Oldies Night

Major League Baseball on Wednesday had a night where seven pitchers age 40 or older were scheduled to start: Roger Clemens, Kenny Rogers, John Smoltz, Jaime Moyer, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Woody Williams. Only because Rogers, 42, was rained out did the sport not break its previous record for most oldness in pitchers in one night.

Tonight in El Paso, Evander Holyfield, 44, continues his comeback against Lou Savarese, 41. I've been checking the records to find out when was the last time two guys over 40 fought each other. It's certainly happened many times. But maybe not before on pay-per-view.

Savarese has fought older gentlemen before. But when he fought a 48-year-old George Foreman, Savarese was just 31. And when he fought a 45-year-old Tim Witherspoon, he was 37. Holyfield was still a youngster in his twenties when he battled a plucky Foreman, who was 42 at the time.

In boxing, when you hear about two guys over 40 fighting each other, your first thought isn't: "Wow, it's remarkable how they can keep going after all these years." Your first thought is: someone help these guys hang up the gloves. If boxing didn't involve a risk of permanent damage for athletes with long careers, it would be amazing. It's hard enough to last a few rounds in your twenties. But 44? As much as we want these guys to retire, they remain extraordinary athletes.

Some press on tonight's senior league matchup: Vic Ziegel's headline writer in the New York Daily News calls the fight one for the ages (which recalls the promotional nickname of Holyfield-Foreman, "Battle of the Ages"). Patrick Kehoe of BoxingScene.com and FOXSports.com says Holyfield isn't the real deal anymore. A lot of papers have run the AP's take on the bout.

Happy Birthday, Chuck Wepner

Okay, Chuck Wepner's birthday actually is February 26. Why, it's not even Chuck Bodak's birthday today.

But it's a slow news week.

We're in a lull between the big fights of June and the big fights of July. The Gatti-Gomez and Hopkins-Wright fights are coming soon. Promoters are putting together Mayweather-Hatton --- and could the pre-fight trash talk to whip up fan demand for the battle be any more obvious?

The Washington Post has a story today about the Emmanuel Nwodo - Darnell Wilson fight in Staten Island, N.Y., that will headline ESPN2's Friday Night Fights. Joe Tessitore has a piece about Wilson on ESPN.com. Tim Smith in the New York Daily News mentions that part of the proceeds from tonight's show in announcer Teddy Atlas' hood will go to Atlas' excellent charitable foundation.

Comebacks on Wall Street

Tonight's ESPN2 Wednesday Night Fights card is happening in lower Manhattan, a few blocks from Ground Zero, and it features a couple of rebuilding efforts.

Michael Grant is coming back from a two-year layoff, and Tim Smith asked why in a recent piece in the New York Daily News. Headliner Yusaf Mack (pictured) is trying to find new momentum after taking his first loss more than a year ago, on an ESPN2 card, in somewhat humiliating fashion. My very own story today in the Philadelphia Inquirer looks at Mack's regrouping.

Spinks is feeling gypped: From England comes the oddball-but-true report of a British baby girl named after 25 heavyweight champions: Autumn Sullivan Corbett Fitzsimmons Jeffries Hart Burns Johnson Willard Dempsey Tunney Schmeling Sharkey Carnera Baer Braddock Louis Charles Walcott Marciano Patterson Johansson Liston Clay Frazier Foreman Brown. As Don King might say: only in America.

Rocky Hatton

For such a spectactular performance, it was a kind of anticlimatic fight. Hatton belted Castillo really hard once on Saturday night, and that was it. What is this, the UFC?

The crowd sure seemed like it was. I adore inebriated Englishmen as much as anyone, but that "Hatton Wonderland" song was too much. Enough to make you nostalgic for "Eye of the Tiger." What's next? It Came Upon a Midnight Hatton? I'm Dreaming of a White Hatton?

