Year End Awards: Not The Ones You'll See From The Professionals

This is the last day of 2008. Tomorrow will be the first day of 2009. This marks the first year of The Boxing Geek. I hope it will be the first of many. I have mistakes to learn from and improvements to make, and I need to commit to a more regular posting schedule. Yet I am happy with what I have started to accomplish as well.

So this is my very first yearly awards entry. Some of these are straightforward. Others are more off the wall. Enjoy, feel free to complain.

Fight of the Year: Tomasz Adamek W12 Steve Cunningham (This was not the most hyped fight of the year, the most watched fight of the year, the biggest money fight of the year, or even the fight whose resolution made me happiest. I admit, I thought Cunningham won by two points. Yet this was an amazing fight, for a legitimate world championship, broadcast on free cable. Both men fought to win from beginning to end, with Cunningham skilled and busy and Adamek patient and powerful. I'd honestly rather see these guys fight a second time than any other pair I saw fight this year. Even more than Vazquez-Marquez IV!)

Fighter of the Year: Antonio Margarito (Other men may have had bigger fights or won bigger victories, but Margarito beat two alphabet titlists and went from being the alleged 'most ducked welterweight' to being the number one welterweight in the world and a pound-for-pound fighter. Now he just needs to fight rematches with Paul Williams and Joshua Clottey.)

Comeback of the Year: Bernard Hopkins (Vitali Klitschko's heavyweight return wasn't something that tremendously impressed me. He came back from retirement, he beat a pug I never thought much of, he won an alphabet title that meant nothing. He has signed to fight David Haye, but I am skeptical that he won't be forced back into retirement by another training injury. Vic Darchinyan's KO of Cristian Mijares impressed me and totally blew me away, and deserves honorable mention. Yet Darchinyan had not been completely dismissed as a fighter in the manner Hopkins had, nor was he a 43 year old man whipping the pants of a man nearly twenty years his junior. Besides, I admit it, I like Hopkins. The loud, dirty-fighting, pragmatic old bastard has my respect as an individual and a boxer. Unappealing style or not, he may be the last complete American fighter for a very long time. Think on that.)

Worst Decision of the Year: Tomasz Adamek W12 Steve Cunningham (This is a tough one. My scoring disagreed with the judges on the winners of several of the fights I watched and wrote about this year, but this one is the most egregious in my eyes. Yes, Adamek knocked Cunningham down three times, each in a different round. However, he was losing one of those rounds completely when he scored the desperation knockdown and I only had him winning one round in which he did not drop Cunningham. I have the other eight rounds to Cunningham: he boxed better, he was busier, and Adamek did not work for a full three minutes in any round. Worst of all, judge John Stewart gave the fight to Adamek by a whopping six points in a fight with a one to three point margin of error in Adamek's favor at best. Cunningham dominated rounds ten through twelve, and won rounds one and three quite solidly. Adamek slightly topped that by knocking Cunningham down three times and winning one round without a knockdown. Adamek did not simply put in the work to sweep the remaining three rounds. On my card, in fact, Cunningham swept them.)

Least Controversial Controversy of the Year: Lucian Bute W12 Librado Andrade (Yes, I know this fight has been beaten around from pillar to post and Marlon Wright has been called the worst referee in history. That said, Bute beat the count. Yes, he leaned on the ropes during the long count and he took all the time he was given. But he was up, off the ropes and ready on a count of 9 and leaned back against the ropes when it was clear the count was going to be long. When Wright returned to the count, he got off the ropes again. Wright wasted time in getting Andrade back to his corner, and whether Andrade needed to be put back in his corner is questionable, but Bute beat a standard ten secound count. The Showtime broadcast team had a conniption over nothing, and Ivan Goldman just happens to be from Los Angeles and his hometown opinion clearly is coloring his perceptions. Most of the other serious writers in boxing have shown more discernment. Wright should never referee a world championship again, the fact that there even was a controversy is all his fault... but Andrade did NOT knock Bute out.)

And that's it.

See you next year.

The Fight of the Year: Adamek-Cunningham

The title says all I am going to say about the main event just yet. Instead, I'm going to start by talking about the network. I've never watched a fight on Versus before this one. I knew the channel for the rather disappointing continuation of HBO's 'Legendary Nights' series, which had gone on largely as a commercial for Bob Arum's Top Rank boxing and frequently featured fights that were considerably less than legendary, and for the kind of redneck outdoor 'sports' shows that I have no real interest in.

Versus was inspired to pick up this card. Not only was the main event my fight of the year for my full first year running this blog, but the televised co-feature was very nearly as good. Both fights showcased divisions one usually doesn't see on HBO or Showtime, bantamweight for the co-feature and cruiserweight for the main event, and none of the fighters were marquee names. But alphabet titles were on the line in both fights, and the main event was also for The Ring's cruiserweight championship (and mine, since my championship system is based on The Ring's and I accept The Ring's ratings as my own since I cannot see every fight their staff covers.) The card, as a whole, was better than any card on HBO or Showtime all year, and the only fight close to the main event was Bute-Andrade. I also have no complaints about the broadcast team, as Shobox host Nick Charles' more annoying traits are perfectly compensated for by Wally Matthews' professionalism and calm. Though Charles is the blow by blow man and Matthews is the color commentator, it is Matthews who offers the intelligent summation of the action and Charles who provides the color with his more excitable style.

The co-feature starred Joseph Agbeko of Ghana defending his IBF bantamweight title against his mandatory challenger, William Gonzalez. Unlike the majority of fights between an alphabet titlist and an alphabet mandatory, this one was great. For one thing, Gonzalez came to fight. Both men jumped on one another in the first round and kept swinging for the entire fight. Even when the action slowed in the 'dull' rounds, these guys were throwing 50+ to 60+ punches a round. The first round was dead even, and though I gave three rounds in a row to Agbeko afterward based on the effect his right hands appeared to be having on Gonzalez, they were all close. Gonzalez changed his style in the mid rounds, trying to box more and time Agbeko and he managed to find a bit more success, but down the stretch Agbeko was simply too strong and too much more effective with his right hand. On the official scorecard, Agbeko won a majority decision winning 116-112 on the scorecards of Larry Doggett and Lawrence Leighton while veteran New Jersey judge Tom Kaczmarek called the fight 114-114. Having called two rounds even, I scored the fight 116-114 for Agbeko off the telecast.

I don't know precisely where to start with the main event. Steve Cunningham was defending his IBF cruiserweight strap for the first time against Polish transplant Tomasz Adamek of New Jersey, and the two men were fighting for the vacant cruiserweight championship of the world. It was a wild fight, in which Steve Cunningham tried both boxing and punching and never stuck to either and switched to southpaw and back for much for much of the action. In the first round he appeared to out-box the equally tentative Adamek in a slow round, and he appeared to dominate the first six rounds... except for his trips to the canvas. In the second round, caught by a clean right hand, Cunningham suffered what appeared to be a flash knockdown when hit by the very last punch of a round he seemed to be winning by a narrow margin. In the first round, after surprising Adamek early with a big shot and dominating the round solidly (nearly stopping Adamek, or so it seemed, in the first half of the round), Cunningham appeared to have punched himself out and was knocked down more seriously by another right hand as it entered the final stretch.

Cunningham could not appear to decide whether to box or punch with Adamek, and he appeared to get caught whenever he tried to switch between the two strategies. After a strong seventh round, Cunningham was caught by a left hook in a furious exchange and stumbled into the ropes for the third credited knockdown of the fight. This time it appeared their feet had gotten tangled, but the left hook was quite solid as well. Then Adamek had his best full three minutes of the fight in the ninth round and appeared to possess all the momentum.

Instead, Cunningham (by boxing more intelligently in the tenth and fighting more desperately in the eleventh and twelfth) appeared to roar back to dominate the last three rounds of the fight. The problem was, the three knockdowns guaranteed the final scoring would be difficult. The official scores were 114-112 Cunningham (Clark Sammartino), 115-112 Adamek (Shafeeq Rashada), and 116-110 Adamek (John Stewart) to make the final call a split decision for the new IBF and world champion, Tomasz Adamek. My score, off Versus, was 114-112 Cunningham, the same as Clark Sammartino.

This was an amazing fight. While Adamek was unable to consistently dominate any round but the ninth, he scored three knockdowns in the first eight rounds and had good moments in every round but the first. Though Cunningham was the better fighter for more of the fight, Adamek's power and refusal to be out-boxed by the bigger man all night certainly earned him his victory the hard way. He is a deserving champion and a rematch on HBO or Showtime for real money is precisely what these guys deserve. I can't find any fault with the final call, though I do have to consider John Stewart's 116-110 score for Adamek something of a magoo. I want to see more of both these guys, preferably against each other at least once more.

They deserve some big money, after this.

Sometimes You're Just Wrong: Darchniyan-Mijares

I am on record on as saying that the excitement about the 115 lb fight between Cristian Mijares and Vic Darchinyan was unwarranted, because Darchinyan just didn't have the polish to compete with Mijares.

When Darchinyan knocked Mijares out inside the closing twenty seconds of their battle, I was proven wrong.

Not because I didn't know that Darchinyan was a big puncher. I did. Rather, the Darchinyan I knew was the clumsy, easy-to-hit, open-to-being-hurt-by-a-counter who was floored in a draw with Z Gorres in his first fight at 115 and knocked out by Nonite Donaire at flyweight.

Fight night, Darchinyan was quick-handed, awkward but NOT clumsy, and his defense was surprisingly tight. His awkward defense and hard punching allowed him to limit the output of the naturally bigger Mijares, who appeared to be trying to use his size to back up and intimidate Darchinyan. It didn't appear to work until the 4th round, and it never worked consistently enough to win Mijares more than a round or two before he was knocked out.

Of course, Darchinyan was still a puncher, and it was his punching that made this fight exciting. He floored Mijares with a leftt uppercut in the first round and continued to land big left hands throughout the fight. He has clearly added much better combination punching to his arsenal, for he landed as many jabs and nearly as many right hooks as he did big lefts.

