“Potential means you ain’t done it yet,” former University of Texas football coach Darrell Royal said of one of his teams that was highly rated heading into the season but had yet to play a game. Or perhaps it was Duffy Daugherty, Bear Bryant or Vince Lombardi who first uttered the now-famous phrase; all of those legendary coaches at various times have been credited with authoring the snappy line which places into context the relatively small value of unfulfilled ability when measured against actual accomplishment.

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Some records stand on their own; any attempt to decorate them is trite. So, here goes. 27-13 (13 KOs) ! That fell a bit flat. How about this? 6-6 (2 KOs) ! What if 4 of those 6 losses were by knockout? Still nothing.

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Things are going well for Dan Goossen of late. The president of Goossen Tutor Promotions recently signed pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr., he has James “Lights Out” Toney a victory away from another shot at the heavyweight championship, and his southpaw
welterweight Paul Williams has risen to the top of the World Boxing Organization rankings.

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A Heavyweight Opinion by Bart Barry

Reality shouldn’t mess with a good storyline. But last Sunday morning when Americans awoke to news that none of their countrymen was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, they hardly gnashed their teeth or bellowed about birthrights. Instead they sighed and said, “Well, that’s five years now.”

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In an astounding year of upsets, kudos to Carlos Baldomir, Oleg Maskaev, and that little guy who recently upset Brian Viloria for the jr. flyweight title

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Erik Morales won 47 of his first 48 fights and championsips in three weight classes. But what has he done for us lately?

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The International Boxing Hall of Fame’s Class of 2007 won’t be announced until January or inducted until June, but, hey, it never hurts to start banging the drums early for a worthy candidate.

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Here’s a sentence that will offend boxing purists: Those of us who paid $50 for “America’s Last Line of Defense” did just fine. We bought the pay-per-view event because we either didn’t know or didn’t care what a dud it should be. Those of us who didn’t know, then, watched a suspenseful heavyweight championship fight. And those of us who knew but didn’t care, well, we can’t trust ourselves anyway.

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Much has been made of the right hand thrown by Oleg Maskaev that landed squarely on the jaw of Hasim Rahman, knocking him into la-la land and out of the ring on Nov. 6, 1999 in Atlantic City.

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They called it “conspicuous consumption” in the 1980s during the heyday of the Reagan Administration, and it was a term meant to reflect the wealth and prosperity that an increasing number of Americans enjoyed. To wit: If you’ve got it, flaunt it.

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Last Saturday night, serious boxing fans enjoyed their dessert. One cable network served Brothers Marquez, a sophisticated, strong-tasting tres leches cake. Another cable network served a bowl of Kassim Ouma, the always palate-pleasing African treat of more than 1,000 calories. Then came Forrest-Quartey, a complicated ice-cream sundae topped with an odd-tasting cherry. Indeed, it was a decadent weekend.

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Oleg Maskaev appeared to have a very bright future when, down big on the scorecards, he knocked out Hasim Rahman in the eighth round in November 1999. Maskaev didn’t just knock out Rahman, he knocked him clean out of the ring.

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There are valuable life lessons to be gleaned from Aesop’s Fables, cloaked though they may be in the guise of children’s stories. Take, for instance, the distance race which pitted Slow and Steady, the tortoise, against the speedy hare. The hare, of course, got off to a blazing start and, overconfident, took a nap somewhere along the course only to awaken and find that the plodding but relentless tortoise was about to cross the finish line.

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