The year 2008 brought us so much, from the rematches (Taylor-Pavlik II, Marquez-Pacquiao II, Vazquez-Marquez III, Holt-Torres I & II) to the big name matchups (Jones-Calzaghe, Hopkins-Calzaghe, Pacquiao-De La Hoya, Cotto-Margarito, Hatton-Malignaggi). There were plenty of candidates for most categories, but I found a way to narrow them all down to a winner. Feel free to disagree, but I think I’ve come up with some solid superlatives.

Fight of the Year

Marquez-Vazquez III

When this fight was signed, you knew it would be a Fight of the Year candidate, since obviously, the first two were. And for the second straight year, lukekohler.com awards these two great fighters with the Fight of the Year award.

Hopefully we’ll see a fourth fight between them, but if not, we’ll always have the first three wars between them to watch over and over again.

Here is a cool video of the 12th round of the third fight, as shot from ringside by a fan. Good stuff.

And the clear Showtime video of that same round:

Runners up:
Adamek-Cunningham
Margarito-Cotto
Casamayor-Katsidis
Marquez-Pacquiao II

Fighter of the Year

Manny Pacquiao (W12 Marquez, TKO9 Diaz, RTD8 De La Hoya)

Not much competition here. In fact, this is the only category that wasn’t even close. Pacquiao went 3-0 in 2008, beating Juan Manuel Marquez in a very close fight, then knocking out David Diaz and Oscar De La Hoya. And he won all three fights at three weight classes spanning 17 pounds. There isn’t a whole lot more that Pacquiao can do in a year, except of course for fighting the best fighter at the weight class he is in at any given time, but I digress.

Congratulations, Manny. I’m not the biggest Pacquiao fan in the world by any stretch, but I give credit where credit is due, and Manny had an amazing 2008.

Runners up:
Joe Calzaghe (W12 Hopkins, W12 Jones)
Vic Darchinyan (D12 Gorres [bad judging], KO5 Kirilov, KO9 Mijares)
Bernard Hopkins (L12 Calzaghe, W12 Pavlik)

Round of the Year

Holt-Torres II, Round 1

There’s not much you can say about a round like this, so just watch it and you tell me how it can’t be Round of the Year.

Runner up:
Marquez-Vazquez III, Round 12

Upset of the Year

Quintana over Williams

As an 8-1 underdog, Carlos Quintana took the fight to the much bigger Paul Williams, effectively counterpunching him and outlanding him. Sure, he didn’t make it out of the first round of the rematch, but on Feb. 9, Quintana shocked much of the boxing world by winning a clear unanimous decision over Williams.

Runners up:
Timothy Bradley over Junior Witter

Upsets in style, not outcome:
Manny Pacquiao over Oscar De La Hoya
Bernard Hopkins over Kelly Pavlik

Knockout of the Year

Edison Miranda KO3 David Banks

There are two things that Edison Miranda is good for. One is knocking people out in brutal fashion. The other is getting his ass kicked by good fighters. Here is an example of the former.

Runners up:
Holt KO1 Torres
Abraham TKO4 Miranda

Event of the Year

Floyd Mayweather Retires

If it were one fight, it would be Pacquiao vs. De La Hoya, for the sheer energy it brought to Las Vegas. But this year, there was one news story that passed them all: The retirement of Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Sure, many think he’ll come back, but as of now — he hasn’t. Mayweather retired at 39-0 and pound-for-pound king of boxing. If he does in fact stay retired, then the news of his retirement from June will retroactively be one of the biggest stories in boxing history. You just don’t get boxers who quit too early.

Runners up:
Pacquiao vs. De La Hoya
Hatton vs. Malignaggi (Hatton fans alone put him on the list)
Calzaghe vs. Jones

Prospect of the Year

Yuriorkis Gamboa

As exciting as they come, Gamboa is going to be a fixture on HBO for quite a while. He’s not immune to the occasional knockdown, and certainly has some improvements to make, but he is one hell of a prospect and has jumped into “can’t miss” status when his fights are on television.

Runners up:
James Kirkland (2007 winner)
Alfredo Angulo
The rest of the HBO undercard all-stars.

Comeback Fighter of the Year

Vitali Klitschko

The only question about Vitali Klitschko’s return was whether or not he could stay healthy. When healthy, Vitali is the best heavyweight in the world, a clear notch above his brother Wladimir, who is currently the heavyweight king.