There's been no shortage of post-fight press on whatever will happen next. Here's a taste (thanks, Fred):

Tim Smith, New York Daily News: "Hatton Taunts Work on Floyd"
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more_sports/2007/06/25/2007-06-25_hatton_taunts_work_on_floyd.html

Tim Dahlberg, Associated Press: "Hatton Looks to Mayweather and Future"
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/boxing/2007/jun/24/062408055.html

Chuck Johnson, USA Today: "Hatton Hopes for Boost in USA After Castillo Knockout"
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/boxing/2007-06-24-hatton-castillo_N.htm

Norm Frauenheim, Arizona Republic: "Hatton Ready for Bigger Opponents"
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/sports/articles/0625boxinginsider0625.html

Bernard Fernandez, Philadelphia Daily News: "Hatton's a Conquering Hero"
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/sports/8161417.html

Steve Kim, Maxboxing.com: "It's a Hatton Wonderland"
http://maxboxing.com/Kim/Kim062507.asp

Steve Springer, Los Angeles Times: "Hatton's Body of Work Wins It"
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-boxing24jun24,1,3022712.story?coll=la-headlines-sports&ctrack=1&cset=true

Carlos Arias, Orange County Register: "Hatton Wastes Little Time in Wasting Castillo"
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/sports/other/boxing/article_1742739.php

Dan Rafael, ESPN.com: "Hatton Retains Crown with Knockout of Castillo"
http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=2914713

Michael Swann, 15rounds.com: "Hatton Stops Castillo in Four"
http://15rounds.com/boxing/News/2007/06/results-062307.php

Chris Cozzone, Fightnews.com: "Hats Off to Hatton"
http://www.fightnewsextra.com/cc/FIGHTS2007/06-postfight-hatton.htm

Boxing 2.0

I was planning to examine the cool website FightJudge.com in depth a little bit later -- and I still plan to. But Corey Shelton, who runs the site, wants to let boxing writers know about a new feature in time for tonight's Ricky Hatton - Jose Luis Castillo fight. Fight Judge lets any fan log in and score a boxing match live. The software makes it easy to do, and it's free; you enter your scoring after every round while watching TV. Writers can do it from ringside with a laptop computer. The site does the math to compute your score. And then it shows what everyone who scored the fight thought. The new postfight feature: you can get a graphic of your scorecard (as above) to keep and use for publication, if you so desire.

More on Fight Judge later.

Not paying per view

Lawsuits have been launched over videos on YouTube that aren't supposed to be there. It's true that a sizable portion of the Internet economy has been built artificially, by taking somebody else's valuable content and giving it away for free. Nice way to draw an audience! No wonder "old media" is having a hard time.

For fans getting excited about the Ricky Hatton - Jose Luis Castillo fight Saturday night, there are a lot of videos on YouTube. Some are clips from TV fights, like this video of Round 10 of Castillo - Diego Corrales I. Other videos are homebrewed mixes of highlights, backed by cool music, which let's guess is also being used without permission, like this Ricky Hatton tribute.

Should this stuff be on YouTube? Copyrights are protected by law, and big media companies have a right to have unauthorized material taken down. Those of us who produce content should hope that the media giants go out and use their muscle to defend the concept of copyright. I decided not to embed the above YouTube videos right into this page, though it can be done. Linking to them and watching on YouTube isn't illegal, though. It's just free -- a word that can give anyone mixed feelings.

In the news: Steve Springer of the Los Angeles Times recounts Castillo's tough year, as does Dan Rafael at ESPN.com. Jeff Haney gives a five-point primer on the Vegas fight in the Las Vegas Sun. Tim Smith looks at all the recent action in the welterweight and junior welterweight divisions, in the New York Daily News.

Judge Foreman

The latest season of House ended this spring with Foreman quitting the hospital. Nobody knows if he'll be back. But another Foreman has become a regular character on TV this Summer. George Foreman is a new judge on American Inventor, along with Pat Croce, that not-Simon-Cowell British guy, and a lady. Tonight, Big George was the deciding vote after a guy demonstrated a custom-made drag racing track for die-cast race cars. It looked like something Hot Wheels came out with in 1972, only bigger and cooler. The guy said he and his brothers had spent $300,000 on its development.