The result is a shakeup of the 115 lb division and, perhaps, of the Pound-for-Pound rankings. Mijares was considered a top-ten lb for lb fighter prior to this fight, and was The Ring's #1 ranked fighter at 115. Darchniyan simply beat him up with the harder punches, while holding his own in the boxing match. Mijares' Pound-for-Pound ranking has to be a thing of the past and, while I think slick and hard-hitting boxer-puncher Fernando Montiel and brutal punher Alexander Munoz have to be considered in the mix as well, Darchinyan has established himself very solidly in the top three of the division.

Darchinyan has now unified three 115 lb belts with the KO win, and it looks to me that there are only two big fights remaining to be made in the division. The first is another boxer-puncher matchup between Darchinyan and Montiel and the second is a slug-out between Darchinyan and Munoz. Clearly, Montiel (considered Mijares' closest rival prior to Darchinyan's upset KO) has to be considered to have priority over Munoz, who has lost a decision to Mijares earlier in 2008. One almost has to consider Darchinyan has a legitimate 50/50 chance to beat either man, though both present their own challenges. Fernando Montiel is a tremendous athlete still in the prime of his physical talents, both an exceptionally fast boxer and a decent hitter who has shown knockout power. Exactly the kind of opponent (Donaire) who knocked Darchinyan out. Yet Darchinyan has shown improvement in the areas Montiel would be expected to exploit, promising the strong possibility of a classic fight. Munoz, a murderous puncher in his own right and the naturally bigger man at 115, has to be acknowledged to have a very good chance of really beating Darchinyan up if Vic isn't a real 115 lber. Yet Munoz's own losses in big fights have to be considered.

I was wrong. I think Vic Darchinyan is officially a legitimate power at 115 lbs with at least an equal chance against the men I believe to the other two top fighters of the division.

The question must now arise of the 115 lb championship. No, Darchinyan was not ranked #2 or #3 coming into this fight and Cristian Mijares was not already The Ring's champion. By the originally published policy of The Ring, unifying all three major titles (WBA, WBC, and IBF) should qualify Darchinyan as the undisputed 115 lb champion. This was good enough for Roy Jones Junior, who never faced The Ring's #1 light heavyweight until his first fight with Antonio Tarver. It should be good enough for Darchinyan. If they have published a rules change since, I missed that issue. Anyone who does know of such a rules change, please cite it for me.

In closing, not only was I wrong about Vic Darchinyan's chances against Mijares, but I think he is the deserving 115 lb champion.

When All Else Fails, Make A Lot of Noise: Bute-Andrade

The undercard of Bute-Andrade on ShoBox tonight was a bit lackluster, Ronald Hearns dominating Paul Clavette en route to a 6th round TKO win. Clavette did not have the polish, the fundamentals, or the power to legitimate compete with Hearns and his toughness was not enough to handle being genuinely beaten up over the course of the fight. Hearns looked good, but the fight had its sloppy moments and I'm not sure looking good against Clavette was enough. Still, he stopped a man who had never been stopped before, added another win to his record, and is apparently en route to a fight with John Duddy that may give one man or the other a touch more legitimacy.

Bute-Andrade (for the IBF 168 lb title), on the other hand, was as spectacular as a one-sided fight could be and had a touch of drama at the very end. That drama was then exaggerated needlessly by the ShoBox broadcast team.

Bute came out strong, working off the southpaw jab and landing the straight left with consistency. He worked the right hook and left uppercut in every now and then, focusing on combination punching, accuracy, and defense. These weapons allowed him to jump out to an early lead, sweeping the first three rounds.

Andrade started to establish himself in the fourth, turning what had looked like a steady movement following Bute into real pressure and taking Bute out of his game plan. I gave Andrade the fourth, perhaps generously, because Bute's punches were clearly not diverting his new pressure and his increased punching output and forward movement allowed him to impose his will. I gave him the fifth round as well, which he clearly won by walking through Bute and landing hard rights.

Bute retook control in the 6th, standing and fighting more, landing the southpaw uppercut more, and tying Andrade up more on the inside to break up his rhythm. Once again he got his punches flowing and his movement in rhythm and swept the rounds from the 6th to the 11th. In the tenth, a sneaky straight left and some entanglement on the inside sent Andrade to the canvas and Bute was credited with the knockdown. The call was borderline, a punch was landed and it did have effect on Andrade, who was off balance as a result. However, their feet may have become entangled before Andrade hit the deck and Bute did push off with a sneaky little move that may have actually sent Andrade to the canvas. Bute kept his momentum despite Andrade's desperation rally in the 11th.

The final round was the complete opposite of the previous twelve. Bute could no longer land his shots with the same crispness, and Andrade took clear control as the round commenced and walked Bute down. The IBF titlist was out on his feet as the final seconds ticked away, and in the closing five seconds was floored by a big right hand and went down in the corner.

Here the referee plainly behaved as if he did not belong in the ring in a title fight. He shuttled Andrade to the neutral corner, began to count, and then moved off to get Andrade back into the neutral corner, shouting at the Mexican-born Californian. Then he returned and finished his count with Bute on his feet. Naturally, the Andrade corner began to protest.

All well and good. Nick Charles and Steve Farhood, however, immediately began to declare that injustice had been done and that Andrade was being robbed by a long count... before they even reviewed the replay to check the time. When they did review the replay, the count showed that Bute was back on his feet in approximately 7-8 seconds and used the time granted by the referee's lapse to lean against the ropes and wait. When the referee returned, Bute leaned forward, the count was completed, and the bell rung.

Even before the scores were read (though they were a foregone conclusion, as Bute had dominated the bulk of the fight) Charles and Farhood were crying foul yet again, even claiming the replay had proven the knockout despite the fact that it proved Bute was on his feet in 7-8 seconds. Yes, the referee's conduct was unprofessional, but it did not affect the outcome of the fight. Bute beat the count. The ShoBox team's continued effort to cast doubt on the end of the fight was at least as unprofessional as the referee's error.

The judges returned a unanimous decision for Bute, as lopsided as the fight had been before the final round.

I scored the bout 116-110 off the Showtime broadcast.

The fight was exceptionally satisfying, and Andrade showed true sportsmanship afterward. On the other hand, the hysterics of the ShoBox broadcast team very nearly ruined what should have been a great show.

I guess it wasn't exciting enough for them.

Well, There Go Those Fair-Weather Fans Again...

Bernard Hopkins pulled off a genuine hat trick, as I hope everyone reading this article knows, and beat middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik in their catchweight bout. The armchair experts who crowned Pavlik as the best thing ever are already saying he was crap. Fans who adored Pavlik are now saying he was exposed brutally and was never any good, while the people who doubted before are coming out with vicious bile now.

This appears to be the mindset of modern boxing. Every fighter is either the greatest pound for pound ever, or a disappointing failure who fooled us all. Archie Moore's old saw 'Show me an undefeated fighter, and I'll show you a fighter who never fought anyone,' appears to have once again fallen by the wayside in favor of the notion that only bad fighters ever lose. Whether it's a Mayweather fan saying 'Yeah, but Sugar Ray Robinson /lost/ all those fights' or a writer who thought Jeff Lacy was the second coming of Bob Foster and now derides his limitations, the idea that defeat equates with disgrace appears stronger than ever in many circles of boxing fans.

I'm still a Pavlik fan, I think he can still clean out the middleweight division. I think he can move up again in a few years and do much better. But clearly, Bernard Hopkins was better than him the night they fought. People who were predicting Pavlik's easy win because Hopkins was so far gone are now claiming Hopkins' win over Pavlik as proof that this is an inferior era, because no one would possibly succeed at Hopkins' age in a greater era.

Errrm, excuse me. What about Bob Fitzsimmons? Archie Moore? Tiger Flowers? Jersey Joe Walcott? Joe Brown? Not every man on that list was successful at Hopkins' literal age, but every one of them was a man who fought at a high level well past the usual age. For that matter, add Nate Campbell and Joel Casamayor to the list. George Foreman comes to mind too.

Hopkins is an amazing freak, a man who is simply too smart to ever be counted out of a fight. He knows his business. If he wants to stop calling himself 'the Executioner' and start calling himself 'Old Bones', 'The Professor', or 'The Old Mongoose', I don't think Joe Brown, Azumah Nelson, or Archie Moore would have much to complain about.

An Answer to Mr. Jason Peck

I have made several references in previous entries to East Side Boxing, the site which I read for news of fights that I have missed watching (or have not been televised) and easy access to the fix for my boxing addiction. I have named several writers from that site from time to time as well, positively and negatively. Some of my entries on this blog have been replies to articles on ESB with which I have taken issue.

One of the writers with whom I have taken issue in the past is Jason Peck, an online boxing writer who has written on several websites including ESB. I have disagreed with his articles more than I have agreed, and at times I have been harsh in expressing my disagreement. I will not deny that I felt, and still feel, that the harshness of my writing has been appropriate.

However, I must admit that Mr. Peck has risen somewhat in my estimation. He wrote to me asking for a chance to speak to him about The Ring magazine and its relationship with Golden Boy Promotions. He was polite and professional in his approach and in his reply to my somewhat suspicious response. I gave him the 'benefit' of my complete opinion on the situation with The Ring as it stands at this point in time. I have not included Mr. Peck's original letters because he did not give unasked permission, and I have not asked for it. However, I have included my email to him about The Ring in its unedited entirety.

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I don't know that I am entirely 'a supporter of The Ring' on this issue. I feel that the magazine itself, at this moment, is still above reproach in the main. If one reads the content of the magazine and avoids the advertising changes, ninety nine percent of the content is entirely unchanged since the buyout. Respectable boxing writers with columns either in the The Ring or under its auspices (by the latter, I mean William Detloff's weekly online The Ring Update column) clearly have not changed their writing or opinions. They have not begun writing pro-Golden Boy articles and all of them have weighed in to criticize De la Hoya-Pacquiao. While I do not always agree, one hundred percent, with some of the opinions of The Ring's columnists, their opinions have not changed with the merger and none of them have been fired. Agree or disagree with them on a point by point basis, they are still the best team of opinion writers in boxing journalism.

The purely journalistic content is still the best boxing writing available. Fight coverage is thorough and shows no visible favoritism toward Golden Boy fighters. I don't believe anyone could argue against the fact that the Golden Boy fighters included in the All Star report cards belong there, and one could even call Bernard Hopkins being dropped from that list premature. Yes, he lost to Calzaghe, but he is still a big enough deal that he is jumping right into a fight with Kelly Pavlik.