Vitali’s destruction of Sam Peter put a stamp on his comeback, and sent a warning to the rest of the heavyweights that the heavyweight championship runs through the Klitschko household.

Worst Decision of the Year

Nicolai Valuev over Evander Holyfield

Not much to say about this other than the wrong guy won. It wasn’t even close. I think Evander Holyfield has no business in a boxing ring anymore, but he beat Valuev fair and square and deserves his paper title.

Runner up:
James Toney over Fres Oquendo

Post-Fight Interview of the Year

David Diaz vs. Manny Pacquiao

Watch for yourself.

Co-Winner

Chris Arreola vs. Travis Walker

Watch video from about 6:27 of the clip on.

The victim, identified as Evander “Real Deal” Holyfield, was robbed of a win against Russian Nicolai Valuev in one of the worst “title” fights in the history of boxing.

Let me make on thing clear — Holyfield won the fight, but it wasn’t the shutout that you are bound to read about around the rest of the Interwebs. Holyfield was the busier and more effective fighter, and should have been awarded the victory by default, but alas, another American fighter will fly back over the pond empty handed.

It’s not that Holyfield was good — far from it. It’s that for most of the fight, he was the only one trying. Valuev was content to throw three jabs a round, and occasionally mix in a power punch during a clinch. Holyfield danced around, occasionally pressing the action and mixing it up a bit on the inside when he could get there. Neither one did anything to win the fight, but Valuev certainly did more to lose it.

The fight was reminiscent of the Westley, the man in black, fighting Fezzik (Andre the Giant) in the Princess Bride. I’m pretty sure at one point Holyfield crawled through Valuev’s legs and attacked him from behind upon surprising him.

For as much as Holyfield deserved to win the fight, it should be pointed out that it was a terrible fight, and to subject anyone to watching a rematch between these two could only be considered torture and/or sleep therapy. Holyfield has a chance right now to go out with a little bit of pride, and he should take it.

It’s truly time for Holyfield to hang them up. His only options to win a belt, which is all he really wants, are a rematch with Valuev (he’d have to knock him out to win a decision next time), Ruslan Chagaev, another decision he won’t win in Europe, or one of the Klitschkos. Fighting either one of them is a very bad idea for Evander.

Right now, Holyfield has a chance to go out with some pride, a situation he hasn’t seen in nearly a many years. Get out now while you still have a chance, Evander. You’re not getting any less punch drunk by getting in the ring with guys that outweigh you by 100 pounds. The heavyweight division has passed Holyfield by, and the time to leave is now.

It was a hell of a career, but I can’t imagine Holyfield going out on a higher note than this controversial loss. And that, in and of itself, is a sad, sad thing.

For instance, when Kelly Pavlik was picked apart by Bernard Hopkins, Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant quipped throughout the later rounds that Pavlik didn’t need to take the fight and he shouldn’t have chosen to fight the crafty Hopkins.

What they never acknowledged was that HBO practically forced Pavlik to take that fight. HBO turned down several opponents that Pavlik was interested in fighting, basically leaving Hopkins as the only option that they would approve of. And since HBO is writing most of the checks these days, Pavlik had no choice. That didn’t stop them from criticizing his decision to take the fight as he was getting torn apart, however.

Fast forward to this week. According to BoxingScene.com, HBO turned down a potential fight between Jermain Taylor and Carl Froch, one of the biggest fights that can be made at the super-middleweight level.

This is a true world-class fight. Outside of Joe Calzaghe and probably Mikkel Kessler, these may be the next two best super-middleweights in the world.

But according to BoxingScene, “HBO is not willing to approve a super middleweight bout between WBC champion Carl Froch and mandatory Jermain Taylor. Instead, HBO is trying to make a rematch between Taylor and Winky Wright.”

I like Winky Wright, but the fact is that he has not fought in a year and a half, when he lost to Hopkins. That was his only fight above middleweight, where he seemed completely out of his element, and now HBO is trying to force Jermain Taylor to pass up a title shot to give Winky a rematch? Ridiculous.

Boxing needs to get its shit together, and the promoters taking the power back from HBO is step one. They are a television network, not a promoter. I understand that the money is coming from them, but they need to go back to the days when the fights would get made and HBO would pay for the right to air those fights.

Instead, now we are forced to watch what HBO considers “names” fight nobodies over and over again, until they find a matchup they deem appropriate. How many times are we going to have to watch James Kirkland, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Alfredo Angulo and the rest of the undercard all-stars fight people we’ve never seen before?

