Podcast: Murtazaliev-Tszyu preview; Arum interview on Beterbiev-Bivol

Plus: Azim-Davies preview; recap of Nakatani's KO win; news of the week; big fight anniversary memories

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There are a pair of notable fights on Saturday and we previewed both of them, Bakhram Murtazaliev’s IBF junior middleweight title defense against Tim Tszyu in the PBC on Prime Video main event from Orlando, Florida, and junior welterweight up-and-comer Adam Azim’s fight with Ohara Davies in the main event of the Boxxer card from London. There is also a portion of my longer interview with Top Rank chairman Bob Arum as well as news of the week and big fight anniversary memories.

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

• Recap of WBC bantamweight titlist Junto Nakatani’s impressive sixth-round knockout of Petch Sor Chitpattana on Monday in Tokyo.

• Preview of Murtazaliev’s 154-pound defense against Tszyu: What kind of fight do we expect, who has the edge and what could be in the pipeline for the winner.

• Preview Azim’s fight with Davies: Can Azim score the KO, can Davies overcome a first-round KO loss?

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• Part of my hour-long interview with Arum in which he gave me his thoughts on the decision in the undisputed light heavyweight championship fight between Artur Beterbiev, who Arum promotes, and Dmitry Bivol, and the prospects of an immediate rematch. We will play the entire interview that covers numerous topics on a special episode of the podcast that will drop on Saturday so go here to subscribe to make sure you get an alert when it is available.

• Details on Bivol’s official request that the four organizations order an immediate rematch with Beterbiev following Bivol’s disputed majority decision loss last week.

• Heavyweight contenders Agit Kabayel and Martin Bakole accepting positions to take part in an IBF final eliminator for the right to become Daniel Dubois’ mandatory challenger.

• An update on the IBF scheduling a purse bid for undisputed junior featherweight champion Naoya Inoue’s mandatory defense against Sam Goodman and the objection of WBA mandatory challenger Murodjon Akhmadaliev, whose team says he should be up next.

• Ringside memories on the ninth anniversary of when Gennadiy Golovkin destroyed David Lemieux to unify two middleweight titles and Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez dominated and stopped Brian Viloria to retain the lineal/WBC flyweight title on an excellent HBO PPV card at Madison Square Garden in New York.

• Ringside memories on the 16th anniversary of when the great Bernard Hopkins authored one of his best performance as he routed then-middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik in a major upset in a nontitle fight at 170 pounds.

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.

Tszyu photo: Joseph Correa/PBC

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