The British guy voted against it. Without George's vote, the inventor wouldn't advance to the Chicago finals. "Don't feel bad about about that investment," George told him. "I once invested $300,000 in a tired old boxer, and that investment paid back more than quadruple." The boxer, of course, was George Foreman. He voted yes.

The Hatton - Castillo Bandwagon is Now Leaving the Station

The ink is flowing in anticpiation of Saturday night's Ricky Hatton - Jose Luis Castillo matchup in Las Vegas. It could be the biggest England-versus-Mexico matchup since the 1966 World Cup. Ok, well, maybe since Barrera - Hamed.

In the Arizona Republic, Norm Frauenheim writes that "as good as Cotto-Judah was, Hatton-Castillo can be better." At the San Antonio Express News, John Whisler is grateful that this HBO bout isn't a pay-per-view, and his excited headline writer predicts the bout will offer "in your face action." At Ring magazine's web site, William Detloff identifies Jose Luis Castillo's Secret Weapon. It's the rule against excessive holding. Michael Woods says "it's put up or shut up time" for Hatton, over at thesweetscience.com. And at Maxboxing.com, Steve Kim wonders whether Castillo "has lost a bit off his fastball."

Over in the UK, where the BWAA doesn't have a chapter, the great Times of London scribe Ron Lewis writes that Hatton is still eyeing Floyd Mayweather. And to be fair, here's a report on Castillo by Roberto Garcia Ley in La Voz de La Frontera of Mexicali, Mexico, which rightfully calls the Castillo-Hatton fight "uno de las mas esperadas en el mundo del boxeo." In the world of pre-fight buzz, it's a small mundo after all.

A Playbill for Punching

Lamar Clark knows that the audience for a new boxing magazine isn't gigantic. It's tiny by major-media standards. That hasn't stopped him from launching Round1, which recently hit the streets with its second quarterly issue, in a run of 7,500 copies.

Round1 is a little magazine that's taking a different approach than The Ring and the few other remaining boxing periodicals in the U.S. For starters, it literally is little: the size of a folded 8.5-by-11 page, about 24 pages per issue. Clark solves the problem of attracting a boxing audience by giving it away for free, at New York boxing events like Broadway Boxing and Gotham Boxing shows. He thinks of it as a sort of Playbill for boxing. It doesn't cover results or big fights.

"It's more of a lifestyle magazine for the boxing fan," Clark says. His first issue looked at great New York fighters, and the second was a memorabilia issue. Future theme issues will look at fitness, and boxing in the world of entertainment.

Once you look inside Round1 another distinction is apparent. It looks great. By day, Clark is art director at a New York-based magazine, and it shows. The typography and design really pop. He licenses photography from Getty Images and Corbis (the last issue also had artwork from Leroy Neiman). He has an arrangement with the NYC-based roundcardgirlz.com, so the mag has no shortage of New York cheesecake. And it's all printed on luxuriously heavy, glossy paper stock. The writing ain't bad either, though there's not a lot of it. Steve Farhood is a contributing writer, and in the current issue his is the only real article, surrounded by quick hits, lists and visuals.

Clark hopes to expand beyond New York to Philadelphia and the casinos. That will depend on how well he can attract advertising. Current ads are for local gyms or promoters, though he says DirecTV is coming on as an advertiser. He thinks there are enough boxing fans to attract sponsors. But beyond allowing brand-name signage around the edges of rings, boxing hasn't always given advertisers the best forum.

"The numbers are there. I just think the outlet hasn't been presented the right way," he says. "They started advertising on guys' backs. It got that bad."

Clark's planned web site, www.round1mag.com, isn't up and running yet. He can be reached at round1@nyc.rr.com.

Saying no to Scrabble, Paulie Wins & Laila and Her Dad

It was a big weekend for ignoring the sanctioning bodies that give out belts and rank boxers.

On ESPN's Friday Night Fights, Joe Tessitore said that opponents Lucian Bute and Sakio Bika were rated 6th and 10th in the world at super middleweight -- by Ring magazine. He didn't mention the three-letter organizations. On Saturday night, Bob Papa began HBO's main event by saying Lovemore N'Dou held the 140-pound title of "one of the sanctioning bodies." He never said which one. On-screen graphics during the N'Dou-Paulie Malignaggi fight simply billed it as "140-POUND CHAMPIONSHIP." Could this be an attempt to unify the opposition to the Scrabble-tile sanctioning cartels?

