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.

Three Career Endings: 1. Reflected Upon, 2. Wished For, 3. Accursed

A gentleman out of the ring except when it came to hated enemy Erik Morales, Barrera was a snarling, sneering and ruthless competitor between the ropes -- punching Juan Manuel Marquez when he was down, hitting Manny Pacquiao on the break Saturday, and mauling Naseem Hamed, pictured at right, by shoving his face into a ring post and more. Oh, and he was really, really good.


Saturday brought the end of one historic career, the next step in the car-crash comeback of another and the likely woeful conclusion to a third.

1. Adios, Marco Antonio Barrera. Anyone who's followed boxing for the last decade or so knows that, with Barrera having retired after Saturday's defeat at the hands of Manny Pacquiao -- kryptonite to Mexican fighters and Barrera in particular -- the sport is losing one of its all-time greats, and one of the most entertaining warriors of any era. I briefly visited his list of accomplishments before, but it's worth revisiting more fully here, because it's truly worthy of awe when they're all stacked up. Titles at junior featherweight (122 lbs.), featherweight (126) and junior lightweight (130). Ring Magazine fights of the year and rounds of the year in 2000 and 2004. Fight of the year candidates in 1996, 2006 and 2007, if not more years. Persistent inhabitant of unofficial top 10 "pound for pound" lists of best fighters since around the turn of the century, and before that, on and off starting in the mid-90s. One half of one of boxing's greatest trilogies, where he won two of three versus Erik Morales. Sixty-three wins, including victories against Naseem Hamed -- in one of his greatest performances, a dismantling of the popular Hamed's legend -- Morales, Kennedy McKinney, Johnny Tapia, Paulie Ayala, Daniel Jiminez, Luis Freitas, Kevin Kelley and Rocky Juarez. Definitive losses against only Pacquiao and Junior Jones, and borderline losses that could have gone Barerra's way against Jones in their second meeting, Morales and Juan Manuel Marquez. Ring Magazine comeback of the year in 2004, one of several dramatic career rebirths. One of the top five -- or at worst, top 10 -- Mexican fighters ever, quite a big deal in a country with as strong a boxing tradition as any other on the planet. A first ballot hall-of-famer. I could say a great deal more about Barrera in an attempt to give him his due praise, but what he did in the ring kinda glorifies itself, doesn't it?
2. Andrew Golota, please go away. "The Foul Pole" -- infamous for his in-ring meltdowns such as his two straight disqualifications against Riddick Bowe, which he earned by punching Bowe in the nuts endlessly -- is making yet another comeback bid in the wasteland that is the heavyweight division, with his latest and most noteworthy win coming this weekend over shell-of-Mike Tyson conqueror Kevin McBride. I was about to say the only fight I want to see Golota in is one where he's a sacrificial lamb and KO victim for some up-and-comer, but forgot my rule about wishing suffering on the mentally ill. I shouldn't villianize him. I just plain want him to go away.
3. My condolences, Jose Antonio Rivera. It saddens me that Rivera probably is never going to get his one big chance, which looks farther away than ever after his knockout loss to Daniel Santos on Saturday. Rivera is about as lovable a person you'll find in a sport where the goal is to bludgeon your opponent into unconsciousness. He's nice and humble and has said time and again that all he wants before he retires is a major money fight to make it easier to provide for his family. He's a court security officer by day who has enough skill, heart and power to have spent much of his nighttime career just on the periphery of that fight, save for some awful luck. In 2004, he missed the money train when then-welterweight (147 lbs.) flavor of the month Ricardo Mayorga bailed out of a scheduled meeting. In 2005 he lost a title shot to Luis Collazo, weight-drained in part because he'd not been able to train full-time due to his day job. Beloved in his hometown of Worcester, Mass., he was given time off in 2006 to train for a junior middleweight (154 lbs.) title fight against Alejandro Garcia, which he won entertainingly but which nobody saw because it happened the same night that Oscar De La Hoya beat up Mayorga. Then, earlier this year, because of some complicated circumstances with the belt-sanctioning organization, he was forced into a mandatory defense and disastrous style matchup against the far slicker, faster Travis Simms. Now the road back to a title shot and subsequent millions is almost infinitely long for a 34-year-old with two straight KO losses, and ESPN writes that his career is probably over. He's getting into the boxing promotion business back in Massachusetts, and I wish him luck for once there -- although reports are that he's off to a rocky start, having run into some trouble with the state's boxing bureaucracy, poetically if cruelly.

