LAS VEGAS – Long before management and marketing promoted him as The Golden Child, his grandmother called him Baby Maniac.

Cordelia Jacobs knew her grandchild better than anybody. She saw the fight in Danny Jacobs before it matured and began to look as if it had value.

“I was probably the worst baby you could possibly have,’’ said Danny, who at 23 isn’t a child anymore, yet retains potential that is as golden as ever. “I was doing everything. Running into walls, knocking everything down.’’

Grandma Jacobs is gone. She died Sunday, within a week of her grandson’s first shot at a major title, the World Boxing Organization’s middleweight championship, this Saturday night against Dmitry Pirog at Mandalay Bay. Danny was there, at her bedside in New York before leaving for Vegas.

“There are people in life you can’t live without,’’ said Jacobs, who will fight for the vacant WBO title in a HBO pay-per-view bout on the undercard of the Juan Diaz-Juan Manuel Marquez rematch. “She was that person to me.

“I took it hard. I sat there and watched her pass. I was in the hospital and witnessed everything. I get emotional just talking about it. But I know I have to be strong at the same time.’’

Strong is what his grandmother would expect. He and his mom, Cordelius, raised him in Brooklyn after his parents separated when he was a toddler. Grandma Jacobs was not a boxing fan. She couldn’t be, Danny said, because of her faith. She was a Jehovah’s Witness.

“She couldn’t support boxing, but she supported me,’’ Jacobs said of a grandma who taught him to believe in the person more than the profession.

The unbeaten Jacobs (20-0, 17 KOs) said his grandmother did not attend his fights.

“To actually go there is something she just couldn’t do,’’ he said. “She’d see me fight on TV, but never in person. Then, she’d only watch the fight after it’s done. So, she already knew that I’d won. Then, she would only watch the first round, probably because that might have been when I was at my best.’’

But, Jacobs said, she always would tell him not to skip any part of his daily workout. Call her Grandma Trainer.

“Her advice to me was always: ‘Make sure you do your sit-ups, so when they hit you in the stomach you won’t cry,’ ‘’ he said.

Jacobs joked that he has been working harder than ever to strengthen his abdominals for his first scheduled 12-rounder against Pirog, an unknown Russian and also unbeaten (16-0, 13 KOs).

In remembering his beloved grandmother, her lessons will always be with him. He has dedicated Saturday’s fight to her. Her nickname, Lady Bird, will be stitched onto his trunks.

A few hours after the fight, he will take the red-eye home. The funeral is scheduled for Sunday in New York.

He plans to celebrate Saturday night. He knows he will mourn Sunday. He will have to be strong to do both. But without Grandma’s lessons, a Baby Maniac would never have become The Golden Child.

NOTES, ANECDOTES
· Despite eight options, an octopus in the Shark Reef aquarium at Mandalay Bay had the same pick as everybody else. The eight-armed octopus picked Marquez over Diaz Thursday in a promotion borrowed from the World Cup. Two boxes, each with a prawn inside, were lowered into a tank. Marquez’ name was on one box. Diaz was on the other. In a quick TKO, the octopus immediately attacked the Marquez box.

· Marquez’ victory, a ninth-round stoppage of Diaz last year, was voted the 2009 Fight of the Year by the Boxing Writers Association of America. “I think this fight will be better than the first one,’’ Marquez said.

· Boxing’s international reach was evident Thursday at a news conference. Jorge Linares, who faces Rocky Juarez of Houston, is a Venezuelan lightweight who has been living in Japan for the last several years. Linares has a Japanese trainer, Sendai Tanaka. Tanaka is bi-lingual, but that doesn’t include English. He spoke to the media in Spanish, which was translated into English by Golden Boy matchmaker Eric Gomez, who would have been in trouble if Tanaka had spoken Japanese.

LAS VEGAS – Oscar De La Hoya said Wednesday that the Arizona immigration law is racist if it is allowed to stand as it was written.

“We’re looking at racism,’’ De La Hoya said during a news conference to promote the Juan Diaz-Juan Manuel Marquez rematch Saturday night at Mandalay Bay. “We really are.’’

De La Hoya made the comments while U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton filed an injunction in Phoenix against parts of SB 1070, delaying provisions that require immigrants to carry documentation and prohibits them from seeking employment on street corners or in parking lots. The law was scheduled to go into effect Thursday.

De La Hoya, president of Golden Boy Promotions and a fulltime promoter since he retired after a loss to Manny Pacquiao in 2008, said he would not stage cards in Arizona if the law is reinstated through likely legal fights, including an expected appeal by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.

Golden Boy promoted at Desert Diamond Casino near Tucson for a few years. The last Golden Boy card in southern Arizona was in the summer of 2009.

When asked if he could return to the state and promote again, De La Hoya said: “If they do lift the law, I would. But I don’t know now. If they don’t lift the law, then I don’t think we have business there.’’

Both Diaz and Marquez have fought in Arizona. Diaz, a Mexican-American lightweight, beat Fernando Angulo in 2006 at Chase Field in Phoenix. Marquez, a Mexican, has fought in Arizona twice, both in 2007 and both in Tucson. In his last Arizona bout, he beat Rocky Juarez, also of Houston, is also on Saturday night’s card at Mandalay Bay.

Six of the eight fighters on HBO’s pay-per-view portion have fought in Arizona, including middleweight Daniel Jacobs of New York junior-welterweight Robert Guerrero of Gilroy, Calif., and Joel Casamayor, an Olympic gold medalist from Cuba.

Diaz, an aspiring attorney, was born in Houston to parents, Olivia and Fidencio, who at the time were undocumented immigrants from Mexico.

“I talk about it with them and it hits home for them a little bit more,’’ said Diaz, whose parents took him back to Mexico briefly before returning to Houston. “They experienced it first-hand as far as crossing the border, dealing with border patrol and sometimes running from immigration. Those are some interesting stories.’’

The stories are also full of reasons to fear the SB 1070 if the courts allow it to be enforced, Diaz said.

“It’s a rough law,’’ he said. “It’s gonna infringe on a lot of human rights. Local law enforcement is going to take a little bit too much of the power that it has and abuse it. There’s going to be so many cases in which families and people are going to be abused that we’re not even going to hear about.’’

Despite his concern about the law’s potential abuse, Diaz said he would not rule out fighting in Arizona again.

“I’d have to look at the circumstances,” said Diaz, who Saturday hopes to avenge a loss to Marquez in the 2009 fight of the year. “I’m not going to sit here and say: ‘No, I’m never going to go fight.’

“You look at each, specific situation. If the situation is that they want to put on a show to raise money for immigrants, then it would be different. A lot of people automatically assume that they won’t fight there because of the law. But, like I said, I’d have to look at the circumstances. Then, say yes or no.’’

Marquez, who is from Mexico City, said the Arizona law has been talking point in his country ever since Brewer signed it in late April.

“It is bad, bad for me and bad for the Mexican people,’’ Marquez said. “Many Mexicans live in Arizona. I want to support them, help them through this.’’

De La Hoya said he understands those who argue that the United States has to defend its borders and maintain a process through which immigrants can gain legal entry.

“If you are illegal in this country and you’re a person who doesn’t come here to work and to help build America and to be in gangs and commit crimes and this-and-that, then, you-know-what, maybe you should go back,’’ said De La Hoya, who fought at then-America West Arena in Phoenix twice early in his career.”But if you are a person who is this country to help build America the way immigrants built America back in the day, then I think they do have a chance, that there should be fairness.

“I understand that there has to be a process, of how that is regulated.’’

De La Hoya says the law targets Mexicans and Americans of Mexican descent.

“They were thinking that this is meant for European immigrants, this is meant for the Asian immigrant,’’ said De La Hoya, who grew up in Los Angeles before becoming the world’s most popular and richest boxer after winning an Olympic gold medal for the U.S. at the 1992 Barcelona Games.

De La Hoya points to Arizona large Hispanic community, which is estimated to be about one-third of the state’s population.

“So, to a certain extent, I call it racism,’’ De La Hoya said. “I really do. What happens now? I got to Arizona. I look Hispanic. They pull me over and ask for my ID? It’s not fair.’’

The Juan Manuel Marquez-Juan Diaz sequel to the 2009 Fight of the Year on July 31 at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay has a simple marketing label: The Rematch. Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya and CEO Richard Schaefer also could have called it The Relief.

Let’s just say that Marquez-Diaz II and its compelling undercard are a timely refuge from talks – or whatever they were – for Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. A couple of testaments, old and new, could be filled with all that has been said, written, rumored, alleged and denied about a fight that has yet to happen and perhaps never will.

Attention on Pacquiao-Mayweather is sucking the wind out of a sport full of good stories, of which there are many on the Diaz-Marquez card. There is Robert Guerrero, who faces Joel Casamayor. He fights for his wife, Casey, who has fought leukemia and knocked the cancer into remission.

There’s Diaz, an aspiring lawyer and proud son of Mexican immigrants who is fighting to keep his career alive while he argues for rights that he believes are under assault in the wake of Arizona’s tough new immigration law.

There’s Rocky Juarez, who faces Jorge Linares. Juarez, who is 0-5-1 in world title fights, was robbed at the 2000 Olympics of a gold medal and left with silver that he says reflects a career full of frustration. Yet, he is still pursuing a world title, still trying turn silver into gold.

Guerrero, Diaz and Juarez are just a few of the stories that once put a gritty face on a sport that, in large part, has been about comebacks, second chances and redemption. Now, however, all of the focus appears to be on nothing, which worked on Seinfeld but won’t in boxing.

It’s been there before, following Mike Tyson to nowhere. Tyson was the train wreck that kept everybody looking only for the next accident instead of the next prospect. Tyson moved on and mixed martial arts moved in.

De La Hoya, Pacquiao and Mayweather helped boxing diversify and it began to recover. Yet, suddenly it is back at an intersection where one story, and only one, seems to matter. Who to blame? From promoters to regulators, the usual suspects are there.

But the internet, the only media that covers the sport regularly anymore, also deserves its share. Determining a good story isn’t much of a choice anymore. It’s all about numbers, hits. Plug in the right words and you’ve got a winner recognized by the Google algorithm. That means Pacquiao and Mayweather, over and over again.

The internet equation often means the media follows the mob instead of the stories. Guerrero, Diaz and Juarez offer an old-school, perhaps quaint opportunity to reverse that trend during the next week. Each has different motivations. Yet, each is confronted with a fight the looms as decisive in what they do next.

“I see this as a win-win situation,’’ Diaz said during a conference call when asked about the significance attached to chances at avenging his 2009 loss by knockout to Marquez. “This fight is going to prove to me whether I have it or I don’t. This fight right here is what’s going to take me to the top and make me the super star that I’ve been wanting to be in the lightweight division.

“But if it doesn’t happen then that means it’s not meant to be and I’ll move on to bigger and better things, which could be start from the bottom and pick up the pieces to rebuild myself up or just completely do a 360 – I mean a 180 – and just go in the opposite direction.

“This fight here, a lot of people have been mentioning to me that it’s a do-or-die fight. Well, I don’t think it is do-or-die. I think it’s win-win because either I become a world champion once again and become a super star or it opens up doors for me to do other things and focus on other aspects of my life.’’

Real-life.

For now and perhaps forever, that represents a real chance at future business, unlike Pacquiao-Mayweather, which is beginning to look like fantasy that will never be more than a video game.

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said early Saturday that he had not heard from Floyd Mayweather, Jr., by a midnight deadline about whether he would fight Manny Pacquiao on Nov. 13, but Arum said the fight could still happen on the proposed date.

Arum said the deadline – midnight Friday in Las Vegas – was only the end of a period of exclusive negotiations for Mayweather-Pacquiao. Arum said he will now embark on talks with Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto.

“The fight we want to do is Mayweather,’’ Arum said. “We haven’t said anything different. We haven’t acted any different. …Absolutely, that’s the fight we want.’’

Mayweather-Pacquiao could still happen if Mayweather says he wants it during talks for an alternate bout, also on Nov. 13, with either Margarito or Cotto. Arum said he expects those talks to last 10 days.

“Floyd, for whatever reason and I’m sure he has a valid reason, did not want to commit,’’ Arum said after minutes after the midnight deadline passed without a decision from Mayweather

Arum said he was told by Ross Greenburg, president of HBO Sports, that Mayweather had agreed to terms, including a timetable for random drug testing. A deal for Pacquiao-Mayweather last March fell apart late last year when Pacquiao balked at Mayweather’s demand for Olympic-style blood-testing.
Arum said he heard from Greenburg a few days after Mayweather’s victory over Shane Mosley in early May. Arum said Greenburg then spoke to Mayweather advisor Al Haymon. It’s no secret that that Mayweather-Pacquiao could set pay-per-view records for HBO. It’s estimated that each fighter could earn between $40 million to $50 million each.

Arum continued to speculate that Mayweather might not want to fight this year because his uncle and trainer, Roger Mayweather, is facing a trial on an assault charge. If Mayweather decides not to fight in November, Arum has said he hopes the bout will happen in May.

Margarito has yet to regain a license in the United States since his California license was revoked for altered hand wraps discovered before a loss to Mosley in January, 2009 at Staples Center in Los Angeles. The Nevada State Athletic Commission tabled a Margarito application last week. Arum said he will again try to get Margarito licensed in Nevada. If successful and there is still no word from Mayweather, Margarito-Pacquiao could happen in Las Vegas. If unsuccessful, the fight could happen in Monterrey, Mexico.

If Cotto gets the nod and there still is no decision from Mayweather, possible sites are Las Vegas, Cowboys Stadium in Dallas and Dubai.

There is Greenwich Mean Time and Daylight Savings and maybe even “Money” Time, but there is nothing standard about the digital countdown Top Rank added to its website in an attempt to get a decision, yea or nay, from Floyd Mayweather, Jr., about a proposed fight with Manny Pacquiao on Nov. 13.

Mayweather has his own clock.

From minute-to-minute, it is hard to know what that clock says. But it is safe to assume that it doesn’t include any alarms, or even an acknowledgement, for deadlines imposed by anyone other than Mayweather himself.

The guess is that Bob Arum won’t have to check his web site when the final split-second expires at midnight Friday in Las Vegas, where there aren’t many clocks, No yea. No nay. No decision either.

Any answer at all would be a concession from Mayweather that Arum has the upper hand in reported negotiations. If there is anything to be learned from failed talks late last year, it is that Mayweather will not allow anybody to dictate terms or time, especially Arum. They are locked into a deadly rivalry that starts –and thus far ends — with one-upmanship at the bargaining table.

During the last few days, questions have been raised about whether there is an agreement at all. Despite a reported gag order, Arum said there is. Mayweather and his representatives, including Golden Boy Promotions, have said almost nothing, although Golden Boy President Oscar De La Hoya was quoted in Spanish-speaking media a few weeks ago that a deal was close.

De La Hoya told Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer that he had been misquoted, but nobody has denied that there have been talks. It is safe to say that the talk included more than juts gardening tips. Still, there has been only speculation about all those devils in the details. The purse? Pick a percentage: Fifty-fifty or 55 percent for Mayweather and 45 for Pacquiao. Random blood-testing? Pick a timetable: Two weeks before the welterweight bout or the night before opening bell.

Other than comments from Arum and to a lesser extent De La Hoya, there has been no real way to determine whether terms are in place for a deal that would lead to the biggest fight in years. Maybe you can blame the gag order, although has anybody ever been able to silence Mayweather, uncle-trainer Roger Mayweather and dad Floyd, Sr.? They talk as often as they exhale. Yet, they’ve said nothing.

Then, there is a defamation lawsuit, alleging that Mayweather, his uncle, father, Mayweather Promotions, De La Hoya and Schaefer slandered Pacquiao. The suit charges that Pacquiao, who balked at Mayweather’s demands for random blood-testing late last year, was smeared by comments that made him look like he was guilty of using performance-enhancing drugs despite his clean record in tests conducted by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

There has been no news that the lawsuit has been dropped. As long as the lawsuit is still there, it’s hard to imagine that negotiations can move forward. Maybe, a yes from Mayweather would take the lawsuit and legal expenses off the table. That would be a surprise. Santa Claus in July would be too. But I suspect that Santa is not anybody’s clock.

Instead, Arum is talking and acting as if he doesn’t expect an answer, which presumably will be interpreted as a no. For a couple of weeks, he has said that Mayweather might not want to fight again in 2010 in part because Roger Mayweather faces a trial in August on an assault charge..

Then, Arum traveled to Puerto Rico where he spoke to Miguel Cotto about a rematch with Pacquiao in the wake of Nevada’s tabling last week of Margarito’s attempt to regain a U.S. license since his revocation in California a year-and-a-half ago for altered hand wraps.

A day in May has been designated as the next possibility for Mayweather-Pacquiao. But the next couple of weeks loom as sudden death if Mayweather starts talking not long after he lets the deadline pass without a word. There’s no telling what Mayweather might say. But accusations are possible, even likely, in another chapter of a feud without end or an opening bell against Pacquiao.

NOTES, QUOTES
· Arum says he has an offer for Pacquiao to fight Margarito in Monterrey, Mexico, where Margarito faces no licensing problems. But if Pacquiao-Mayweather is a real possibility in May, a fight for Pacquiao, Arum’s major star, against a popular Mexican in Mexico sounds like a crazy gamble. Talk about Pacquiao in Monterrey is a good way to negotiate, but a bad move. A Pacquiao rematch with Cotto in Dallas or Las Vegas makes a lot more sense.

· Timothy Bradley, who has assumed the title of the fighter most avoided by the game’s biggest stars, tries to get in line for a shot at either Pacquiao or Mayweather Saturday night in his 147-pound debut against Carlos Abregu in Rancho Mirage, Calif., on HBO.

· And Detail magazine’s fascinating Q-and-A with Mike Tyson includes a quote that raises one question: Where were the regulators? In talking about his disqualification on the infamous night in 1997 when he bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield ear at Las Vegas MGM Grand, Tyson says: “I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t training for that fight. I was on (expletive) drugs, thinking I was a god.” Forget about random or blood. How about a test of any kind?

