Punches and Punchlines
Punches and Punchlines
David Benavidez vs David Morrell PPV
Picture this: a boxing event that promised fireworks but left us feeling like we watched a sequel that didn't quite live up to its original. We start with the much-anticipated Fulton versus Figueroa 2, which, despite the hype, was a bit of a letdown, akin to a movie sequel that should've stayed on the cutting room floor. However, Stephen Fulton's choice of attire, resembling jorts and Timberland boots, provided a comedic silver lining to an otherwise forgettable fight night. While some fans found moments to cheer, we couldn't help but commiserate with those left underwhelmed by the outcome.
But just when we thought the night couldn't recover, the undercard bouts came swinging with excitement! Kumail Moton, the 18-year-old prodigy, brought the house down with his skillful performance against an older opponent, evoking memories of a playful yet fiercely competitive match. Cuello's astounding comeback from a knockdown to win by knockout against Olivo added another layer of thrill. And who could forget the spirited clash between Jesús Ramos and Jason Rosario? We couldn’t resist comparing the bout to a quirky "monkey versus banana" scenario, which brought a much-needed dose of humor to the night’s festivities.
As the main event featuring David Benavidez and David Morel rolled around, the stakes soared higher. We dive into the controversy of the 11th round, where Morel’s late punch and subsequent point deduction stirred up debates. It was a bout filled with emotional intensity and strategic mishaps, but we found moments of levity by likening the referee to Colin Jost's father. Despite the heated exchanges, the post-fight sportsmanship reminded us why we love this sport. To our listeners, thank you for your unwavering support as we continue this boxing journey together, and we invite you to share your thoughts on these thrilling matchups. Despite using ai to write a description that makes us sound smarter, as always, we will break down the best in boxing... with a sense of humor.
Welcome to Punches and Punchlines, where we break down the best in boxing with a sense of humor. And now your hosts, fritz and Franco.
Speaker 2:Welcome back everybody. Thanks for joining us for this episode. We had a nice little pay-per-view on Prime Video last night, headlined by David Benavidez versus David Murrell, and there was some good, some horseshit and some fun in there. Franco, I definitely thought it was enough to talk about and come back, and then we got some big fights coming up that we want to preview before we're going to be gone for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's not a whole bunch of stuff coming up. There's some things on the horizon, but yeah, the main event was a lot of fun. I had to go to a guard competition, which for anybody out there that doesn't know what high school guard is, it's. They dance and flip flags. Usually they're with the marching band and my daughter had a competition. It was. It was a thing for it, it was. It was awesome to see my daughter perform. It was awesome to see her team do well and then they had grown adults doing it and I had to sit through that shit when I knew that there was good boxing on. So, luckily, I was able to eventually get home from almost wisconsin and watch the fight with you and we were able to see some of them also kind of bullshit by pbc that you weren't able to rewind the fight, which that's happened to me before we should.
Speaker 2:I'll interrupt you. We uh, we were able to go back after a minute and then watch the replay, but because I hadn't seen a couple of the prelims, we went back and watched that. So I had already watched all the undercard and didn't want to watch it again. So that's why we I chose to go to the prelims. You know it took me a minute to find that, but yeah, that's why we didn't get the pay-per-view portion, just because I didn't want to. That was on me. Franco and I guarantee even adults in a marching competition was still better than having to sit through one of those fights. But we'll get into that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's dive into that one.
Speaker 2:Let's do it. You tell us all the time that you can't play boxing. We prove them wrong. Every episode with our segment called Playing Boxing Playing Boxing is brought to you by the people over at ZipX Toothpicks. Go to ZipXToothpickscom and to the code PUNCH10. You can help yourself quit smoking and save yourself 10% on your order. So go over there, check them out. It will help you and it will help the podcast at the same time. Check them out, and, uh, it will help you and it'll help the podcast at the same time. So why not, uh, make that happen now, franco, I? Uh. Usually we'd start with the, the main event. I want to get the shit out of the way first, but just address the garbage that was on this card. Fulton versus figueroa 2 fight of the year was just trash. It was so bad. You know what this fight was. This fight was the phantom menace. That's what this fight was. This fight was the Phantom.