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.

A Little Gem

I just witnessed a terrific tussle between tiny pugilists Fernando Montiel and Luis Melendez for Montiel's super-flyweight (115 lbs.) belt. Versus, which aired it, replays the hell out of their fights, so you'll probably get a chance to see it soon just by channel-surfing. But here's a quick summary if you don't care to:

Second round, Melendez stuns Montiel. Close back and forth for a while. Sixth round, Montiel decks Melendez literally as the bell rings, and when Melendez gets up, Montiel puts his arm around him and walks him back to Melendez' corner, both smiling. Within the first minute of the seventh, Melendez now decks Montiel. He's badly hurt but survives the round. In the eighth Montiel buzzes Melendez, nearly decking him again. Montiel begins to take over but the toll of the fight is that his face is practically mush. Montiel KO's Melendez in the 12th with but a minute left. Ring announcer Michael Buffer declares that the crowd should give a round of applause for "a magnificent title fight." They do.

That is all.

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?

Five About Fighting: D.A.R.E. II, Easy Call, Wussing Out, Getting Selfish And A Telling Diss

Four random thoughts, plus one prediction.

1. Revisiting the Shane Mosley drug question, a number of boxing writers want to let this one slide. Mosley, after all, has never behaved like anything but a model citizen and he's a legendary fitness freak, so what would compel him to succumb to the temptation of an extra edge? I don't doubt either of those facts, but Mosley's excuse -- "I didn't know what I was taking" -- is identical to the rote denial offered by less model citizens, and not a particularly good one. It's only value is that, unless someone else brings forth proof otherwise, it can't be debunked automatically. But as Bad Left Hook posed the question, "You're telling me Mosley and his handlers would take something without knowing precisely what it is? Even though the steroids were undetectable, it seems a little too risky." It's even stranger since Mosley is apparently Mr. Goodbody. Whereas Bad Left Hook opts to trust Mosley, I'm going to err in the direction of skepticism.
2. I don't have much to say about Sam Peter fighting Jameel McCline Saturday on Showtime. Peter's going to knock him out around the sixth, confidence 99%, allegiance to Peter. It's not that McCline's a bad fighter, and yes, his height could pose a problem to the relatively tree trunk-like Peter. But McCline's job, so far as I can tell, is to lose against the elite talents of his division, and Peter's no worse than the second best heavyweight. If Zuri Lawrence -- Zuri Lawrence, for chrissakes -- beat McCline, Peter should have no trouble. Still, I'll probably be watching, as it's hard for me to justify the $50 on Manny Pacquiao-Marco Antonio Barrera II, also airing Saturday on HBO PPV. It's going to be expensive over the next few months if I buy every nifty pay per view coming down the pike.
3. I've gone soft on "The Contender," a little. The two contestants last week -- Stubby Lopez and Wayne McCantpunch or whatever their names were -- put on a pretty decent scrap considering neither of them were all that good. I loved the spirit of Stubby, who looked like he was going to be a sitting duck with that frame of his and his late start at the fight game. But as a boxing fan, I really enjoyed some of the behind-the-scenes stuff, I liked watching the fighters get prepared, I thought the scene with Sam Soliman in the icewater tub was great and yes, I even got a little emotional about the family scenes. I still was annoyed by some of the reality show's already-cliched conventions, like the ultra-dramatic music when the fighters come to sit down and review the night before, but the music truly works during the fights, and they've cut back since last I saw on the dopey sound effects. Tonight's episode was OK, too, with a nice fight between Sakio Bika and Donnie McCrary, although man is that Bika an awkward cat. I liked it enough to watch if not much else is on, but it still isn't appointment television for me.
4. There are all kinds of mysterious goings-on surrounding whom David Diaz, a 135-pound beltholder, and Joshua Clottey, a 147-pound contender, will fight next. I won't get into the specifics, but things as they look now suggest that Diaz will fight Michael Katsidis and Clottey will fight Luis Collazo. I'd like both, please. See how selfish I'm getting, after one weekend of being spoiled by excellent fights? Both of those are very intriguing matchups, albeit between people hardly anyone has heard of. Katsidis has star potential, and Diaz is the kind of tough hombre who can bring it out of him if he doesn't beat it out of him. With the other two lightweight Diazes, Juan and Julio, ready to rumble next weekend, it would be an excellent start to attaining some clarity about who's the best in the division. Clottey and Collazo are both peculiar stylists whose contrasts could make for a very interesting bout, and each have the potential to break into the stacked welterweight upper ranks, but they need to earn it against each other.
5. Once more into Taylor-Pavlik: Over at TheSweetScience.com, Jermain Taylor's promoter, Lou DiBella, totally dissed Taylor's trainer, Emmanuel Steward, for his advice between the second and third rounds, just after Taylor nearly had Kelly Pavlik KO'd. I suspect what has been a rocky partnership between Taylor and Steward may not last much longer. Some of the fault lies with Taylor's stubbornness -- how many times has he done the exact opposite of what Steward asked him? -- but I think general bad chemistry is also to blame. Maybe it's time for Taylor to bring in someone new, or the trainer who led him to the middleweight (160 lbs.) championship, Pat Burns.

