Punches and Punchlines
Punches and Punchlines
Cinco De Mayo Boxing Bonanza
Cinco de Mayo transforms into a global boxing extravaganza this year with major fights spanning three consecutive days across the world. We're gearing up for what could be the most action-packed weekend in recent boxing memory.
Before diving into the upcoming fights, we analyze Richard Torres Jr.'s underwhelming performance against Guido Vianello. Despite securing the victory, Torres' wild haymakers and poor footwork raise serious questions about his potential as a legitimate heavyweight contender. Has ESPN been overhyping this entertaining but technically flawed fighter?
The conversation turns somber as we discuss Joe Joyce's concerning loss to Filip Hrgović. Once a granite-chinned contender on the verge of a title shot, Joyce now appears a shell of his former self. His once-legendary punch resistance seems compromised, and his already methodical punches look even slower. Despite his post-fight insistence on continuing his career, we wonder if retirement might be the wiser choice for his long-term health.
On a more positive note, Tim Tszyu successfully bounced back from consecutive defeats with a solid TKO victory over Joey Spencer. Though effective on offense, Tszyu's defensive vulnerabilities - particularly his limited head movement - remain a concern against elite competition.
The weekend ahead features an embarrassment of riches for boxing fans. Friday brings Ryan Garcia versus Rolly Romero from New York, alongside Devin Haney facing Jose Ramirez. Saturday features Canelo Alvarez defending his titles against Jaime Munguia in an unusual Saudi Arabian setting rather than his traditional American Cinco de Mayo showcase. The weekend concludes with Naoya "The Monster" Inoue making his highly anticipated US appearance in Las Vegas on Sunday.
Which fight are you most looking forward to this weekend? Join us next episode as we break down all the action from this global boxing celebration!
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 got another episode for you. Thanks for tuning in, thanks for subscribing what we have going on. We got a quick recap of what we saw, not this past week but the week before, and we got a lot of stuff coming up. This weekend. It's, uh, cinco de mayo weekend. There is so much boxing every night. Franco, it's stacked. Friday, saturday, sunday. There is a little bit of everything mixed in here.
Speaker 1:It should be a fun weekend filled with boxing yeah, the crazy thing is that cinco de mayo falls on a monday, but we all know what cinco de mayo weekend means, and of course it's that anyway is going to be fighting. That's yeah, that's what, like, they're synonymous with each other. But there's some other fights going on, so we'll get into those after we break down these other previous fights. So, uh, you ready to do this, fritz?
Speaker 2:I am. He tells all the time you can't play boxing. We prove them wrong every episode with our segment called playing boxing. And for our recap, we're going to start with Franco's favorite his boyfriend, the man, the myth, the mustache. We are talking about Richard Torres taking on Guido Vianello. Franco, because this is your favorite, I want to hear your takes on it first and then I'll react.
Speaker 1:I have a bad feeling that we're going to probably agree on this one. So, first of all, you know it's no secret, I love me some Richard Torres Jr. He's got this ridiculous look. That's our 80s porn star boxer friend and the look is great.
Speaker 1:He did not look great in this fight, neither did Guido Vianello. I don't know, it looked very amateurishish, but that would be an insult to amateur boxers. It was just hugging and holding and then waiting and then the throws that they did throw like these punches that richard was throwing were just so wild. It was like like a playground fight, like the way a little kid just throws a haymaker bad footing. His feet were in terrible positions. He was just lunging and throwing and then they would hug and I'd like to think that we just chalk this up as like a one and done kind of a throw away him struggling with this fight.
Speaker 1:I I don't know he looked small, but I mean that never stopped, mike tyson, you know what I mean. Like it was not a good fight. It was just two dudes that have competed at an elite level in like the olympics and stuff and then did not look good in this fight but maybe maybe they had like a bad shrimp cocktail or something. Uh, I I don't know, but I still love him. He's still like very entertaining to me. Just I personally was not entertained by this actual fight.
Speaker 2:I agree that I think that Richard Torres is an entertaining fighter. However, I think this was the first test where we're like, all right, can he be a contender, can he challenge for any belts? And the answer to that, after watching this, was no, I I don't think so. Like he's. He's a fun story and a fun kid to watch, but I think if you put him against top 10 heavyweights, it's it's not going to look good. This was his first true test where guido valanello, like you said, has some success in the olympics and he's had some success as a pro and even in this fight.