Jermain Taylor vs. Carl Froch is a great fight. HBO should be in no position to deny Taylor a title shot like this.

If I’m Jermain Taylor, I take the fight and let HBO decide if they want to air it. I don’t know what his contract with HBO entails, but hopefully somebody in Taylor’s camp reads through the legalese and finds a way to make this fight happen — with or without HBO.

All we can do as fans is not buy HBO PPV’s, but for most of us, we can’t say no when fight day comes around.

If only Showtime or ESPN would find room in their budgets, either one of them could truly challenge HBO for boxing media supremacy. Until someone is willing to do that though, we are going to be forced to watch whoever HBO says we are going to watch.

The future, however, is bright.

Some major fights are already on the horizon, including Manny Pacquiao vs. Ricky Hatton likely in May, and Vitali Klitschko vs. David Haye in June. Those are great fights and are both great fights for the sport.

It also seems that everybody and (in the case of the Marquezes) their brother are ready to fight in the first half of the year.

How’s this sound for a potential lineup of fights:

January

• Antonio Margarito vs. Shane Mosley
• Andre Berto vs. Luis Collazo

February

• Rafael Marquez vs. Celestino Caballero
• Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Juan Diaz
• Vic Darchinyan vs. Jorge Arce
• Alfredo Angulo vs. Ricardo Mayorga

March

• Tomasz Adamek vs. BJ Flores
• Chad Dawson vs. Antonio Tarver

Not every one of those fights is set in stone, but they are all either signed or rumored to be close to signing. They’re not all the best fights (Dawson-Tarver II?), but some are fantastic (Diaz-Marquez, Darchinyan-Arce).

What made the end of 2007 so special was that guys made fights happen that we didn’t think would happen — Mayweather-Hatton, Calzaghe-Kessler, Taylor-Pavlik, etc.

Until we see the top fighters in the ring with each other (Pacquiao-Hatton, Klitschko-Haye - good job; Kessler-Hopkins, Calzaghe-Dawson, Wladimir-Valuev, etc. - need to get going), boxing will be stagnant.

There are many combinations of great fights that can be made, but not if fighters are only looking after the interests of their wallets. For the good of the sport, fighters need to make great fights. If they do that, the will get paid eventually.

In addition to the quality fights mentioned above, you can also expect to see Michael Katsidis, Kelly Pavlik, Miguel Cotto, Clinton Woods, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Nate Campbell, and more than likely Mikkel Kessler fighting in America.

For me, that’s a good start to 2009. Hopefully it will end even better than it begins.

After an 18 hour marathon negotiating session to reach terms for the fight, Haye and Klitschko arrived to shake hands over the deal, only to have Haye come armed with a magazine photo of himself holding a photoshopped image of his brother Wladimir’s decapitated head.

Apparently Dr. Ironfist doesn’t take kindly to folks insulting Dr. Steelhammer.

At the sight of the photo, Vitali went after Haye, wrestling with him briefly before shoving him, sending Haye to the ground. Haye played it off and tempers calmed, but the fight has begun.

Haye insists that he’s already won the first stage of this battle by breaking the Klitschkos mentally. The other side of that is that Haye may be the first guy to ever get in the ring with an angry Klitschko. And considering they have combined to knockout 81 of the 88 fighters they have beaten, I don’t think it’s the best idea to make them angry. Especially when you have shown to be quite chinny against much smaller fighters.

David Haye may be an exciting, young heavyweight, but he has a grand total of one fight at the heavyweight limit, against an average-to-bad Monte Barrett. Prior to that, he was knocked out by a journeyman cruiserweight and dropped in two of his last three fights against Jean Marc Mormeck and Barrett. I have no doubt that Haye will provide entertainment at the heavyweight level and is a formidable opponent for most, but pissing off the Klitschkos is not a good idea.

Say what you will about the quality of today’s heavyweights, but the fact is that right now, Wladimir and Vitali are completely dominant in this weightclass. Haye was never even dominant at cruiserweight, really only fighting two quality opponents at that level. He’s the underdog, and he’s the one with something to prove.

Unless he lands a perfect punch, and by perfect I mean better than anything Lennox Lewis could land, Haye can’t beat Vitali. He can’t outbox him and the punch-to-chin ratio weighs heavily in Vitali’s favor. As does his massive size advantage. Four inches and 30-plus pounds is too much to overcome for an inferior fighter, but man will it be fun while it lasts.

