ESPN Boxing

After Friday's highly entertaining "ShoBox" and "Friday Night Fights" cards, and with some potentially interesting scraps still ahead in Atlantic City, N.J., tonight, we're not in too big a hurry to move on just yet, but ...

For a sneak peak at ESPN.com's blanket coverage of Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Miguel Cotto fight week, check out the clip above for analysis from the FNF crew on the Canelo Alvarez-Shane Mosley co-feature.

The best fighters need to want to face the best, Ismayl Sillakh says, or boxing risks going down the tubes.

And yes, in case you were wondering, the Ukrainian-born light heavyweight who this week headlines "Friday Night Fights" at the Erwin Center in Austin, Texas, against Denis Grachev, believes he belongs in the category of boxing's best.

Sillakh, 27, thought he would get to prove that against Jean Pascal, the former heavyweight titlist who holds a win over Chad Dawson and who drew and lost in two bouts against the ageless Bernard Hopkins. There was talk that Sillakh (17-0, 14 KOs) would glove up against Pascal last May, but that proved to be just talk. Sillakh, whose best win is a 10-round decision over Yordanis Despaigne in March 2011, suspects that Pascal is dodging him because he is too skilled and presents an immense risk. Sillakh's manager, Ivaylo Gotzev, thinks the same.

"Of course I'm a little biased, but Ismayl's as good as anybody out there at 175," said Gotzev, who also handles Samuel Peter and has worked with Vassiliy Jirov and Sergei Liakhovich. "He's fast and skilled, and people avoid fighting him. Chris Henry, Pascal, Zsolt Erdei, Chad Dawson -- they're all running. In my 20 years in management, Ismayl is the best talent I've had."

Gotzev is confident that his guy, ranked No. 2 by the WBC, will get the winner of Saturday's Bernard Hopkins-Chad Dawson fight in Atlantic City, N.J. ("The WBC ordered it," he said.) Hopkins, who turned 47 in January, is the underdog against the 29-year-old Dawson in a rematch of their October 2011 bout, which ended in Round 2 when Hopkins was unable to continue because of an injured left shoulder.

No offense intended to the 29-year-old Russian-born Grachev (11-0, 7 KOs), a former kickboxer who has been semi-inactive, finding it hard to secure fights.

For his part, Grachev, whose best win is a TKO of Vladine Biosse in May 2011, wasn't lacking for confidence on a phone call, telling ESPN.com that he is "going to break Sillakh."

And how will the 6-foot-1 righty achieve that? His right hand to the body will help do the trick, he says, though he acknowledges that Sillakh is rightfully seen as the favorite in the scrap.

"Sillakh is a very tough opponent, he's very good," Grachev said. He knows, having sparred a bit with Sillahk about a year ago.

Informed of Grachev's prediction, Sillakh, a 6-foot-3… right-hander, laughed. "It's fine," he said on the phone. "He's a good boxer, but I will bring him to school. He can do whatever he wants, but I think I will stop him in four or five rounds."

I expect Sillakh will do just that, because he has pop in both hands and some sweet feet. He dictates distance quite well, using his agility and foot speed to best effect, and with over 300 amateur fights tucked under his belt, he recognizes when he has his foe hurt and definitely seeks to exploit that.

Then he will turn his eyes to the men ahead of him in line, Dawson and Hopkins, and engage in some scouting.

"I will fight one of them sooner or later," said Sillakh, who now lives in California. "I came to this country in 2008 because it has good fighters and coaches. I don't understand why the best don't take the fights. If you're a fighter, you want to fight. You want to fight the best. If not, then boxing will go down."

My late friend Bert Sugar would frequently opine, when asked about the dire state of the contemporary American heavyweight boxing scene, that "the best heavyweight in America today is Ray Lewis." He was not commenting specifically on the pugilistic abilities of the Baltimore Ravens linebacker, of course, but making a point: that with his combination of size, athleticism and focused aggression, Lewis might have been, in an era not too far removed from our own, attracted more to the prospect of being heavyweight champion of the world than a career in the National Football League.

It is a thesis that, to the latest contender to be fitted for the mantle of America's next great heavyweight hope, makes sense.

"I'm not really a historian, but I know back in the day -- 30, 40, 50 years ago -- there were not a lot of opportunities for especially African-Americans to compete at sports such as basketball and football," said Seth "Mayhem" Mitchell, who will put his 24-0-1 record on the line Saturday against Chazz Witherspoon on HBO from Atlantic City, N.J. "Now you have baseball, you have football, you have basketball, and what people fail to realize is that it's hard to make a living in this sport of boxing. Whether you're making a lot of money or a little money, you're still getting hit in the face, you're still sparring all these rounds. People might see you on TV and think you're making a lot of money, but that's really not the case. So it's hard to make it in boxing, and I think with these other sports and being able to earn a great living in all these other sports, I certainly think that's hindering the sport of boxing."

