Punches and Punchlines
Punches and Punchlines
Punch Drunk Love: Why We Can't Quit This Sport
Boxing's heavyweight renaissance takes center stage as we unpack three thrilling encounters that showcase the division's exciting present and future. Oleksandr Usyk's masterful performance against Daniel Dubois demonstrates why many consider him potentially the greatest boxer of this generation - his footwork, angles, and newfound power combining to form a complete fighting package at age 38. "This guy literally - you put him in any era, he could stand in there with the greats."
The emergence of 20-year-old Moses Atama provides a glimpse into heavyweight boxing's future, as his stunning two-minute demolition of veteran Dillian White announced his arrival on the big stage. We break down how Atama's relentless pressure and power overwhelmed White from the opening bell, creating the kind of statement performance that instantly elevates a prospect's profile.
For fans of old-school heavyweight slugfests, the Filip Hrgović versus Arlene Adeleye bout delivered primitive excitement with two massive men trading thunderous blows. The eighth round particularly captivated us, featuring a knockdown followed by a dramatic momentum shift that exemplifies why heavyweight boxing at its most raw remains uniquely thrilling.
The super welterweight division gives us something to discuss as Sebastian Fundora dominates Tim Zuu in their rematch, while we also touch on Raymond Ford's creative Tom and Jerry-themed boxing attire and ESPN KO's emergence following the conclusion of their Top Rank partnership.
Looking ahead to September's superfight between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford, we examine why this clash between pound-for-pound elites represents a must-watch moment for both hardcore and casual boxing fans. Will you join us next time as we break down what happens when "God versus Allah" meet inside the squared circle?
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 to this episode of Punches punchlines joining me. As always, the guy that does all the work, one of my best friends in the world and fellow boxing fanatic, franco campo, is here to do with us hello everyone.
Speaker 2:Franco, we, we've been away for a little while, but we are uh, we're not your normal podcasts, you know like we're not trying to get people in with the video. We're not your normal podcasts, you know, like we're not trying to get people in with the video. We're not trying to send them over to our patreon, we just we're here to talk boxing and we've said in the past, when we have something we're excited about, we will talk about it yeah, we're bad at generating money.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm here.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, we're good at spending money, right but we are big boxing fans, so we tried to come back with a usik dubois episode, but the timing just wasn't working out. But we are going to talk about it now and a couple other things. There's some real joy in the heavyweight division that we get to talk about. Then there was some bittersweet in the 154 pound division that we'll get to talk about and, uh, I don't know whether it's their new brand, but espn ko had a card this past weekend. I know that their deal with top rank is over. Maybe now they just have espn ko, so let's talk about that, uh, briefly, but I'm ready to talk some box yeah, let's go ahead and, uh, jump right into it.
Speaker 1:I'm all over the place with what I have seen and haven't seen, so I will be some of them you'll be taking the lead Some of them I have strong opinions on. Either way, we do have a lot to catch up on and fun news. I am officially, as of this past weekend, done with my master's degree, which means now I can spend all of my free time watching, boxing and playing video games like I'm 12 again, like I'm a child. I get to, I get to be a little kid again. Oh, it's great. I'm never going to grow up, I'm going to be a child for forever, but it is nice, like trying to do everything. Before it was, it was impossible and uh, but now, now I'm ready. So, yeah, let's go ahead and dive on into it.
Speaker 2:He tells us all the time you can't play boxing. We prove him wrong every episode with our segment called playing boxing. We are going to cover a lot of ground here today. As you might know, this segment is brought to you by the people over there at zippix toothpicks. Go to zippix toothpickscom. Enter the code boxing franco. They've changed up our code. Oh, they still want to be affiliated with punches and punchlines, but, uh, they said that some random bot was uh handing out punch 10. Uh, or maybe our numbers have just spiked so much that they're like well, this can't be right.
Speaker 1:You're the only boxing people that want to. They want to push our brand. You're all in on punches and punchlines.
