Tragedy And Triumph

Fernando Vargas fell into the same category for me as Erik Morales. Both boxers fought with tremendous bravery. Both had massive fan bases that stuck with them through thick and thin, both literally and figuratively, since both had gluttonous impulses that frequently forced them to shed ample pounds before going into battle. Both, for reasons that are fairly arbitrary, rubbed me the wrong way. Both, however, won my respect.

Vargas, after losing Friday night to Ricardo Mayorga, will join Morales in retirement now. Vargas was never as good as Morales, even if they ended their career on similar notes: Losing streaks, and one last losing hurrah. When 2007 is said and done, there are a lot of labels we might be able to slap on it. "The year of British fighters," perhaps, especially if Ricky Hatton beats Floyd Mayweather. My vote is going to be for "the year boxing definitively proved it's back," even if it never really went away. But another contender is going to be "the year a generation of warriors departed." Arturo Gatti, Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera all retired in 2007, leaving behind them a wake of some of the most thrilling battles of all time. Diego Corrales, who won what I consider the greatest fight of all time in 2005, died this year. Vargas may be a notch lower than those four, but he fought in the same "never say die" style, and his pyrrhic 2000 loss to Felix Trinidad was truly great; one scribe called it today the greatest junior middleweight (154 lbs.) title fight ever.

It's tragic that Vargas' bravery in that fight probably left him in that dreaded boxing state: "Never the same." Against one of the hardest punchers ever, Vargas just kept getting up over and over again. Nobody can do that and not pay in the long-term. I'm not saying Vargas would have beaten Oscar De La Hoya or Shane Mosley later in his career if his corner had thrown in the towel sooner against Trinidad. But he probably would have had a better chance. That Trinidad battle, combined with Vargas' ongoing war with the scale -- he lost 100 pounds and gained some anemia along the way to his 164-pound matchup with Mayorga -- put wear and tear on his body that leaves him old, physically, at 29 years. It's wise that he's leaving now, when his body has absolutely nothing left to give him and he apparently has an acting career ahead of him. Quitting here should leave him the wits he'll need for the movies, and may they serve him with fans the way his bravery pleased them in the ring.

As for Mayorga:

He lives to fight another day. Beating a plump-looking Vargas is going to give him just enough cache, undeserved or no, to serve at least once more as the sport's premier "opponent" -- a fighter who is not good enough to beat the elite but dangerous enough, credible enough, and entertaining enough to up the pay-per-view numbers. If that's the path he plans to ply, then the start-studded welterweight (147 lbs.) division is the one for him, and he's already called out Mayweather and Miguel Cotto. If, however, he wants to make a case for respectability (it's hard to remember he ever had it once, after twice defeating the significantly higher-regarded Vernon Forrest) he could try to make something of himself at junior middleweight, where he could fight Forrest again or avenge his loss to Cory Spinks. Maybe win a title or something. But something about the demeanor of the beer-swilling, incorporating-his-opponent's-dead-mother-into-his-trash-talk Mayorga suggests to me he'll skip the respectability business. Even after his apology to Vargas for all that talking he did about his wife and child.














Too soon, a young Vargas (left) fought Trinidad (right). Too late, the fight was stopped. It will be the first fight people think of when they remember Vargas, but it was the beginning of his end.

The Big Little Fight Nobody's Talking About Could Be A Scorcher

Across the ocean this weekend, they're on the verge of hosting a fight that might -- might -- break the all-time attendance record for an indoor boxing event. So it's no wonder that the boxing world is paying closer attention to the super middleweight (168 lbs.) battle scheduled in Great Britain between Joe Calzaghe and Mikkel Kessler than they are the meeting this weekend in the U.S. of A. between junior lightweights (130 lbs.) Juan Manuel Marquez and Rocky Juarez.

Don't get me wrong, I've got a tingling feeling in the pit of my stomach about Calzaghe-Kessler, and it's still days away. I'll get to that fight soon enough. But let's not overlook Marquez-Juarez. The most important thing about it is that its outcome could decide whether we get one of the most meaningful fights in all of boxing, a rematch between Marquez and Manny Pacquiao. But Marquez-Juarez could be a scorcher in its own right.