Speaker 2:Richard torres won, but guido villanello later on in this fight was definitely having some success when he decided to use his height as an advantage, yeah, and was working the jab and really frustrating richard torres because, like you said, he was coming in throwing wild, but I don't know what other options he had because when he was trying to come in slow, he was just getting picked off on the way in with a good jab. That I saw this as a close fight, but I definitely agree with the judges that Richard Torres won this fight, but I think we'd learned something about both of these fighters and that neither one is really going to be a threat for a belt. Maybe they proved me wrong, and I would love that, you know. But just based on this fight where I saw this going in as a test for both of them, bienello, are you, you know, back on your winning ways? Are you a legit guy that's trying to climb the rankings? And to richard torres, I was like all right, are you just an espn darling or are you a legit boxer?
Speaker 2:And yeah, from this fight it looks like the espn darling is more the true story. It reminds me, you know, I still love him, but it was almost like the clay collard story, where for a few fights he looked great and was fun and then you start putting a bump against real contenders. You're like, oh well, that wasn't as fun anymore. Yeah, that was. Uh, you know, it was still a decent heavyweight fight. Like you said, there was a little too much hugging to have it be like, oh, you guys got to go watch this yeah, do not go watch this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not worth it there was.
Speaker 2:There was more joy in this one than the other heavyweight fight that I've watched. Franco, did you watch any of joe joyce versus flip porgovic?
Speaker 1:yeah, this was that man that was sad, it was awful and you know what. Here's the thing all of these guys, when you compare it to usic and fury, like there's no way in hell it's. It's what I imagine other basketball fans would have felt, like that weren't from chicago during the 90s. Like why are we even doing this? Why are we wasting our time? Just give them all of the trophies. I think joe joyce is done. To be honest. He needs to retire the amount of damage that he took. It like that can't be healthy. You know what I mean. Like at some point, uh, somebody, somebody's being negligible by sending him out there like wrap it up, this was not good, but I don't know what did you think for it?
Speaker 2:he said after the fight too that he was not retiring, that this was just a small setback, and he's. I saw a guy who is absolutely done. I saw in joe joyce. It reminded me of totally different scenarios, but it reminded me remember when mc hammer was top of the world all right, early 90s, uh, you can't touch us. It sold 40 billion copies or whatever. And then, uh, within a year he's on tv asking for money because he's broke, like that's. Joe joyce was at that pinnacle, like he was a mandatory for the heavyweight titles, you know, and then lost it by taking an interim fight against big bang zhang and has not been the same since. He got destroyed twice by zhelei zhang. And then who beat him in between that too? Oh, is it his fourth in a row losing or his third in a row losing?
Speaker 1:this is his second. There was one win uh in between with cash ali, but otherwise the two zhang fights and then he won one, and then chisora and bergovic. Yeah, like when you lose to chisora, that's.
Speaker 2:That should have been a sign right there that you're gonna fight. But yeah, this was, I remember, getting excited for a joe joyce fight, because you were like all right, this guy comes straight forward, he's just landing bombs, he's got a chin made of granite. Well, clearly, that granite ran into a chisel because it's not the same anymore now. Hergavik had him, had him hurt a couple times. Now, granted, he did land one or two bombs that set hergavik back on his heels, but at no point did I think that hergavik was going to lose this fight. It just it felt almost uh melancholy watching this fight because you're like, oh I, this is not the joe joyce I remember. This is too bad because I do, I do like the guy as a fighter. I'd almost like to see that be his last fight. Or, you know, take on, uh, richard torres, see whether you know what?
Speaker 1:that would be such a horrible fight because I'll also throw in this about the Joe Joyce fight His punches were so slow. That would be such a horrible, slow, boring fight. I it would make me sad because I do like Joe Joyce like as a human and that's why one would step away. And Richard Torres, I just like him for entertainment value. He fights like like Rocky, where it's just sloppy and ridiculous. And then Joe Joyce is fighting like your, like your internet is buffering, so combining the two of them would be a worst case scenario I absolutely want to see now joe joyce versus richard torres and I'm taking torres the whole time like oh, for sure he's, he's winning that fight.
Speaker 2:Joe joyce, absolutely done. You know, who could have been done was Tim Zou. If he lost this fight against Joey Spencer, that would have been three in a row for sure. But no, he comes back, scores a TKO when Spencer's corner throws in the towel, and to Spencer's corner's credit. I thought that they did the right thing, because the first round Spencer looked good and then in the second not as good. It's just was progressively getting worse. Where zoo needed this win, you know like, yeah, he had took his split decision loss to, uh, sebastian pandora and then got knocked out by Bokram Amar-Mertelzelev.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I see that now, and I Bokram bakram mertazeliev.