By now, Antonio Margarito knows the questions like he knows an old sparring partner. He has heard them from the California State Athletic Commission. They have been thrown at him from all angles in the court of public opinion. He has heard them in whispers, shouts and legalese.

If his appearance Friday in front of the Nevada State Athletic Commission were a fight, Margarito should be ready. If he isn’t, he never will be in an attempt to regain a license in the United States about 18 months after his gloves were found to be loaded and potentially lethal before a loss to Shane Mosley in January, 2009.

His fate rests not so much in what he says, but in how he says it. It’s a subtle adjustment, more about tone than substance. So far, however, Margarito has either been unable or unwilling to assume some accountability for inserts in hand wraps applied by his former trainer, Javier Capetillo.

Since he began to talk to fans and the media a few months ago, Margarito has repeatedly, almost defiantly, said he had no idea what was in those wraps. He has always assigned the blame to Capetillo. The wraps belonged to Capetillo, Margarito said. But the hands have always belonged to Margarito, which is another way of saying he can never completely separate himself from what happened.

Here’s what he can do: He can continue to say he never knew what was in the wraps, but he can include an addendum, an apology for not knowing. For those adamantly opposed to Margarito ever fighting in the U.S. again, that won’t be enough. That opposition will always be there.

But a willingness to acknowledge his own accountability represents an important step that could win over skeptics, who have yet to hear any remorse in Margarito’s explanations.

There are plenty of other hurdles for the former welterweight champion, who has been free to apply for a license in any state since Feb. 11. There is protocol. California has yet to rule on an appeal of his license revocation at a hearing a few weeks after the altered wraps were discovered at Los Angeles Staples Center.

When there were Top Rank plans for Margarito to seek a license in Texas for a bout in March on the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey card in Dallas, the U.S. Association of Boxing Commissions urged that the revocation continue. Top Rank never pursued the license. Instead, Margarito fought in Mexico, winning on May 8 in his only bout since the California revocation.

Margarito is back, this time in Nevada, because he looms as a possibility for Pacquiao on Nov. 13 if Floyd Mayweather, Jr., says no next week. If Pacquiao-Mayweather is a go, then a Margarito rematch with Miguel Cotto, perhaps in December, is on Top Rank’s agenda.

There has long been speculation that Margarito’s hand wraps were altered in similar fashion for his stunning, brutal upset of the previously unbeaten Cotto in Las Vegas during the summer of 2008. There is lingering confusion about Margarito’s beat-down of Cotto at the MGM Grand.

Speculation about Margarito’s hand wraps on that night has been fueled in part by a Cotto comment. In a conference call, Cotto said nobody from his corner was in Margarito’s dressing room to watch how Capetillo wrapped his hands. However, Cotto’s assertion has been disputed in various news reports by officials and inspectors assigned by the Nevada Commission. Margarito’s management team also has told 15 rounds that somebody from Cotto’s corner was in fact in Margarito’s dressing room.

Still, suspicion about what was in Margarito’s hands for Cotto will never vanish. If Margarito didn’t know before Mosley, he can’t say he knew before, during or after Cotto.

But he can say he should have known.

That decision has always been in his hands.

NOTES, QUOTES
· Robert Guerrero said his wife’s cancer is in remission. Casey has been battling leukemia. “My wife is doing great,’’ Guerrero said Thursday in a conference call that included Joel Casamayor, his opponent for a junior-welterweight bout July 31 on the Juan Manuel Marquez-Juan Diaz II card at Las Vegas Mandalay Bay. “She’s doing so great. That’s why I’m taking big fights and getting back into the ring.”

· Casamayor is 38 and confident as ever. “Losing is not an option,’’ Casamayor, the former lightweight champion, said. “Retirement is not an option.’’ Casamayor said he wants a rematch with Marquez, who stopped him in the 11th round in 2008.

Photo by Chris Farina/Top Rank

A reported agreement on terms for Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. should be reason for optimism. Maybe, the biggest fight in years will finally happen. But skepticism is the only reasonable reaction. We’ve been here before, haven’t we? We’re back at the scene of an old accident, waiting on Mayweather all over again. I’d prefer to wait on a root canal.

Mayweather is as unpredictable as he is elusive. Annoying, too, but give him this: He says – ad nauseam –that he is the face of boxing, that everything happens because of him. Few can argue with him on that one right now. In resurrected talks of negotiations that blew apart more than six months ago, Mayweather has the last say, yea or nay.

“It’s up to him,’’ Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum told Yahoo Wednesday.

Safe to say, Arum won’t leave it up to Mayweather for long. He’ll give it a couple of weeks. The Top Rank promoter says he will wait until mid-July for an answer from Mayweather. No reply presumably means Arum will turn to Plan B or C, Antonio Margarito or Miguel Cotto for a Pacquiao bout scheduled for Nov. 13.

But nobody knows how — or even if — Mayweather will respond. Mayweather’s representatives, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer and Leonard Ellerbe, have honored an initial agreement not to comment. If Mayweather-Pacquiao is going to happen in November, however, it’s time to take off the gag.

Mayweather must enjoy the power of being granted the last word. But it is double-edged with potential enough to destroy Mayweather’s attempts to spin himself into a less profane, more media-friendly personality before and after his brilliant victory over Shane Mosley in May.

In renewed talks however, it looks as if there is a reversal of roles. There was no deal six months ago because of a sudden, deal-breaking demand from Mayweather for random, Olympic-style drug-testing. Pacquiao said no, a refusal that then aroused speculation about whether he was in fact a user of banned substances despite a clean record of tests sanctioned by regulatory agencies, including the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

According to Arum, the drug issue has been resolved. Arum didn’t provide any specifics, but the assumption is that Pacquiao has agreed to some sort of random blood-testing under protocol set down by the Nevada commission, which appeared to consider possible methods and timetables during discussions last month with sports-medicine experts, physicians and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

If Pacquiao has agreed to drug testing, Mayweather has lost the high ground he had occupied amid repeated boasts that he was only try to clean up boxing. Drug testing is no longer the issue. But that doesn’t mean that Mayweather won’t find another one.

If he does, Mayweather will have to face renewed accusations that he just doesn’t want to fight Pacquiao.

Arum is right:

It is up to Mayweather.

Is it ever.

From this corner, it looks as if Mayweather’s only wiggle room is a delay until next year. In interviews with Yahoo and Filipino media, Arum seemed to prepare himself for Pacquiao-Mayweather at a later date.

He has to look only at Mayweather’’s recent record. The unbeaten welterweight has fought only four times over the last four years – twice in 2007 with victories over Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton, not once in 2008, once in 2009 with a lopsided decision over Juan Manuel Marquez and once this year against Mosley.

Even if Mayweather’s career is down to only one a fight year, it appears as if there is only one fight for him. It looks as if he can’t say no to Pacquiao. Then again, Mayweather has already shown that he can say just about everything and sometimes nothing at all. It’s impossible to know what he will do. The only thing anybody knows for certain is that he will make you wait.

No telling who was first to say that fathers fight so their sons don’t have to. But I’m guessing it was a mom, who from a ringside seat sat like a horrified witness on that inevitable night when dad got bloodied, bruised and stitched up.

It is a powerful sentiment, as simple as it is sensible. But sorry, mom, it doesn’t always apply. Floyd Mayweather Jr. is the most notable example. From his father and uncle, he inherited instinct and skill, perfected them and transformed them into a family business. Mayweather Jr. makes it work. Marvis Frazier didn’t. Former heavyweight great Joe Frazier’s son should have listened to mom before Mike Tyson sprinted out of a corner in 1986 and launched him into unconsciousness. Joe would have lasted longer.

On the scale between Mayweather and Marvis, it’s hard to say where Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. belongs. A better idea, perhaps, is forthcoming Saturday night when the son with his dad’s legendary name, athletic royalty in Mexico, faces Irish middleweight John Duddy at The Alamodome in San Antonio on a pay-per-view card.

Duddy’s credentials (29-1, 18 KOs) say that Chavez (40-0-1, 30 KOs) is finally being weaned off a sliver-spoon diet of soft opposition. It’s a step or two in an attempt to quell impatience with a young fighter whose name represents an impossible collection of expectations. Chavez’ dad is a scarred personification of Mexican pride in a stubborn willingness to endure punches and punishment in the battle to fight, always fight on.

But it’s only a name. I’m not sure whether Chavez’s 24-year-old son will ever become a good fighter. But I am sure that he will never be his father. He can’t change his name to World B Free, but he can begin to abdicate expectations that he become a chip off of Mexico’s indestructible myth. After only a four-week camp, the move to trainer Freddie Roach is still in the experimental stage. If it begins to work against Duddy, however, it might be another step in allowing him to forge an identity, a fighter in his own right instead of just Jr.

“It came to a point in my career that if I wanted to do better,’’ said Jr., whose doubters grew after he tested positive for a banned substance after his last fight seven months ago against unknown Troy Rowland. “If I wanted bigger and better things I had to make a change. I did it because I knew I needed it for my career, I still want to do great things in boxing and that’s what motivated me. I thought: Do I want to stay where I am or do I want to get better? This opportunity came and I took it and I’m very happy that I did.

“Any time you make a move to the unknown you get nervous. I wasn’t sure what to expect but once I made the decision I knew I would be capable of doing anything he asked of me. I knew I could a lot of things and wouldn’t be here now if I couldn’t.”

Unlike his compact father’s heavy-handed style of fighting on the inside in a battle of attrition, the son is longer and seemingly built for tactics dictated by a long jab and agile footwork. The knowledge, perhaps instinct, is there, Roach said in a conference call Wednesday from San Antonio.

“He has enjoyed the work, he really has,’’ Roach said, almost as though he was surprised.

Roach, like everybody else, had heard the stories about a questionable work ethic. Doubts about Jr.’s willingness to fight on were further fueled by a late arrival to Roach’s Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles. It was beginning to look as if Jr. had inherited only his father’s diva-like reputation for arriving for news conferences or workouts whenever it suited him. But, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said, Jr. was late only because of a paperwork delay in acquiring a visa.

“There were a lot of warning signs about how he is lazy and doesn’t want to work and would last a week with me,’’ said Roach, who agreed to work Jr.’s corner after Arum and Top Rank matchmaker Bruce Trampler pointedly urged Jr. to watch the work ethic exercised by Manny Pacquiao in training for Joshua Clottey. “He is a great kid, great to work with, and is very disciplined. He gets up in the morning and does his roadwork every day, comes in the gym and sparred up to 12 rounds with three sparring partners. Overall, it was a real good experience and we enjoyed each other’s company and it was a pleasure.

“I was going to give him one more day to arrive in camp before deciding I wasn’t going to have enough time with him, but then he showed up. We had four weeks together and obviously it would have been better to have more but next time around we’ll get better and better. We know what we have in front of us and we’ll be ready for it.’’

For Jr., San Antonio represents a time and place, a career cross roads, for his father and maybe one for him. He was seven years old in 1993, when his father escaped from the Alamodome with a draw with Pernell Whitaker. Most of the ringside media scored it for Whitaker. The record crowd, about 60,000 Chavez partisans, didn’t boo. They left quietly, also knowing they had just witnessed a great escape. It was a moment when there were some sure signs of erosion in the Mexican icon. JC Superstar was neither super nor a star.

Seventeen years later, the son returns to the scene with a chance to show that he is his own man, a grown-up instead of a Jr.

Even mom couldn’t argue with that.

It was 2004 in Athens. The city’s ancient temples and columns seemed to be a symbol of what had happened to American boxing at the Olympics. It was in ruins. But there was Andre Ward, who a few hours before closing ceremonies won a gold medal. He’d didn’t figure to win then. But he did in a dramatic surprise that also was a parting shot at anti-American sentiment that filled the Greek arena for a couple of weeks.

Not much has changed.

Six years later, U.S. Olympic boxing is still in ruins and Ward is still finding motivation in critics, doubters and trash-talkers who unwittingly become his greatest allies. There’s something else: Ward is still winning with a quiet poise that is as effective as a feint. Everybody who sees the poise and looks for weakness have instead run headlong into a stubborn streak of quicksilver skill that has kept Ward unbeaten. The last man standing in Athens is favored to be the last one standing in the Super Six Classic.

First, Ward (21-0, 13 KOs) has to win a second-round bout in the first defense of his World Boxing Association’s title Saturday night in hometown Oakland, Calif., against tough Allan Green (29-1, 20 KOs), who collects knockouts when he isn’t collecting comic books. Green, a sub for the whatever-happened-to Jermain Taylor, is dangerous. His record says that. He does too.

Green’s talk is a mystery, if not a mistake. He has called Ward “a hummingbird,’’ which apparently means he intends to knock him out with simple swat. Why arm Ward with further motivation? Hasn’t he already used it effectively throughout a career that — after all — hasn’t been a secret since he planted the American flag onto the medal stand’s top pedestal? The guess here is that Green is just talking himself into defeat.

“Bother me?’’ Ward said of comments from the Green corner during Showtime’s in-depth look at each super-middleweight in Fight Camp 360. “No. Use them? Absolutely. I don’t read a lot of press before the fight, but I get people coming up to me all the time saying, ‘Did you hear this or did you hear that?’ It’s been like that since the amateurs. For some reason I look like a lamb before the fight. I’ve heard his comments on Fight Camp 360 and you better believe I use that. It bothers me in a good way because I constantly have something to prove and that’s what not a lot of people realize.

“I think a lot of people think I’m coming in here really well rested and really enjoying the fact that I’ve got a championship. But it’s been all work. For me, I try to say as little as possible before a fight. I’m not going to stand there and get pushed down or get bullied. But at the end of the day, I just shut my mouth, work hard and take care of business.’’

Green, himself an accomplished amateur minus the Olympic gold, is considered as big a threat as any faced by Ward, America’s only gold medalist since David Reid in 1996. He is, may be because of a lethal left hook that could put an abrupt end to Ward’s unbeaten status, especially if Ward continues to let his lead hand drift down, out and away from a vigilant defense. Also, Green’s toughness was displayed in surgery to have most of his colon removed a couple of days after a victory over Darrell Woods three years ago. His colon was leaking toxins into his body. It is believed he was suffering from the condition four months earlier in his lone loss to Edison Miranda, whom Ward beat.

But Mikkel Kessler of Denmark also was thought be dangerous enough to shatter promoter Dan Goossen’s plans to turn Ward into a pay-per-view star. Ward beat Kessler thoroughly in Oakland, despite complaints from Kessler’s corner about intentional head butts and home-cooking.

Form the Kessler victory, there was a significant sign that Ward is improving all the time. There have always been questions about his durability. The powerful Kessler landed a few big shots, but Ward never buckled. A bigger question perhaps is the condition of Ward’s right knee. He underwent surgery for an injury that forced a postponement of the Green fight, originally scheduled for April. The injury’s severity has been questioned by the Green camp.

Green also has had his date of knee problems, which in the wake of gimpy Yuri Foreman’s loss to Miguel Cotto is more in focus now than perhaps it has ever been. But Green doesn’t rely on lateral movement the way Ward does.

“My right knee is fine.’’ Ward said. “We’ve had no issues with the knee throughout our entire training camp. Coming off of surgery there are certain things you need to do in rehabilitation just to keep the muscles and the hamstring and all the different muscles that wrap around the knee; just keeping them strong. The knee has really been a non-issue.’’

It will have to be, because Green promises to move forward, always forward, in pursuit of delivering an upset with his left hand. If the knee is strong and stays strong, Ward should be able to move his quick feet and quicker hands at rates that figure to leave Green confused in the later rounds and speechless in the end. In the ring, there are a lot of ways to look at Ward, who forces opponents to make adjustments that can make them change plans and commit errors.

In his second straight fight before hometown fans, Green’s representatives are upset at the appointment of referee Raul Caiz, who is from California. Through an associate, Green promoter Lou DiBella said a couple of days ago that he and Goossen had agreed on a referee from Nevada. Goossen denied there was any agreement. Goossen said he tried to contact DiBella in an attempt to get an agreement. DiBella was unable to participate in a recent conference call and did not attend a news conference Wednesday because of a family illness.

The judges will be from California, Mexican and Connecticut, Goossen said.

Ward? Yeah, he’s from Oakland. But he’s at home any where there are critics. In boxing, that’s everywhere.

The silence isn’t exactly deafening. But it is encouraging. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer isn’t saying anything at all. Bob Arum is commenting only on location- location- location, which was one piece of real estate agreeable to all before negotiations for Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. got messy enough to demand that everybody go straight to drug testing.

It even looks as if Mayweather has sidestepped questions about Pacquiao by saying he has retired all over again. Yeah, right. Believe that one and you’ll believe British Petroleum’s early assertions that spewing oil from the Gulf of Mexico’s sea floor was as easy to fix as a leaky toilet.

After a noisy and abrupt end to talks late last year, the absence of chest-thumping, defiant headlines is as good a place to resume as any. The mystery is whether there been any substantive talk at all about a proposed fight on Nov. 13 in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand or Thomas & Mack Center.

The guess here: Not much.

But the beginning, a, potential foundation, of a deal looks to be in the works where it should have been all along:

The Nevada State Athletic Commission.

On Wednesday, the Commission heard from U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart, former chief U.S. Olympic Committee medical officer Dr. Robert Voy, commission physician Dr. David Watson and others about random blood testing, the deal breaking issue in December.

Then, the Commission got about as much respect as a tar ball when Mayweather suddenly demanded Olympic-style testing and Pacquiao balked. Despite the Nevada’s agency’s regulatory duties, it didn’t appear to have much of a role months later in the USADA-supervised blood-testing before Mayweather’s victory over Shane Mosley on May 1. Mayweather and Mosley were represented by the same entity, Golden Boy, instead of feuding promotional concerns.

There was progress in Mosley-Mayweather, perhaps, because the random testing went on with few complaints from either fighter. But it will never work in negotiations between Top Rank-promoted Pacquiao and representatives for Mayweather without a supervisory agency that so far only conducts urine testing.