In the news: Malignaggi beat N'Dou, as Tim Smith and Keith Idec report from ringside.

Father's Day: Tonight watch or tape Daddy's Girl (TV One, 8 p.m.). It's a look at Laila Ali and her well-known dad. Here's a People magazine item about it.

The weirdest shopping mall: boxer websites

Just say, for laughs, that you decided to see what kind of weird and cool stuff you can buy on boxers' official web sites. Most of the top fighters these days have their own sites, and many of those have a menu item labeled "store" or "merchandise." Yeah, about half of these link to pages that say "coming soon!" But, hey, it's a lot easier to wish you had decent merchandise and a reliable online commerce operation than to actually have those things. And then there are sites like Robert Guerrero's, which has a lot of merchandise, but all of it is sold out.

Let's start with clothing. Samuel Peter's home page prominently advertises his line of P.O.W.E.R U apparel. But it looks to be just a bunch of different color t-shirts with his stylized P logo on them. By the way, according to the site, P.O.W.E.R. stands for Punishing Opposition Will Earn Respect. And "the U stands for YOU."

Arturo Gatti's site links to a line of clothing called ATG that seems to have nothing to do with Gatti or boxing. It's baby clothes and things. I love the shirt Yuri Foreman sells that features his lion-in-a-Jewish-star logo, with Brooklyn written in Russian. But probably the most sophisticated t-shirt at a boxer web site is over at klitschko.com, where you can design your own shirt (top left). Each design detail adds to the price. I got up my cost up to $47.

Fernando Vargas links his web site to a separate site for his clothing line, nawshisclothing.com. "Why Naswshis? Because it's sick!" Even better than being sick -- and available at Vargas' online shop -- is a bobblehead of Fernando (above right) for just $15.

But a Fernando Vargas bobblehead that doesn't look a lot like Vargas is hardly the weirdest thing available at a boxer web site. The golf towel they sell for $10.70 at Oscar De la Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions site isn't either. We're getting closer, though!

I thought I'd found the #1 oddity when I came across the Markus Beyer mousepad at his fancy German website. It seems like a pretty good deal for 8 euros. But there was more exploring to do. Over at German Arthur Abraham's tri-lingual web site, through a series of clicks you can get to a page where he is selling framed prints of a strange cartoon depicting him in the ring -- for just 199 euros! What's that, like $300?
It seemed implausible that any item available at a boxer web site could top this work of art.

But I was wrong. And suddenly, I had to look no further. At Ricky Hatton's site, among the posters and shirts, selling for just 3 British pounds, there it was: a car air freshener in the shape of Hatton's boxing pants. I'm sorry to say that at this late date it's probably too late to purchase one for Father's Day. But there's always next year.

---

In the news: Chuck Johnson at USA Today previews the Paulie Malignaggi -- Lovemore N'Dou lovefest slated for Saturday night on HBO. Tim Smith takes a look too, in the N.Y. Daily News. Michael Hirsley salutes Chicagoan lightweight champion David Diaz in the Chicago Tribune. David Mayo of the Grand Rapids Pioneer Press compares Floyd Mayweather and Tony Soprano. "They took their starring roles about the same time, Mayweather as a world champion in late 1998, Gandolfini as Tony Soprano in 1999," he writes, and now both have left the big stage without giving fans closure.

Nice debut: Philly guys Dean Rubenstein, Jeff Izes and Mike Cassell did a terrific job in their TV boxing broadcasting debut Thursday night, bringing three bouts (from earlier in the month at the Blue Horizon) to viewers on Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia. CSN will air the show on SportsNets in other regions -- check your local listings. The first of several planned telecasts from the Blue was done live to tape, but Big Dean says they may go live eventually.

