Podcast: Talking Spence return delayed until spring, Ryan Garcia's change of plans
Plus: full recap of Showtime's tripleheader topped by Martin's domination of Rivera
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Welcome to the Fight Freaks Unite recap podcast coming off the final notable fight weekend of 2022. We recapped and discussed all three fights on Saturday’s Showtime telecast that was headlined by the outstanding performance by lightweight contender Frank Martin in his one-sided win over then-unbeaten Michel Rivera. Plus we went over news of the week.
Here’s what we discussed on this episode (in order):
Martin’s superb performance against Rivera in a lightweight title eliminator and where it puts him in the division. Who would we like to see him fight next? What about Rivera’s future?
We also went over the other two bouts on the card, super middleweight Vladimir Shishkin’s hard-fought unanimous decision over former titleholder Jose Uzcategui in a title elimination fight and bantamweight Vincent Astrolabio one-sided sixth-round knockout of Nikolai Potapov in a title eliminator.
Showtime’s report during Saturday’s broadcast that Aidos Yerbossynuly, who suffered a traumatic brain injury, had surgery and spent time in a medically induced coma following a brutal 12th-round knockout to secondary super middleweight titlist on the network on Nov. 5, has been released from the hospital and was able to return home to Kazakhstan earlier this month.
Unified welterweight titlist Errol Spence Jr. saying that he remains sore following a recent car accident — a 14-year-old took his parents’ car on a joy ride and smashed into Spence’s car — and that while he is OK the planned announcement of his next fight (probably against Keith Thurman) will be delayed and that he likely won’t be back until between April and June. Also, some thoughts on Spence’s comments about revisiting talks for an undisputed fight with Terence Crawford.
Ryan Garcia’s about face, announcing that he has decided not to have a January interim bout and that he will instead go directly to the planned April showdown with Gervonta Davis. We discussed whether that was the right move and how Golden Boy’s executives are against Garcia’s decision and wanted him to have the interim bout.
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.
Spence photo: Ryan Hafey/PBC
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