By Norm Frauenheim-

Gennady Golovkin is the pound for-pound champion in waiting. Emphasis on the waiting.

No telling when that wait will end. But it got a predictable, yet tiresome extension with the announcement last week that Canelo Alvarez will fight Amir Khan on May 7.

Golovkin has little choice but to stay busy, prepared and hopeful for a shot at Canelo later in the year, perhaps September. GGG management looked up and down the list of options and was left with an April 23 bout against Dominic Wade, who landed the mandatory shot at GGG’s middleweight title when the IBF’s No. 1-rated Tureano Johnson withdrew because of a shoulder injury.

Never heard of Wade? Didn’t think so. Then again, Johnson, of the Bahamas, isn’t exactly a name that generates a buzz. More like: Who’s he?

It’s all-too-familiar and thoroughly unfair to GGG, who is spending his prime in the waiting room. He’ll be 34 on April 8, 15 days before his pound-for-pound skill figures to make a wreck out of Wade.

There’s nobody to blame but a business ruled by the so-called A-side, B-side equation that, in the end, often adds up to rubbish.

Canelo is making GGG wait because he can. Canelo is projected to be the sport’s next pay-per-view star. The evidence of that was in the 900,000 buys he generated in his victory over Miguel Cotto in November. GGG can only counter with the 150,000 PPV number he posted in his last outing, a stoppage of David Lemieux in October.

The difference gives Canelo 750,000 reasons he can tell GGG to wait, wait all over again. Publically, at least, each side of the promotional and management equation has assured a skeptical fan base that Canelo-GGG will happen. A possible date, Sept. 17, and even a place, the Dallas Cowboys NFL Stadium, have been reported.

But there are doubts. Canelo’s decision to face Khan raises questions about whether he really wants to fight a true 160 pounder. He’ll fight Khan, a junior-welterweight just a few years ago, at the familiar 155-pound catch-weight for the WBC title he took from Cotto.

Canelo is called the lineal middleweight champion. Trace the title from Sergio Martinez to Cotto and Canelo, and, yeah, it’s lineal. The catch, however, is how that line of succession has been corrupted by the weight. Canelo might be the lineal champ, but GGG is the real one.

The unresolved issue is whether Canelo will come off the 155-pound marker and agree to fight GGG at the traditional 160.

Even if he does the expected and overwhelms Khan, there still won’t be a fight against a true middleweight contender on Canelo’s resume. If Canelo struggles to beat Khan, then what? If he loses, GGG management might regret the day that Andre Ward decided to go up to light-heavy in anticipation of a potential pound-for-pound confrontation with Sergey Kovalev.

Canelo’s bargaining power has been met with some early moves from GGG’s K2 brain trust. In Wade, Tom Loeffler created potential leverage, which could lead to a very big middleweight fight in its own right if the Canelo possibility falls apart. Wade’s promoter is Al Haymon, who also happens to promote Daniel Jacobs.

Jacobs is coming off his stunning, first-round stoppage of Peter Quillin for a piece of the middleweight title.

“From our side, there wouldn’t be any obstacles to making that fight,” Loeffler told The Ring’s Mitch Abramson.

Call it a warning shot and an acknowledgement that GGG can’t wait much longer.

The Canelo Alvarez -Amir Khan bout on May 7 has been cheered, booed, hyped, ridiculed, praised and trashed in the days since Oscar De La Hoya announced the stunning deal this week.

Reactions pretty much cover the proverbial waterfront. For the promoter, that qualifies as a promotional triumph. Lots of opinions generate a lively debate. The bigger the argument, the bigger the box office.

In large part, De La Hoya was able to create so much attention on the bout because he had kept it quiet. There wasn’t a peep from the twitter crowd about whether it might, should or could happen. Not a whisper. Nada.

The absence of even a single rumor already ranks as the Upset of the Year. It’s a bigger upset than a Khan victory would be.

For now, surprise is the only consensus about a bout that matches the bigger Canelo against the smaller, yet faster Khan. If boxing is the circus everybody says it is, there has to be an unpredictable twist, a wild ride, somewhere along the midway.

At its bottom line, however, Canelo-Khan is more than that. For Canelo, it’s a concession that he’s still not a true middleweight, despite his WBC version of the 160-pound title he took in a decision over an undersized Miguel Cotto in September.

In the wake of his victory over Cotto, there was some thinking that Canelo would face a legit middleweight, instead of another blow-up welterweight and/or junior-welter, in his attempt to get ready for Gennady Golovkin.

Against Khan, however, the 25-yar-old Canelo will again be at his favorite catch-weight, 155 pounds, at the formal weigh-in. Those close to him in Mexico say that weight is his comfort zone. It represents a milestone in training. It’s a sign that his conditioning is right. At 155, he knows he’s ready

It also means GGG, the consensus middleweight champ, will have to wait, perhaps until early 2017 for a showdown with Canelo, who in the meantime figures get a big payday while heightening his international celebrity against a name fighter from the UK, boxing’s liveliest market.

Is it fair to argue that Canelo blows away Khan in short order? Of course. Canelo, who opened as nearly a 4-to-1 favorite, might out-weigh Khan, a junior-welterweight just a few years ago, by twenty pounds at opening bell. By now, the fragility of Khan’s chin isn’t exactly a secret. Neither is his willingness to trade punches.

When the first big one lands, Khan’s caution has often been the first thing to go. That leaves him with only his instinct, which is to brawl. Next to go, his consciousness. The heavy-handed Canelo is at his lethal best against a fighter willing to stand in front of him.

At 29, however, the intriguing question is whether Khan has matured enough to know his weaknesses. He’s no dummy. He has the foot speed to stay out of range of Canelo’s power, especially over the first six rounds. If he can retain his wits and adhere to his fight plan, he might be able to pull off a stunner on the scorecards.

It’s hard to imagine Canelo chasing an agile Khan around the ring. Canelo has the clop-clop-clop footwork of a Clydesdale. Khan’s fast feet and faster hands could leave Canelo looking as confused as he did in a 2013 loss to Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

Can it happen? Could Khan actually win? Probably not. Then again, did anybody think a week ago that there was any chance he’d ever fight Canelo?

By Norm Frauenheim-

Boxing’s ugly history repeated itself, warts and all, with Jean Pascal calling Sergey Kovalev a racist in the final news conference before their rematch Saturday night at Montreal’s Bell Centre.

I’m not sure what to make of it. The cynical side of the scarred business suggests that Pascal’s accusation is just another way of marketing a tough sell in his hometown.

Late Thursday, seats in every corner of the building, other than the pricey ones at ringside were available on the Bell Centre’s website.

Pascal, who has been calling Kovalev a racist since the light-heavyweight fight (HBO 9:45 p.m. ET/PT) was announced, raised the volume by several octaves with a performance that included bananas and a near brawl with Kovalev’s African-American trainer, John David Jackson. If Pascal was looking for twitter hits and website headlines, he got them.

Kovalev, an unbeaten Russian and a pound-for-pound contender, left himself open to the charge last April when he posed for a photo with a child in a T-shirt adorned with a boxer topped by a gorilla’s head. At the bottom of the photo, Kovalev wrote a caption that took aim at Adonis Stevenson, who like Pascal is a Quebec light-heavyweight of Haitian descent.

It says: “Adonis looks great!!!’’

It’s stupid.

Kovalev, long frustrated by the inability to land a fight with Stevenson, apologized. In this polarized era, however, apologies aren’t believed. They don’t last long either. But that photo isn’t going anywhere. It’s only a few keystrokes away for any rival who wants to use it as evidence to support an allegation.

In words and tone, Kovalev (28-0-1, 25 KOs) suggests that Pascal (30-3-1, 17 KOs) is calling him a racist out of fear or in an attempt at gamesmanship. If it’s the latter, Pascal is making a terrible mistake.

Kovalev is not easily distracted. The photo was dumb. The caption was dumber. But nobody has detected anything dumb in the way Kovalev fights. He is as poised as he is ruthless.

Bernard Hopkins, one of the game’s wise men, knew that instinctively throughout the all the hype before their 2014 fight. He didn’t do any of his trademark trash-talk, a Hopkins art form. He had read Kovalev well enough to know it wouldn’t work. Nothing did. Kovalev won a crushing decision and Hopkins, who was widely criticized for calling Joe Calzaghe “a white boy,” praised him in its aftermath.

It’s also noteworthy that Hopkins defended Kovalev after the photo appeared. Hopkins was quoted as saying he didn’t believe the Russian was racist. However, he also said that Kovalev would regret it.

Regret, race and, yes, racism have been part of the boxing narrative for as long as there has been an opening bell. It produced The Great White Hope more than a century ago in a segregated society’s desperate attempt to find a white heavyweight who could beat Jack Johnson.

To this day, Mexican fans chant “Guero.” Loosely translated, that means White Boy. Those fans will chant it, in singsong fashion, at almost any fighter of any color without a chance and/or the willingness to brawl. A racist slur? Depends on the listener. From this white face in a ringside seat, it’s merely a genuine expression from a crowd with a tribal-title loyalty for a fighter it knows like a neighbor.

In 1975, Muhammad Ali mocked Joe Frazier with a toy, a rubber gorilla that he tied onto a string and playfully battered around during a news conference before he beat Frazier in the Philippines.

“It’s going to be a Thrilla In Manila when I kill that Gorilla,’’ Ali said then.

Ali probably cringes now, which is what Pascal and Kovalev will probably do years from now.

TUCSON — Sometimes, even babies have to grow up.

Jarrell Miller, who calls himself Big Baby, began to gain some grown-up experience Friday night in a test of will and ability to go beyond a few rounds.

Maybe it was an initial step, but Big Baby began to walk with a seventh-round stoppage of a tough Donovan Dennis at Casino Del Sol on an entertaining card that included middleweight Rob Brant’s fourth-round knockout of DeCarlo Perez.

“For his development, this was important,’’ Miller promoter Dimitriy Salita said.

Good for his future, too.

Mostly, kept Miller (16-0-1, 14 KOs) in the conversation heavyweight conversation after Tyson Fury’s upset of Wladimir Klitschko in November. It’s a scrum, a crowd of possibilities and wannabes.

Miller, who has a mouth that matches the big in his nickname, thinks he knows whom the wannabes are. Just ask him. From Deontay Wilder to Charles Martin, he’ll name just about everybody in the division. It doesn’t matter that Wilder retained his WBC title last Saturday with an impressive stoppage in New York. It doesn’t mater that Martin got a vacant IBF title on the same Brooklyn card when his opponent suffered a knee injury.