It will be very hard – make that impossible — to put together a deal without a buffer between USADA and Mayweather, whose demand initiated talk ,if not momentum, for Olympic style testing in boxing. If Mayweather can take himself – retire his mouth – from the process long enough for he Nevada Commission to make some kind of accommodation with USADA, then there’s chance.

Some of what was said Wednesday was intriguing. In boxing circles, random blood testing for a variety of drugs is often described in terms that make it sound unbeatable. Voy pointed out that it is not.

Testing for human growth hormone (HGH), he said, is unreliable and impractical. For anybody who has spent times at the Olympics, those are two words often used at pool side during the swimming or at the track between heats.

Instead of guarantees, there are only suspicions.

But a framework for blood-testing sanctioned by the Nevada Commission could create a springboard for negotiations between Arum and Schaefer, Pacquiao and Mayweather. The meeting Wednesday was only a beginning. Between Arum and Schaefer, Pacquiao and Mayweather, there is no room for compromise over the method or the timetable or even the concept. We already know that.

However, Pacquiao has said he would be willing to undergo a blood test within two weeks of opening bell, or within the reported window when HGH can still be detected.

Pacquiao has shown signs that he willing to compromise. But he also has shown that he will just say no to demands from Mayweather or Schaefer or Mayweather advisor Leonard Ellerbe.

For now, he must like what he is hearing.

Or not hearing.

Photo by Chris Farina/Top Rank

Emanuel Steward in a corner is a little bit like seeing an old soldier back in uniform. It fits. Amid the clutter and craziness along the ropes of boxing’s front lines, Steward belongs there a lot more than he belongs in a tux at ringside for Home Box Office. Make no mistake, Steward is a good commentator. So is Jim Lampley.

But Lampley couldn’t train a fighter, much less guide one through adversity any more than I or anybody else could in a media section full of egos that rival the waistlines. I’ve never wondered what Lampley or Larry Merchant or Max Kellerman could have done for Shane Mosley or Juan Manuel Marquez or Ricky Hatton against Floyd Mayweather Jr. But I have wondered whether Steward might have made a difference.

I won’t have to Saturday night, not with Steward in Miguel Cotto’s corner against Yuri Foreman in a junior-middleweight fight that is historic for its place, Yankee Stadium, and intriguing for what it means to Foreman as the first Israeli champion, Cotto as a symbol of Puerto Rican pride and Steward at a crossroads in a vanishing trade. There is Freddie Roach and Nazim Richardson and Nacho Beristain. Sorry, Roger Mayweather. Floyd, Jr., is so good, he could train himself.

Great trainers are becoming as endangered as the heavyweights, who have become the Klitschko division since – and perhaps because — of Steward’s work with Wladimir. Steward will probably never get the credit he deserves for Wladimir Klitschko’s dominance because of a weight class empty of a real threat. The Klitschko division has value only in the Euro zone.

In Yankee Stadium, however, Steward takes his own trip back in time to his historical corner with the welterweight and middleweight who launched him to fame in the 1980s. Steward is forever linked with Thomas Hearns, known for classic battles with Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler, to name just two. With his 66th birthday approaching on July 7, nobody has to ask Steward about the significance of his role in Cotto’s attempt to come back from a loss to Manny Pacquiao, whose bloody victory in November made the Puerto Rican look irreparably damaged.

“It is a major challenge to me at this stage of my career,” said Steward, whose spot on the HBO broadcasting team will be filled by Roy Jones Jr.

Steward recalled a time in the post-Hearns era when he was considered a “hired gun.” There’s a mixed message in that label. On one side, it is an acknowledgement of proven skill and accomplishment. On the other, it suggests an opportunist who sweeps in for a big fight and big payday before moving on to the next target.

Steward recalled working with Evander Holyfield and Oliver McCall. He also had one fight in Oscar De La Hoya’s corner. He came in with the ability to provide a quick fix. Sometimes, however, there is no fix. A hired gun is always in danger of getting shot down. To wit: Steward also was in Naseem Hamed’s corner on a night in 2001 when The Prince was transformed into a frog in a punishing lesson delivered by Marco Antonio Barrera.

In Cotto, however, Steward’s words and tone say he desperately walks to make this corner in his career work. There is pressure because of Puerto Rican hopes, especially in New York. Steward has always been a fan of Cotto, whose admirable honesty and toughness are as evident as his scars. But he didn’t realize how much Puerto Ricans have embraced Cotto until he left the arena in Atlantic City on April 17 after working the HBO broadcast of Sergio Martinez’ upset of Kelly Pavlik.

“I was bombarded by so many Puerto Rican fans, many of whom hadn’t even come to the fight,’’ said Steward, whose second in the corner Saturday will be Cotto’s former lead trainer, Joe Santiago. “But they were waiting for me and I never had any idea that this man was so popular with the Puerto Rican fans, even though I had known of his record crowds at (Madison Square) Garden.

“I had to tell Larry Merchant and Jim Lampley to go ahead and I had to walk on the boardwalk, in the rain.’’

Soaked by the downpour and surrounded by Cotto fans, the talk was Cotto, only Cotto. Seward’s hotel was only about a 10-minute walk away. But not on this night

“It took over an hour to get there,’’ Steward said. “They were telling me that Miguel was all that they have and it really has put a burden on me. So I have put my heart and soul into this training camp, not just to win the fight. There is a lot on the line in this fight for Miguel Cotto. It is a very emotional fight in a lot of ways for our camp.’’

Emotional enough, perhaps for Steward to be more than a hired gun. His long-term relationship is just another example of how trainers and fighters are linked almost like a left jab and a right hand. It is an inseparable combination that woks instinctively. But instinct isn’t immediate. It takes time to evolve as it has with Roach and Pacquiao.

Steward knows that as well, perhaps better, than anyone. It’s why he is forever linked to Hearns. It’s why he belongs in that corner.

Concern from a sponsor and Mexican television network about controversy over Arizona’s immigration law is forcing Top Rank to move a July 17 card featuring the return of Phoenix prospect Jose Benavidez Jr. out of the state, promoter Bob Arum said.

Arum said he was told by Tecate, a Mexican beer company, and TV Azteca that they didn’t want the card in Arizona since the legislation, SB 1070, was signed into law in late April by Gov. Jan Brewer.

“As a company that promotes boxing, we’re apolitical,’’ Arum said. “But I was informed by Tecate and TV Azteca that they just don’t want us to originate anything from Arizona at this time.’’

Arum had announced on April 29 that he was planning for Benavidez to fight as a pro for the first time in his home state on July 17 on a TV Azteca-televised-card at Wild Horse Pass Hotel & Casino in Chandler, a Phoenix suburb.

Then, Arum said he would wait to see how the law would be applied. It won’t go into effect until after the scheduled card, or 90 days after Brewer signed it on April 23. However, there have been demonstrations against the law throughout Arizona and nationally by activists who say it will encourage racial profiling.

“For me, it’s ridiculous,’’ said Arum, who said a month ago that news reports indicated the legislation, if applied as written, prohibited profiling.

There are plans to move the July card to the Mexican city of Tijuana, according to TV Azteca. Other than boxing, Arizona has been threatened with boycotts involving other sports, including major league baseball’s 2011 All-Star Game in Phoenix. Several Suns fans threatened not to renew season tickets after the NBA team, currently in a tough series against the Los Angeles Lakers for the Western Conference title, wore uniforms that said “Los Suns”. The team, whose owner had announced his opposition to the law, wore the jersey during a playoff game against San Antonio on Cinco De Mayo.

Boxing has long been popular in Arizona, which has a big Mexican and Mexican-American fan base. Hall of Famer Michael Carbajal grew up in Phoenix. Alexis Arguello, Salvador Sanchez, Julio Cesar Chavez and Oscar De La Hoya all fought in either Phoenix and/or Tucson.

Benavidez, who just celebrated his 18th birthday, is anxious to fight in his hometown. He told Anson Wainwright in a Q-and-A for 15rounds.com that “My goals for boxing are hopefully one day to be a world champion and give back to the people that were always there to support me. Hopefully have the chance to take a world title back home to Phoenix, AZ.’’

Benavidez said Thursday he was disappointed he won’t have a chance to fight in front of friends in July.

“They’ve called and told me how much they want to see me fight at home,’’ Benavidez (5-0, 5 KOs), a junior-welterweight, said before catching a flight for Chicago where he is scheduled for his sixth pro bout at UIC Pavilion against Ronnie Peterson (2-1-, 2 KOs) of Mounds View, Minn. “Either way, I’m pretty sure people would come to see me. But it’s just not a good thing with everything going on in Arizona right now.

“It’s just something I wouldn’t feel right about. I just think it’s wrong. Someday, it will happen. I’m sure of that’’

Benavidez, who has been living in Los Angeles and training at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym in Hollywood since signing with top Rank several months ago, plans to enter the ring wearing a T-shirt that expresses his opposition the law. The shirt is expected to say SB 1070 with a circle and slash through it. Abner Mares, a bantamweight from Los Angeles, wore the same kind of shirt before his majority draw last Saturday with Yonnhy Perez at Staples Center.

Benavidez’ father, Jose Sr., said everybody in his son’s corner will wear T-shirts with the same message.

“We’ll also have it put on my son’s trunks if we have the time and can find somebody in Chicago to do it before the bout,’’ said Jose Benavidez, Sr., who trained his son during his amateur days near downtown Phoenix at Central Boxing, just few blocks from the state capitol where crowds of demonstrators have gathered regularly since immigration became the only fight in Arizona.

LOS ANGELES – In the end, a fourth time meant most of the punches and all of the momentum were there for Rafael Marquez.

For Israel Vazquez, there was only blood, which flowed like tears from deep wounds near both eyes.
For their memorable series, it was the fourth and probably the final time. A fifth isn’t necessary, although both said they would agree to another chapter if the fans asked for one.

If the fans don’t demand another encore, however, the end came Saturday night at Staples Center with two victories for each. The fourth, this time at featherweight, belonged to Marquez (38-6, 35 KOs) for nearly three full rounds of one-sided violence for which Vazquez (44-5, 33 KOs) simply had no counter.

Before opening bell, the theory was that Marquez would win, outlast, Vazquez because he had endured less damage in the first three fights. Only the outlast part was wrong, horribly wrong. Long-term damage to Vazquez erupted quickly.

A sharply-thrown right, laser-like in accuracy and effect, from Marquez opened up a huge cut above Vazquez’ left eye at the end of the first. Throughout the second, Vazquez struggled to see through the flood of blood that collected like a pool in an already scarred eye that had been damaged in his prior fights with Marquez.

“That was the plan,’’ Marquez said. “Go directly to the eyes.’’

Only the sight of blood, his own, told Vazquez that he was in trouble

“He hit me with a good shot and my eye just opened,’’ said Vazquez, whose cut-man, Miguel Diaz,said the cut was so deep that he could see bone.

After the second, Marquez knew he was close to finishing the fight and probably the rivalry with his own kind punctuation. Before heading to his corner before the start of the third, he stopped along the ropes and said something to his management team, Gary Shaw and Fernando Beltran. But Shaw and Beltran didn’t have to look in Marquez’ eyes to know what was about to happen. They could see it in Vazquez’s eye.

In the third round, a clash of heads, a butt, wounded Vazquez above his right eye. More blood flowed He went down to one knee, as if to forestall the inevitable. Moments later, referee Raul Caiz, Jr. stepped in, ending it and perhaps the series with a stoppage at 1:33 of the third.

Before Marquez’ quick stoppage of his old rival, Yhonny Perez and Abner Mares put together a performance that would have been worth a rematch regardless of the scores on the judges’ cards. Their brilliance through 12 rounds screamed for an encore. So did the fans. As it turned out, a rematch was – is – in the cards. The judges virtually guaranteed with a majority draw.

Gwen Adair of Beverly Hills, Calif., and Regina Williams of Atlantic City, N.J., each scored it 114-114. Marty Denkin of of West Covina, Calif., gave it to Mares, 115-113.

“I’m really sad,’’ said Mares (20-0-1, 13 KOs), who grew up in Southern California and was the crowd favorite. “I thought I won the fight and I’m not the only who thought that.’’

In the twelfth and final round, It looked as if Mares was close to knocking out Perez (20-0-1, 14 KOs), a Colombian and the International Boxing Federation’s bantamweight champion. Mares rocked Perez with a beautifully-executed, left-right combination.

During the middle rounds, however, Mares backpedaled as though he was wary of Perez’s power, which was displayed with an uppercut that hurt Mares in the third. Mares on the run angered fans, who booed him. But he quickly won them back over in the later rounds when the two fighters switched styles. Mares moved forward and Perez began to back away.

“I won this fight,’’ said Perez, who waved a Colombian flag at the predominantly Mexican and Mexican-American crowd after the final bell. “It was not a draw. I’m willing to fight a rematch. But it’s up to my promoters.”

There’s not much to decide. Promoters do more than count. They can read too. They know what’s in the cards.

Off TV, but on the undercard:
The best came from Los Angeles junior-middleweight Rodrigo Garcia (7-0, 5 KOs), whose hands were as heavy as they were unstoppable for the second third and fourth rounds in a stubborn assault that left Taronze Washington (14-13, 7 KOS) of Dallas with a bloody nose and a loss by unanimous decision.

The rest: Unbeaten junior-lightweight Ronny Rios (11-, 5 KOs) of Santa Ana, Calif., got the show started with unanimous decision over Guadalupe De Leon (8-11, 4 KOs) of Weslaco, Tex., hours before Vazquez and Marquez turned their trilogy into a four-peat. Rios scored in the early moments with sharp combinations, then sustained his pace and advantage.

And in a junior welterweight bout, Carlos Molina (12-0, 6 KOs) of Los Angeles threw the sharper punches for a unanimous decision over Mexican Humberto Tapia (15-13-1, 8 KOs).

He sat at a table a year ago in a New York restaurant, dressed in a conservative suit and unknown to most in a crowd that was there to honor him. Israel Vazquez didn’t care. It also didn’t bother him that the plaque, the symbol of his honor, was not there either. It, like him, had apparently been overlooked

But Vazquez was there.

He was happy for the honor at the Boxing Writers Association’s 84th annual dinner and business-like in his acceptance of a professional milestone, the 2008 Fight of the Year, on a night when rival and partner Rafael Marquez couldn’t be there because of an auto accident near the Mexico City airport earlier that day.

It was a moment when other fighters might have felt insulted and angry enough to complain loudly and often. Vazquez didn’t. Celebrity has never been part of a job definition that he and Marquez will define and refine for a fourth time Saturday night in a Showtime-televised encore at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Vazquez-Marquez, already a memorable trilogy, is about to become further entrenched in historical lore, although both approach it without any of the tired hyperbole attached to Fights of the Century that now seem to happen every other year.

“It is the biggest day of my life,’’ said Vazquez, who won the two rematches, yet also looms as the underdog in the fourth because of scars that include a broken nose and damaged retina. “With this fight, Marquez and I will definitely be part of boxing history, even more so than now.’’

History speaks for itself, although Floyd Mayweather Jr. often speaks as though it has yet to say enough about him and how he belongs alongside Sugar Ray Robinson, or Muhammad Ali, or Julius Caesar. But Vazquez and Marquez aren’t trying to talk their way into history. They are only trying to make some.

“There are no words to say,’’ Marquez said. “There are no introductions to make. Everybody knows us.’’

Their understated fashion leaves no room for role playing or mind games. What everybody knows about Marquez and Vazquez is that they what to be known for what they do and not what they say. Imagine that. I’m not sure what old-school means anymore. If there is a face book for what it was, however, the defining faces are Vazquez and Marquez. In part, that’s why so many historical parallels are being drawn to their four-peat.

It’s rare and evocative with names from black-and-white newsreels of Ezzard Charles-versus- Jerry Joe Walcott and Willie Pepp-versus-Sandy Saddler. Boxing was big in those days. It might never be again. For one night, however, Vazquez and Marquez will explain why it was with workmanship that says it all instead of the words that say so little.

More Four
The former King of the Four Rounders, Eric “Butterbean” Esch, is attempting to become a heavyweight promoter. How heavy? He is somewhere near 400 pounds. Esch, whose promotional interest and personal preference is in mixed martial arts, is promoting a pay-per-view MMA card, Moonsin, Friday night (9 p.m. ET) at the DCU Center in Worcester Mass., featuring Tim Sylvia against Mariusz Pudzianowski.

Esch also had planned to fight. But the Massachusetts commission reportedly wouldn’t approve an exhibition between him and former Boston Bruins enforcer Lyndon Byers. Apparently, Esch’s ring experience, which includes everything from boxing to sumo wrestling, was cited as a factor. No truth to the rumor that nobody could find a stool big enough to support 400 pounds.

The entertaining Esch, now 43, hasn’t abandoned boxing, even though his former division, heavyweight, almost has. He would like to promote a boxing card featuring 2008 Olympic bronze medalist Deontay Wilder in Birmingham, Ala., not far from his home in Jasper. Wilder, an unbeaten heavyweight in the initial stages of his pro career, is from Tuscaloosa.

“But nobody in the state Alabama knows who he is,’’ Esch said. “I’d like to get him some recognition in his home state.’’

Notes, anecdotes
§ Esch grew up in Alabama, but there isn’t a hint of a Southern accent in the many interviews he does with the media. “At home with my family, you’d hear it,’’ he said. “But not in the media. If the accent was there, they might have to include those subtitles.’’

§ Marquez promoter Gary Shaw thinks his fighter will stop Vazquez. “My prediction is that this fight does not go the full five rounds,’’ he said.

§ And there’s been some talk that a fourth fight between Marquez and Vazquez is one too many. There’s fear that the fighters will suffer long-term damage because of the series, already 25 rounds long and noteworthy for its sustained violence. “I recognize that,” Vazquez said Thursday at a news conference. “I don’t have anything against people who think like that. But I’m very sure that May 22, they’re going to feel different. I’m going to prove it. Honestly, of course the three battles that we had took something from us. Something from Marquez, something from me. This is boxing. This is a contact sport. You are expecting that. It is normal.”