Had circumstances been different, Mitchell might well have been one of those making a living on the gridiron. A star linebacker at Michigan State -- he once recorded 17 tackles in a game against Ohio State -- his footballing prospects were ended by injury. He stayed at college to conclude his studies and graduated with a criminal justice degree; in 2006, after watching Tommy Zbikowski, who was then a Notre Dame safety, win his pro boxing debut at Madison Square Garden, Mitchell elected to try his hand at the sweet science. A brief amateur career -- 10 fights, nine wins -- ensued, and in 2008, four months before his 26th birthday, Mitchell turned professional.

Middleweight champion Sergio Martinez, who famously didn't lace up a pair of gloves until he was 20, has shown that it is theoretically possible for a naturally gifted athlete to succeed in the ring even after a late start. Mitchell, however, is one of the very few members of the former-football-player-turned-boxer fraternity to have become regarded as anything more than a curiosity.

"You know, to be honest, it's funny, because when I decided to box, I never put myself in that category," he said. "There are plenty of football players who try to cross over into boxing and haven't been successful. I just believed in myself, and believed that with hard work and belief and faith that I could achieve greatness in this sport. And so far, so good."

Whether Mitchell's path ultimately will end in greatness remains to be seen. There will be plenty of people along the way, beginning with Witherspoon on Saturday, looking to upset that apple cart, and the college graduate would himself likely concede that his boxing grade is at this stage incomplete. At the same time, a well-spoken, hard-hitting American heavyweight is just what a lot of boxing fans in this country are looking for, and Mitchell is well aware that an increasing number of those fans are looking at him to fill that role.

"I'm glad that people are choosing me to bring back the American heavyweight division," Mitchell said. "I'd be lying to you if I said it didn't feel good. But I know I just have to work hard to continue to get better, and that's what I'm trying to do."

There had been no public clamoring for a rematch of the controversial first fight between Bernard Hopkins and Chad Dawson, but next Saturday we'll get one nonetheless. On the bright side: It's an event whenever Hopkins fights at this point, Dawson is a quality light heavyweight contender who deserves another stab at Hopkins' belt and, well ... at least this show won't be on pay-per-view.

For an early Hopkins-Dawson preview from "Friday Night Fights" analysts Teddy Atlas and Joe Tessitore, check out the clip above.

I do not recall a pro fighter debuting at age 29, as Adonis Stevenson did, and being on the cusp of a title shot within five years.

The same goes for Emanuel Steward, Stevenson's trainer/manager. He wasn't aware of how late Stevenson (17-1, 14 KOs) had turned pro.

"That's amazing!" Steward said when I asked him about the late start for his boxer, who is ranked as high as No. 2 at super middleweight by the International Boxing Federation.

Steward is truly enamored of Stevenson, who was born in Haiti and has lived in Canada since he was 5, and the trainer proves his commitment by choosing to also manage his fighter. Steward is asked to manage fighters every day, but unless someone has the physical goods and a stellar work ethic, is open to tutoring and is a solid citizen outside the ring, he won't bother.

Steward, the godfather of Kronk, had received a call from a pal of Stevenson's asking him to hook up with the fighter. Yeah, yeah, Steward thought. Lo and behold, Stevenson showed up, and he didn't leave.

Steward was blown away when Stevenson once showed up at 11 p.m. at the trainer's house -- a two-mile jog from where the fighter was staying -- during a snowstorm. Steward offered to drive him home.

"That's OK, I'll just run home," Stevenson said.

"That's the kind of guy he is," Steward said.

Steward trained the fighter for three weeks leading up to his most recent bout, against 27-1 Jesus Gonzalez on Feb. 18. Stevenson knocked out Gonzalez in Round 1, his fourth straight knockout since being TKO'd by journeyman Darnell Boone in April 2010.

Now, Stevenson isn't a polished product, not like Steward's diamond centerpiece, Wladimir Klitschko. Stevenson has issues with balance, footwork and staying patient. But the trainer says all of that is improving. One thing that leaped out at me while I watched video of Stevenson, a 5-foot-11 southpaw, came in his February bout. He backed up Gonzalez with a lead hook and followed with a straight left that mummified the loser, literally leaving him on the canvas on his back with limbs stiffened from body shock.

And then Stevenson leaped in celebration, to the ceiling, with NBA-level hops. The guy has athleticism and explosivity, and if Steward can refine the rough edges, look out, 168-pound champs Andre Ward, Lucian Bute and Robert Stieglitz.

Steward told me he envisions Stevenson winning a crown, and there's something else he particularly likes about the "old" new kid on the block: "He's dangerous all the way through," Steward said. "We got some kind of weird-ass guy here, one of these stamina freaks." That may be aided by Stevenson's late start, as his body doesn't have much mileage on it.

One more thing: Steward loves Stevenson's mindset, in that he seeks to stop his foe. "There's nothing like knocking [expletive] out. That's what made [Mike] Tyson special. I train all my fighters to go for the KO. But they have the stamina in case it doesn't happen."

Across the ring at the Bell Centre in Montreal on this week's "Friday Night Fights" will be Noe Gonzalez, a 32-year-old fighter from Uruguay who is ranked No. 2 by the WBC. The 28-1 hitter, who lives in Argentina, has fought only once in the U.S., but remember on last week's FNF show, Albert Mensah, from Ghana? He had previously fought just once in the U.S., then showed ex-champ Michael Katsidis that he has the goods, winning a majority decision. Gonzalez is described by his adviser, Sampson Lewkowicz, as "a counterpuncher, very powerful, has well-educated defense, and his only problem is sometimes he's not very active."

