Now let me get to some boxing news where Jake Paul made headlines this weekend when he called out Canilo Alvarez and a social media post gone viral. Paul took the social media and accused the four division champion of ducking him by choosing to sign a lucrative four fight a deal for the ri ODD season.
All right, that was on Thursday.
The first fight of that deal will take place on May fourth and Saudi Arabia, where Alvarez will faced William Skull for the underspe the super middleweight championship of the World.
Now, for those of you who didn't see the.
Jake Paul post, hoaj brath Paul's for a second, and take a look at this.
Oh Canelo, you puta and.
This fucking jettube. I just fight freen fighters Tom to expose him.
So we had a signed contract to fight. Here you could see Canello signature and my signature to the right claiming he's not fighting YouTubers.
Bullshit.
Look at the poster we were announcing Tuesday, February eleven, claiming he fights fighters, but he's fighting Crawford, a one hundred and thirty five pound fighter and running from a real fighter like David Benavidez.
You bitch.
The truth is you can be bought.
You're a money hungry squirrel chasing your next nut. The truth is these sports washing, shady characters are paying you hundreds of millions of dollars to stop our fight from happening because they couldn't fathom the fact that they can't create a bigger fight than me and you. Al Hayman has made you hundreds of millions of dollars and you
turned your back on him for this check. Disloyal and you were begging to do this fight on pay per view, but I have loyalty, loyalty to Netflix doing the biggest numbers. And you call me a YouTuber, but you've never had a boxing match as big as mine. Remember you told my team that your daughter came home and asked if you were fighting Jake Paul. She was all excited. You said that was the first time your daughter's ever asked
you about a fight. And you're screwing over all your Mexican fans by doing your fights in Saudi.
It just shows what type of person you are.
And I promise you one thing, Canelo any fight that you do this year, Mine will be bigger, So go fuck off to your bus, you ring magazine and employee, you pink an orange bitch, and oh, fix that herpie on your lip, you dirty POOA.
Couple of things.
Before I even say anything, let me just say sources did tell the ESPN at Alvarez and Paul were finalizing the deal last week to fight May third in Las Vegas. However, Alvarez reportedly changed his mind and completed a four fight deal with Riard's Season, a move that effectively killed the fight with Paul that was expected to land on Netflix. A couple of things. Number One, Jake Paul. I like Jake Paul, like I'm a lot.
I think that.
He's brilliant with the marketing, highly professional by the way, shows up honest his commitments. Deserves a lot of credit for that number one. Number two, he's great for the sport of boxing because he shows you that you have the ability to avoid being at the mercy of it. Promoters who have hijacked boxing for too many decades and they've hurt the sport immeasurably. The UFC as great as it is. The number one reason is so great is
because of Dana White. Because Dana White is committed to giving the patrons the fights they want to see when they want to see them, when they want to see them, and promoters for boxing never do that for us these days. So in that regard, Jake Paul deserves a lot of credit.
He is to be respected. I like him.
I hope to ultimately see him in a ring with a big time boxer so we can really really see what he's made of. Having said that, I think a couple of things are excessive here.
Number one, what kind of contract was that? We don't know what kind of contract does that? Number two?
Talking about Canilo Ducky Well, Jake Paul, you're smart about the fights you picked because they need to make money. Now that's not to say you weren't gonna make money, because obviously you would. You and Canilo would have been a big, big deal and it would have generated gobs and gobs of money.
That is absolutely true.
But you fought basketball players, You fought strikers in the UFC, You fought a fifty year old, you know, Mike Tyson. Yeah, the money was there, but it wasn't the toughest matches in the world. Why you pick those fights because you could make money without it being much of a risk. Well, if you're doing that, how you're gonna turn around and not Canilo Alvarez for doing the same, especially working in a sport that you yourself Jake Paul has called corrupt
and abusive torch fighters. Now, I understand you're upset, you're a little bit of salty about Canillo using you to get a better deal from Riod or you know, or him turning down a fight with you. But what you're attempting to do with what you have done to some degree, Canilo Alvarez has done. He has for Triple G, he has Fort Mayweather, he has for I mean, even though Charlo's undersize, he was a champion. Terrence Crawford is a champion. By the way, He's not one forty, he's not one
thirty five. He's one forty seven. And then his last fight I think was at one fifty four. And oh, by the way, he would move up a couple of weight classes. Now, I think Canilo needs to be fighting David Benavidez as well. But he did fight and knock out Covi Levet the light heavyweight spot. He did fight and lose the Beval He did fight Triple G not once, not twice, but three times. So when Canilo sits up there and says I.
