The Boxing Esq. Podcast

I’m excited to have a ginormously long podcast this week with my guest, one of the best young boxing writers in the game, Mr. Alan Dawson from World Boxing News.

We talked about Alan’s career beginnings in London writing about soccer and his eventual move to Business Insider, where he wrote an excellent investigative article on Daniel Kinahan. We cover his move to Las Vegas and his current writing and production gigs including his current position at World Boxing News. We go deep into this past fight week in Las Vegas and compare the buzz generated by the competing promotions - Canelo vs. Berlanga and UFC Noche. We talk about Dana White’s possible future involvement in boxing via Turki Alalsheikh. We go through the results of the Canelo-Berlanga card. We talk about what’s next for PBC and we preview this weekend’s Joshua-Dubois card in Alan’s old stomping grounds in London, England.

It was a great conversation. Hope you enjoy it.

Fired the hell up to have one of my all-time favorite boxing podcasters and commentators on the pod, the man, the myth, the combat sport evangelist - BC - Brian Campbell, from the Morning Kombat show - which he co-hosts brilliantly along with Luke Thomas and the newly minted Brian Campbell Experience which I highly recommend you catch on YouTube.

We talked about BC’s journey in boxing from his humble beginnings in Naugatuck, CT to ESPN, Grantland, CBS, and Showtime boxing. We talked about his days as a podcaster with Rafe Bartholomew on the State of Combat and the infamous soundboard, and how he met Luke Thomas and from there Morning Kombat was born. We also got into his commentating career and his gigs at Ring City and the legendary ShoBox. We then discussed the fights on Saturday that he will cover for PBC - Canelo vs Edgar Berlanga, Erislandy Lara-Danny Garcia, Caleb Plant-Trevor McCumby and Rolly Romero’s comeback fight. We also talked a little bit about our man Turki and what direction the sport will go in 2025.

As always with BC, it was a fun and informative conversation - Hope you enjoy.

Excited to have one of my all-time favorite boxing writers on the pod this week, Eric Raskin from boxingscene.com (formerly of the excellent Interim Champion Boxing podcast with his longtime podcast partner Kieran Mulvaney).

We talked about Eric’s pathway in the sport starting at Ring and KO magazines and branching out to ESPN, Grantland, HBO, and Showtime boxing. We then get into one of his most recent articles about the Saudi "Supercard" from this past Saturday and how maybe we should rethink these so that they don’t last eight hours and have so much fawning over Turki Alalshikh. We then discuss the actual fights on Saturday - Terence Crawford’s narrow win over Israel Madrimov for the WBA Jr. Middleweight crown, Jose Valenzuela’s upset over Pitbull Cruz, the heavyweight clashes between Andy Ruiz vs. Jarrell Miller and Martin Bakole vs. Jared Anderson as well as David Morell and Andy Cruz’s victories.

It was a really fun conversation with Eric. Hope you enjoy.

It is my pleasure to have as my guest on the pod Tim Smith, the Vice President of Communications at Haymon Sports and the PBC. We discussed this Saturday’s upcoming card topped by Terence Crawford challenging Israel Madrimov for the WBA Jr. middleweight crown and the PBC fighters on the undercard such as Andy Ruiz, Isaac "Pitbull" Cruz, and David Morell. Tim also gave his thoughts on the Saudi's proposed boxing league and possible future collaborations with Riyadh Season.

We also got into what’s going on with the Amazon deal and the quote “free fights”; Tank Davis and the possible opponents for his next fight, Caleb Plant, the possible date for the Sebastian Fundora-Errol Spence fight, Tim Tszyu, the rumored Mario Barrios-Manny Pacquiao negotiations, the Charlo brothers and who’s going to carry the torch going forward for PBC as some of the stars who were around back when PBC started in 2015, wind down their careers.

I always love chopping it up with Tim - hope you enjoy it.

This week's guest is one of my favorite boxing writers, Mr. Matt Christie. Matt was until recently the editor of the longest-running boxing publication in the business - Boxing News. He’s now a contributing writer to boxingscene.com and does an excellent podcast with Alex Steedman called The Opening Bell.