Marquez is probably my favorite fighter. He basically has every tool in the toolbox -- he throws astonishing combinations, has enough power to win by pretty knockout, looks good even when he's playing defense and has established his badass bona fides. His tendency to play it safe on defense has vanished entirely, silencing one of the most common criticisms of Marquez. The other most common criticism, which came in the form of a question about whether he had a boxing heart to go with his undisputed boxing brain, disappeared following his exciting 2004 brawl with Pacquiao. Pacquiao bum-rushed him in the first round, knocking Marquez down three times and making anyone watching think, "Man, this Pacquiao is something," and "That settles it -- Marquez isn't even in the same league" with contemporary Mexican legends Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera. Then, Marquez cooly and brutally began dissecting his faster, harder-hitting, more limited foe. Lots of those rounds after the first were pretty close, and the result at the end is still hotly disputed, but by the time it was announced as a draw, there was no way you could question Marquez' guts and unflappability. Some bad business decisions led to Marquez' team dismissing a rematch, then taking a bad fight overseas against Chris John that was scored as a victory for John but that most everyone thought Marquez won. But Marquez began scratching his way back up the mountain, and by the time he beat Barrera this year, finally, he had cemented his position as one of the five best fighters around, if weight class is ignored -- third best, according to The Ring. And he did it in a victory over Barrera that is a legitimate candidate for fight of the year in 2007.

Rocky Juarez, a former Olympian and highly-touted up-and-comer, was left for the vultures after he was upset in 2005 by Humberto Soto. But then he beat the tar out of the aforementioned Barrera in a 2006 fight first scored a draw, then a win for Barrera after some strange "calculation error," but many -- myself included -- thought it should have been a victory for Juarez. Since then, though, Juarez has failed to capitalize. He was thoroughly outboxed in his rematch with Barrera, then won a yawner against Jose Hernandez this year. But before we again banish him to the desert, let's meditate on the fact that Soto has proven since the upset that he's a far better fighter than his five losses at the time suggested, and that Juarez was a youthful underdog against Barrera. At this point, though, he is what he is: a dangerous puncher who can change a fight with one blow, as he did in 2003's consensus knockout of the year; a guy who can take a hellacious punch himself; someone with fast hands; but a plodder who just doesn't punch enough, a fact that sometimes gets him in trouble from a judging and entertainment standpoint.

If Juarez wins, he will have toppled a pound-for-pound great and proven his critics wrong. If Marquez wins, he will have cleared a path to the biggest money fight of his career. But if Juarez loses, he may not get another chance at a big fight, Pacquiao moves on to something else and an aging great will likely have trouble climbing once again to the top. I do think this will be a good fight -- both men have a lot on the line, and there will be intrigue in whether Juarez can land something big when Marquez takes risks to do damage.

MY PREDICTION: Marquez by decision. If Barrera beats Juarez, and Marquez beats Barrera, that stands to favor Marquez. Marquez has the same attributes Barrera had that troubled Juarez, but Marquez has faster hands than Barrera, one of Juarez's original advantages over Barrera.
CONFIDENCE: 80%. The stand-and-trade strategy of Marquez we've come to know and love the last few fights could backfire against the powerful Juarez, who also has the edge in age, 27 years young to Marquez' old-for-130 pounds 34. But I suspect if Marquez gets into a bind, he'll stick and move his way to a win to preserve the millions he might win vs. Pacquiao.
MY ALLEGIANCE: I already gave it away, didn't I? Marquez for his style and skill, over Juarez' power and plod. But even if I didn't like Marquez so much, I'd want him to win to make that Pacquiao rematch happen.













As good a fight as it was when Marquez and Pacquiao met, I only want to see one of these warriors raising their hands in victory in a rematch early next year. So I don't want to see any hijinks from Mr. Juarez Saturday.

Two Winners, Two Worries

On Saturday night, Manny Pacquiao picked up another big win against one of the best in boxing history, and Sam Peter returned for his own victory that, due to the peculiarities of title belt politics, means he made his first defense of an "interim" championship. Were the circumstances different, this might be cause for celebration for what were, going in, one of boxing's biggest superstars in Pacquiao and a potential savior of the desert-like heavyweight division in Peter. But circumstances matter.

What their opponents do next is moot. Marco Antonio Barrera is retiring following his second loss to Pacquiao, and Jameel McCline -- well, I don't really care what McCline does. Having watched the fight on replay, it was maddening to watch him backpedal in the fourth round after dropping Peter twice in the third, then refuse to throw the uppercut considering that Peter was practically begging for it by leaning down.