Speaker 1:Menace.
Speaker 2:That's what this fight was Because, like, there was all this excitement from oh, it's been a couple years and they're doing it again, oh, this is going to be great, you know. And then you get in there and it was just garbage. It was punch, punch. Hug was the password for this fight, because it was just garbage. The most entertaining part of this was that Stephen Fulton was in Timberland boots and his shorts looked like work jeans.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. They were jorts. He was legit wearing jorts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was the most interesting part was his outfit. The rest of this fight just sucked. My godson was over watching this and after that fight he's like man, I'm too sleepy. I gotta go home. Like he missed the main event because that fight was so boring. Is out there thinking about watching highlights. Avoid fulton versus figueroa too. It might, might make your eyes bleed, like it's that shitty of a fight. I was embarrassed how excited I thought the fight was going to be and how bad it turned out to be. Maybe putting phantom menace and this in the same sentence is a disservice to phantom menace, because at least phantom menace had darth maul. You know where you're like. All right, well, that was exciting for six seconds, you know, until he he got killed off maybe rise of skywalker, yeah oh it was.
Speaker 2:It was just such a disappointing movie, or I mean movie and fight. Yeah, I wanted to get the garbage out of the way first. I think I saved you from having to even watch this, franco. I'd say, even check out the highlights. But there was none. There was zero highlights, it was just a garbage fight. I think if anybody was tuning in for their first fight, they'll never watch boxing again. Like that's how bad it is bad.
Speaker 1:I luckily saw very little about that fight. I did see the jorts and tims. That was ridiculous looking. Uh, the only person who can even kind of pull that off is john cena, and that's it. Nobody else should be rocking that look anymore. It was pretty bad, but it was interesting.
Speaker 1:There are two very divided camps online and it's like Fulton fanboys that are saying, you know, oh, it's good to see him come back. You know, one loss doesn't define a fighter. This was a master class of bullshit, just all bullshit. And then the other half are people saying the exact same thing that you said, where they're all like I don't know how this fight was, because I fell asleep. This was the best nap I've had in my entire life. Like there's tons of comments like that and it was enough. Where I I didn't have to even look because you had shit on it, so bad. I was like we have a finite amount of time on this planet, fritz, and to waste it watching something that sounds that bad, I'm good, I'm good yeah, the last thing I'll say about it.
Speaker 2:It made a shakur stevenson fight look exciting, like that's how bad this fight was. So let's get to the good now. On the undercard of this that we watched together, there was a kid come out. I think he was 18, kumail mutan oh yeah, just came out and was bullying this dude. That's about 8 10 years older than them and at one point you know like he was never really in trouble. Zaldivar, you know the guy from Aladdin.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, so yeah, Moton took down Zaldivar and, like I said, they when they stopped this fight like Zaldivar wasn't in trouble, but he also wasn't in this fight at any point, so I wasn't mad at the stoppage on that one. This was just a fast kid that was basically toying with Zeldabar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he didn't even have to put an extra coin inside the machine to predict his future Like in big. It was right. I thought the kid looked good. He didn't look amazing, but he's also a kid like you. He's where you want him to be for his age. So I I thought it was good and it was. It was a fun one to watch before all the really really good ones kick off right.
Speaker 2:And then the last fight on that, that undercard or on the prelims, was a fun, fun fight that kind of switched how it was going in the last two rounds. I'd say no, I'm talking about Cuello versus Olivo. Yeah, and Olivo was up for most of that fight. And what the announcers had said is that on the scorecards, olivo was up on every judge's scorecard going into that 10th round. And then, for those that didn't see it, cuello gets knocked down in the second round, first time that he had been knocked down in his career. He came in at 14 and 0. Olivo was just peppering him and countering him, caught him off balance, but it was still a punch that knocked him down. His gloves touched the mat, so it was a legit knockdown. Olivo was just having success. But Quayo was still sneaking in these shots here and there. That I that in real-time action. It looked like, oh, maybe he pushed him down. But then you look at Olivo's face and I think both of us knew at that moment. We're like, oh, that wasn't a push, he is in pain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought it was an exciting fight, it was a fun one. Only because Christian Olivo was the underdog on that fight. And I don't want to say that Quayo looked like some kind of a world beater, but you could definitely see him step on the gas, uh kind of lay it on thick once he, once he I don't want to say he felt desperate because it was only a flash knockdown, like he got to, he went down, he popped up right away, but he definitely kind of started throwing caution to the wind and stepped on the gas, ended up paying off for him like had he not done that, I think he would have lost. Like the judges had it right, I definitely had Olivo up. I like a good underdog story. So for it to not finish off that way, that was a little bit disappointing. But also kudos to Cuello.