Matt and I discussed his back story, and interest in the sport as well as his career path to Boxing News. We also discussed this past weekend’s IBF welterweight title fight involving one of the rising stars in the sport - Jaron “Boots” Ennis.

We then went over a six-part series of articles that Matt recently published on BoxingScene that he deemed "Boxing Utopia". These articles focused on improvements Matt would like to see happen in the sport - including one world champion per division, the use of the Transnational Boxing Ratings, as the official ratings of the sport, having controversial decisions be both appealable and overturnable, more investment in the grassroots and for our fallen retired heroes and a tougher more cogent anti-doping policy for the sport.

I love talking about boxing reform, so this was a great conversation. Hope you enjoy it.

My guest on this podcast is Cliff Rold, one of the founders of the independent media-run boxing ratings organization the Transnational Boxing Ratings Board. He was formerly, the managing editor of one of the leading boxing sites - BoxingScene.com, and now has his own publication called The Corner Stool on Substack.

Cliff and I discussed this weekend's fight results including Shakur Stevenson's win, O'Shaquie Foster's controversial loss, William Zepeda's dominant KO, and a fight-of-the-year candidate between Fernando Martinez and Kazuto Ioka.

We also talked about our mid-year candidates for fight of the year, KO of the year, round of the year, upset of the year, worst decision of the year, and worst decision of the year.

It's always fun chopping it up with Cliff - hope you enjoy!

My guest this week is Jason Cruz, from mmapayout.com and the Legal Submission podcast. Jason writes about MMA and Boxing and is yet another member of one of my favorite MMA podcasts - Show Money. We spoke about the New York State Athletic Commission's Consent Order suspending and fining Ryan Garcia for his positive anti-doping test after his April bout with Devin Haney.

We also discussed the UFC antitrust case and Jason's ideas about improving the Ali Act.

I really enjoyed the discussion - I hope you do too.

I'm back and very excited to get the pod rolling again. My guest is John Nash, from the Hey Not The Face podcast. John writes primarily about MMA and Boxing and does another excellent podcast called Show Money which covers the business side of MMA. We spoke about the Saudi plan for a boxing league detailed in the New York Times article from June 12.

We discussed the likelihood of each of the big 5 major players in the sport, Top Rank, PBC, Matchroom, Queensberry, and Golden Boy selling all or a percentage of their business to the Saudis.

We also got into what it would mean if the Saudis ran it like the UFC and if Turki Alalshikh played the Dana White role. It was an excellent discussion - enjoy!

My guest on this podcast is boxing writer and attorney Scott Shaffer. We analyzed last weekend’s busy schedule of fights including Usyk-Chisora, Inoue-Moloney and Davis-Santa Cruz. We also discussed recent comments by Deontay Wilder breaking his silence after Fury-Wilder III fell through, the proposed "Junior Heavyweight" division the WBC is implementing and the continuing saga of the Canelo lawsuit.

This will be my last show as host of the Boxing Esq. Podcast but I am passing it on to Scott to host.

It was a really fun conversation - hope you enjoy it.

My guest on this episode is former two-time Heavyweight Champion of the World - Chris Byrd.

We talk about Chris’s miraculous recovery from years of debilitating pain from nerve damage in his foot, hip replacement surgery, and numerous shoulder problems.

We discussed Chris's new diet and alternative therapies that aided his recovery.

We also spoke about Chris’s great career from his days in the amateurs and sparring in an 8 by 10 ring in his parents' basement; his trip to the Olympic trials in 1988; his Olympic Silver Medal in 1992; not getting signed by a major promoter coming off of that medal and his roundabout journey as an avoided fighter to a shot at the Heavyweight title and eventually becoming a two-time champ.

We also go into his battles in the ring with Ike Ibeabuchi, Vitali Klitschko, Wladimir Klitschko, Maurice Harris, David Tua, Evander Holyfield, Jameel McCline and many more and how he found out that many of his contemporaries were using PEDs.

It was a great conversation - hope you enjoy it.