a right hand, I think in the first round. Wow. Flush in the face. That's a bad sign. You get hit with a flush shot early in the fight like that and you don't respond. Straight down the pipe. Come on, brother. That is a tall tale sign that is giving you a picture of what the night is going to be. And that's what it did. Yeah. That gave you a picture of what the night was going to be. But honestly speaking, 200 rounds of sparring gave you a picture of what the night was going to be.

12:46That too. If I had sparred with a light heavyweight, when I had sparred a light heavyweight for 200 rounds, I already knew if I could beat him or not because he's bigger than me for one. I'm younger than him, so I already knew if I could beat him or not. Like I told you, when I sparred that one round with Rich Johnson, I already knew I could beat him. I'm not going to teach him no more, but I wasn't a young kid and I wasn't young like that. And he wasn't that much older than me that we were not going to fight, so I knew it. Same thing these guys knew. Now, had he not been with my dad and he had his own coaches, I might have sparring a little bit more.

13:16But since he was with my dad trying to train, I'm like, no, you don't have to teach me how to beat me right here in my face. Are you crazy? So I was like, no, I backed off of that. But I knew that had they sparred 200 rounds and David Benavidez wants to fight him, David won most of them rounds. And David also said when we had him, he's hurt Ramirez in sparring before, but Ramirez has never hurt him. That told me that was my goal here right there. I knew right then that fight was over. So it's like, not to take nothing away from David, but David knew what he was getting into. Ramirez may have not known, but David definitely knew.

13:45You know, I take my hat off to Zardo Ramirez because he's always been tough. He's always got championship level toughness. You know, it looked like his nose might have gotten broken in that early part of that round. And again, as a human, your first mind a lot of times is self-preservation. Man, my nose broke. But then that other person, if you have it, because everybody don't have that other voice in it. Right? some people the first thought is man my nose broke man and they look for that exit they find it and that neon exit light is is shining bright now all of a sudden everything you said before the fight all the train and all the sacrifice that goes out the window now you're just trying to preserve yourself and get out of here with the least amount of damage that's not zerto ramirez zerto ramirez had every opportunity to check out because of the nose and then you know um when the eye started to 12 and he just didn't there was a difference in physicality there was a difference in the type of engines these guys had they both are championship pedigree toughness mental toughness fortitude and i'm gonna always respect that you know we're not casuals in this thing where you know we we clown the loser and praise the winner you know we gonna praise the winner and give him his respect because he deserves it um but we're gonna also see those intangibles that we saw from zerto ramirez and shout him out too because, you know, he deserves respect as well.

15:04And he didn't have to take that fight. He knew he was up against a monster. He didn't have to take that. So for him to take that says a lot as well, yep. Yeah, and he's in a position in his career where, you know, he really had to take that fight. You see what I'm saying? Because it ain't no whole bunch of other opportunities for that kind of money on that kind of stage. So even though he knew he was up against it, he obviously felt he was going to win. And I just respect the way he stepped to Benavidez, even though Benavidez did what Benavidez does. And that's going to be a hard out for anybody, Roy.

15:36Cruiserweight. I don't know about the light heavyweight situation. You know how I feel about guys going up and going down. You've experienced it. It's a very, very tough thing. Now, Benavidez didn't put on, didn't go up as high as you. Let me see, 85, 95, 2. He did go up, but he walks around it that way and you put on muscle. It was different than you just walking around out of weight and then scaling down much less than you would as opposed to building yourself up to a weight that you've never been. So I don't, but I still don't know about the light heavyweight situation for Benavidez. Roy, with this win from Benavidez, he moved his record to 32-0, and he becomes the first three-division champion in the super middleweight, light heavyweight division, and the cruiserweight division.

16:19The question now for David Benavidez is, what's next? And Canelo Alvarez was in the building supporting his stablemate Jaime Mugia, and I guess Benavidez just had to do it. He had to mention Canelo. He feels a way that Canelo hasn't fought him throughout the years. He's been calling for Canelo for many, many years. And it's hard to say that a man who's put in as many professional rounds as Canelo Alvarez is scared of another man. But I do think that Canelo Alvarez has made a very conscious decision throughout the years to avoid Benavidez from a stylistic standpoint. Now, if you call that a duck, you call that being scared, you know, that's your business.

