FanHouse Boxing

A burly black man, his face incised with what appears to be a traditional Maori tribal tattoo, stares at you into a camera lens and, belying his appearance, announces through a thick Brooklyn accent that he is about to lose his composure.

"I'm gonna cry," the man says, his voice softening and cracking.

He then purses his lips and takes a deep breath in an attempt to steel himself.

LAS VEGAS -- At the end of the day, it wasn't that Floyd Mayweather Jr. failed to do what it appeared he'd done earlier Saturday, which was steal the thunder from the first big pay-per-view boxing event of the year by announcing his much-rumored return to the ring from a 17-month respite. Mayweather's Saturday afternoon press conference did, indeed, overshadow the junior-welterweight championship bout scheduled Saturday night between Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton.

But something transpired Saturday evening that even Mayweather couldn't have anticipated. Pacquiao snatched back everyone's attention, stealing back his own thunder, with a second-round knockout of Hatton that was so devastating it left some observers temporarily in fear for Hatton's well-being. It was nothing sort of Tyson-esque

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LAS VEGAS -- It is not raining here today -- when does it ever? -- but Floyd Mayweather Jr. walked onto the Hollywood Theater stage in the MGM Grand this afternoon with his black jean legs stuffed inside calf-high black rubber boots. I guess this was to symbolize that he's about to -- as they say on the strip club scene -- make it "rain money" in the fight game upon announcing just hours before the Manny Pacquaio-Ricky Hatton bout that he is done with retirement. It was even revealed that "Money" is now Mayweather's nickname.

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LAS VEGAS – The last time I saw Andre Ward, he was ascending the medal platform in a warehouse-type building in a dingy part of Athens, Greece, to receive the Olympic gold medal in the light heavyweight division. I'd all but forgotten about him until Saturday morning, when I shared breakfast and chitchat with him, a dozen or so other scribes, and his promoter Dan Goossen.

And that is Ward's problem, which he and Goossen hope to address in earnest May 16 in Ward's hometown, Oakland, Calif., where he is scheduled to fight his first name opponent, the big-hitting (and big be hit) Colombian, Edison Miranda. Ward never seized the boxing public's psyche after Athens. He never cashed in that gold medal as others had before him, like, most notably, Oscar de la Hoya.

After all, another Olympics has come and gone and Ward doesn't have a world title to go with his 18-0 record. De La Hoya had multiple world titles by now.

LAS VEGAS -- Amir Khan stood sheepishly Friday in a back corner of the crowded stage as we all awaited Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton to weigh-in. His shyness was understood when his name was called to say a few things about the upcoming fight.

"Traitor," some of the sauced Brits screamed from the bleachers. "F-off, Khan," a trio of Brits screamed.

If there is a more loathed man among Brits this week than Khan, who, oddly enough, was born amongst them in Manchester, England, I don't know who it would be. He may as well be Salman Rushdie in Mecca.

LAS VEGAS -- With 6,000 screaming fans crammed into a cordoned off portion of the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Friday, Manny Pacquiao stepped onto a scale and tipped it at 138 pounds. Then came Ricky Hatton; his weight was announced at 140 pounds.

Too bad they aren't fighting this evening.

It is virtually impossible to find a superstar athlete these days for whom some disdain can't be mustered. Michael Phelps gets busted. LeBron James gets the benefit of the NBA's preferential refereeing. The Williams Sisters get surly. Rafael Nadal showed some audacity by suggesting tennis adjust its schedule to his liking. And Derek Jeter is a Yankee.

But there is Manny Pacquiao, all 5 feet, 6 inches and 140 pounds of him. What is there about him not to like?

It was siesta, or lunch time, in Badalona, Spain, a suburb of Barcelona, when I wandered out of the Olympic boxing venue in the summer of 1992 with a couple of scribe friends and a legend of the corner, Lou Duva, for lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant. (Hey, you couldn't eat paella every day!) Lou promised to give us his take on the U.S. Olympic boxing team, which he was scouting for his stable.

There were a number of promising pugilists on the U.S. squad. There was a lanky light welterweight from Augusta, Ga., named Vernon Forrest, who was a favorite to win gold. There was a light middleweight from Houston with a world title named Raul Marquez. And there was a world champion from Los Angeles named Oscar De La Hoya.

To this day, it remains the most disgusting thing I've ever witnessed in sports: Billy Collins Jr. vs. Luis Resto, June, 1983.



It was just supposed to be a little pre-fight entertainment to the main card on CBS that afternoon, Davey Moore against Roberto Duran. Collins was a promising young welterweight, undefeated at the time, while Resto wasn't much more than a journeyman.

But after 10 rounds, Collins was a bloody mess and vision-impaired for the rest of his life. And Resto was found to be a co-conspirator in a fight he helped turn into a crime.

Freddie Roach is one of the world's best known boxing trainers, having worked prepared Oscar De La Hoya to fight Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao to fight Juan Manuel Marquez and David Diaz, and several other top boxers for high-profile fights.

So the fact that Roach is training mixed martial arts heavyweight Andrei Arlovski for his fight in the upcoming Affliction: Banned show could be seen by some as a sign of the way mixed martial arts is on the rise and boxing is on the decline. But Roach doesn't see it that way. In a conference call to promote the Affliction show today, Roach had this to say:

"I really never had any problem with MMA fighters. I think that both sports are great sports and fight fans are fight fans. ... A lot of boxing people dislike the MMA style of fighting, but I'm a fight fan. Any kind of fighting, I like it."

I feel the same way as Roach -- whether it's boxing or MMA or judo or taekwondo or wrestling or whatever, I like to see two competitors squaring off, and I'm always a little surprised by how many people act as though you have to choose between being either a boxing fan or an MMA fan.