Taking On The Ring 100

I'm a sucker for subjective lists. Every time VH1 airs one of its endless lists -- top 100 one-hit wonders, top 100 heavy metal bands -- I rail against its injustices. The Pixies are the 81st best "hard rock band" ever, while Living Colour is the 70th? Screw you, VH1. But I can't stop watching them. Therefore, I = sucker.

As lists go, I'm in substantial agreement with The Ring's annual enumeration of the 100 best fighters, published in the January issue but compiled in September. Theirs is a subjective account, like so many others, of the best active "pound for pound" boxers -- that is, who's best/most accomplished regardless of what weight class they fight in.

My substantial agreement aside, there are two howlers on the list.

Vladimir Klitschko is ranked 55th. Nuh-uh, no they di-int. I'm by no means a Klitschko loyalist. But Klitschko looks to be the best heavyweight by a country mile, with only Sam Peter in shouting distance. And Peter lost in 2005 to the version of Klitschko whose confidence was in the dumpster and was far more mentally fragile than the Klitschko who is fighting now, while Peter looked shaky in his most recent outing. This Klitschko is very, very good, if flawed -- I suspect he's one really nasty punch away from wondering whether he will get knocked out and fighting scared again. But no matter. He's top-25 "pound for pound" material on a great many lists. A recent poll of top boxing writers at Yahoo! Sports won him enough votes for top-10 status that he placed, in effect, 13th. Yeah, 55 is way too low.

Another big man, Jean-Marc Mormeck, gets ranked at just 48th, another robbery. Now, granted, Mormeck just lost his cruiserweight (200 lbs.) crown this month to David Haye. But this list was compiled well before that defeat. Prior to that in 2007, he'd avenged his loss to O'Neil Bell, ranked 40th last year, to resume his reign as Ring Magazine's official 200-pound champ. And prior to that, he'd whooped the cream of the cruiserweight division. I'm not sure if Mormeck cracks the top 25 on my list, but he's significantly higher than 48th.

My complaints would be totally lame unless I suggested moving someone down. I can name a few. My first nominee is Nobuo Nashiro, ranked 42nd. The junior bantamweight (115 lbs.) is a mere 9-1, with his only significant victory coming via upset over Martin Castillo this year. That's a very nice win, but the next time Nashiro faced a high-caliber opponent, he lost to Alexander Munoz. So how is this guy better than Mormeck, let alone Klitschko, both of whom stood atop their respective divisions when the magazine went to print and both of whom are significantly more accomplished (26-2-1 and 49-3, respectively) over their careers and have proven themselves more than once against top competition? Want another? How about Zsolt Erdei, ranked 43rd? The light heavyweight (175 lbs.) titlist defeated absolute nobodies since last year, yet he moved up in the mag's rankings from 49th. Even Ring acknowledged that he fought nobodies. So far as I can tell, Erdei only has one good win in his career, too.

The discrepancy may be a result of Ring's explanation that its rankings incorporate "perceived potential" as one measure. "So a semi-unproven fighter with a tantalizing upside may get the nod over a proven veteran whose limits have already been established." That's fine to consider, but I don't think it much applies to picking Nashiro and Erdei over Klitschko and Mormeck. How can anyone assess the perceived potential of Nashiro after just 10 fights with one good win and one loss against proven opponents? The magazine even concedes that: "Hard to say how good he really is after going 1-1 against Castillo and Munoz, and at 25, hard to say how good the Japanese fighter can be." I'm not knocking the kid, I'm just saying nobody, not even The Ring, has a feel for whether he's really good or not. And amazingly, they ranked him 37th last year. Meanwhile, Erdei "gets points for consistency," because he's successfully defended the WBO's title belt eight straight times, according to The Ring. Which is weird, because Erdei's mediocre title reign seems to me like an indictment of the very "alphabet soup" belt system which The Ring is in mortal combat against. There's not even any mention of Erdei's "perceived potential."

Still, when the standard is "perceived potential" versus "established limits," Klitschko and Mormeck rank pretty well. Both have navigated their faults to the top of their respective divisions, with Klitschko the consensus best heavyweight and Mormeck having twice taken the cruiserweight crown. Would that everyone's limits be "best in class." Apparently, though, their most established limits are in The Ring 100.




















Next I will take on this totally bogus list about why I should buy a University of Waterloo Food Services Meal Plan.

