Hatton is Still the Man at 140

Ricky Hatton returned to the ring this weekend to face a tough challenger in Juan Lazcano. Hatton needed a win to re-solidify his standing as the best junior welterweight in the world and he got it. Hatton won a unanimous decision by wide margins as he outworked the Lazcano.

Judges at ringside scored the fight 120-111, 120-108 and 118-110 respectively.

On the undercard, the flashy Paulie "The Magic Man" Malignaggi eeked out a split decision victory over previously vanquished foe Lovemore N'dou. Malignaggi gave the crowd a show, albeit in an unusual way. He broke his hand early in the fight, and also seemed to have just as much trouble with his hair extensions as he did with his opponent. Still, Malinaggi is looking forward to getting in the ring with Hatton in his next fight.

If you haven't seen "The Magic Man" in action, than you've missed quite the spectacle. Malignaggi is Floyd Mayweather Lite. He's flashy and a good boxer, but he's got nothing for power and usually uses his speed and defense to get past opponents.

Malignaggi is no match for Ricky Hatton.

He'll try to move, but not even Floyd Mayweather could get away from the quick and aggressive Hatton. Hatton actually stumbled Mayweather a few times early in their encounter, and it would seem that he'd walk right through the paper-fisted Malignaggi the way Cotto did.

And the way Cotto did it was brutal. Hey, if I'm Pauli Malignaggi, one fight like that is enough for a career.

In Bummer-of-the-Month New, the much anticipated fight between "Sugar" Shane Mosley and "Super" Zab Judah has been called off due to Judah's recent hammering at the hands of his shower. Judah allegedly fell in his shower and sustained some injuries serious enough to call off the fight. There are no plans to reschedule the fight. Instead, their are rumours that Mosley will go after Ricardo Mayorga.

Hey, that'd be fun, too.

Not as fun as the Miguel Cotto-Antonio Margarito fight scheduled for this July 26th. This one is going to be legendary, so stary saving up for the PPV now.

Finally, last week HBO put on a pretty decent tripleheader of up-and-coming fighters. Yuriorkis Gamboa headlined the night, and proved once again that it takes much more than talent to make it in the fight game. Sure, he won the fight, but he also proved that he'll never be a real champion. He may win a belt, but as soon as he fights a real champion (i.e. the Ring Magazine champ) he'll get hammered.

Despite oozing with talent and ability other fighters would kill for, Gamboa seems content to waste it away by being overly cocky and stupid. He fought the fight the whole night with his hands at his side and showed absolutely no class as he continuously threw the other fighter to the ground in frustration.

And to think, people complain about Floyd Mayweather. If the talking heads at HBO could see past their own noses, they'd see that for all the trash talking Mayweather does (and he does alot) he also is a fighter that respects the game and respects other fighters.

Chaguev-Valuev II: WTF?!

WTF ?! is not the official name of the rematch between heavyweight titlist Ruslan Chagaev and mammoth former titlist Nicolai Valuev, but perhaps it should be.

These 2 fighters are aimlessly helping to make the heavyweight division as boring as ever. The last fight ended with the much smaller but better skilled Chagaev eeking out a close but well-earned decision against the giant freak show that is Valuev. Still, boxing fans hoped the unbeaten Chagaev would set his sites on helping unify the champions of the beleaguered heavyweight division.

For those of you who don’t know, and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t, here is the current state of the most important division in the sport.

Ruslan Chagaev is the WBA champion which means basically nothing. He originally won the belt in his first fight with Valuev. Meanwhile, the current WBC champion is Samuel Peter. Peter recently bashed Oleg Maskaev to the canvas (actually he was still on his feat) to win his meaningless belt. Finally, the almost real heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko owns the WBO and IBF belts. He is also ranked #1 by Ring Magazine and generally considered the best of the bunch.

But we have no real champion.

In all other sports, except college football, there would be some sort of pairing off or playoff between the 4 men until someone was the true champion, but boxing is not like other sports (except college football). Nope, Klitschko is set to fight Tony “The Tiger” Thompson.

Who?! Exactly.