Campaign promises in politics are like noses in boxing. They are there to be broken. But Filipino Congressman-elect Manny Pacquiao has one promise he can’t break:

He has to fight Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

If the Mayweather promise wasn’t exactly stated in Pacquiao’s successful run for the seat representing the Sarangani province, it was there, everywhere. Few would have paid as much attention otherwise. Just ask Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum, who a few days ago returned from the Philippines so upbeat that it was as if his flight through time zones included a stop at The Thrilla In Manila.

“It’s amazing how many people came up to me as I was leaving the Philippines and asked me: When is the Mayweather fight going to happen?’’ Arum said Wednesday in a conference call with a few media members. “That’s the fight people want to see. That’s the fight that I’m going to do my darndest to make happen.

’’ This corner, like several others, has been skeptical about chances that Arum or anybody else has at putting together a rare fight that can captivate worldwide attention. Yet, that rare potential is still there, despite the buzz-kill that came with the noisy, then dreary negotiations that fell apart just five months ago. It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly re-invigorated interest. Maybe, the interest was always there anyway.

Whatever it was, Arum re-discovered in his trip to the Philippines that the appetite for Mayweather-Pacquiao is as keen as ever. If there were any misgivings still with him in the wake of the feud, that baggage wasn’t with him upon his return. In part, I suspect, that’s because it’s so easy to get caught up in the phenomenon that is Pacquiao, whose ability to surprise is seemingly endless.

The word after his one-sided decision over Joshua Clottey on March 13 in Dallas was that he couldn’t win in a return to the political ring against a wealthy, well-entrenched rival. Even Filipino writers who chronicle his every move, made it sound as if Pacquiao’s chances at defeating Roy Chiongbian were about as good as Clottey winning a rematch.

Like coming back from a loss to Erik Morales in their first fight, however, Pacquiao learned from defeat, adjusted and added a right to the left for an uninterrupted run of 12 successive victories since 2005. There are no lasting losses for Pacquiao. There are only lessons. If the 31-year-old Filipino can adjust, so can the 78-year-old Arum.

This time, Arum promises not to negotiate in the media, which late last year was like a flame to a fuse. It blew up egos that are never far from exploding.

“Once you start negotiating through the media, it becomes ego driven,’’ said Arum, who is talking about Nov. 13 or Nov. 6 at either Las Vegas’ MGM Grand or Cowboys Stadium in the Dallas metroplex. “People can’t wait to give a statement to the press. The flames just shoot up and there is no real opportunity for rational behavior to take over. Everyone is so interested is setting forth his position to the media that it becomes the contest. That involves me as well as everybody else.’’

Arum’s acknowledgement of his role in the blowup represents a promising sign. But it’s reasonable to remain skeptical about whether he can rein in his quick temper, which has been great for the media but often a deal breaker in negotiations, especially involving a fighter, Mayweather, he doesn’t like.

For Arum , a good starting point – a symbol of good will – would be to drop a lawsuit filed against Mayweather, Golden Boy President Oscar De La Hoya and others. It charges that Pacquiao, who has never failed a sanctioned drug test, was defamed in what was said and written in the debate over Mayweather’s demands for random testing. If the public didn’t suspect Pacquiao as a user of performance-enhancers before, it does now. That, at least, is the allegation.

Arum said Wednesday that “the lawsuit is still being actively pursued.” However, he also said: “All these issues are on the table and they will be negotiated and nothing cannot be discussed.

’’ OK, can we talk about taking that lawsuit off the table?

It’s a beginning, a tentative step in trying to find out whether Mayweather is really interested. He says is. Then again, he says a lot of things. It’s also reasonable to be wary of Mayweather, a man of many motives, moods and roles. A kinder, gentler and better Mayweather showed up in the pre-fight build-up to his brilliant victory on May 1 over Shane Mosley.

At news conferences during the two weeks before opening bell, he dropped the profanity. It was hard to tell whether he was playing his own brand of politics in Las Vegas while Pacquiao was running a political campaign on the other side of the world. But a likable Mayweather, before, during and after the fight, emerged. That, too, looms as a promising sign for a deal.

Still, the imminent renewal of talks could all be for naught if the impasse over random, Olympic-style drug testing remains unresolved. It’s hard to see how Mayweather, who underwent eight tests before his decision over Mosley, can compromise on that one. He has said he won’t. If he does, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which supervised the testing for Mayweather-Mosley, will surely criticize him.

Meanwhile, there are reports that Pacquiao, who has said blood-testing weakens him, might be willing to soften his stand of no testing within a couple of weeks of opening ball.

Without some sign of compromise from either or both camps, forget it. There’s no reason to even begin talking.

If the drug-testing issue is resolved, another one looms over the money. Before a proposed March 13 fight, they had agreed to a 50-50 split. But the equation has changed. Mayweather ‘s pay-per-view numbers are harder to debate now than they were before he beat Mosley. His victory over Mosley generated 1.4 million customers, or twice that of the 700,000 who bought the HBO telecast for Pacquiao’s victory over Clottey. Depending on the projection, Pacquiao and Mayweather could set the pay-per-view record, meaning their purses could be a split of $100 million.

If the agreement isn’t 50-50, the devil is in the percentages. If Mayweather demands 55 percent, the additional five percent means $55 million for him and $45 million for Pacquiao, who might need some money after spending a reported $6.5 million on his Congressional campaign. The difference amounts to 10 million reasons to fear that the fight won’t happen. For now, however, I’ll bet on the optimism.

It’s the only way to vote.

Paulie Malignaggi is not from Arizona. I am, which must mean there is reasonable cause to suspect my sanity.

As I sit here wearing a Los Suns jersey with passport, an Arizona driver’s license and enough money for bail nearby just in case Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio sees the Los and translates it into reasonable suspicion, I listen to Malignaggi go off on a rant that in tone sounded like the screaming that has turned this piece of the desert into an overheated corner of the immigration debate.

I’m not sure of everything said by Malignaggi, who was talking Thursday from New York about concerns that Amir Khan had yet to acquire proper documentation – a work permit – for their welterweight clash on May 15 in The Theatre at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Malignaggi conceded he was animated, which is beyond the capability of an ordinary digital recorder. An F-16 in hot pursuit is quieter.

But it is safe to say that Malignaggi, a New Yorker, is angry at the attempted car bombing late Saturday night at Times Square by Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen from Pakistan. Pakistan is also home for Khan’s parents, who immigrated to Britain where their son was born in Greater Manchester, took up boxing and won a 2004 Olympic silver medal for the UK.

Malignaggi started talking about a grandfather, who travels between Italy and New York. For the last few summers, he said, his granddad has been stopped at customs “like some kind of criminal.’’ After what almost transpired at Times Square, Malignaggi says U.S. immigration has been stopping the wrong guy.

“It’s a bleeping joke, when you got guys already in the country, blowing shit up or looking to blow the shit up’’ said Malignaggi, who is confident Khan will get the papers he needs for his first fight in the United States.

I’ve heard the same sentiment yelled from street corners, screamed in headlines and by grandstanding politicians in the debate over SB 1070, Arizona’s new immigration law. The dumbest grandstand play came from the World Boxing Council’s Jose Sulaiman, who declared that the WBC would not “authorize” Mexican boxers to fight in Arizona. I’m not sure whether Sulaiman got a sanction fee for the edict, but, please, since when did the WBC gain the authority to issue Mexican passports?

Sulaiman’s rush to grab a headline sums up a stampede to capitalize on a controversy that is reaching ridiculous proportions. The Boycott Bandwagon is getting very crowded. Like a lot of people, I don’t like the Arizona legislation because reasonable suspicion, like driving erratically, is in the eye of the beholder. If you look down to change the radio station and inadvertently cross the white line for a split second, the cop behind you could decide you are driving erratically. Make sure you’ve got your papers and leave the Los Suns jersey at home.

The immigration issue is especially relevant to boxing, which is more international than any sport other than soccer. As of Thursday, there are all kinds of rumors as to why Khan has been unable to get a work permit. He left Los Angeles about 12 days ago for Vancouver, B.C., to apply for a work permit. According to Golden Boy Promotions Chief Operating Officer David Itskowitch, the hope is that the papers will be arrive in time for Khan to be in New York by Monday. The process has been underway since early March.

“This process has been going on since way before anything happened in Times Square,” Itskowitch said.

But it’s not clear why the process has taken so long.

“We don’t know,” he said. “The only thing we’re told is that an administrative process is going on and that they don’t divulge that kind of information.’’

There were questions Thursday about whether Khan’s name, Pakistani roots or the failed bombing at Times Square has held up the process.

“We don’t what it is,’’ Itskowitch said. “We have no indication.’’

Khan’s father told the Bolton News, the boxer’s hometown newspaper, blames the delay on the name and not for reported driving offenses.

“The delay is nothing to do with his motoring convictions as has been reported,’’ Shah Khan told the newspaper. “It is because of his name.

“Because of what happened on 9/11, Amir gets stopped every time we come into the country.

An application for work permit is a more comprehensive process, Shah Khan said.

“He always gets interviewed and is asked which countries he has visited, but now they know him and know who he is, the interviews are not as rigorous.

“But with a visa application there are certain checks that have to be made and it takes time. I don’t blame them and we have nothing to hide.”

For Arizona, there is a surprising twist in a process forcing Khan to get a work permit. About two years ago, boxing in Arizona was brought to virtual standstill by immigration law that required fighters from Mexico or any other country to get a work visa, a so-called P-1. They had been allowed to fight with a tourist visa, which is easier and less expensive to acquire. The law forced prospect Erislandy Lara, a junior-middleweight prospect who escaped Cuba, off a Golden Boy card last June in Tucson. Lara, who had fought in Europe before moving to the U.S., did not get a work visa in time to fight on the Arizona card.

But the requirement for work visa has been changed, according to Dennis O’Connell, the new chief of the Arizona State Boxing Commission.

“I have confirmed that you need to establish a lawful presence in the state,’’ O’Connell said.

That means a tourist visa again works. It also means boxing is beginning to come back to Arizona, a state with a colorful history that includes Mexican Salvador Sanchez, Mexican icon Julio Cesar Chavez and Nicaraguan Alexis Arguello.

Top Rank has scheduled a card for July 17, which will feature junior-welterweight prospect Jose Benavidez Jr., at Wild Horse Pass Hotel & Casino in his first bout in Phoenix, his hometown, since he turned pro a few months ago. Other smaller cards have been scheduled for the next month, two in Phoenix and one in Tucson.

Each card is an opportunity for boxing. The Suns expressed their opposition to the Arizona legislation Wednesday with Cinco de Mayo-null uniforms in an NBA playoff game against the San Antonio Spurs. Agree or disagree, a boycott only hurts the Mexican and Mexican American boxer. It also is reasonable cause to suspect that Sulaiman and crowd of other grandstanders care about them or an immigration controversy that is a lot bigger than Arizona. They care only about themselves.

LAS VEGAS – Who R U Picking?

Dumb question.

Turns out, Shane Mosley picked the wrong guy. He picked Floyd Mayweather Jr. as an opponent. But it’s hard to beat a legend, which is what Mayweather became Saturday night at the MGM Grand with a unanimous decision that backed up years of bragging about how he deserves a share of the fame that belongs to the greats who fought before him.

Mayweather, 41-0, 25 KOs) survived a dangerous second round and went on to dismantle Mosley (46-6, 39 KOs) in a fashion that was thorough as it was surprising. Mayweather didn’t knock out anybody but his critics. But his one-sided victory said it all, over and over again. Other than perhaps Manny Pacquiao, there is nobody better than Mayweather.

“If he wants to fight,’’ he knows where to find me,’’ Mayweather said of a showdown that didn’t happen in March because Pacquiao would not agree to Olympics-style drug testing.
Mayweather said again that he would fight Pacquiao only if he agrees to random drug testing. It looks as if a resumption of resumption of the controversial talks with Pacquiao will be Mayweather’s next fight. For now, there is only his latest addition to his claim that he has to be considered the best in today’s pound-for-pound world. It’s safe to say he will gte no argument from Mosley, who lost by 119-109, 119-109 and 118-100 on the scorecards.
“I did what the fans came here to see, a toe-to-toe’’ Mayweather said. “That’s not my style. But I wanted to do it.’’
In expectation of Mayweather’s promise, the building buzzed for about 30 minutes before Mosley and Mayweather left their dressing rooms and made that ritual walk, down the aisle, up the steps and through the ropes. Muhammad Ali was there. Sugar Ray Leonard was there. Mike Tyson was there. Thomas Hearns was there. Anticipation was everywhere.

Mosley was the first to enter. His robe was trimmed in a light blue that matched the turquoise shade of his eyes. On the back, there was the image of warrior mask sewn into the silk.

Then, there was Mayweather, choreographed like a concert and overdone like a circus. First, there were the OJs, singing an old-school version of rhythm-and-blues with the emphasis on Money, Mayweather’s nickname. Then, there were clowns and dancing girl on stilts tossing bills of what had to be – what else? Money. Finally, there was Mayweather, who didn’t look as if he was embarrassed by any of it.

Mayweather’s showmanship was predictable. His first round wasn’t.. At the opening bell, he began moving forward, instead of waiting for for Mosley to come to him. If it wasn’t out of character, it was dangerous.

In the second round, Mayweather found out just how dangerous. Mosley landed a head-rocking right. It hurt, hurt enough for Mayweather to hold on for several seconds. Then, there was a left-right combination from Mosley. The combo’s power buckled Mayweather’s knees.

For the first time in Mayweather’s pro career he staggered and stumbled, almost as if he were about to embark on his first fall to the canvas. He didn’t. He stayed upright even on uncertain feet that moved across a padded surface that must have felt as if it were shaking from a quake in some unseen fault line.

That triumph over momentary adversity set the stage for the victory that backs up so much Mayweather’s claim on being a legend. He overcame what many though he could not. He was still stading. Everything else, or at least the next 10 rounds, would belong to him.

From round to round after the dramatic second, Mayweather employed a right hand that grew progressively more accurate against Mosley, whose jab appeared to become as progressively erratic. Stinging rights, one after another, seemed to fuse Mosley. If he had foreseen a plan, he didn’t see anything but that right whistling at him from the fifth until the twelfth.

In the end, there were no surprises. Mosley looked like an old man and Mayweather, still unmarked, looked like the legend he said he has always been.

Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer calls Saul Alvarez the Mexican James Dean. Schaefer is looking for stardom. He’s still looking.
Alvarez, a much-hyped welterweight from Guadalajara, won, scoring a ninth-round TKO of Puerto Rican Jose Miguel Cotto in the last fight before Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Shane Mosley stepped into the ring at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. But Alvarez’ performance in his Las Vegas debut was uneven, at best.

Alvarez (32-0-1, 24 KOs) went from almost getting knocked out in the first round, to nearly scoring a second-round KO, yet not finishing job until the final second of the ninth.

If not for the ropes, Alvarez would have been knocked down by a powerful left in the first from Cotto (31-2-1, 23 KOs), Miguel’s brother. Alvarez stayed on his feet and regained his wits in time to deliver a three-punch combo in the second that had Cotto stumbling across the canvas. It was scored as a knockdown. But Alvarez could not turn it into a knockout, at least not until late in the ninth when Tony Weeks stopped the fight after a succession of right hands from Alvarez.

Mexican featherweight Daniel Ponce De Leon retained the World Boxing Council’s Latino title by surviving a late rush from Cornelius Lock of Detroit for a unanimous decision in a close bout on the Floyd Mayweather Jr.- Shane Mosley undercard.

De Leon (39-2, 32 KOS) built up a lead on the scorecards with consistent aggressiveness and straight shots up the middle. Lock (19-5-1, 12 KOs) appeared to tire in the middle rounds, although he rocked De Leon with a couple of right hands in the ninth and 10th. By then, however, it was too little, too late. Scores were 97-93, 96-94 and 96-94.

Within a couple of minutes, Las Vegas welterweight Said Ouali was down once and threw five punches. If you think that adds up to defeat, you’d be surprised. You’d also be wrong. Ouali (27-3, 19 KOS) won, getting up from the knockdown and making the most out of those five punches for a first-round stoppage of Argentina’s Hector Salvida (31-2, 24 KOS).

“He surprised me when he hit me with that first punch,’’ said Ouali, who would go on to deliver a much bigger surprise after he was floored by a sudden right hand.

Ouali quickly scored two knockdowns, first with a left hand and then with a combination. Salvida got up from the second knockdown, but then staggered into his corner where he began collapse. That’s when referee Russell Mora stepped in, stopping it at 1:47 of the first.

In the final off-tv bout, it was a battle of pro debuter’s from Las Vegas that saw Daniel Reece, 136 lbs score a unanimous decision over Angel Soto, 137 lbs. Scores were 39-37 on all cards—Marc Abrams

There’s no secret to staying unbeaten. Sometimes, there’s just a combination. Las Vegas welterweight Jessie Vargas (10-0, 5 KOs) put the right combo together in an untelevised bout before the Floyd Mayweather Jr.- Shane Mosley showdown.

Vargas threw a left hook and followed with a straight right, backing Arturo Morua (25-14-1, 14 KOs) Mexican into the ropes and leaving him dazed long enough for referee Tony Weeks to declare Vargas a winner by TKO at 1:20 of the sixth round.

North American Boxing Organization junior-lightweight champion Eloy Perez (7-0-2, 4 KOs) of Salinas, Calif., retained his title with stubborn pursuit and punishing left hands for a majority decision over lanky Gilberto Leon (25-14-1, 14 KOs) of Mexico.

In the card’s second bout, super-middleweight Dion Savage (8-0, 5 KOs) of Flint, Mich., scored a unanimous decision over Tommie Speller (5-4, 3 KOs), a Philadelphia fighter who left the ring with his white trucks and dark beard covered in blood. A Savage right hand early in the second round opened up a nasty cut above a left eye that troubled Spiller until the decision was announced after the eighth.

