Is This the End For Peter Manfredo Jr.?

Ron Borges has an extended look at Peter Manfredo Jr. ahead of his fight this Saturday against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., a fight that might be the last one for Manfredo before he retires.

"Manfredo, like Khan-Clary, was once a promising amateur, but that was a dozen years ago, back before his face had taken enough shots to rearrange it and long before he understood why they call boxing the hurt business.

"Now he’s on the other end of it, a fighter with one last opportunity in a career that’s running out of them. As he ages, The Boxer becomes one of two things. He becomes deluded or a realist. Peter Manfredo Jr. is not delusional."

Aging Peter Manfredo goes after Julio Chavez Jr.’s belt / The boxer gets one last title shot (Boston Herald)

A Darn-Good Dozen: Barrera, Marquez, Morales and Pacquiao

Cliff Rold looks back over the past dozen or so years at the dozen fights that have come between Marco Antonio Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez, Erik Morales and Manny Pacquiao.

"Twelve Years... Twelve Fights: Ranking a Boxing Rivalry" (BoxingScene.com)

Pacquiao-Marquez III: Clash Creates Controversy

The third bout between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez was the kind of fight that had everyone talking beforehand and everyone talking afterward. Let us get everyone talking, then, with writers supplying a form of oral history:

Joe Maxse, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer: The judges have spoken, but not many in the crowd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Saturday night wanted to hear what they had to say.

Ron Borges, The Sweet Science: After Glenn Trowbridge and Dave Moretti concluded Pacquiao had defeated his arch nemesis, Juan Manuel Marquez, and Robert Hoyle saw it as no better than a second draw in three meetings between them, the sold out crowd of 16,383 began to boo lustily, reaching a crescendo that drowned out Pacquiao’s post-fight words until he finally left the ring with a sad look of embarrassment on on his face.

Kieran Mulvaney, ESPN.com: There were times on Saturday when Pacquiao looked befuddled, as though he had forgotten everything that trainer Freddie Roach taught him. For all the talk that Pacquiao was the much-improved fighter, it looked on occasion as though Marquez was the one who had adapted better.

In Memoriam: Smokin' Joe Frazier

Where there was Smokin' Joe, there were rumbles and thrillas. There were his three Fighter of the Year awards from the Boxing Writers Association of America (1969, 1971 and 1975). There is the name of the "Fight of the Year" award that the BWAA bestows each year, an award named after his legendary heavyweight trilogy with Muhammad Ali.

Ali was the Greatest of All Time, and Frazier was there with him, two greats who made each each other greater, two men who pushed the other to the limit, then pushed themselves even further.

We lost a great one on Monday, Nov. 7. Joe Frazier had been diagnosed barely more than a month ago with liver cancer. He was 67.

His greatness had been known in these decades since, paid tribute to in articles, in books and documentaries. We want to hold onto the great ones for as long as we can. He is gone too soon.

Wally Matthews, writing for ESPN New York:

Smokin' Joe Frazier became a fighter in Philadelphia and a legend in New York.

He did it on one magical night: March 8, 1971, when Frazier turned in what was arguably the greatest athletic performance ever seen under the gaudy ceiling of Madison Square Garden 4.0, and what was among the top five performances ever by a heavyweight champion in the history of our oldest and most demanding sport.

Willis Reed's entrance in Game 6 of the 1970 NBA Finals might have rivaled it for drama, and some might say Michael Jordan's 55-point game against the Knicks in 1995 matched it for skill, but no athlete has ever owned the big room the way Frazier did the night he won that epic first battle with Muhammad Ali, the one that was so big it was billed simply as "The Fight."

He did it with a body too short and arms too stumpy for a heavyweight, with a style that demanded that he eat two shots for every one he landed, and against a man who was really not a fighter but an exquisitely proportioned and coordinated ballet dancer who happened to carry a brick in each fist.

Frazier was unforgettable that night, giving so much of himself that he spent the next month in a hospital, and for a time there were serious concerns that he might die. He was dangerously dehydrated and his kidneys were shutting down. His blood pressure soared. At the time, no one outside his circle knew that for most of his career, Frazier was an insulin-dependent diabetic.

All the world knew was that few men had ever paid a higher price in the single-minded pursuit of victory than Frazier did that night.

"Frazier, both his eyes nearly swollen shut, was not allowed to come out for the final round by trainer Eddie Futch, who told him, 'Son, no one will forget what you did here today.' And no one did - not then, not now, probably not for as long as two determined, courageous men test their wills and their skills in a roped-off swatch of canvas while wearing padded gloves." ~ Bernard Fernandez, Philadelphia Daily News

"In the ring he was the epitome of a warrior. He was simply fearless. He fought every minute of every round in his career, always coming forward, always applying pressure, his left hook ready - and able - to dispatch of anyone in his path." ~ Tom Archdeacon, Dayton Daily News

"They fought three times, twice in the heart of New York City and once in the morning in a steamy arena in the Thrilla in Manila in the Philippines. They went 41 rounds together. Neither gave an inch and both gave it their all. In their last fight in Manila in 1975, they traded punches with a fervor that seemed unimaginable among heavyweights. Frazier gave almost as good as he got for 14 rounds, then had to be held back by trainer Eddie Futch as he tried to go out for the final round, unable to see." ~ Tim Dahlberg, Associated Press

"That neighborhood is in the City of Brotherly Love, his home since he was 15, and a place that he is synonymous with. So if you’re a fighter from Philadelphia, that’s the legacy you need to live up to. You can’t quit, you can’t give an inch, and you can’t back down. You fight until you just can’t fight anymore. That’s a Philly fighter, and that’s Joe Frazier." ~ Thomas Gerbasi, BoxingScene.com

"His final record stands at 32-4-1 with 27 KOs. But wins and losses are besides the point when you ponder Frazier's legacy. His determination, his burning desire to go forward, to leave every ounce of what he had to give in the ring, placed him in the top 1 percent of any boxer, in any era." ~ Michael Woods, ESPN New York

"Some people mean more together than they do apart, whatever the stage. Churchill and Hitler. Bogart and Bacall. Ali and Frazier. And for all the deserved accolades for Muhammad Ali, I’ve always believed that each at his best, Joe Frazier, who died Monday night at age 67, was the better fighter. And the better man." ~ Dave Anderson, The New York Times

Thomas Hauser of TheSweetScience.com recalls a visit Joe Frazier made to press row in 2008.

Kieran Mulvaney of ESPN.com looks back at the Ali-Frazier trilogy.