What Pacquiao did Saturday may very well have been about what he does next. All agree that Pacquiao fought cautiously, nothing like the whirlwind of fists we've come to love. Likewise, all agree he looked gaunt at the weigh-in the day before. One of his promoters, Bob Arum, is talking about Pacquiao fighting at lightweight (135 lbs.), up from the junior lightweight division (130) that he's dominated for the last couple years. His trainer, Freddie Roach, said: "We're trying to make him a better overall fighter, with a longer, better career." That goes hand in hand with Roach's confession that he knows Pacquiao, at lightweight, won't have the same power edge. Usually, I'd be in favor of a fighter having a longer, better career, but there are thought undercurrents here that have my furrowing my brow. I must start by saying the only fight I want to see Pacquiao in next is a rematch with Juan Manuel Marquez who fought Pacquiao to a dramatic draw in 2004. That's assuming Marquez gets through his Nov. 3 meeting with Rocky Juarez, it almost goes without saying. Not only do Pacquiao and Marquez have unfinished business, but they're two of the sport's five best fighters, pound for pound. Marquez only recently moved up to junior lightweight, so it could be a stretch to move up again soon at all if ever, no matter what Arum is saying about a possible Pacquiao-Marquez rematch in that division. No, I don't think this is about whether Pacquiao can make 130 anymore. I think it's about whether Pacquiao wants to make 130 anymore. Middleweight Jermain Taylor recently showed that his main problem making 160 lbs. was how hard he wanted to train making it, since he did it easily after concentrating full-time on doing so for one of the first times in his career. I think Pacquiao is in a similar situation; his distractions outside the ring prior to this weekend are well-documented. Worse still than the likelihood that a Marquez rematch may not happen anytime soon is the possibility that we've now seen the last of the Pacquiao who tries to blast out everyone he fights, replaced by a heavier, less powerful, more tactical thinker. Barrera pulled off the whole brawler-turned-boxer thing, but I doubt it will suit Pacquiao as well. Explosiveness is what made Pacquiao special. If he abandons it, 2007 won't just be the year we witnessed the ending for great warriors like Barrera, Diego Corrales, Jose Luis Castillo, Eric Morales and Fernando Vargas. We can add Pacquiao to the list, if only figuratively.

Peter, also from the seek and destroy school of fisticuffs, never stopped trying to do just that to McCline, even after landing on his back three times early in the fight. The worry about Peter is of a different variety -- that he was on his back to begin with. On one level, that he got back up showed considerable fortitude. Peter is still green, by heavyweight standards. Maybe he will learn lessons from the McCline knockdowns. But a granite chin is one of the traits, with his nasty knockout power, that made Peter such a formidable heavyweight, viewed as no worse than the second best behind Vitali Klitschko, whom Peter barely lost to in 2005. Anyone can "get caught," but regardless of Peter's claims that his knockdowns were mere slips, he was badly hurt in the third, and not by some lucky punch. Peter never figured out that the uppercut was his huckleberry, and never adjusted as such. A less reticent fighter than McCline, or a better conditioned one, would have made Peter pay. Fortunately for us, Peter has shown the ability to learn, as he showed in his rematch against James Toney last year. Nor should a Peter loss as a result of some of these mistakes be the end of him as an upper-tier heavyweight; he's still young, and could rebuild. Just one question: Can anyone still say, after Saturday night, that Peter has a granite chin, badly hurt as he was by a three-time also-ran? I, for one, am worried.
















This is Peter Cushing. His name is Peter, like Sam, and he was gaunt, like Manny was on Friday. How I tied this all together is nothing short of a miracle, but maybe a bit of a stretch.

Pac-Man Versus The Baby-Faced Assassin

Manny Pacquiao is a sensation, pure and simple. He's one of the most famous people on the planet, if the manic devotion of one country counts for anything, and no worse than the second or third best boxer around regardless of weight class. He's certainly the most fun to watch, with his fists rocketing into his opponent in constant barrages, fast as quicksilver and heavy as bricks.

Marco Antonio Barrera is a living legend. He's maybe one of the five best Mexican fighters ever to lace up the gloves. He can box smartly, he can brawl, or he can do both from one round to the next. He's one half of one of boxing's all-time great trilogies, against fellow Mexican Erik Morales. But the last time he ran across Pacquiao in 2003, he got the beating of his lifetime until his corner threw in the towel in the 11th.