The card began with angry complaints echoing through the an empty building. Junior-welterweight Allen Litzau (13-5, 7 KOs) of St. Paul, Minn., wasn’t happy at second-round TKO loss to Luis Ramos Jr. (15-0, 8 KOs) of Santa Calif. Ramos knocked down Litzau early in the second with a left hand. Seconds later, Litzau, with trainer Roger Mayweather in his corner, got rocked again.

Referee Russell Mora had seen enough. He stopped it at 59 second of the rounds. Litzau howled in protest. He even hit the canvas again, this time rolling around like a kid angry at his parents. Lucky for him, nobody, other than Mora and a few ushers, saw the temper tantrum

LAS VEGAS – Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns were two of the defining faces of the 1980s. Floyd Mayweather Jr. calls himself the face of boxing, better than Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali and presumably better than either Leonard or Hearns.

To Leonard and Hearns, however, that Mayweather face looks like a beaten one if it had come along during their era.

“I really think Floyd would have been too small for us,’’ Hearns said Friday at a news conference that included Leonard, his current friend and old rival. “We were big welterweights.’’

Leonard agreed and added a twist of humor when asked to say how Mayweather would have fared against Hearns.

“I don’t think anybody could have beat Tommy Hearns but me,’’ said Leonard, who scored a 14th round stoppage of Hearns in a 1981 classic and fought him to draw in a 1989 rematch.

There’s some talk that boxing would be better off if Shane Mosley upsets Mayweather Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. It would create other big bouts, including Mosley versus Manny Pacquiao. If Mayweather beats Mosley, there is doubt that he and Pacquiao will ever agree on a deal. Talks for a Pacquiao-Mayweatherfight in March fell apart over Mayweather’s demands for Olympic-style drug testing.

No matter what happens in Mosley-Mayweather, neither Hearns nor Leonard foresee a time that would approach their era, which included Roberto Duran and Marvin Hagler.

“It just happened,’’ Hearns said. “It was nothing we planned. In our day, we couldn’t pick and choose. We couldn’t duck fights. We had to fight the next guy out there. And we always did. That why, that time is remembered, even now.’’

LAS VEGAS – There wasn’t much to say about the weigh-in. In fact, Floyd Mayweather Jr. said nothing at all to Sugar Shane Mosley after the two posed, face-to-face, like a couple of predators waiting for the other one to blink. Mosley said something. But Mayweather, never known for a loss of words, had no counter.

Maybe, there’s nothing left to say. Or, maybe, Mayweather has decided that his next counter will happen tonight in the ring at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

That counter is Mayweather’s most reliable punch. It might be his biggest edge, a reason he is about a 4-to-1 favorite over Mosley in a welterweight fight that has some fans thinking about legends. A couple of those were there for Friday’s ritual trip to the scale. It was impossible to ignore Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns, who battled three decades ago in a welterweight classic.

It’s hard to argue with legends. Mayweather has said, ad nauseum, that he is one. At 40-0, he has numbers that add up to the possibility. But that 0 might as well be a doughnut hole. His unbeaten record, including 25 knockouts, is missing the defining fight that proves he is a worthy successor to Hearns and Leonard. The dangerous Mosley, who has his speed and perhaps more power than he has ever encountered, is the opportunity for him to claim ownership of a legacy he has talked about almost as if it is birthright. For the first time in his career, there’s nothing left to say. There’s just a lot to do.

Mosley (46-5, 39 KOs) looks like the bigger fighter. On the scale Friday, he was — by one pound, 147 to Mayweather’s 146. On a tale of the tape, Mosley is also taller – by one inch, 5-foot-9 to Mayweather’s 5-8. But what we know might not matter. Marks on a tape and indentations on a scale might not measure anything of significance at opening bell. Instead, it’s the unknown that has made this crossroads in the careers for both fighters so intriguing.

Already, there have been signs of some surprising role reversals. Mosley has begun to talk more than Mayweather. It makes you wonder whether more reversals will happen in the ring. Mosley is said to have more power than Mayweather.

“I’ve always had power, even as lightweight and also in this weight class,’’ Mosley said after a weigh-in that attracted a reported crowd of 6,000 fans. “Even in this weight class I’m strong and can knock anybody out.’’

In the beginning, Mosley’s power looms as Mayweather’s biggest test. That, at least, is the conventional wisdom. In the early rounds, a jab followed by a body shot represents an early warning sign for Mayweather. How will he react, especially if the body shot lands often? If the fight is prolonged and the chess match that both say it will be, the early punches figure to be nothing more than pawns on a much bigger board.

Leonard’s 14th-round stoppage of Hearns at Caesars Palace years before the MGM Grand’s addition to the Strip’s neon-lit skyline is memorable for the ebb-and-flow of personalities and punches a conflict that saw the fighters reverse roles. Hearns began as the feared power puncher. Leonard was the boxer. Midway through the fight, however, Hearns became the boxer and Leonard the puncher.

For few days, Mayweather’s surprisingly understated demeanor has hinted that a different kind of fighter might emerge. The hint was there again after the weigh-in.

“It could end in a knockout if he comes in,’’ said Mayweather, who didn’t have to say who would knock out whom in that scenario.

He also didn’t have to say he would finally be the fighter he says he is. With a knockout, Mayweather would break out of his assigned role, which has left him typecast as a fighter primarily concerned about safety. A knockout would prove he can do something else, be something more.

Maybe, even be a legend.

LAS VEGAS – Interpreting body language is an inexact science at best, but Shane Mosley’s camp thinks it might have detected doubt – perhaps fear — in Floyd Mayweather Jr. at a formal news conference Wednesday before their welterweight confrontation Saturday night at the MGM Grand.

“I didn’t see it, but somebody told me that Floyd turned and flinched,’’ Mosley said of a moment when the two posed for photos in the ritual face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball showdown. “I was told he looked a little nervous. Like I said, I didn’t see it. But it’s interesting.’’

In a roundtable with writers Thursday, Mosley and his trainer, Naazim Richardson sounded as if Mayweather’s surprisingly polite appearance was a sign that the pre-fight rounds were at least a draw.

Suddenly, there was none of the usual profane trash-talk from Mayweather, who also can play as many roles as an accomplished actor. At the final news conference, he was so polite he could have been Mosley.

“He was acting like Shane,’’ Richardson said. “He lost those early battles.’’

An accurate nickname
Here’s a very big reason Mayweather calls himself Money:

According to contracts filed with the Nevada State Athletic Commission, Mayweather’s guarantee for Saturday night is $22.5 million. It is the biggest guarantee for a non-heavyweight. Mike Tyson and Buster Douglas had bigger guarantees. Douglas’ contracted guarantee for a 1990 loss to Evander Holyfield was $24 million.

The record for earnings for a single fight is $54 million, which is what Oscar De La Hoya collected after a percentage of pay-per-receipts were added to his check for his loss in 2007 to Mayweather.

Mosley is guaranteed $7 million. Do this Mayweather is making more than three times as much, according to Nevada Commission record. No wonder Richardson said a couple of weeks ago that Mosley was a lousy negotiator.

Putting on a show
Richardson calls Mayweather a genius in the ring. But he also said that Mayweather’s reputation for trash-talk is rooted in his desire to be a showman, which might mask his real character. He behaves in a way he might not if a camera wasn’t pointed at him, Richardson said.

“Point a camera at some guys and they’’ pull their pants down and slap their cheeks against the lense,’’ Richardson said. “If somebody applauds, they’ll do it again.’’

Mayweather has been the star of the Home Box Office’s popular 24/7 series in pre-fight programming.

“24/7 is his show,’’ Richardson said. “Now, he has to win the fight. But on the night of the fight, he has already entertained us.’’

LAS VEGAS – Junior-welterweight prospect Jose Benavidez Jr. of Phoenix will return to his hometown on July 17 for his first bout since the 17-year-old turned pro on a card Top Rank has scheduled amid controversy over Arizona’s new immigration law, including a World Boxing Council declaration Thursday urging Mexican boxers not to fight in the state.

Top Rank’s Bob Arum was not certain Thursday how, or if, the controversy would affect a card scheduled for Wild Horse Pass Hotel & Casino in Chandler, a Phoenix suburb. The fight will happen before police are mandated to enforce the law, SB 1070, in late August, 90 days after the Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the legislation on April 23. However, there have been protests outside of the state capitol and nationwide during the last week, including demonstrations against Arizona Diamondbacks outside of Chicago’s Wrigley Field Thursday and calls for a business boycott of the state by activists angry at the potential for racial profiling.

“We’ll find out,’’ Arum said of the possible impact on plans for Benavidez’ homecoming. “If what I’m hearing on news reports, it is innocuous. If you are committing a crime and you’re stopped and then found to be illegal, what wrong with that? I don’t think the law allows police to stand outside the venue to check on the fans. But if does, then that’s horrendous.’’

WBC President Jose Sulaiman said Thursday in a prepared release from the sanctioning body’s headquarters in Mexico City that the organization has agreed it “will not authorize Mexican boxers to leave the country to fight professionally in Arizona, United States, due to the shameful, inhumane, and discriminatory anti-immigration law, which is no other thing than a flagrant violation to the basic principles of dignity and equality.’’

Arum asked that everybody, including Sulaiman, read the bill before passing judgment.

“Obviously, Sulaiman hasn’t read it,’’ Arum said. “He may well be justified. But first, we have to read the legislation. It’s like health-care. Everybody started screaming at each other before they had read the law. I’m not going to do that. Let’s study the legislation and then we can say something intelligently.’’

Arizona’s boxing history is closely linked to Mexican boxers. Julio Cesar Chavez’ career ended there in a loss a few years ago. Mexican-American Michael Carbajal, a Phoenix native, is in the Hall of Fame after a brilliant career as a junior-flyweight. Carbajal was a Mexican and Mexican-American favorite who fought in front of capacity crowds at then-America West Arena and old Veterans Memorial Coliseum during the 1990s.

Benavidez’ father said he has been following the controversy over Arizona’s immigration law. He and his son moved several months ago to Los Angeles. Jose Benavidez Jr., is trained by Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood.

“It’s really sad to watch,’’ said the senior Benavidez, who trained his son as an amateur at Central Boxing in Phoenix, a few blocks from the state’s capitol steps. “I really feel terrible for some of the people I know. Hopefully, my son can lift everybody up. Hopefully, we can do something positive.

“Everybody needs to know that we will be fighting for them.’’

LAS VEGAS – Only news conferences are supposed to be predictable. But one Wednesday for Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Shane Mosley wasn’t. It was tame, almost as peaceful as a church picnic.

Mayweather’s appearance at a press luncheon is almost always a screaming succession of four letters from erupting into a food fight. But Kumbaya was the main course at the MGM Grand.

Mayweather, perhaps in another one of his many roles, sprung an upset by just being nice. Who knows? Maybe, Mosley has a chance to spring another one Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena over Mayweather, a 4-1 betting favorite Wednesday afternoon and an overwhelming pick in an informal poll of writers to win by decision.

“Maybe, you’re going for the safe bet,’’ Mosley told a circle of writers after the news conference.
Maybe, safe is for suckers.

Or, maybe, Mayweather as Mr. Nice Guy is just a con, a feint before the counter.

Nobody can ever be sure what side of Mayweather will show up from day to day. It’s just that a low-key Mayweather was almost out of character for a stage that seemed to demand an over-the-top personality that has been there before.

Mayweather’s unpredictability might be one mechanism in a defense that has kept him undefeated and mostly unmarked.

“It’s not cool to take punishment,’’ he said, repeating a comment that has almost become his mantra.

When asked if he ever just wanted to abandon the defensive mechanisms and indulge in a free-for-all exchange of punches, Mayweather started chuckling.

“Ha-ha, ha-ha, ha-ha,’’ Mayweather said. “Nobody is messing up this nice face.’’

It’s hard to hit what you don’t know, and it is virtually impossible to know what move or mood is about to appear from Mayweather, who is either mercurial or maddening or both. Let’s just says that Mosley and trainer Naazim Richardson don’t sound as if they’re sweating it out. In fact, if there was a theme to the news conference it was simply the absence of nerves. Both fighters played it cool.

At 38, Mosley seems to be enjoying his moment back on the big stage. He doesn’t have to act. Unlike Mayweather, he doesn’t tell anybody he is the face of boxing or better than Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson.

“Shane Mosley is an HBO fighter,’’ Mayweather said, suggesting that Mosley has bit part in his ascendance. “Floyd Mayweather is a mega-superstar.’’

All the better, Mosley seemed to say.

Mosley has been cast in the support role often. Consider a couple of results: He upset Oscar De La Hoya and then Antonio Margarito. It’s almost as if he has spent his career rehearsing for Saturday, although even he might be surprised if he delivers the knockout he promised.

“I’d be shocked to see him there, flat on his back,’’ Molsey said. “Happy, but shocked. I’d also be concerned. Fighting me can be hazardous.’’

Safe to say, Mayweather wasn’t concerned. There’s plenty of talk about Mosley’s perceived weaknesses, including an inconsistent jab and a layoff of more than 15 months since his stunner over Margarito.

“I’ve already read him,’’ Mayweather said as if he has studied, cover-to-cover, everything there is to know about Mosley.

However, Mayweather conceded one detail remains unknown, which at a news conference was exactly what Mayweather wanted. Molsey’s widely-reported links to Balco and performance-enhancers have dogged him since 2003.

“We don’t how many fights he was in when he was clean,’’ Mayweather said. “Even against Margarito, we don’t know.’’

At Mayweather’s insistence, he and Mosley are undergoing random Olympic-style drug testing – urine and blood. As of Wednesday, Mosley had undergone eight and Mayweather seven. The testers, showed up, unannounced, at Mosley’s door.

“Eight times at my house is a little excessive,’’ said Mosley, who says he has been eating natural and feeling stronger than ever over the last several years. “This thing (Balco controversy) has been played out, over and over again. I don’t know why.

“But I’m a clean product.’’

A confident one, too.

Maybe, Floyd Mayweather Jr. was celebrating Earth Day. Or, maybe, he was being a good dad. His daughter was said to be nearby. Whatever the occasion or motivation, a thoughtful, likable side of Mayweather showed up Thursday without the profanity that pollutes so many of his other dates with the media.

“Thanks,” he said.

Huh, I thought.

I was tempted to suspect that the voice on the conference call was Frank Caliendo doing Mayweather in a planned addition to an act already well-known for impersonations of Charles Barkley, John Madden and Donald Trump. But, no, this was exactly the Mayweather many encounter and would like to hear more often. Mayweather’s best known role, heavily bleeped by HBO in early-evening versions of 24/7 for kids still in the audience, is reason to hit the mute button even for bored adults who have heard it all. Mayweather has said it all, ad nauseam, which also means the edgy potential to outrage has been deleted from the expletives.

Mayweather is good at playing the bad guy. He knows the lines. That’s for bleeping sure. But there’s also a sense that he too has grown weary of it. Perhaps, he has outgrown it. Shane Mosley has been cast in the good-guy role for their May 1 showdown at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand. Yet, even Mosley is skeptical about a story line that is as old and clichéd as a movie script for an old Western.

“Good versus evil?” Mosley said Tuesday. “I don’t know. I don’t really think so. I think that Floyd just acts out because that’s just him being himself. But you know, probably outside of the fight, you probably could see some good qualities Floyd has. He can charm up a little bit and be more friendly or whatever. It’s just when the fight happens. He just starts getting a little crazy and starts going back to the things that he’s used to doing.

“…Some of the things that he says, it’s bad and it reflects and looks bad on him when he says the different things. Some of the things he says I don’t really think he means. He just kind of says it to get a reaction out of you to see what happens and see what you do and that’s probably part of his plan or his strategy before the fight. It’s like fighting before the fight. He’ll just say what’s on the top of his head and just get a reaction out of you. If he gets a reaction out of you, then he’s done a good job, he’s won. So, I don’t perceive him as being a real, like an evil person. That’s just sometimes his nature.’’

If true character is revealed by what happens in a fight, however, Mayweather is as careful and calculating as anyone has ever been. The bad guy is Tyson-like, raging at everyone and everything before opening bell and after it. That guy is not Mayweather, a tactician who doesn’t let emotion interfere with the dangerous business of ducking and delivering punches. A lot comparisons have been made in the buildup for Mayweather-Mosley, which Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer believes will set a pay-per-view record. Other than the ring they will share on May 1, however, Mayweather says there are no similarities between him and Mosley.

“We’re totally different,’’ Mayweather said while attending a school function for his daughter.

Mayweather made the fight sound like target practice. It’s all about location, location, location.
“I look at my opponent and where I’m punching,’’ Maywather said.

Mosley doesn’t, he said. Instead, Mayweather said Mosley closes his eyes when he throws a punch with power, which is thought to be a Mosley advantage.

“I think he’s a fighter who worries about landing a big shot,’’ said Mayweather, whose father, Floyd Sr., and uncle/trainer Roger already have said that they believe Mosley doesn’t have the smarts to win a welterweight fight that is being hyped as the modern-day sequel to Sugar Ray Leonard’s victory over Thomas Hearns in a 1981 classic.

The suggestion is that Mayweather can do more. Maybe, he can. Until opening bell, however, Mayweather’s verbal sparring, as well-rehearsed as it is well-known, is expected. Its impact, if any against the 38-year-old Mosley, is harder to figure. Mayweather is confident it has had its intended effect. He repeated Thursday that Mosley is acting out of character, including reports about comments a few days ago on a Los Angeles radio show in which he wondered whether Mayweather had dabbled in steroids and questioned his sexuality.

“…He wanted to talk about my suit, curls in my hair, getting a nose job …is he funny? Is he gay or something,’’ Mosley said on ESPN 710 in Los Angeles.