Heads Of Cinder Block, WWE-Style Taunts And Triangles Versus Rights

With two of my top 10 fights of the second half of 2007 coming up this weekend -- Miguel Cotto-Shane Mosley, my #1, and Jean-Marc Mormeck-David Haye, my #9 -- topics that might be worth a lot of words most weeks get short shrift today.

I'm still without a title for these collections of tiny little thoughts that so many other boxing writers seem to have titles for, despite commenter Jimpanzee's fine efforts ("Jabs in the Dark" is alluring, but I dunno, I'm just not sold).

So for now, until I decide on the matter, I'm just going to make up a new title every time I do one of these. So here, without further ado, please enjoy my E. Honda's Hundred Hand Slaps:

• Tonight's "The Contender" season finale, and my figurative money's on Sakio Bika to beat Jaidon Codrington by decision. Codrington's had the weakest draw of anybody on the whole show, and while he's looked sensational knocking out his two opponents, Bika's a whole 'nother animal. He's very experienced, very difficult to fight, and he won't hit the deck easily since his head is made of cinder block. Literally. Bika by decision.
  
• Edison Miranda last week did the comeback thing at super middleweight (168 lbs.) and won by knockout, setting him up for some potentially interesting fights. I don't know if this was some kind of staged, WWE-style promotion, but fellow super middleweight contender Jean Pascal was at ringside taunting Miranda, a fact that did not escape a news release from Miranda's camp. This would be a battle between two men wildly swinging punches and insults, if you're into that kind of thing, and I am.
• It's worth pointing out that Miranda, Pascal, the boys of "The Contender" and this past Saturday's mega-fight between Joe Calzaghe and Mikkel Kessler all involve the super middleweight division. And there are plenty of other good fighters and potentially interesting matchups at 168, especially if the best middleweights (160 lbs.), Jermain Taylor and Kelly Pavlik, move up in weight soon. It's not a unique observation to say that super middleweight is one of the hottest weight classes in the sport right now. I think, though, it's still far behind welterweight (147 lbs). If you take a snapshot now, with Calzaghe in it, super middleweight's probably second best, but Calzaghe's about to move up to light heavyweight (175 lbs). But then what? I'll be "weighing" in (get it?) on this topic soon in this space, I expect.
  
• I don't follow Olympic boxing, I'm ashamed to say, but the patriot in me is pleased to see the United States back in gold at the World Boxing Championships.
  
• This month may ruin me, what with all the close, interesting fights ahead, but prediction-wise I'm still sitting pretty. I'm 3 for 4 since my last tally, putting me at 1 for 5 in July -- an embarrassment I've discussed here -- and 9 for 10 since. The only miscall was Evander Holyfield beating Sultan Ibragimov. I was wrong about methods once, when Juan Diaz didn't win by decision but by knockout over Julio Diaz.
  
• Speaking of heavyweights, a subject for which I can barely contain my disdain, I must give credit to Vitali Klitschko and Ibragimov finally making a unification fight happen. Or, at least, they're very close to making it happen. Between this, the heavyweight tournament I've scoffed at here and here, and the fact that it looks like Nicolay Valuev and Sergei Lyakhovich are about to sign to fight on the dotted line, it looks like the division is at least trying to make interesting fights. That's good because, loathe though I am to admit it, for much of the general public the heavyweight division is the only one that exists, and if it's generating buzz there's at least the chance of a trickle down effect. Now if only any of them except Klitschko could fight much.
• Seven Punch Combo favorite Kassim Ouma's problems are probably deeper than any of us can ever understand, since he was forced into war as a child soldier. And I'm sure his recent legal problems, and his ring rust, hindered him this weekend in a fight he lost against a journeyman who should have been an easy opponent. No one can fix some of those hindrances easily, but one thing that might make a tiny difference is if he moved down from junior middleweight (154 lbs.) to welterweight (147 lbs). He's just way too diminutive to hurt anyone at either junior middleweight or middleweight, and yet he keeps fighting in those divisions.
• Kudos to Rocky Juarez for recognizing his own problem after losing to Juan Manuel Marquez. In an interview with BoxingTalk, he said: "The person beating me is myself." Even Juarez at his best may never have scored a victory against the crafty Marquez, but at least Juarez knows he doesn't throw enough punches -- now he just needs to do something about it.