“I’d spank Charles Martin,’’ Miller said before winning a minor title sanctioned by the World Boxing Association.

“If Charles Martin and Deontay Wilder still have a belt when I get there, then I’ll knock their heads off. I’m looking to get a title shot at the end of the year.’’

By the end of the year, any thing could happen, of course. Salita has his own vision for what could happen.

“In ten to 15 months, Tyson Fury,’’ Salita said. “Could you imagine that?’’
Let’s just say that the news conferences would be loud. Very, very loud.

For now, however, Miller has other business at the top of his agenda.
“He still has to build his brand,’’ Salita said.

There were moments Friday night when it looked as if Miller might have to rebuild it. In the earl seconds, it looked as if he would fulfill his promise of a second-round knockout. He dropped Dennis (13-3-1, 11 KOs) twice in the opening round. Dennis walked back to his corner, looking dazed and as if he would not be able to answer the bell for the second round. But he did.

Midway through the second, he somehow found the energy and courage to go back at the 274-pound Miller, who outweighed him by more than 50 pounds. He raked Miler to the body with successive shots and then with a couple of looping hooks.

Miller looked surprised. He had never gone beyond six rounds. But by the fourth, there were signs that he knows that he had to lose some of the Baby’s inexperience. Maybe, the Baby fat will follow in a subsequent fight.
But he dug down and slowly exerted his power. Late in the sixth, Dennis, bleeding from the nose and mouth, began to look tired. Late in the seven it was over. First, Miler landed a left-right combo that put him back onto the canvas. Then, Miller followed with succession of blows for which there defense from Dennis. Referee Tony Zaino ended it 2:31 of the round, a baby step for a heavyweight with big plans.

The stoppages continued with Brant’s impressive KO of Perez in a dynamic victory for a minor 10-pound title sponsored by the WBA. After dropping Perez (16-4-1, 5 KOs) in the third round, Brant (19-0, 12 KOs) uncorked a right hand that launched Perez and sent him diving through the middle of the ropes like human missile.

“I was shocked to see him go down like that,’’ Brant said. “Even when you hit someone really well, you don’t expect them to go out like that. I was watching him and thinking ‘I don’t think he’s going to get up.’ ‘’

BEST OF THE UNDERCARD
Brant might have been saying what Bakhtiyar Eyubov was saying after the first fight on the Showtime telecast. Never heard of Eyubov? He’s new to the American market. But junior-welterweight from Kazahkstan doesn figure to stay unknown for long.

Eyubov entered the ring wearing a white hat that looked like it could have come off the end of a mop. He smiled. He danced. He did a lot of things. But, mostly, he punched.

Eyubov put the show into Showtime before and after the fight. But for the two-plus rounds between his ring entrance and his celebration, there was power, a calling card that will make Eyubov hard to ignore harder to beat.
Jared Robinson (16-3-1, 7 KOs) had no chance.

Eyubov knocked him down 15 seconds after the opening bell. He would have been down a second time in the opening round if not for ropes that kept him upright . Early in the second, Eyubov sent to the canvas again. At 56 seconds of the third, it was over by TKO. But there was nothing technical about it. It was slaughter.

It was time for Eyubov to put the hat back on. It’s what Kazaks wear, his cornermen said. It was time to dance, a traditional Kazak dance.

Kazak power, too.

“GGG II,’’ said Salita, who looks at Eyubov and think about Gennady Golovkin.

NOTES FROM THE UNDERCARD
Demond Brock and Samuel Teah had to be separated Thursday at the weigh-in, but there was no separating the two 24 hours later when the hostilities resumed on the untelevised portion of the show.

At least, not on the scorecards.

Brock appeared to get the best of the quicker Teah, walking him down throughout eight rounds. In the closing moments, Brock (10-3-1, 3 KOs), of New Orleans, hurt Teah (7-2-1, 3 KOs) of Philadelphia, with an arsenal of rights and body shots.

But when the cards were announced, one favored Teah, 77-75. One favored Brock, 78-74. The third was even, 75-75. It was a draw. Boos said the crowd saw something else.

Another contentious weigh-in? This one screamed for a rematch.

THE REST

Featherweight Keenan Carbajal (9-2-1, 5 KOs), wearing white-and-red trunks that once identified the Phoenix family’s Hall of Fame junior-flyweight Michael Carbajal, survived a bruising fifth round for an unpopular majority
decision over hometown brawler Thomas Herrera (4-16-1, 1 KO).

Tucson junior-welterweight Carlos Cordova (1-0) had too much height, too much reach, too much of everything in overwhelming David Courtney (0-1), a Phoenix fighter who was on the canvas three times in the second and finished
at 1:55 of the round.

Tucson junior welterweight Alfonso Olvera (6-2, 3 KOs) left Colbert Lozoya’s face in misshapen mess of bruises, scoring a fourth-round TKO of the overmatched EL Paso fighter (7-12, 1 KO).

By Norm Frauenheim-

There is no good way to say goodbye to boxing. Manny Pacquiao is trying to. At campaign stops in New York and Los Angeles this week, he said repeatedly that his fight with Timothy Bradley on April 9 would be his last.

In a political season full of Trump, Palin, Cruz and Hillary, however, few believe the soft-spoken Filipino Congressman, who also happens to be running for one of 24 seats in his country’s Senate. His promoter, Bob Arum, doesn’t. His trainer, Freddie Roach, doesn’t. His Filipino constituency doesn’t want

The prevailing skepticism is rooted in precedent. Boxers come back as often as politicians break promises. In Bill Dwyre’s ongoing series for Top Rank on the second Pacquiao-Bradley rematch, the retired Los Angeles Times sport editor quotes Arum on just the latest example.

Brandon Rios retired at a news conference in the immediate aftermath of his one-sided loss to Bradley last November. Arum immediately applauded his announcement.

“Half-an-hour later,’’ Arum said, Rios “unretired.’’

The entertaining anecdote is as true a guide as any on what to expect — or not expect — from Pacquiao or anybody else in a business where scar tissue is the only sure thing.

But it’s an awkward way to sell a fight.

The guess here is that Pacquiao believes what he is saying, just as surely as Rios did with a decision that sounded heartfelt at the time. But there are all kinds of reasons and scenarios that could change Pacquiao’s mind.

To wit:

§ If he wins, he has a title to defend and chance at more money to finance further campaigns.

§ If he loses, his reputation is at stake. Careers end in defeat all the time. But a loss might be tougher for a politician whose clout with the voters is built on how he won them over. His political career was launched by what he did within the ropes. A pound-for-pound ranking was the only poll he ever needed. The ring was his bully pulpit.

Either scenario comes with reasons to think his career continues beyond his third fight with Bradley at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

Meanwhile, Arum is confronted with the tough task of selling a bout that Pacquiao calls his farewell-fight, which is an oxymoron, if there ever was one. You fight to stick around. Throwing in the towel is one way of saying farewell.

A lot of fans feel as if they said farewell to Pacquiao, the fighter, on that December night in 2012 when he landed on the canvas, face-first, from a right hand delivered by Juan Manuel Marquez.

That might have been as good a time as any to say goodbye, except for that opportunity at a huge payday against Floyd Mayweather Jr. Good business sense dictated he continue, despite pressure to quit from family and friends.

Pacquiao stuck around, collecting what was reported to be between $160 and $180 million. It was worth it. It made him a very rich man. But it looks as if the May loss to Mayweather was just one more bout in the inevitable decline of a fighter in his mid-to-late 30s. He’s back now. He says he has recovered from surgery to the right-shoulder, which he said was injured in training, yet wasn’t disclosed until after the dull, controversial loss to Mayweather.

Then, there’s Mayweather, of course. He says he’s retired. But nobody believes him, either. The prevailing speculation since Mayweather’s promised career-ender –a September victory over Andre Berto — is that he’ll be back.

As different as they are, it turns out that Pacquiao and Mayweather have one thing in common. In a business with no term limits, it’s hard to say so long.

By Norm Frauenheim

He calls himself Big Baby. But don’t let the nickname fool you. This baby doesn’t cry. Jerrell Miller only boasts.

Miller (15-0-1, 13 KOs) hopes to back up those noisy boasts Friday on ShoBox (Showtime 10:35 p.m. ET/PT) at Casino del Sol in Tucson against Donovan Dennis (12-2, 10 KOs) on a card that feature middleweight prospect Rob Brant (18-0, 11 KOs) against DeCarlo Perez (15-3-1, 5 KOs).

Miller, of Brooklyn, is fighting to get noticed in the scrum of heavyweights that has gathered in the wake Tyson Fury’s stunning upset of longtime king Wldimir Klitschko last month.

The first to score a winning ticket was Charles Martin, who won a vacant IBF title last Saturday when his opponent, Vyacheslav Glazkov, went down with a knee injury in the third round of a bout on a Brooklyn card that included WBC champion Deontay Wilder’s stoppage of Artur Spizlka.

Now, it’s Miller turn to make a statement that Martin didn’t.

In Friday night’s main event, Brant, of Minnesota, makes his second straight ShoBox appearance after a tough, majority decision over Louis Rose up the road in Phoenix.

“It’s a New Year, but I don’t go into it with any kind of timetable,’’ said Brant, a former national Golden Gloves champion. “I just need to win and let the wins take care of everything else.”

By Norm Frauenheim

Six days after George Foreman’s birthday, four days after Joe Frazier’s birthday and the day before Muhammad Ali’s birthday, the heavyweight division will attempt another rebirth Saturday in Brooklyn with Deontay Wilder in a title defense on a Showtime-televised card that includes a bout for a vacant version of another acronym-sanctioned championship.

Birthdays or astrology or coincidence might suggest that January is a promising time for the heavyweights. But the only chart that matters is the ongoing one that says the division has been receding faster than a glacier.

It hasn’t exactly vanished. Wilder (35-0, 34 KOs), who defends his WBC title against mostly-unknown Spzilka (20-1, 15 KOs), shows promise with great athleticism and intriguing power. There are moments when he looks like a big version of Thomas Hearns.

He figures to beat Spizlka, an unknown Pole who has even less experience than he does. Spizlka decided to take up boxing on the urge of a promoter who saw him in soccer brawl outside of a Polish nightclub in 2008.

Nevertheless, Wilder’s relative inexperience leaves skepticism, impossible to dismiss. Despite an Olympic bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Games, he’s a newcomer. The 30-year-old Wilder didn’t start boxing until he was 20.