Speaker 2:That's probably an absolutely wrong, but it's close and the dude is a badass where he, after losing to fundura you know, to tim sue's credit he wanted to jump right back in and it was offered a title shot and took it. He was not ready for it. From the blood loss that he had from the fundura fight, I think he should have taken a year off. But this fight against joey spencer now, granted it's, it's not a world champion, it's not a guy that has had a lot of fights at 154, but he needed this win and whether it's just a confidence boost, whatever it is, he got the win. Uh, look good doing it too. So because in that fight against bakram he was getting knocked all over and I was like oh God, this, this is not the way to come back from your first loss. So two defeats in a row, his only two of his career, and now is back on the winning track. Hopefully, you know, there is a rematch with Pandora soon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I thought it was. This was a good fight. The only thing with Tim zoo that gives me pause is the same thing that I had said about Ryan Garcia in the past, which is just, his head movement Isn't really there. The defense isn't great. So you know, joey Spencer isn't awful, but he's not a champion, he's not a world beater and I think that's where Tim's who's running into problems is. He just he has shitty defense and so once you get to an elite guy and you're putting your head on a tee for them, they're going to knock your head off.
Speaker 1:But you know, if he bobs and weaves a little bit more, he moves his full body. It's just, it's like a split second too late, but it was good to see him get his win. He, he moves like a good boxer, it's just. Yeah, the defense isn't there. His head just kept getting rocked in, but he was able to close it out nice and quick. He looked good once he was laying it on, but, again, kind of like Ryan Garcia, that's what he relies on. He relies on being able to get that offense in and not really worrying as much about the defense. But once he was moving, once he was landing at the end and they threw in the towel.
Speaker 1:You know good for him and and I do like him. I like the announcers for this fight even more. They were just like these. I don't know if they were australian they might have been from new zealand but they were completely unhinged and just saying crazy shit the whole time when the fight ended. They're like tim zoo rises from the ashes and it was just all over the top and I love that kind of stuff. Like I eat that stuff up, but yeah it was fun and I know you.
Speaker 2:You keep pushing your ryan garcia agenda. We'll get to him in a minute. I know that you can't wait to talk about your favorite fighter such a piece of shit, ryan garcia.
Speaker 2:We'll talk about him in a minute.
Speaker 2:We do have him coming up this this weekend coming up. It's crazy. There's a pay-per-view friday. There's a pay-per-view on saturday. If you buy both of them, there's a package deal, franco, so I'm probably going to do that. Oh and then, uh, on espn. On sunday is another card with. Are we saving the best for last? I owe you anyway, on sunday perhaps, but uh, I think the people out there know that anytime they listen to us, we're brought to them by ZipX Toothpicks. Go over to ZipXToothpickscom. Enter the code PUNCH10. Save yourself some money.
Speaker 2:I'm starting to not like the cinnamon as much lately, franco, so I'm leaning heavy into the mocha lately. Maybe I'm maturing, you know. I don't know, but I'm going to recommend the mocha to everybody out there, like we were saying. So, friday, saturday, sunday it's all Bach, all right. Now, friday here's who we have going on a Friday Franco from New York city. Devin Haney versus Jose Ramirez Okay, that's a good 140 pound matchup. Ryan Garcia versus Raleigh Romero All right, a cheater versus a scumbag. Now I don't even know if they could both be disqualified, that's what I'm gonna root for.
Speaker 1:Yes, the old double knockout, yeah, that would be wonderful. Actually, a draw might be the only way that we win, or or maybe disqualification before the fight even happens. I don't know, but is this actually being held in time? Square like outside, oh I didn't.
Speaker 2:That's how they're pitching it.
Speaker 1:It's uh, but let's in time. Square fatal fury. But is it like out on the streets or do they have it like inside somewhere?
Speaker 2:I thought it was I thought it was at barclay center, uh, at madison square garden, but I could be wrong. It happened once before, but yeah, they're, they're in new york city. And then, uh, tiafema lopez versus arnold barboza is going on in that card too. So, yeah, that's three fights that are well, two out of three fights that are going to be worth tuning in. For now this is for anybody that's not familiar devin haney sued to get his record reinstated after ryan garcia tested positive for, I think, 600 different performance enhancing drugs allegedly, so somehow he got his the, the loss, taken off of his record. Now they're on the same card, but they're not fighting each other, so it's another, like cash grab.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I'm gonna buy the pay-per-view, so maybe that part of it's working, but why not just go into an immediate rematch? Why do you have to do these interim bout? There's no belts on the line for either one of them, but it should be entertaining anyway. And lopez is, I think, the main event, because he's the only one on this card with the title no I think they have them like three down maybe who knows it should be.