Fight fighters, he ain't lying.
His reputation does speak for itself. So I can't sit up there and flow with you, Jake Paul on that one. I'd love to see you in the ring in a championship boxing match against it's a real champion. But before that happens, money aside, just talking about the purity of the sport, you should have to fight some contenders. You really really should top ten contender, one or two of them would be nice.
You should have to do that.
This is Canillo Alvarez we're talking about here. You understand you're supposed to be able to earn getting in the ring with him.
That's just me age.
I know popularity matters, gate, money matters, marketing.
And all of this other side. I got it. I totally get it.
But speaking strictly about boxing, you're supposed to earn the right to get in the ring with somebody on that level, because Canillo is on that level.
Let's be very very clear and respectful enough to say that.
Joining me now to discuss this as a man who's written about an opond on the sport of boxing for both ESPN and USA today today he's the founder, the owner.
Of the publisher of what was it fight Freaks? Is that what it is?
Fight free Unite on substats, tod that.
Please got to let the audience know that the one and only Dan Rayfield. What's going on, buddy? How you doing?
Great? To be hout with you. I kind of figured when this topic emerged we might be discussing it.
Absolutely, I wanted to know your thoughts when you saw Jake Paul going off showed the contract with the signatures on it. Even though he did that relatively quickly, by the way, I didn't get the chance to really really see it.
Nevertheless, that's what he said.
He's implicating that Canelo Alvarez signed to fight him.
It was supposed to happen.
It was supposed to announce it February eleventh, but it did not end up happening.
Your thoughts, your reaction to what you saw from Jake.
Paul, Well, Jake is upset, honestly. But if you take a little clue at the document that he supposedly signed, that's supposedly the fight contract. If you take a look at it, closely stephen A. What it was was a confidentially a confidentiality agreement. It wasn't a doubt agreement. It wasn't a let's sign for the fight. This was here's what we're working on. And then they take that so they can let the people that they're trying to sell the fight to know that they've got both sides on board.
So that was maybe a little fast and loose with the truth. But the reality is Jake Paul wanted to fight Canelo Alvarez, and I don't think that Canelo was really truly that interested in the bout. That's been his
sort of thing he's been saying all along. But I think what he did was he used Jake Paul and the people at his company, MVP, to raise the price that he was going to get from Turkey al Sheik from Saudi Arabia, to do real fights, to do other title defenses, to do with the fight with Terrence Crawford, and that was used to sort of jack up the price.
And if he didn't get the price yet, maybe he would have gone through with it, but Jake Paul felt that he was going to it feels like he was aggrieved because Canelo has gone and done a four fight deal with Turkey al Sheik to bring his talents to Saudi Arabia for three of those fights.
That sounds like the latest dealings in the world of boxing as far as I'm concerned. That's how business goes from Tom to tom. I can understand why Jake Paul is a bit upset, but Canilo Alvarez is a four division is you know, this is four different weight classes.
This man is one of the greatest in the game, arguably one of the greatest ever in a lot of people's eyes, and to me, him fighting Jake Paul would have made no sense whatsoever for him outside of just money, because Jake Paul, as much as I respect him and what he's trying to do, hasn't earned the right to be in the ring with Canelo Alvarez as far as I'm concerned.
How do you see that, Dan.
Yeah, I don't disagree with that, But I think at the end of the day, Canelo Alvarez has secured a certain aspect of his legacy. I don't think there's a lot more left for him to do in terms of the legacy that you mentioned, and so in terms of the overall reason to do the fight with Jake Paul is about the money. He's trying to put as much money in the bank before now you know, now in the end of his career, Jake Paul's doing the same thing. Would have both made tremendous amounts of money for this,
but Jake Paul is I respect him also well. I enjoyed Jake's events, interviewed him about his events, and I have nothing but respect for what he's doing in terms of trying to make himself a better boxer. But it's not at the championship level boxing that Canelo Albers has been at for the last more than a decade decade
plus decade and a half. And so to think about him going in the ring with Jake Paul, whose only advantage is his size, you know, obviously most people would look at Canelo overs and say, look, you can get him out of there easy. Now. At least in these fights, he's gonna be fighting actual championship level boxers, maybe not superstars. Like his first fight of this deal is against a very unknown fighter named William Skull who picked up the vacant IBF belt that Canelo was forced to that was
stripped of him because he didn't fight the mandatory. William scull was totally unknown and brought nothing to the table. Now he's gonna fight him, but he's still an actual professional fighter with real fights in his own weight class. So I get where Canelo is coming from, and I get where Jake Paul is coming from.