It makes you wonder how he would do against Russian Alexander Povetkin (a 2004 gold medalist at the Athens Olympics) or Luis Ortiz, who learned his way around the ring in Cuba’s amateur system. Povetkin and Ortiz were schooled in the game’s subtleties at an age when skill becomes instinct.

The unbeaten Wilder likes to say that potential rivals have to enter “the athletic department.’’ Fair enough. He’s stronger and more agile than most. But instinct is critical, especially in the face of heavyweight power that can stop a fight within fractions of a single second. It’s there when a big shot short-circuits the ability to think. We’ve yet to see whether Wilder can react in that brief, yet critical moment of adversity.

Yet, Wilder still appears to be the one heavyweight who can restore attention on the division in an era about to unfold – ready or not — in the wake of Tyson Fury’s November upset of Wladimir Klitschko.

Klitschko’s heavyweight reign, almost a decade long, was a run of reliability. Predictability, too. But it eliminated a critical element. There were no rivalries. There was only Klitschko.

Rivalry creates interest. Draws an audience, too. That’s the great lesson of Ali, Frazier and Foreman, each also an Olympic gold medalist. Ali turns 74 on Sunday. Foreman was 67 on Jan. 10. The late Frazier would have been 72 on Jan. 12. Their birthdays are worth celebrating. They represent chapters in a time still unequaled.

Ali-Frazier became a historical reference point for every rivalry in and out of sports since their trilogy (1971, 1974 and 1975). Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were the NBA’s Ali-Frazier. The Yankees and Red Sox were baseball’s Ali-Frazier. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were tennis’ Ali-Frazier.

By its very nature, rivalries come easy in boxing. It’s the one-on-one drama, which in part was re-created by Magic and Bird. During the Ali era, there was more than one, mostly because of his charisma, salesmanship, brinkmanship and mouth. The Floyd Mayweather model rules today’s business. To wit: The most money for the smallest risk.

It enriched Mayweather, yet left longtime fans and new customers frustrated. The public demand got whipped up into a lotto-like froth for Mayweather-Pacquiao. But Mayweather’s fight was a dud. The rivalry, past its prime, was a figment of social media’s imagination.

But Ali’s rivalries were real because of his willingness to take repeated risks. During the last couple of decades, film and song have memorialized Ali’s 1974 victory over Foreman in Zaire. Over time, that one fight has gained as much historical significance as Ali-Frazier.

Can it ever happen again? Doubtful. But mid-January is as good a time to try as any.

By Norm Frauenheim

It’s hard to know whether the search for the next great heavyweight will ever end. Generation after generation, from baby boomer to millennial, it goes on. And on.

I’m not sure it will ever produce much more than nostalgia, but it looks as if we’re about to embark on a part of the expedition that will reveal whether there is only history and nothing else after Wladimir Klitschko.

It’s premature to declare an end to the Klitschko era. It also unfair to Klitschko, whose steady reign at the top of the fabled division for nearly a decade suggests he might make all those declarations look foolish in a rematch of his November loss to Tyson Fury.

Nevertheless, the biggest upset of last year and just about any other year left inescapable evidence that Klitschko’s suffocating grip on the heavyweights is finally gone, even if he regains his titles against the thoroughly unpredictable Fury. Klitschko looked like an old monument. Moved like one, too. According to CompuBox, he landed about five punches a round. That’s more than a stat. It’s a symptom, a sign of age. He’ll be 40 on March 25.

Potential rivals in a younger generation have noticed. Klitschko looks like wounded prey and they’ve begun to circle.

“It’s our time now,’’ said 29-year-old Charles Martin, who faces Vyacheslav Glazkov on Jan. 16 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center for an IBF title stripped from Fury in the immediate aftermath of his upset of Klitschko.

Martin went on to say that he wants everything that Klitschko had in terms of belts and presumably money. His reported purse for Fury was $18 million.

“Yeah, I want it all,’’ Martin added during a Wednesday conference call that also included Deontay Wilder, who is the biggest star on Showtime-televised card.

Wilder, who defends his WBC belt against Poland’s Artur Szpilka, has emerged as perhaps the most marketable rival to Klitschko. He’s media friendly. He’s American. He has a big punch, although there are still questions about whether he can withstand similar power. There’s another wrinkle, too. He worked as a Klitschko sparring partner a few years ago.

“I was disappointed that Klitschko didn’t show up,’’ said Wilder, who also might have been disappointed that Fury had the good timing or dumb luck to be in the ring when Klitschko was as vulnerable as he’s been in many years. “Something was missing. That wasn’t what we’re used to seeing.’’

The unbeaten Wilder said he’ll wait for the Fury rematch to see if the old Klitschko is still there, still able to rule boxing most historic division. It was also clear, however, Wilder sees himself as the heir apparent, regardless of Fury’s victory.

“I’m looking forward to being the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world,’’ said Wilder, who doesn’t have to go far to hear the same thing from a division suddenly crowded with promises and perhaps potential enough to make it relevant again.

By Norm Frauenheim

A difficult year got a lot tougher in its final week. Howard Davis Jr. died.

Davis’ death Wednesday after a battle with lung cancer was confirmed Thursday, New Year’s Eve and a sober reason to mourn the loss of a fighter who was the symbolic face of better days.

For younger generations, Davis might not mean a whole lot. Truth is, he was forgettable as a pro, which is the only part of the business that gets much attention anymore.

He was a journeyman-like 36-6-1 and was 0-3 in fights for major titles. He lost a unanimous decision in 1980 to Scotland’s Jim Watt in Glasgow for the IBF’s lightweight belt. The cards went against him in a 1984 split-decision loss to Puerto Rican Hall of Famer Edwin Rosario in San Juan, also for the IBF’s 135-pound version of the title. Buddy McGirt knocked him out at New York’s Felt Forum in the first round of a 1988 bout for the IBF’s 140-pound crown.

The pro record prevents him from induction to the International Boxing Hall of Fame. But he belongs there – just as surely Cuban heavyweight Teofilio Stevenson does – in some category for what he did and meant to the Olympics, an international event if there ever was one.

Sylvester Stallone is a Hall of Famer because of what his Rocky role did for the game. Yo, if Stallone is in the Hall, there’s got to be some room in there for Davis and Stevenson.

Davis, who died at home in Florida at 59, came from an era when Americans still watched and cared about Olympic boxing. He was on the fabled 1976 team, the best ever in U.S. history and the genesis of what would become the 1980s, a heyday in the pro game.

In hindsight, we remember the ’76 Olympics for Sugar Ray Leonard, who went on to one of the greatest pro careers in history.

In the public imagination, Leonard’s brilliance as a pro seemed to heighten his status as the star of that American team.

Forgotten, however, is that Leonard wasn’t even voted the most outstanding boxer of those Games. Davis, the gold medalist at 132 pounds, was.

He got a trophy called the Val Barker Award. For the record, Barker was the UK’s amateur heavyweight champion in 1891, five years before the modern Olympics began in 1896. I didn’t know who Barker was. I’m not sure anybody does, not even the winners.

It would be unfair to Barker’s descendants to ask that the Award be re-named for Davis. But it is fair to ask that the International Olympic Committee and/or USOC somehow remember Davis with an award in his name. Nobody has exemplified the Barker exemplifies more than Davis.

Three days before his first Olympic bout, his mom, Catherine, died from a heart attack. That part of the story and more has always made me think of Davis as the true face of that ‘76 team.

He fought without an agenda or an eye on what a gold medal might be worth to him as pro. At the sound of an opening bell, it was only clear that he fought because he loved it. At ringside, Howard Cosell noticed. The iconic broadcaster marveled at a dance highlighted by the choreographed balance between hand speed and footwork. Cosell compared him to Ali.

In Davis, there was a genuine expression of joy that has somehow been extinguished in the chase for money. Yet, he was nobody’s fool, either.

“Europeans take a lot of punches,’’ he told Sports Illustrated in 1976. “They get cut and looking ugly is just part of the day’s work. But I don’t want to be ugly. I’m not crazy.’’

Wasn’t angry, either.

Even after a disappointing pro career, there were few complaints. Even after the shock of being diagnosed with cancer last summer, he vowed to fight on. He seemed to say it as though he was looking forward to making cancer miss. It didn’t. Rest In Peace, Howard Davis Jr. I wouldn’t have been a fan without you.

By Norm Frauenheim

Bankers, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Manny Pacquiao, a handful of promoters and network executives can celebrate a year about to enter the books. Money ruled, which means it was Mayweather’s year. He fulfilled his nickname. Got most of the money, too.

But good for the business?

No way.

By definition, prizefighting is a simple enough formula. To wit: Get the biggest prize for the smallest risk. In 2015, Mayweather played that one out better than anyone ever has. As the year ends, there continues to be unconfirmed reports that receipts for his revenue-record setting victory over Pacquiao on May 2 are still being counted. Numbers are all over the place.

We read that his final purse is $220 million, then $260 million, which would rank the money for his 12 rounds of work somewhere between the Los Angeles Dodgers ($291 million) and the New York Yankees ($223 million) at the top of baseball’s last list of reported payrolls.

Hard to know what to believe. But there he is, in Dubai one day, in a new Bugati the next and always ready to make it rain by stuffing his bags with disposable cash.

Mayweather has gone from the top of the pound-for-pound list to being the face of the one percent. Let somebody a lot smarter than a boxing writer be the judge of that. But give Mayweather credit, not that he needs it. He might not have been TBE in the ring. But he ranks as The Best Earner in history and that figures to be undisputed for a while.

In the wake of a winner-take-all model that enriched him, however, there are consequences that could confront the game with a steep price in 2016 and beyond. HBO’s Jim Lampley said it best in the wake of his dull decision over Pacquiao, whose role as the junior partner in the money grab earned him north of $150 million.

Lampley called it a cynical exercise.

It was. As the year ends, coffers are filled, yet there’s an empty feeling about what was really accomplished. Does anybody other than Mayweather think the game is better for the exercise? Didn’t think so.

A sign of that emptiness is in the year-end ritual of voting for the various awards. Fighter of the Year is the biggie. But it’s a tough choice this time. On this ballot, the dreaded No Award, always a contender in a lot of categories, is an option. Yeah, Tyson Fury beat Wladimir Klitschko, but I’d cast a vote for Donald Trump before I’d vote for an okay heavyweight who reserves most of the fury for his insults.