Testing Tommy Morrison

Tommy Morrison's attempted ring comeback -- in boxing and most recently in a form of mixed martial arts (on June 9) -- has brought new media attention to the status of his health. Morrison tested positive for HIV in 1996 and left the sport, seemingly for good. After more than a decade away, he boxed in West Virginia early this year, after the commission there accepted paperwork indicating new tests for the virus were negative.

Norm Frauenheim reports in the Arizona Rebublic that Morrison's former agent, Randy Lang, said Morrison recently tested positive for HIV in mandatory blood tests for a boxing license in Arizona, a charge the boxer has denied. Morrison, 38, says that even the original test in Las Vegas that disqualified him was a false-positive. But Dr. Margaret Goodman, who worked as a physician for the Nevada Athletic Commission at the time, writes at Secondsout.com that "he was tested twice. The results were checked and rechecked by the most reputable lab in the country and deemed indisputable." Howard Reynolds, a boxing writer who who by day works as an M.D., writes at RingsideReport.com that "Morrison has no business, nor any right, as a participant in any combat sport."

Outside of the BWAA, Elizabeth Merrill takes stock of the messy situation on ESPN.com. Over at the big mixed martial arts site sherdog.com (there's no MMAWAA), they're calling Morrison's fight "criminal" -- because it changed the rules and wasn't a genuine mixed-martial arts bout at all. Morrison won his "MMA debut" by punching out a big guy named John Stover.

It's Flag Day: So enjoy this 11-second video of an old guy boxing a flag pole.

Top five movies that only sound like boxing movies

1. The Ring (2002) – In this shocker, watching a particular videotape makes people die. Most shockingly, it's not a tape of Ruiz-Toney.

2. Heavyweights (1995) – Psychotic fitness instructor Ben Stiller torments overweight kids at a “fat camp.” Whoever survives gets a shot at the WBO title.

3. Red Corner (1997) -- Richard Gere is accused of doing something wrong in an Eastern nation. Like that would ever happen.

4. Going the Distance (2004) – Raunchy road movie involving sexy teenagers, also known as National Lampoon's Going the Distance. The ref should have stopped it.

5. Boxing Helena (1993) – Sicko flicko about weirdo doctor who cuts off a woman's limbs. A terrible way to make weight.

In the news: Tim Graham looks at Hasim Rahman's road to redemption, which runs through Rochester Thursday night, in the Buffalo News. Tim Smith asks Michael Grant why he's coming back after two dormant years (Grant fights on Wall Street on June 27) in the New York Daily News. Bernard Fernandez catches up with former Pennsylvania State Boxing Commission honcho Jimmy Binns in his weekly boxing column in the Philadelphia Daily News. Joe Maxse in the Cleveland Plain Dealer says a Jermain Taylor-Kelly Pavlik bout is looking like more of a possibilty. St. Clair Murraine makes an early nomination of Cotto-Judah as 2007 fight of the year in the Tallahassee Democrat.

Weekend Boxing Reports

On deadline from Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, Michael Hirsley wrote that Cotto moves closer to shot at Mayweather in the Chicago Tribune. George Willis's report in the New York Post was headlined Cotto-Judah Slugfest a Bloody Masterpiece. Other ringside reports included Steve Springer in the Los Angeles Times, Kieran Mulvaney for Reuters, and Tim Smith in the New York Daily News.
Dan Rafael's weekend scorecard on ESPN.com covers the Cotto-Judah bout and its undercard matches, plus the Tarver-Muriqi and Dawson-Ruiz fights in Hartford and the rousing Ngoudjo-Bailey fight on ESPN2's Friday Night Fights, which every writer at the BWAA awards dinner, as well as emcee Brian Kenny, must have been recording on the DVR.

BWAA Awards Dinner Rocks NYC

Hey, we've all said it many times before under different circumstances: what a hot night it was at the Copacabana.

The 82nd annual BWAA awards dinner went off without a hitch on a muggy Friday night in New York City, and even Bernard Hopkins didn't question the judging. Master of ceremonies Brian Kenny kicked it off. He ribbed Max Kellerman, who was nominated for a broadcasting award, saying: "Max found out he was nominated and that he lost at the same time. He's young, and has plenty more of these awards to come. He's going to give Susan Lucci a run for her money."