The comment might have angered a lot of fighters. Not Mayweather. He didn’t even mention it during the conference call. But Mayweather’s comment fits like another piece in the puzzle that Mayweather methodically puts together in training camp, at press conferences, in E-mail and on twitter. It’s all business, which means everything is an opportunity.

“His trainer said he wouldn’t trash-talk,’’ Mayweather said of Naazim Richardson’s plan to keep Mosley from getting distracted by “hysteria” from Mayweather. “We’re up one, I guess, cause we baited him into talking trash.’’

Maybe, that’s why Mayweather didn’t talk trash Thursday. He didn’t have to.

In simply doing his job, Naazim Richardson already has done more to clean up boxing than any grandstanding proclamation from Floyd Mayweather Jr., who has anointed himself as the game’s undisputed savior with Olympic-style drug-tests that apparently happen as often as conference calls before his May 1 showdown with Shane Mosley at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

If not for Richardson’s due diligence before Mosley’s last victory more than a year ago, Antonio Margarito might have continued to fight with hand wraps described as everything from irregular to criminal. Whatever they are called, there would be no debate and perhaps no movement for regulatory change in how wraps are applied and provided if not for Richardson. His instinctive eye for detail is about survival, which he learned on the street and practices in a corner. Ropes don’t confine the task. It doesn’t begin or end with an opening or closing bell. It’s just the job, which is as challenging as ever for Richardson in preparing for a May Day that Mosley says will belong to him.

As Richardson proved before Mosley’s stoppage of Margarito more than 15 months ago in Los Angeles, fights often turn on what happens before they ever begin. It’s a lesson not lost on the heavily-favored Mayweather, who launches his sharp-edged rhetoric like artillery-fire long before the fighters invade the ring. Mayweather is at it again. He wonders if Mosley already is feeling pressure.

Why else, he says, would he suddenly show with a Polynesian-style tattoo across one shoulder.

“Why would someone wait until they are 38 years old to get a tattoo?’’ Mayweather said Wednesday during a media day while working out in Las Vegas.

Crank up the volume. Mayweather, trainer-and-uncle Roger and father Floyd Sr. are just getting started.

“Hysteria,’’ Richardson says of the predictable storm of expletives and insults.

That’s a good description. It’s also been a good weapon for Mayweather, a cautious, clever and unbeaten fighter who waits on the other guy to make a mistake. If his jab and defense don’t create one, maybe anger from a well-timed insult will. From day-to-day through the next two-plus weeks, the detail-oriented Richardson will try to guard against exactly that.

“I will keep him focused on the task at hand and not let him get caught up in the Mayweather hysteria,’’ Richardson said at Mosley’s media day Monday in Los Angeles.

Easier said than done, perhaps, simply because the Mayweathers will say whatever they can for as long as they can in a noisy attempt to find a chink in Mosley’s psychological armor. If there is a silencer, however, it might be Richardson. Listen to him and you get the idea that specifics matter. Noise doesn’t.

During a conference call Tuesday that included Roger Mayweather and some contentious give-and-take about drug testing, Richardson: “If you asked me to respond to everything Roger is saying. I wouldn’t have time to train my athlete.’’

Richardson’s stubborn adherence to detail — and only detail — looms as an effective counter to the many distractions inevitable in any fight against Mayweather. One important detail is character. It’s a lot more subjective than, say, a problem in an opponent’s hand wraps. But it is there, fundamental to the job and getting it right. In Mayweather, he sees a fighter who loves to talk and uses negotiations, media days and conference calls as if they were the early rounds. In Mosley, he sees somebody who just wants to fight.

“I respect Shane and I love his approach as an athlete, how he does his job and takes it on,’’ Richardson said when asked if Mosley conceded too much at the bargaining table when he agreed to random drug testing and a rematch clause for Mayweather. “But I tell him to his face: I think he is a poor negotiator. He wants to fight so bad he doesn’t care. He’d let Roger be one of the judges.
“Shane would agree to it. He just wants to fight.’’

The trainer went on to say that Mosley would agree to fight with one hand tied behind his back. He was exaggerating. Kind of. It couldn’t happen. Richardson. Who has Mosley’s back, wouldn’t let it happen any more than he would have let Margarito fight armed in altered hand wraps.

Nobody has to tell Kelly Pavlik about The Great Recession. He lived it. His career declined like the economy from late 2008 through 2009. It’s hard to say whether projections from so-called business experts are bearish or just more bull. But at least Pavlik has a chance in hand, now healthy, to restore fundamental confidence in an attempt to forget the last 18 months and perhaps re-create a promising future.

Pavlik’s first fight in 2010, a Home Box Office-televised date on April 17 against Sergio Martinez in Atlantic City, is being called the most important middleweight fight in several years by promoter Bob Arum.

Important means it is an indicator about whether it is time to re-invest in Pavlik, whose future was knocked sideways in October, 2008 by Bernard Hopkins and almost knocked out a few months later by a dangerous infection on the middle knuckle on the index finger of his left hand. The infection and maybe Hopkins are gone. But some of the questions aren’t. Pavlik knows that. He has the scars he can see. But professional maturity is often about dealing with the unseen. Second-guessing and unfounded speculation leave their own scars.

“Flak,’’ Pavlik said Thursday during a conference call in a matter-of-fact tone that also seemed to say that he has come to terms with it

Flak is the price of stardom these days and perhaps in any day. Manny Pacquiao has had to endure it in rumors about performance-enhancers that were planted by Floyd Mayweather Sr. and have continued in the wake of negotiations for a March fight that fell apart when Floyd Jr. demanded Olympic-style drug testing. Hopkins is dealing with it all over again from critics and allies urging his retirement after a messy victory over Roy Jones, Jr. Pick the star and you’ll find the flak. Like big money, it’s part of the guarantee.

Along Pavlik’s career path, it may have landed early. But his apparent understanding of it is a good sign for a business that could use him.

“If the flak is going to be there, there’s nothing I can do,’’ said Pavlik, who questioned the quality of opposition Arthur Abraham beat for the International Boxing Federation’s version of the middleweight title before his super-middleweight loss by disqualification to Andre Dirrell. “Abraham got the middleweight world title by vacancy. He didn’t fight nobody to win the world title. Who did Arthur Abraham defend his title against? Why didn’t he get the flak?’’

In Martinez, Pavlik hopes rumors about his willingness to fight Williams.

“Next to Williams, Martinez is the toughest guy out there,’’ Pavlik said

Still, Martinez doesn’t register much on marquee, the marketing scale that measures name-recognition. He also doesn’t represent the career-defining fight that seemed to be Pavlik’s destiny after knocking out Jermain Taylor three years ago. Nonetheless, Martinez is there, in his way and dangerous enough to crush him beneath a burden that will collapse if Pavlik can’t prove he is as good as everybody thought he was before his recession. In December, Martinez lost a debatable decision to Paul Williams, whom Pavlik was supposed to fight before MRSA — a virulent staph infection — put him in the hospital.

“I thought he won the fight,’’ said Pavlik, who went on to say that Martinez’s impressive performance also some weaknesses. ‘I was impressed, but I wasn’t impressed.’’

Martinez left himself open to punches that Pavlik intends to land. However, there are questions – big ones in that collective burden of proof – about Pavlik’s hand speed and ability to deal with punches thrown from angles. They’ve been there since Hopkins upset him at heavier weight, 175 pounds instead of 160.

“From mind-to-fist, I just couldn’t let it go,” said Pavlik, who said he wasn’t feeling well on the night of his only loss in 37 bouts. “It was just a bad fight. Nothing we could do about it. I was lethargic.’’

If Pavlik wins, the guess is that he will finally face Williams in a bout that has been talked about for a while. It might not be quite the showdown it might have been, however, because Williams was disappointing against Martinez.

If not Williams, Arum hinted at what might await Pavlik if he beats Martinez and, in the process, is impressive enough to eliminate the doubts. Pavlik’s future, Arum said, might be at 168 pounds, the super-middleweight division that currently is being decided by the on-again, off-again World Classic Tournament. People are bigger and so are the real middleweights, Arum said. The best, he says are working as super-middleweights, which could mean the emerging Americans, Andre Ward and Dirrell, are in Pavlik’s future.

“After he cleans up the middleweights, then he moves up,’’ Arum said of a post-recession path through flak and now fertile for the beginning of a Pavlik renewal.

Fathers know best
Jack Mosley, Shane’s dad, and Floyd Maywather Sr, Floyd’ Jr.’s father, held court in conference call last week about their son’s welterweight clash on May 1 at Las Vegas MGM Grand in the year’s most anticipated fight.

Floyd Sr. made a lot of noise. Jack Mosley made a lot of sense. That was predictable, unlike the fight.

Jack Mosley says his son’s superior punching power gives him.

Shane, he said, is “fast enough to hit Floyd over-and-over again. That will be a problem for Floyd.’’
Floyd Sr. laughed. Floyd Jr., he said, has superior brain power.

“Shane’s not smart,’’ said Floyd Sr., who believes his son is the more complete fighter.

Floyd Sr. also was no impressed with Shane Mosley stoppage of Antonio Margarito more than a year ago in Los Angeles.

“Margarito was a walking mummy,’’ Floyd Sr. said not long after suggesting that Shane Mosley was a dummy

Notes, anecdotes
· Andre Berto will fight for himself and a cause Saturday in south Florida against Carlos Quintana. Proceeds will go to Haiti’s efforts to rebuild from the February earthquake, which forced Berto to withdraw from a bout with Mosley. Berto has family in Haiti. Money is designated for Project Medishare, a health-care fund. Berto, has been active in trying to help Haitians, also has a Dynasty Foundation in his name at www.AndreBerto.com.

· Margarito isn’t helping himself in the court of public opinion by not accepting some accountability for gauze described irregular by his attorney Daniel Petrocelli and rock-like by others before he was forced to re-wrap hands in the loss to Mosley in Los Angeles. Margarito, who returns to the ring on May 8 in Mexico and hopes to be re-licensed in the United States, again said Tuesday at a news conference in Los Angeles that he had no idea disgraced trainer Javier Capitello had inserted an illegal pad The media will never buy the repeated claim that he had no clue. Writers know that fighters treat their hands the way a master carpenter cares for his tools. They protect their hands so much that some won’t even engage in a simple handshake. Some of the media will never believe him. But a campaign to restore Margarito’s reputation can gain some traction, if he at least says he’s sorry. If he didn’t know, he should have.

· And I can’t help but think of Mike Tyson while watching Tiger Woods at The Masters. It isn’t about golf as much as it is a Tyson-like spectacle. Late in his career, Tyson wasn’t about boxing either. The media would gather at ringside, waiting for an accident to happen. Now, that media are in Augusta, waiting for another one.

Attorney Daniel Pertocelli dismissed reports that Antonio Margarito’s gloves were loaded with a rock-like substance before he was ordered to re-wrap his hands before a loss to Shane Mosley more than a year ago in Los Angeles.

“Completely false,’’ Petrocelli said Monday in a conference call that included Top Rank’s Bob Arum, who is promoting Margarito’s return to the ring in Mexico on May 8.

Arum said he scheduled the conference call in an attempt to correct conclusions that he says were based on “misinformation” about circumstances that led to a one-year revocation of Margarito’s license by the California State Athletic Commission.

Margarito, who has been free to re-apply for a license in the United States since February, is scheduled to appear at a news conference Tuesday at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles.

Petrocelli said an “irregularity” was discovered in the gauze above one knuckle in the wraps when Mosley trainer Nazim Richardson asked for a closer look before opening bell of a welterweight fight on Jan 24 at Staples Center. The California commission conducted a forensic test of the wraps, said Petrocelli, who said he was not allowed to have different experts conduct a second test.

The California test turned up traces of calcium and sulfur, according to Petrocelli, who said both substances can be found in hand creams.

Pertocelli also dismissed talk that Margarito used similar wraps in the summer of 2008 in an upset of Miguel Cotto in Las Vegas. He called the speculation a “myth.”

California and Nevada rules are different, said Petrocelli, who won a wrongful death judgment in 1997 against O.J. Simpson in civil court. In California, trainers are allowed to bring their own wraps. Nevada provides the wraps. Javier Capitello, Margarito’s trainer for Mosley, also had his license revoked for 12 months. Robert Garcia of Oxnard, Calif., is Margarito’s current trainer.

Margarito has said consistently that he did not know Capetillo had wrapped his hands illegally. In an interview with 15 Rounds on March 11 in a lobby of a Dallas-area hotel before Manny Pacquiao’s victory over Joshua Clottey on March 13 at Cowboys Stadium; Margarito said; “I did nothing wrong.’’

Petrocelli said he is trying to clear Margarito’s name with an appeal in the California courts. He expects a ruling sometime this year. Meanwhile, Arum plans to apply for license in the U.S. after Margarito’s May 8 bout against Roberto Garcia in Aguascalientes.

“His next fight will be in the United States,’’ said Arum, who was unable to get Margarito licensed in Texas in time for him to fight on the Pacquiao-Clottey undercard.

It’s easy to be outraged. It’s easy to be sad. It’s even easy not to care at all. But nothing will be easy Saturday night for Alton Merkerson, whom Roy Jones Jr. calls “coach” with the kind of affection a kid has for mom and dad.

Other than the piece of square canvas that Jones and Bernard Hopkins will contest, no spot at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas figures to be as difficult as the corner Merkerson will occupy.

Concern for Jones, more than confidence in his chances, has been the flashing red light, the warning sign, throughout talk preceding a rematch of a 1993 fight. Merkerson has heard it, acknowledges it and repeats it.

“My concern is the same concern that everybody else has,’’ said Merkerson, whose 22-year-old friendship with Jones started when he as an assistant U.S. Olympic coach at the infamous Seoul Games in 1988 when Jones was robbed of a gold medal.

Despite acquiring a Nevada license after passing a battery of tests that included a brain scan, the 41-year-old Jones steps through the ropes against the older, yet-seemingly ageless Hopkins, 45, stamped with anecdotal evidence that he is damaged enough to be in serious peril.

The medical tests have been criticized on at least two fronts:

· Either they failed to account for three stoppages in six years that indicate Jones has lost the reflexes he needs to defend himself.

· Or, they have been diagnosed as business as usual. To wit: Las Vegas’ struggling casino industry needs the action.

Whether it’s one or both or none of the above, the controversy has shifted the focus onto whether Jones should be fighting at all in the rematch of a forgotten bout, a Jones victory that happened when Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. were teenagers.

The talk might prove to be a timely diversion for Jones, who has promised to knock out the heavily-favored Hopkins in what would be an upset and a role reversal. Instead of Jones, the worry would be for Hopkins. On a night not long after April Fools Day and a few hours before Easter, it’s hard to say what will happen. But the controversy is a certainty and it raises questions about whether it will influence Merkerson and perhaps referee Tony Weeks.

At the first sight of trouble, will Merkerson be quick to throw in the towel? Or Weeks quick to stop it?

Merkerson’s loyalty for Jones is as evident as it is admirable. Some trainers express their concern for a fighter in apparent decline by leaving the corner altogether. But Merkerson is always there for Jones, almost like a concerned parent.

“Yes, it’s getting close to the time where Bernard and Roy are going to give this thing up because you can’t do it forever,” Merkerson said in a conference call. “But right now, from a medical standpoint, he’s fine. I stick with Roy, and I’ve been with him for 20 years, and I’m going to continue to be with him.

“I’m not afraid to stop a fight. If in fact he was getting punished and didn’t get caught with one shot clean, I would stop the fight, and that’s what another young, inexperienced trainer probably wouldn’t do just to worry about their credibility and what people say about them. But it’s not going to be long before we give it up and do some other things, but Roy is fine right now.”

Right now is just one punch from forever wrong, however

That’s true for anybody who answers an opening bell, not just Jones or Hopkins or some other forty-something fighter. The repeated concern for Jones is that age has turned his reflexes into stone. He has become a stationary target for that disabling blow. For years, he fought with his hands down, yet his instincts, anticipation and unrivalled speed kept dancing in, out and always mere inches from harm. Through 12 rounds, the only sure bet is that those hands will fall and leave him defenseless.

Quickness might vanish, but habits rarely do.

Jones argues that Australian Danny Green’s hands were wrapped illegally before Jones suffered a first-round stoppage last December. Maybe, they were. But Jones’ protest misses the point the way punches missed him so long ago. Alter or unaltered, the relatively-unknown Green quickly and easily hit somebody that nobody could a decade ago.

Worried? You bet. There is no easy way out of that. In the end, Merkerson might be Jones’ only defense.

NOTES, ANECDOTES
· There was only one class act last Saturday in another stage of the super-middleweight tournament. It was delivered by Andre Dirrell, who was accused of acting when a desperate Arthur Abraham teed off with shot to the jaw with Dirrell on one knee after slipping on ice in Abraham’s corner. A disqualification of Abraham resulted in a victory for Dirrell, who was leading on the scorecards. The DQ was incomplete. Abraham should have been suspended. Now, it looks as if Dirrell will fight Andrew Ward, his 2004 Olympic teammate. Ward-Dirrell would re-ignite interest in the on-again, off-again tournament.

· Jose Benavidez Jr., a junior-welter-weight prospect from Phoenix, has an opponent for his fourth pro fight on April 10 at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas on a Top Rank card televised by Fox Sports Espanol. Expect Benavidez to go 4-0 against Scott Paul (5-4) of Ontario, Canada. The 17-year old Benavidez turns 18 on May 15.

· Is there an AARP convention scheduled for Las Vegas next week? Eight days after Jones-Hopkins, 47-year-old Evander Holyfield is scheduled to fight 41-year-old Francois Botha at Thomas & Mack Center. That adds up to two main events with an average age of 43-plus years.

It is fascinating to listen to Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. They might not belong on a pound-for-pound list these days, but word-for-word they could challenge Charles Barkley. In the interview game, Hopkins and Jones are as good as anybody.

They provided an insightful double-feature a couple of days ago in a conference call about an April 3 fight. Their rematch at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay has generated everything from outrage to concern. The mixed response from media and fans is at least predictable and perhaps inevitable whenever legends closer to Hall of Fame induction than their primes prepare to fight.