16:56But strategically, he made that business decision to say, I don't need to be in the ring with this dude. And Benavidez feels a certain type of way about that. So I think he just had to get that off his chest after putting on a performance that he just put on with Ramirez. But that's not a fight that's going to happen. No, it's not. It shouldn't happen. Especially with Benavidez going up in weight. But the question is, is what is going to happen? There's, you know, Benavidez has said, I can go back down to light heavy. I can fight at cruiserweight. you know he's constantly called out Dimitri Bivol that's a light heavyweight fight or Jai Opatia at cruiserweight or the other cruiserweight champion well Jai got stripped but he's still a name he's still the top name or one of the top names in the cruiserweight division and Noel Michelin is also another name and Benavidez said I don't want to fight for the Zufa title he said but if we can make a deal then I'm willing to fight Jai and I think a deal can be made I really do at the end of the day it's about this money and it's about these big matches being made what do you think should be next for David Benavidez I like him and Jai I think it's a great fight to test both of them Jai is new and coming Benavidez has not had nobody apparent that really wanted to try to step up and test him yet that was of his caliber we knew that Ramirez was good but 200 rounds of sparring he knows you're not his caliber I think yeah I think Patel would be the first guy to challenge him that that really has the size enough to really be a challenge.

18:26And I think he'll be the first challenge for Benavidez as well because he'll be coming down to weight just like Benavidez does. And the beautiful thing for Benavidez was that when I saw him at the weigh-in, when I saw the picture of his face after the weigh-in, he looked like a guy that pulled down to make 200. That's crazy. That's crazy. He makes 68, he makes 75, he pulled down to make 200. I was a guy who had never been up to 200 before in my life when I fought for the heavyweight title. I couldn't make one night if I had. I couldn't make one night if I was just fat. So it was crazy to see that he made 200, but he pulled down to make 200.

19:05This guy's scary, man. This guy could be the next guy that was one super middleweight champ that could become heavyweight champ. Because if Canelo don't fight him, he got to focus on the cruiserweights. But after he beats the cruiserweights, he may as well try the heavyweight division. You know, I think him and Usyk would be a really good fight right now. I really do. That's the fight that I'm hearing that Turkey wants to make this year. That's a really good fight. Oleksandr, Usyk, and David Benavidez. At what weight? I don't know. That is a really good fight. But it's going to have to be at a heavyweight.

19:36Because, yeah, Usyk can't come back down. Makes no sense to do it if you didn't fight for heavyweight. Makes no sense if you're not fighting for heavyweight title. You won the super middleweight, you get the cruiser, and you got light heavy, light heavy, and you got the top four weight classes. That's a chance to make more history. It's a huge risk for both fighters, but Benavidez, you know, obviously Usyk has a major advantage just being at the weight and he ain't just no sloppy heavyweight that Benavidez can punch on. He got skill with that size. That man, that's a generational wealth type of payday that night.

20:07Yep, I agree. And I like the fight with Jai. I think the Jai Opatia fight at Cruiserweight is the fight for me. That's the fight that I want to see Jai has been the man at that weight class for a very long time. Now you've got a new player in the division with a hot name and whose stock and whose star power is only rising. That's the fight I believe that needs to be made at the cruiserweight division. We'd love to see B-Val, but for some reason, the light heavyweight division just is not as appealing to me right now for David Benavidez. And again, I'm not sure that that's the right weight for him to fight, being that he's fought this weight and looked the way that he did.

20:42I think it's cruiserweight or maybe go up and fight Alexander Usyk? Since everybody's making these business decisions, Dre, and everybody's doing things the business way, right? It is not smart for David Benavidez to give Ja Batai a shot of his name right now because he's hot right now. You go up and fight Usyk while you're hot, and it makes sense. You can always come back down and fight Batai if you want to. You know what I'm saying? If you lost to Usyk, Batai fight still there. If you lose to Batai, Usyk fight gone. So be smart about this thing. Go take Usyk while the iron is hot. You beat Usyk, you don't know why to see Pataa unless he want to come to heavyweight.