The main example of favoritism I have heard others advance is the Joel Casamayor-Juan Diaz issue. Casamayor was given a gift decision against Jose Armando Santa Cruz, yes. No one denies that. The Ring, in fact, called it one of the worst decisions they have ever seen. However, Casamayor won the fight acording to the official record. One of the chief objections to the alphabet cartel's handling of business is their willingness to disregard their own rules in pursuit of money, good press, national favoritism, the favor of one promoter or another, or some combination of those four. The Ring's championship policy is clear, and their decision to follow that policy under pressure is a sign of legitimacy, not illegitimacy. Someone will beat Casamayor and will be the legitimate champion.

Even if The Ring had chosen to declare that Santa Cruz was the real winner of the fight and disregard the judges' official scores, the policy would have required them to declare Santa Cruz and not Juan Diaz the lightweight champion of the world. Casamayor was the recognized champion, and rightly so, after beating Diego Corralles. Had he lost to Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz would have been the recognized champion. Juan Diaz did not fight Joel Casamayor, nor has Nate Campbell since beating Diaz. The only basis for naming Juan Diaz the champion would have been his alphabet belts, which had been awarded by fiat by the syndicates after Floyd Mayweather moved up in weight. No one considered Julio Diaz the legitimate lightweight champion of the world outside the syndicate that awarded him the belt. Beating him did not make Juan Diaz champion. Beating Acelino Freita and Jose Miguel Cotto did not either, as they were not the legitimate world champions either.

One can argue that the championship policy of The Ring has flaws. It is based on their rankings of fighters, and rankings are always subjective. That said, there is not another set of rankings in boxing as legitimate. The alphabet syndicates' rankings all exhibit one glaring flaw: they do not rank the holders of rival titles. If one grants that Wlad Klitschko is the heavyweight champion of the world as the IBF and the WBO maintain, was Tony Thompson really the best and most deserving available contender as the WBO claimed? Are not Samuel Peter, Ruslan Chagaev, or even Nicolay Valuev above him in any legitimate classification? ESPN uses The Ring's rankings, and while Fox Sports' rankings were not identical to those of The Ring they were based upon The Ring's rankings.

Ask the majority of serious boxing writers to choose between The Ring and the rankings of any of the alphabet syndicates and they will choose The Ring. They may quibble with specific fighters and specific numbers, but their welterweight rankings will be closer to The Ring rankings than to the WBC's rankings. Do you believe that Andre Berto is the welterweight champion of the world and that Luis Collazo is the number one contender? Is Collazo number one and Miguel Cotto only #2? Is it legitimate to leave Antonio Margarito and Paul Williams out of the rankings, because they hold rival belts, when they are arguably the two best welterweights in the world in the wake of Williams' rematch win, Margarito's stoppage of Cotto, and with Floyd Mayweather officially retired? Is it legitimate to leave Shane Mosely, Zab Judah, Kermit Cintron, Carlos Quintana and Joshua Clottey out of not only the top ten but the entire top 40?

If one agrees that The Ring rankings are the most legitimate rankings in boxing, then one has to accept that (despite its flaws) their championship policy is still superior to any of the alphabet
organizations. By that policy, Santa Cruz would have been the lightweight champion of the world had he beaten Joel Casamayor in their fight. Juan Diaz does not even figure into the championship discussion. Nor does Nate Campbell now, despite Don King's attempts to say otherwise. Joel Casamayor is set to fight Juan Manuel Marquez and the winner will be, by The Ring's policy, the lightweight champion. One can argue that Casamayor and Marquez are both Golden Boy fighters, but does anyone deny that Marquez is a deserving challenger? Much of the established boxing press has said they believe Marquez beat Pacquiao in their rematch and everyone wants to see them fight a third time. If Marquez becomes lightweight champion that is nearly certain to happen, perhaps it is the only thing that would get Pacquiao in the ring with Marquez again.

The Ring Ratings are still the best rankings in boxing and they have not substantively changed in favor of Golden Boy since the buyout. The Golden Boy fighters ranked were all ranked before the buyout, deservedly so. Shane Mosely and Bernard Hopkins have fallen in the rankings since the buyout, also deservedly and as a result of real events in the ring. The only championship berths with which anyone bother to argue are the lightweight spot occupied by Casamayor (and I believe I have successfully dissected that argument beyond repair) and the vacant heavyweight slot. Some writers (and I myself) believe Wlad Klitschko has done enough to deserve the open slot. That said, Klitschko's exclusion is entirely consistent with The Ring's policy as his win over Samuel Peter came before Peter moved up to the number two slot in The Ring Ratings.

The only change in The Ring since the merger that I consider worthy of complaint is the change in tone of the editorial column written by Nigel Collins. While it has not changed so drastically as to claim all fighters but Golden Boy fighters suck, it has been favorable (or at least approving) of the possibility of a De La Hoya-Mayweather rematch despite Collins' criticism of the original fight. Collins recently defended De La Hoya-Pacquiao as 'a legitimate superfight' despite his staff's near universal dismissal of the fight as a publicity stunt. Still, De La Hoya is the biggest gate attraction in the sport despite being used up and it is only natural for Pacquiao to want to fight him and get in on the money and acquire the kind of more recognized stardom that Hopkins and Mayweather gained from fighting De La Hoya.

I don't like the sudden lack of enthusiasm, from Collins, for a De La Hoya-Margarito fight. When everyone thought Cotto would win, enthusiasm for a De La Hoya-Cotto fight was high from all quarters as a symbolic passing of the torch from the old star to the young star. With Margarito's win, he's earned the money and press a fight with De La Hoya would bring. That said, I'd rather see a rematch between Margarito and Paul Williams anyway. So I'm not lost in tears. Still, Margarito is right if he feels slighted and Collins is wrong not to defend his right to the fight should he want it.

The change in tone of Mr. Collins editorials does trouble me, and I have written about it before. Feel free to read what I've said. Yet, while Nigel Collins is the publisher of The Ring he is not The Ring personally and his statements are clearly not supported by his staff. De La Hoya-Pacquiao has been pretty harshly ridiculed by William Detloff and Jeff Ryan in their columns.

I don't consider this a partisan defense of The Ring, but rather a mostly objective and logical discussion of the facts. In the main, the facts are on The Ring's side at this point in time. If the facts visibly change, then my opinion will change as well. For the time being, I see no clear reason to change it.

Of the issue in my hands now, as I write this, only the All Star Report Cards (of the features)
covers Golden Boy Fighters and only those who are genuinely stars of the sport. Kelly Pavlik, the subject of a feature article and a featured interview, and central on the cover of the magazine, is promoted by Top Rank. Though David Haye appears on the cover, and is promoted by Golden Boy in the US, fellow Briton Joe Calzaghe (also on the cover) is promoted by Frank Warren. Haye's inclusion in the trio, as undisputed champion of his weight division and as an exciting fighter whose move to heavyweight is drawing a lot of comment by a lot of boxing people not affiliated with The Ring, is hardly inappropriate. Ricky Hatton, Timothy Bradley, and Eddie Perkins are the other professional fighters who appear centrally in features. Hatton and Bradley, the two active fighters on the list, are not Golden Boy fighters. Eddie Perkins is long retired, and he retired long before GBP existed.

This is not to say that the relationship does not give me some qualms. It does, and I will continue to monitor it closely. I read The Ring Update every week and I am a subscriber to the magazine. I am also not at all afraid of voicing criticism when I feel it necessary, as you know. If the tone of the magazine changes, I will know it. If I feel that undue favoritism is being given to undeserving fighters or that deserving fighters are being denied space in the magazine, I will say so.

Home Cooking: Juarez-Barrios and Diaz-Katsidis

Tonight, in Houston Texas, veteran also-rans Rocky Juarez and Jorge Barrios squared off in a co-feature prior to once-beatens Juan 'the Baby Bull' Diaz and Michael 'the Great' Katsidis battling it out in the main event. While the fights were good, when they were allowed to happen, fans were treated to a night of bizarre refereeing by Rafael Ramos and Laurence Cole.

The most bizarre of the two fights was the first, in which Jorge Barrios dominated the action from the second round after letting himself be out-jabbed in the first. He boxed well, through his punches with authority, moved reasonably well, and was busier than Juarez throughout the fight. From the second round to the tenth, on my scorecard, Juarez only won the eighth. It was in the eighth, however, that Juarez found his winning formula. Firing to the body, he was able to come upstairs and get some work done to steal the eighth round and make a fight in the ninth and tenth (though he came up just a touch short in both.) In the eleventh, however, the formula paid off. Juarez floored Barrios with a combination (though it also appeared as if their feet were entangled) and the referee began to count. Barrios made it back to his feet, but a particularly gory cut on his mouth prompted the referee to stop the fight at the behest of the ringside doctor. The stoppage was legitimate, but the referee docking Barrios points for alleged low blows in the third and ninth rounds was highly questionable and so were the numerous warnings issued to Barrios for low blows throughout the fight. The judges had inexplicable scores, through ten rounds, with one card even and Juarez winning on the other two despite Barrios very nearly literally dominating the fight until the moment he was floored.

That said, it was a strong performance by Juarez, who was patient enough to stalk and walk his opponent down even while being very nearly dominated and who scored the points that mattered at the key moment without any help from the referee or the judges. For a fighter who has had so much hard luck and trouble in big fights in the past, the 11th round TKO win must have been sweet. He was so happy and pleasant in his postfight interview that it was impossible not to like him and to be happy for him. I felt glad he won, listening to him talk, despite having been rooting enthusiastically for the equally hard-luck Barrios throughout the fight itself.

The second fight was even more bizarre. While my card had Diaz dominating the early fight, starting with an even round and with Katisidis winning only the fifth round, the numerous warnings given to Katsidis for simply fighting the kind of fight a big, strong brawler naturally fights appeared highly questionable. Diaz boxed extremely well, and Katsidis was fighting too disciplined and patient a fight to deal with the native Texan's higher work rate through the first seven rounds. I gave him the fifth because I believed his punching was more effective, and I called first even because neither fighter gained a clear advantage, but Diaz was clearly the better man overall.