For today's picture, it was a toss-up between Pascal's triangle and a Miranda rights placard.

Cynicism Rewarded

Yup, nothing I saw on Shobox tonight convinced me otherwise that any of the dudes in this heavyweight title eliminator tournament could knock off Vladimir Klitschko.

I was not in agreement with the Showtime commentators who thought after the fight ended it was impossible for Calvin Brock to pull out a decision over eventual victor Eddie Chambers. In fact, I had it a draw, with Brock winning rounds one through four, then the 10th and 11th. Maybe that's why it took so long for the scores to be tabulated. How much would it have sucked to hold a four-boxer single-elimination tournament and have one of the fights come up even? I don't want to allege foul play here, I'm just sayin'. That all three judges had their pick for winner just one round ahead is not surprising.

I did like some things about Eddie Chambers, whom I had not seen before. Those are some fast hands he's got. He also moved around in little baby steps like all those awesome fights from Joe Louis' era. The way he held his hands and cocked his head was pure new school, though. Anyway, he's evidently got a little pop in his mits, too, because Brock looked all kinds of mushy in the face parts. One main problem: He's way too small to beat Klitschko. I'd give him a good chance against literally any other heavyweight on the scene that I've seen, a category of fighter that does not include his next opponent, Alexander Povetkin, who he'll meet for the final elimination. Chambers looks like he could dull most heavyweights' power with that upper body fall-back move, and his speed would give a lot of them serious trouble. I don't understand why he didn't throw more punches, considering Brock gave him plenty of opportunities, but then, Chambers is young and maybe didn't realize the gravity of the situation. Against Klitschko, that inactivity and tendency to stand in front of his man without doing anything for minutes at a time would only lead to Chambers getting jabbed one billion and three times per round, and Klitschko wouldn't care if he hit glove, because so long as Klitschko jabs Chambers and keeping him away, he wins on being busy alone.

Brock didn't look like the same person who was in a fun brawl with Jameel McCline a few years ago, nor the same person who scored 2006's knockout of the year over Zuri Lawrence, or even the same person who gave Klitschko a moderate run for his money late last year. I wonder if that crushing knockout loss he suffered at the hands of Klitschko took a lot out of him. Chambers' punches seemed to affect Brock a good deal, even the jabs. Brock looked slow in comparison not only to Chambers but to previous incarnations of himself, although maybe that had something to do with Brock coming in at a career high weight. He looked sluggish enough that I was tempted to think he just didn't want to fight Klitschko again -- who could blame him? -- if not for the fact that Brock came out hard in the 10th and 11th. Then just as mysteriously he ran away from Chambers all of the 12th, as if he didn't need the round or didn't want it. Maybe he was distracted and/or annoyed, as I was, by his father trying to dictate directions between rounds when Pernell Whitaker is his trainer these days, not dear old dad, his ex-trainer. Anyway, I fear Brock's headed for opponent-land if he is worse for the wear from the Klitschko fight, because Brock was only ever a good all-around fighter who had a low margin of error if he wanted to become champ. I'd miss the "Boxing Banker" nickname if Brock left the game, but hey, he is a banker if he wants to be with that college degree, and his wife is working to become a lawyer. Better that he enjoys a life of high-falutin' banker-lawyer love than muddle through a boxing career as a punching bag.

Clearly, I am this guy.

Predetermined Tournaments, On The Rebound, Bad Omens And Unsolicited Advice

There are a few boxing-related topics I want to get to soon -- particularly, a topic that keeps coming up about whether some kinds of violence are more morally acceptable to derive enjoyment from -- but it's been another busy week for me and another slow week for the sport. So once again, I'll just throw out some more random musings.

(Incidentally, I said it over at The 8 Count, but I couldn't be more jealous about the fact that everyone but me has come up with some kind of catchy title for their random musings. Every writer has one -- I've seen "Final Flurries," "Speedbag," all kinds of stuff, but it's like I've got a mental block. All nominations welcome.)