It turns out that if you examine Slim Goodbody's insides closely, you can see he has a hematocrit level of 52.2, "off the charts," according to experts.

Saturday Night Revisited

There's plenty yet to reflect upon about Saturday night's fights, so I shall.

• Consensus is, new middleweight (160 lbs.) champ Kelly Pavlik became a star this weekend. Certainly, within the world of boxing, he has arrived. Anyone who follows the sport but hadn't witnessed much of what Pavlik can do must have liked what they saw from him on Saturday night. Over at Maxboxing.com and kindred blog Boxingchronicles.blogspot.com, there are nominations for him as Fighter of the Year, and I'm inclined to agree -- lesser-known bantamweight (118 lbs.) Gerry Penalosa has a decent case, but Pavlik in 2007 has soundly KO'd tough gatekeeper Jose Luis Zertuche, feared contender Edison Miranda and division champion Jermain Taylor. That's an impressive resume, and it's hard to imagine anyone equaling it despite all the great fights still ahead this year. Obviously, I'm a fan of Pavlik, a fellow Midwesterner who possesses all of the region's best qualities (humble, friendly, etc.), and have been for a little more than a year, when I first saw him. And he does have breakout star potential. I watched Taylor-Pavlik with a roomful of people who haven't seen a fight in ages, and he impressed. His personality passes the star test, too; everyone in the room laughed when Pavlik answered HBO interviewer Larry Merchant's post-fight question about what he was thinking when he was nearly knocked out in the second round thusly: "You know what I was really thinking? Shit, this is going to be a long night." And yes, it helps that he's white, not that it should matter. Nonetheless, I think it's going to take more of Pavlik continuing to do what he does best before he gets the kind of widespread recognition he deserves. A highlight on ESPN, plus maybe the chance click on a headline at a sports website, is about the most your average non-boxing fan will have seen of Pavlik until such point he wins enough fights like this that he can't be ignored. I think he can do it, but it's still a little ways off. Maybe if some of the other fights ahead for 2007 deliver on their promise as much as Taylor-Pavlik did, the rising tide lifts all boats.
  