In the second half of the fight, as Katisidis began to pick up his pace and out-throw Diaz going down the stretch, referee Laurence Cole stopped the action repeatedly. He cut demanded tape be cut off Katsidis' glove, he had the doctor check Katsidis' cuts, he issued another warning, he didn't let Katsidis jump on Diaz coming out for the bell. Even in rounds when the action was not stopped, he slowed Katsidis down and then told both men to fight once both were in the center of the ring. Despite this, I gave Katsidis the eighth, ninth, and eleventh rounds and called the tenth and twelfth rounds even based on the strength of Katsidis' power shots down the stretch. At the end of the fight, my card had it a 116-116 draw.

One judge had his card close to mine, Glen Hamada calling the fight 115-113 for Katsidis, having given him rounds 8-12 outright. The other two judges had wins for Diaz, justified in what I felt was a closer fight than the HBO broadcast team would have led the tv viewer to believe. Watching the fight, I was sure Diaz had won big too, looking at the fight as one organic piece, and I don't find the decision unjustified. However, round by round, Katsidis fought very well and took the fight to Diaz hard late in the struggle. Diaz's moments in the tenth and the twelfth were not enough to give him those rounds outright, but were enough to blunt Katsidis' momentum. I think Katsidis, in the future, would be better served to punch hard from the opening bell rather than trying to box.

The conduct of the referees was terrible, despite the quality of the fights, and Laurence Cole's continued excuses for delaying the beginning of late rounds left me wanting what should have been the climax of the fight to just be over and done with. While I agree completely with the checking of the tape, was there really any cause to stop Katsidis from coming hard out of his corner in the rounds when the tape was NOT an issue? Both referees imposed themselves far too much on the fights when they should have stayed out of the way. Their inability to do so was a big weakness in what should have been a great card.

I'd like to see Katsidis again. Despite having lost two in a row now, he has an Arturo Gatti flair about him that could take him far. If he reverts to his former wild man style, he might even do better against busy boxer-punchers like Diaz. A rematch might be interesting. He came into this fight a very big lightweight, perhaps he has a future at junior welter.

Jorge Barrios, despite having boxed very well, should consider retirement. He came into the fight with Juarez off the longest layoff of his career only to suffer an ugly injury which will lead to another long layoff. At his age, 32 is old for a junior lightweight, time lost is time never regained.

The Ring is Still Legitimate (But I'm Wondering More and More About Nigel Collins)

When the first de la Hoya-Mayweather fight came down, The Ring was universally critical of the match being made. This was from the top down. Nigel Collins joined in the criticism and was not ambivalent about preferring to see Mayweather fight Hatton or Cotto. Then Mayweather fought Hatton and everyone agreed Cotto was the next man for Mayweather to fight. 'Everyone' included Nigel Collins.

When The Ring was purchased by Golden Boy Promotions, I didn't really care. While I did question Oscar's motivations to some degree, I did not believe that he would be able to effect serious changes at the content level or wish to do so beyond little things to increase sales. I didn't believe he would be able to influence the content of the articles and columns themselves at all. The early changes to the magazine have all been along the lines of what I expected: higher ticket advertisements, including advertisements for Oscar's book, and a regular feature in which Bernard Hopkins gives photo-captioned boxing lessons. I can't really object to any of the advertising changes, and I like the Hopkins feature.

The actual content of the magazine, in the form of news articles and regular columns, has not changed significantly. The Ring Update has not changed significantly. William Detloff, Ed Raskin, Jeff Ryan, Ivan Goldman, and Jim Bagge are still, fortunately in most cases, themselves and still write like themselves. So do The Ring's correspondents.

The one area in which the magazine's content has changed is the personal editorials of publisher Nigel Collins. In his defense of the proposed Mayweather-de la Hoya rematch, now scuttled by Mayweather's retirement, he wrote an editorial about the business side of boxing. In a radical departure from the past tone of such editorials, he argued that what was good business was good for boxing, defending the massive waste of time and money and saying Mayweather could easily face Cotto later, even as his staff wrote blisteringly about the rematch and called for Mayweather to fight Cotto as soon as possible.

In a new editorial, this one added to the online Ring Update in advance of William Detloff's weekly online column, Collins now defends the circus show of de la Hoya-Pacquiao as 'A Worthy Superfight.'

I don't know if Mr. Collins believes what he has written here or not, but it is at a wide variance with the stance he himself and nearly his entire writing and editorial staff at the magazine have taken in the past. It is at wide variance with what the majority of his columnists claim to believe now. I am certainly pleased to see that Mr. Collins is granting his staff this degree of journalistic freedom to disagree with him, but it also concerns me to see his attempt to establish the 'party line' of the magazine so clearly in Golden Boy Promotions' tent. This is precisely the sort of thing he assured everyone would not happen because of the GBP buyout. His pandering editorials are unnecessary, if The Ring truly has the degree of independence from GBP that he claimed it would when it was purchased. If he and his publication are independent of micromanagement by Oscar and his business partners, then he should continue to write what his past columns have expressed as his genuine sentiments.

If he has been forced into a role as GBP's promotional lap-dog within an otherwise legitimate journalistic magazine, he should admit to his partisan interests in the discussions which he chooses to editorialize or perhaps choose another writer for the role of GBP yes-man. His writing these columns himself makes them appear to be the official line of the magazine, regardless of the feelings of its writers. Perhaps space for a Golden Boy Promotions editorial column should be made, if it is absolutely necessary to pump de la Hoya inside the magazine.

It is inappropriate for Mr. Collins to continue to do so in a manner that gives promotional partisanship the stamp of authority from the publisher of 'The Bible of Boxing.'

Good News For Everyone But Pacquiao

According to the most up-to-date news articles, De la Hoya-Pacquiao, which would have been a fight between the biggest boxing star in the US and the best fighter in the world, is off. To me, this is good news. De la Hoya's huge size advantage against a man who began his career as a flyweight made this fight all but a joke to me, and created in my mind the image of the schoolyard bully picking on the smallest kid in class.

Pacquiao, however, had badly wanted the fight. He had pursued the De la Hoya fight. He had been the one to mention Ricky Hatton and Oscar as possible potential opponents. He wanted the recognition that comes, in America, from fighting Oscar de la Hoya, no matter how deserving or undeserving de la Hoya may be of the fight.

The reason for the failure appears to be money. Pacquiao felt that his status as the best fighter in the world on nearly everybody's pound for pound rankings in the wake of Floyd Mayweather Jr's retirement entitled him to a 60-40 split of the purse. De la Hoya felt just as strongly that his box office draw and celebrity appeal entitled him to a 70-30 split despite having not won a meaningful fight since knocking out Fernando Vargas.

Since I don't think the fight should have been taking place in the first place, I am glad it's off. However, I can't help but side with Pacquiao's argument that he deserved a bigger split. I would even go so far as to say, comparing Pacquiao's current status as the best fighter in boxing, he deserved at least a 50-50 split, if not the better end of the purse. Sure, de la Hoya is a huge box-office draw. However, he holds no title or championship. Pacquiao is not coming up in weight to challenge for a title. He's the man with the gold on his waist, even if this fight would be a non-title fight. It would be de la Hoya, fighting the best man in the sport, who had something to prove and would be in the position of 'challenger.'

The reason the money was handled the way it was, in my mind, is that De La Hoya's camp did not see Oscar's last fight as a fight. They saw it as an event, a stage play in which Oscar was the star and he deserves the bulk of the rewards. De la Hoya's celebrity is undeniable, and so is his box office draw. American fans hear his name and get an image no longer in tune weith reality, and Oscar believes his image is worth seventy percent of a purse. Many Americans who are not boxing fans or are only casually fans may agree. Their argument would be: Pacquiao cannot make the kind of money entailed by thirty percent of the de la Hoya purse from any other fight he could make and the purse would be generated by de la Hoya's star power, not Pacquiao's greatness as a fighter. Objectively, this argument may be true.

That said, Pacquiao is a great fighter and de la Hoya is not, not anymore. He has always been more celebrity than substance and, at this point in his career, celebrity is all he has left. Whether or not Pacquiao was being offered more money than he had ever seen before is beside the point. I am absolutely certain that Pacquiao's pride would in no way brook being given an insulting purse split by a man whose last meaningful win was six years ago, particularly when he is coming off his impressive jump to lightweight, which was considered highly dubious in many quarters. Pride is a very important part of a successful athlete's make up, and I can completely understand why Pacquiao would be insulted. The offer of a 70-30 split is a statement. It says clearly 'you don't deserve what I deserve, I am entitled and you are no more than another opponent.'

The best fighter in the world does not deserve to be treated like an alphabet mandatory no one has heard of before, as if he were facing the undisputed champion. He deserves his fair share. Period.

Certainly life is not fair. Pacquiao will not make as much money elsewhere. However, if his pride is more important to him than money, he has made the right choice. Boxing may be a business, but not every fighter approaches the sport as a businessman.

And It's About Time!!

Am I the only one who isn't going to miss Oscar de la Hoya after he retires?

At the risk of being bashed as a hater, I want to confess that I've never been a de la Hoya fan. I was glad for him when he won a gold medal in Barcelona, but I thought flyweight Eric Griffin (who had to settle for a bronze medal after a series of terribly judged fights) was a better fighter. The incompetent and/or corrupt judges that denied him gold or silver, lack of good management and the lack of interest in the flyweight division in the US meant that Eric Griffin would be neither a millionaire nor a Hall of Famer as a professional, but he was the best fighter on the '92 Olympic team. It was Oscar, however, who got the lion's share of the publicity before the Games and the multi-million dollar career after. Yes, he won the gold and that certainly helped, but he was a hot property before the gold medal. Nor was he markedly better than the American fighters (most noticeably Griffin) who were robbed of clear wins in fights they dominated and therefore failed to win gold medals of their own.

When he went professional, de la Hoya was followed everywhere he went by a media circus he had earned primarily by being the only American not cheated by the judges. He made millions of dollars in HBO bonuses for fighting four round prelims, and was the feature of multiple boxing writers in many publications long before he won his first alphabet title. His first alphabet titles were won, and defended, against older and smaller men. Even against these older and smaller men, he failed to dazzle. He was arguably beaten by Pernell Whitaker, whose career was headed downhill already. His two bouts with Julio Cesar Chavez were one-sided circus shows in which everyone knew who was intended to be the gladiator and who the tiger, with cut claws, chained to a post.

