Podcast: Celebrating Foreman and Frazier on their birthdays

Plus: Recaps of Simpson-Woodall, Dubois-Camara; Inoue update, more news of the week; anniversary memories of a great unification bout

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It was another very slow January weekend with just one card of any consequence, the Boxxer show in Sheffield, England, that featured British and Commonwealth champion Callum Simpson and WBC women’s lightweight titlist Caroline Dubois in defenses. We went over those bouts, discussed several news items of the week, looked back on the anniversary of a big card, and celebrated the birthdays of all-time heavyweight legends and rivals George Foreman and Joe Frazier.

Here is what’s on the show (in order):

• Recap of Simpson’s second-round knockout of Steed Woodall on a very premature stoppage and Dubois’ domination of Jessica Camara that unfortunately ended in a third-round technical draw due to an accidental head butt.

• Junior featherweight contender Sam Goodman suffering another cut that has forced him out of his mandatory title challenge against undisputed champion Naoya Inoue on Jan. 24 and Ye Joon Kim taking the fight as a short-notice replacement.

• My reporting on the date and location penciled in for WBC/WBO junior middleweight titlist Sebastian Fundora to face former three-belt unified welterweight titlist Errol Spence Jr.

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• The WBO’s decision to upgrade the Jack Catterall-Arnold Barboza Jr. final junior welterweight eliminator to a vacant interim title bout due to the uncertainty of champion Teofimo Lopez’s schedule.

• The talks taking place for a welterweight unification bout between Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Eimantas Stanionis.

• Ringside memories on the eighth anniversary of when super middleweight titleholders James DeGale and Badou Jack fought to a draw in an epic unification slugfest and in the co-feature Gervonta Davis looked superb in a seventh-round knockout of then-unbeaten Jose Pedraza to win the IBF junior lightweight title, the first world title of Davis’ career.

• Birthday celebrations of great heavyweight Foreman, who turned 76 on Friday, and Frazier, who would have turned 81 on Sunday.

• Intense debate about 1980s TV shows.

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

We bring you the preview each Friday and the weekend recap each Monday. Let me know what you think of the podcast by leaving your comments.

Foreman-Frazier II photo: Getty Images

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