The guess here is that Nicaraguan flyweight Roman Gonzalez wins, but his likely election looks to be more of a concession to a brilliant career (44-0, 38 KOs) ignored until HBO finally decided to pair him up with middleweight Gennady Golovkin in a couple of telecasts

An astonishing and worrisome aspect to the Gonzalez phenomenon goes back to where this column starts. Follow the money. In 2015, Gonzalez became the lightest ever to ascend to No. 1 in The Ring’s pound-for-pound rankings. He succeeded Mayweather after Mayweather’s announced retirement following a victory in September over Andre Berto.

The dollars, however, didn’t follow Gonzalez’ climb up the pound-for-pound scale. During his reign at No. 1, Mayweather earned a minimum of $32-million a fight through his six-fight deal with Showtime. In Gonzalez’ October stoppage of Brian Viloria in his second HBO appearance and in the immediate aftermath of his introduction as the pound-for-pound No. 1, he earned a career-high $250,000. Mayweather stuffs more than that into one of those carry-ons.

For Gonzalez, the pound-for-pound title represents little more than an honorarium. The Grand Canyon-like disparity on the pay scale, however, includes a more troubling aspect. It represents a lack of investment in lighter weights that have often sustained the business during periods of transition and/or trouble. HBO’s interest in Gonzalez is promising. Perhaps, it’s the beginning of an investment.

But the long-term trend is not good. Consider this: In the two-plus decades since junior-flyweights Michael Carbajal and Humberto Gonzalez earned $1-million purses for fighting each other three times in 1993 and 1994, there’s been no raise in pay for the little guys, who in some ways are to boxing what the working middle class is to an economy. There are no good undercards without them. Yet, they’re getting paid a lot less now than they did a few generations ago.

In stature and impact, they are so small that they often don’t seem to matter. But it’s the little things that often reveal a lot about a business and these days they appear to be troublesome fly in a problematic ointment.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Top Rank’s December agenda has been about finding new stars, resurrecting a couple of old ones and creating business possibilities in 2016, the beginning of what could be the post-Manny Pacquiao era.

As of Thursday, the promotional company was still waiting to hear on whether Pacquiao will fight Terence Crawford or Timothy Bradley or some name we’ve yet to hear. The repeated postponements make you wonder whether the Filipino Congressman has some other running mate, — or alternate plan — in mind for what is believed to be his April farewell.

But, as it must, the business moves forward, especially at a time when the changing-of-the-guard is moving at a rapid rate. There is heavyweight Wladimir Klitschko’s loss to Tyson Fury. There are continuing assurances from those close to Floyd Mayweather Jr. that he is happily retired and has no desire to come back.

It’s a game looking to re-load.

Over the last month, Top Rank has strung together – week after week, night after night– reasons to be optimistic about the New Year.

First, there was unbeaten junior welterweight and 2012 Olympian Jose Ramirez in a gritty decision on Dec. 5.

Then, there was lightweight Felix Verdejo, Puerto Rico’s heir apparent to Miguel Cotto, in a definitive second-round stoppage on Dec.11 on a San Juan card that included former Fighter of the Year Nonito Donaire in tough, yet back in the 122-pound title mix with a rugged decision.

The following night in Tucson, two-time Mexican Olympian Oscar Valdez was back in his boyhood home with a dramatic third-round stoppage that stamped him as legitimate contender.

The fourth item in Top Rank’s run-up to next year is now in the dangerous hands of Nicholas Walters, who like Donaire is trying to re-capture the momentum he had in October 2014 after a powerful stoppage that sent Donaire’s career spinning into recession.

Walters’ task Saturday night in Verona, N.Y., on HBO After Dark (10:15 p.m./ET/PT) looms as the toughest against Jason Sosa at 130 pounds, four heavier than the featherweight mandatory he failed to make in relinquishing his title in June before beating Miguel Marriaga. Walters won a decision over Marriaga, but it was forgettable, so much so that he was too, despite an unbeaten record (26-0, 21 KOs).

“Looking to fight the big fights,’’ Walters said Thursday during a conference call.

He hopes for three or four of them in 2016, including perhaps one against Ukrainian prodigy Vasyl Lomachenko.

First, however, there is Sosa (18-1-3, 14 KOs), a Camden, N.J., fighter who remains a relative unknown despite a run of 17-straight victories, including 13 successive stoppages, since 2012. Sosa, who had only three amateur fights and lost two of them, appears to be a late bloomer. His relative anonymity in terms of international rankings and network appearances is among his greatest assets.

“Anytime you don’t know much about a fighter, that’s a dangerous fighter,’’ said Walters, a wise man.

The buzz is about Sosa’s power. At 27, it looks as if he has learned how to use it in every lethal way. That, perhaps, helps explain why 13 of his 14 stoppages have come over the tail end of 17-fight run during the last four years.

His promoter, Philadelphia Russell Peltz, believes that Walters has never felt a punch with the kind whack Sosa can deliver. Peltz also argues that Walters’ unbeaten record and world-class pedigree can be overrated.

“There are undefeated fighters on every street corner and that means they haven’t fought anybody,’’ Peltz said.

However, Walters, a smart and entertaining Jamaican, enters the ring Saturday understanding the stakes and determined to get fans talking about him again. He’s pursuing a big stoppage.

“Knockout of the Year,’’ he says.

Then, he says he can pursue opportunities at junior-lightweight (130) and featherweight (126).

“It’s not like I was at 128, or 129 the last time,’’ Walters said. “I was at 127. I can make 126. There are a lot of possibilities at 130. In 2016, anything is possible.’’

More so, it seems, than in any recent year

TUCSON, Ariz. – Oscar Valdez came to his boyhood home looking for a victory that would prove he belongs.

Mission accomplished.

Valdez left no doubt about his world-class credentials Saturday night with a beautiful left hook, a signature shot, that stopped Filipino Ernie Sanchez and put the two-time Mexican Olympian at the table of title contenders.

“A sweet shot,’’ Valdez (18-0, 16 KOs) said after a third-round TKO that brought Tucson Community Center crowd of about 3,000 to its feet.

Valdez went on to say he would fight any of the 126-pound champions. That’s a long list. An impressive one, too. For now, it’s probably led by Leo Santa Cruz. But a showdown with Santa Cruz probably would be tough, if not impossible, to put together. Bob Arum promotes Valdez. Santa Cruz is an Al Haymon fighter. Friendly, they’re not.

Arum also said he doesn’t want to put Valdez into a tough fight with Vasyl Lomachenko, whom he also promotes. Lomachenko beat Valdez as an amateur at the 2009 World Championships. For now, at least, Lomachenko-Valdez appears to be a fight that the public can only imagine. Not now, but maybe later.

His immediate pursuit of a major title might take him to different weight class. Junior feather? Junior-lightweight?

Wherever it takes him, it was clear Saturday that he won’t be denied for long. His compact, active style and power will crash a lot of doors.

He dropped the brave Sanchez (15-7-1, 6 KOs) with a short shot that possessed power that, he said, traveled from his knuckle all the way up to his elbow.

Somehow, Sanchez got up. But his feet were unsteady. His eyes were vacant. He stumbled one way. Then, another. He was out on his feet. Referee Wes Melton rushed in with a timely stoppage at 59 seconds of the round.

The crowd erupted into cheers for Valdez.

For Jose Benavidez Jr, however, there were only boos in what was a tale of two performances on one card. It was also a defining example of what fans want to see. It starts with knockouts. It ends with them.

Benavidez won, scoring a unanimous decision over Sidney Siqueira. He remained unbeaten (24-0, 16 KOs). He didn’t lose anything, other than some popularity.

During the late rounds and after the scores were announced, the crowd booed. It expected dominance from the Phoenix fighter, a WBA junior-welterweight champion. It didn’t get it, at least not until the 10th and final round when Benavidez dropped Siqueira with a right to the body and sent crashing into a neutral corner with a left.

“The crowd doesn’t win fights,’’ Benavidez said.

But it does pay the bills.

Benavidez, who said he battled the flu a week ago and was more than four pounds heavier than the contracted weight on Friday, looked less than sharp.

“I was definitely not 100 percent,’’ said the Phoenix fighter, who agreed to pay Siqueira $2,000 for coming in heavier than the mandated 148 pounds. “I don’t want to make excuses. I also understand that the crowd didn’t understand I’d been sick for the last week. I felt fast, but I just didn’t have my usual power.

“If I had been my usual self, I would have knocked out this guy in three to four rounds.

Benavidez came away with the victory, scoring a unanimous decision. There was no doubt in the 100-90, 99-91, 100-90 scores, all one-sided and in favor of Benavidez, whose title was not at stake

But questions were attached to it. You could hear them in the boos from fans restless for the stoppage that Valdez would later deliver. Sigueira was undersized and unknown. He had fought and lost a bout for a lightweight title in his native Brazil in his last outing.

“ It was learning experience,’’ said Benavidez, who hopes to use the lessons in his next bout.
He was asked if he still hoped reigning Fighter of the Year Terence Crawford.

“Absolutely,’’ he said.

He didn’t lose any confidence either.

On The Undercard

Super-middleweight prospect Jesse Hart (19-0, 16 KOs) of Philadelphia started the show with a quick finish. In an empty arena, Andrik Saralegui of Tijuana was one of the few people to take a seat. Actually, Saralegui (19-4, 15 KOs) was put there, first by an immediate blitz of about five punches from Hart and then an uppercut to the body that ended it 54 seconds after opening bell.

Brazilian middleweight Esquiva Falcao (12-0, 9 KOs), a silver medalist the London Olympics, encountered some early trouble with Hector Munoz’ early aggressiveness. But a Falcao left knocked down Munoz (22-13-1, 14 KOs), a well-traveled Albuquerque fighter.. In the fourth, a quick succession of Falcao punches landed, prompting Melton to stop it at 2:26 of the round.

Super-lightweight Luis Ramos (25-3, 10 KOs) was introduced as the wrong fighter by the ring announcer in the initial intros. The announcer got it corrected. Then, Ramos, of Santa Ana, Calif., made sure there was no mistaken identity in asserting himself with power in both hands for a one-sided decision over Moises Delgadillo (17-13-2, 8 KOs) of Guadalajara.

Phoenix featherweight Carlos Castro (14-0, 6 KOs) employed a precise and painful body shot, landing a short left that sent Sergio Najera (10-23-2, 4 KOs) of Tijuana into agony, onto the canvas and done for the night in a TKO at 1:28 of the third round.

