The Fight # 70 LNT

Zuffa Boxing 01 landed in Las Vegas at the Meta APEX with a loud, made for TV feel and a clear headliner statement. Callum Walsh stayed unbeaten by outworking veteran Carlos Ocampo over 10 rounds, using pace, pressure, and clean scoring shots to bank a decision in the main event. On this episode we break down how Walsh controlled the rhythm, where Ocampo had his best moments, and what the win means for Walsh’s next step up. Plus, quick takes on the rest of the card, the presentation, and which fighters came out looking ready for bigger stages.

Chapters

• 0:00 What Is Zuffa Boxing
• 0:11 Fighter Pay And Market Share
• 2:35 MMA Pipelines Vs Boxing Pathways
• 3:21 UFCPI Support And The Tradeoffs
• 4:25 Breaking Down The Card
• 6:55 Prospects, Pedigree, And Reality Checks
• 8:23 Frequency, Access, And Promoter Power
• 10:31 Can Legacy Promotions Outcompete Zuffa

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

It's f Lena Lake the fight episode 70. Let's get it from boxing. Zoo for boxing one. Okay, listen, guys. Zoo for boxing is UFC's power grab into the boxing space. UFC has the greatest pay gap disparity between its athletes in the business. They have now introduced that business model into the sport of boxing. They have created their own league, their own weight divisions, their own thing. Zufa Boxing Paramount Plus under Dana White. He worked with a couple promotions there. I saw Top Rank. I saw a couple guys giving footage over there to Zufa. So I see some collaborations by the promoters already. So this podcast is going to be more about business than the fight even is. You know, this is more of a corporate situation and a money grab situation than anything. The collective boxing promoters are all collective islands, they all do their own business, they all are making moves and plans to attack each other. Now we have Zufa boxing, and the biggest thing that is going to attract fighters who are the up and coming, because these guys are connected to the tournaments being held over there with RIA. They're trying to get the USA boxing pipeline. These guys are making a true move to control boxing and create a disparity that UFC fighters currently face, and why every UFC fighter makes their biggest check coming over to boxing is market share. UFC fighters get like 15%. The average boxer, top level, 50 to 60 percent. Now, this is what I talk about when I talk about the bottom level of boxing and the bottom level of MMA. This reminds me of the conversation between Terrence Crawford and Usman. So UFC is the best league for MMA, the top of the top, the criminal crime. But before you get to the UFC, you still have to fight under all these other banners, under other promotions. There's so many organizations that you could come from. One, you know, the glory, there's all these different pipelines in which a fighter can make it from that stage into the UFC. But that is not how boxing is, and this is where it is exposed. Like boxing is very weak here. Boxing, literally, the best get the most opportunity. I'm talking medalists. There's so many great boxers or boxers out there who didn't meddle, who didn't get a chance, who didn't get a promoter after they meddled and stuff like that. Because once you go through the Olympic program as a boxer, your pedigree is established and your market share is different. But if you are just coming off the street trying to go pro, the barrier of entry, the things that can happen to you, the fights you take, and the story you will have can shake everything. With Zufa boxing, the young boxer can turn pro and enter a program in which he's catered for, taken care of at the UFCPI. There's a lot of fighters who have no structure before they get on. There's a lot of fighters fighting, no nutritionists, no uh physical therapist, none of that. You only get that once you get on. Same thing for UFC. But UFC has this pipeline and this program in which they take care of their fighters' needs once they sign up. Now it's a lower contract, but the back end, the health care, the nutrition, and the training you get at the UFCPI is top-notch. That's why even Terence Crawford goes there. Their reputation is to be respected in that space. I'm not saying it's wrong in that space. I'm saying the business model does not serve the fighter. Now, let's get into the card. We got Omar Trinidad getting the TKO. Lake stoppage, no title, great fight, action pack fight. I like the fight, great fight. All the fights were even Steven as far as the main card and the prelims, as far as equally balancing who we're seeing fight each other. Nobody got an easy win. Everybody had to grow to overcome their opponent's skill and will. So I really appreciate that. That's one thing that that is gonna happen in this situation with Zufa. Top level talent will face top-level talent earlier and more publicly, which boxing doesn't do. They have a pedigree of developing fighters until they're seasoned enough to go in there with the world champ or stuff like that. And we'll see what business model works, right? Second fight after that, we got Julian Rodriguez. This was a tough, tough fight. Julian was the older guy, he was supposed to lose. The