Punches and Punchlines
Punches and Punchlines
How Mikaela Mayer Reclaimed Her Crown and The Towering Inferno Returns
Mikaela Mayer's masterclass performance against Sandy Ryan left us in awe of her boxing excellence. After a controversial first bout ended in a split decision, Mayer removed all doubt in the rematch with flawless technique, perfect counter-punching, and a complete game plan that neutralized Ryan from the opening bell.
The fight evolved beyond anything we expected – while Ryan showed heart and occasional flashes of power, she simply couldn't match Mayer's brilliance. By the mid-rounds, Mayer's dominance was undeniable, forcing Ryan into increasingly desperate tactics in the final round when it became clear she needed a knockout to win. What stood out most was Mayer's versatility, fighting effectively whether moving forward or countering off the back foot.
We also dive into Sebastian Fundora's impressive return to action. The "Towering Inferno" defended his 154-pound titles with a spectacular fourth-round knockout of Cardell Booker. At 6'5", Fundora isn't just a novelty act – he's officially the tallest world champion across all weight classes and brings legitimate skills and excitement every time he steps into the ring.
The William Zapata versus Tevin Farmer contest delivered unexpected thrills, with Farmer showing tremendous heart while absorbing punishment that had his corner begging him to take a knee. Yet somehow, he weathered the storm and found moments of success in a fight that embodied everything we love about boxing – skill, heart, and the unpredictable nature of combat sports.
Looking ahead, we preview an action-packed upcoming weekend featuring Tim Tszyu fighting in Australia, Richard Torrez facing Guido Vianello in a compelling heavyweight clash, and Janibek Alimkhanuly defending his middleweight belts. Boxing's heating up and we're here for it all!
Have you watched Mayer vs Ryan 2 yet? If not, make it your priority this week – it's the kind of performance that reminds us why we love this sport so much.
As always, the boys break down all of the 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 welcome back everybody.
Speaker 2:We've been away for a little bit but, as we've said in the past, when we got something to talk about, we will be back with an episode, and there were some fights just this past weekend that I'm excited to talk about. We got a few other things that we will discuss, but the reason we are doing an episode is mckayla mayor versus sandy ryan. 2 was absolutely worth talking about. I just love this fight and I can't wait to get into that one with you, franco. It was a ton of fun. We also had well, it wasn't pay-per-view, but if you're a Prime subscriber we had a card with Sebastian Fundura, and then I saw some highlights of Zapata versus Farmer that I really enjoyed too, so maybe we can touch on that a little bit, along with everybody's favorite part of the show. Franco, I got a trivia question ready for you in honor of the late, great big George Foreman. I got a trivia question to commemorate my love of George Foreman, the boxer and the man man behind the grill.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know the guy did plenty. He definitely deserved his 10 bells during that funder fight. Before that fight started, they gave him the ceremonial 10 bells. So that's where you know. Start thinking of some George Foreman trivia, because that's what's coming for you.
Speaker 1:Great. I can't, actually I'm looking forward to it. Love George Foreman. The man did it all. It was super entertaining. But before we jump into the actual show, we have been off the air for so long that you retired from comedy there. Which very few people it was. It was a very crowded show, uh, and I felt like I knew everybody in there, like I had to go around and just kept saying hi to people.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh my god there's so many people in there, I know it was.
Speaker 1:It was a great show. Anybody that missed it, you missed out on a once in a lifetime opportunity. Shame on you. But it is on youtube, am I correct?
Speaker 2:yeah, you can uh, search up fritz, go on fishing. And uh, it'll bring it right to my farewell performance. You can watch that on YouTube. I recommend anybody that has enjoyed any of my stand up throughout the years. Maybe you liked my album Feature Creature. Maybe you like that. Maybe you'll like to see my farewell performance. Just go over to the YouTube and, yeah, search Fritz, gone.
Speaker 1:Fishing. Yeah, it was. It was a lot of fun. Highly recommend everybody watch it, or, if not, you know, the album has a lot of the same stuff because fritz did go into the wayback machine for the final performance, closed it out with one of my all-time favorites. It's a fun show, so anybody who who did not get to catch it uh it was. It was a bittersweet, it was a sad send-off. Brits is walking away from the game like jordan. You know he's gonna wear the four or five and start boxing.