By Norm Frauenheim-

TUCSON, Ariz. – Jose Benavidez Jr. agreed to pay unknown Brazilian Sidney Siqueira $2,000 Friday after he was more than four pounds heavier than the contracted weight for a featured bout Saturday on Unimas’ Solo Boxeo series.

The fighters’ corner men and officials from the Arizona State Boxing & MMA Commission met a couple of times in a busy ballroom during the weigh-in at the Tucson Community Center, finally striking an agreement that saved the bout from getting scratched from a card featuring featherweight prospect Oscar Valdez (17-0, 15 KOs) against Filipino Ernie Sanchez (15-6-1, 6 KOs).

Valdez, a two-time Mexican Olympian when went to grade school in Tucson, was at 127.6 pounds. Sanchez was 127.4 for a 10-round bout on a card scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. (MST)

The $2,000 will come out of Benavidez purse, estimated to be $10,000, according to his father and trainer, Jose Benavidez, Sr., who said the contract mandated that neither be heavier than 148 at the formal weigh-in.

“The fight is on,’’ said the senior Benavidez, who said his son couldn’t make the weight because of the flu. “He got sick. But we knew this fight was coming and we felt it was important.’’

Benavidez (23-0 16 KOs), who holds a WBA junior-welterweight title, tipped the scale at 152.4 pounds. Siqueira (21-9-1, 13 KOs), who last fought at 135 pounds, was 145.6.

“I got sick about a week ago,’’ said Benavidez, whose 140-pound title won’t be at stake. “When I got sick, I was at about 154. But I had to eat while I was trying to get over the flu. That’s why I couldn’t get down to 148.

Benavidez is lobbying for a shot at reigning Fighter of the Year Terence Crawford, a junior-welterweight who is still on Manny Pacquiao’s short list for what is supposed to be the Filipino Congressman’s final fight in April. Pacquiao also is considering Timothy Bradley. He was supposed to announce his choice Friday night, but he postponed the decision.

Meanwhile, Benavidez, of Phoenix, called out Crawford during a media workout Thursday in Tucson.

“I want Crawford,’’ he said. “Let’s make it happen. I’m undefeated, young and ready. Let’s see if he accepts the challenge.’’

By Norm Frauenheim-

Oscar Valdez, one of the brightest reasons to be optimistic about boxing’s prospects in 2016, re-introduces himself Saturday to Tucson, a city that never really got a chance to know him when he first answered an opening bell.

A lot has happened since Valdez was just another restless 8-year-old who wandered into one of southern Arizona’s many gyms as if it were a playground.

Who knew that few hours of running across a mat, bouncing off ropes and toying with a speed bag would lead to two Olympics, a perfect pro record (17-0, 15 KOs) and a chance at big-time money?

It has.

In the years since leaving Tucson for Nogales on the Mexican side of the border, the 24-year-old Valdez fought at the Beijing and London Olympics, won a bronze medal in the 2009 World Championships and returns to where it all began amid a buzz about what he might do next year.

The featherweight’s Unimas-televised bout against Filipino Ernie Sanchez (15-6-1, 6 KOs) at the Tucson Community Center (first bell/7 p.m. MST) on a card including Phoenix junior-welterweight Jose Benavidez Jr. in a non-title fight is a significant step in the process from prospect to potential stardom. Valdez figures to win. The key is in how.

If he can follow up on his sensational fifth-round stoppage of ex-contender Chris Avalos last September in Las Vegas, he creates further momentum for a world-title shot in 2016.

“I am really looking forward to this fight,” said Valdez, whose mom, Gloria Fierro, still lives in Tucson. “I will have family, friends and people who have supported me since the start of my boxing career. I do feel like I am coming home and want to give them all a great fight.

“I’m ready to close out the year with a great performance.’’

Like any young prospect, Valdez is hopeful and confident he’ll get a chance to fulfill the dream he has had since he first started racing around those Tucson gyms. But he’s also patient. If the prospect stage is an apprenticeship, Valdez is approaching it like the student he was so long ago at the Manzo Elementary classrooms, which are just few city blocks from the ring where he’ll fight Saturday night.

“Of course, I’m ready for world champions, but I want to finish this year first and then, whatever comes, I’ll gladly take on,’’ said a student in a tone that also says he paid attention at Manzo and in the gym.

NOTES: Weigh-in for the Top Rank/Iron Boy promoted card is scheduled for Friday at 4 p.m. (MST) at Tucson
Community Center’s Apache Room. …Benavidez (23-0, 17 KOs) has a WBA 140-pound title, but it won’t be at stake against Brazilian Sidney Siqueira (26-10-1, 17 KOs). The bout is scheduled to be at welterweight (147). Siqueira lost a 10-round decision for Brazil’s lightweight (135) title in August, his last outing. …Phoenix Hall of Famer Michael Carbajal is scheduled to make his debut as a pro trainer on the undercard. He’ll be in the corner for Phoenix flyweight Johnny Tejerina, who is making pro debut. Carbajal has an old-school legend at the top of a list of trainers he most admires. “Eddie Futch,’’ he said.

By Norm Frauenheim-

In another sign of Arizona’s rebounding market, Phoenix welterweight Abel Ramos is one of three fighters from the state who will appear in bouts televised nationally this weekend.

Ramos (14-0-2, 9 KOs) faces prospect Regis Prograis (15-0, 12 KOs) Friday night in the main event of a Houston card televised by Showtime’s ShoBox (10 p.m. ET/PT).

On Saturday, featherweight prospect and two-time Mexican Olympian Oscar Valdez, who grew up in Tucson, and Phoenix junior-welterweight Jose Benavidez Jr. will be featured on a Tucson card televised by Unimas’ Solo Boxeo (11 p.m. ET/PT).

“I couldn’t be more ready or happy with my preparation going into Friday’s fight against Regis,’’ said Ramos, who is coming off a victory in September at Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix. “This is my first fight with DiBella Entertainment and I am already headlining on ShoBox. I think that is a testament to what they see in me and the talent that I have.’’

“…We are expecting a tough fight, the best Regis Prograis has to offer. We expect him to be very active and throw a ton of punches, and that’s what we have prepared for all camp long. I don’t know exactly how the fight ends, but I am winning it, there is no doubt about it.’’

By Norm Frauenheim

It’s hard to know where talks are headed for a Canelo-Gennady Golovkin fight, the biggest on boxing’s board of possibilities. But there are signs that Canelo will make demands, including a problematic one about a 155-pound catch weight.

Why? Because he can.

If and when the respective parties get to the table, we’ll know HBO’s pay-per-view numbers from Canelo-Cotto. At midweek after the Nov. 21 bout, it was reportedly tracking at about 900,000. That’s a long way from the 1.5 million that Canelo promoter Oscar De La Hoya had projected. But it’s still very good.

It adds up to leverage, all on Canelo’s side of the table. In Golovkin’s only PPV venture – an Oct. 17 victory over David Lemieux, the PPV number was reported to be 150,000.

The difference between 900,000 and 150,000 adds up to 750,000 reasons for Canelo to get his way, in much the same manner that Mayweather did. Mayweather bragged about the perks and power he had. Like it or not, he used them, too.

Canelo might not brag about his newfound role on the A-side. But he’d be fool not to make full use of them.

There already have been a few preliminaries. GGG’s representative, Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions, went to Canelo’s post-fight party and congratulated the World Boxing Council’s new middleweight champ Saturday after his unanimous decision over Miguel Cotto at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay.

“Gennady thought it was great performance by Canelo,’’ said Loeffler, who said GGG was in the arena for the fight.

If GGG-Canelo were to happen in May, Golovkin, first or second in pound-for-pound ratings, would be favored. With the victory over Cotto, Canelo has climbed into the debate’s top 10, but he’s in the second five.

It’s a sign, perhaps, that the 25-year-old Mexican, who won the WBC’s 160-pound title at a 155-pound catch weight, still needs more experience at middleweight.

Truth is, he has yet to face a real middleweight with first-class skill. Cotto has the skills, but he’s never been a middleweight, despite the WBC title stripped from him because he didn’t pay the sanctioning fee.

At 153.5 pounds, Cotto was half-a-pound under the junior-middleweight limit at the weigh-in. At opening bell, his trainer, Freddie Roach, said he was at 159, one pound under the middleweight limit.

As it should, GGG’s corner argues that Canelo is more of a light-heavyweight than a middleweight at fight time. He was at 170 to 175 pounds against Cotto, says GGG trainer Abel Sanchez. That’s a guesstimate, because declined at step on HBO’s scale the night of the fight. But it’s reasonable.

For now, however, the 155 mark on the day before the bout is a sure sign that Canelo is ready. Rafael Mendoza, his former advisor and manager, said that if he is a pound or two lighter, it’s a sign he weakened himself in a battle to make weight.

A pound or two heavier than 155 pounds, and he figures to be sluggish, according to Mendoza, a Hall of Famer. Canelo doesn’t have foot speed anyway. If he hits the 155 mark, however, it’s a sign that he’s in shape to move his upper body and head throughout 12 rounds. He did that, effectively and consistently against Cotto.

In the immediate aftermath of his victory of over Cotto, Canelo said he’s willing to fight GGG, yet he sidestepped the question about a 155-pound catch weight. He might have been waiting to hear the pay-per-view. That’s when he’ll really know how much power he has as boxing’s new A-sider.

LAS VEGAS – It was mandatory performance for a mandatory shot at a title. That’s another way of saying Gilberto Ramirez did what he had to.

Ramirez (33-0, 24 KOs) landed most of the punches and was the aggressor Friday night throughout a 100-90, 99-91, 100-90 decision over Gevorg Khatchikian (23-2, 11 KOs) that earned the unbeaten Mexican a mandatory shot at the WBO’s 168-pound title and kept him alive as a future opponent for Gennady Golovkin.

Golovkin, who is in Vegas for Saturday night Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez showdown, was in The Cosmopolitan crowd. He had planned to attend. After long day of autographs and media appearances, however, GGG decided to tyo rest in hotel suite, a GGG representative said.

Turns out, he didn’t miss much. Ramirez won a bout that didn’t included much in the way of fireworks. The real drama happened after the fight. Welterweight champion Tim Bradley, a ringside analyst for truTV, and Jessie Vargas had to be separated. Vargas has long wanted a rematch with Bradley, who is coming off a victory over Brandon Rios.

There was more drama in the Bradley-Vargas scuffle than in Ramirez-Khatchikian.

“I tried to knocked him out,’’ said Ramirez, who hopes to face the winner of the Arthur Abraham-Martin Murray bout for Abraham’s title Saturday in Germany. “But he was more elusive than we saw on the tapes.’