• I've got next to no interest in the heavyweight tournament that begins this weekend. It's not that I don't like the idea of four top fighters going at it single-elimination style for the chance to fight Vladimir Klitschko, one of the division's belt-holders. And it's not that I don't like the more veteran pair of the foursome. I think Calvin Brock's a decent fighter and nice guy; sure, he's a little cautious, but he also has a modicum of skill and has demonstrated serious KO power, as he did here for 2006's knockout of the year. And Chris Byrd, while boring, has tons of heart for being as small as he is when he really should move down to cruiserweight (200 lbs), plus he's sharp as a whip and should be a ringside analyst sooner rather than later. And finally, it's not that I don't like the chance to see the two promising younger heavyweights, Alexander Povetkin and Eddie Chambers, try to prove themselves. What I don't like is that I know how it's going to end: Klitschko knocking out whoever wins the tournament. He's already KO'd Brock once and Byrd twice, and no matter how good the two younger heavyweights are -- and I should caution I've only read about them, not seen either in action -- they are way, way, way too green to beat the best heavyweight in the world. Still: Good idea, bad place for it.
• Two fighters I really like, Jose Luis Castillo and Edison Miranda, will be trying to rebound from tough losses in the next few days. Look, no matter how Ricky Hatton tries to talk up his defeat of Castillo in a junior welterweight (140 lbs.) showdown earlier this year, the facts are clear to me that Castillo is a shot fighter. Usually, this is where I make my plea that some fighter I like who's a shadow of his former self hang up the gloves. But Castillo poses no obvious risk to his own health. It's not like his reflexes have completely abandoned him, as they have for so many other shot fighters. So maybe he's only half-shot. Plus, the financial penalties he suffered for not making weight for the third fight between himself and Diego Corrales are so severe he has to work them off somehow. And it's not as if he's fighting some titan this weekend, unless somebody knows something about this Adan Casillas I don't. I feel a little guilty for wanting to see Castillo punished severely for his crimes against Castillo-Corrales III. At the time I thought it was justice for Castillo robbing us of a proper sequel to the greatest fight of all time, Castillo-Corrales I, since Castillo-Corrales II was a little bit of a sham because Castillo was trying to get away with coming in over weight. In retrospect, both men have shown since they were never going to be the same after that first battle. And yes, Castillo is to blame for us not getting the sequel, but he's now having to fight beyond when he should just to make enough money to deal with those enormous financial penalties. For a guy who came just within a whisker of winning the biggest fight of his life, and who performed heroically during it, and who gave us such a thrilling example of what humans can do with their bodies, I don't like that I ever rooted against him. Miranda, meanwhile, may never be the superstar HBO clearly wanted him to be, but I think he's still got good days ahead of him despite getting absolutely clobbered by Kelly Pavlik. He's rudimentary, but he's a power-puncher with an entertaining mouth, so I'd like to see him get back into position for another big fight. Like Castillo, he came out on the wrong end of an amazing bout -- against Pavlik -- and he's been unlucky, losing to Arthur Abraham in 2006 because of some of the shoddiest refereeing you'll ever see. But I'll always like fighters who make fireworks happen. That's Miranda.
• Speaking of shot fighters, there is nothing encouraging at all about the fact that they're moving up the weight limit for the Fernando Vargas-Ricardo Mayorga fight, this time to 166 lbs. It had already been delayed when Vargas, who probably was about 100 lbs. heavier than the original 162 lbs. limit a few months before the scheduled date, was unsurprisingly diagnosed with anemia. One more problem with this fight and I won't be looking forward to it at all. As it was, I was only looking forward to it in a kind of "it might be a fun freak show, watching two loudmouth, over-the-hill sluggers swing until someone drops" way.
• On the good news tip, Pavlik and Taylor are good to go for their rematch early next year, at the middleweight-ish limit of 166 lbs. Plenty's been said about this rematch in general, but I just want to add my two cents' worth on a subplot of the upcoming fight: Taylor needs to ditch Emmanuel Steward and bring back Pat Burns, his trainer before the more accomplished Steward swooped in to take over the helm. There's clearly some awful chemistry there, and Taylor, coming off a pretty nasty knockout loss, needs to have his head right. Steward, for all his accomplishments, just isn't the one to help him do it, based on the fact that for most of their relationship, Taylor has gotten worse, not better.

If this creature crosses Fernando Vargas' path, there's a good chance I won't even be remotely interested in his fight, which I don't plan to watch on pay-per-view.

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.