So, is this one a toss-up?

"I know that Gonzalez will knock out Stevenson," Lewkowicz told me.

All right then.

Yes, Stevenson has been stopped before, by Boone. But Lewkowicz put that ending in context.

"On Friday, it will not be a bad night for Stevenson," he said. "It will be a KO by a better fighter. Stevenson is a good fighter, but he's not elite. Once Gonzalez wins, we look forward to continue fighting in Canada."

Those are fighting words, Lewkowicz promising a KO on Stevenson's turf and then saying that his guy will take over that turf, stealing market share.

Yes, I am officially pumped for this fight, and even if the show starts late, I promise I will not be a wuss like last week and DVR it. Mensah made me look foolish, so I'm nervous about picking a winner. Gonzalez looks more polished to me. He has power in both hands and mixes shots well. Stevenson will need to be ready to dodge or absorb straight shots, left hooks and the odd uppercut. With great internal conflict, I'm leaning toward Gonzalez, liking his experience and polish.

I was absolutely furious on Saturday night when the decision in favor of Brandon Rios was announced. How could they do that to poor Richard Abril? Another atrocity in favor of the house fighter! Has Las Vegas relocated to Texas?

Then something happened on Sunday night that altered my attitude: I watched the fight.

My initial reaction was based on the response of the Twitter-verse, as I had opted not to order this past weekend's pay-per-view card. As a boxing writer, however, I knew this was a fight for which I was obligated to have my own scorecard in order to engage in any future discourse. So I fired it up on YouTube some 24 hours after the fight, prepared to be disgusted, curious whether I would award Rios a single round.

Well, I did give "Bam Bam" a round. And then another. And another. At the end of the fight, my scorecard read 115-113 for Abril. Almost every round in the fight was close. Several that I gave to Rios could have gone the other way, but most of the rounds I scored for Abril were tight enough to swing in Rios' direction, too. I can see how Adalaide Byrd arrived at her scorecard of 117-111 for Abril, but I can also see how Glenn Trowbridge scored it 115-113 for Rios and even how Jerry Roth came up with a 116-112 tally in Rios' favor. It was that kind of fight.

And my best guess as to why it didn't seem like that kind of fight to those who watched it unfold live is that their expectations were very different than mine.

Rios was generally expected to steamroll Abril. Even after failing to make weight for the second fight in a row and giving everyone cause to wonder about his physical preparedness, undefeated rising star Rios was a prohibitive favorite over the unknown Cuban. On paper, this was little more than a tuneup for a possible Rios-Juan Manuel Marquez showdown.

When you expect Fighter A to walk right through Fighter B, every round in which he doesn't feels like a victory for Fighter B. When Fighter B lands a combination, it grabs your attention. When Fighter A does the same, you wonder what's wrong with him that those punches lack the snap to put Fighter B on the floor.

That's an oversimplification, of course. But in this fight, there were numerous rounds in which Abril succeeded in frustrating Rios, succeeded in flashing good defense, but didn't succeed in doing much offensively. So at the end of three minutes, what did you like? Did you give Rios any credit for stretches when he'd get inside and throw 20 unanswered punches to the body and head, missing 17 or 18 of them? Did you penalize Abril in close rounds for holding? Did you reward Abril for "ring generalship" in moving backward and dictating the style of the fight without landing many telling punches, or did you reward Rios for ineffectively coming forward and outworking Abril?

And, importantly, were you listening to the broadcast crew?

I'm a fan of Brian Kenny, Rich Marotta and Raul Marquez, and I like all three of them immensely on a personal level. (I recently learned that Marotta, like me, is a die-hard Springsteen fan. What's not to like?) But in this fight, they collectively latched on early to the storyline that Abril was in total control, and they barely seemed to notice anything semi-effective that Rios did the rest of the way. They got into group-think mode, and as a result, much of the PPV audience shared in that group-think.

It's not that their scoring and their take on the fight was "wrong." It's just that it offered only one perspective when, to my eyes, there were a couple of perspectives possible in each round. Sometimes you need someone on the broadcast playing devil's advocate, which is why I've always liked Showtime's use of "press row scoring." You get three independent opinions in addition to whatever the commentators are seeing, often forcing the commentators to pause and acknowledge that their view isn't the only viable one.

I'm not saying Rios deserved to win this fight. I scored it for Abril, after all. What I'm saying is that this looked more like a classic case of the subjectivity in boxing scoring that so often creates controversy, rather than the flat-out robbery at pencil point that was reported on Twitter in the moment.

If you want to curse me out the same way you cursed out Roth and Trowbridge, you're entitled. But first, I suggest you watch Rios-Abril one more time, with no sound and no expectations, and see if the fight didn't just get a whole lot closer.