Through the great years of his success and popularity, particularly among hometown fans in Southern California and Hispanics around the country, he whined about the lack of respect he was receiving and his inability to be become a big star in Mexico. He made poorly judged comments to the boxing press, such as his famous averment that black fighters could not take bodypunches.

When he began to fight his rivals at the top level of the above-featherweight-below-middleweight field of boxing, he lost his aura of invincibility. He was challenged throughout his fight with Ike Quartey and there were hints of controversy greeting the decision in de la Hoya's favor. Against Felix Trinidad, he lost. Many believed he deserved to win, but he had made the conscious decision to grandstand by running from Felix Trinidad for the last two rounds of their fight, which caused the judges to award crucial rounds to Trinidad. He was beaten soundly by Shane Mosley. After his rebound win over Fernando Vargas, he was outboxed by Felix Sturm (who lost in one of the worst decisions in boxing history, far worse than any close decision an American fighter has ever lost in Germany) and stopped by Bernard Hopkins. Ironically, it was a black fighter who delivered the body blow de la Hoya could not take.

Since then, despite his lack of any wins against meaningful opponents, de la Hoya as remained the biggest star in boxing. His tune-up with contender-alum and former 130 lb star Steve Forbes sold better than many serious title fights. His last fight, allegedly next up, is highly anticipated. Likely, it is against Manny Pacquiao, who only recently made the move up from 130 to 135. The symbolism is clear, de la Hoya would rather go out the winner of a big, flashy, profitable show than he would fight the best opposition available.

To be fair, I don't think de la Hoya is afraid of Antonio Margarito. He would have fought budding star Miguel Cotto, had Cotto beaten Margarito in their recent fight. I just don't think he sees Margarito as good box-office. He's not worthy, not privileged enough to share the stage. He's not de la Hoya's equal, not a fellow celebrity.

The reason de la Hoya never became a star in Mexico is because he has always been too 'Hollywood', to much the kind of flash and dazzle that Mexicans identify as being American. In seeking a Hollywood finish to his career, a spectacular triumph over a fellow star before thousands of adoring groupies, he has illustrated his lack of appeal to hard-core fight fans in Mexico and the US: like Sugar Ray Leonard and Muhammad Ali before him, there was a clinging tinge of privilege. The sense that someone had decided that de la Hoya was the best, so he was the best, without ever having to prove it. The difference between de la Hoya and those other two great boxing celebrities, however, is that even if they never had to prove it, they proved it over and over anyway.

Oscar de la Hoya has never had to prove he was the best. Someone, in a media office in 1992, decided that, out of all the boxers on the U.S. Olympic team that year, de la Hoya was the star of the movie. Ever since then, he has worn that robe of privilege through all his bouts and interviews and press conferences.

Many boxing writers aver firmly that De La Hoya's career has been a good thing for boxing, because his fights have brought money into boxing and his career has drawn attention to boxing in the public consciousness. I can't completely degree. Better fighters than de la Hoya, starting with Eric Griffin on the US team in 1992 to Antonio Margarito today, have had to take a back seat as de la Hoya gathered his applause and took his curtain calls. These fighters deserved that attention and did not get it despite earning it repeatedly with their best efforts, while it was simply given to de la Hoya from his amateur days.

I can't wait for de la Hoya's last fight to be over and for his promised retirement to commence. I want to give him the chance to prove to me that his emerging status as a promoter will be used in a way truly good for the sport, not merely good for his celebrity. His decision to give us all a big show, against Pacquiao, instead of a great fight against Margarito doesn't fill me with confidence.

Old Men and Europeans: Lorenzo-Marquez and Abraham-Miranda II

Tonight on world championship boxing, Showtime treated the audience to bloody and entertaining undercard that went the distance and an explosive fourth round knockout.

From Showtime's point of view I am dead certain that the night was intended to be a showcase for a potential future fight between Giovanni Lorenzo and Edison Miranda. Even before the Lorenzo-Marquez bout had begun, Showtime was running a poll asking viewers if they thought Abraham and Miranda should fight a rubber match if Miranda beat Abraham tonight, as if broadcasting their confidence in Edison Miranda. Miranda had predicted that he would knock out Arthur Abraham in the 9th round and Showtime repeated that prediction and accredited him as their source at least twice.

Before the main event, however, Showtime made sure we saw the crossroads battle between middleweight prospect and alphabet contender Giovanni Lorenzo (both undefeated and overprotected) and former junior middleweight alphabet titlist Raul Marquez (neither undefeated nor overprotected, overall, over the course of his career) in what was billed as an IBF title eliminator for a shot at Arthur Abraham. Commentator Steve Albert, however, appeared (to me, mileage may vary) bent on pitching the Miranda-Abraham rubber match before the rematch had even started, which would (if Showtime had their way) ultimately make Lorenzo the mandatory challenger to Miranda.

Not everything can be planned with certainty.

The big surprise, to me, was Lorenzo-Marquez. I hadn't seen Giovanni Lorenzo fight before, but Marquez is 37 years old and has not won a fight against a meaningful opponent in years. His last serious fight was a 9 round TKO loss to Jermain Taylor in 2006 and before that his last big fight was a mutually unimpressive no contest with Shane Moseley that proved Mosely wasn't a junior middleweight and that Marquez was a serious risk to be stopped by a paper-cut if his scheduled opponent was a CPA. That was the only sense in which I wasn't surprised: Marquez bled profusely.

The surprise was that, after weathering solid boxing and big right hands from Lorenzo in the first two rounds, Marquez came out hard and roughed the bigger Dominican up enough in the first minute or so of the third to squeak by with an even round. Heartened by this success, he went into brawler mode for the rest of the fight. The result? Lorenzo found himself retreating into something of a shell and taking a lot more punches than he was throwing in the middle rounds. On my personal card, Marquez swept rounds 4-9 to establish the lead. He and Lorenzo fought on nearly even terms in the tenth, with a big punch from the latter seeming to seal a Lorenzo round... when the Dominican flagrantly delivered a deliberate butt to the head of the Mexico-born Texan and was penalized a point by the referee.

Though the fruits of his strong round were taken away by his own foolish foul, Lorenzo now had Marquez hideously bloody and came out for a strong, aggressive 11th. He out-fought, out-boxed, and out-wrestled the smaller man in the manner he should have been doing all night. Unfortunately, he was again his own worst enemy: when told (correctly in my view, incorrectly by the actual judges' cards) that he needed to knock his man out to win, his reaction was to come out casually and box smoothly and punch with some authority to win the final round... but come short of winning the fight. On my scorecard, Raul Marquez won by a score of 115-113. The judges saw it closer, all three of them called the fight 114-113 and if Lorenzo had not delivered the flagrantly deliberate butt that cost him a point in round 10 the fight would have been scored a draw. Without the foul, and with a more forceful 12th round performance managing him a knockout, Lorenzo would have won by the same single point by which he lost.

From Lorenzo's posture, movement, and style in the ring one could extrapolate that he is trying to learn how to fight like Bernard Hopkins and he could have a worse model. If that is his goal, however, he needs to improve his technical defense and rely less on movement... especially against smaller men. He looked, at times, like he was running from the obviously smaller Marquez and that made it harder to sell the long stretch of rounds he lost. A prime Hopkins followed up on hurtful punches and was master of the late KO, and Lorenzo failed to capitalize on at least three right hands that badly hurt Marquez in rounds 9-12. If he uses this fight as a learning experience and improves upon it, he has a serious future.

Marquez claimed earlier this year that he was the most deserving contender for a shot at middleweight contender Kelly Pavlik, and his victory over Lorenzo makes him (unless the IBF famously redefines the situation) Abraham's mandatory challenger. I don't think he stands a real chance against either man, but by upsetting Giovanni Lorenzo he has proved he can beat a younger, bigger man.

The main event, the rematch between 'King' Arthur Abraham and Edison 'Pantera' Miranda was as highly anticipated as their first fight was highly controversial. In his challenge for Abraham's IBF middleweight title, Miranda had broken the King's jaw in two places at the end of round 4 and been the busier puncher throughout the fight, especially from round 5 on. Abraham had his strong moments and boxed intelligently, but was considered the beneficiary of bad refereeing (Randy Neumann deducted five points from Miranda for fouls) and bad judging (the officials mistakenly attempted to stop the fight and go to the scorecards in the mid-rounds, then reversed themselves and let the fight go on when told that the broken jaw was caused by a punch and any stoppage would mean a TKO win for Miranda) leading to a controversial hometown decision.

Miranda and his camp loudly cried foul after the fight and declared that they had been robbed. Many U.S. fans firmly accepted this (with help from Showtime) and boxing writers could not deny real controversy surrounding the fight. In order to prevent controversy, the rematch was held in the United States. The Miranda camp and Showtime appeared quite sincerely convinced that the 166 lb catchweight and Miranda's improved training would lead to a clear win for Miranda.

There were two big similarities between the rematch and the original fight. First, Miranda was the busier puncher throughout. Second, he was docked a point for a low blow foul. In round three, however, Abraham's hard counter-punching clearly hurt Miranda on several occasions and the fight went off script. Then, in round 4, Abraham knocked Pantera down with a left hook. Then he did it again. When he did it a third time, the fight was stopped. It's hard to argue with the stoppage: Miranda was clearly hurt by two punches in the third and then dropped three times in quick succession, clearly hurtfully, in the fourth. I might have issued a count before waving the fight off, but I can't argue with the referee's choice. If Miranda wasn't completely done, he was on his way there, and his safety was now the chief concern. I think this fight, along with Miranda's previous knockout loss to Kelly Pavlik, clearly and starkly showed us Miranda's deficiencies: a jaw that is vulnerable in a serious slugfest and a tendency to throw wide punches and leave himself open to the kinds of shots that could show the vulnerability of his jaw.

The upshot of this one big upset and one fight sure to be seen as an upset in the minds of American fans is that Raul Marquez is the mandatory challenger to Arthur Abraham. This is too bad, as it's not a fight I really want to see. My feeling is that Marquez could be very badly hurt by an opponent with Abraham's self-discipline, tight peek-a-boo defense, patience, and big punching power. At his age and with his style, I don't see him beating the German-based Armenian. A really damaging knockout, however, could do worse than merely end his career.