Regardless of how this fight plays out in the ring, the fact that it is being signed in December and fought in June is ridiculous. These guys should be in the ring by March. There is no one making weight and they are both healthy and ready. Make the fight happen now.

Enzo Maccarinelli, one of the world’s top cruiserweights, has said he is interested in fighting British UFC star Michael Bisping and is confident he can knock him out.

Enzo met with UFC head-asshole Dana White last week to discuss the move, but it appears as if the UFC will pass on the move, saying that Enzo lacks the well-rounded skills that you need to survive in the Octagon.

According to UFC UK president Marshall Zelaznik, there was some talk about casting Enzo on The Ultimate Fighter.

Using typically flawed logic that often comes from UFC suits BBC Sport reported the following:

However, Zelaznik said Maccarinelli did not possess the “well-rounded skills to be successful in MMA”, let alone the tools to beat seasoned mixed martial artist Bisping.

Zelaznik said: “Enzo’s boxing career speaks for itself - he is very impressive. We were all surprised to learn that Enzo also trained between boxing bouts in both kickboxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which are two of the many skills vital for any well-rounded MMA fighter.

“[But] with no wrestling experience and only keep-fit type training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Thai boxing, he would not have the skills that would allow him to succeed in MMA.

“As boxing fans, we would love to one day see Enzo competing in our great sport. But Enzo would really need to focus a lot of energy on the nuances of the MMA ground and striking game before we would ever see that image realised.

“If you understand the sport of MMA, you understand that any boxer, no matter how good, would not be able to effectively compete in the Octagon. It would be like a world-class sprinter entering the decathlon.

I don’t doubt that a boxer would struggle in MMA, but it’s not likely to be as drastic as they are making it sound. How often do you watch MMA and see a fighter that is trained in one aspect of the sport, then rounds out his skills with minimal training in the other disciplines. That is why some fighters are better on their feet, and others better on the ground. To discount the ability of a true world-class boxer is as insulting to boxing as it is to all of the great MMA fighters that also lean heavily on one discipline.

If put in the ring right now, Enzo would instantly become the best striker in the UFC. He may struggle on the ground, but his immense striking skills should not be discounted.

This is not the first we’ve heard of a boxing/UFC crossover. Welterweight boxer Kermit Cintron, who was an All-American wrestler, challenged Sean Sherk after Sherk called out Mayweather, only to have Sherk and Dana White say no thanks. Then, Anderson Silva wanted to fight Roy Jones in a boxing match, only to once again have Dana White put the kibosh on it.

Fighters fight, and I have no doubt that many MMAers would love to fight Enzo, win or lose. But White is so overprotective of his brand that he is not willing to risk what he would consider humiliation if a boxer beat a world-class mixed martial artist.

Of course, he couldn’t be happier that a professional wrestler with one dominant discipline came in and won the heavyweight title. Go figure.

Fans want to see interesting fights, not the same old retreads. Ninety-nine percent of UFC fans would prefer to see Bisping vs. Maccarinelli over Liddell vs. anyone. Trust me on that.

I don’t know if Enzo could hold his own or not, but wouldn’t it be great if we could make this happen someday? I think it will eventually, but never on Dana White’s watch. Once he is gone, then the UFC can prosper once again. Until then, I guess we should just get used to paying to watch the same guys mix it up a couple of times a year.

You had a potential Fight of the Year on Thursday when Tomasz Adamek beat Stevie Cunningham in an epic cruiserweight battle.

You had the heavyweight king, Wladimir Klitschko, putting on a boxing clinic, and finally letting his hands go early in a fight, en route to a seventh round knockout win over the drastically overmatched Hasim Rahman.

You had James Toney getting a ridiculous gift decision against Fres Oquendo, in a fight in which Oquendo realistically swept the second half of the fight, and likely nine of 12 rounds.

And to top it off, you had Kendall Holt edging out Demetrius Hopkins in a very exciting junior-welterweight bout. Holt took the split-decision, but it was a fantastic fight, especially considering the fact that both fighters took the fight on short notice.

Other than the Toney-Oqeuendo debacle, it was a pretty good rebound weekend for boxing, considering the sideshow that was last weekend.

The Adamek-Cunningham fight on Versus is a true contender for Fight of the Year. Cunningham probably controlled more of the fight, but three knock downs evened the score. The points that Cunningham lost for getting knocked down may have cost him the fight, as it probably not only cost him points, but in two of the rounds, probably changed who was the round winner.