Once I Was Blind, Now I Can See

There'll be ample boxing to talk about this week -- Marco Antonio Barrera ending his remarkable career, another must-see fight or two coming up Saturday, how the hell Jameel McCline gave Samuel Peter so much trouble when it took harder-hitting Vladimir Klitschko 12 rounds to hit "The Nigerian Nightmare" with a punch that had him reeling -- but there's something much more unimportant I want to address. I'm skipping over the more meaningful topics in part because I won't see the Barrera-Manny Pacquiao fight until next weekend, assuming they'll replay the $50 main event for free on HBO, and because I didn't catch but a few rounds of Peter-McCline despite my best intentions. The other reason is because I'm feeling like less of an idiot these days about the topic at hand, and I want to express my relief about it: Predictions.

Unless you're Las Vegas or a professional gambler, boxing predictions are more art than science. Ultimately, they matter very little. At most, one's prediction accuracy says a tiny amount about what one knows about the sport. But they're part of the fun of being a fight fan, at least for me.

And when I started up this blog, my prediction accuracy started in the gutter, then rolled around in it for a while. I went 1 for 5 in July, my first month online. That's Alex Rodriguez-in-October-level stuff. My confidence in my understanding of boxing was in shambles. Before I started the blog, when I made predictions in my head, my accuracy was damn good. But had I, like the aforementioned Yankee who kills it in the regular season but vaporizes in the playoffs, choked when it really mattered?

As it turns out, nowadays I'm more like a Yankee more famous for his fall performances, Mr. October himself, Reggie Jackson. Since August 1, I've gone 6 for 6. Sometimes, I haven't been right about the exact nature of the victory. Take this weekend, when Peter had to gut out a decision against a three-time also-ran in the form of McCline, rather than knocking him out in the middle rounds as I haughtily scoffed that he would. Other times I've been pretty proud that my going against conventional wisdom ended up being such a dashing move. That would be like this weekend again, when, as I predicted, Barrera reportedly made a better showing than in his 2003 battering from the fists of Pacquiao, even though age and career arc both looked to solidly favor a Pac-Man blowout of the Baby-Faced Assassin. But ultimately, I'd rather be wrong about the reason my pick won, as I have sometimes since August, than right about the reason my pick might lose, as I was pretty consistently before then.

Of course, now that I've brought this to the fore, the fates will observe my hubris and make me pay. Anticipating this, I've got a plan to head them off at the pass. I'm going to predict the exact opposite of what I think will happen for the next few weeks, no matter how crazy I look. Trust me, 13-loss, Federico Catubay will KO Vic Darchinyan in one round! It's going to be a fun October, for a lot of reasons.

Regards,
The "Real" Mr. October















This punk's got nothing on me.

Knock Off All That Cuddling, Professional Face-Punchers

On the long list of reasons a great many of my friends don't follow boxing is... All. That. Hugging. I don't mean after fights, when it never fails to pleasantly surprise me how two men can spend nearly an hour punching each other in the face, then embrace like old friends. No, the scourge I speak of is what in boxing terms is called a "clinch." It's when one fighter grabs the other and holds him, for reasons that vary from strategic advantage to salvation from a knockout punch for a boxer on the verge of hitting the canvas. Performed excessively, it is illegal, cause for having points docked for judging purposes or even disqualification. And yet, if anything, more -- not fewer -- big-name boxers appear to be relying on excessive holding as a tactic. It must stop.

The heavyweight division has, and always will be, marked by clinching. As this informative HBO article describes, even one of the most aesthetically appealing ring stylists, Muhammad Ali, held. All the time, in fact. It's the only thing about "The Greatest" that irritates me when I catch old Ali fights on ESPN Classic. Some of this is merely a question of size and space. Often, two giant men in a tiny ring will throw their punches and get entangled by accident. They have the option of trying to work their way out of this clinch or holding on until the referee separates them. Usually, alas, they take the latter option.

This heavyweight entanglement is in some ways understandable, but it also is one of the reasons I have never cared much for the heavyweights. Another kind of clinch is even more understandable: the aforementioned hold to avoid being knocked out. No one trying to maintain a grasp of his consciousness should be penalized for holding on for dear life. Sometimes it works and the fighter regains his senses, and the hold suddenly seems almost noble. On woozy legs, stars around his head, a fighter who manages to avoid the KO has done something dramatic. Especially since, quite often, the fighter on the verge of knocking out his man succeeds in wriggling free and putting him to sleep.

