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The Boxing Esq. Podcast, Ep. 42: Ring editor Doug Fischer

Fighters Network
03
Feb

The Ring is proud to present “The Boxing Esq. Podcast with Kurt Emhoff”.  Emhoff, an attorney based in New York City, is a top boxing manager who has represented over 10 world champions in his 20-plus years in the sport. 

His guest on this episode is the editor-in-chief of Ring Magazine and Ringtv.com – Doug Fischer.  They talk about Doug’s new gig as color commentator at DAZN for Golden Boy’s Thursday Night Fights. They also spoke about the fight card this past week with Roman-Akmadaliev, Farmer-Diaz, and Andrade-Keeler as well as DAZN’s continued dalliance with fighting YouTubers. 

Additionally, they discussed the good fights upcoming in February and beyond as well as Thomas Hauser’s three-part piece for The Ring on the New York State Athletic Commission.



Below are a few excerpts from the interview:

On the first season of Golden Boy’s Thursday Friday Night Fights on DAZN:

“I think the first season was really good, mostly because of the matchmaking. I think the main event, and at least the co-feature fights, they were evenly matched. Even if one guy was a huge betting underdog, that wasn’t the case like we had with Tureano Johnson versus Jason Quigley. That should not have been, I don’t know what kind of an underdog Johnson was, but I think it was more than 10 to 1. So bet on Johnson, you cleaned up. But there were a lot of upsets. They gave us Blair “The Flair” Cobbs and he came in as the B side, as the underdog to Ferdinand Kerobyan. I think that was either the first or the second (show). I actually think it was the first one, last March. And there were a number of upsets.

There was this two-time Argentine Olympian (Alberto Melian) who got beat by just some kid out of Tijuana (Leonardo Baez). What’s the guy’s name from a Canada, he’s a junior welterweight – Yves Ulysse, Jr. He had a tough rematch with Steve Claggett. And then, he got beat by Ismael Barroso, I think that was December, as a matter of fact. And there’s a lot of cases like that. And if they weren’t defeated, they were extended and pushed extremely hard, like Manny Robles, III was against his opponent who was kind of under the radar, kind of unknown. And I liked that about the series. 

Now, the first one of this season, the one that we had this month, or I’m sorry, last month, was not that good. Jason Quigley was in the main event. And I love Jason and I get it, they gotta be careful with him because the nature of that first loss was so punishing. Physically. You gotta wonder about the physical and psychological residue from that kind of a defeat. So they’re being careful bringing him back. But still, he was in the main event and there was no doubt that he was going to win and win by knockout. And that’s that. That’s how all three bouts on that particular card went and they were early rounds blowouts. So I don’t like to see that. But generally speaking, I know Robert Diaz, with Golden Boy Promotions, is doing a really good job. He takes a lot of pride in the matchmaking. So I’m expecting the series to get back to the high standards.”

On the Daniel Roman-Murodjon Akhmadaliev WBA/IBF Junior Featherweight world title fight: 

“(Roman) was the only unified titleholder in the 122-pound division. He’s a local guy. I like him a lot. I root for him because I knew about him when he was fighting on Thompson Boxing club shows off-TV and he’s one of those guys, who wasn’t expected to do much in this sport. And he’s definitely an overachiever. And I thought he and MJ (Akhmadaliev) just battled, a beautiful fight. I mean that was quality stuff. It was boxing and it was fighting and a lot of ring generalship from both men. And I thought I couldn’t tell this from some of the DAZN commentary. I thought there were ebbs and flow to this battle. I thought it was seesaw. I thought it was back and forth, all the way to the final bell. And I thought it could’ve gone either way. I was fine with Akhmadaliev of winning a split decision, but I thought it was a seven rounds to five type of fight. Either way it could have been a draw or either guy deserved to win by one or two points. That’s how I saw the fight. 

So, I don’t think Roman needs to have his head down in shame and I hope they have a rematch. I hope that (Roman) gets another title shot soon or at least a high pro profile bout very soon because I think he’s a quality operator in there and he’s a wonderful human being.”

On Jojo Diaz’s title-winning performance against Tevin Farmer for the IBF Junior Lightweight belt:

“Excellent performance by Jojo. After that cut, I almost left the room cause I was like this kid is snake bitten. He cannot win a world title. Like forget it. There’s just something. The universe is out to get this kid. Cause that cut looked so horrible. I think Cliff Rold said it was ‘pornographic’ and that was spot on by the way. And it was just, I mean that’s a gash. I mean that was a gaping head wound and it’s on his eyelid. It’s above his eye and it was just,  how was he gonna overcome this? But, to a certain extent, he had a willing participant in Tevin Farmer who stayed in the pocket more than he should have. 