Let's go let's go to Canelo for a second. I'll get back to Jake Paul in a minute. Let's go to Canelo for a second. I mean, I don't like I don't root against him. I respect the hell out of him. I've interviewed him on a couple of occasions. I know what a great fighter he is. I know what he brings to the table. I've seen him against Triple G obviously, against Mayweather, obviously, against Charlo and others.
We get that he's proven himself. Okay. The flip side to it, however, is that there's.
A guy by the name of David Benavidez out there, the Mexican Monster, that's got to move up to light heavyweight because Canillo won't give this guy a fight.
As a as an expert of the pugilistic sport.
That is boxing, knowing what you know, how do you feel about Canelo avoiding David Benavidez and how foreign foreign is it for him to be avoiding David Benavidez.
I mean being truthful, and I'm known as a Canelo guy Steve Day, but it's disappointing because that's the fight, that's the real fight that fans, I think want to see. It's not like there's not other fights they'd be interested. And sure Terrence Crawford fight will interest a lot of people in the mainstream because of all the history that goes with it and where both those guys are in the sport. But Benavidez has earned the opportunity. He clearly is a top level fighter, whether it's in the super
middleweight division or the light heavyweight division. He's now fighting in the light heavyweight division. Has made it very clear that where his body is now after having now had two light heavyweight fights a really outstanding performance a couple of weeks ago against David Morrell, that he's not about
to drop back down to one to sixty eight. So if Canelo will ever agree to fight him, it's going to have to be in the light heavyweight division, where Canelo, by the way, has had two fights in the past. They spectacular a knockout to win a wealth title against Sergey Kovolev, and he got out boxed by Dmitri Bievo,
who's a much different style than the Avidi's. So I think that Canelo realizes, Look, he's I won't say he's playing out the string, but he's making more moves that are going to benefit his bank account than perhaps to give him another loss on his record. Taking on William Skull is not a big gamble, even frankly taking on a Terrence Crawford, who's a great fighter's own right, but the weight disparity is so great, right, I would think that he and his team think it's that great of
a risk. And then there's two other fights on this deal, which I don't even think are named in the contractor in the agreement, and they'll be able to sort of pick and choose. So he may be able to run the table on the four fights. But David Benavidez poses a massive threat. He knows it. You know it, I know it. Anybody who watches boxing knows it.
How are we to feel about Canelo Alvarez fighting people other than David Benavidez. When there's smaller fighters, like for example, when he fought Charlo, Clearly he had to move up two weight classes to fight Canelo. We knew he didn't have the power to really fend off.
Canelo.
I was proud that he survived for crown out loud. When I look at Terrence Crawford, I think Terrence Crawford is a marvelous box arguably the best in the world pound for pound. But can you hurt Canelo? If you can't hurt I have no doubt he could outbox him. My issue is, if you can't hurt him, what kind of a challenge can you truly truly pose?
What do you say to that?
No, that's listen, that's a great I mean, here's the thing. Sanello Alvarez has a historically great chin. Now, I go back way back when he first came to the United States and started boxing, and he found himself on an HBO pay per view under card years and years ago fighting against the older brother of the great Miguel Coto. His name was Jose Miguelkoto, and he had gotten a ton of hype yet signed with Golden Boy Promotions, and a lot of those of us in the media. I
had seen him a couple of times before that. This is my first time seeing him in person, really paying close attention. And he almost got knocked out in the first round, and I remember steven A, all of us looking around at media row going what the heck is this off like about this man can't take a shot, He's gonna get drilled. He was lucky get the fight
was over. You know that the round was over in round one, there might have been some much more trouble steven A. That was like, I don't know, sixteen seventeen years ago, I've never seen him wobbled rock physically visibly hurt. Since then, he has an all time great chin going in the ring with tremendous punchers. Cove left two fights with Gonnadi, Glofkin and plenty of other fighters, so you know he has the great chin. And like you mentioned, Ken,
Terence Crawford coming up two weight classes do any damage. Yeah, he's a slick boxer, and he's also a good puncher in the welterweight division, in the junior welterweight division, in the lightweight division, but even at junior middleweight, which is where Terrence Crawford had his most recent fight back in August when he moved up and he won a world title. He didn't blow the doors off. He fought a very tough, solid opponent named Israel Majimov. He gave him a good fight.