Larry Merchant, who had his contract renewed by HBO just hours before the dinner, after weeks of speculation that the network might drop him, called himself "the former...and new" HBO boxing analyst as he accepted the Walker award for long and meritorious service. "My stay will be longer, if not more meritorious," he said. He said his first exposure to boxing came from reading dispatches from Jimmy Cannon and A.J. Liebling and other greats. He fondly remembered the late Jack McKinney, a former colleague and boxing scribe at the Philadelphia Daily News, who was known to box a bit. Merchant said that reading a line in a newspaper story about a queasy fighter who "gave up his fish dinner" between rounds is really what inspired him to get closer to the action. Hopkins, introducing an award later in the night, said that as long as Merchant wasn't leaving the sport, Hopkins would stick around too -- never mind those ideas of retiring.

Ruslan Chagaev strutted around in a pinstripe suit, looking far too short to have just dethroned Russian giant Nikolai Valuev for the WBA heavyweight title. Freddie Roach said how proud he was to win the Futch-Condon award as trainer of the year. Eddie Futch had been Roach's own trainer when he was a boxer and had urged him to quit near the end of his career, though Roach wanted to keep going -- and lost four of his last five fights. Manny Pacquiao was charming, apologizing for his (actually very good) English and flattering boxing media, saying without the press "there is no Manny Pacquiao." He was joined onstage by Jake LaMotta, whose hearing isn't what it used to be but who can still deliver one-liners on demand. ("I fought Sugar Ray so many times I should have diabetes!") Steve Albert did a sort of stand-up routine of his own, about the thrills and craziness being an Albert brother. Mahyar Monshipour, representing half of the 2006 fight of the year, said merci to everyone in French. Lee Samuels and Ricardo Jimenez, shared winners of the "Good Guy" award, were good guys, as billed.

Kevin Iole was gracious and still in disbelief over winning the Fleischer award for his boxing journalism. Michael Hirsley accepted two first place writing awards and spilled the beans that he is taking a buyout offer and retiring from the Chicago Tribune. With Hirsley, Iole and Ron Borges leaving newspapers this year, it makes you wonder what the next Larry Merchant will be reading when (and if) he gets inspired to join the next generation of boxing journalists.

Pacquiao-LaMotta photo by Teddy Blackburn

Dr. Steelhammer, Cotto-Judah & Boxing in Montreal

It's been a really, really long time since a heavyweight champion has been right there on the newsstand, on the cover of a non-boxing magazine. Sports Illustrated or GQ would have been a bigger deal. But, hey, there's Wladimir Klitschko on the front of the men's magazine, Player. Player, which has enjoyed prominent display on city newsstands (ok, at least at the Newark, N.J., Amtrak station), serves up the basic man-gazine food groups: sports, girls, alcohol, cars, clothing, gadgets, and attitude. It seems to be cut from similar cloth as the dearly departed Gear magazine. The writing is fine. Not exactly Esquire, but perfectly reasonable. The Klitschko cover story doesn't benefit from any time spent hanging out with Dr. Steelhammer. It's a workmanlike recap of his career, followed by a telephone Q&A.

My favorite exchange is this one:
Player: The rough times make you appreciate your successes more and remind you that you have to work hard. And I’m sure you’ll be a better champion now.
Klitschko: I usually receive such a compliment from a woman, but thank you.

In the news: Dan Rafael of ESPN.com says Zab Judah is Miguel Cotto's best opponent yet. Chuck Johnson at USA Today says Judah hopes to rain on Cotto's parade in New York ...Tom Hauser examines The Enigmatic Shannon Briggs in his current column at secondsout.com.... ESPN2's Friday Night Fights heads to Montreal tonight, where the city is bracing for "what might be the biggest week of boxing this city has ever seen," according to Canada.com. Hermann Ngoudjo and Jean Pascal headline the televised outdoor card in the city (FNF's in-studio guest will be Chad Dawson). Next week at Montreal's Bell Centre, Lucian Bute fights Sakio Bika.