Speaker 1:And the fact that ryan garcia and raleigh romero are the main event for this thing is ridiculous. The whole thing is just cartoonishly bad and, yeah, I hope they both roll their ankles in like the third round and so neither of them get the win. It's like a double dq something, something. It's just too bad. People. I don't know. From from a wrestling fan point of view, that's bad booking. You know you can't have a heel and a heel you could, you could, and some of those have been good.
Speaker 1:I don't think this one's going to be that good. I think it's going to be a shit show of a fight. But I do think ryan garcia is going to take this one because raleigh romero is just straight duty. Caca dude is terrible. It's like not a good boxer, not a good person, not a good anything. Uh, he's good at irritating people. He's that kid, you know, the one that would make like fart noises in the back of the class way past it being funny the first time, that's raleigh romero. So, yeah, not as excited about this one as I am about the main fight of the weekend, as much as I love anyway, on saturday we can't skip.
Speaker 1:Yeah, saturday, yeah, absolutely. Oh, as much as I love, anyway, saturday is the fight, not necessarily because of who's fighting against each other, but because it's Saul Canelo Alvarez's. This is his Christmas right, or maybe his Easter right, because Independence Day is closer to Christmas, but Cinco de Mayo has been owned by Canelo for years.
Speaker 2:How long now it feels like my entire life, right he's the king of Cinco de Mayo and he's taking on William Skull, which I think is the IBF mandatory, and this was part of a bigger fight deal. So if he gets through this, he's supposed to take on Terrence Crawford next. Crawford is on his retirement tour, I think now, where he just wants a couple of big checks before he fades away. But either way, do I think Scull is going to put up a big competition? I don't, but on the undercard we've seen evidence of a guy that we didn't think was going to be big competition. Come through with a win All right Now, right before.
Speaker 2:The co-main event on this is Bruno Saras versus Jaime Munguia too. So those two guys right there can prove anything can happen within the ropes. Is it likely? No, but it can happen and I think it's. I'm. I'm looking forward to probably saras versus munguia more than I am canelo versus skull. Then fa ajagba is going to take on martin baccoli, and we remember how well martin baccoli took care of the last top rank heavyweight that, uh, he was throwing against when big baby anderson was sure that he was coming out of there with the wind. We still haven't seen him since then. I think those, those cartoon birds are still circling his head from the giant punches he took right to the face.
Speaker 1:That's a fun card and well worth the pay-per-view. Yeah, baju Jack is on there too, which he's fun, but really the only thing that, like makes me a little bit nervous as far as this fight goes is Canelo is not fighting here, so they're fighting in Saudi Arabia. And that makes me nervous. Like, how are you going to do a Cinco de Mayo fight? How many Mexicans are going over to Saudi Arabia? Maybe a handful, you know, but it makes me a little bit nervous as far as how the crowd is going to be. They're still going to be pulling for him, they're going to be pulling for Canelo, but it's not going to be the usual wave of 100,000 people in Dallas just screaming their heads off.
Speaker 1:I also wonder how reserved his introduction is going to be. He's probably not going to have the 150 mariachis come out and sing him out, because I don't think they have 150 mariachis in Saudi Arabia, probably a little bit hard to find. So, looking forward to the fight either way, I love watching Canelo, love watching him do his thing Like he's just so elite in the way that he fights. Always look forward to the fight either way, I love watching canelo, love watching him do his thing like he's just so elite in the way that he fights, always look forward to it, but with the location and everything, I don't know that it'll have all the pomp and circumstance that it usually does for a canelo fight yeah, it'll definitely be a different vibe.
Speaker 2:Maybe instead of the mariachis he just got a guy with the boombox playing mariachis, like he's got the old big 1982 giant boombox on his shoulder and he just walks behind canelo on the way out. That's what I'm hoping for. If you can't have the mariachis, at least have the giant boombox with the mariachi music blaring.
Speaker 1:That would be incredible yeah, I'm trying to think what, like amazing mexican rock star musician hasn't come out with him because somehow he pulls down whoever's the hottest in like mexico at that point, that's who walks him out. So yeah, I'm kind of curious to see what he ends up doing. Or if it is just like you know canned music and they just play them out to whatever. But that'll be fun. And then Sunday it's the monster, for it's Naoya Inoue. But he's finally fighting here in the United States, in Vegas. I can't wait, I can't wait. I'm also curious again how is the location going to affect this fight? What do you think?