It was very close. Magineo's people seem to think he might have even been able to edge it out. But if you can't hurt an Israel maagium of at one fifty four, what the heck are you gonna do with Canelo? Albert is the sturtiest guy in the world at one sixty eight, So that aspect of it is certainly a problem. You mentioned about Charlo. Charlo is there to get his check. I know one thing about Terrence Crawford. He's not going to just come to turn up to get the check.
He'll at least tried, and Charlo, I don't think, really tried. There's a difference in mindset between Charlo and Terrence Croft.
And you and I have a slight different opinion about the Shallo thing. I think that shallow hit Shallo hit this man with a shot in the first or the second round, and Canillo just walked right through him.
And he said, oh my God, I hurt this guy.
I need to run for my life for the next ten roundsters about That's what I saw.
But I hear you loud and clear.
Back to David Benavidez, since you brought his name up, he wanted to fight against Morell. I walked away more impressed with Morell than I thought I would be, because the kids got he could take a punch. He could take he could he could really really take a punch. And I was very surprised by that. And I was surprised that with the shots that David Benavitez was hitting him with, that he couldn't take him down. And then I said to myself, what if he goes against and it's not before it's better beef.
I'm a little bit worried about that. For dead for David Benavidez, what about you?
Look, David Moreau may not have been well known to the masters, but certainly within boxing he's well known. He was a great amateur coming out of Cuba, and he has accomplishment. So don't be fooled by what the record was eleven and zero going into the bout against Benavidez. He is a really serious quality fighter and that was a really uh, you know, matchup that a lot of people were excited and so I wasn't surprised that David Merrell,
you know, gave him a good fight. I mean, I take David Benavidez to win the fight for a lot of different reasons. But you talk about the possibility of David benavides facing off against the winner. There's the rematch for the undisputed title that takes place on February twenty second between Arthur better bief who is the undisputed champ and Dimitria Bievl who they fought at the end of last year and it was a very close fight and
that was to unify the division. Turkey Alshk who runs the show with Saudi Arabians involved in boxing with Riann season, he said he'd loved to see the winner of that fight fight against d Benavidez. Now if there is a fact that Beevo wins the rematch, He's also said maybe there'll be a trilogy fight, but if better bv is the winner, and they also he invited David Benavidez to come to their ringside and to check it out on February twenty second. I think that's got a really interesting
and good possibility to happen. That would be a huge fight for David. I would hope they would do that fight in the United States. That's where David's got a lot of fans. That would do probably quite a bit more in terms of popularity, viewership a priview than if it was taking place in Riha. But you know, we're gonna see the best fight the best if they can make that match, and David's up for it. I mean, he'll fight it. You know, David Benavidtez, He's never turned
anybody down. He'll fight whoever. And he's on a really good run right now Andre and Caleb playing and then of course what he did against Wodzick when he moved up, and then this fight just a couple of weeks ago with David real he's not looking at Duck anybody.
Let me get back to Jake Paul before I let you get on out of here. I really appreciate your time, Dan, Jake Paul listen. I respect him because he's his own promoter. He shows that you don't have to be at the mercy of promoters to make a fight happen. And I really applaud what he's doing for the sport of boxing in that regard, But as I've told him to his face, I'm not being a hypocrite here.
You gotta fight fighters, and Mike.
Tyson at fifty eight years of age ain't cutting it no more UFC strikers or basketball players that ain't cutting it.
You gotta get in the ring with some boxes.
So while I listen, Canilo used him probably to up the ante, to up the price on the back end, and I get that part.
The flip side to it is, if your Canilo.
Alvarez, why should you allow somebody to get in the ring with you who hasn't really fought any contenders in the sport of boxing.
To me, that's what Jake Paul has to do.
So I understand his outbursts, which was the reason I had you on, But in the same breath, I'm of the mindset you kind of brought this on yourself because you're trying to get a shot at the crown without working through the process.
And fighting guys that are at least contenders to that.