In the ring, Floyd Mayweather Jr. can be relied upon to show off a stunning skill set of pugilistic tools that have made him the sport's acknowledged pound-for-pound kingpin. Outside the ring, when there's a microphone around, Mayweather frequently shows off a personality that quickly puts people who absorb the "Money" persona in a "love him" or a "hate him" camp.

As for which camp the folks at PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, have taken to, well, let's just say they probably won't be buying the Mayweather-Miguel Cotto pay-per-view on May 5 to cheer on the 35-year-old ace pugilist/buzz creator.

On Saturday's debut screening of HBO's "24/7" miniseries, the docu-drama/info-tainment effort to educate fans and potential buyers of the May 5 event, Mayweather was questioned by an off-camera interviewer about his training camp.

"In this training camp, we're boxing nonstop, and when we get in the ring, it's called the doghouse," Mayweather said. "So if you look at the ring, it's always surrounded by a bunch of people, 'cause that's the doghouse. When you go to a dog fight and you watch pit bulls fight ..." And here he pauses, seeming to understand he has entered into iffy, Michael Vick-ian territory.

He continues: "I don't want to get in trouble by -- what's the people called, PETA? I don't want to get in trouble with the PETA people, but ... the animal rights people, but s---, I don't give a f---, 'cause I wear mink coats. I'm gonna wear chinchilla and I'm gonna rock mink coats. The same people want to tell you, 'You can't wear animal fur and s---, them's the same people that's eating chickens, eating cows, eating steak. So f--- what they're talking about."

When informed about the diatribe, PETA launched a counterpunch at Mayweather. After watching the segment, a spokesperson offered PETA's official statement on the matter:

"People who proudly admit to wearing fur are either ignorant or arrogant about animal suffering. And people who allude to attending dogfights are inviting the authorities to investigate a potential felony. PETA promotes living compassionately, including choosing vegan meals, but you don't have to be a vegetarian to object to a cruel blood 'sport' in which dogs are left mangled, bloody, soaked in urine and saliva, and unable to walk, and the 'losers' are killed for not having been 'game.' Unless Floyd Mayweather's agent will strangle, shoot or beat him to death if he loses, his comparing boxing to dogfighting is as absurd as it is offensive."

Also, Mayweather's claim that PETA advocates who lobby against the fur trade also chow down on meat -- that didn't pass my sniff test. My wife and kids are vegan, and I have a bit of knowledge on the subject. PETA weighed in on that notion as well:

"PETA has an all-vegan office policy, and the people who work for PETA do so because they are driven by the cause to end cruelty to animals. Typically, the majority of employees are already vegetarian or vegan when they come to PETA."

He has had a stellar camp, he says, and friends tell him they haven't seen him this amped and looking this fresh right before a fight in years. He has a new trainer, whom he says is as hands-on and experienced as any he has dealt with ... but Michael Katsidis concedes that he won't truly know what he has left until he steps into the ring against Albert Mensah for this week's "Friday Night Fights" main event at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas.

When Katsidis arrived on our radar screens, he immediately showed a style that suggested longevity wouldn't be one of his hallmarks. After his fan-friendly (if not body- and brain-friendly) rumbles with Joel Casamayor, Juan Diaz, Jesus Chavez, Vicente Escobedo and Juan Manuel Marquez, we are left to wonder how much longer the Australian-born California resident will ply this savage trade.

After scoring a third-round knockdown of Marquez before ultimately being stopped in their November 2010 clash, Katsidis was handled easily by Robert Guerrero in April 2011. He stopped journeyman Michael Lozada four months later, and in his most recent outing, Katsidis dropped a unanimous decision to solid Scot Ricky Burns in a bid for an interim lightweight crown.

I put it to the 31-year-old Katsidis bluntly: How much do you have left?

"I'm curious myself. It's wait-and-see," he said via phone. "I've been strong in the gym. I have a good trainer, Justin Fortune, I'm working with. I'm at an important stage of my career. I think it will be a turning point."

Make no mistake, the vibe I got from Katsidis isn't one of a vet playing out the string or a guy with half his arse in the hammock.

"I'm enjoying what I'm doing," he said. "You've been at this a long time. Let me ask you: Do I sound shot?"

No, indeed.

The 29-year-old Ghana-born Mensah (19-3-1, 7 KOs) shouldn't be a bridge too far for the rugged brawler, who seems genetically unable to think of taking a backward step in a fight. Katsidis sees Mensah -- who lives in Chicago but whose only fight on U.S. soil came in his most recent bout, last July's 12-round majority decision win against Andre Gorges -- as a rangy hitter but something of a wild card.

"With Ghanians," Katsidis said, "you can expect the unexpected."

I expect that unless training has been but a cruel mirage for Katsidis, he will impose his will and heavy power advantage on the 5-foot-10 underdog, who will need to be ultra-crafty to keep from being stopped early in the tangle.

That the bout will be conducted at junior welterweight instead of lightweight figures to help Katsidis. Fortune told me he was aghast to learn that the 5-7 Katsidis had been sweating off weight in a sauna right before fights, instead of paring down gradually, so the trainer thinks his fighter should have an uptick in the stamina department going forward. I asked Fortune, an Australian ex-heavyweight (15-9-2 in 1990-2001, with one comeback loss in 2009), how much he believes his countryman has left.

