Prospective Unfortunate Side Effects Of A Loaded Late-Year Fight Schedule

This weekend and next, two potentially nice scraps will go untelevised, and it's likely because HBO and Showtime have tapped their budgets and filled their available dates. Strange as it sounds for a sport that was left for dead when I began following it, this fall and winter's bounty of quality match-ups is so overflowing that what would have been decent mid-level attractions a year ago suddenly can't find a home on the small screen. In an entertaining interview at BoxingTalk.com, Paulie Malignaggi -- the crowd-pleasingest boxer you'll ever see who has the punching power of a little girl, what with his strange penchant for making action fights -- speculates that the loaded schedule is the main thing keeping him off TV this fall. One has to imagine other quality fights are on hold for the same reason. It's a shame of a by-product, if so, but certainly falls under the category of "good problems to have."

Both the neglected fights of which I speak are in Paulie's junior welterweight division, at 140 lbs. Two years ago, it looked like boxing's glamour division, but a number of fighters outgrew it and moved up to full-fledged welterweights at 147 lbs. But with these two fights, plus Paulie's presence and the chance that a number of vets of lower weights like Joel Casamayor are thinking about switching to 140, there's some nice new blood here, and they're all fighting each other. Some of them, I confess, I've barely gotten glimpses of. First up, this weekend, is Ricardo Torres versus Kendall Holt. I've only seen Torres in his eye-poppingly good brawl against Miguel Cotto two years ago, when one or the other of them was down in nearly every round before Cotto pulled out the win. Torres has all kinds of power, but looks shaky in the departments of technique and whiskers. I've watched Holt in a couple showcase-type bouts, when he was in against OK competition, but showcase he did, demonstrating speed, footwork and enough pop to make him eminently watchable. I like Holt here by mid to late round TKO. Next weekend, Junior Witter takes on Vivian Harris, and I have no prediction here. I like and have seen my fair share of Harris' ring game, even if he is inconsistent. He's got good skills and very good power for a 140-pounder. I've never seen Witter, not once, but word is he's a tough an out as there is in boxing. It's too bad I won't see him in this clash of two of the division's consensus best.