You say, what, well, I think part of it's because Jake knows that his events are big events, regardless of that. It's not like he's not working hard. He's not really cutting the line because if other people didn't want to watch his events, he wouldn't be in that position. Because he's got a certain popularity and he brought in I mean, you looked at the Tyson fight he had on Netflix. They did gargantuan numbers, brought up all kinds of subscriptions. That was the plan. So he has that in his
back pocket. He brings money, and he brings notoriety and a lot of eyeballs to his events. Whether you think he's put in enough work in the gym to make himself into a quote unquote real fighter. Now, if you step back prior to the Tyson fight, you know that he did have dude to one fight against the BKFC fighter in Mike Perry, but that was because Tyson was dealing with his illness and they had a postpone the fight. But prior to that fight, he actually did take a
step back. I was sort of happy about this. He fought like actual boxers, not big names, but guys that maybe had quality amateur backgrounds that were of around the same level of professional experiences. In as he said to me in some interviews. I'm trying to build up myself as a fighter, to get the reps in, to get in the experience. Here's the problem. Those fights did not do big business, so he's kind of stuck between a
rock and a hard place. He can fight those developmental fights, but nobody he gives a dart about him, and they don't bring in the kind of money. So he's going to be fighting these bigger names, whether it's MMA guys or boxers who maybe are past their best, or try to lure a Canelo win who maybe is smaller, because that's where the money is and the fans flock to it.
How could you take a guy who's fighting Iron Mike Tyson and does bazillions of viewers on Netflix and say, well, now you should step back and fight a guy in an eight rounder that nobody ever heard of. I understand the predicament he's in.
I definitely respect that, and I appreciate that perspective as well, because that makes sense. This is the money business. You're trying to make as much money as you possibly can.
Steven A's price fighting.
It's prize fighting, no doubt about it.
But last thing, I'll say this much because I get where he's coming from.
So where does he go from here?
Because my mentality is, Okay, you want to make the money, you definitely want to do that.
You don't want to do things.
And I applaud Jake Paul by the way, because he promotes the hell out of his fights. He shows up, he honorts his commitments. He's more professional than a lot of the professionals in that regard.
I give him a lot of credit for that.
But what are we to make of his future now that he said what he says, particularly when he says, I promise you I will generate more money. My events will be bigger than Canilo Alvarez, I'm not.
So sure about that. Dann Rayphiel to that, you say.
What, yeah, I mean, look, he's already played the Tyson card that that happened and it was huge. Canelo obviously is not happening. That would have been big, whether people loved it or not, there would have been a massive amount of people, for perverse reasons perhaps interested in it. And so now you say, who else can he fight? He's fought all kinds of former MMA or you know, MMA guys crossed over to boxing. I just don't know
the answer. I mean, he is there another famous boxer that's looking to come out of retirement to fight him that would actually move the needle, you know, I don't know about that. I mean, was he gonna get Oscar de la Hoy to come out of retirement? I mean, or Floyd Maywether. I doubt that. So the one, the one name that's out there. Then he's brought it up, and I mean it would be a big event. I would personally not like to see it. He's talked about
Connor McGregor. I mean that. I'm just saying that. I mean, that's where we're at here, Steven Ay. What can I tell you?
I mean that, I mean come, I mean I will say this, nobody would eclipse them promotionally.
That I will admit.
Nobody would would eclipse them promotionally. But outside of that, when it gets down to the beer bones of a real fight, now, I'm not feeling that, not at all. Dann ray Fiel, Dann ray Phield, obviously fight freaks you not. I appreciate you, buddy, Thank you so much.
Man.
You bet Steven anytime?
All right, before we.
Go, I want to send some well wishes to form a New York Knicks guard and Slam Dunk champion Nate Robinson. Prayers were finally answered for Robinson last Friday, when he received a new kidney at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. Robinson first learned his kidneys weren't functioning properly nearly twenty years ago while playing for the Knicks. He was told then that he would one day need
a transplant again. That happened on Friday, And here's what he posted on Instagram right before the surgery last week. Quote here to celebrate and thank the Lord for all he has done in my life. Today is the day I get my new kidney. Thank you to all the people that sent prayers and texted my phone giving me encouragement and love.
End quote. Can't say how happy I am for him.
It was real painful to watch him on social media when he was doing an interview and it aired all over social media where he said he needed a kidney transplant and he was questioning whether or not he would be able to capture one. So for him then finally receive that transplant and to see for him, to see hm on the.
Path to good health.
What more can you say, I'm just happy for him, I really really am. That's it for this edition of The Steven they Smith Show.
Hope y'all enjoyed it.
Thanks again to Dan Rayfield, Thanks again to my man Chris Carter. Thanks to everybody that contributed to the Super Bowl. Because Kendrick Lamar did his thing, I know I feel that way. Eagles damn sure did that thing. Jalen Hurts did his thing as well. Thanks to everybody. Until next time, everybody, it's Stephen. The signing off piece alive.