21:19But if you go fight Pataa and lose, you don't even get a chance to see Usyk. And you don't get a chance to make history. That's crazy. You're on a rail right now to do something that nobody ever done before. I went middleweight, super middleweight, light heavy, heavy. Because I was doing what Bob Fitzsimmons did. I didn't stop at Cruiser because there was nobody there for me to stop at. And I really didn't care for the weight class. Now, he can go super middleweight, light heavyweight, cruiser heavy. Go for the, hey, like they say, go for the whole thing if you're going to go for it. Don't waste time with these other guys yet.

21:50While you're on this role, go see Usyk. Don't play with second group. Why would you play with a guy who's just as dangerous as Usyk, not as known as Usyk, not going to bring you as much money as Usyk, where you can just go straight to Usyk? That's kind of crazy. That's how we miss. That's how boxing misses out on big fights. They go make these other small fights that they think are safe, okay fights. And then those small fights destroy the big ones. That's why to this day, we still have never gotten a chance to see Tyson Fury versus Anthony Joshua. Every time it gets close, they put him in another fight and something bad happens.

22:25Let's not do that. Let's know from boxing that in a boxing ring with those 10-ounce gloves on, anything can happen. if Canelo not fighting you forget about everybody else go straight to Usy don't play with nobody else alright anything else can taint the Usy fight the Usy fight is one of the biggest fights of this decade right now take it while it's hot don't play with him and don't let him play with you and that's my words to Dave Benavidez because I know he listens to me he looks up to me thinks a lot of me I'm going to tell him it's okay to say no Pata you haven't proven yourself right now I want somebody who's proven like I am I want Usy That's what he should do without a question.

23:04Listen, Opatah has proven himself, but he's not the name. He's not the name as an Usyk, not as big money. Who's he beat? We going to do that every day. He's been at the weight class at that Cruiserweight weight class. You know it's not a lot of big names at that Cruiserweight weight class. Am I making that up? Has it historically been big names at the Cruiserweight weight class? That's why I skipped it. Right, right, right. So I'm just saying I can't say that a man has won a title, defended his title. As long as he has. I can't say that he has approved himself. I'm not going to say that. But the namesake is different.

23:37He hasn't been a ride as long as. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so the money is different, right? So I'm with that. I like that decision. I believe that's going to be the decision that's on the table. So it's going to be very, very interesting to see what happens next. But that is, that's a play right there. That is the play right there. And when I say prove yourself, the world don't know you like that yet. Yeah, I respect it. I'm not saying he's not good enough. I'm not saying he's not good enough to do it. The world don't know him like that yet. So he has a proven set where the world knows him. The world knows Benavidez.

24:07The world knows who Usyk is. A lot of people in boxing because the Cruiserweight division has always been kind of lackluster as far as names go. They don't know who the Cruiserweight champions are. I only know Pataille and I knew Ramirez, but I don't know the other Cruiserweight champions. And I am in boxing. So if you don't have a name like that, then you're not really pooping. I respect it. And we're going to move on on that note to the other monster in the boxing world and the other monster that fought on Saturday night in Tokyo at the Tokyo Dome. It was a sold out crowd of 55 ,000 people. If you remember correctly, if you are a historian in this sport, that's the same arena that Mike Tyson lost to Buster Douglas in in 1990.

24:50You remember 1990? It was a Sunday. It was 40 ,000 people in attendance. and Mike Tyson, as the world knows, was knocked out by Buster Douglas in the 10th round. But Inoue and Juntun Nakatani, they not only broke the live gate record, Roy, at 55 ,000 people in the arena, they also broke Japan's combat sports pay-per-view buyer's record. This was a big fight over there. Noeo Inoue, who is, I don't know where you have him on your list. One, two, three. He's top two, top three in the world. he has dominated for a very long time. He has a very unique style, especially from coming over there. He's got a lot of flavor with this game.