When they meet again Saturday night, Barrera, four years older at age 33 -- ancient for a 130-pounder (junior lightweight) -- will be the heavy underdog against Pacquiao, four years better at age 28. And yet I find myself itching at a creeping feeling that I should pick Barrera to win.

Maybe I bought into the hype of the mouth-watering countdown special that HBO produces for its big fights, which highlighted that unlike last time, Barrera has no distractions, no fires forcing him to evacuate his training camp, no questions over the revelation that he'd had surgery to implant a metal plate in his head. He is bent on revenge, thinking night and day of Pacquiao, motivated by the pride that makes him the kind of warrior in the ring who is consumed with answering every punch like it's an insult to his very being. And unlike last time, Pacquiao isn't the ambitious, single-minded up-and-comer, but a star who is so distracted by his hero worship in the Philippines, he shows up to training camp a month later than Barrera. It sounds like role reversal, but then, it's to HBO's advantage to create doubt that Barrera can win. Otherwise, the people will be paying their $50 for a pay-per-view beatdown of a boxing icon, a total buzzkill.

Since 2003, Barrera has won the rubber match against Morales, his hated rival for the love of Mexican fans, relying upon a perfect mixture of skill and meanness in 2004's consensus fight of the year. He nearly lost a brawl to another young up-and-comer, Rocky Juarez -- a candidate for fight of the year in 2006 -- then adopted his slick boxing persona for an easy win in the rematch. And earlier this year, he became the first high-profile Mexican to take on his most avoided fellow countryman, Juan Manuel Marquez. The result was yet another fight of the year candidate, showcasing about the highest level of skill you'll ever see in a boxing ring, but Barrera came out on the losing end after nearly scoring a knockout late. The fact is, win or lose, Barrera is fearless, he's smart to the point of being devious, and he's never once bored me, although I missed his alleged yawner rematch with Juarez.

Since 2003, Pacquiao has upgraded from rising star to supernova. When he fought Barrera, Pacquiao was a one-trick pony, but as the saying goes, it was a great trick: a quick one-two -- right jab, straight left, repeat. In his next fight the following year, Pacquiao used it to deck the aforementioned Marquez three times in the first round, but the awfully clever Marquez figured it out in the rounds after that, battling back for a draw. The aforementioned Morales fought Pacquiao next in 2005, where Morales exploited the one-dimensionality Marquez exposed at the beginning of Pacquiao's own tremendous trilogy with Barrera's nemesis, defeating the Filipino icon. By the sequel in 2006, though, Pacquiao was a different fighter. He had a right hook, and he spent a lot more time punching to the body. It was all he needed to hand Morales the first KO of his career in round 10, then the second KO of his career during the rubber match in a much shorter but intensely captivating three-rounder. Pacquiao's bouts with Marquez and Morales all were fight of the year candidates, and primarily on the strength of his wins over Morales, he was named Ring Magazine's Fighter of the Year in 2006. Pacquiao is an energetic, ferocious, almost happy warrior, and now that he's sharpened his natural gifts with improved skills, many think he's the best boxer still roaming between the ring ropes.

MY PREDICTION: The only thing I'm sure of is that this will be better than their last fight. I say this despite Barrera's advanced age and accumulated years of punishment because Barrera's proven time and again that he's at his best when he's at the apex of public doubt. I don't believe his pride will let him lose so badly this time around. Still, having re-watched their first meeting, I'm picking Pacquiao by decision. He was far faster than Barrera, and still will be Saturday night. No distractions can change that. He should put together enough quick, hard-hitting rounds, even if he's not in peak physical condition, to pull out a victory on the judge's scorecards.
CONFIDENCE: 60%. Pacquiao should win, and yet, if you go to the 2003 tape, you'll see that Barrera fared pretty well in the first round, before Pacquiao overwhelmed him with blurry bursts of energy. While he was soundly defeated, Barrera still had his moments throughout, floating wisps of possibility for 2007. And remember, Barrera has, throughout his career, performed far better in rematches.
MY ALLEGIANCE: Pacquiao. I admire Barrera greatly, but I'm serious when I say there's no one I enjoy watching more than Pacquiao. His stubborn commitment to goofing off outside the ring -- star in movies! record albums! run for political office office! (allegedly) nuture a gambling problem betting on cockfights! -- make him a character, but it also infuriates me to the point of hoping he pays for it one day. That day hasn't arrived yet. I'm with the Pac-Man over the Baby-Faced Assassin in a rematch of great nicknames and great fighters.