Speaker 2:That's what they said so boxing is your new uh promo code. Enter that in at checkout and I think you still save 10%. Maybe they boosted it up because we're you know, we're here for them and they're here for us. It's a beautiful marriage.
Speaker 2:I want to start with Usyk Dubois, because that was such a joy. This is this is not hyperbole Franco Alexander Usyk might be the best boxer I've ever seen. He's on another level. It's not just talking crazy. This guy, literally you put him in any era he could. I'm not saying he's going to beat every heavyweight, great, but he's going to stand in there with him. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:He kind of took the Holyfield path where, not even kind of. He took the Holyfield path where he went through cruiserweight and nobody could touch him, all right. Then moves up to heavyweight. People kind of took him lightly until he started getting, you know, just stacking wins and he's gotten better every time out as a heavyweight. It's been incredible to watch.
Speaker 2:And the dude, there's not a hole in his game, like when he first stepped up to heavyweight. You're like, well, he's gonna have to uh, you know, tire these guys out because he doesn't have the knockout power he proved against dubois. He's got the knockout power. It was just such a joy to watch this dude box that left was landing on dubois face just at will. I mean it was incredible that he just could not not land you. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like I think DuBois was like, all right, I should put my guard up on this side. Oh shit, he still hit me. You know what I mean? It was like nothing he did was stopping that left hand. It was incredible. The angles this guy works from. His footwork is reminiscent of Lomachenko. Like I don't know if you've ever watched an Usyk workout video where he does it to music and you can see it's all legitimate boxing moves, but it's done to music and the dude moves like a gazelle, like so graceful. And now that he's bringing this power to like he's a complete fighter and, like I said, it's not hyperbole, franco, to say that he might be one of the best I've ever seen in my life first of all, I don't know if you knew this fun fact about usic that's how he fights the russians too.
Speaker 1:They send him out onto the front line and a tutu though, and he just dances and murders all of them like something out of a tarantino movie. It's, it's pretty great. Uh, you know, I put usic in the same category as triple g, where I feel bad, like had he been born somewhere else. First of all, he probably wouldn't be the complete monster that he is. You know, he'd have some kind of privileged life and grow up in like oaklawn or something shitty, but instead he grew up in in ukraine and he's amazing but but but he's old, like he's 38. And same thing kind of happened with triple G, where it's like it's time to give him his flowers, it's time to put them up on the big stage and he's just been on like murderers road just trying to take out all the best guys that he could.
Speaker 1:Had he been born somewhere else and still had those skills, we would be talking about him in a completely different light. We would be talking about him being just a straight up one of the best of all time, but because it kind of came on late, it's hard to tell. Now I will say this he's the one that kind of screwed up the entire Tyson Fury Bronze Bomber, like all those guys kind of lining up. He came in and just wrecked and everybody that he's faced he beat uh. He beat tyson fury twice. He beat uh. Aj, now he's beat dubois like aj twice yeah, dubois twice.
Speaker 1:It's like. It's amazing, it's sick. He's beating the best of the best and dominating. It is awesome, he is like uh, but for what you're saying?
Speaker 2:those were the pretty girls for a long time it was. Yeah, you know aj and wilder, you know fury. They were the click of the three mean girls at school. And then here comes this transfer student in for just a senior year and she's hotter than all of them combined takes on the whole football team, you know exactly.
Speaker 2:It's incredible. If any of you guys are taking notes, write this down. There's three things of joy. You can get in the heavyweight division that we're going to talk about this episode. Watch usic versus dubois too. You can get the highlights anywhere on youtube or wherever. Just such a joy to watch. And and if you hate your liver every time Usyk lands like a powerful left, you know, take a shot of whiskey, all right, see whether you can survive watching even half the highlights. The other one that I'll mention is the card from just this past weekend Dillian White versus Moses Otauma. This kid is 20, just so, so skilled, and this was his first big step up. You can watch that whole, this whole fight, because it doesn't last very long.