The fight to be made at middleweight is Arthur Abraham challenging the real middleweight champion, Kelly Pavlik. With Kelly's good fundamental offense and skill at breaking a man down, and Abraham's tight, cautious, patient style and huge counterpunches, this could be a big fight. I think it would be better than any 'superfight' Pavlik could stage with Joe Calzaghe (and that doesn't appear to be happening anyway, Calzaghe is making retirement noises and has an upcoming fight with Roy Jones that some fans and writers feel is a good close to his legacy, though I would rather see him fight Chad Dawson or Glen Johnson before he retires) or any fight Abraham could make at this moment at 168. It certainly brings Abraham a notch above Felix Sturm and Winky Wright on the list of Pavlik's top contenders.

I liked Abraham. I think he can create a U.S. fan-base if long as he keeps fighting in the States and producing knockouts. When the result of the fight was announced, he had silenced the wall of boos that had greeted him as the fighters were announced and even inspired scattered cheering. If he has more fights like this, the cheering will not stay scattered.

All in all, a good card. The absolute thwarting of the big promoters and the big media outlet with arrogant plans for the future was almost as enjoyable as the fights.

Please Not Another Superfight: Why I Want to See Kelly Pavlik Stay At Middleweight

A lot of fans right now are clamoring for a Joe Calzaghe-Kelly Pavlik superfight. With Pavlik's rematch win over Jermain Taylor and Calzaghe's split decision over Bernard Hopkins, Calzaghe-Pavlik is (according to them) the fight to be made and anything else is unacceptable. Internet boxing writers are, depending on your point of view, either leading this charge or jumping on this bandwagon. Everyone wants to see the big fight, and everyone claims there are no other fights to be made for either man. Well, everyone except those Roy Jones fans who refuse to admit that he's not the same fighter who bulked up to heavyweight to outbox a pretty bad heavyweight fighter and claim a spurious belt to such loud acclaim.

Everyone but me. I'm not in any rush to see Calzaghe-Pavlik. Both men have plenty of contenders in their own weight class that they have yet to fight and, once upon a time, it was considered 'the thing to do' to clean out your own division before you moved up in weight or accepted a challenge from a champion in a lower weight class. Sugar Ray Leonard set the modern day template of establishing one's self as a superstar and then only fighting in the big, splashy, big money fights and the Roy Joneses, Oscar De La Hoyas, and Floyd Mayweathers of the world have eagerly followed his example. I can't blame anyone for wanting to make the most money, but I'd like to see some good title defenses against deserving contenders now and again.

Chad Dawson, Zsolt Erdei, Adrian Diaconu, and Chris Henry are all younger contenders with a legitimate claim on a shot at Calzaghe. Antonio Tarver and Glen Johnson are experienced guys on the way down who still might deserve one last shot. While all the fans and experts are busy denouncing the idea of a rematch with Bernard Hopkins (and I admit that Calzaghe has all but said it won't happen), I think a second fight would give Calzaghe more in the way of bragging rights than one controversial split decision.

Kelly Pavlik doesn't have the same wealth of deserving-but-less-well-known contenders at middleweight, but he has some people he really has to fight before moving up in weight in order to be considered for the Hall of Fame or called an all time great. Arthur Abraham is an undefeated claimant to a spurious belt stripped from Pavlik's predecessors. Ditto for Felix Sturm, and he was good enough to draw boos from the crowd when Oscar De La Hoya won the decision in their fight. Winky Wright was robbed in his previous championship fight with Jermain Taylor and if Pavlik doesn't fight him, that would leave a huge question mark on Pavlik's resume. There are some young guys who either do or will soon deserve a shot, even if they are even less well known than the light-heavyweight contenders.

Both men could restore badly needed stability to divisions that have been in disarray for some time. Jermain Taylor's refusal to face top middleweights after his draw with Wright, until the Pavlik fight, was the subject of much criticism. Pavlik can settle all that by fighting the top middleweights and clearly sorting the division out. The situation in the light heavyweight division was even more chaotic, with none of the alphabet organizations even recognizing the legitimate champion as their titlist. Calzaghe could settle all of that.

If they rush into a superfight with each other instead, little is accomplished beyond a big payday for their promoters.

A Career In Perspective: Show Me the 'Money'

If this latest claim of retirement is true, then we have seen the end of Floyd Mayweather's career. Even if it proves temporary, the number of fighters who have come back to the sport from retirement or forced absence and performed at the highest levels is small. Muhammad Ali came back after being kept out of boxing for years by the WBA (one of the very first solid proofs that the alphabet cartel is rotten all around) to fight one of the very best heavyweight title fights of all time, to enjoy a brief career as a top contender, and then to recapture the title during what many people today call heavyweight boxing's greatest era. Eder Jofre and Sugar Ray Robinson came back after 'retirements' that amounted to prolonged vacations to win championships, Jofre (the former bantamweight champion) at featherweight and Robinson at middleweight. The man Jofre beat, Vicente Saldivar, had also come back from a 'retirement' that smacked more of a vacation to win the championship. The all time, undisputed champion of comebacks, George Foreman, came back from a genuine retirement of more than a decade to win the heavyweight championship of the world. Honorable mention must go to Larry Holmes, whose own comeback included two shots at the legitimate undisputed heavyweight championship (against Tyson and Holyfield) and one shot at an alphabet belt against Oliver McCall. He lost all three fights, but put on famous showings against Holyfield and McCall.

Considering the fact that he appears to be in good shape and that he has never been in a damaging fight, Mayweather could pull a Robinson and come back in a few years to win a championship if he chooses. If one takes into account his career since defeating Carlos Baldomir for the welterweight championship of the world, however, one can quickly gather the impression that Mayweather will not be coming out of retirement unless the result is a so-called 'superfight' against a popular but overmatched opponent. Consider the last two fights of his career: Oscar De La Hoya, despite superstar status, had not won a major fight since beating Fernando Vargas and Ricky Hatton was coming up from his best weight to fight a guy who was just better than him in the first place. I think it's reasonable to question his taste for fighting the best opponents out there.

So how does Mayweather's career pan out? How do we judge his greatness when comparing his legacy with the legacy of others?

In Mayweather's favor, he retired 39-0 with 25 knockouts and he posted his win over fellow future Hall of Famer Oscar De La Hoya at junior middleweight, four weight classes above his original junior lightweight title win. The world or alphabet titlists he beat (Genaro Hernandez, Diego Corrales, Carlos Hernandez, Jesus Chavez, Jose Luis Castillo, DeMarcus Corley, Arturo Gatti, Sharmba Mitchell, Zab Judah, Carlos Baldomir, De La Hoya, and Hatton) are admittedly a solid list and he also beat dangerous contenders like Angel Manfredy and Phillip N'dou. He won recognition by The Ring magazine as world champion at lightweight and welterweight and won alphabet titles at junior lightweight and junior welterweight. He partially unified the junior lightweight crown in a superfight against Diego Corrales. Three of his victims (Diego Corrales, Jose Luis Castillo, and Oscar De La Hoya) are deserving fellow future Hall of Famers at the time of this writing and one (Hatton) could be too. If nothing else, Mayweather is a lock for the Hall of Fame and deservedly so.

Is he truly an all time great, however? It's a much harder call. He lays claim to being the greatest fighter of all time, putting himself ahead of Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Henry Armstrong, Roberto Duran and other true top five or top ten pound for pound fighters. With a bit of hyperbole, one could claim that some all time greats had more fights with Hall of Famers than Mayweather had fights, period. Part of this is not Mayweather's fault. The shrinking of the talent pool and the decreased number of fights between the members of that talent pool, a result of the marginalization of American boxing (and Mayweather has never fought outside America), worked against him and his achievements must be looked at through the lens of his time.

That said, there are gaping holes in Mayweather's legacy. Some writers like to state loudly that he cleaned out the 130 pound division, but this is not so. He defended his WBC belt six times and then fought IBF 130 lb titlist (and future undisputed lightweight champion) Corrales to unify, then defended twice more. However, his last two defenses were not against the top fighters in the division. The number one and number two contenders (according to The Ring) were Acelino Freitas and Joel Casamayor, whom Mayweather never fought. Carlos Hernandez and Jesus Chavez would win alphabet titles after losing to Mayweather, but no one considers them the equals of Freitas and Casamayor. Steve Forbes, who was given the IBF title when Corrales was stripped for fighting Mayweather, never got a shot at Floyd either. Neither did Nate Campbell, who had a tremendously competitive title fight with Casamayor at 130 and more recently tamed Juan 'the Baby Bull' Diaz to win a pair of alphabet titles at lightweight. All four men were ranked 130 lb contenders when Floyd ruled that division, Freita and Casamayor the top two, and Floyd ignored them.

Mayweather fought just four times at lightweight: his original, controversial challenge to Castillo and his impressive rematch victory. Then an easy defense against unheralded, unknown, and unranked Dominican Victoriano Sosa preceded a real challenge by red-hot South African Phillip N'Dou before Floyd was at 140 beating perrennial also ran DeMarcus Corley and unknown Henry Brusseles to earn his shot at Arturo Gatti. Positioned for the superfight of superfights against Kostya Tzyzu, the best 140 lber since Aaron Pryor, what did Floyd do? He jumped to welterweight to fight Tzyzu's victims Sharmba Mitchell and Zab Judah, then fought welterweight champion Carlos Baldomir. Baldomir had put a gutsy performance in against Zab Judah to win the title, but as a champion he was more Ingemar Johannsen or Bruce Curry than he was Sugar Ray Leonard. After Baldomir, Mayweather would fight only twice more and his only welterweight title defense was against junior welterweight champion Hatton.

With his strong career at 130 and 136 lbs, Mayweather probably belongs somewhere on the very competitive list of top lightweights of all time. The list is so very competitive, however, that Mayweather might not be in the top five. His lack of meaningful fights at 140 and 148 keeps him off the list of top welterweights, in my opinion. He never fought the true champion at 140, and he never defended against a top 148 lber at 148. Never once in his career, at any weight, did he fight all comers.

