Imagine you are Antonio Margarito. Your impressive July beat down of Miguel Cotto was a rousing success both in pulling pay-per-view buys and in garnering media attention. Casual sports fans have started recognizing your name and maybe even your face.

The sky is the limit. Right? Well, not so much. There are so few people out there for you to fight for your deserved huge payday. Shane Mosley? Yawn, that guy never caught the public’s eye. Paul Williams? Nobody knows him and maybe he’s a little too dangerous. Zab Judah? I’d have a good time at least. Ricky Hatton? Um, maybe? Manny Pacquiao? Not for a while, but maybe. Floyd Mayweather, Jr.? He ain’t coming out of retirement for me. He’s scared of the Tijuana Tornado.

No, the guy I really want is Oscar De La Hoya and he says he’s done on December 6th. You then continue your daily morning routine, open your computer and check your boxing RSS feeds. Lo and behold there’s a new article from Dan Rafael about the Golden Boy.

Its headline is intriguing enough, “De La Hoya shies away from retirement talk.” You start to get really excited. Does he want to fight me? Please Oscar, please. I could retire after the money made from that fight. You scan down the page. Still no mention. But wait. Here it is:

“My dream is to fight at Estadio Azteca,” De La Hoya said at the news conference. “I want a big farewell fight to leave a lasting impression all over the world with a huge event…fighting there would be a dream come true, and that’s why I don’t rule out the possibility of having another fight next year.”

“Oh my heavens,” your inner Antonio must be thinking, “he must be talking about me! Who else would he fight at the Azteca? It ain’t gonna be Sergio Mora or Ricky Hatton I guarantee you that! I need to start training right now. It doesn’t matter if he wins or loses to Manny; everyone in Mexico will want to see that fight. I’ll be avenging my hero Julio Cesar Chavez. I can’t wait.”

Neither can we Antonio, neither can we.

One after the next The Contenders have come and gone. Unimpressive, overhyped and out of their league. Until tonight. In a startling but well-deserved victory Sergio Mora outworked Ring Magazine’s #1 junior middleweight and WBC super welterweight champ Vernon Forrest to earn a majority decision win.

Few gave Mora a chance. Conventional wisdom said he was a club fighter who got a chance against the two-time Shane Mosley slayer not because of skill but because of his marketability. For the first three rounds this standard line of thinking seemed accurate. But in the fourth Mora landed some punches, found his groove, caught some momentum, gained some confidence, and slowly began to assert his dominance.

Mora’s and the fight’s signature round came in a wild action-filled ninth when Sergio cornered Forrest and landed a barrage of punches. The last one minute of this round was Mora’s emphatic announcement to the boxing world: “I am here and I am the better boxer tonight!”

Read more

Fight fans everywhere are feeling a huge Zab Judah putting his arm through glass-caused void in their Saturday night fight watching plans. OK, maybe not. I wasn’t planning to buy Zab’s pay-per-view bout against Shane Mosley and am relieved that I didn’t have any last minute pangs and pressures to do so.

That doesn’t mean that Sugar Shane has kept himself out of the news. Today’s Los Angeles Times reported that Mosley’s former trainer, Derryl Hudson, swore in federal court on Friday that “Shane was fully aware he was using performance-enhancing drugs as he prepared for his victorious 2003 rematch against Oscar De La Hoya.” The accompanying picture was taken just before that fight.

Read more

Last night a message appeared on my Comcast cable box. It read: You still have time to order this Saturday’s exciting welterweight pay-per-view event “Sugar” Shane Mosley vs. Zab “Super” Judah. I wonder what would happen if you did order the May 31 fight that was officially canceled almost three weeks ago because of Zab Judah’s unfortunate incident with a shower and the resulting fifty stitches Zab had installed in his right arm?

Would you get a Zab Judah highlights montage showcasing the choking Jay Nady incident, the Roger Mayweather corner clearing brawl, the dizzying Kosta Tszyu knockdown? Or maybe you would get a clandestine video of what really happened in the infamous Las Vegas glass shower. ESPN’s Dan Rafael reports on his ESPN Insider blog that Judah did indeed put his jabbing arm threw glass only it didn’t occur because of an unfortunate slip.

Read more

Do you remember Zab Judah’s wobbly 2001 first-round knockout from Kostya Tszyu? After getting flattened he immediately pounced back up only to have his legs and equilibrium double-cross him all while telling the ref he was OK. Imagine the same betrayal happening in a Las Vegas glass shower. Because those are the reports coming from Sin City and the reason our oft-suspended hero’s May PPV bout against Shane Mosley has been put on indefinite hiatus.

Judah fell through the shower glass on an as-yet-to-be-determined date sometime this week resulting in an astounding 50 stitches in his right arm. How could this all have happened? Golden Boy promotions spokesperson explained. “He slipped and he went to brace himself on a glass door and his arm went through it. I saw his arm. It looked pretty bad.” Another story may eventually emerge but given the Tszyu knockdown we are inclined believe poor Super Judah.

Read more

• Former welterweight champions Shane Mosley and Zab Judah have formally announced that they will meet on May 31st in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.
• Former super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler will face Edison Miranda, potentially in Montreal. The bout will be aired on Showtime.
• Ruslan Chagaev and Nikolai Valuev will sqaure off on May 31st in Germany. Chagaev, the WBA heavyweight title holder, defeated Valuev via majority decision early last year.