Speaker 2:All right, this kid was coming in to make a statement and statement made all right. Yeah, now dillian white as far as boxers go, like I get it that he's good, but he's like the David Hasselhoff of boxers. All right, because big in Germany, he's huge in Europe and nobody in the United States cares. Or maybe Robbie Williams is the best example. You know, like, huge in the United Kingdom, came over here and nobody knows who he is or cares. They're like are you alan thick's kid? He's like no, no, I'm robbie williams and, uh, I'm gonna make a movie where I'm a monkey. It's not gonna make any sense, but it doesn't have to. I'm popular over there. So that's how I feel about dillian white.
Speaker 2:There is plenty of fights where dillian white if you've heard me talk about it before he, I think started making contracts where it's like all right, you can't uppercut me. You know like that's an illegal punch because. But vetkin knocked him out with an uppercut, fairy knocked him out with an uppercut, aj knocked him out with an uppercut. It was like his absolute achilles heel, but he wore it right on his face and he was the wbc silver champion for years. You know where him and deontay wilder were supposed to fight, but they never happened. Wilder wanted a part of it, maybe because he failed drug tests and took peds, I don't know. But either way, moses atama, this was a real test for him and, dude, it didn't even take a full two minutes for him to knock him out.
Speaker 1:It was so great it was like legitimate bullying, like the amount of punches that he was landing without having white throw anything back. I'm surprised it wasn't stopped. Like you sent it to me before I could watch it, like throwing it on TV or anything. So I just I watched it on my phone and my first thought was, oh, the ref is going to stop it. Oh, the ref is going to. Oh, my God, but I get it.
Speaker 1:It was so early in the fight, how could you stop it? Like you're? Like. You know, people paid their money to see a show, they're going to get a show, and they ended up just seeing a massacre before he got knocked out. Ref waved it off and that was that was it. But holy crap, did Itama make a statement, came in blazing, and this is kind of the opposite of what I was saying with Usyk. It's cool because he's young, like he's only 20. We got some time. Hopefully we can, we can see more. I liked it, it was great, it's exciting. I love a fast fight, as much as there is to be said for the, the science of boxing, the sweet science, and oh, look at how we break down everything to like milliseconds. It's fun just to see somebody get the shit kicked out of them right out the gate and that's that's kind of what this was. He just came out blazing and and it was fun and hopefully he keeps it.
Speaker 2:He keeps the party going I think you described kind of the beauty of the sport that we love is that it's supposed to go. You know, 12 rounds, six rounds, but it can end at any second. You know what I mean. Like in the first couple.
Speaker 2:No, not that quick, but literally we've seen guys that you know, quote unquote, don't have big punching power or whatever, but they land that big shot Our guy from France when he knocked out jaime munguia. You know like those things can happen and that's why it's kind of the edge of your seat. Sport you're not guaranteed, you know like in a football game, to get your full 60 minutes. You're not guaranteed to get nine innings.
Speaker 1:You know like, yeah, it could be over at any second well, and the nice thing with this is, for anybody that didn't watch it, don't feel bad, because this one was a pay-per-view. Like this was on his own. Um, as a pay-per-view. Imagine, imagine paying money. You're like all right, I'm gonna pause, I'm gonna run to the bathroom real quick. You didn't have to pause it. You could have just watched it and then gone to the bathroom afterwards. It was so freaking fast, I will say it kind of reminds me of like when I was a kid and my dad would be all excited to get like a Mike Tyson fight and then it would be over in 30 seconds and he's like ah, like why did I pay money for this? Because it was just so fast, but you still get to see the show. Luckily, it's the future, it's 2025, youtube and a million other streaming services exist, and so we get to watch that part for free, especially when it's done as fast as this one was yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And just to round out, I said that there'd be three heavyweight gems that you got to watch out. Now this one, philip porgovic versus adelaide, I think, is how you say the dude's last name. This was on the undercard of Usyk versus or, I'm sorry, not Usyk versus White, atama versus White. Okay, and it was not pretty Franco, but it was just two giant dudes slugging it out and, you know, blocking punches with their face and just real haymakers just landing with giant thuds, like if you watch even just the highlights, they'll show you the eighth round.