Speaker 1:Also Argentinians. You know like it's hard to root for them. Fritz, it really is. The only one is the one who shares a name with me. Franco Maximiliano Ocampo is the only is the only Argentinian guy that I can really get behind. So that part made it a little bit tougher for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. Just that was. His only way to win was to come out score the knockout. Did he know that at the time? I don't know, maybe he thought it was closer than it was, but after they read those scorecards you know before that round, yeah, he was definitely going to need multiple knockdowns or the knockout to win, and he got it. And, like you said, the body shot lands, just puts him right to the deck and you could see he was in a lot of pain. When he beats the count, they let the fight start again. Coyote just comes in, lands almost the exact same spot and sends him to a knee again and he gets up before the 10 count. But the rep didn't like what he saw and, you know, just waved it off. I don't know if that was the right choice, but I also saw how much pain he was in, and did he need to take one more shot to his liver? Probably not. So you know, we've said before it only takes one second to end somebody's life, so I'd rather have you end it a second early than a second late. So it ended up being a good fight, though that led us into the pay-per-view portion of this Now.
Speaker 2:Did you see any of Jesus Ramos versus Jason Rosario? I did just highlights, but I was able to see it Now, my favorite part of this fight. Franco is jesus ramos, his uh nickname is el mono and uh, for those that don't uh speak spanish, that's the monkey. All right, yep. And uh, jason rosario. His nickname is banana, all right.
Speaker 2:So this is literally the monkey versus the banana, and I'm not surprised at all that the monkey won. You know what I mean. Like what's the best the banana can do? Make you, make you slip. Like there was no peels inside the ring. So rosario definitely looked like a banana. You know that was ready for banana bread. You know what I mean? Because you let it over ripen and it got bruised. You know where you're like, ah, I can't eat this thing anymore. But you know what I can make a nice loaf of banana bread. So it's not all his law. And, yeah, this ended in a knockout as well, and it was more or less that the ref had just seen enough. I don't think Rosario was in real trouble when the action stopped, but he also was never really in this fight. He was landing arm punches, he was getting hurt, he was definitely taking shots and it was like all right, you could clearly see that rosario wasn't in the fight.
Speaker 1:Might as well just save him from himself yeah, this was definitely kind of what you were saying about the last fight, one of those things where if you watch just the stoppage, it's kind of like, was this correct, was it not correct? But if you put it all together, the referee did a great job stopping this fight. The knockdown that happened happened in the seventh. You could tell it rung his bell. He wasn't the same. After that he wasn't, he wasn't in the right place. So for the referee to step in and stop it, I thought it was good.
Speaker 1:Also, we've seen El Mono. We've seen Ramos a bunch of times now and he's a fun fighter to watch. I really, I really like him. It's somebody that I don't necessarily need to see him in a big main event yet necessarily, but he's perfect on the undercard, he's perfect where he was at because it's just entertaining enough. And, yeah, I mean I'd love to see him keep climbing up the card, but it's always fun to see him on there because then it makes the pay-per-view feel like it's worth it. We've definitely had some cards where there's just a bunch of nobodies and then a huge name at the top and it's like balance it out. These are long shows. Five six-hour shows Give me something to tune in for at the beginning and, yeah, having El Mono devour a banana and leave it bruised.
Speaker 1:The only thing left to do with the banana now is for them to make us some dominican banana bread. That's it, fritz.
