Podcast: Breaking down the Usyk-Joshua rematch and the rest of a busy weekend

Hrgovic-Zhang battle, Callum Smith KO win, Navarrete shaky title defense, Lipinets’ demolition of Figueroa and news of a deal for Bivol-Zurdo

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Welcome to the Fight Freaks Unite recap podcast coming off a huge weekend that was led by the Oleksandr Usyk-Anthony Joshua heavyweight title rematch card. There was also a Top Rank card topped by featherweight Emanuel Navarrete’s title defense and a four-fight Showtime card headlined by Sergey Lipinets-Omar Figueroa.

Here’s what we discussed on this episode (in order):

• Sunday’s news that Matchroom Boxing and Golden Boy have made a deal for the fight between light heavyweight titleholder Dmitry Bivol vs. Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez.

• A deep dive on all things Usyk-Joshua II, including how good is Usyk, how the fight unfolded, the late rounds drama, the scoring, AJ’s post-fight meltdown, the prospect of Tyson Fury-Usyk for the undisputed title and the absurdity of DAZN having its announcers call the fight from a studio instead of being on site.

• Thoughts on the Filip Hrgovic-Zhang Zhilei heavyweight eliminator in the co-feature, Callum Smith’s highlight-reel KO win over Mathieu Bauderlique in a light heavyweight title eliminator and cruiserweight Badou Jack’s hard-fought win over Richie Rivera in a fight that absurdly included a round that last 3:58.

• A discussion of featherweight titlist Navarrete’s poor performance against Eduardo Baez in the Top Rank main event — other than his one-punch body-shot KO in the sixth round. We also reviewed welterweight Giovani Santillan’s exciting decision over Julio Luna and middleweight Nico Ali Walsh’s body-shot KO of Reyes Sanchez in the two other televised fights.

• We finished up with a conversation about Showtime’s quadrupleheader that was topped by Lipinets’ beat down of Figueroa and also included Alberto Puello’s junior welterweight title victory, Hector Garcia’s junior lightweight title win and hot junior welterweight prospect Brandun Lee surviving his first adversity courtesy of a hard knockdown and going on to outpoint Will Madera.

Please give it a listen! Also: rate, review, subscribe and enjoy!

We will be bringing you the weekend recap each Monday. Let me know what you think of the podcast by leaving your comments.

Usyk-Joshua photo: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing

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