Boxing on the Wii

If you've tried the boxing game that comes with the Nintendo Wii video game console, you know that it's extraordinarily unrealistic. It's nowhere near as good as the Wii bowling, or even the tennis. Yes, you actually throw punches, using a wireless controller in each hand, but the action on the screen barely seems to correlate with your spastic movements. You can't see an opening and throw a strategic left hook that scores. It's mostly just chaos. A more realistic boxing game for the console is not imminent. EA Sports, which has spent centuries making its Fight Night boxing game realistic, doesn't even know what to do with the Wii. [clarification: they have a Madden football game but don't know how to do boxing on it yet.]

But there is a cool feature where you can design characters that are supposed to look like yourself, and put them in the games. I made one of a particular famous boxer (above right). Can you guess who he is? Alright already, it's Oscar De La Hoya. And he's a very good bowler.

Someone has developed Wii boxing gloves. You slip the wireless controllers into little pouches in the $22 gloves, along with your hands, and then it seems like you're wearing gloves and punching the air while you play, which you are.

In the news: In the El Paso Times, Matthew Aguilar compares the strengths of Miguel Cotto and Zab Judah -- and picks Cotto to win their fight Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. For his part, Zab Wants Fans to Behave, George Willis writes in the New York Post.

The book on Tiger Ted Lowry

Everybody knows that Rocky Marciano retired as heavyweight champion, undefeated at 49-0. He never lost. Unless you believe reports from a fight he had on October 10, 1949 against "Tiger" Ted Lowry. Marciano was 20-0 with 19 KOs when they met that night in Providence. Lowry, a former middleweight from New Haven, had a long record whose exact numbers are unclear. Boxrec.com says he was 59-48-9 when the two New England sons met as heavyweights. Lowry's own account, in his new book, God's in My Corner: A Portrait of an American Boxer, says he had 65 wins in 92 fights.

"In the fourth, Lowry had Marciano in such a bad way that it appeared it would be only a matter of time before he would complete the kill," according to Providence Journal boxing writer Michael J. Thomas, who was there. But in the second half of the 10-rounder Marciano came back and won a decision, 6-4, from all three judges. Lowry never outright says he dumped the fight intentionally -- he says he thinks he won. But he allows the introduction by Sharon Napolitano to cite speculation that Lowry was told he'd be guaranteed a second fight with rising contender Marciano if he didn't win the first time. "Lowry couldn't have won that fight, no matter what happened," one boxing official is quoted, anonymously, as saying. The boxers did fight and go the distance again, in 1950, and Lowry boasts of being the only man to go the distance twice with The Rock. The Marciano stuff is the best part of God's in My Corner. The book covers the rest of Lowry's career and life after boxing, including a stretch in the first all-black paratrooper division during World War II. It probably could have used a little tighter editing, but the memoir recaptures a time when boxing was a bigger deal, and it delivers backstage stories you've probably never heard before.

George Foreman just came out with his own book, God in My Corner. It's a good thing these two heavyweights never fought each other. I think there's a rule against working both corners.

In the news: Holyfield could get title shot, writes Keith Idec in the Herald News. In the Tallahassee Democrat, St. Clair Murraine uses the travails of two undefeated Tallahassee prospects, light heavyweight Tavoris Cloud and heavyweight Travis Walker, to examine the fickle and inexplicable ways that title bouts are made (or aren't).

Merchant Banking, The Ring & Everlast

Hello Larry: Rumors of Larry Merchant's departure from HBO may have been premature: "As we optimistically iron out a new agreement with Larry Merchant, Larry has agreed to work Saturday's HBO Pay-Per-View telecast from Madison Square Garden." -- statement released by HBO today, attributed to HBO Sports executive producer Rick Bernstein.

In The Ring: This week the August issue (man, Summer went by so fast) of The Ring hits newsstands, filled with intriguing stuff. William Dettloff offers five reasons why Bernard Hopkins-Winky Wright will be worth paying $49.95 to watch on pay-per-view. Are the reasons worth $10 each? You'll need to decide for yourself -- and I won't give away the whole list -- but two reasons he thinks the fight has potential are that neither Hopkins nor Winky has enough knockout power to make the other guy be overly cautious. That's one reason for each guy's lack of power.

