As a proud resident of Fairfax, Virginia, I’ve never been so kind to hear the name ‘The Contender’. Of course, that alludes to the reality show, which just capped off its second successful season.

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There is bound to be plenty of talk in boxing circles regarding Tuesday’s decision by the World Boxing Council to order a rematch between heavyweights Samuel Peter and James “Lights Out” Toney.

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Let’s start this way: His name is Luis Ramon Campas, but you know him as “Yory Boy.” There has been some confusion about Mr. Campas’s moniker, but there needn’t be. “Yory” is an adaptation of a Mexican indigenous word – maybe Mayan, probably Yaqui – which is actually spelled “yori” and means “white” or light-skinned. “Boy” is the English word for, well, boy.

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Let’s start this way: His name is Luis Ramon Campas, but you know him as “Yory Boy.” There has been some confusion about Mr. Campas’s moniker, but there needn’t be. “Yory” is an adaptation of a Mexican indigenous word – maybe Mayan, probably Yaqui – which is actually spelled “yori” and means “white” or light-skinned. “Boy” is the English word for, well, boy.

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In a perfect world, Jorge Arce should already be a super-star.

At a small frame of 5′ 6, weighing in at about 112lbs (at least at the official weigh-in), ‘El Travieso’ carries a punch of Mike Tyson, and a charisma reminiscent of Roberto Duran’s. For a fighter who epitomizes the line ‘kill or be killed’, this Los Mochis native can box a bit as well.

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Marco Antonio Barrera ran in his super featherweight championship fight against Rocky Juarez last Saturday for one reason and one reason only – business.

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Kathy Duva was recalling her frustration in the early 1990s in getting the national media to pay closer attention to Evander Holyfield, then the God-fearing, clean-living heavyweight contender who was being described, if he was being described at all, as the anti-Tyson.

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LAS VEGAS, NV – When he came in the MGM Grand media room late Saturday night, Marco Antonio Barrera was playful. He followed a mariachi singer and joined in a verse that treated the pleasures of remaining a king. And when he was reminded that many of his Mexican brethren had booed him a half-hour before, Mr. Barrera pardoned their indiscretions; they’d apparently wanted something different, and there was no accounting for their taste.

In this way, many of the night’s displeased spectators were like contemporary readers of fiction. Accustomed to speedy plots and flimsy characters in disguised screenplays written to pass hours in an airport hangar, who of such readers, anymore, has time for the subtlety and irony of an author like Jane Austen? Really, who but a writer driving from Phoenix to Las Vegas could possibly enjoy reading or listening to Northanger Abbey?
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For our eyes only. A worthy PPV at last.

This Saturday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV, Golden Boy Promotions in association with Sycuan Promotions, presents ‘Too Close to Call’, featuring three world championship bouts.

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Rocky Juarez sat with reporters Tuesday, relaxing in a Mexican restaurant at a news conference in Los Angeles. Then he took a deep breath when one asked him to recount the moment last May 20 when he found out he had not earned a draw with Marco Antonio Barrera – as had been initially announced after their 12-round fight at Staples Center.

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If it had involved marginal baseball or football players, the announcement probably would have only made the transactions listings of a newspaper’s agate page, and read something like this:

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When someone asks Marco Antonio Barrera why he agreed to an immediate rematch with Rocky Juarez, Barrera answers, “No me gustan las decisiones polémicas.” That is, polemical decisions do not please him. In Spanish, as in English, a person could more easily call Barrera’s last victory “controversial” or “disputed”; most interpreters, in fact, opt for “controversial” even as Barrera does not.

It is a tiny point, but one worth exploring. In an interview of any kind, Marco Antonio Barrera is careful in his choice of words. He doesn’t hustle through cliché-riddled speeches. He speaks Spanish like a college professor more than an athlete. His voice is soft but firm. There is no faux eloquence. Marco Antonio Barrera does not strain for words.
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Actually, disregard that title. Save your outrage. However boxing purists may have scored last Saturday’s fight, however wacky the disparity in judges’ cards may have been, and however deep some fans’ reserves of outrage are, husband your indignity for a better day. James Toney’s fifth career loss is nothing to get worked up about.
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Lightweight champion Diego Corrales isn’t that much different than
Ike and Tina Turner were in 1971, when they did a re-make of
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 1969 hit “Proud Mary.”

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Perhaps it is selfishness, but members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only NFL team ever to win every game in a season, get together every year to toast themselves whenever the last remaining undefeated team in the league loses.

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Boy, I’ve had enough with these damn heavyweights. But wait, there’s one more.

All this talk of Russians, Russians and Russians; finally, we have two black heavyweights risking it all for the #1 spot for the WBC title, currently held by Oleg Maskaev.

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