"You can't tell until he gets into the ring," Fortune said. "We'll know in this fight.
But I'd say he has a few fights left, probably three fights left."

In their first fight together, Fortune wants Katsidis to add a bit more head movement into the mix, pick his spots more often, remain balanced and fight at a measured pace. But the trainer knows the 10-year vet is what he is, and it's hard to rejigger a fighter's style after so many years.

"He won two titles on sheer guts -- sheer balls and guts," Fortune said. "You have to stop him to actually stop him. There are not a lot of them left; they are a dying breed."

Which is why Katsidis is probably right -- that we aren't likely to again see him on FNF.

"My next fight is going to be a huge fight," he said, when asked what would come if he gets past Mensah. "If I couldn't beat the best, I wouldn't do it. And boxing fans appreciate my style."

That they do. Expect Katsidis to wear down Mensah by Round 7 and make him regret relocating to the U.S. to make his mark. And if Katsidis makes it out without getting cut, you should see him shoot up the ranking at 140 pounds, snagging a title shot by late summer.

It was just before 8 p.m. on April 6, 1987, when Sugar Ray Leonard started his walk to the outdoor ring at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas to face his moment of truth against Marvelous Marvin Hagler.

As far as most observers were concerned, he might as well have been walking to the gallows. With Leonard having fought just once in five years and undergone eye surgery, logic dictated it was a fight he couldn't win.

That assumption might have been safe had it been anyone other than Leonard in the fight. Little more than an hour later, one of the most remarkable comebacks in boxing history had been executed, rather than, as feared, Leonard himself.

Leonard alternately danced and fought his way to a disputed 12-round split decision, capturing the middleweight championship and a place among the all-time greats.

Hagler already had his, but it no longer mattered. In his eyes, he had been robbed of the title by his polar opposite, a media darling who had been propelled to stardom on the back of Olympic glory while Hagler toiled for every morsel of recognition that came his way.

Friday marks the 25th anniversary of the fight that defined the sport's last golden era and the careers of both men.

Leonard carried on for another 10 years, but he never reached the same heights again, eventually bowing out at 40 years old. For Hagler, losing to Leonard was too much to bear. Hurt and disillusioned, he never fought again, retiring just over a year later.

Two years earlier, in April 1985, Hagler had prevailed in a three-round war with common rival Thomas Hearns in one of the most sensational bouts of the modern era. Despite its dramatic outcome, the Leonard fight never caught light in the same way, even though the frenzied prefight buildup had surpassed almost anything that had come before it.

"The event was built up to be gigantic, but I don't think the fight lived up to its expectations," said Richard Steele, who refereed the bout, as well as Hagler-Hearns. "There wasn't enough action."

That was because Leonard, the naturally smaller man, kept the fight at distance. He moved around and was rarely still long enough for Hagler to inflict any real damage. Every so often, Leonard stopped, planted his feet and engulfed Hagler with a flashy burst, catching the judges' eyes while the champion struggled to impose himself.

Hagler, a natural southpaw, mysteriously started from an orthodox stance and tried to outbox Leonard in the first four rounds. But Hagler fell behind on the scorecards and, despite coming on in the later stages, never seemed to look to get Leonard out of the fight.

"It was not what the crowd expected," said Steele, now a 68-year-old coach in North Las Vegas. "Hagler was trying to box.

"Instead of doing it the way that had got him there and using the style that gave him his reputation, he tried something new. That kinda messed it up.

"It was a close fight, but Leonard won. As I've stated on TV many times, and as I look at the fight [again], it gets closer and closer. But I gave it to Leonard. He did more than Hagler."

Two judges went opposite ways, with scores of 115-113, while the third, JoJo Guerra, had it an impossibly wide 118-110 for Leonard, giving Hagler only two of the 12 rounds. In a poll of U.S. newspaper reporters at ringside, six went for Leonard, four for Hagler and three scored the fight a draw.

"I thought Hagler would knock him out," Steele admitted. "Every time the bell rang [to end the rounds], I said to myself, 'I guess he's gonna do it the next round.' But the next round never happened. Leonard had him mesmerized. By the time he did turn [more aggressive] and he came [back] to himself, it was too late."

The bout was watched by a crowd of 15,336, with 12,379 paying customers generating a live gate of $6.2 million. Millions more watched on closed circuit, with Hagler earning $12 million and Leonard $11 million, according to figures supplied by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Veteran HBO analyst Larry Merchant, who worked on the U.S. closed-circuit broadcast, said the bout was "one of the signature fights of its time," referring to the 1980s, when Leonard, Hagler, Hearns and Panamanian Roberto Duran all fought each other at least once in a seemingly endless series of classic fights.

"Hagler and Leonard, in the way it came to be and the way it was fought, was the climax of that amazing round robin of fights," Merchant said.
"The pressure on Hagler leading up to the fight is fascinating to me, largely because Hagler was so consumed by part confusion, part jealousy of Leonard, who was the much more popular fighter. It seemed that Hagler was always fighting the shadow of Leonard.