Will crap like this be Pacquiao's downfall?

Boxing News Of The Weird And So Forth

Stick to the fists, O'Neil. And come back soon. We miss you. (from antique-used-tools.com)

• Random. Oh, O'Neil Bell. The most recent cruiserweight (200 lbs.) champion to unify all the belts of the various organizations that give out belts missed his ESPN date Wednesday because, according to the Associated Press, he "was dropped from the card when officials with the show's promoter, Warriors Boxing, were unable to locate him the past two weeks." Prior, in February, according to the Associated Press, "Bell was arrested over the weekend after a sparring partner claimed he heaved a hatchet at him during a training run through the woods, authorities said." Bell, whose nickname is "Give 'Em Hell," should consider changing his moniker to a version of the nickname granted to Owen "What The Heck" Beck: "What The Hell?"
• Random. While perusing a rulebook for my recent post on excessive hugging in boxing, I stumbled across this quizzical rule: "If a boxer attempts to foul his opponent while exerting any type of unsportsmanlike conduct or unorthodox move and he injures himself, the Referee will treat the injury as if a legal blow caused it." I've never seen this rule applied, but if it is in any forthcoming fight, REMEMBER WHERE YOU HEARD IT FIRST!
• Wrap-up. It's an interesting anomaly that Showtime pointed out prior to Marquez-Vasquez II: Three of Ring Magazine's last seven "fight of the year" awardees came at bantamweight (118 lbs.) and super-bantamweight (122 lbs.). Marquez-Vasquez II has an excellent chance of making it four of eight. Or is it an anomaly? Anyone who only pays attention to the higher weight classes -- nobody higher than 140 lbs. has won "fight of the year" awards from Ring Magazine since 1996 -- well, The Ring's William Dettloff said it best after the latest fight of the year candidate: "I almost feel sorry for the non-boxing fans out there. They have no idea what they’re missing. " God bless Comcast On-Demand: HBO just re-aired Erik Morales-Marco Antonio Barrera I, the 2000 fight of the year at 122 lbs., and yes, I now have on tape that fight, one of the best ever, back-to-back with Marquez-Vasquez II.
  
• Wrap-up. Speaking of Marquez-Vasquez II, fellow 122-pound titlist Daniel Ponce DeLeon told maxboxing.com: "I thought Marquez did not prepare fully. He took (Vazquez) too lightly and ran out of gas. Vazquez looked in much better shape than was the case last time out and the result showed. This time he was able to get on the inside on a consistent basis and do his damage, zapping Marquez’s energy with the fight turning out the way it did.” I have no idea if DeLeon is right, but something seemed off about Marquez to me. Confidence? Conditioning? I can't rule out the possibility that I got suckered by the pre-fight talk of better preparation by Marquez, thus driving me back into the cave of "never trust a fighter who says he's in the best shape of his life."
• Preview. I haven't seen enough of this weekend's star Boxing After Dark combatants at (you guessed it) 122 lbs. to make predictions with any confidence, but I know enough about them to bet it's going to be an incredible double-header. The aforementioned DeLeon is all kinds of wild knockout power, and he's taking on the younger, also-powerful, more technical, but less granite-chinned Rey Bautista. I'm tempted to favor DeLeon here, but only because I've seen more of him and Bautista got dropped in the one bout of his I've witnessed. Also, Jhonny Gonzalez, whose sweet science is fierce, battles Gary Penalosa, the man who nearly upset DeLeon in their last fight. Weight class? 118 lbs.
  

Evander Holyfield: Like Don Quixote, But With A Storied C.V. And A Better Chance Of Defeating The Windmills

Bite his ear off, dislocate his shoulder, palpitate his heart, turn him in a 44-year-old man... nothing stops Holyfield, at least not for one more big fight. (from slam.canoe.ca)


I never experienced Evander Holyfield the way more veteran boxing fans did, in real-time, from his prime to his endless tragedies and resurrections when he was still one of, if not frequently the, best that the heavyweight division had to offer. Rather, I have experienced him as he was in the distant past via the wonders of old fight replays and as he has been for the last several years. The former is by far the preferable.