Speaker 2:There's nothing left to do with him now and then that led us into what I thought was the fight of the night I isaac cruz versus on health fiero. Yes, okay, and this was just a banger of a fight. Like it was really a lot of crews early, but I don't know what the hell fiero's chin is made up. The actual pontiac, fiero, couldn't handle the kind of beating that on health fiero put up with. You know what I mean. Like he was just built incredibly solid because he was taking shots right to the chin, right center of the forehead, right to the temple. The worst that ever happened was he got a little wobble. You know what I mean. He wasn't stunned, he wasn't doing the stanky leg, he wasn't doing any of that stuff.
Speaker 2:He was just banging right back and it was incredible just how much action was involved in this one. I absolutely loved it. Now, one thing that I'll say about this here were the scored cards. It was a unanimous decision. For Isak Cruz, All right, Pitbull takes it it was 96-94, which I was like I could live with that card, Either way you put it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:For Figueroa or for Isak Cruz, all right. And then the other two I disagreed with were 97-93 and 98-92. The guy watching 98-92 wasn't watching the same fight that I was, because Fierro had some success throughout this fight and I want to see Angel Fierro fight again because of this. He was not just happy to be there, I could have seen them raising his hand in this one. It was that close, just action-packed throughout. It was a joy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for anybody out there that likes old professional wrestling, if you remember, on old WrestleManias the main event would not be the best match of the night. It would end up being like Shawn Michaels or something way earlier on the card and that's all people would talk about. That's kind of how this was, which is crazy because the main event was really, really good and yet it's pretty unanimous. Everybody keeps saying this is like a fight of the year candidate. This was a great fight and it wasn't the main event. This wasn't the big fight, but these two dudes were just exchanging vicious punches. I agree with you that the 97, 98, 92 is ridiculous. Like there's no way. It was so much closer than that. I wouldn't even be mad if somebody would have scored it as a draw. No-transcript. Otherwise, you know what the winners are the fans. We got to see a banger of a fight. My question is do they run it back?
Speaker 2:I would love to see that and that would have been an absolute perfect. And your winner, by unanimous decision, is everyone that got to watch this fight. That's who really won. You know what I mean? That would have been perfect for Jimmy Lennon Jr to say.
Speaker 1:Everybody gets a free Big Mac with your tickets, right, lennon, jr to say um everybody gets a free big mac with your tickets.
Speaker 2:Right, it was just so great, um, but I hope they do it again. It was an absolute banger of a fight. It was like the yin to the shit yang for the fight that came, uh, after this. You know what I mean. So I'll always be a fan of uh, isaac pitbull cruz, because he knocked our our buddy, romero uheless, took his belt that he was gifted by somebody vacating. So, yeah, it was just an absolute joy of a fight. Anybody that wants to check out highlights from this weekend, make sure you check. Isak Cruz versus Angel Fierro. It was absolutely a joy.
Speaker 2:But the main event was David Benavidezides el monstro all right, the mexican monster versus david morel. David morel came from cuba, defected from cuba and now resides in minneapolis, minnesota. I'm a I'm a big fan of minneapolis and minnesota in general, franco. Every time we've seen a fight at the armory, it always looks like it's an absolute blast, and that's on my fan nerd bucket list of places that I want to watch. A fight is the Armory in Minneapolis. But as much as David Murrell was game in this fight, he wasn't the better fighter. He definitely put up a lot tougher fight against Benavidez than others. Have you know? Recently Benavidez was able to walk through Demetrius Andrade. He was able to walk right through Caleb Plant. He's been able to to beat these top tier guys. I thought that even in this loss David Morrell didn't hurt himself in any way. I think he's got good fights ahead of him at 175 or if he can go back down to 168. I know that he had campaigned there for quite a while, so the future is bright for both of these dudes. I'm interested to see Now February 22nd is the rematch of B-Ball versus Better B-Ab.