Mayweather was the most capable fighter of the early 21st century, possibly the fighter of the decade. He never lost a fight and, at the end of his career, became something of a crossover star. He fought with a combination of talent and fundamentals that is no longer seen.

He was not the greatest fighter of all time.

What's In A Name, pt 2: Why Have A Champion Anyway?

Jason Peck, the author of the article linked and referenced in 'What's In A Name, pt 1: The Number One Contender?', has once again written an article deliberately defending the most absurd practices of the extortionists who claim to rule boxing. What's more, he goes quite aggressively on the offensive against the nearest thing to legitimate universal rankings and legitimate championship listings in the sport: he chooses to attack the championship policy of The Ring magazine. Judging from the comments in the thread attached to his article, there are a number of boxing fans who agree with his views.

I'm going to start by saying that The Ring is not perfect. I have noted definite changes in advertising content since its purchase by Golden Boy Enterprises. They have added some higher ticket sponsors (Southwest Airlines and Tecate beer), substituted Rockstar energy drink for the old Gatorade ads, and eliminated most (but not all) of the boxing equipment ads in favor of ads for various Golden Boy events and publications (Mosely-Judah and Oscar De La Hoya's autobiography). Nigel Collins' second editorial since the buyout (the first defended the sale and declared the principles of the magazine would not change) defended the inevitable De La Hoya-Mayweather rematch (which most of the magazine's writers explicitly oppose) on economic grounds, reminding us all that boxing is a business. My response to that is on this blog too.

All that said, The Ring provides the only championship policy untainted by the extortion and corruption practiced by the alphabet cartel. Their policy awards the title to men who win it in the ring and only grants it to another man if he wins it in the ring. This is the only possible policy that does not, inevitably, mire itself in corruption. The insistence on 'mandatory' title fights and the stripping of champions who do not defend against their 'mandatory' challengers is the third leading cause of the fringe status of boxing today. (For those who care curious, number one is the fact that the greed of promoters has put all the fights worth seeing on pay cable and pay-per-view outlets, profiting from the loyalty of established fans but shrinking the available pool of new fans. Number two is the fact that when I can name six different organizations recognizing alleged 'world champions.')

Sanctioning bodies of one kind or another have been around for a long time, as long as boxing has been legal: when the British government legalized boxing, they created the British Boxing Board of Control (which recognizes the Scottish, English, British, and Commonwealth champions and used to recognize a world champion) to oversee it. When boxing was completely legalized in New York State, boxing in New York became the purvue of the New York State Athletic Commission and the NYSAC was respected around the nation and world and its opinions as to the legitimate identity of a champion was taken seriously if not always unanimously supported. The National Boxing Association (NBA) came later, also in the U.S., and it also claimed to have a stake in recognizing the world champion. For many years, however, none of these organizations stripped champions and when champions were stripped it happened rarely. In nearly all cases, once a fighter was declared undisputed world champion he was not ever stripped.

During the years that the International Boxing Club controlled boxing, it was able to achieve a great deal of influence with the NBA. Sugar Ray Robinson was stripped by the NBA because he refused to fight IBC opponents, and while this had little effect on Robinson's career (the star will always make money) it negatively impacted his conqueror: Paul Pender never received undisputed recognition as world champion because the NBA sanctioned a title fight between Gene Fulmer and Carmen Basilio and eventually convinced the NYSAC to recognize Fulmer. Robinson had not lost the title in the ring at the time he defeated Pender, Pender defeated Robinson, Pender deserved recognition. He was one of the 'unknown but talented' fighters Mr. Peck claims to defend, and he only suffered from the policy that Mr. Peck claims defends fighters like him.

Everyone in boxing, with the exception of the most die-hard Mayweather fans, wants to see Mayweather fight the winner of Cotto-Margarito and will feel his legacy as welterweight champion is incomplete if he does not do so. Most knowledgeable students and fans of boxing consider Mayweather's legacy to be incomplete across the board because he has studiously avoided fighters like Kostya Tyzyu and Joel Casamayor in favor of the Arturo Gattis and Oscar De La Hoyas of the sport. No one doubts Mayweather's gifts, but we would all like to see him fight the best fighters in the divisions in which he claims championships.

That said, he is still the legitimate welterweight champion of the world. Zab Judah won the legitimate welterweight title by beating Cory Spinks, Carlos Baldomir beat Judah, and Mayweather beat Baldomir. No one has yet beaten Mayweather. The only legitimate champion is the man who beat the man. That man is Floyd Mayweather. Regardless of our opinions of him. Recognizing any other man as champion, at this time, devalues the bedrock principle of boxing: to be the best you have to beat the best. As champion, Mayweather is 'the best' until someone beats him. He should be criticized for not fighting his top contenders, he should be pressured to fight to them by any means possible, or he should retire. Until he does so or is beaten, he is the man. No one else can be the man, legitimately, without beating him.

Mr. Peck claims not to be defending the alphabet cartel. I disagree. By choosing to defend the most pernicious of their policies, he is acting as their spokesman whether he means to do so or not. By promoting the very bad ideas that have brought boxing to where it is now, he has chosen to be part of the problem and not the solution.

That is truly failing boxing.

Is It Really All ABout The Money?

Boxing is a business. Of course it is, all professional sports are a business and that's why they are 'professional', people are making money. No one will ever deny that professional sports are about money.

Barring gimmicks, however, professional sports make the most money when they are the most competitive and the most focused on the 'sports' over the 'professional.' Between them, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier fought every comer for the heavyweight title during their eras. Their successes in an era of network tv coverage and competitive fights down at the corner club in nearly every big American city would sew the seeds for the modern era of fewer cards for more money and a sport where the most successful make more money than ever from the pocketbooks of pay cable while the sport as a whole brings in the smallest gates it ever has in the United States.

Clearly, if boxing is a business, it isn't a well run business. A few elite employees are raking in record paychecks while the business itself is doing comparatively poorly. It sounds like the American corporate world, doesn't it? Look at the economy and we can see where that trend ends.

Nigel Collins wrote an editorial in the current issue of The Ring magazine defending the upcoming Bernard Hopkins-Joe Calzaghe fight and the Floyd Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya rematch. I want to say that, as a fight fan, I don't think the Hopkins-Calzaghe fight needs to be defended. The light heavyweight champion defending against the super middleweight champion is entirely legitimate, and the top light heavyweight contenders need to fight each other a bit more to prove who is really most deserving of a shot at the top spot.

On the other hand, the Mayweather-De La Hoya rematch is only defensible in terms of De La Hoya's mainstream exposure and the money it will bring in. The original Mayweather-De La Hoya fight was not defensible on any other grounds. De La Hoya hasn't done anything to deserve huge paydays against top fighters in a very long time. That awful decision against Felix Sturm should have had Sturm in the ring with Hopkins instead of De La Hoya, it didn't because as awful as it was it went De La Hoya's way and the money was there.

Collins' editorial embraces 'the money' and the business aspect of boxing in a way that is disappointing to see from the official view of 'The Bible of Boxing' and which I can't help but think goes against Collins' real feelings on the matter. Oscar De La Hoya is on the front cover of the same issue of the magazine, the back page is an advertisement for his autobiography. De La Hoya's company, Golden Boy, owns Sports and Entertainment Publications, the parent company of The Ring. When the buyout occurred, we were assured that it would in no way skew the view and content of the magazine in any way and that management was confident that Golden Boy really wanted to protect boxing's best journalism. It can be argued, very effectively, that the De La Hoya story is warranted by Oscar's mainstream appeal and that advertising space is sold to whomever will pay for it. The editorial still raises an eyebrow. It appears, in its embrace of the purely commercial aspects of the business of boxing, to defy the message of the very magazine whose official view it is supposed to express.

An article on East Side boxing, by Michael Herron, defended the rematch and Mayweather's career as a whole even more aggressively. The same article defends Mayweather's upcoming adventure into the world of professional wrestling. The article holds Floyd Mayeather Jr. and Roy Jones Jr. up as the examples of all a prize-fighter should be. Fortunately, The Ring isn't willing to go anywhere near that far.

Mayweather and Jones are gifted talents who are very possibly the most talented fighters of their generations, though in my personal view the 'best' fighter of the period bridging both of these phenomenal talents is Bernard Hopkins and the 'greatest' (greatness, as I have mentioned time and time again in this blog, is about accomplishment and legacy) was Lennox Lewis or Kostya Tszyu.

Mr. Herron suggests that professional boxing is all about the money and that there is a need for boxers to branch out of their chosen profession. He applauds Floyd Mayweather's intelligent business acumen and extols the amount of money that will be rolling in as a result of the schedule he believes to be fully formed in Mayweather's mind. Clearly, all of this is very good for Mayweather and no one believe that Floyd should not be thinking of his own interest.

At the same time, what about the interests of boxing? It is in the interest of boxing for Floyd to fight the best welterweight challengers available, as welterweight champion. In defeating Ricky Hatton, Mayweather fulfilled his duty as best pound for pound fighter in the world. He defended his championship against another undefeated champion hungry to take it from him. Good. I am glad the Hatton fight happened. However, he should now be defending his title against the best of his own division.

I understand the desire to make money, I understand the desire to protect one's health. As Joe Louis discovered to his sorrow, a great legacy won't pay the IRS. As Wilfred Benitez and Wilfredo Gomez's loved ones might testify, a great legacy won't get you out of your wheelchair to hug your family. However, Mayweather is already extremely rich and has made millions. If he truly wishes to protect his health, the best thing he could do for himself and boxing would be to retire and let a hungrier man step to the plate.

If he does not retire, as he constantly suggests he might but never seems to do, the best thing he can do for boxing is to fight the best available challengers and to fight often. Quality fights between Floyd Mayweather and Miguel Cotto and other top welterweights would do more for boxing than a hundred wrestling matches with Big Show, and be a lot less risky for his health. Joe Louis could tell Mayweather the risk of grappling with naturally much bigger men, as well.

The die-hard pro-Mayweather contingent professes total lack of understanding as to why hardcore boxing fans don't show Floyd the respect he deserves. The answer is sadly simple.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. has not shown boxing or its hardcore fans the respect they deserve.

