boxing

Top Rank boxing promotions boss Bob Arum couldn't have written a better script if he had hired Sylvester Stallone.

Saturday night's World Boxing Association Super World junior-middleweight title fight at Madison Square Garden will be worth watching just because current champion Miguel Cotto and challenger Antonio Margarito are two of the better fighters.

LAS VEGAS - The name was on everyone's lips all week before Saturday's Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez fight, and then at the stroke of midnight after arguably the most surprising day of his career, it was on Pacquiao's lips as well:

Floyd Mayweather.

"Let's get it on," Pacquiao said. "Let's make the fight happen and give the people a good fight."

Although 65 years have passed since Jack Johnson died, the best boxer of his time remains a person of much social and political dialogue.

The first African-American heavyweight world champion was 68 when he was pronounced dead in St. Agnes Hospital on June 10, 1946, following a car crash about 20 miles north of Raleigh.

It's been three years since Robert "The Ghost" Guerrero has had this feeling. The wonderful sense of isolation and focus that can only come from boxing training camp, from waking up early and running and sparring until he passes out to sleep each night.

Once upon a time, not that long ago, I loved boxing.

As a kid, I listened to fights on the radio with my dad.

Ali vs. Anybody -- I would watch.

Golden Gloves in the Central Boys Club gym -- now that was cool.

Texas State Golden Gloves at Will Rogers Coliseum in Fort Worth, Texas -- much, much cooler. I once covered 15 state tournaments in a row.

Kelly Pavlik had his streak of three successful middleweight title defenses broken in April with a unanimous-decision loss to Sergio Martinez.

On Nov. 13, he'll see another streak erased.

At 39 years old, Shane Mosley believes he still has what it takes to beat the best boxers in the world.

Whether he'll get the chance to prove it will be decided Sept. 18.

While there's no denying that Mixed Martial Arts has caught up with boxing in regard to popularity in most quarters and completely surpassed it in others, my question is what can boxing do about it?

Well, one thing would be to bring this Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao fight from the speculative to the literal. Yet, a lot of that is on Mayweather.

It wasn't that long ago that Puerto Rican boxing fans spread out across North America had a real superhero they could call their own.

His special powers were body shots and uppercuts that could cut down speedsters like Zab Judah and Paul Malignaggi. He also held a will to win, big enough to push him past Shane Mosley in a 12-round battle at Madison Square Garden.

According to Freddie Roach, in no way is his fighter, Manny Pacquiao, taking Saturday's welterweight fight with Joshua Clottey at Dallas Cowboys Stadium lightly.

The trainer himself however, isn't giving Clottey much of a shot.