Speaker 2:I'd be interested to see whether he's able to get a title shot against whoever wins that. You know what I mean Like able to get a title shot against whoever wins that. You know what I mean like. That would be a joy to see whether he can compete with the elite at 175 or whether he's that next level down. The only way to tell for sure is if he takes on either b ball or uh, better be it. That would be my next fight. I'd like to see him take on the winner or even the loser of that fight. I think it'd be a good stepping stone to get to Undisputed for him If he, let's say B-Ball loses the rematch and Better B of stays at Undisputed. I could see B-Ball versus Benavidez being a fight I would pay for for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I loved this fight. I thought that it was so much fun. There was a little bit of controversy with the fight toward what was it? The 11th round. Well, first of all, during the fight it was a lot of back and forth, but later in the fight Benavidez was definitely dominating. It wasn't as much back and forth.
Speaker 1:I don't want to say Morel was getting tired, but he had been eating really, really big, heavy punches, like even Benavides' jab looked brutal, and so for him to just be getting picked apart over a span of time, that's going to start to wear you down a little bit. In the 11th round, benavides ended up going down and then almost immediately after the round ends and Morel keeps throwing way after the bell. Here's the problem. Benavides was throwing a million punches right up to the bell. One came maybe half a heartbeat after the bell and then there was another beat and then Morel ends up throwing this wild punch while the referee is already in between them and stopping and saying stop, stop, stop. He throws it super late, gets deducted a point, and so people are kind of trying to hang their hat on that and be like well, it should have been closer.
Speaker 1:No, like it ended up being a wash in the end. I don't think it would have mattered in the end, even with how the scorecards ended up going. So for people to really be harping on that, I don't know that it really makes that much of a difference. And also it did show a little bit of how morel knew that he was down, like he was frustrated he was, he was getting emotional and that would be one of the main reasons for him to throw that late punch. Is he's going off of pure emotions, but also he had been getting his his head rocked in for the previous 10 rounds.
Speaker 2:It showed his lack of experience too. You know we're this made benavidez 30 you0, and I think, coming into this, morel was 10-0 or 11-0, something like that, I think. You know Colin Joe's dad got it right when he took the point away because it was clearly after the bell. Everybody wants to look up the referee from the main event, benavidez versus Morel. It definitely looks like it's Colin Jost's dad, and Franco pointed it out. I just didn't want him to forget to include that this episode.
Speaker 1:Thomas Taylor. I was trying to look it up while we were discussing. Thomas Taylor is the referee's name and it is totally Colin Jost's dad. I don't care what anybody tells me. It looks like an aged Colin Jost, um, but he's been around for other fights, it's just he was like an extra he was like an extra colin josty this night.
Speaker 1:Um, otherwise the other like kind of not obnoxious thing. But there's two very different takes with this fight, everybody agreeing that it was an amazing fight. It was, it was action-packed, there was no clenching, like I think we were like maybe three-fourths of the way halfway through and I go, have they clenched even once? Like there was zero hugging in this fight and it made me appreciate how they were just going toe-to-toe. Some people were saying that the knockdown was actually a trip because of how he placed his foot and other nonsense. And it's like no, that's not how this works. If you have your foot to the inside and you punch the guy hard enough with your left hand that he trips over your foot, that shouldn't have gotten punched that hard. Like that's just how boxing works. It's not like you picked them up and took them down.
Speaker 1:But a lot of L takes by people where they're just saying stupid stuff like oh, he's not ready for Canelo and this just goes to show that Benavides isn't that strong. Why can't you say that Morel just fought that well? Like right, benavides fought better and Morel made him look semi-human. But also maybe Morel is a really good fighter. He was absorbing huge punches, he never gave up, he was landing big shots in return, like it was just a great fight. Why can't we just kind of accept that there was a wonderful fight that we got to witness, instead of like nitpicking it and saying that somebody who's really, really good maybe isn't as good as you thought? That could be said for every fighter that we've watched, where none of them have looked that dominant right.