Speaker 2:All right, philip Korgovich scores a beautiful knockdown and now there's two minutes left in the round. So you're thinking, oh shit, he's going to finish this guy off. But he tries to unload and empties the tank in the next 20 or 30 seconds and then is barely barely on his feet at the end of the eighth round, because Adelaide was just landed bombs of his own, and we're like, oh, is this going to be an eight, eight rounds, like what's going on here? It was so fun to just watch a silly heavyweight boxing where it's was the skill the best. No, but they were just landing with these giant lunchbox hands and just two giant men just pouring it all out Empty in the tank. It was fun.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of a Rocky movie. They like swing really exaggeratedly and fall into the ropes and both guys are just launching really wound up punches, big, exaggerated punches. And you're thinking, in real life, any of these would knock a person out. But this, this was real life. And, yeah, after that knockout, I actually thought at one point that the ref might stop it because Herkovich was getting his ass whooped Like he was not fighting back. I was like you don't want to say he got overconfident, because they're just, you know it was a good fight. But yeah, uh, I'm glad that it went the distance and that no one guy got caught by just one random punch.
Speaker 1:Uh, hergovic ends up taking it. Good, but also, holy crap, like good for him for having a chin just made. I don't know what deal he made with the devil to like, oh yeah, you'll be able to take punches, but it'll feel like a child hitting you. Uh, that's obviously the deal that he had, because, you know, monkey, par, whatever, was making wishes. It's, it's ridiculous, it's. It's one of those things where they're probably both going to be looking back on it later in life and be like oh, this is why I have to have my food in smoothie form was that one fight um back in 2025, but yeah, no, still fun though, and on that card as well, raymond ford versus nova.
Speaker 2:Our guy supernova was on this card okay, I did not see this one, all right, and he was there with his mascot and everything and the only. The fight was just good, all right, okay. Um, the only reason I even wanted to mention it is because Raymond Ford came out with Tom and Jerry boxing shorts.
Speaker 1:Oh, no All right, I'm. Googling it right now.
Speaker 2:Turkey said after the Canelo fight that he wants actual fights. Oh yeah, not this Tom and Jerry nonsense. So I thought that that was kind of a funny way to come out with Tom and Jerry shorts. It was a good boxing match. Nova was in a lot of the fight, but it was. It was, I think, a 10 round fight that if nova won a round it would be like one or two rounds it was. They were all good rounds, but nothing where nova you thought was gonna win it. So, uh, it was a good showing by raymond ford. I thought the shorts were kind of funny so that's why I wanted to bring that one up.
Speaker 1:I'm watching the shorts right now. I don't know if anybody out there remembers these. I don't know if you remember these. I always like if I could find one. If anybody knows where to buy one of these, let me know, because they were a part of my childhood that I didn't get to have because we were too poor. But do you remember back in the day they would sell them at like the swapperama, like at the flea market and stuff? They were jackets that were made out of like beach towels, okay, and it would be like you know, looney tunes or whatever, but the material was basically like a beach towel material. They would put some kind of a liner to make it thicker. That's what his shorts look like. It looks like the old 90s, like you know. They'd have the t-shirt of the tasmanian devil and bugs bunny looking like crisscross with their stuff on backwards, and then these shorts would have been right next to that, hanging up in the swapperama. Holy shit, sorry, it's just cut to where they're saying the scores. He has a matching jacket that is awesome.
Speaker 2:There's glitter on it, yeah this is great.
Speaker 1:I love this. Um, if you're gonna commit to the bit, just commit to it. You know, yeah, holy crap, he went all in and they put the everlast logo on there to just to make it official. Ever last right. Really, the only thing I'm bummed did did nova have his mascot? Yes yeah supernova was there with them uh, I had some sweet dance moves. I hate when he loses with him.
Speaker 2:I know it's, yeah, it's almost humiliating, uh, but he's got. He's got a thing. You got to stick with it, yeah I guess so.
