FanHouse Boxing Gossip

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. agreed to pay $5.6 million in back taxes before the Internal Revenue Service was poised to take the money from his purse after his Saturday comeback fight against Juan Manuel Marquez.

The IRS sent the Nevada Athletic Commission a levy notice on Sept. 4 ordering Mayweather's unpaid taxes from 2007 to be deducted from his $10 million fight purse, commission executive director Keith Kizer told The Associated Press.

As Juan Manuel Marquez prepares for the biggest fight of his boxing career on September 19 against Floyd Mayweather Jr., he's willing to do anything to get an edge -- including drinking his own urine.

Over the course of his boxing career, Floyd Mayweather has probably spent as much time working on his trash talk as he has hitting the speed bag. But as Mayweather prepares to step into the ring with Juan Manuel Marquez -- his first fight in almost two years -- he has a new forum for talking trash: Twitter.

Yes, Mayweather is the latest in a long, long line of athletes to get on Twitter, and he'll be using it to hype his September 19 pay-per-view fight.

One of the most anticipated boxing matches of the year has become official, as the promoter for Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto announced today that the two will fight on November 14 in Las Vegas.

Pacquiao-Cotto joins Floyd Mayweather vs. Juan Manuel Marquez as one of two fights this fall that have boxing fans salivating, and we can be sure that the promoters and the fighters (especially Mayweather) will engage in some trash talk about which of the bouts is truly the year's biggest fight.

MANCHESTER, England (AP) -- With Amir Khan now a world champion, many English boxing fans will be hoping to see him in the ring with Ricky Hatton.

Though the 22-year-old Khan's trainer is enthusiastic about a Battle of Britain bout, promoter Frank Warren has strong reservations.

Hatton's future in the sport has been in doubt since he was knocked out by Manny Pacquiao in the second round of their 140-pound title fight in May and he went to the hospital for a precautionary brain scan.

Hatton, who has been known for quickly putting on weight after fights, has returned to a hospital in his native Manchester in the past week with a stomach bug.

Warren insists that the 30-year-old Hatton is not up to fighting Khan, who captured the WBA light-welterweight title by unanimous decision against Andreas Kotelnik on Saturday.

Boxing fans had hope for David Haye. As he began to heat up the war of words with Wladimir Klitschko in April, it finally looked like there was a heavyweight title match worth getting excited about. For a fleeting moment, Haye reminded us that, yes, heavyweights can still have star appeal and charisma.

Then something all too familiar struck: disappointment.

The video above shows the announcement of the scores at the end of Saturday night's heavyweight fight between Eddie Chambers and Alexander Dimitrenko in Germany. If you don't speak German and you're wondering what led the crowd to start booing lustily, it was the announcement that one judge scored the bout -- which Chambers completely dominated -- as a draw. So Chambers won by majority decision, rather than the seemingly obvious unanimous decision. And that points, once again, to just how bad the judging can be in boxing.

Alexis Arguello, the former boxing world champion who in 2008 was elected mayor of his hometown of Managua, Nicaragua, was found dead on Wednesday. He
was 57.

The newspaper El Nuevo Diario reported that Arguello's death appeared to be a suicide.

Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto have tentatively agreed to fight in Las Vegas on November 14, giving the world's best pound-for-pound boxer a very challenging fight against a highly ranked opponent -- and ensuring that we won't see Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather any time soon.

Manny Pacquiao, the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, said Wednesday that he's prepared to accept a challenge from Shane Mosley to be his next opponent -- provided the two can work out details of a contract.