It was an all-out action fight, and hopefully we will see it again.

The Klitschko fight was what most expected it to be, and the Toney fight was a joke, while the Holt-Hopkins fight was a pleasant surprise in terms of excitement.

And I’ll add this about the Holt-Hopkins fight: The junior-welterweight division is quietly becoming one of the most exciting divisions in boxing, in terms of quality of fighters and potential matchups. And not only that, it may be the classiest division in boxing. Between Holt, Hopkins, Timothy Bradley, Ricky Hatton, and Paulie Malignaggi, there may not be a division full of nicer guys. That’s got to be worth something.

Bottom line: Four good productions, four fights interesting in one way or another, and all of them on television here in the States. Good weekend for boxing.

Now we have nine minutes of mismatched action, but with the claims that one of those fights was thrown.

Sergio Medina claims that his first round destruction at the hands of Juan Manuel Lopez was the result of a threat that he received during the weigh-in. In an interview in his native Argentina, Medina claims that he was told by Lopez’s people and the WBO that he needed to take a dive in the first round or he wouldn’t be leaving the country.

Medina’s agent, Sampson Lewkowicz, quickly denied the allegations, saying that he was with Medina throughout the entire weigh-in, and that Juanma’s camp could not have been more courteous.

Lewkowicz blames the allegations on Medina possibly being mentally sick, and that the truth is that the first punch he took from Juanma made him not want to play anymore.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission will likely investigate the claims, and one would hope that the very least that comes of this would be Medina not getting paid for his performance.

On a day when pound-for-pound superstar Joe Calzaghe is saying that boxing is dying, this is not exactly the news that should be being reported. Lopez is a future star in this sport, and people want to see him fight. Boxing may not be what it used to be, but the PPV numbers from this fight, along with the many successful events in the last year are all the proof you need to know that while it is struggling, boxing is far from dying — no matter what Dana White tries to tell you.

UPDATE: Medina admitted that he made it all up. Juanma comments.

Pacquiao demolished Oscar De La Hoya, proving himself more than capable at the welterweight limit, where Mayweather reigned supreme until his surprise retirement last year. Mayweather defeated De La Hoya in May of 2007 by split decision, then knocked out Ricky Hatton in December, prior to retiring.

Pacquiao is currently planning on fighting Hatton in May or June of 2009, but a Mayweather return could change those plans.

According to BoxingScene.com, Mayweather informed family members of his plans after the Pacquiao - De La Hoya fight, and told them that he plans on reuniting with his father, Floyd Mayweather, Sr. to train him for the fight. Floyd has been working with his uncle, Roger, and plans to use both of them together to train him for Pacquiao.

A Mayweather return to the ring was expected by many, and with Pacquiao’s dominant performance, this mega-fight is among the biggest that can be made in the sport. Surely a Pacquiao-Hatton fight is mouth-watering, but a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight is a true blockbuster. I would love to see Hatton take on Pacquiao for the excitement of the fight, but no boxing fan in the world would pass on Pacquiao vs. Mayweather.

Depending on weather or not Mayweather takes any type of tuneup (doubtful), it is possible that Pacquiao could face Hatton in May or June in England, and if he wins, face Mayweather in December. But the possibility of a loss to Hatton could be enough to skip that fight and take the bigger match with Mayweather.

Either way it works out, 2009 is bound to be a busy and interesting year for Manny Pacquiao. The scenarios I see for Pacquiao in ‘09 are Hatton in the summer, Floyd in the winter; or Hatton in the summer, and a third fight with Juan Manuel Marquez in the winter; or Mayweather in the summer, and either Hatton or Marquez in the winter. No matter what, 2009 will be an amazing year of boxing in the 135-147 pound range.

If I could have my way, we’d see Hatton-Pacquiao in the summer and Floyd takes a tuneup around the same time. If Floyd and Pacquiao prevail, the mega-match is set for December. If Hatton upsets Pacquiao, perhaps there’d be interest in Hatton-Mayweather II. I doubt that part, but if Hatton beats Pacquiao, it’s definitely more interesting.

How about Hatton fights Marquez at 140 in the summer, opposite of Floyd and Manny, and the winners meet up. I think any combination of these four fighters (minus Hatton-Mayweather immediately) is intriguing. Hatton-Mayweather II is only interesting if Hatton has Floyd Sr. training him and probably only really interesting if Hatton beats Pacquiao.