• A Taylor-Pavlik rematch no longer is as predestined as it appeared Sunday morning, just to revisit a subject of yesterday's post. Dan Rafael reports that Taylor's team probably won't want to put him in against Pavlik again, at least anytime soon. Pavlik's promoter, Bob Arum -- basking in some deserved praise for how he's brought along this raw talent at precisely the right speed -- is looking for an interim fight for Pavlik first, perhaps against popular Irish fighter John Duddy, German belt-holder Arthur Abraham or former "Contender" winner Sergio Mora. I think Pavlik would absolutely slaughter Duddy, find the tricky Mora a surprisingly difficult test and wage a pretty nice battle with Abraham. All but the Abraham battle sound like great moneymakers that could help build Pavlik's star potential, with the Abraham fight maybe being the best one from a boxing purist's perspective. Interestingly, super middleweight (168 lbs.) champ Joe Calzaghe has invited Pavlik to his November match against Mikkel Kessler, and in his politely British way, hinted that he wants to fight the newly crowned middleweight champion. Whether this is an indicator that the speedy, awkward but more technically sound Calazaghe believes he would obliterate Pavlik, or a way of lining up options for bigger money in negotiations with Bernard Hopkins following a victory over Kessler, or just an indicator that Pavlik has fully arrived at stardom, I wouldn't pretend to know. But Calzaghe can't possibly in one breath talk about how he won't look past Kessler the way Taylor might have looked past Pavlik then in the next talk about fighting Pavlik. Not that I wouldn't like to see that one. My bet is, Pavlik hangs around at middleweight a little longer before going to 168. Scarily, Maxboxing.com's Doug Fischer, who's seen Pavlik fight above 160 -- I saw him fight at the not-much-different 161 once -- says he's even more powerful when he's not drained from making weight.
  
• Say, there are two souls on the planet besides myself that wondered about whether the ref should have given Taylor a standing eight count prior to calling it a night in the seventh. Not only did I propose this loudly Saturday night to the denizens of the Virginia locale where I viewed the fight, but I also called my boy Bob -- the person I viewed as most likely to be willing to see Taylor continue, given his good-natured gruffness about KOs -- only to find out I was all alone in my protests. But Fischer and a reader who e-mailed him showed that I wasn't so foolish all by my lonesome, with Fischer, too, backing down in the end. (In another assessment of my relative rightness, this one far more favorable, I originally thought to type in my prediction post, "I should call a seventh round KO for Pavlik," but feeling some heat from the number of experts who were predicting a Taylor win, I unfortunately moved my call to the ninth. Cowardly move.)
  
• Andre Berto, at least, is convinced of the viewpoint that he should have been smarter on defense in his eventual knockout of David Estrada in a great welterweight (147 lbs.) crossroads match. I still say Estrada hits most everyone plenty early on, but Berto's defense looked far improved late, suggesting he might have the capacity if not the will. Also, he astutely noted he should have gone to Estrada's body more often. As anyone from the aforementioned Virginia locale can attest, I proclaimed frequently and with growing irritation that I thought both Berto and Pavlik should have thrown more body punches, as did Fischer. Berto, I've noticed, is getting reviews ranging from "he's clearly ready for stardom" to "he's got a lot to work on before he moves up," with me offering the rare review somewhere between those two extremes.
  
• I need to get Tivo, already. On Saturday I missed another of my favorite fighters, light heavyweight (175 lbs.) belt-holder Chad Dawson, and caught on replay just a few sizzling rounds of the opening bout on the Showtime card, bantamweights (118 lbs.) Luis Perez and Joseph Agbeko. I've read that Perez faded thereafter, but it still would have been nice to see the drama through to the end, and my very tolerant girlfriend understandably thew in the towel to call a halt to me watching more boxing from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. or so, as I was nearly as unconscious as Taylor was in the seventh by then. There were plenty of other fights Saturday night I'd have loved to see, but even Tivo couldn't have saved me there, since few of them were televised. One, on the undercard of Taylor-Pavlik, heralded the return of former welterweight champion Carlos Quintana. Quintana is exactly the kind of boxer Berto should take on next, incidentally. He's what I had in mind by way of borderline top 10 contenders who could offer seasoning. Let's make it happen.