Speaker 2:And then nick ball versus I think it was brian goodman was the co-main event on atama versus white. That was a good fight and nick ball, like his nickname, is the Wrecking Ball. I get it Like he's just a scrappy little dude that I just picture. Most of the kids from like Bridgeport this is that would be Nick Ball. You know what I mean? Like just mad that he's five foot four, you know. And I'm streaking, I'm getting close to it, Chris.
Speaker 2:So, he got jacked and now he can take a punch and deliver a punch, but a fun fighter to watch. It wasn't his best performance and even he said that afterwards, but he kept his title and that's always, uh, a beautiful thing one of the other, but I guess, yeah, let's talk about espn last, because I want to get the kind of the bittersweet out of the way too real quick. Pandora versus Zoo, too, was not the joy that I thought it was going to be. Now I was hoping. I like both fighters, all right, so I was hoping for whoever won to just be, you know, a classic like the first one was, or just a good fight.
Speaker 2:This was not a Tim Zhu. As a guy that is a fan of Tim Zhu, he needs to take a break. All right, this is not the same Tim Zhu we saw going into the first Pandora fight. It's not the same dude that we saw who took two losses in a row when he jumped right back in after losing to Pandora for another title shot. This is what I think came after getting two kind of beat downs. He is still a good fighter, but he needs to take a little break and see whether he can work himself back up to a world-class level because Pandora was making easy work of it.
Speaker 2:What Zou used to have, as far as you know, the ability to come forward and not get lit up on the way in is gone. Like every time he was coming forward, he was eating shots on the way in is gone. Like every time he was coming forward, he was eating shots on his way in. I didn't think I'd ever see a version of Tim zoo that in his corner just said I'm done, and that's exactly what we saw. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It. It's kind of sad. But also, sebastian Fundora is back. Baby, like I love watching Sebastian Fundora.
Speaker 1:Every once in a while a boxer comes around where we're just watching the opening fights, the lower parts of the card, and then somebody comes up and it catches our attention and we've said it before puts the fun in Fandora. He's all of 10 feet tall and weighs only 60 pounds. He's Slenderman. He's just this freak of nature tall, super skinny, but also strong and fast. On top of that. I don't know if you heard he's going to harvard what I did not. He is a boxer who's gonna be a harvard student, is a hundred feet tall and only weighs five pounds. It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 1:Like, imagine you've struggled so hard in your life to get good grades, to do everything right to to you know, make sure that you're studying, and then some dude that's a boxer that gets punched in the face for a living is in the same class as you. I'd be like what? Why was I even trying? What? What is happening right now?
Speaker 1:But uh, I love sebastian fundora and it did kind of bum me out because I do like he didn't look right, like the punches were connecting, but I think I don't know if it's because Fandora is so freaky looking that like it doesn't look like the punches are connecting with as much power. But I I've seen Tim zoo take more and be able to weather it, and he was not. He was not weathering anything, he just he looked defeated early. He looked defeated out the gate, caught a couple of bad punches and kind of wasn't into it. Almost like when you go out drinking when you're older and you have like a second shot, you know like maybe your buddy makes you drink a car bomb that you don't really want, and then you're like no buddy makes you drink a car bomb that you don't really want, yeah, and then you're like no, no I don't want any part of this anymore.
Speaker 1:I'm tapping out. That's what tim zoo looked like, like it hit him and he's like I used to like this. I don't like this anymore. Yeah, it's kind of a bummer yeah, it wasn't the.
Speaker 2:It wasn't the best, but it was fun to see fandora do well and, like you said, zoo wasn't landing with what he was landing in the first fight, that bloody mess, even you know, you could say maybe it was just looking different on Fandora. It looked different than the first fight against Fandora. So you know what I mean. The proof is right there in front of us Now. I wanted to close with this Franco. Now ESPN had a fight on Saturday night. It was supposed to be Andrew Maloney versus I forget. It doesn't really matter. But they delayed it like three different times and then he kept agreeing to the changes until they moved it to Mexico City, where the other opponent was from, and he's like, yeah, that's a bridge too far, I've moved the date three times for you. I've agreed to two different locations. I'm not going to this kid's backyard. So he pulled out of the fight.
