The Boxing Esq. Podcast

My guest this week is Matthew Brown from Brunch Boxing. We talked about how Matt found his passion for the sport of boxing by following the inspiring comeback of Big George Foreman. We got into how he further developed this interest in the sport on Twitter and eventually formed Brunch Boxing both its website and podcast.

We then analyzed the big fights from this past weekend featuring the homecoming bouts for Keyshawn Davis and Jaron “Boots” Ennis and the respective undercard fights of interest.

We also discussed a few stories that Matt has broken on the Brunch Boxing website including the sale of Ring magazine to the Saudis and the implications for boxing media and the sanctioning bodies. The ongoing controversy involving the WBA, Fight Fax and BoxRec.

And finally we talked about what’s up with the PBC - what we can expect from the PBC for the rest of 2024 and what their schedule may look like in early 2025.

Very happy to have as my guest this week one of the best boxing writers and podcasters in the business, Tris Dixon, author of the critically acclaimed Damage and the editor at boxingscene.com.

We discussed Tris’s journey from growing up in the woods of England to training as a boxer under Kevin Rooney in the Catskills and Matthew Saad Muhammad in New Jersey. We also talk about his transition into becoming a boxing writer and eventually being named editor at Boxing News. We talked about his excellent books - Road to Nowhere and Damage, which I highly recommend.

We analyzed the big fight card from this past Saturday featuring the fight for the undisputed light heavyweight title between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitri Bivol and we also discussed the continued rumors of a Saudi boxing league and Dana White’s potential involvement

It was a great conversation - hope you enjoy it.

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.

I’m excited to have my good friend Scott Shaffer, partner at Olshan Frome Wolosky and senior writer at Boxingtalk, as my guest this week.

We go in-depth—count by count—on Devin Haney's recently filed lawsuit against Ryan Garcia, Scooter Honig, and Golden Boy in the Southern District of New York and compare it to similar cases in combat sports. We also talk about recent developments in the Matchroom v. Jake Paul defamation case, the class action filed against Floyd Mayweather by the dancers at Girl Collection, and the default judgment in the Heredia vs. MTK case.

We reviewed the Janibek Alimkhanuly and Nick Ball title defenses from this past weekend as well as the controversial Sandy Ryan- Mikaela Mayer fight from last weekend.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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 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.