And while we’re at it, Antonio Margarito is interested in fighting Pacquiao. The next year is going to be very interesting for Manny Pacquiao.

I told you that the Oscar De La Hoya - Manny Pacquiao fight was a mismatch. I told you it would be a one-sided beating. I told you that it could be a career ending assault.

I was right about all of that.

I just had the wrong guy.

What happened was the unexpected end of De La Hoya’s career. Oscar suffered through eight one-sided rounds before his corner stopped the fight. There was not even a round that you could almost give Oscar, and he took a physical beating far worse than anything he’s ever taken.

This was not the Oscar De La Hoya that was in the ring with Shane Mosley, Felix Trinidad or Bernard Hopkins. Hell, it wasn’t even the same Oscar that was in the ring with Floyd Mayweather. This was a shadow of what Oscar used to be.

Clearly the weight loss hurt him. When you weigh in at 145 pounds, your lowest weight in 12 years, then only rehydrate to 147 on fight day, you are not healthy. This was clear in round one, when Oscar just couldn’t let his hands go. Freddie Roach was right about Oscar, but I doubt even he knew how right he’d be.

Oscar De La Hoya is a shot fighter. He should never again walk to the ring with gloves on. He should never again make us buy a pay-per-view with a horrendous undercard. He should stick to promoting and leave the fighting to fighters.

Having said all that, I don’t want to take anything away from Manny Pacquiao. Pacquiao fought an absolutely beautiful fight and deserves all the credit in the world for being able to execute (Mexicute?) on the level that he did.

But make no mistake about it — the story in this fight is the death of Oscar De La Hoya the professional prize fighter, not the accomplishment of Manny Pacquiao for exposing him. In the same way Leon Spinks and Danny Williams were not victors over Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, they were merely the benefactors of great timing and depleted skills.

From here, Pacquiao will likely face junior-welterweight champion Ricky Hatton, and if the Internet message boards are any indicator, Pacquiao will be a 20-1 favorite. In the eyes of the average Pacquiao fan, he’d now be favored over both Klitschkos at the same time.

Pacquiao is a beast. But he is beatable. Just as Erik Morales and Juan Manuel Marquez have shown, Pacquiao has holes. Freddie Roach is doing a great job of completing his fighter, but the holes remain.

I think that Hatton’s mauling, in-fighting style will give Pacquiao problems, as would Miguel Cotto’s style for the same reasons. I think that Antonio Margarito and Paul Williams would give him problems with their size and volume punching, not to mention their inability to get hurt. I think Juan Diaz would be a war, and once again Juan Manuel Marquez would dance circles around him. If only Marquez could stay on his feet, he’d be 2-0 against Manny. But he can’t and could lose to him once again because of it.

There are a lot of fighters out there that will make great fights with Pacquiao. I am leaving Pacquiao at number two on the pound-for-pound list, despite HBO trying to force it down everyone’s throat that Manny is already number one. I judge pound-for-pound as a whole, not based on their last fight, and the fact remains that Joe Calzaghe has had a better career, and a better last two years. Calzaghe is still the best fighter in the world, but Pacquiao just made it a little closer.

On a side note, I want to express my extreme disappointment with the HBO Pay-Per-View telecast. It is not HBO’s fault, but Golden Boy Promotions provided three complete mismatches on the undercard, resulting in a whopping nine minutes of undercard action, and 1 hour and 51 minutes of talking about boxing before the main event started. For $54.95 (in caveman SD, not overpriced HD), I expect competitive, good fights. What we were subjected to was one or two rounds of commercials for future Golden Boy fights.

For the first (and likely only) time, I agree with Dana White. Boxing can learn a great deal from the way that the UFC puts together their shows, particularly in person. Crowd involvement and no down time equals a good fan experience. Terrible undercard matchups, separated by 45 minutes of talking about the same thing doesn’t cut it.

In the post Oscar De La Hoya world of boxing, efforts are going to have to be made to please the fans. Lower ticket prices, less pay-per-views (and lower prices on those) and a better in-person fan experience are the things that HBO, Showtime, ESPN, Versus and all of the promoters around the world are going to have to work on.

I may have been wrong about the winner of this fight, but I was right that this was a bad night for boxing. A good night for Manny Pacquiao and his fans, but a bad night in the long run for boxing.