A couple of examples:

Jones, as wise as he once was quick, acknowledged he is aware of fears some have for his well-being.

“I take my hat off to them,’’ said Jones, 41, who has been stopped three times in the last six years. “I thank them for being concerned about me, because that’s a great thing.’’

Then, there was Hopkins, funny, controversial and just as wise.

“This is not some clown reality-show where two wrestlers, two boxers, two old entertainers, two old singers square off,’’ said Hopkins, 45, who is favored to avenge a 1993 loss by decision to Jones. “This is the real deal.’’

I suspect the call will prove to be better than the fight.

It also is important for a lesson left unsaid, yet current and perilous if ignored by the best-and brightest in today’s generation. I hope Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, Jr., were – are — listening. The Jones-Hopkins rematch should have happened a decade ago. Pacquiao-Mayweather should have happened on March 13.

For each should-have, the circumstances are different. But Jones and Hopkins can’t redo the specifics — an unresolved dispute over money – that led to a breakdown of a rich, relevant rematch that might have led to another.

“I was the undisputed middleweight and he was the undisputed light-heavyweight,’’ Hopkins said. “It would have been great.’’

It could have been one or two for the books.

But Hopkins, Jones and the sport were robbed of that opportunity by financial percentages that today are forgettable, if not petty. The real loss, perhaps, was in a percentage of fans. Nobody remembers the first fight on a dreary night at RFK Stadium in Washington D.C. on the undercard of a main event featuring a Riddick Bowe stoppage of Jesse Ferguson.

“I still remember Larry Merchant saying that if the wind wasn’t blowing in the stadium, everybody would have gone to sleep,’’ Hopkins said.

Many of them did during the years when Jones and Hopkins matured into the best of their trade. Nearly 10 years ago, they were the fight the public wanted, yet didn’t get. It would have been a rematch only in name. In fact, it would have been an awakening for a public and media increasingly turned off by boxing.

Since then, the sport has repeatedly attempted to resurrect itself. There are promising signs, but the state of the game returns to the critical list if Pacquiao-Mayweather follows the path of the Hopkins-Jones rematch.

Throughout the conference call Wednesday, I couldn’t help but imagine another call, 10 years from now, with Mayweather and Pacquiao, both forty-something and both trying to sell their first fight in 2020 with awkward explanations about why they didn’t fight in 2010.

The issue has been Mayweather’s demand and Pacquiao rejection of Olympic-style drug testing. In a few months, it might be about money, especially if Mayweather beats Shane Mosley on May 1 in front of a bigger pay-per-view audience than the announced 700,000 for Pacquiao’s victory over Joshua Clottey.

There are projections of three million for Mayweather-Mosley. Even if it is half of that at 1.5 million, Mayweather could return to the bargaining table with an argument that he deserves the lion’s share, instead of the 50-50 which had been agreed upon before talks broke down over random blood tests.

Ten years from now, that and who-knows-what-else could be hard to explain. But the lesson is there, thanks to Hopkins and Jones, whose fight is all about timing. It’s the wrong time for them, but still the right one for Pacquiao and Mayweather.

NOTES, QUOTES
· Andre Dirrell might be poised for stardom. He has tough challenge in the super-middleweight tournament Saturday against Arthur Abraham on Showtime. But Dirrell, who grew up in Flint, Mich., will have a hometown crowd and plenty of motivation against the rugged Abraham in Detroit. Dirrell, who is anxious to prove he was robbed by a decision in a loss to Carl Froch in his last outing, is versatile enough to upset Abraham.

· The annual Celebrity Fight Night, Muhammad Ali’s fund-raiser for research in the battle against Parkinson’s, raised $5 million Saturday night in Phoenix. In 16 years, the event has raised $65 million.

· Top Rank is keeping Jose Benavidez, a 17-year-old junior-welterweight from Phoenix, busy. After pushing his record to 3-0 in Dallas on March 12 — the night before Pacquiao’s victory over Clottey at Cowboys Stadium, Benavidez is scheduled for a fight on April 10 against an undetermined opponent at The Hard Rock in Las Vegas.
· And as a Golden Boy partner, Hopkins is also a promoter, but he didn’t have anything to do with the promotional label for the fight with Jones. It’s called The Rivals. “I would have named it Personal,’’ said Hopkins, who says his anger for Jones is real.

To say that Olympic-style drug testing is the right thing to do is the equivalent of a beauty-pageant contestant saying she believes in world peace. Between believing in it and doing it, however, there are arguments about procedure, ego and potential rancor, otherwise known as devils in the details. If it was so obvious and so righteous, we already would have seen Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

We haven’t, of course.

I couldn’t help but wonder if we ever will after listening to Mayweather advisor Leonard Ellerbe, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer, Shane Mosley attorney Judd Burstein and Travis Tygart of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) talk Thursday in a conference call about an agreement for blood-testing before the Mayweather-Mosley fight on May 1 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

USADA officials met with both fighters and their camps last weekend. According to a Golden Boy release, the random testing can begin on Monday.

“If you’re clean, you have no reason not to be part of this program,’’ Tygart said. “In fact, you demand it.’’

Fact is, however, demand for the procedure, from sport to sport, is not exactly universal. Perhaps it was just coincidence, but as Tygart talked, World Anti-Doping Agency President John Fahey took some pointed shots Thursday at Major League Baseball and the Players Association. In a story from Montreal, Fahey urged baseball to do what Mayweather and Mosley will, Mark McGuire didn’t and Pacquiao wouldn’t.

In boxing, the blood-testing demand has only been heard from Mayweather, whose insistence killed the deal for a March 13 bout with Pacquiao, the Filipino icon who just said no to the comprehensive process and instead battered Joshua Clottey around like a blocking dummy last Saturday at Cowboys Stadium.

There’s a part of me that wants to admire Mayweather. It’s the same part that wants to agree with Ellerbe when he says that Mayweather is exercising some overdue leadership in a forever fractured business.

“Obviously with Floyd being the face of boxing, he wanted to clean up the sport,’’ Ellerbe said

I’m not sure what kind of face Tygart’s lieutenants will see when they show up, unannounced with test tubes and needles in hand, at the Big Boy Mansion in Las Vegas for a random test. The face of boxing might look at them as though they were Filipino journalists and throw them out onto the Strip. There’s another part of me that is wary of Mayweather, whose many faces can make him as hard to read as he is to hit.

To wit: Weight-gate. Before he humiliated Juan Manuel Marquez in a one-sided September decision, he willingly paid him $600,000 — $300,000 per pound – for being two over the catch-weight in their contract.

Then, he refused to step on Home Box Office’s unofficial scale the next night before opening bell. When asked why, he said it was nobody’s business.

Perhaps, it is an apples-to-oranges comparison, but the weight flap provides a glimpse at Mayweather’s unpredictable nature. He has taken the high-ground with the blood-testing demand. But the demand is nothing more than a beauty contestant’s prayer for world peace if he isn’t compliant with a process that Olympic athletes have called inconvenient, if not intrusive.

USADA enforcement power is another issue altogether. If an Olympic athlete tests positive for a banned performance-enhancer, the penalty can be a suspension for as long as two years. That punishment is part of an agreement with the International Olympic Committee. In boxing, however, the sport still is regulated by state commissions, which for Mosley-Mayweather means Nevada.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission has the power to license fighters. It also has the final say-so in whether to revoke or suspend a license. USADA can poke, prod, draw and recommend. But it can’t suspend. Mayweather’s blood-testing demand looms as another argument for a federal commission, which Arizona Senator John McCain has tried to put into place for years.

According to news reports this week, the New York State Athletic Commission will consider Olympic-style testing after a study by its medical board. Ellerbe said he hopes the New York study will create momentum that will result in more vigilant testing in other states.

Mosley-Mayweather, Tygart says, “shows it is affordable at the right level. I always say it (a sport) can’t afford not to do it.’’

With legislative budgets in crisis during a lousy economy, however, chances of uniform blood testing from state-to-state appear slim.

Maybe, the fighters themselves can change that, although the nature of the beast is conflict, which precludes cooperation and fosters suspicion that whatever is done or said — including Mayweather’s blood-testing demand in the abortive Pacquiao talks — is driven by a personal agenda.

Nevertheless, Mosley, more than Mayweather, could be the real face of that movement. By now, it’s no secret that Mosley was tied to the BALCO scandal. He said he inadvertently took performance enhancers before a victory is 2003 over Oscar De La Hoya. He has a defamation suit against BALCO founder Victor Conte, who says he knowingly took performance-enhancers. Burstein says Mosley was misled.

“Shane would not be doing this is if there were any doubt in his mind that he is a clean athlete,’’ Burstein said.

Let’s just say that Mayweather gets Mosley and then other fighters to join him in a chorus for blood-testing. Maybe, then it works. Mosley has said he would fight Pacquiao without the testing he will undergo before and after the Mayweather bout. But let’s say that Mosley changes his mind. Let’s say he, like Mayweather, demands that blood-testing would have to continue against Pacquiao.

Something tells me we’ve already said too much for Pacquiao and his promoter, Bob Arum. In Dallas, Arum already has plans for Pacquiao to fight Edwin Valero, or Marquez, or even Antonio Margarito, who can re-apply for a license revoked in California more than a year ago for tampered hand-wraps.

In a prepared release Thursday, Mayweather and Mosley asked other fighters to follow them

But it sounded as if Arum had something else to say, something like:
See ya.’

NOTES, QUOTES
· In talking to the media a week ago in Dallas for the first time since his gloves were found to be loaded with a plaster-like substance before a loss to Mosley in January, 2009, Margarito took an initial step toward convincing the public that he deserves a second chance in the United States. But he needs to say more. Again, Margarito said that he didn’t know disgraced trainer Javier Capetillo had tampered with the wraps. Okay, but he also needs to say “Sorry, I should have known.’’
· After a long absence, boxing might return to Phoenix under the Showdown Promotions banner, which also represents Margarito. Showdown has reserved two dates, July 17 and July 31, at Wild Horse Pass Casino in the Phoenix suburbs.
· The more Top Rank watches 17-year-old Jose Benavidez Jr., a junior-welterweight from Phoenix, the more it sees an emerging star. Benavidez is 3-0, including a third-round stoppage of Bobby Hill on March 12 in Dallas on the eve of Pacquiao’s decision over a passive Clottey. Although hard to judge, Benavidez’ performance was solid. More significant, perhaps, there were young fans surrounding him after the bout. They stood in line to get his autograph. He has charisma, which is almost as fundamental to stardom as a jab.
· And Arum, on whether Pacquiao would have enough time to continue his boxing career if he wins a seat in the Filipino Congress: “If Filipino Congressmen are the same as U.S. Congressmen, they sit around and do nothing most of the year. So why wouldn’t he be able to fight?’’

Photo by Chris Farina /Top Rank

ARLINGTON, Tex. – Manny Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach promised a stoppage. Pacquiao couldn’t deliver. He didn’t have to. The building did it for him.

Cowboys Stadium’s star-power was the show stopper Saturday night in Pacquiao’s unanimous decision over Joshua Clottey.

From former Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman among celebrities at ringside to a blue-collar crowd paying $8.50 for a bottle of domestic beer in the cheap seats, it was also a show that demanded a rematch. Not with Clottey.

But with the building.

“Of course,’’ said Reyna Aldrete, a Filipina-American and nurse in the Dallas area who showed up at Cowboys Stadium with a poster that included a red heart next to one name, Manny. “Who wouldn’t want to come back here?

Aldrete, one of many in pro-Pacquiao crowd, was also one of many who witnessed her first event at Cowboys Stadium. NFL games are expensive, even more expensive than a beer. In Pacquiao, she saw reason to return. A reason an encore.

A couple of hours before the first televised fight, Irish middleweight John Duddy’s split decision over Mexican Michael Medina, there were more ushers and beer vendors than customers. On the 11,250 square feet of high definition viewing on a screen nicknamed the “Jerrytron,” most of the seats looked the same: Virtually empty.

They didn’t stay that way for long.

Like anticipation for the main event, the crowd first grew slowly, then steadily. Suddenly, it looked as if it was big enough to be another municipality between Dallas and Fort Worth. Call it “Jonestown,” another local nickname for an NFL arena identified by the Cowboys’ celebrity owner, Jerry Jones.

The expectation was 45,000. At opening bell for Mexican lightweight Humberto Soto’s unanimous decision over Chicago’s David Diaz in the last fight before the main event, you didn’t need high-definition to see more people in more seats than Jones and promoter Bob Arum had envisioned. The crowd was reported to be 50,994 before Clottey and Pacquiao ever stepped through the ropes. That makes it the third biggest U.S. crowd to ever watch a fight in an enclosed arena.

The boxing record is 63,350 at the New Orleans Super Dome for Muhammad Ali’s victory over Leon Spinks in a 1978 rematch. A crowd of 58,891 at San Antonio’s Alamodome in 1993 for the Julio Cesar Chavez-Pernell Whitaker draw is second on the list. Pacquiao-Clottey might not be on any list if the roof had been opened at Cowboys Stadium. The crowd was less than half of the127,000 at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium for a Chavez’ victory over Greg Haugen. It also was less than half of about 108,000 at Cowboys Stadium a few weeks ago for the NBA All-Star Game.

Seats in the upper deck at Cowboys Stadium were never made available for Pacquiao-Cotto. They were hidden, almost imperceptibly, by a dark curtain.

But there were more than just empties behind those curtains. There was potential, hidden for one night, but there and waiting if Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, Jr.,fight. If they ever do, it might finally raise the curtain on a boxing renewal that has been forgotten as often as it has been forecast.

The forecast was there in Pacquiao’s familiar, yet enigmatic smile, as he paraded into the ring to the pounding beat of Eye Of The Tiger. When the crowd wasn’t chanting his name, it must have been smiling with him at the sight of a future that for one night was as bright as that screen 40 feet above the ring.

By the seventh round, there was some impatience. There were scattered boos at a fight that not even Pacquiao’s whirlwind pace could alter because of the stubborn, durable Clottey, who is hard to hurt and won’t be rushed. His defense, upraised gloves, hid his face the way those curtains hid the upper deck. It didn’t make him popular. But he was never the star anyway.

Pacquiao was. The chants and cheers resumed for him in the 10th, 11th and 12th rounds. In the end, it was his victory and his stadium, “Mannytown.”

For the boxing business, it could have been something more. It was in the building.

ARLINGTON, Tex. – Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey tried to play it straight when they were asked to pose. The stare-down is supposed to be serious stuff. One blink signals fear. But Pacquiao and Clottey laughed like kids at play. They couldn’t stop laughing.

A weigh-in, a well-rehearsed ritual, can be funny. One in front of Cowboys Stadium Friday was more laugh-in than weigh-in. Pacquiao (50-3-2, 38 KOs) and Clottey (35-3, 21 KOs) made the welterweight limit, Clottey at 147 pounds and Pacquiao at 145 ¾, for their fight Saturday night at the $1.2 billion arena.

After they stepped off the official scale, they must have laughed off another quarter pound or two. The Clottey camp played the straight man, the tomato can. Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach delivered the punch lines.

Clottey camper Gjin Gjini, owner of John’s Gym in New York, leaned over and told Roach that if the corners were fighting, Clottey’s corner would win in a beat-down. It was the equivalent of one kid telling another kid: My dad can whip your dad. No wonder they were laughing.

“He tells me that if the corners were fighting, we’d get beat up,’’ said Roach, who didn’t recall Ginji’s name and referred to him only as “the Albanian.”

At 50, Roach is well-past his best days as a brawling featherweight. Nevertheless, he has managed to become a target for insults from opposing corners. Floyd Mayweather, Sr., spouted dismissive poetry and few other things at Roach before Pacquiao knocked out Ricky Hatton. Joe Santiago took his rhetorical shots at Roach before Pacquiao’s stoppage of Miguel Cotto.

“When Manny fights Floyd Mayweather Jr., no telling what will happen between me and Roger Mayweather,’’ Roach said of Floyd’s uncle and trainer, also a former fighter. “Roger really doesn’t like me.’’

Anger at Roach from opposing camps might just be rooted in Pacquiao’s recent run of dominance. Nobody has been able to beat the Filipino, who was heavier than he has ever been at an official weigh-in. The Pacquiao reign isn’t expected to change against Clottey in a ring above the 50-yard line and beneath the biggest and brightest high-definition screen in this video universe and maybe a few others.

An undercurrent of rancor between the Clottey camp and Roach starts with Lenny DeJesus, who moved into Clottey’s corner as the lead trainer when Godwin Kotey of Ghana could not get a U.S. visa in time to travel to Dallas.

DeJesus was Pacquiao’s cutman. His role ended in 2005 after the Filipino’s loss to Erik Morales. It also was the last time Pacquiao lost. That fight represents some important history. DeJesus hopes it repeats itself. Roach has been making sure that it won’t. Pacquiao was badly cut over the left eye in the fifth round by head butt. DeJesus couldn’t stop the bleeding. Pacquiao, bothered by a river blood the flowed over and into his eye, couldn’t see well enough to stop Morales. Pacquiao lost a decision. DeJesus lost his job.

With Clottey, DeJesus has an opportunity at revenge with a durable fighter whose best weapon might be a head butt. A clash of heads against Cotto in June almost allowed Clottey to escape New York’s Madison Square Garden with a major upset instead of a loss by split decision.

“We won’t be there for that to happen,’’ Roach said of the head-butt possibility. “We’re at perfect fighting weight.”

Roach paused and added:

“We’re where we want to be.’’

Pacquiao has been for a while. That’s no joke.

Photo by Chris Farina / Top Rank

GRAPEVINE, Tex. – Antonio Margarito had hoped to fight Saturday night in Texas. He won’t. But he did show up Thursday night at the official hotel for the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey fight Saturday night and talked about his comeback in Mexico, his hopes for a fight in the United States and said again that he never knew his ex-trainer tried to load his gloves with a plaster-like substance before a loss to Shane Mosley.