Khatchikian’s unorthodox style seemed to baffle Ramirez in the early rounds. He dropped his heads. He danced in, then out and often with his undefended face right in front of the more conventional Ramirez. He often appeared to be a easy target. But he wasn’t.

There was a deceptive elusiveness to what Khatchikian did. It was if he were setting a trap for Ramirez, who seemed to take the bait at east a couple of times.

Trouble is, Khatchikian didn’t have enough power to capitalize.
In the third, the super-middleweight from The Netherlands staggered him with a short right as the Mexican stepped inside. But he couldn’t drop him. In the seventh, Khatchikian rocked Ramirez again, this time with a succession of uppercuts. Stll, there wasn’t enough sting in any one of them. Raimrez remained upright and unhurt.

By Norm Frauenheim-

LAS VEGAS – Measuring interest in a fight isn’t exactly a science. It’s more a haphazard adventure. Either a so-called buzz is there, or it isn’t. For a couple of days, media prospectors were sifting though all the events surrounding Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez, searching for one.

For days, not much was there. Echoes instead of real noise created doubt about the pay-per-view hopes and suspicions about fans staying away from Mandalay Bay Saturday night because of skepticism left over from the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao mess in May.

But the empty echoes were suddenly gone Friday. Instead, there was a buzz that filled three ballrooms from crowds of fans who waited in line for three to four hours to watch the Cotto-Canelo weigh-in.

The buzz was off-the-scale amid sudden optimism about pay-per-view numbers for an HBO telecast (6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET) that Golden Boy promoter Oscar De La Hoya has said could approach 1.5 million.

That expectation might still be too high. But a buzzing crowd at the weigh-in indicated that a very good PPV audience is likely. Latino fans – Puerto Rican for Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) and Mexican for Canelo (45-1-1, 32 KOs) – jammed one ballroom for the live weigh-in and two adjacent ballrooms to watch the telecast.

Both made the catch-weight, 155 pounds, for a 160-pound, middleweight title that the WBC stripped from Cotto on Monday after he refused to pay the $300,000 sanctioning fee. A sculpted Canelo was right at the agreed-upon weight. Cotto was at 153.5, which is a half-pound lighter than the junior-middleweight limit. This is a middleweight fight in name only. But it doesn’t matter.

The anticipation is real for a classic, cut straight out of the rich tradition of the Mexican-Puerto Rican history.

“They are here because they think they are about see a war,’’ De La Hoya said.

The war parallel is little tired and probably too much, especially these days with all that is going in France and Syria. But boxing without hyperbole is a fight without a buzz. Nobody would care.

At the weigh-in, the roar said — again and again — that a lot people care intensely about one fight that might take the business beyond Pacquiao-Mayweather.

The weigh-in included at least one disappointing moment. Unbeaten Randy Caballero was at 123.5, or 5.5 pounds too heavy for the 118-mandtaory in a scheduled defense of his IBF bantamweight title against the UK”s Lee Haskins. About an hour after the weigh-in, the Nevada State Athletic Commission said that the title fight had been cancelled.

Did it matter? No, not at all. If there were any complaints, you couldn’t hear them. You could hear only that buzz.

By Norm Frauenheim-

LAS VEGAS — Unbeaten Mexican super-middleweight Gilberto Ramirez came to The Strip, hoping to land a shot at the Wold Boxing Organization’s 168-pound title.

Turns out, more than just a mandatory will be at skate Friday night when Ramirez (32-0, 24 KOs) faces Gevorg Khatchikan of the Netherlands (23-1,11 KOs) at The Cosmopolitan in a TruTV-televised bout (10 p.m. ET/PT).

Middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin plans to be at ringside in what might prove to be more than just a night out as a fan.

Ramirez promoter Bob Arum said he has talked to Tom Loeffler, the executive director of K2, Golovkin’s promoter.

Arum said they have discussed a Ramirez-GGG bout next year.

“But it will only happen if Gilberto can win tomorrow night, thus preserving his mandatory challenge for the world title, and then beating WBO world champion Arthur Abraham,” Arum said Thursday in a Top Rank news release. “That’s a lot of pressure to put on most fighters’ shoulders, but Gilberto seems to thrive on it. He has said all along that he only wants to fight the best, even if it means fighting Abraham and Golovkin back-to-back.”

By Norm Frauenheim-

LAS VEGAS – Guillermo Rigondeaux is a master craftsman, yet there’s no market for his craft. He’s unbeaten and unpopular, an unlikely combination and a dilemma for promoters fascinated by his talent, yet still not able to sell it.

Yet, that talent still beckons, so much so that Rigondeaux has a second opportunity — perhaps a last chance — in a career that thus far hasn’t generated much income for him or anybody else.

The shy Cuban, a two time Olympic gold medalist, is a late addition to the Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez card Saturday night at Mandalay Bay. Rigondeaux left Caribe promotions and signed with RocNation, which was looking for somebody to fill a vacancy left by Andre Ward’s withdrawal because of a knee injury.

The announcement that Rigondeaux had been added to the HBO-televised card against Filipino junior-featherweight Drian Francisco (28-3-1, 22 KOs) elicited a familiar reaction. To wit: Yawns from the crowd that had already experienced that nap.

Fair or not – and who ever said boxing was fair? – Rigondeaux is another word for dull. Early on, his name got re-written, Rigondull instead of Rigondeaux. No matter what,he did, he couldn’t escape the damning tag. Go 15-0, and fans still yaw. Score 10 stoppages, still yawns. Get mentioned in the pound-for-pound debate, more yawns.

But at 35 he’s still around, still an intriguing bundle of possibilities.

At the undercard news conference Thursday, HBO’s Peter Nelson mentioned Rigondeaux by saying his “virtuosity is unrivaled in the sport.’’

Virtuosity is nice to have. But it doesn’t buy much. Ask a starving artist, which is what Rigondeaux’s fate might be if this attempt at collecting more than applause fails.

The question has never been whether he can fight. It’s whether he can excite.

“I love Rigondeux,’’ said Bernard Hopkins, the ageless warrior and Oscar De La Hoya’s associate in Golden Boy’s joint promotion with RocNation of Canelo-Cotto. “I’just love him as fighter.’’

But can he become a reliable draw? Rigondraw instead of Rigondull?

“I think so, I really do,’’ Hopkins said. “Listen, his job is to do only one thing. His job is to kick ass.

It’s the promoter. It’s the manager. it’s the networks. We have to promote the kind of fighter who needs to be pushed out there and glorified.

“It’s up to us to say: ‘Look, this is the guy.’ If somebody says no, that’s OK. But we keep pushing. It is up to us to find the right guys for him to fight. It’s up to us to be his mouthpiece.’’

Hall of Fame promoter Don Chargin, who has helped Golden Boy promote Canelo, agrees with Hopkins. A key in trying to market a shy fighter without any evident charisma, he says, is often in how he’s matched. Find the right business partner, Chargin says and you might be able to turn him into an attraction.

“It’s tough, but you’d be surprised,’’ Chargin said.

In part, the challenge with Rigondeaux is his Cuban pedigree. He grew up within the tightly-controlled Cuban system. It creates great amateurs. With the notable exception of former lightweight champion Joel Casamayor, however, it doesn’t allow for the kind of personality that sells in the American boxing market, which always been part skill and part theater.

“Yeah, he is shy,’’ Hopkins said. “But that’s the crazy thing about it. Rigondeaux is your worst nightmare in the ring. A lot of times, it just depends on who the dance partner is. If he he’s got a dance partner who doesn’t step on his feet, then he can prove he’s as good as we all know he is.

“We’re only as good as who we fought.’’

And maybe only as good as the promoter who markets and match-makes.

By Norm Frauebheim

LAS VEGAS – The World Boxing Council’s middleweight title belt almost looked like an item at a garage sale Wednesday during a news conference for the Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez bout Saturday night at Mandalay Bay.

It was at the end of long table next to WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman, seemingly on display, but not wanted by its former owner.

“I don’t need another belt,’’ Cotto said to a group of writers before the news conference started in a nearby theater.

His wardrobe is full of them. He has won titles in four weight classes over more than 14 years. Make no mistake, another one would be nice, but not at $1.1 million, the total he would have had to pay out of his purse for the right to defend the title against Canelo.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Negotiations with the WBC fell apart Monday night and perhaps took some buzz off of the HOB pay-per-view production. Cotto said he would have been willing to pay $125,000 to the WBC for the sanctioning fee. But Sulaiman said no, which is why the belt was parked like used car at one end of the VIP table Wednesday.

The rest, $800,000, was reported to be the amount Cotto agreed to pay Gennady Golovkin. Call it a step-aside fee. For six figures, Golovkin, the WBC’s No. 1contender, reportedly agreed to step aside for Canelo so the fight with Canelo could be made in another bout in the rich Puerto Rican-Mexican history.

But there are still questions about whether Golovkin will get that reported money.

“There are legal issues,’’Cotto attorney Gabe Penagaricano said Wednesday.
Translation: You’ll probably only see a Cotto-GGG fight in court. GGG’s best shot at unifying the 160-pound title will happen if Canelo wins the now vacant WBC version. There’s a good chance that Canelo will. The popular Mexican was about a 3-to-1 favorite Wednesday.

The always-reticent Canelo had little to say about the circumstances that transpired in the financial shuffle that that took the title out Cotto’s possession.

“It doesn’t change anything,’’ Canelo said. “I am prepared to fight the best Cotto.’’

From Cotto’s perspective, there are no regrets about his old belt. No worries, either. He shook hands with Sulaiman, who after the news conference had the belt slung over a shoulder. The flap won’t affect the fight, Coto said. that generated a few headlines. The public, Cotto said, doesn’t care about ruling bodies that charge sanctioning fees for interim belts, and silver belts in countless weight classes.

“We are bigger than the organizations,’’ said Cotto, who didn’t need to say more.

By Norm Frauenheim

Floyd Mayweather Jr. must love all the attention he’s getting this week. He’s retired – or so he says – and yet he’s still generating the kind of controversy that would inevitably erupt during the week before one of his fights. Oscar De La Hoya and Adrien Broner have gone Ronda Rousey on him.

It’s hard to figure, other than to say it’s just another chapter in social media’s voracious need for content. Say what you want about Mayweather, but he is TBE at using and maintaining his prominence in social-media.

His mastery of all the digital platforms propelled him to the GDP-like purse he collected for the pay-per-view blockbuster in a victory over Manny Pacquiao that will be remembered more for the number of tweets than the number of punches.