Speaker 2:I watched some of it. It was just very okay, nothing worth going. But what I wanted to note is ESPN for years has had top rank, and this was not top rank on ESPN, this was ESPN KO on ESPN. Now it was on ESPN plus and it was only broadcast in Spanish, and even at that, I enjoyed the commentary way better than Joe Tessitore. All right, like I was. Like I have no idea what they're saying, but they know how to control their volume and, uh, they're not just repeating the headliners name every other second. So, uh, I did enjoy the Spanish broadcast. I didn't understand much of it. I just waited for him to be like oh Boca, he got punched in the mouth. Okay, there we go.
Speaker 1:I don't think anybody in the history of any kind of Spanish announcing or Mexican announcing has ever said that they have volume control. Usually they're screaming for every word. It might be the first time anybody has ever said that.
Speaker 2:That was. That was for emphasis. You know what I mean. I wanted to make my point against our buddy Joe.
Speaker 2:But yeah, besides that, franco, what we got coming up, we have, we have a lot of, we have a lot of American football coming up and I'm looking forward to that. But beside that, I think we'll be back to cover Canelo versus Crawford on September 13th. That'll be the next big card. I'm going to pay attention to what's happening between now and then as well, but I think that's when we'll be back with another episode. Did you see anything else that you're like? Oh no, we got to come back before that.
Speaker 1:No, I did not. Yeah, the Canelo fight Canelo and Crawford that's like that's a huge fight. For anybody who's like a casual boxing fan, this is one to deal and like to really dial in for. This is like a big deal. This is God versus Allah. Like this is two huge names crashing together. This is a really big deal. And you know people are trying to say that these guys are just trying to sell the fight. They're not doing like the bad blood stuff. You can see they'll make fun of each other a little bit, but both of them keep saying no, that's the best other fighter, like besides me, that's the other dude. And at their weight class, it is like this is two titans clashing. It's it's must see tv for sure. Hopefully it lives up to the hype, because last couple huge fights with titans clashing and then it's like, oh, that I was a wet fart. That wasn't what I thought it was going to be. Hopefully this one lives up to the hype and if you live in the us.
Speaker 2:It's on your netflix, like it's going to be on netflix. It's on your netflix.
Speaker 1:Like it's gonna be on netflix, it's gonna be great. Now what I do have for you tell me is a trivia question. Are you ready? I'm ready, all right. So our boy, the, the towering inferno, sebastian fundora, has beat all of these people except for one of them. Which one has he not beat? Daniel lewis, george coda, carlos ocampo and nathan fillion he has not beaten green lantern philian or the rookie.
Speaker 2:He has not beaten that guy.
Speaker 1:He's unstoppable wrong he did beat him. Plot twist. No, you are correct, he has not beat the new green lantern guy gardener, uh, nathan fillion yeah, I am uh happy to get off the mat.
Speaker 2:Uh, I've been down, I've been down for the eight count for quite a while, so, uh, it's good to get back up and I will uh have a trivia question ready for you on the next episode, uh, when we're back. Like we said before, we plan to be back, uh, right after canelo, uh re-crawford. But if something comes up between now and then that we're like, oh, this will be fun to chat about, we'll come back with another episode between then. Until then, thanks for listening, thanks for subscribing, you know, thanks to franco for doing all the work. Congrats on getting your master's. Thank you, you, you are the man. I, I, I, I'm, uh, I'm proud of you. That's pretty cool. I, uh I live with somebody who got their masters and I seen firsthand that it's not easy. And, uh, you actually got to. You know, put your nose to the grindstone and actually make some shit happen. So good for you, brother.
Speaker 1:Uh, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for subscribing, thanks for doing all the work, buddy, and if you don't have anything else, 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.