Also in the issue: a Mayweather-De La Hoya postmortem by Nigel Collins, a reality check on John Duddy by Don Stradley, and a fantasy imagining classic rematches that never happened, if they happened ten years after the original, as the Maske-Hill return bout did.

Not in the issue: any of the usual advertisements from Everlast. Here's hoping the two premier brands in boxing are back together soon. The equipment and apparel company was in the process of being aquired last week. But this week, like Billy Donovan, the company seems ready to back out of the deal.

In other news: Bernard Fernandez looks at sour grapes and other unsavory substances, in the wake of Antonio Tarver's suggestion he might have been drugged during his loss to Bernard Hopkins, in the Philly Daily News. Santos Perez follows up on Sultan Ibragimov's weekend win, in the Miami Herald.

Chavez documentary on the way

In case you missed it: The actor Diego Luna (of Y Tu Mama Tambien) screened his documentary Chavez, about Julio Cesar Chavez, at New York's Tribeca Film Festival in April and May. "Since I was a kid, Chavez has been my hero, and almost a hero of every Mexican, I guess," Luna says in a video interview (see below). He wants to get the film, his directorial debut, into theaters. No date is set for release.

Some links:
Chavez description at Tribeca Film Fesitval website
Video interview with the director at Access Hollywood
Luna essay about the film at The Huffington Post

Also debuting at the filmfest was goofball comedy The Hammer, starring Man Show sidekick Adam Carolla. He's a construction worker who heads back to the gym to make an unlikely bid for a spot on the Olympic boxing team.

In the news: Franklin McNeil of the Newark Star-Ledger writes that Antonio Tarver finds motivation in revenge, and that opponent Elvir Muriqi, whom Tarver fights Saturday, is the next step in the current comeback.

Briggs's pay-per-boo

Maybe a pay-per-view boxing match priced to move at $29.95 -- a discount compared to the extortionate price tags for the really big bouts -- means only one of the two boxers is required to fight.

Shannon Briggs walked through his title defense, in Atlantic City on Saturday night, as if he were waiting for somebody to show up to fight challenger Sultan Ibragimov. Nobody did. Ibragimov pecked on the 272-pound Briggs enough to become the latest WBO heavyweight champ (everyone gets a turn).

Announcers Barry Tompkins and Al Bernstein made the best of the slow-paced, near shutout win by Ibragimov. Bernstein said that Briggs trainer Yoel Judah, trying to show Briggs what to do, threw more punches between rounds than Briggs did during the fight. Keith Idec of the Herald News makes the same observation in his Sunday morning report (Sluggish Briggs loses boxing title). Franklin McNeil in the Newark Star-Ledger (Ibragimov stays on target to take title) leads his dispatch with Ibragimov. Dan Rafael's report from the scene, on ESPN.com, covers most of the undercard. The website's main boxing page used an awesome headline for the fight: "Sultan of Swing." You know somebody was just waiting to unfurl that one. Seems like most Sunday papers, to handle the fight, ran an AP story by Barry Wilner.

This record is true now.

Great Boxing Moments in Pop Music #1:
"I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson," DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, 1989

I'm rough like a freight train smooth like ice and
Yo, Jeff, straight up, I think I can beat Mike Tyson.

And, today, he could.

In the news: Live from Will Smith's hometown, Bernard Fernandez reports from a sweaty night at the Blue Horizon in the Philadelphia Daily News (Yorgey gives local fans a good showing) On ESPN.com, Dan Rafael's Weekend Notebook explores the possibility of Chad Dawson-Antonio Tarver and Wladimir Klitschko-Hasim Rahman matches, among many other things.

To prime the pump for its Cotto-Judah PPV next weekend, HBO will replay fights that showcase the two welterweights: the classic Cotto-Torres match from 2005 will air on June 8 at 11:00 p.m. Judah vs. Corley, from 2003, airs June 9 at 11:30 a.m.