No, it is the strategic deployment of the hug that is a plague upon boxing. In the days of Mike Tyson, this strategic hold was more a matter of fright at being crushed by a sledgehammer uppercut. Tyson's victims entered the ring thinking survival, not victory. Fast forward to the 1990s: The most adept modern practitioner of holding is former heavyweight champion John Ruiz, and by my reckoning, he is to blame for the spread of clinching. Ruiz was an up-and-coming heavyweight before he was obliterated by David Tua. For anyone who saw Ruiz' fights with Evander Holyfield, notice in the Tua fight how willing he is to trade heavy blows compared to how he behaved against "The Real Deal." Ruiz realized after Tua that he could not compete in the heavyweight division on the strength of his punch alone, and began his patented "hit and hold" strategy. He would see his opportunity to land a blow, then let his forward momentum carry him into a clinch with his opponent. After the referee broke up the clinch, he would get into position to repeat this hit/hug cycle. If he did this often enough, and his opponent failed to hit him often enough, he would pile up points and win.

Lennox Lewis is the biggest-name fighter since to employ a similar holding-based strategy, but because Lewis had real power, it was never quite as boring as when Ruiz did it -- although it was boring enough to make Lewis an unpopular "baddest man in the world," as the heavyweight champ is sometimes known. For a very, very tall heavyweight, this strategy allows him to stay on the outside, jabbing his opponent at will and mixing in the occasional power punch; when he gets rushed by the smaller man, he grabs him, and that gives the bigger heavyweight a chance to reestablish his favorite distance. His successor as the clear-best heavyweight in the world, Vladimir Klitschko, has now adopted this holding style. That their trainer is the savvy Emmanuel Steward suggests a method to the madness.

But two big-name non-heavyweights now make holding a key to their strategy. Recently, all-time great Bernard Hopkins Ruized his way to victory over fellow future hall-of-famer Winky Wright, not the first time he has Ruized. Ricky Hatton, Great Britain's charismatic little Tazmanian devil, has hit and held his way to several frustrating-to-watch wins. Decades ago, Ali brought a little man's sweet science -- speed mixed with power -- into the heavyweight division and elevated the big man's game in the process. Why taint the little man's game with big man tactics?

This is not mere whining. My friends who dislike boxing are not alone in their disdain for holding. I've actually turned off fights when there was too much grappling. When a true fan of the sport can't stand all that wrestling, doesn't that suggest that this is a big problem? And excessive holding has arguably been the key to victory for several of the fighters I mentioned. Ruiz didn't have the talent to win against the best any other way. Lewis and Klitschko would still be excellent fighters without holding, but their opponents often didn't even get the chance to hit them because of all the copious hugging. Hatton nearly got knocked out by a body punch from borderline talent Juan Urango this year, forcing him to abandon a newly-adopted entertaining boxing style in favor of hit, fall in, hold. And Hopkins, 42, was able to keep Wright off-balance and prevent him from firing off his patented jab by hitting, falling in, then holding him. In these cases, cheating aided the winning, so the impact of clinching cannot be disputed.

The answer to this problem is a simple enough concept. Referees should enforce the rules. When a fighter is holding excessively, as the referee in Hopkins-Wright noted with repeated warnings to Hopkins, he should be docked points. This doesn't happen enough now. The referees need to get reacquainted with the rulebook, as the results suggest, but also as suggested by the HBO piece's quotes from referees. Richard Steele has always been a terrible ref, but his litany of excuses for why holding continues is laughable. Ruiz held and we let him get away with it, so he kept getting away with it, said Steele. Ali held, Steele said, but it was Ali and everyone liked him so he kept getting away with it. And sometimes, Steele said, he would let a hugger get away with it because the huggee was not struggling enough to get out of the hug! This rulebook makes no mention of the criteria proffered by Steele.

Given this, it looks like, barring a powerful public outcry, the best hope for ridding boxing of strategic huggers is individual vigilance. Light heavyweight great Roy Jones, Jr. defeated Ruiz despite a size disadvantage in part because the referee had been lobbied beforehand to be on the lookout for Ruiz' illegal tactics and warned him early and often. That nipped it in the bud. Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Jones successor as the most gifted boxer in the game, would be wise to mimic the Jones team's [;pu when he takes on Hatton later this year. Otherwise, Mayweather might have his perfect record hugged right out of him. And any of my friends I recruit to watch Mayweather-Hatton will say, "See? What's with all that hugging? I told you boxing sucked."