"Leonard had been the successor to [Muhammad] Ali, the best and most famous fighter on the planet. Hagler had often spoken about how he wanted to show that he was as much an artist in the ring as Leonard.

"He decided to outbox and outfox the boxer. He came out in the first few rounds fighting conventional, and it ended up probably costing him the fight."

A rematch might have been even more lucrative for both boxers, but it failed to materialize and Hagler walked away for good, signaling the end of one of the sport's greatest rivalries.

You would think Carlos Molina's luck would have to turn at some point, but here's the latest sucker punch to his career: After his dubious disqualification in a March 24 bout with James Kirkland, Molina seemingly won't get a much-deserved rematch. "Friday Night Fights" analyst Bernardo Osuna has more in the above video clip.

People often bring up the downsides of boxing, focusing on the savagery they see in the ring and the unfortunate toll not infrequently seen decades later in boxers, including slurred speech and dementia intensified by brain damage suffered from trading blows.

Less often do people focus on one of the sports' major upsides, namely that by giving young men who were on a path that promised incarceration and/or premature death of a violent nature, for them and/or others who crossed their paths, boxing likely reduces carnage that affects friends, families and neighborhoods.

Hank Lundy fights at Foxwoods Resort in Mashantucket, Conn., in the main event of this week's "Friday Night Fights," and although he views a win in that fight against Dannie Williams as a stepping stone to the lightweight title shot that would go a long way toward providing for his four children, really Lundy has already proven himself a high achiever in the game. Because if he hadn't taken up boxing as a teen and stuck with it to this point, Hank Lundy would be dead.

This isn't me overwriting for dramatic effect, making an assumption for the sake of trying to deliver an impact. That Lundy (21-1-1, with 11 KOs) would be dead if not for boxing comes from the mouth of the man himself.

Lundy, 28 and born, bred and living in Philadelphia, will battle St. Louis native Dannie Williams, who himself was once a good bet to suffer a cold, hard, premature end, probably on the wrong end of a handgun.

"If it wasn't for boxing, I'm not gonna lie: I'd be dead," Lundy told me in a phone interview on Wednesday.

"I was growing up on the streets of South Philly since my mom was in the hospital," he said, referring to his mom, Kimberly, who has long battled schizophrenia. "By age 13, I was on the street hanging with older guys, who had guns and were selling drugs. When I was 13, I got into a fight with a guy and beat him up bad. I wasn't that big then, and I'm not that big now. His big brother, who was like 25, smacked me with a gun in the face."

His face and pride busted up, Lundy was planning revenge and upping the ante. But before that could go down, his aunt, Denise Bennett, swooped in and got custody of him, his brothers and his sisters. "I never got back to that situation," Lundy said. "That was God's way of keeping me out of harm's way."

Lundy found an outlet and a passion in sports, including football. He was offered a scholarship to play ball at Crookstown University, but there wasn't enough money to attend. At 18, his uncle got him into a gym, and it stuck. He had about 70 amateur bouts and turned pro in 2006. In his most recent outing, in August 2011 on FNF, he stopped vet David Diaz in the sixth after getting dropped in the fourth round. FNF watchers might recall his step-up bout with John Molina in July 2010, which resulted in Lundy's sole loss, via 11th-round TKO.

Lundy, the NABF lightweight champ, wants to prove he is among the world elite at lightweight. But he's already in the top tier in the trash-talk department.

"Dannie's fought nobody," Lundy told me. "I'm not sleeping on him, but he doesn't belong in the ring with me. He's stepping in the way of my kids trying to succeed. I'm pissed about that. I'm really gonna hurt him. I'm going to beat him no problem."

Lundy's kids are ages 10, 9, 7, 5 and 3, and the fighter is looking ahead to college tuition. That motivation, he said, sets him apart from many other hitters, those who want to succeed to benefit themselves. "I didn't have a chance to go to college," Lundy said. "I want to make sure their dreams come true."

Beyond his kids, Lundy told me he is dedicating this fight, which he predicts he will win inside the distance, to slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin and Martin's mother, who had a stint in a hospital to deal with her schizophrenia and was released just last week.

"A lot of these guys are fighting for nothing," he said. "I'm fighting for something. That's six people, and now seven with the young man that passed. I'm fighting for justice. Me being in the ring is my way of venting, especially the stuff with my mom. Me being in the ring is God's blessing; I could be on the street hurting somebody."

Williams, 27, has a track record of hurting people in the ring. With a 21-1 record and 17 KOs, he has won nine in a row, seven by stoppage. Williams now lives in Youngstown, Ohio, and is trained by Jack Loew, the man who guided Kelly Pavlik from the Silver Mittens to a middleweight championship. Like Lundy, Williams danced with the devil that is the streets, and was busted for assault in 2006. He served 30 months, and looking back is grateful that he did the time.

"Since then," he told me, "I've been on the straight and narrow."

Lundy's talk has jazzed up Williams, giving him extra motivation to drop and stop Hammerin' Hank, likely with his game-changing right hand.