Broner’s profane rant on YouTube isn’t exactly a surprise. It’s also a redundancy to use profane and rant next to Broner’s name. Sorry for that. Still, it’s almost comical to see Broner — angry at Mayweather’s criticism of his October victory over Khabib Allakhverdiev — go off on his ex-hero. Broner did everything but flush TMT T-shirts and TBE caps down the same toilet that was a receptacle for some of his cash a few years ago. Maybe, that’s the sequel.

The surprise was De La Hoya’s letter in the latest issue of Playboy. It was honest. It was forthright. It was funny. De La Hoya summed up what so many are thinking: The business is better off without Mayweather. But why now? Why publish the dismissive farewell to Mayweather at the very time De La Hoya is promoting a Canelo Alvarez-Miguel Cotto on Nov. 21 at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay.

De La Hoya has a fight that has the potential to say a lot more to Mayweather than any letter in Playboy could ever say. It’s a real chance for the business to get beyond the deflating hangover that still lingers from the public dismay over Mayweather-Pacquiao. Perhaps, the timing is just a result of the magazine’s publishing schedule. Deadlines can do things that writers don’t intend. It would have bee nice if De La Hoya had simply written: Mayweather? Who’s he? But that would not have been enough for Playboy, which is seeking a different kind of content these days. The magazine announced it wouldn’t publish nude photos anymore. About 10 days before Canelo-Cotto, however, I’d prefer a centerfold to De La Hoya’s letter.

Once the headlines subside, perhaps the business will be better for De La Hoya’s rhetorical swipe at his old rival. And, maybe, this is the opening salvo in a promotional rivalry that could evolve into the modern version of Bob Arum-versus-Don King. Arum-King was as entertaining and intense as anything that happened within the ring. It helped fuel the 1980s, one of the game’s best eras.

For now, however, I can only think that Mayweather has won another one. Inside and outside the ropes, he has always been able to dictate pace, style and timing. He’s doing it again. We’re talking about him when we should be talking about Canelo-Cotto.

Jose Benavidez Jr. fights for titles. Fights to stay unbeaten.

Fights to stay busy, too.

He’s been pretty good at the first two, but staying busy has eluded him at an age when the young junior-welterweight needs fights like a talented student needs consistent challenges on a long lesson plan.

The 23-year-old Benavidez (23-0, 16 KOs) hopes to eliminate that problematic idle time, beginning on Dec. 12 in Tucson when he fights for only the second time since winning a controversial decision over Mauricio Herrera for a WBA interim title on Dec. 13, 2014, in Las Vegas.

“I was supposed to fight in November, but it didn’t happen,’’ Benavidez said Thursday before a Top Rank news conference in Tucson announcing a Unimas-televised card that will also feature emerging featherweight Oscar Valdez. “I was supposed to fight a couple of times.’’

Both times, Benavidez was mentioned as a possibility for Terence Crawford, the 2014 Fighter of the Year. But Crawford bypassed Benavidez, winning both — first in March over Thomas Dulorme in his 140-pound debut and then Dierry Jean in October.

Benavidez is still a possibility for Crawford. Top Rank’s Bob Arum mentioned him again during the weigh-in last
Friday for Timothy Bradley’s victory over Brandon Rios In Las Vegas.

“I’d love to fight Crawford, absolutely’’ said Benavidez, who in May scored a 12th-round stoppage of Jorge Paez Jr. in Phoenix, Benavidez’ hometown.

It looks as if Benavidez is an alternate for Crawford. Manny Pacquiao is reportedly interested in career ending fight against either Crawford or Bradley. If the Filipino opts for Bradley, Benavidez might the next man up for Crawford. Viktor Postol is another Benavidez possibility.

“Anybody, I’ll fight anybody,’’ said Benavidez, who title will not be at stake on Dec. 12 when he is scheduled to fight Brazilian Sidney Siqueira (26-10-1, 17 KOs), perhaps at a catch weight between 140 and 150 pounds.

Meanwhile, Benavidez is staying busy. He has too. Boxing is the family business. He’ll be with his brother, David, (10-0, 9 KOs), an 18-year-old light-heavyweight who fights Mexican Felipe Romero (19-9-1, 13 KOs) Saturday night on ShoBox card (Showtime 10:45 p.m. ET/PT) at Las Vegas’ Hard Rock.

“Oh, yeah, I have to be there for my brother,’’ Benavidez said. “We train together. Always have. He keeps me ready. We spar and, man, he beats the bleeping bleep out of me.’’

Nothing bleeping busier than a sibling rivalry.

By Norm Frauenheim

Featherweight Oscar Valdez moves seamlessly between English and Spanish. He needs no interpreter for what he’s saying and what he’s doing. From amateur to pro, he understands where he’s been and where he intends to go.

Another step in that process takes place on Dec. 12 in a city he knows.

Tucson is a beginning for the two-time Mexican Olympian.

“It’s really where I began to box,’’ Valdez (17-0, 15 KOs) said Thursday before a Top Rank news conference at Tucson Community Center where he faces Filipino Ernie Sanchez on a Unimas-televised card in an arena just a few city blocks from where he went to school, Manzo Elementary “I was 8-years-old. My dad would take me to these gyms. Then, me and my friends would go to gyms around town and I’d tell them that one day I’d be a professional boxer. That’s kind of how all of this got started.’’

After grade school, Valdez moved to Nogales, a Mexican border town, and continued to work on what began in Tucson. Today, a kid’s dream is reality. It has taken Valdez, now 24, to Beijing for the 2008 Olympics and London for the 2012 Games. It has taken him from prospect to potential contender in a division as competitive as any. It has brought him back to the beginning, Tucson, where his mom, Gloria Fierro, still lives.

It looks as if the Tucson bout might be his last before he steps up to world class. His first challenge for a major title could happen in 2016. Valdez has been mentioned as a possibility for Top Rank prodigy Vasyl Lomachenko. For now, however, he’s still the student, which means another lesson plan against Sanchez (15-6-1, 6 KOs), who is from General Santos City, Manny Pacquiao’s hometown.

“Whenever Top Ranks tells me, I’ll be ready,’’ said Valdez, who lost to Lomachenko in the 2009 World Championships in Milan, Italy. “Hopefully, it will be next year.’’

LAS VEGAS –Timothy Bradley promised a victory. He also promised a whole new animal.

He delivered on the victory Saturday night. But he didn’t have to be a new species. The old one — the Bradley of a few years ago — was enough.

A Bradley with resurrected skills and a new trainer, Teddy Atlas in his corner overwhelmed a shopworn Brandon Rios, who had neither the skill nor the energy to counter a disciplined jab, side-to-side movement and — in the end – a left hook.

The hook dropped Rios in the ninth round in what would be the first salvo in his imminent demise. Seconds after Rios got off his hands and knees, Bradley landed two body shots, first up the middle and then one to Rios’ side.

Rios didn’t get up this time. He was done, a loser by knockout at 2:49 of the ninth.

For Bradley, it played out exactly as planned. Atlas wanted him to be patient. He said he wanted Bradley to take a piece out of Rios, round by agonizing round. If there was a new animal in Bradley, it was a piranha, Atlas said.

“I just did what Teddy said,’’ said Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs), who put himself back in line for rematch with Manny Pacquiao, perhaps in April.

Speculation about Pacquiao is is bound to be rampant for the next couple of weeks. But jubilant Arum had no doubt that Bradley had re-emerged as one of Top Rank’s stars.

“The best Bradley I’ve ever seen,’’ Arum said.

The same couldn’t be said for Rios, whose career appeared to be at an end.

“I think I’m done,’’ Rios (33-3-1, 24 KOs) said.

Rios might have been weakened by a battle to make weight.

Two tenths of a pound aren’t much, but they were enough to make a weigh-in last an hour longer than it should have Friday.

Rios stepped on the scale once, stripped off his shorts behind a strategically placed sheet and stepped on the scale again. Once, twice, shorts on, shorts off and he was still two-tenths heavier than the 147-pound mandatory for his welterweight bout Saturday night against Timothy Bradley at Thomas & Mack Center.

For the next 60 minutes, Rios found a bathroom, stood around a hallway outside of a ballroom at The Wynn and then headed back to the scale. Once, twice, shorts on, shorts off and this time the two tenths were gone, presumably flushed from the proceedings.

Actually, Rios said he could have saved everybody a lot of time had he been allowed an extra minute or two. In so many words and more than a few expletives, he said he was trying to get rid of the two-tenths when he was called off the stool and onto the scale.

“There was no drama,’’ Rios said then. “I’m ready.’’

Rios’ face looked a little drawn after the weigh-in. He’s no stranger to off and on the scale controversies. As a lightweight, he missed weight twice. The move up to welter was supposed to make things easier.

But Rios has never been about easy.

Not easy on himself or anybody else, especially after a loss that could force him to flush a lot more than just two-tenths.

Lomachenko dominates in 10th-round KO

It was the Vasyl Lomachenko show.

Murata gains further experience, stays unbeaten

Featherweight Marriaga dominant in taking unanimous decision

Colombian featherweight Miguel Marriaga flashed his world -class credentials early and often with a patient and précise performance for which there was no argument.

Michael Reed scored seventh-round TKO

Power and angles were a double-edged combo that Maryland junior-welterweight Michael Reed employed relentlessly.

Ruthlessly, too.

In the end, all of it overwhelmed Rondale Hubbert (10-4-1,6 KOs), a Minneapolis fighter who was knocked down early in the seventh and left hanging on the ropes from a succession of punches from Reed (17-0, 10 KOs) midway through the round of the second bout on the Brandon Rios-Timothy Bradley card Saturday at Thomas & Mack Center. Referee Kenny Bayless, stepped in, ending it at 1:09 of the seventh.

One punch opened show.

Egidijus Kavaliauskas threw it.

One minute into the first round of the opening bout on the Timothy Bradley-Brandon Rios card, Kavaliauskas (10-0, 9 KOs), a two-time Olympian from Lithuania and welterweight prospect in trainer Robert Garcia gym, landed an overhand right, knocking out Jake Giuriceo (17-5-1, 4 KOs) of Struthers, Ohio.

By Norm Frauenhim–

A corner is Teddy Atlas’ bully pulpit. He once sat on Michael Moorer’s stool after a round midway through a 1994 bout with Evander Holyfield. Moorer looked down at Atlas in disbelief. At the start of the next round, however, Moorer believed.