Speaker 2:You could almost have that in every sport too. You know, like, yeah, canelo is big enough that there are canelo fans that aren't necessarily boxing fans, you know what I mean. So they'll tune in and just watch it through the canelo fan eyes, where you and I have said before like I love boxing way more than I love any boxer. So I think that keeps us with a little better perspective than some people have. You know, when you go in and you're just looking through the lenses of, oh I love Canelo and Canelo fans don't like this guy, so I'm not going to like this guy. You know what I mean. That's how I think they go about it. It's a shame you get to check out more stuff if you take those lenses off. It was, yeah, overall, just a great fight. Well, it was a really, really good fight. I'll say that, like the Isak Cruz versus Fierro, that was a great fight.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That was an absolute joy. Benavidez versus Murrell was really good, just like every other. Oh, this is a grudge match. They don't like each other. They're hugging at the end of it. Yeah, it's so annoying. And the afterwards too, when benavida's like oh, I actually thought he would hit harder than that. So, uh, you know I'm shocked by that, and like the talking shit afterwards too, I think is dumb. You know it's like all right, you got your win. You got your your fake belts. Just go home with those. You're the winner. Take the high road. Either way. I'm looking forward to what these guys both do next. That's kind of what I had to say about this fight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know that, with the chirping and the bad mouthing and then the usual hugging afterwards. I hate to say this because I've coached high school sports for almost a quarter of a century and have always preached sportsmanship and taking the higher ground. But a small part of me kind of wants to see a boxer take off the gloves after a fight, not go over and shake the other guy's hand and flip them off and be like no, I meant that I really don't like you, I am going to hunt on your family and murder your children and whatever other horrible, stupid things that they say.
Speaker 1:I want them to stand by it just once, like one time. Let me believe that it's real, like kayfabe and wrestling is. When people believe that it's real with boxing, I feel like I'm so cynical about all of it and I'm like none of this stuff before the fight is real anymore and just I don't. We know that. I want to believe it, fritz.
Speaker 2:I want to believe that it's real just one time I just like when I see every press conference, I'm like oh, there's a Rube that's buying this.
Speaker 2:You know, there is there's a Rube out there that's getting this pay-per-view just because of this yelling match that's going on. Either way, it was definitely worth the pay-per-view I'm looking forward to in a couple of weeks February 22nd is the Bevol versus Better Be of rematch. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. I think that will be the next time that we have an episode to break that stuff down. There are a couple of cards that I will certainly watch. Next weekend there's one on ESPN, I think. The following weekend there is as well, so we'll have some content plus that pay-per-view Beavol versus Betterbeev.
Speaker 1:Now I have a question On that card, betterbeev and Beavol are. Daniel Dubois versus Joseph Parker and Shakur Stevenson versus Floyd Schofield. Are those all on the same card? I think Virgil Ortiz and Madramov.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I believe so, like it's a stacked night of boxing and I'm certainly looking forward to it yeah, it looks like callum smith and jalei zhang and virgil ortiz jr uh versus madra madramov might also be fighting jalei zhang. That, oh that would be amazing, though yeah, take all my money yeah, so we're gonna have plenty to talk about on that one.
Speaker 2:Anything that's between now and then is gonna have to be pretty good to make it through. But, like we've done in the past, people, we will watch all of it and let you know what was good and what you can uh fast forward through. So before uh we part ways, franco, I have a trivia question for you and see whether you're uh ready to go I am so nervous.
Speaker 2:these are so nervous. These are now David Benavidez oh, monstro is not. He's undefeated at 30. And oh, now I've gathered up four names. Three of these names, he has defeated in the ring. One of them he has not. Here we go Kevin Cobbs, alberto Gutierrez Diane and Felipe Romero. Who did David Benavidez not defeat?
Speaker 1:Let's go, alberto Gutierrez.
Speaker 2:He did beat Alberto Gutierrez. Diane Vecchietto was a failed White Sox prospect. You know what I heard the name and I'm like that's an athlete. I remember that, God damn it.
Speaker 2:So I'm glad I was able to finally sneak one by yeah you got me, I'll have something, uh, you know, ready for the next episode too, and, uh, I want to thank you for doing all the work and, uh, you know, getting it out to the people. I certainly appreciate it. I want to thank everybody for for tuning in, for listening, for subscribing. If you're listening, whatever platform you're listening, if they give you a chance to give a review, leave a review. I appreciate the people that have done it. Yeah, if you don't have anything else, franco, I'm throwing in the top Thank you for listening to Punches and Punchlines.
Speaker 1:Make sure to like, subscribe and follow and we'll see you next week when we break down the best in boxing with a sense of humor.