"Yeah, I want to knock Lundy out. I want to knock everybody out if I can, but I want to make sure I knock him out; I want to knock him out cold. Everything he's saying is a joke. He talks like I ain't nobody. That makes me mad. I've never lost, I've never been dropped. He's doing too much talking already: 'He's learning on the job, he's not naturally talented.'"

Lundy has been in tougher than Williams, who is coming off a stoppage win over 33-17-6 Fernando Trejo. Lundy's chin can be checked, but as he points out, he usually pops back up.

Loew foresees a challenging first few rounds for his guy, but "once he lands a good shot, the scenario changes. Dannie is the hardest puncher I've ever had, he hits hard with both hands. You know, I had Kelly Pavlik -- he can punch -- but it's scary how hard [Williams] can hit."

So how does he beat Lundy, specifically? "By backing him up," Loew said. "He's got to outwork him, stay disciplined, stick to the game plan, work the body the first four or five rounds."

Sounds convincing, but Lundy has had to negotiate choppier waters as a pro. I suspect he'll face some Friday -- and he'll know what to do. Without much conviction, I like Lundy by decision. But more importantly, I will be focusing Friday night on the fact that this sport has served both these fighters well, provided a beacon to follow and thus benefited society mightily as a whole.

Maybe it shouldn't have surprised him that the judges in Puerto Rico disagreed, but Mexico's Orlando Salido thought he had won all but one round -- the fifth -- in his March 10 rematch against Juan Manuel Lopez in San Juan. As the featherweight champ told our Bernardo Osuna in last week's visit to the "Friday Night Fights" studios, though, it didn't matter. (Salido delivered Lopez another unexpected KO in P.R.)

Watch the above clip for more on Salido's thoughts about the Lopez win and to hear his future plans.

I confess: I often make a prediction on who will win each week's "Friday Night Fights" main event based more so on what the boxers say to me, and how they say it, than on their respective styles or strengths.

After talking to both Roberto Garcia (30-3, 21 KOs), a 31-year-old Mexican-born Texas resident, and Antwone Smith (21-3-1, 12 KOs), a 25-year-old living in Miami, I'm leaning toward Garcia at the Pharr Events Center in Pharr, Texas, on Friday night.

Garcia, as much as any of the main-eventers I've chatted with this season, blended fire and confidence when I spoke with him. And here's an X factor: Twenty-four days ago, his first child, a little girl named Gia, was born. Garcia flew from his camp in New Jersey, fingers crossed all the way that wife Adriana wouldn't deliver the bundle until papa made it to the delivery room.

"I saw the birth, and then it was right back to camp," Garcia told me on Wednesday.

I asked him if being a dad changes how he sees himself as a fighter. He said he's now different as an all-around human being.

"More important than changing me as a boxer, it changed me as person," said Garcia, who is best known for losing to Antonio Margarito in the latter's first fight back after PlasterGate. "It does change my responsibilities. It's made me think about everything I do, how I talk to you. Before, I was alone, I'd be with different kinds of people. Now I have a beautiful wife and baby, and I want to be with them more than anyone."

A busy fighter who likes to come forward and bang, and who has a left hook that Smith has to watch out for, Garcia said fans can expect an action fight Friday. He won't look for the knockout, saying that stoppage-hunting has gotten him into trouble in the past. But his confidence was lifted by the 10-round unanimous decision loss to Margarito in May 2010, as it proved to him that he can hang with the big boys.

Now, none of this is to say Smith came off like a reluctant warrior, or gave off vibes that he wasn't ready to rumble. In fact, he told me he considers this as a "must-win" fight. He lost a decision in his signature bout, against Kermit Cintron on Aug. 12, but he insists he should've been given a draw, at worst. In November, Smith got back on a winning track, winning an eight-round unanimous decision against Yoryi Estrella in Miami. He said he learned from the Cintron fight, gaining valuable experience.

Smith has admitted before that he has been dismayed by the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately attitude of the media and fans, and their (our) tendency to build up a fighter and then just as gleefully tear him down, but he didn't revisit that topic with me on the phone.

No, he hasn't seen any video of Garcia ("a fight is a fight"), and he ended with a message for those who don't care for his habit of grunting like Monica Seles when he throws. That's probably a habit he picked up from being in the gym so many years with master grunter Glen Johnson, he said, and if you don't like it, "you can watch the fight on mute."

Neither man is a mad bomber, so I expect a distance scrap. Smith will likely have more snap in his launches than you saw against Cintron, but I expect Garcia's physical strength to be a considerable edge, and see him taking a unanimous decision.

WASHINGTON -- Lamont Peterson is in no doubt.

There's no doubt, he says, that Amir Khan deserved to lose the two points that referee Joe Cooper deducted for pushing the last time he and Peterson tangled in the ring -- two points that ensured Peterson would emerge victorious and with two junior welterweight belts in front of a hometown Washington, D.C., crowd last December.

In fact, Peterson says, his opponent's actions weren't so much pushing as elbowing, and he has the evidence -- in the form of camera angles and emergency room treatments -- to prove it.

