FanHouse Joe Calzaghe

England's Carl Froch overcame the speed, athleticism and switch-hitting tactics of previously unbeaten Andre Dirrell of Flint Mich., to retain his WBC super middleweight title by a split-decision Saturday night at the Trent FM Arena in Nottingham, England.

Froch benefited from referee, Hector Afu's, 10th-round, one-point deduction penalty against Dirrell during a session in which Froch was hurt by the challenger, only to rebound en route to the split-decision that was welcomed by most of the more than 7,000 screaming fans on hand.

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Former undisputed middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins will fight hard-punching Enrigue Ornelas on Dec. 2 at the Liacorous Center on the campus of Temple University in his hometown of Philadelphia.

The 12-round light heavyweight matchup for Hopkins (49-5-1, 32 knockouts) precedes an agreed-upon rematch with Florida's multi-champion Roy Jones (54-5, 40 KOs) that is slated for perhaps late January or early February, assuming Jones gets through his cruiserweight bout on the same night against Austrailia's Danny Green (27-3, 24 KOs).

Mark Taffet, Senior Vice President of HBO Sports Pay Per View, said Floyd Mayweather "clearly has proven his star status by generating the kinds of pay per view numbers that very few men in the history of the sport have ever generated."

FanHouse spoke to Taffet, the man in charge of HBO's Pay Per View, as he addressed Mayweather, the Nov. 14 megafight between Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto, the cable giant's "hunger to go younger" initiative geared toward drawing America's youth to the sport of boxing, and how the organization determines which fights are deserving of pay television status during this exclusive interview.

Despite big nights for the sport like we had on Saturday night, we're constantly hearing that boxing is a dying sport. Two of the biggest reasons for that are that no one can keep the weight classes straight and no one can keep the champions straight.

Ring Magazine deserves great credit for attempting to change that by establishing clear-cut criteria for determining its own champions, but I have two problems with the way Ring does things. The first is that the magazine ranks fighters in 17 different weight classes. That's too many. And the second is that the Ring ratings have so many vacancies at the top tthat only six fighters can be called Ring Magazine champions. That's too few.

So below is my attempt to list boxing's legitimate champions, using only the sport's eight traditional weight classes.

In March of 2008, Michael Buffer was lying on an operating table at the USC Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles.

The man known for igniting crowds with an electrifying introduction of boxers with his signature, copywritten phrase, "Lets Get Ready To Rumble," was receiving potentially life-- if not -- career-threatening neck and throat surgery.

"The prognosis early on was that I would have to have continuous radiation, which, of course would cause a problem with the saliva glands, which would mean I wouldn't be doing any more announcing," said Buffer, 65, whose operation removed a lymph node attached to his tonsils -- the source of a cancer called squamous cell carcinoma.

Denmark's Mikkel Kessler will attempt the third defense of his World Boxing Association super middleweight title on Nov. 21 against unbeaten Olympic gold medalist Andre Ward in Ward's hometown of Oakland, CA., during the first round of Showtime's Super Six World Boxing Classic -- a six-fighter event aimed at producing the sport's undisputed 168-pound champion.

The fighters set up their highly-anticipated matchup by winning impressively at seperate venues on Saturday night.

Denmark's World Boxing Association supermiddleweight champion, Mikkel Kessler, thrilled his countryman on Saturday at the MCH Messecenter in Herning, scoring his third straight knockout over mandatory challenger, Gusmyr Perdomo of Venezuela, in round four of his second defense.

Showing little affects from an 11-month layoff, having been out of the ring since October's third-round stoppage of Germany's Danilo Haussler, Kessler rose to 42-1 with his 32nd knockout against Perdomo (16-3, 10 KOs), a 33-year-old southpaw.

As the youngest competitor in the Super Six World Boxing Classic, 25-year-old Andre Ward is motivated by the prospect of earning the title of undisputed super middleweight (168 pounds) champion of the world.

"Being the best -- I've been dreaming about those kinds of things my whole life. This tournament gives me that opportunity," said Ward, of Oakland, CA., whose counterparts hail from Michigan, Arkansas, Denmark, England and Germany.

Following Chad Dawson's 12-round destruction of Antonio Tarver last October, there wasn't much interest in seeing a rematch. However, in the wacky world of professional boxing things like fan interest and common sense don't always come into play. Tarver excercised his rematch clause and there was nothing Dawson could do to avoid the fight.

Plus, Dawson, one of boxing's brightest young stars, will gladly remind you that he never ducks anyone.

FanHouse spoke to Dawson about being forced to fight Tarver again this Saturday night in his HBO debut and his thoughts on Bernard Hopkins' refusal to fight him. The interview is after the jump.

Joe Calzaghe, the British boxer who beat two American legends in 2008 after a long career in which he built up an undefeated record against little-known European opponents, has announced his retirement.