Meanwhile, Samuel Peter is set to fight ‘a’ Klitschko just not ‘the’ Klitschko. Big brother Vitali will make an attempted comeback by climbing in the ring with the Nigerian Nightmare that knocked his brother down 3 times and still lost. Normally, I’d be cool with this fight as both participants are exciting to watch, but as the Klitschkoo brothers have repeatedly said they would never fight each other, so the chance of a Vitali win over Peter scares me a bit too much to be able to enjoy the fight.

And so we're left with Chagaev, who is adding to all this nonsense by facing off against Nicolai Valuev again. It seems like boxing fans will have to endure another meaningless fight in an increasingly meaningless division. You have to hand it to Chagaev, though. He sure knows how to fit in with the crowd.

Hey, as long as we're at it, why not give Evander Holyfield a shot? At least people might care.

Oscar's Golden Egg

Oscar De La Hoya is the most important boxer in the world today. He has millions of dollars, even more adoring fans and is the leader of the most important boxing promotion company in the sport. He's a singer, actor and owner of the best M.L.S. franchise. Oh, and he's also an idiot.

I can't wait to watch Floyd Mayweather destroy him.

Sure, we supposedly saw a re-invigorated De La Hoya outclass a game but over-matched Steve Forbes in his last fight, but Mayweather is no Steve Forbes.

Floyd Mayweather is not a perfect fighter, but other fights have to fight damn near perfect to beat him. This is for several reasons, the most important of which are the following:

1. His physical talent is only matched by his tremendous skill.
2. He fights to win fights, not to entertain fans.
3. He wants to be the best ever.

Mayweather is the rare kind of fighter that comes along once every generation or so, if you're lucky. Ray Robinson was that kind of fighter. So was Muhammed Ali and Ray Leonard. Oscar De La Hoya wishes he was that kind of fighter.

Perhaps that's what's driving Oscar. Think about it, he always ends up losing his biggest fights. Remember him on his bicycle against Felix Trinidad? What about his 2 losses to Shane Mosely? How 'bout his writhing in pain on the canvas against Bernard Hopkins?

Still, analyst will say that if Oscar fights like he did against Steve Forbes then he's got a great chance. Sure, Oscar fights better when he's up on his toes, jabbing and throwing combinations. He has a good reach for a welter and has a killer left hook, but that is not the way to beat Floyd Mayweather.

Oscar fought the perfect fight last time he fought Floyd. He crowded Mayweather all night and let his hands go when in close trying to catch Floyd however he could, but he still came up sh0rt. Some would argue it was a close fight (and it was), but NO WAY it could've been scored for Oscar by any reasonably sane person. When the fight was over, it was clear who was the better fighter.

Now Oscar has a new plan. He beat up on a hapless Steve Forbes to try and buy some spotlight and give his legion of adoring fans the belief that he could actually do the unthinkable this time and knock off the reining P4P king. This time he'll out-box, out-think and out -work Floyd.

Umm--note to Oscar....YOU CANNOT OUT-BOX FLOYD MAYWEATHER.

I sincerely can't believe he's actually going to try this, but I also cannot wait till September now. Oscar will stay up on his toes, throw his jabs and get picked apart all night by the best boxer in the world.

My grandpa used to say "you can't outwit a nitwit". True, but it looks like The Golden Boy has gone ahead and outwitted himself. Oscar De La Hoya, you're about to lay the Golden Egg, as in the number of rounds you win if you try to outbox Mayweather.

I can't wait. Let's just hope the PPV price for this one is less than the 54.95 we had to shell out last year. This fight won't even be close.

Forbes can help me out

Here's hoping Oscar De La Hoya chokes big time against Steve Forbes, or Forbes catches Oscar with a lucky punch and puts his lights out.

I'm not a big Oscar fan, but I'm not a hater either. I'm AM a big Floyd Mayweather fan, but sorry Floyd, Mayweather-De La Hoya II is NOT what the doctor ordered. (It may very well have been what the doctor ordered last May...)

I want Mayweather-Cotto to happen so soon it hurts, and Mayweather having to sleepwalk through another De La Hoya victory will just prolong that from happening.

GO STEVE FORBES!!!

(Still, if Mayweather-De La Hoya DOES happen, I'll be the first to buy it)