It did not take long for me to recognize from fight tapes why "The Real Deal" was so beloved. The cruiserweight version of Holyfield may have been the best, but no one ever pays much attention to the cruiserweights; the division, now limited to boxers below 200 lbs., has always been a temporary stop-over for the visibility of fighting the biggest of the big at heavyweight. The cruiserweight Holyfield had it all. He was faster than most everyone, and certainly more powerful. He put together flashy, destructive combinations then nimbly bounced around on the way to throwing more beautiful, devastating flurries. Holyfield eventually succumbed to the temptation of becoming a heavyweight, where his speed still mattered but his power mattered less. It is here where Holyfield became a living legend. Routinely smaller than his gigantic opposition, he fought with such pure guts that he became the people's champion -- the small guy who could step into the ring against a monster like Riddick Bowe and soak up such punishment that it was impossible not to root for him when he stormed back into the fight, as he did in the classic 11th round of their first scrap. By the time he got his long-sought match with Mike Tyson, he'd been through so many vicious wars that people feared he would very likely die should Iron Mike connect with one clean punch. But whereas Buster Douglas' victory over Tyson looked like a fluke in so many ways, Holyfield more than anyone punctured the invincibility of Tyson. In every other fight I've seen of Holyfield's from his glory years -- even those down times when he lost and was suffering from heart conditions and shoulder injuries -- what stood out more than anything is that just when it appeared he was about to lose, he would find a way to reverse it all. The fifth round rally against George Foreman, the knockdown of Bowe in their rubber match... there were so many amazing moments.

The latter way I've experienced Holyfield is as a shell of his former self. When his boxing license was pulled in New York after his listless loss with Larry Donald in 2004, I couldn't have agreed more. All the signs of a magnificent boxing career coming to an end were there: He'd been defeated by a never-was; he looked bad losing, not like he was always clawing toward victory as he was in his defeats of old; and he'd won a total of two fights in five years, losing five and drawing once. Someone needed to pull the plug for Evander, because he wasn't going to do it for himself.

Holyfield insisted, upon his most recent comeback via the states that were willing to license him, that he was merely injured, not shot, and that now he had recovered. He insisted, once again, that he would win the heavyweight title. Even when he clobbered Jeremy Bates in his first two rounds back in the ring in nearly two years, no one was convinced. Bates was an insurance salesman who moonlighted as a boxer, although one who was very good at getting hammered around by better fighters and delivering the occasional dangerous-looking punch. Some of Holyfield's more recent competition was slightly more accomplished, but not a threat to even a B-level heavyweight. The pleas continued. We beg you, Evander, stop fighting. If you think you're going to win a title, you're delusional, and you need to stop getting hit in the head.

Having only moments ago viewed his defeat of Bates for the first time, I can vouch that he looked infinitely better than in his previous unflattering showings, but Bates, by virtue of walking directly into his punches, certainly helped on that account. With each successive win, though, boxing writers have warmed more and more to the idea that the now-44-year-old Holyfield was only injured after all, and that there are heavyweight champions Holyfield might stand a chance to beat in an era of heavyweights among history's worst.

And now he has just that heavyweight: Sultan Ibragimov. Ibragimov is probably the most vulnerable of the four men wearing a championship belt, and once a unification bout fell through with another vulnerable champion, Ruslan Chagaev, Sultan picked Holyfield as a replacement for Oct. 13. Unlike with Mexican warrior Erik Morales, a subject of a recent post, I am going to give Holyfield the benefit of the doubt. I am going to say I believe he will win this fight.

There is a type of athlete unique to boxing that simultaneously provokes thrills and anxiety. He takes unbelievable punishment and soldiers on still. He suffers career depths that are all but insurmountable and somehow surmounts them. He switches from victim to superhuman from round to round, fight to fight, year to year. You grow to love him because of this, but you fear for his life for the same reason. They are the Marco Antonio Barreras, the Aruto Gattis, and yes, the Evander Holyfields. I don't know for sure that Holyfield has more than one big fight in him, if that. But he's proven he has at least a little something left. May he summon it all for the conclusion to his latest, and hopefully last, resurrection.