Speaker 2:Now that's, uh, that's gonna be his next thing. So, yeah, we got some, some fun stuff since we've been away and, uh, I'm ready to get into it. Franco, how about you? Yeah, let's do some boxing. They tell us all the time that you can't play boxing, and we prove them wrong every episode with our segment called Playing Boxing For those that are trying to quit smoking. This segment is just for you. It's brought to you by the people over at ZipX Toothpicks. Go over to ZipXToothpickscom. I know in our last episode, franco was able to put the link right there in the description and you enter the code punch tent. You save yourself a couple bucks and you'll probably be saving your saving your life. You know you won't be wasting all that money on cigarettes. Waste your money on some toothpicks instead. So, let's, let's save the reason we're getting together for last and just jump into the highlights now, because we're not, uh, the zone subscribers anymore.
Speaker 2:We didn't get to see this full fight, but farmer versus the payda was fun. Like that was a really good match, and at times I thought farmer should be saved by the referee. Okay, um, but then toward the end of this fight, I was like is he gonna win this fight? You know like it was such a good contest and I loved every minute of it. If any uh listener out there loves us so much that they want to pay for our year subscription, uh, you know, drop us a note, let us know We'll. We'll absolutely let you gift us a a zone subscription so we can cover more action.
Speaker 2:But just watching the highlights of this one I recommend checking out the highlights because it didn't end how it started. You know it didn't end how it started. You know there were some swings. It was everything you want where a guy had skill and heart and farmer. But zapata, I thought, was just a little better. I didn't see the whole fight. Maybe if I watch the whole fight I see things a little differently. But got just from that highlight package I was reminded oh, this is why I love this sport. There were so many swings and the heart that farmer was shown while he was just getting pummeled and his corner was begging him to take a knee and he still made it out of that round on his feet and then had some success After that. It was just a fun. We've seen Tevin Farmer fight before. We've never doubted his heart before. You know, nothing changed in this fight.
Speaker 1:It's tricky because we did just watch the highlights. But it's a lot of highlights, like it's a. It's a good amount of stuff. Sometimes, you know, you click through the highlights to refresh your memory of a fight that you saw and the highlights are all of a minute 20. It's like, oh my god, I sat through 12 rounds to watch a minute 20 of good stuff this was a lot of good stuff.
Speaker 2:This fight's highlights were longer than shakur stevenson's career highlights. That's like how much more action was going on in this it was.
Speaker 1:It was so fun yeah, I thought farmer looked tough in the highlights. I wish I could see the whole fight to see if I would score it the same way. Just based off of what I saw, it looked like it could have been a draw, but at the same time, zepeda looks like he's whooping the hell out of them because it's highlights and so it's like, well, who are they highlighting? Like, is there a spin on this from DAZN so that they can try to make their guy look better, look worse? And it's hard to tell it's. It's hard to tell. Uh, especially because the scores were really close.
Speaker 1:Uh, one of the judges had it as a draw, so it's kind of like, was I missing something? He looks like he's getting his ass beat but at the same time he's just he's farmer's a tough dude, but william zapata is a really good fighter. Did they skew it in the highlights? I don't know, like you know, if you guys saw the entire fight, somebody shoot us a message. Just based off of the highlights, it looked like a lot of fun. Uh, yeah, you know zapata is a great boxer, but farmer is just kind of a grinded out, kind of blue collar dude, and that's what you get to see in the highlights. You know what? Run it back, or if not? I look forward to watching both fighters just based off of the highlights, almost like a movie trailer it's like absolutely it piques my interest for the next time around.
Speaker 2:It was good enough that I look forward to watching both fighters. Just based off of the highlights, almost like a movie trailer, it's like, yeah, it piques my interest for the next time around. It was good enough that made me jangle my hat, asking for listeners to buy us a uh a zone subscription. So that's how good this one was. You know we mentioned that. The Sebastian Fandora card. You said you saw the just the highlights of that card. Or did you only see the highlights of that fight?
Speaker 1:said you saw the just the highlights of that card, or did you only see the highlights of that fight? No, just the, just the highlights of a fundora, which that one is only like three or four minutes long, like it's a super short highlight reel yeah, that was ko4, so that didn't go very long.
Speaker 2:I almost wanted to come back with an episode after the first fight of that card was like a total robbery. I didn't want to come back with an episode just bitching that a guy got robbed. I don't throw around robbery very often because you know if there's, especially in close rounds where you're just like, all right, well, that could have gone either way. I think it should have gone for the red corner, but I could see where it went to the blue corner in the first fight. I don't even remember the guy's names right now because I didn't want to bitch. But there was another robbery on that card and I was sitting there kind of disgusted. I got my mind right when they were ringing the 10 bells for George and then our buddy Sebastian Fundura all 6'5 and a half of him, 154 pounds comes out. He actually was underweight for this one, like he came in at 153.6 or something like that, which is crazy that a guy that tall could even make 154, let alone be under it. So that was incredible.