Believed enough to win a narrow decision and a heavyweight title.

The dramatic gesture is always there, an over-the-top move perhaps, yet a tactic played as well as any by Atlas. It doesn’t always work. The relationship between trainer and fighter is all about chemistry, a periodic table of personality traits and emotional elements. Sometimes, it just blows up.

Will it work between Atlas and Timothy Bradley? It’ll have to. There’s no chance to test it. Or if there was, Atlas and Bradley decided to forgo it and instead chose to march straight into harm’s way Saturday night at Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center against Brandon Rios, whose stubborn pressure and relentless energy are bound to subject the new found union to stress that can break it.

Atlas and Bradley said all the right things Wednesday in a conference call before their formal arrival at The Wynn, the home casino for the HBO-televised bout (9:30 p.m. ET/PT). Atlas preached and Bradley talked with the conviction of a welterweight who has been resurrected to be better than ever.

“A whole different animal,’’ said Bradley, who about two months ago split with Joel Diaz, his only pro trainer before he called Atlas.

Bradley, always likable and credible, was convincing. But a fair judgment awaits an opening bell and that first big punch.

“He’s going to tell you after the fight,’’ Rios trainer Robert Garcia said.

The deal between Bradley and Atlas is an acknowledgement of that reality. The two have a fight-to-fight agreement. There’s nothing long-term, not for them or – for that matter – Rios, who concedes his career is at the make-or-break stage.

Betting odds suggest that Atlas and Bradley will be together for more than just one training camp. When the fight was announced, Bradley was about a 5-to-1 favorite. The guess is that his overall skill will prevail against Rios, whom Bradley calls one-dimensional.

The question, however, is whether Bradley has seen his best days. He survived Ruslan Provodnikov’s concussive punches in the 2013 Fight of the Year. But at what price? Signs of possible wear and tear were there when he got wobbled in the final seconds of a one-sided decision over Jessie Vargas in his last outing.

But was that just a careless moment or another in a long succession of big punches at the end of Bradley’s career? Undisciplined or vulnerable? From Atlas’ perspective, it’s just been matter of absorbing too many big blows.

Atlas, ever the preacher, calls them mortal sins. Too many of them, and Bradley’s money-making days will be condemned to a premature end.

“He has to quit taking those big shots, quit committing those mortal sins,’’ said Atlas, the ESPN analyst who says he agreed to work with Bradley in part because the 32-year-old welterweight still wants to learn. “We can live with the menial ones.’’

By Norm Frauenheim

LAS VEGAS – Two tenths of a pound aren’t much, but they were enough to make a weigh-in last an hour longer than it should have Friday.

Brandon Rios stepped on the scale once, stripped off his shorts behind a strategically placed sheet and stepped on the scale again. Once, twice, shorts on, shorts off and he was still two-tenths heavier than the 147-pound mandatory for his welterweight bout Saturday night against Timothy Bradley at Thomas & Mack Center.

For the next 60 minutes, Rios found a bathroom, stood around a hallway outside of a ballroom at The Wynn and then headed back to the scale. Once, twice, shorts on, shorts off and this time the two tenths were gone, presumably flushed from the proceedings.

Actually, Rios said he could have saved everybody a lot of time had he been allowed an extra minute or two. In so many words and more than a few expletives, he said he was trying to get rid of the two-tenths when he was called off the stool and onto the scale.

“There was no drama,’’ Rios said. “I’m ready.’’

Rios’ face looked a little drawn after the weigh-in, which included Vasyl Lomachenko (4-1, 2 KOs) and Romulo Koasicha (25-4, 15 KOs) both at 125.6 pounds for a WBO featherweight title fight. He’s no stranger to off and on the scale controversies. As a lightweight, he missed weight twice. The move up to welter was supposed to make things easier.

But Rios has never been about easy.

On himself or anybody else.

With his career at a crossroads, Rios (33-2-1, 24 KOs) is expected to make things difficult for the favored Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KOs) in an HBO-televised bout (9:30 p.m. ET/PT) that was officially sanctioned as a World Boxing Organization title fight.

His tireless pressure figures to test Bradley, who was at a business-like 146 pounds. For Bradley, the bout is his first with trainer Teddy Atlas. Bradley had spent his entire pro career with Joel Diaz. They knew each other instinctively, almost like father and son. What happens when Rios lands his first big punch? How will Bradley respond to adversity when he sees a different face, Atlas instead of Diaz, in his corner?

That looms as the bout’s key question. If Bradley has the right answer, Rios will wind up flushing a lot more than just two-tenths.

By Norm Frauenheim-

It’s still very much a puzzle, yet the face of boxing in the post Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao era is falling together, piece by haphazard piece, in a process that continues on November 7 with Timothy Bradley-versus-Brandon Rios at Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center.

At a gut level, Bradley-Rios is the best since the search began in the wake of Mayweather’s possible retirement and Pacquiao’s announcement that he’ll fight in April for the last time. Truth is, it doesn’t matter if either or both ever fight again. As the business bids an overdue goodbye, the business re-sets the table while Mayweather re-stocks the garage with Bugatis and Congressman Pacquiao campaigns for a seat in the Filipino Senate.

Over the last few weeks, middleweight Gennady Golovkin and flyweight Roman Gonzales did what they had to in New York. Junior-welterweight Terence Crawford held up his end of the bargain in Omaha. All three looked spectacular in scoring stoppages over opponents few will remember for long.

Did anyone expect anything less? Without that mandatory spectacular, there would have been a lot of gloom-and-doom anguish about what’s next. So far, Golovkin, Gonzalez and Crawford are. The Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez 155-pound winner on Nov. 21 will join them.

But there is no business without a B-side, and the first of those will emerge from Bradley-Rios, a 147-pound fight with high stakes and loaded with stories on all sides. It’s intriguing because both are fighting to stay in line for a major payday. Unlike any other of the aforementioned fights, however, this one is hard to pick.

Rios is fighting for the first time in nearly a year. In his last outing, he scored a stoppage last January of rival Mike Alvarado. But the victory was hard to judge, mostly because Alvarado wasn’t in great condition and seemingly distracted.

Over the idle months, Rios grew impatient. He’s restless and sounds as if he can’t wait to expend some pent-up energy. Or is that frustration? It’s just a guess, but the layoff might have been a blessing in disguise for a 29-year-old welterweight who loves to brawl. It saved him for what promises to be more rounds of attrition in a career full of it. Rios knows no other way. It’s risky. It’s also why fans love him.

Then, there’s Bradley, one of the game’s acknowledged good guys, yet also surrounded by surprising questions. He dumped his only pro trainer Joel Diaz, for Teddy Atlas. It’s a move that makes you wonder how he’ll react with a new face and voice in his corner.

Often, it takes time to develop a personal chemistry between fighter and trainer. Adversity is the only true test. But there’ll be no test drive, not against Rios, an instinctive brawler. Bradley has shown he can withstand the punishing attack promised by Rios. He survived Ruslan Provodnikov in the 2013 Fight of the Year.

But Diaz was there for Provodnikov. If the Rios fight turns into a battle similar to the Provodnikov bout, how would Bradley react stagger between desperate late rounds when he see Atlas instead of Diaz. Who knows?

At 32 and in the last stages of his career, the move to Atlas appears to be a business decision, crafted in part by Bradley’s wife and manager, Monica, who – in an ever-thickening plot — replaced Cameron Dunkin. Dunkin? You guessed it. He is Rios’ manager.

In Atlas, Bradley has a longtime corner man and a successful ESPN ringside analyst. Bradley is trying to move into the broadcasting end of the business himself. He’s working as fledgling analyst for truTV. In Atlas, there are worldwide contacts and world-class experience. But there’s no guarantee of familiarity achieved only amid the chaos of a wild fight.

For now, a wild one is the only good bet.

By Norm Frauenheim–

PHOENIX, Ariz. – For Rob Brant, there was only relief. For Louis Rose, there was only frustration. For both, there were only cheers from a Celebrity Theatre crowd entertained by the middleweights throughout a close battle in a ShoBox-televised bout Friday night.

In the end, Brant’s experience appeared to just enough for a majority decision over Rose, whose corner men stormed out of the ring in anger at the 96-94, 95-95, 96-94 scores.

“He’s tough to beat and I knew he would be,’’ said Brant (18-0, 11 KOs), a Saint Paul, Minn., fighter and 2010 national Golden Gloves champion who relied on his educated jab for a narrow victory. “It seemed like every time I hurt him, he came back storming back.’’

In the end, one question was inevitable:

What about a rematch?

“It’s not up to me,’’ Brant said. “I’ll leave that up to my management.’’

Initially, Rose (13-3-1, 5 KOs) didn’t want to talk. He said he was too disappointed.

But when asked about a rematch, he didn’t hesitate.

“Oh, yeah, absolutely,’’ he shouted in his crowded dressing room.

For Brant’s management, however, there’s risk in another bout with Rose, whose life on the Los Angeles streets included eight months when he slept in old car.

Rose, who has no amateur experience, only figures to get better.

His quick feet and athleticism made him an elusive target in the early rounds against Brant repeated missed with right hands. Over the last five rounds, Brant began to catch Rose with head-rocking lefts. Yet, Rose was always able to quickly recover with combinations of his own.

On the televised undercard, Brooklyn heavyweight Jarrell Miller (15-0-1, 13 KOs) lived up to the first half of his Big Baby nickname. He was way too big for Ahror Muralimov (14-2, 11 KOs) of Taskkent. The 280-pound Miller walked down Muralimov, stopping him out with an overhand right in the third round.

The Rest

Light-heavyweight Samuel Clarkson (17-3, 11 KOs) of Cedar Hills, Tex., scored a second-round stoppage of Lavarn Harvell (15-2, 8 KOs) of Atlanatic City, N.J.

Phoenix super-featherweight Keenan Carbajal (8-2, 5 KOs), wearing the white trunks with red lettering once worn by Hall of Famer Michael Carbajal, used his leverage, scoring a couple big knockdowns for a third-round KO of Angel Monrreal 5-7, 3 KOs) of Mexico.

Las Vegas welterweight Jeremy Nichols (1-0, 1 KO) was credited with three knockdowns in the first round for some quick work in his debut — a stoppage of Jeremiah Davis (0-1), a Phoenix fighter whose stumbled more often than he threw punches.

Tough super-bantamweight Jose Silveria (16-18, 7 KOs) of Mexico threw harder shots and landed them often enough for a majority decision over Emilio Garcia (9-2, 2 KOs) of Phoenix .