I thought that Farmer needed to stick and move because Jojo has trouble with lateral movement. But if you stand in the pocket with him, you stay in range, Diaz has got quick hands. He’s a good counter puncher. He’s a good body puncher, too. He doesn’t have world-class power, but he puts his punches together well and judges can hear the snap on his shots, too. He’s got some torque.” 

On the Demetrius Andrade and Jermall Charlo situations:

“I don’t blame guys like Canelo and Triple G for kind of like just overlooking him because he just hasn’t done anything. I mean, this has to be one of the most undistinguished middleweight title reigns in history.  I mean, if you ask Demetrius like, can you name the guys you defended that WBO title against? He probably can’t. I’m guessing he can’t. He’d be like, oh, there was the African guy, cotton dock something. And then there was a Russian guy, his first and last name started with the letter A. And then, uh, oh Sulecki. Okay. I remember him. Okay. He’s a real contender, right? Yeah. The Polish guy and this last guy, Keebler elf. Yeah, him, I stopped him like, it’s like, what is that? But you know, in his defense, I don’t think legit top 10 contenders want to fight him because it’s a very difficult style. 

And then the stars, somebody like Canelo, it’s like, I get into arguments with people on Twitter and they say, well Canelo and Triple G, they’re duckers and it’s a disgrace. They won’t fight Jermall Charlo or Demetrius Andrade. And the one of these guys, I was arguing with him during this fight, as a matter of fact, Thursday night. And I said, are you even watching the Andrade fight? And he wouldn’t answer me. I was like what round are we in right now? Are you watching the Andrade fight? Cause I mean I don’t think they’re avoiding this guy cause they’re scared of him. Okay. I think they’re just like this guy looks like Scooby-Doo on roller skates. It’s just, that’s going to be an ugly fight. It doesn’t bring anything to the table. He does not bring a dedicated fan base. 

It’s not like, you know, Canelo and Triple G they had each other. Canelo, a bonafide superstar and Triple G, a bonafide attraction. Triple G, a guy could sell out Madison Square Garden and the Forum. So both coasts and even go to London and sell out the O2 arena. So he’s got fans, people know who he is. There’s some reward that comes with that risk of both those guys fighting each other. And I love Jermall Charlo. I love watching him fight. I actually think he makes for a big fight in Texas against either Golovkin or Canelo. I think that’s a big event in Texas. But he’s fighting nobody. There’s got to be better fighters than these guys are fighting. There’s gotta be better guys than Brandon Adams. There’s gotta be better guys than, who was the junior middleweight that Charlo just fought? Saying, well, Dennis Hogan deserved a decision over Jaime Munguia. So what? Who cares? Who saw that fight? And by the way, who saw Charlo versus Hogan? What did that peak at for Showtime? 275,000? 

So one of Canelo’s poor pay-per-views, like Canelo vs. Liam Smith, right? Liam Smith, who’s not even a big shot in Britain, right? He’s nobody in Texas. Totally unknown. But Canelo can still do 50,000 at Jerry’s World. Okay. In Arlington, Texas, and the pay-per-view did at least 300,000 pay-per-view buys if not 350. Right? So Canelo’s doing more buys than Charlo is doing views on Showtime. Really – these guys need to like bend over backwards for you? It’s like, I don’t know what to believe. You have De la Hoya saying that Golden Boy made a lucrative offer to Charlo. Eddie Hearn’s always saying that he’s offered Charlo, what is it, 7 million to fight Andrade and these fights still aren’t happening. 

And I’m kind of like, listen, I like how Charlo fights. I personally like Andrade. I like his personality. That’s the one thing he would bring to a promotion. He doesn’t bring fans, he doesn’t bring an entertaining fight. It wouldn’t be a fun fight to watch. But at least during the build-up of the fight, he’d be a good interview because he is a good interview. I like talking to the guy. But these guys need to fight each other. Both of these guys need a big win under their belt before they say, ‘Hey, fight me Canelo or fight me Triple G.’ That’s how I feel. And since they’re both struggling, they’re both fighting fringe contenders right now. They might as well fight each other. Because the winner of that fight becomes a unified titleholder and can at least say, ‘Hey, I beat Jermall Charlo.’ Or Charlo can say, “Hey, I beat Demetrius Andrade. Fight me.” 

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