"Look at the tape," he said after Thursday's press conference in D.C. to announce a May 19 rematch with Khan at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. "I'm not just going to sit here and say something five or six times that I can't go back and prove to you. I had a fracture right [below his right eye], from elbows. From him pulling down on my head, I had a lot of swelling on my neck. Watch the fight again; I'm not going to say anything I can't prove. He's so uncomfortable with me being so close, when his arms go past my head, he would automatically pull down and push away."

Equally, Amir Khan is no doubt.

There's no doubt, he asserts, that even with those two point deductions, he really won the fight three months ago.

"At all the press conferences, I've said I won the fight," he said. "Not once has he said he won the fight, because he knows he didn't win that fight."

Still, Khan acknowledges that perhaps he did push Peterson more than he should have done, and vows that he won't do it again.

"When he does come inside, instead of pushing him away, maybe taking a side step or working him, standing there and fighting him," he said by way of explaining a strategy for the rematch. "Lamont comes in very square-on, so it's very hard to get the angles, so that's maybe why I did push. But we won't be doing any of that now. I'll be hitting him. He'll be the guy walking back. I'll be a totally different Amir Khan in this fight. You'll see new things, you'll see new styles."

The former champion is ready with praise for his successor's heart, chin and ability; he was also taken aback by Peterson's strength, a function of the American outweighing the Brit by several pounds on fight night. It was for that reason, as much as any other, that Khan retreated repeatedly to the ropes in the fight's second half, allowing Peterson to dig in with body shots and uppercuts that swung the momentum in his favor.

"There are a few things that we're going to change in making the weight," Khan said. "I'm going to speak to Alex [Ariza, Khan's strength and conditioning coach] about it. When I go into the fight, I'm going to be a bit heavier. I did feel the weight difference between me and the weight [at which] he came into the fight. He was very heavy, and I could feel the pressure he was putting on. But we're going to sort that out; we don't need to be on the ropes."

Khan will, however, if necessary, slug it out in the center of the ring: "We're going to work with him, go toe to toe if he wants to, work on the inside -- we normally don't work on the inside, but this time we're going to be working on the inside. Now I know what to do, and I'm not going to make as many mistakes."

The last time the two fighters were here, in the Altitude Room of the W Hotel, the balcony of which provides an up-close-and-personal view of the east wing of the White House, it was to promote their first fight. The atmosphere then was raucous and enthusiastic in anticipation of big-time boxing returning to the nation's capital. Britain's deputy ambassador reminded those assembled of his country's assault on the aforementioned White House, 200 years previously. Khan spoke glowingly of the town and talked up his willingness to face his challenger on his home turf. And Peterson, looking -- as he does still -- shy and almost embarrassed by the attention, expressed his appreciation for the opportunity.

Three months later, the love was a little less in evidence.

"I'd like to say it's good to be back here, but ..." Khan's manager, Asif Vali, began before stopping in midstream. "It is good to be here, but we're here for a reason." If it weren't for those two lost points, he said later, "We wouldn't be sat here."

Those point deductions, delivered by a referee from D.C., were part of a fusillade of complaints from Team Khan, culminating in a frame-by-frame dissection of the movements of a "mystery man" ringside who helped fuel, at least on the eastern side of the Atlantic, almost immediate demands for the rematch.

Peterson admits that the complaints, the insinuations that he was not the rightful champion, grated:

"I was a little bit more upset with the fans and some of the media [than with Khan], because I feel as though the media at times entertains stories like that a little bit too much, whereas you can really look at the tape from whatever angle you want and see that he was fouling, and they should have took points. Then after it was stated that the so-called mystery man clearly didn't touch any judges' scorecards, after you eliminate all these allegations, I think there should be no more controversy to the win. I think that controversy should be eliminated."

No matter what came afterward, however, Peterson will always have that moment when he was announced as champion in his hometown, just a few blocks from where he and younger brother Anthony spent part of their childhood sleeping on the streets.

"It was just a dream come true," he said, smiling. "You just go back to all those hard days at the gym. I just think about sacrificing weekends, the late nights, missing proms, things like that, for boxing. I actually got an 'F' in English one time because I was supposed to take a final exam in ninth grade and Junior Olympics was coming, and I just took off.

"I don't want this to end. I want to train hard, make sure this train keeps going. Each time I win, it's a bigger paycheck. I just want to keep training and keep going because I know that when I do lose, it's all over."

Despite the obvious respect he has for his opponent, Khan would be perfectly happy for it all to be over by the morning of May 20.

"I did not fight at my best [in December], and I still think I won the fight. On May 19, I'll be at my best, I'll make my weight professionally, I'll be very strong in the fight, so I don't think anything will go wrong. All I want is a neutral fight -- a neutral and a fair fight. We want a referee who's not from England, who's not from Washington. I can promise you, 100 percent, that I will win the fight."

No doubt.

ESPN.com's Michael Woods caught up with middleweight champion Sergio Martinez at Thursday's media conference in New York City to promote Martinez's title fight against Matthew Macklin at the Madison Square Garden Theater on Saturday. When told that Macklin had suggested Martinez, at 37, might be primed for a loss, the Argentine champ responded through manager and translator Sampson Lewkowicz: "After I beat him by KO, definitely he will change his mind." Check out the whole interview above.