Speaker 2:Cardell booker tried look like for the first half of this round and then almost seen like he accepted his destiny as the loser. You know he's just like all right. No, I can't get near this guy because when I try to, his punches actually hurt when I get on the inside. So I don't, I don't want to. I want to fight at range but oh shit, he has me outreached by like 40 inches so I can't. I can't do that. So he just like tried to run around the ring a little bit.
Speaker 2:It ended in the fourth round with a knockout. Like booker gets knocked down and then beats the count and then just starts getting wailed on again. It was the right call. I think this was Colin Jost's dad that was a referee in this fight too, and he made the right call that just saved this dude. Booker was not on his best game that day. This was the first fight that Pandora had to defend his belts. It had been a long layoff since he fought tim zoo and took tim zoo's belts in that. I don't even know if I don't know if it won fight of the year, but it was a brawl where they were both just bloody messes. I think zoo zoo is fighting this weekend, but I think he's already fought twice since that fight as well. So I was glad to see fundora back. I'd like to see him get a little more active. Pbc can really hide their guys away for a while, and I hope that's not going to be the case.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love watching him fight. We've talked about him a bunch of times. He's like a light-skinned minute bull, like just so tall and so lanky. The fact that he's taller than Usyk, the heavyweight champ and he clears him probably by a good five feet, like he's 10 feet tall. You know he's 15 feet up in the air. It's so weird looking.
Speaker 2:They showed a statistic that night that he literally is the tallest world champion right now. Taller at 154. He's taller than any heavyweight. He's taller than any cruiserweight. He's taller than any light heavyweight. He is taller than all of them by. I think it was like two or three inches. The next like there was a cruiserweight champion who is like two inches shorter than him, that's the guy that's closest.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's incredible and it's so weird and I mean I haven't weighed 154 since I was in college, like my freshman year. It's crazy. But he still has muscle to him, like he's athletic but freakishly tall is almost unfair. It's like some kind of a ridiculous cheat code. I, I love watching him.
Speaker 1:Even after he lost the one match, still a huge fan didn't even care about the other dude. It's like, oh, he lost to brian mendoza. Brian who don't care, doesn't matter, because brian mendoza isn't a freak show and in all the nicest way possible, fundora is he puts the fun in Fundora. I love this dude. It's such a weird thing to watch but when he comes on, you're captivated, like even somebody who knows nothing about boxing is right away, they get it. They're like, oh, what the hell is this? And it's like, oh, yeah, this guy's a freak, watch what he's about to do. And then he does it and he seems like a nice guy on top of it, which just makes it even better that we're rooting for, like the rooting for the good guy, and I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's all action and has some power. You know, he's like one of the guys that almost act like they're getting paid by the punch. You know where it's. It's just fun to watch him go at it. I'm hoping his next defense is real soon, instead of putting it off another year or, you know, even six months, like give us a quick turnaround. Give us see, this was March. Give us a July fight. That's what we want, sebastian. Give us a July fight. You and your sister co-headline it. I know she's got two belts at 122 or 112, I forget where gabrielle alfandora is a champion. But, yeah, make it an all-family affair already. Can't wait to see him back in action yeah, he's.
Speaker 1:You know, he lives in coachella. Maybe they could have it during the festival that would be.
Speaker 2:That would be sweet.
Speaker 1:I would like that you could go watch doji or whatever. And then, oh, who's that guy that I can see towering over the mountains fighting in a ring? Let's go check it out, it's perfect.
Speaker 2:That's the towering inferno.
Speaker 1:That's who that is. So yeah it is.
Speaker 2:That brings us to why we got together today. Franco michaela, mayor, versus sandy ryan, too, exceeded the first one, in my opinion. Yeah, like the first one was a close decision that mayor won and I wasn't sure that she won that fight. There was enough rounds that were close that when the judges gave it to her I wasn't mad about it. I was like all right, I could see, you know, that round going that way. I might've had Sandy taking that one, but I could see how somebody else might think differently. All right, so that was a split decision. Victory for Michaela Mayer.
Speaker 2:This one was all Mayer. First couple of rounds I thought Sandy Ryan was kind of hanging tough, but then it was like an all Mayer up until the 10th where Ryan started kind of going for broke, where she's like all right, I need at least a knockdown to win this fight. Yeah, if not a knockout in Ryan, I think has fallen too much in love with the power that she thinks that she has. I don't know, because you know, in her early to zone shows we were watching her. You know, knock people down and knock people out, but it's not people we've seen at the top of a card anywhere.