guy could take every shot for his opponent. He took every shot, walked forward for his cane. It was a great action-packed fight. This, these were great fights, great card. Now he gets the UD and a step up win and another chance. Listen, man, like I was saying about the health aspect of fighters, he never had any of the support that Dana and the UFCPI has given him. That's what he's talking about post-fight. A lot of fighters aren't being taken care of until they reach a certain level. And even when you reach a certain level, they'll still take advantage of you. You know, let's talk about it. Keyshawn Davis is a top-level fighter. He's making millions to hundreds of thousands of dollars of fight revenue, and his team around him is letting him drink and camp. His team. That can't happen. You bring in too much money. You can't have people like that around you. I get it, champ. You can't drink, champ. Knock this all out, champ. You can't knock out your whole team, champ. Who's gonna corner you? And that's gonna teach him and make him mature. A lot of this shit's like AU basketball, right? You get a top-level prospect and you just ride his coattails. And until he gets in there with somebody that's real, you never know. Let's go into the Col Bay, Mr. Real Rodriguez, a Browns metalist, put hands and feet metaphorically, on Austin. He beat his ass. TKO round four. That guy quit. It was not TKO. He beat his ass. He didn't want to go back out there. He started not wanting to engage. Rodriguez was having the time of his life, punches and bunches, excellent jab, superb. It's his pedigree. It's his pedigree. And a guy like that is hard to match up in modern day boxing because he's a lose-lose matchup against anybody. Up-and-coming guy, he's gonna wash him, established guy, he's gonna wash him because of that Olympic pedigree. But Olympic pedigree doesn't always save you. We'll get to that later. Listen, Colin Walsh is not who he's being painted to be. He is not a main event fighter. If he steps up in competition again, he's gonna get knocked out. He got dropped in round one in another round. They just didn't call it, they called one of them. Walsh has to tighten up a lot. He beat Carlos Ocampo, but it wasn't pretty, it didn't look good, it didn't raise his stock, it did not showcase what Dana was trying to do for assigning this kid and keeping this kid along for such a long time. Dana's been invested in this kid for a while, a while. So impeccable talent, but he has to sharpen up his tools because as you step up in competition, just the shit he's been doing, like he's gonna get caught. He's been getting caught, he's been getting caught. He's just gonna get caught by somebody that's not gonna let him follow up, who's a little bit more dangerous. These guys he's fighting are older or younger or as inexperienced as him, so he can get some more leeway. If he goes in there with somebody seasoned as a champion, he's gonna be in trouble. He gets the round, and you know, he gets the UD over 10 rounds. The card itself was exciting. The business behind it is enlightening to say the least. We will see how it evolves evolves over time. I see a lot of organizations maybe doing business, doing one-off deals. We see Jai Opatai, we see a lot of fighters coming over who may not do the best business, but they like the relationship and the frequency of the UFC because with Dana, the more you fight, the more he rewards you. So if you want to be a company man and you're great boxing and you can maintain it, do it. But if you can't, you gotta think about it, man. Boxing's deadly, it's very deadly. You can have four fights in a year, and you can be real fucked up at the end of that year. You don't want to do that. So let's think about it. Super boxing in itself, first event was good. I'm looking forward to the next event. The thing that they're gonna do that's gonna kill regular boxing, is that they're having weekly events and constant action and constant coverage of the fights. That is gonna change this whole thing if they can continue to do that weekly, and they'll start to get boxers like this. So people don't understand there's so many boxers out there who haven't gotten a shot because they simply don't have the access or the opportunity at any level with promoters. Promoters run everything. You might be the most talented Olympic level fighter, you might never get a fight. That happened to a lot of champions, you know. They happened to Ringo, so like I it it can happen to you where you get put on the shelf and you don't even get active. So just because of your skill level, and that's the thing that Zufa boxing is going to expose in boxing, and let's be keep up what we're doing now, having the best fight the best. Tia Fimo versus Shakur's coming up next. That's the best fight, the best. If promotions keep doing that, Zufa can never win because they'll still have all the money to buy the biggest talent. And Zufa, they can't have the strongest of contracts when designing these early talents. So you might start off as Zufa and end up in top rank. UFC is the highest benchmark for the MMA world. I do not see Zufa being the highest benchmark for the boxing world yet. The fight.