Another Legend For The Beating; Welterweight Wish Fulfillment; Losing Faith Too Fast

• Preview. It is with tremendous remorse that I anticipate Erik Morales' career will be executed this weekend in one of the worst possible ways. I never much cared for Morales, who is something of an insufferable egomaniac, but I respected him. His trilogy with Marco Antonio Barrera is historically great. It was a blazing action three-pack from the two best Mexican fighters at the time who passionately hated one another and merged their resulting brawling impulses with their incredible skill levels. His trilogy with Manny Pacquiao was plenty great, too, a non-stop offensive show for every single round. Morales is a sure hall-of-famer who embodied the word "warrior." He never said no to a challenge and he always stood and fought his foe toe-to-toe. He did so even when outgunned, as he was against Pacquiao by their third meeting; despite all the wear and tear he'd endured in the ring, he decided to go down guns blazing and risk getting knocked out to make a desperation bid at flattening Manilla's favorite son. Yet every warrior must realize when he gets too old to battle younger men, or else face inglorious defeat. Morales is, in the horribly descriptive terminology of boxing, "shot." He's only won one of his last five fights. Not a good sign. He looked awful in one of them, his first fight at lightweight (135 lbs.). His second fight at that weight is coming up Saturday. Not a good sign. Even though he mounted a heroic rally against Pacquiao in their final war, when he went down for the last time, he shook his head and decided not to try to get up. Not a good sign, especially since something similar happened with Arturo Gatti, another warrior whose willpower failed him in his next to last fight; it proved an omen for his final fight, a pitiable slaughter at the hands of a borderline opponent. When willpower goes from a warrior, the end is near. The guy he's fighting Saturday, David Diaz, does not sound like the most dangerous opponent he could have picked, so I suppose that's a good sign. But I don't like the looks of this fight, especially going up against Rafael Marquez-Israel Vasquez II airing on Showtime the same night. I could watch two truly amazing Mexican fighters in their prime in a rematch of their special first meeting... or shield my eyes as one formerly great Mexican fighter gets splattered by a pretty good Mexican-American fighter, plus fork money over to HBO Pay-Per-View for the privilege. I think I'll watch Marquez-Vasquez and hope I read the next day about Morales having tapped some Fountain of Regeneration, but I predict a Diaz mid-round KO or TKO, and a sad one.

Better to remember Morales, at right, as he was, not as he will soon be. (from hbo.com)

• Random. So far, so good on the welterweights (147 lbs.) making the match-ups they should in a deep, deep division of superstars, unheralded talents and promising prospects. Floyd Mayweather, almost universally believed to be the best fighter around, has a deal in place for a December dance with Ricky Hatton, one of Great Britain's favorite all-time boxers and like Mayweather young and unbeaten. Mayweather is probably too unearthly-gifted for Hatton, but there's a chance Hatton, who crowds and wrestles his man into submission, could pose the difficult style challenge needed to press Mayweather. Still, when two of the best face one another, it is a thing to be praised. Even better, Puerto Rican battering ram Miguel Cotto and Shane Mosley, one of his generation's finest, are on track for a November collision. This one is too puzzling for me to call yet, but style-wise, it's a better version of Mayweather-Hatton: Cotto and Hatton both chop you down with body punches and attrition, but Cotto is less one-dimensional, whereas Mayweather and Mosley both rely on blinding speed, but Mosley is more hittable and harder-hitting. Meeting between the winners for divisional supremacy, anyone?

Something spooky about Cotto's deep-set, dark eyes. (from boxeo-boxing.com)

• Wrap-up. There seem to be two schools of thought about what happened to welterweight prospect Andre Berto over the weekend, when he was knocked down and nearly out before recovering to win a decision over Cosme Rivera. One, advanced here by The Sweet Science's Michael Woods, suggests that maybe Berto isn't all he's cracked up to be if he nearly catches some zzz's courtesy a fringe contender like Rivera. The other, advanced here by ESPN's Dan Rafael and elsewhere, suggests that Berto was stepping up to the biggest challenge of his career and when he ran into adversity, he overcame it and will learn from it. I'm inclined to give Berto the benefit of the doubt and side with Rafael et al, and not just because I like bandwagons. Berto is 23 and was bound to face trouble once he graduated from destroying mismatched fighters. Rivera has made a living of late schooling youngsters like Berto -- not long ago he put prospect Joel Julio on his ass before Julio recovered to win. Woods draws attention to important flaws in Berto, such as his short arms and previously untested jaw. And the business with Berto's glove technicalities requiring a lengthy time to fix smacks of his team trying to give their golden goose time to clear the cobwebs in his head. Woods may prove right in the long term about the need to lower expectations for Berto, but credit Berto for going through with his next fight against an even tougher divisional gatekeeper, David Estrada. Let's see what he does then before we diminish Berto much for his close encounter with the Land of Nod.

Andre Berto: The Land of Nod is a wonderfully zany comic book, but I recommend avoiding it as a place to visit. (from jaystephens.com)