Speaker 2:So now that she's fighting this elite level. Maybe the power is just not. It's easier to knock out the people on your way up than it is when you get on the top. But this was just great action where anytime Ryan would throw and miss, mayer was there with just beautiful counters that were landed right on the button. It was so good to see you know Mayer was fighting off the back foot, she was being aggressive coming in. It was really just a complete, all-around victory for michaela mayor, and I will tell anybody if you have espn at all watch all 10 rounds of this fight.
Speaker 1:It's a joy yeah, you know, I, I love making fun of you each time we break down a michaela mayor fight and I'm like, oh, it's fritz's girlfriend, you know, no matter what she does, he's just to gush over her. But I am ready to say it, this is probably the best that I've ever seen Mayer fight, like from rail to rail. In this fight she did not waste time. She looked good, she was moving well. Her, her power looked a little bit more correct. Like you know, before we would see her swinging for the fences and I agree, I don't know that the power is there, but this time this was like technically perfect, like she did everything that she could do and did it perfectly. She played the whole thing right.
Speaker 1:I don't know if Sandy Ryan started late, like she just, you know, was going to try to feel it out for the first couple rounds, but either way, she didn't look terrible, but she wasn't. She ended up looking desperate later where in the beginning of the fight she looked fine, but it's not like she was the one putting the pressure on. I thought she looked good in the second round and then that was about it. After that this was after the first fight. I definitely didn't feel right about it. You know, after that first fight I was like I don't know. I think Sandy Ryan probably took it. I was not 100% convinced that Michaela Mayer took it. Plus, there was all the shenanigans with them throwing paint on her and weird stuff, and it had a bad vibe, had a bad feel the whole way around.
Speaker 1:This time, no doubter, like 100%, michaela Mayer took this. She looked great. I hope that she can keep it going. You know what I mean. Like I hope that she can kind of keep this pace and and the the output that she was doing. Like I don't know if it was just great conditioning or she paced herself well, but at no point was. I was like, oh, she's starting to burn out. Here we go. She looked, she looked amazing. She's only 34, feel like all the other dominant champs that we get. They're all in like their 40s by this point. So she's still young enough that we can. We can get more mileage out of her and I think I don't know if she did something with with her training or if she did something different, but something about her in this fight looked different. She was more dialed in, it was perfect. It was perfect and I have to give her her props.
Speaker 2:I can't talk shit about her this time because I thought she looked great and the fight was entertaining as hell. Yeah, maybe she has just settled in at welterweight too, because she went from one 30 to one 47. Like she skipped a 35 and 40 and went right to one 47. And maybe she's just settled in, like she has the frame to hold 147. For sure, she just looked really good in this fight.
Speaker 2:And I do, like sandy ryan like if you want to say like my boxer is the best, they just beat that bum. Well, if you beat a bum, that doesn't make you great, you know what I mean like I think that michaela mayor took on a good opponent and was the better boxer. I do think that Sandy Ryan is good. I think that she needs I don't know just better training or something, because her whole fight game wasn't there or she was just neutralized too well by Michaela Mayer. So I know that we're going to see Sandy Ryan again.
Speaker 2:I just don't think that her next fight should be a title fight. I think she needs to go back to build the contender status. But to be honest, I would watch the third fight on this trilogy, but I'd I'd rather see mayor go get another one of the 147 pound belts or Brian, go try to fight somebody else, get a belt and come back with something to bring to the table. You know you're already lost your WBO belt to Michaela mayor. You know, maybe go grab the uh garbage WBA or the garbage WBC and bring that to the table. Michaela Mayer can go get the IBF belt. It could be two good belts versus two shit belts and we'll have a unified welterweight champion again for the first time since our girl McCaskill.
Speaker 1:I'll give Sandy Ryan this she looked her shots looked powerful. She looked better than we've seen her in the past. I think the only thing that holds her back is at this point her record kind of sucks. It's seven, three and one, which isn't bad. I mean, obviously that's decent. But part of it is she likes to shoot for the stars, like she fought against Jessica McCaskill. She fought against Terry Harper, you know she's taken on Michaela Mayer twice and those are for the most part the fights she ran into trouble, other than when she fought Erika Farias. But she's shooting for top fighters and then not quite getting over and that's kind of like screwing up her overall record. But anyone that's watched her you know she's a good boxer, she's talented. She's only 31.
