Podcast: Davis-Garcia in jeopardy as De La Hoya issues contract deadline?

Plus: Recapping the awful Ajagba-Shaw and Vianello-Rice heavyweight bouts; Inoue vacates; the passing of Gerrie Coetzee and a BHop story on his birthday

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Welcome to the Fight Freaks Unite recap podcast coming off a low-key weekend that included Top Rank’s disappointing heavyweight doubleheader of Efe Ajagba’s decision win over Stephan Shaw in a sleep-inducing bout and Jonnie Rice, who was down on all three cards in another bad fight, stopping Guido Vianello in the seventh round due a bad cut. But there was also plenty of news of the week to discuss, including promoter Oscar De La Hoya’s Saturday late-night declaration on social media that he has yet to receive an official contract for the Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia fight and that if he doesn’t get it on Monday he’s walking away from the fight.

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

• What’s the deal with De La Hoya threatening to walk away from finalizing Davis-Garcia if he doesn’t have a contract on Monday? Why doesn’t he have the paperwork yet from PBC? Would he walk? Can he walk? Why use social media for a delicate business issue? Major discussion on this.

• Naoya Inoue vacating the undisputed bantamweight title and what next for “The Monster” and how will the bantamweight belts be filled?

• A recap of the dreadful fight between Ajagba and Shaw, who showed they’re not ready for prime time, especially Shaw. Where do they go from here and should anyone care?

• A recap of the dreadful fight between Rice and Vianello, mainly the ending that saw the referee initially declare it would be a technical decision because he believed Vianello’s terrible cut was from an accidental head butt despite clear video evidence it was a butt — and the ultimate correct decision to go to consult replay and where do they go next?

• The death last week of former WBA heavyweight champion Gerrie Coetzee at age 67.

• Birthdays galore: Muhammad Ali would have turned 81 on Tuesday, Roy Jones Jr. turns 54 on Monday and Bernard Hopkins turned 58 on Sunday, so shout outs to the trio of legends and one of my favorite BHop stories about his love for cheesecake.

• Plans for Robeisy Ramirez-Isaac Dogboe on April 1 for the WBO interim or full featherweight title (depending on what happens with Emanuel Navarrete’s upcoming fight at junior lightweight).

• Plans for Shakur Stevenson’s lightweight debut on April 8.

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.

Garcia photo: Tom Hogan/Golden Boy

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