Sometimes, I Think There's Hope

One of the reasons I established this little blog was that I sometimes seriously wonder about the quality and motivations of boxing writers. I've mentioned it from time to time before. I love the journalistic quality of The Ring, but its columnists have a tendency to irritate me in ways ranging from slight to major. Jeff Ryan gives me the impression of thinking that anyone who doesn't fight like Marvelous Marvin Hagler is a boring disgrace to the sport, but for most of his career Hagler didn't even fight like Hagler. How is everyone else supposed to compete? Ivan Goldman is a little less harsh, but he too is very quick with the 'boring' label when he doesn't like a fighter's style. Jim Bagge travels the gamut from being interesting and off-beat to being completely unreadable. Dr. Margaret Goodman's column on fighter safety never offends me, but is occasionally a tad dry and boring and I can't agree with her slightly paternalistic attitude toward the health of fighters still intellectually competent to make their own decisions. On the other hand, William Detloff's complete libertarianism on such topics as fighter safety and steroids frequently turns me off when it goes a touch far for me. Like Ryan and Goldman, as well, he can be entirely too scathing of quality fighters for whose styles he does not care. One of my favorites every month is editor in chief Nigel Collins' editorial... but in the most recent issue he defended the idea of a De La Hoya-Mayweather rematch and to some degree betrayed the ideals of his own publication by saying that not only do the business aspects of boxing come before its sporting aspects but they should. There are plenty of voices arguing the fan's perspective and the promoter's perspective, Mr. Collins' job as editor in chief of the ring is to campaign for the sporting aspect of boxing which receives far too little attention. So while The Ring is my favorite source of boxing fact and opinion, it is hardly perfect. It is the best available, but it could be better and there is other available.

Which brings us to internet writing. I use East Side Boxing to keep up with my daily and weekly fight news, but the quality of writing varies greatly. Writers range from pillars of class whose work is always top quality whether I agree with their opinions or not (Ted Sares comes immediately to mind), to guys whose obvious reason for writing on the internet and not in print is because of what their work would be used for if it were on paper (Yero Moody, and a writer whose name I can't recall who defended the system of mandatory challengers and title stripping currently in practice among the alphabet syndicates). Within that range, there's lots of varying degrees one way or the other. Even worse than the uneven quality of the writing on internet boxing sites, however, can be the tendency for such sites to release unedited promoter press announcements, which should be put in their own category or treated like advertisements, among the actual news entries. Still, the internet is the only way to get boxing news immediately on a daily or weekly basis.

Which brings me back to Mr. William Detloff. Mr. Detloff writes a weekly column for The Ring's website, entitled The Ring Update. I read it every week, sometimes with great approval and sometimes with great umbrage but rarely with disinterest. However, this week, he wrote a commentary upon the lightweight championship of the world (and in doing so, about the meaning of the word 'championship' in the larger sense) which cannot be stated and restated enough. His defense of the true meaning of 'champion' is evidence of why I still read and subscribe to The Ring, even though it's not perfect and there's more available, despite buyouts and Jim Bagge: the magazine and its writers defend the sporting and athletic aspect of boxing as a competition between opposing athletes and advocate for a fair field of competition.

Now, Mr. Collins, if you would please lock Mr. De La Hoya out of your office when writing editorials and remember how you really feel about boxing as a sport I would greatly appreciate it.

Size In Boxing III: The Myth of the Super-Heavyweight

During the 1990s there was a rising theory among many boxing writers, fans, and television commentators that the heavyweight division had crossed some line of demarcation into an era unlike any other. Lennox Lewis, Michael Grant, and the Klitschko brothers created the impression among many that the kinds of fighters competing in the heavyweight division was going to change drastically: tall, quick, muscular multi-talented athletes were going to replace the typical heavyweight fighter of the past. In addition to the success of Lewis, the Klitschko brothers, and the pre-Lennox Lewis Grant, this impression was helped along by the rising weight of the average heavyweight fighter. By first couple years of the 21st century this theory was solidly implanted into the mind of the boxing public by Lennox Lewis's dominant wins over Mike Tyson and David Tua and it has been an accepted factoid ever since.

'A factoid is a spurious (unverified, incorrect, or invented) "fact" intended to create or prolong public exposure or to manipulate public opinion. It appears in the Oxford English Dictionary as "something which becomes accepted as fact, although it may not be true", namely a speculation or an assumption. The term was coined by Norman Mailer in his 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe. Mailer described a factoid as "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper", and created the word by combining the word fact and the ending -oid to mean "like a fact".'

Dictionary.com

The first 'super-heavyweight' to win the heavyweight championship of the world was Jess Williard in 1915. He weighed 238 1/2 lbs for the fight and stood 6'6 1/2". Though he was considered less talented than Jack Johnson, the man he beat, he won by virtue of size, strength, and physical conditioning. He wore Johnson down over 26 grueling rounds, despite being outboxed in 25 of them, and knocked Johnson out. Everyone knows Willard's story after that; or rather, everyone knows that he was a footnote in the stories of Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey. The 6'1 Jack Dempsey destroyed Willard by absolutely brutal 3 round TKO. Willard was down seven times in the first round alone.

A drought in big heavyweights followed. Most people in boxing thought that big heavyweights were too awkward and uncoordinated to be any good, and no big men emerged to counter that thought. Primo Carnera was the next 'super-heavyweight' of prominence, and he was viewed as a joke whose fights were fixed and who never learned how to punch properly. He won his big fights by physically mauling smaller men, who gave up when injured. Light-heavyweight great Tommy Loughran lost to Carnera because of a broken foot, Carnera won his title fight with Jack Sharkey when Sharkey broke at least one (and possibly both) hands trying to hit Carnera in the body. Carnera, of course, was destroyed in his most famous fights by much smaller men: Max Baer knocked him out to take his world championship and Joe Louis beat him into hamburger in the fight that established Louis as a great contender. Carnera's resemblances to modern day fighters Audley Harrison and Nicolai Valuev are hard to ignore. He was a highly protected fighter of limited talent built for big paydays, who under-performed his hype regularly and folded against quality opposition.

Louis, Carnera's conqueror, fought quite a few bigger men in addition to Carnera. Buddy Baer and Abe Simon were also as big as today's super-heavyweights, and Louis did to them as he did to Carnera. From the Louis era on, 'super-heavyweights' have been the occasional presence but rarely a huge success.

The seeming dominance of bigger men in the 1990s was based primarily on two things: 1.) Lennox Lewis, by recovering from his loss to McCall and becoming a complete fighter, proved that a big man could learn to be a good boxer and 2.) the weights of heavyweights had been rising across the board in the 80s and 90s.

When one closely examines number two, however, one finds it's not because modern heavyweights are bigger, more powerful, and more athletic. It's because of two factors: the rise of weight lifting in boxing training and the decline of classical boxing training methods at heavyweight. In the 80s, many talented heavyweights simply didn't put the time in on the road and with the jump rope. An increasing number of bloated, out-of-shape heavyweight fighters appeared on the scene and this trend has never completely stopped. Worse, the belief that size matters more than anything has led to fighters whose best weights would be in the 200-230 range coming in from 230-250 in order to prove they are 'big enough.'

Most serious heavyweight have ranged from 6' to 6'3 and weighed from 190 - 230. The former hasn't really changed. Particularly small fighers (Tommy Burns and Mickey Walker in the past, James Toney more recently) have made their appearance. So have particularly big fighters. They aren't new. Look at the top ten fighters at The Ring's updated rankings on the internet, at heavyweight. There are precisely four 'super-heavyweights' on that list: Vladimir Klitschko (1), Nicolai Valuev (4), Vladimir Virchis (8), and Tony Thompson (9). One of these four, Nicolai Valuev, has already been exposed once, is likely to be exposed again when the protection is lowered for the big money once more, and is only on the list because he's held an alphabet title and won a pretty bad decision over John Ruiz. Thompson's sole loss is to a much smaller man, Erik Kirkland. Virchis' sole loss is also to a smaller man, #3 contender in the world Ruslan Chagaev, who stands 6'1. Vladimir Klitschko is the best fighter in the world and I don't believe anyone else on the top ten can beat him on his best night: but he has lost three times and one of those losses was to 6'2 Lamon Brewster. Valuev's sole loss, like Virchis', was to Chagaev.

Clearly, even in this age of modern 'super-heavyweights', smaller men can beat bigger men and size isn't enough to dominate the division. The other six contenders on the list are:

2.) Sam Peter - 6'0 1/2
3.) Ruslan Chagaev - 6'1
5.) Alexander Povetkin - 6'2
6.) Sultan Ibragimov - 6'2
7.) Oleg Maskaev - 6'3
10.) John Ruiz - 6'2

As noted above, Chagaev has beaten two much bigger men who are both on this list: Virchis and Valuev.

But, you say, Sam Peter is huge! It's not just about height!

Sam Peter's best fighting weight is just under 230. He weighs in at such monstrous weights because he doesn't work hard in the gym. He doesn't run, he doesn't jump rope. His atrocious stamina has been on display a couple of times: when he was totally outboxed by James Toney and when he was unable to generate serious offense against Vladimir Klitschko for more than a punch at a time. He knocked Klitschko down three times with big shots, but was totally outboxed in every other round and for much of the time in the rounds he scored knockdowns. He's not a big heavyweight. He's slightly larger than a prime Tyson, naturally, and if he had sense he'd train hard and come in slightly larger than a prime Tyson.

So even in this 'modern era of big heavyweights', the majority of the top heavyweights aren't that big. The top heavyweight in the world is a big man and there are three other highly ranked big men, but the second and third heavyweights in the world aren't even 6'2! Ruslan Chagaev, who does have good training habits, comes into the ring under 230 more often than not and has never reached 240, let alone topped it.

So the argument for this 'new era of modern super-heavyweights' comes down to Lennox Lewis (an all time great), the Klitschko brothers (a couple of good, if inconsistent, fighters), and a few guys here and there who have spells as contenders. Most of the guys at the top are around the same size they've always been, packing more pounds because of either weight-lifting, bad training, or both. Give Joe Louis some weights and a nutrition plan and he'd come in at 220 if that's what his corner thought best. And he'd do to Nicolai Valuev what he did to Primo Carnera. The argument in favor of the super-heavyweight is shaky at best.