Speaker 1:I think the thing that is going to make sure that Sandy Ryan keeps getting fights and it's terrible to say but she's from the UK, you know like they love boxing to such a ridiculous high level they'll pay for her to fight almost anywhere. You know what I mean. The UK fighters are going to get work. We're going to see her again. I just that record. That record. I think she's going to fall down a little bit as far as like who she's able to fight, but I do think that she's going to work her way back up and we're going to see more of Sandy Ryan later. Just, I don't know that it's going to be high up on the card right away, but you never know what the women, because the pools are so shallow, so anything's possible.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, anybody's any of you puncher maniacs that are listening your homework is to go on your ESPN app and watch mayor versus Ryan too. It was an absolute joy for 10 rounds. If you're just a scumbag too, both of them are.
Speaker 1:Uh are attractive too. So uh, if you.
Speaker 2:If you don't like the box he's killed. They're uh both uh nice looking so it's his girlfriend, yeah so, franco, I I got a trivia question ready for you should we do what's coming up next uh, yeah, let's do what's coming up next first and then,
Speaker 2:and then we'll close out with the trivia question now this might shock uh, some of our listeners, because we've been gone for whatever four to six weeks, something like that. We're gonna be back next week with an episode because april 5th is stacked. All right, there's. Uh, tim zoo is fighting in australia. Uh, richard torres is fighting here in the united states against guido vianello yeah, so that's going to be excited a fun, you know, heavyweight matchup.
Speaker 2:That's one of the guys that we've kind of asked the like let's see what richard torres has and guido vanello is. This is going to be a test for him too. Like, all right, are you able to beat? Like a guy that's had some success? So this should be an evenly matched. Uh, I'm I'm curious what the the odds are in that fight. I might take whoever is the plus money on it. You know what I mean. Like, whoever the underdog is, I'll throw some.
Speaker 1:I'll throw a few bucks on them, just because I could see it going either way yeah and uh for any of our creepy female listeners richard torres and vio guianello not bad looking dudes. Just throw that out there too absolutely.
Speaker 2:You get tom selleck versus uh the spartan from 300? Yeah, exactly, ridiculous beard, you got that going for you. And then also on espn uh, john emac, uh, aleem canuli is defending two of his middleweight belts.
Speaker 1:I'll be watching. You say the other guy's name uh, I didn't even try.
Speaker 2:Uh, annual, uh, nope, not even gonna give it a try. Uh, there's a lot of a lot of vowels without a consonant, or a lot of consonants without a vowel. I'm not sure where the emphasis goes on which syllable so I'm just gonna it's uh, annual, uh, n, annual n.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm gonna go with. So, yeah, good luck with that one uh. But yeah, we'll, we'll cover all that stuff next week what you should watch, what you should skip. I'm already looking forward to being back next week. Talk some more boxing before we go. I'm going to see if you can answer this trivia question.
Speaker 1:All right, here we go.
Speaker 2:If you get it right, you'll have a question ready for me next week. If you get it wrong, you'll have to try again next week. It's one of my trivia questions. So the late, great George Foreman, big George Foreman, passed away on March 21st 2025. Who of these gentlemen did not get beaten by George Foreman? All right, joe Frazier, sam Wilson, ken Norton or Bobby Crabtree.
Speaker 1:Which of those?
Speaker 2:four men did not get beaten by George Foreman.
Speaker 1:I thought you were going to go bobby hits for a second there um, definitely got beat by george foreman, yeah uh, I will go with the last one, bobby crabtree bobby crabtree.
Speaker 2:No, bobby crabtree did get beat by george foreman. Oh no, george foreman never beat sam wilson uh, captain america, and the falcon uh.
Speaker 1:So sam wilson uh is undefeated versus george foreman uh, which comic did they fight in when the issue number it was, yeah, it was that came out after the success of muhammad ali versus superman yeah, yeah, they're like well, we got to do one too yeah, let's try sam wilson versus george foreman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so uh, yeah, there you go. Everybody uh franco could not uh come through he, you don't got a brother, he was probably expecting a dc name, and I threw a marvel name at him, yeah. So uh, if I would have said matthewdoch, would you have gotten that one?
Speaker 1:Actually probably. That sounds super familiar. Why do I know that one? That's a daredevil uh real name, so still haven't watched it. Need to watch it.
Speaker 2:Yes, you do. It's a pretty wonderful. Plenty of scenes in a boxing gym, and that one for, uh, any any of the listeners that haven't watched daredevil on Netflix or Disney plus. I definitely recommend checking it out. So, yeah, that's a that's it. We'll be back next week with another episode. I appreciate it. Everybody tuning in and to listening, thanks for subscribing. We certainly appreciate it. Thanks to Franco for doing all the real work. Uh, once the computers are shut off here and if you don't have anything else, Franco off here and, uh, if you don't have anything else, franco, I'm throwing in the towel.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to punches and punchlines. 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.