“It was not my fault,’’ Margarito told 15 Rounds in a crowded lobby at the Gaylord Texan when asked about the glove controversy. “It is something my trainer did wrong.’’

Margarito’s license in California was revoked after his former trainer, Javier Capetillo, told the California State Athletic Commission that he inadvertently placed pieces of a plaster-like substance in his hand wraps. The substance was found when Mosley trainer Nazim Richardson asked Capetillo to re-wrap the hands before a bout at the Staples Center in Los Angeles in January, 2008.

Margarito’s license was revoked for a year. He was able to re-apply on Feb. 11. Promoter Bob Arum had planned for him to fight on the Pacquiao-Clottey undercard. Arum said there wasn’t enough time to complete the process. Margarito can apply anywhere, but there has been public pressure for him to first re-apply in California.

“I’m letting my attorneys handle that,’’ the Spanish-speaking Margarito said through an interpreter.

Meanwhile, Margarito, who has reunited with trainer Robert Garcia, said there is nothing he can do about public suspicions that he had to know his gloves were loaded.

“I can only go into the ring,’’ he said. “Only in the ring. That’s where the truth is.’’

Margarito said he is planning to be at Cowboys Stadium Saturday night because he hopes to fight Pacquiao, a heavy favorite over Clottey. There already is speculation that Arum will make a Pacquiao-Margarito fight if another round of talks for Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather, Jr. unravel a second time.

Margarito, who said he been training in Tijuana for a May 8 comeback in Mexico against Carson Jones, also said he would agree to a rematch with Miguel Cotto, whom he beat badly in July, 2008 in Las Vegas.

“Just name the time and the place,’’ he said. “Anytime, anywhere.’’

Photo by Chris Farina/ Top Rank

ARLINGTON, Tex. – It’s all about the building. Cowboys Stadium is the main event. It sits there, below a flight path to a Dallas-Fort Worth runway, rising toward the Texas sky like a giant tent. It’s the big top, a technical marvel that sometimes sounds as if it could be a ride at Disney World.

Next stop:

Manny Pacquiao-versus-Joshua Clottey.

How a Filipino, Pacquiao and an African, Clottey, wound up in the featured event at a state-of-the-art home for America’s Team is either baffling, or just another American import, or a terrific story about diversity. Take your pick. But the fight Saturday night in a ring on the 50-yard-line is unmistakably about location, location, location for a lost sport always trying to find its way back into the mainstream.

For one night at least, Cowboys Stadium looms as a symbol of boxing’s aspirations. Promoter Bob Arum, who has seen just about everything, hasn’t witnessed anything quite like it in the many years since Muhammad Ali’s victory over Cleveland Williams in 1966 at Houston’s space-age Astrodome.

“Since the Astrodome, I have never been in a situation when the venue plays as big a role as the fighters,’’ Arum said.

If Pacquiao wins as predicted, the stadium could become the star.

“Whatever works,’’ Arum said.

What’s at work in the Dallas Metroplex is a potential shift in how boxing markets itself. Over at least the last decade, it has become a casino sport. That means Las Vegas and high-rollers in ringside seats. The rest of the crowd is in the anonymous pay-per-view audience, unheard and known only by a number.

In Dallas, there’s not much talk about the pay-per-view numbers for Pacquiao-Clottey. The guess is between 750,000 and 1,000,000 for the HBO telecast. Good, but not great and probably a long way from the pay-per-view audience expected for the Floyd Mayweather-Shane Mosley showdown on May 1 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.
But who’s counting. Only one thing matters here: In moving a bout
with the sport’s biggest international star in Pacquiao from Vegas to an untapped boxing market, it looks as if Arum is reaching out to a new audience with some old-fashioned salesmanship. He’s beginning to go door-to-door, or at least town-to-town.

“Bringing fights to the people,’’ said Arum, who in Pacquiao has a candidate for the Filipino Congress in a campaign that started with a party called the People’s Champ Movement.

The idea is as old as any entertainer hitting the road. If a live crowd likes what it hears or sees, there’s a good chance many in the audience will buy a CD or T-shirt or poster. With a big Mexican and Mexican-American population, Dallas is a good place to find some new pay-per-view customers. After Dallas, Arum moves on to Miguel Cotto-Yuri Foreman at the new Yankee Stadium in New York where he hopes to re-awaken some of history’s legends, including Joe Louis’ rematch victory over Max Schmeling at old Yankee Stadium in a 1938 bout that has become part of the American fabric. Then, the itinerary could include a stop in south Florida at Land Shark Stadium, the Miami Dolphins home.

“You get stale, doing the same thing over and over, going back to casinos to put on these big events,’’ Arum said.

Stale would have been just fine if the showdown had been Pacquiao-Mayweather at the MGM Grand. In fact, a poll probably would have shown a public overwhelmingly in favor of stale. But the Pacquiao-Mayweather possibility fell apart over Mayweather’s demands for Olympic-style blood-testing. Arum traded in stale for intriguing. Will it work? Maybe not.

If Pacquiao is somehow upset by, say, a Clottey head butt and suffers his first loss since a head butt bloodied him in 2005 against Erik Morales, Arum might get nostalgic about stale old days. If Pacquiao prevails, however, there is an opportunity for boxing to re-invent itself all over again.

In Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, Arum appears to have found a kindred spirit. Jones knows that atmosphere is a key to the entertainment art form. If the customers have a good time, they will either be back in line for a ticket or buy the next pay-per-view. It’s no secret that the best advertising is word of mouth. Jones says that only seven percent of NFL fans have ever seen a game in an NFL stadium. But the rest of the country has heard from that seven percent. They have tuned in and turned the NFL into the modern American pastime.

Jones, who says he boxed as an amateur as a 10-year-old at the Boys Club in Little Rock, Ark., is a longtime fan. He remembers days when Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard fought in Montreal and then in New Orleans. He traveled to Las Vegas to watch Leonard and Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns.

“I’ve always thought boxing needs more exposure,’’ Jones said.

In Las Vegas, Jones entry into the sport must looks like a threat, a hostile takeover. Jones bid $25 million, which would have been a record site fee, for Mayweather-Pacquiao. But that possibility was headed to Vegas’ MGM Grand even before talks unraveled

“I wanted that fight, between those two guys, worse than my next breath,’’ Jones said.

Up and down the Vegas Strip, casino executives are holding their breath at what he might try next, especially if Pacquiao-Clottey is a success.

“But I think this is good and not a negative for Las Vegas to have a great fight in front of thousands of people,’’ Jones said in what might prove to be a new look at Sin City’s best-known marketing campaign.

What stays in Vegas isn’t always good for Vegas.

Or boxing.

Photo by Chris Farina / Top Rank

It’s hard to know when Manny Pacquiao got interested in politics. Maybe, it happened at about the time he added a right to his left. It’s also hard to understand why. But Pacquiao is serious, even after he lost by a reported 37,000-to-38,000 votes in his last and only run in 2007 for an anonymous seat in the Filipino Congress.

Maybe, Pacquiao just hates to lose. Ask Eric Morales, who discovered just how much he detests defeat after Morales’ initial victory was followed by two devastating losses to the motivated Filipino. Three years ago, Pacquiao’s political ambitions looked like a lark. Between fights, politics was like shooting hoops and singing. It was something to do. But by now, we know he’ll never be in the NBA or play Carnegie Hall.

But Congress is beginning to look about as good as a victory over Joshua Clottey on March 13 at Cowboys Stadium in the Dallas metroplex.

Thirteen days after Pacquiao is expected to sack Clottey like a linebacker in a blitz of a poorly-defended quarterback, he will be back on the campaign trail. He is running in a different district, Sarangani instead of General Santos City. There is different opponent. By all accounts, there also will a different result.

This time, Pacquiao is expected to prevail against Roy Chiongbian. I’m tempted to send Chiongbian a campaign contribution, although he apparently doesn’t need one. Chiongbian is reported to be a billionaire, which makes him even richer than Pacquiao, who has become a multi-millionaire in a string of rich fights, including a 2008 upset of Oscar De La Hoya.

Let’s just say that I’m a member of the Filipino party that reportedly cheered when Pacquiao lost in 2007 to incumbent Darlene Antonino-Custodio.

Memo to would-be Congressman Pacquiao: The Philippines need another politician about as much as Imelda Marcos needed another pair of shoes. A Congressional seat will always be there. A chance at enduring stardom as a fighter will not.

Yet, the quixotic seriousness of Pacquiao’s political pursuit is unmistakable, both in a conference call and in subsequent media reports. If a congressional seat forces him out of the ring and eliminates any renewed possibility of a showdown with Floyd Mayweather, Jr, Pacquiao seemed to say:

So be it.

“I don’t need to fight him,’’ Pacquiao said in a conference call when asked about negotiations that failed when Mayweather demanded Olympic-style blood testing. “What I believe is Floyd Mayweather is not ready at this time to fight with me. That’s why he makes the reasons to cancel the fight. I feel bad and disappointment because he is accusing me of using drugs or whatever and trying to ruin my name in boxing. People know I have been successful through God and hard work.

““I don’t really need Floyd Mayweather because what I have achieved in boxing is good enough for me and people know that by comparing my achievements in boxing to his achievements.’’

Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum and trainer Freddie Roach are skeptical that the Filipino whirlwind will leave one ring and enter another. But neither rules it out either.

In the gym, Roach said he has witnessed some ferocious flashes of anger at Mayweather. The frustration is rare for Pacquiao, who walks into the ring with a shy, somewhat enigmatic smile on a face that always seems to say he doesn’t dislike anybody. But Mayweather altered that with demands that imply Pacquiao abuses performance-enhancers.

“Sometimes, when Manny is shadowboxing, he will show me how Mayweather fights and how he will take care of the problem,’’ Roach said. “ I’ve never seen Manny do that before. He was trying to ruin our reputation with those allegations, so we do want to fight him and we do want to knock him out.’’

But, yeah, Roach says, the Clottey fight could be his last if Mayweather continues to make the drug-testing demands without an approved process from a state Commission, or if Shane Mosley upsets Mayweather on May 1, or if a victory at the ballot box takes Pacquiao out of the gym and into office for good.

If, if and if.

The biggest one could be what Pacquiao might have been. Arum, Roach and much of the media have been saying that Pacquiao is poised to become something special, meaning he is about to occupy the same orbit as Henry Armstrong, Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali. But as an active Congressman and a retired fighter, anything special would be speculative. Pacquiao is good. Make that great. He will be in the Hall of Fame. But he is still a fight with Mayweather, or maybe a Mosley, from being special

Then, there is the potential for cynicism. If Pacquiao leaves boxing for politics, I can already hear the Mayweathers — Floyd Jr., Floyd Sr. and Roger. All together now:

“See, I told you so.”

Pacquiao has undergone and passed every required drug test. If a Commission tells him there are new rules, I believe he will agree to a more rigorous process. Fair or not, it is the only way he can definitively answer a question that the Mayweather chorus raised. There are a variety of interpretations as to the motivation for the Mayweather demand. Maybe, he was trying to bully Pacquiao by trying to dictate terms. Maybe, Mayweather was trying to get out of the fight. Maybe, it was gamesmanship.

But there’s only way to answer and it’s not from a seat in the Filipino Congress.

WHAT PROBLEM?
Vic Darchinyan (33-2-1, 27 KOs) is sick of hearing about a rematch of his loss to Nonito Donaire. Still, he was asked about it repeatedly this week before the defense of super-flyweight titles on Showtime Saturday against Mexican Rodrigo Guerrero (13-1-1, 9 KOs) at Agua Caliente Casino in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Darchinyan, knocked out by a Donaire three years ago, has dismissed the rematch possibility by saying he is moving up in weight.

Funny, but that’s the same thing Donaire said last month before his third-round stoppage of Manuel Vargas in Las Vegas. Then, Donaire said it was “now or never,” because he was moving up to bantam and featherweight.

On the scale, Darchinyan and Donaire are heading in the same direction, which should also include a rematch.

NOTES, QUOTES FROM THE SUPER SIX
· Arthur Abraham almost made it sound as if Jamaican sprinter Usian Bolt was a sparring partner in training for Andre Dirrell at Detroit in a Super Six Classic bout on March 27, which was rescheduled from March 6 because of a back injury suffered by Dirrell. “I have sparring partners who run,’’ Abraham said from Germany during a conference call Thursday.

· Dirrell is out of the tournament if he loses because of a controversial loss by split decision to Carl Froch in his last bout. “I call it a do-or-die situation,’’ said Dirrell, who believes he was robbed on the scorecards against Froch. He also said Froch engaged in “dirty tactics” that took him out of his fight plan.

· Promoter Gary Shaw predicts that Dirrell will be the first to beat Abraham, an Armenian who speaks German and hopes to become an American star. Shaw said that Abraham, the tournament’s leader in points with three, is more comfortable at middleweight, 160 pounds. That, Shaw said, is one reason he beat Jermain Taylor, also more comfortable at 160. At 168 pounds, Dirrell has an advantage, he said. “The bigger and faster man always wins,’’ Shaw said. “In this fight — although I have a world of respect for Arthur Abraham for his record, his style, his abilities and his demeanor — I believe Andre Dirrell will win and possibly stop Abraham.’’

Photo by Chris Cozzone/ Top Rank

Timing and circumstances haven’t been kind to Joshua Clottey. He isn’t Floyd Mayweather, Jr., the welterweight everybody wanted to see against Manny Pacquiao on March 13.

Instead, Clottey has been cast as the substitute, which to a cynical public only means he isn’t Mayweather and he doesn’t have a chance against Pacquiao on a night when Cowboys Stadium in the Dallas metroplex might be the biggest attraction.

If he doesn’t feel like last season’s Detroit Lions or St. Louis Rams, then Clottey knows what it is to have been one of those replacement players in the last NFL work stoppage. In 1987, none of those guys belonged there and that’s exactly what you hear and read these days about Clottey. Pacquiao is supposed to kick him around like the soccer ball Clottey used to chase as a kid in Ghana.

Fair? I don’t think so. Then again, I’ve been wrong about these things before. I actually thought Juan Manuel Marquez was skilled, smart and tough enough to challenge Mayweather. After watching Mayweather humble Marquez through 12 one-sided rounds in September, I wondered if I had been kicked in the head one too many times.

Nevertheless, I like Clottey, perhaps not enough to pick him over Pacquiao, especially without a familiar trainer in his corner. He split with Kwame Asante after his loss by split decision in June to Miguel Cotto over a reported disagreement over money. Then, Godwin Kotay, also of Ghana, was denied a U.S. visa. Instead of Asante or Kotay, cut-man Lenny DeJesus will take the lead in Clottey’s corner.

In front a potential crowd of 45,000 and against Pacquiao’s varied skills and dangerous power, an unfamiliar face in the corner looms as a problem, especially when – not if – Clottey is in trouble.

Still, Clottey’s size, strength and durability are enough to make it difficult for Pacquiao, whose motivation could have taken a hit when an agreement to fight Mayweather fell apart because of demands that the Filipino icon undergo Olympic-style blood-testing for performance-enhancers.

Pacquiao also will jump directly into a rough-and-tumble political campaign in the Philippines after the fight.

In part, the public’s lack of any respect for Clottey might be a spillover from disgust at the abortive negotiations for Pacquiao-Mayweather. Fans and media are still angry. What they have forgotten, however, is just how close Clottey came to an upset of Cotto in front of the Puerto Rican’s loyal New York fans at Madison Square Garden.

“I did not lose the Cotto fight,’’ Clottey said Thursday during a conference call from his training camp in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Maybe not.

But Clottey also didn’t do enough in the last couple of rounds to convince anybody at ringside that he deserved more than a draw. That, like the victory he still thinks he deserves, eluded him. Clottey has been criticized for not throwing enough punches, which could quickly leave him with a deficit on the scorecards against Pacquiao’s whirlwind pace. But he is confident he can make his power count.

“I am not a flyweight,’’ Clottey said during the conference call, which will be followed by one Friday with Pacquiao. “I’m not a bantamweight. I’m a welterweight. I throw punches that connect.’’

As a natural welterweight, unlike the smaller Pacquiao (5-foot-6 ½), the 5–8 Clottey might have enough leverage to inflict some damage. Before Pacquiao’s 12th-round stoppage of Cotto in November, the Filipino’s trainer, Freddie Roach, said Clottey’s punches almost made Cotto quit during the ninth round.

“The more I play it over, the more I realize how competitive this is and that nobody with any certainty can predict the result,’’ said Top Rank’s Bob Arum, who promotes both fighters. “Everybody knows how Manny Pacquiao fights. Everybody knows the angles from which he throws punches.

“And everybody knows that Joshua Clottey is a tremendous defensive fighter and can put a real hurt on an opponent. And everybody knows that Joshua Clottey is the bigger man and Manny is the smaller man. There is talk about Manny going up in weight. But he really hasn’t. He couldn’t make 130 pounds anymore, He fought at 135. He was 138 when he fought (and knocked out) Ricky Hatton.

Now, he goes into the ring at 142 or 143 pounds on the scale and that’s not because he’s putting on weight. That’s because he has breakfast and lunch before the weigh-in. If he had to, he’d still make 135 pounds. So, the idea that he’s a big man is just not true.

“Joshua has the size. He’s the natural welterweight. Manny Pacquiao isn’t. That’s the intrigue in this fight.’’

The intrigue, at least, doesn’t include more of the noisy debate about blood-testing for performance-enhancers. Clottey, ever the gentleman, said he did not and would not demand the Olympic-style testing that Mayweather says he and every one of his future opponents, including Shane Mosley on May 1, will undergo.

“No, I don’t want to do that, because I respect him so much,’’ Clottey said. “He is a very nice guy. I feel comfortable around him. He’s respectful of everybody. I don’t think Manny Pacquiao did that thing. I trust him.”

If only, Clottey could enjoy some of that same trust. He’s not Mayweather. But, trust me, he’s a better fighter than people think.