Speaker 2:Oh, I think you can drop Nioh anyway on the moon and he's still going to draw a crowd and he is going to beat the shit out of people put in front of them. You've seen, or at least I've seen anyway, Japanese fans will travel to watch their sports stars.
Speaker 2:You know, when I was at the white socks hosted the All-Star game in 2003, and I went to a bunch of the different they have, basically you buy the one ticket but you got to go all three days or you got to buy tickets for the three days in order to go to the All-Star game. So there was plenty of Japanese fans all in their Hideki Matsui jerseys and stuff like that. But I was like good for them. I'm like that's cool that you travel literally halfway around the planet to come support the guys. So I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 2:When ichiro was in all-star games, there was always a giant japanese contingent that would show up to those games. So at least from what I've seen, they do travel. And yeah, we've been to las vegas before. It's not like you're like, oh, how come there's no asian people here. That's not the case. Like there, there are a number of asian people in the city of las vegas. So I think that it's going to be a rousing success. If I didn't have other things to do this weekend, like that would have been more. Like maybe a trip to vegas would be worth it, where we could have watched friday, saturday in the casino and then went live sunday like that would have been pretty wonderful yeah, I think it's going to be great, but also I'm excited to watch boxing at a normal time, like not at five in the morning yeah, I'm looking forward to that for sure.
Speaker 2:You know it'll all wrap up on that Sunday night and you know we'll have to get together with everything fresh in our brain on Monday to chat about it, cause there is a lot it's going to be a lot to discuss.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, it's a. It's a whole lot of boxing, it's a whole lot of you. You know, sometimes we'll get to be able to skip a lot of the stuff on the undercard because it's just stuff that they threw together last minute, but that is not the case with the cards this weekend. These are these are some stacked cards yeah, are they going to? Be great fights who knows?
Speaker 2:but I think they should be if anybody is not sure about buying the pay-per-views. If you, if you're like I'm only going to buy one of these pay-per-views, make it Saturday. Saturday is going to be the much better, at least on paper. Saturday will be the much better of the pay-per-views. Friday is like a nice appetizer that'll lead you up into Saturday and Sunday. I'm still going to buy it on Friday as well. So you know, check it out, franco. If out Franco, if you didn't have anything else that we wanted to check, uh, catch up on or discuss, coming up, I have a trivia question ready for you. Uh-oh, uh, still waiting for your uh streak to be over. I think you're only at two, so that's not too bad. I went. I went weeks without without getting one right.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I hate that when I I hear the names and they sound familiar, but I don't know if they sound familiar because it's from something else or it's from boxing, I'm like, oh, I know that name and then my brain just shuts down, so I'm ready this time though okay, so in honor of cinco de mayo weekend, nioya, anyway.
Speaker 2:Uh has defeated 29 people, franco. Uh, which of these people has he not defeated? The monster has not defeated one of these. One of these guys, franco, and I'm I want you to pick it out was it jamie mcdonald, charlie cox, ricardo rodriguez or yuki Sano? Ricardo Rodriguez? You are absolutely incorrect. Oh no, he did defeat Ricardo Rodriguez. He did not beat Charlie Cox. Charlie Cox is the actor who plays Matt Murdock slash Daredevil in the Netflix and Disney Plus series Daredevil.
Speaker 1:So it sounded like a good boxing name, like yeah, could be from the uk. You know a bunch of guys with records of one and 151. Yeah, I'm trying to tell like charlie cox record.
Speaker 2:It would be, you know, like 14, 44 and three. You know what I mean. Like that's who charlie cox sounds like. You know, if he was a really good boxer, it'd be just Charles Cox third or the third, or something like that, you know.
Speaker 2:All right, franco, I'll have to get something prepared for you for next week. Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to boxing this weekend for anybody. Like we said, strap it in. If you're not going to buy any boxing this weekend, you can still hear us talk about it. Uh, on the next episode, we'll definitely be breaking it all down. And sunday, if you have espn, that's the nioya anyway, fight is free. I n o, u, e is how you spell. Anyway, if you're looking for it, if you want to do a search, watch some of his highlights before the fight even comes on. Nioya, anyway is an absolute joy, so make sure you watch that. And uh, yeah, thanks for subscribing, thanks for franco to doing all the real work, and if you don't have anything else, franco, I'm throwing in the towel 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.