Source: MaxBoxing's Steve Kim

Top Rank chief Bob Arum talked with MaxBoxing's Steve Kim and revealed some interesting ideas, including a negotiation to stage a rematch between WBA welterweight titleholder Antonio Margarito and IBF welterweight titleholder Joshua Clottey at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on November 1.

Arum says the show would be a pay-per-view distributed by Top Rank and Showtime, and before you go getting all up in a huff about YET ANOTHER PAY-PER-VIEW, it seems that Arum has some ideas for spicing up the undercard and trying to make it a legitimate full show.

A rematch between Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr., and Matt Vanda might take place on the card, as well as bouts featuring WBO featherweight titlist Steven Luevano (a rematch with Mario Santiago?) and something with 112-pound titleholder Nonito Donaire.

If you booked Margarito-Clottey, Chavez-Vanda and Luevano-Santiago, a "Night of the Rematches" would be a nice way to spend some cash on boxing, I guess. All three fights were entertaining the first time around and there is some unfinished business in each pairing.

You know what else might help, though? And I'm just going to throw this idea out there...

How about a pay-per-view show for, say, 30 bucks? 35? Margarito-Clottey is not as big of a fight as Arum might think, and even with a nice undercard, the world is soon to be infested with boxing pay-per-view (Calderon-Cazares, Casamayor-Marquez, Pavlik-Hopkins, Calzaghe-Jones, Oscar-Manny). Top Rank and Showtime could score with a discounted show that promises more bang for your buck than the rest.

And thus, a Presidential nominee for these United States of America.

I know it sounds stupid, but just do it. For me. For kicks.

Now as we all know, the President of the United States has to be born in America, so a good portion of the team is ineligible.

Feel free to think about the politics of it all. Luke Scott is a gun nut, for instance. Jay Payton has a history of professional issues. George Sherrill can't bend a cap right. Kevin Millar's loyalty has been questioned. Aubrey Huff is a pervert. Lance Cormier's name sounds all French. Nick Markakis once represented Greece. Brian Roberts used steroids. Chad Bradford throws underhand. Jamie Walker can't get lefties out.

Have fun. Debate. Elect. Do me the solid.

Before I really start here, I gotta tell ya: Y'all are hiiiiiigh.

Actually, that's pretty much my whole point. You all being high.

Y'all that are theorizin' and speculatin' on the future of Chris Waters in the Baltimore Orioles rotation are hiiiiiiigh.

Y'all that read anything into Lou Montanez hitting a home run in his first major league at-bat are hiiiiiigh.

Chris Waters is 28 years old and just reached the major leagues. He has a career 4.09 ERA in the minors. Chris Waters is not Jeremy Guthrie. There's really no comparison. No one has ever thought Waters was as good as they thought Guthrie was. Waters isn't a stalled prospect that is rising like a phoenix; he's a scrap heap minor league veteran arm. He's only up because Hayden Penn got hit with a damn baseball bat the other day. That's how much the Orioles brass REALLY thought of him -- Hayden Penn and his near-5 ERA at Norfolk were the first choice, not Waters, and I don't want to hear about how highly recommended Waters came from the minor league staff. If the minor league staff is highly recommending someone with Waters' resume, we're boned.

I'm not trying to hate on the dude's success. He had a fabulous game. I wish they would have kept him in for the ninth. There's a very real chance that he won't ever throw that kind of game again.

Montanez is getting spun as a positive because he hit some home runs at Bowie this year. He should have, considering how old he is for the level and the fact that the Cubs once took him third overall in the draft. He is a total and complete flameout of a former prospect. Here's his MLB.com biography:

Graduated from Coral Park HS in Miami in 2000...The Chicago Cubs selected him in the first round of the 2000 First Year Player Draft with the 3rd overall pick...Was signed by Cubs scout Mike Soper...Luis's father, also named Luis Montanez, played professionally in Puerto Rico.

Woo! Mike Soper! 2000 draft! High school! Dad!

They have pretty much highlighted his career achievements.

I'm not, like, disgusted or anything. God love 'em if they both shock the world and turn into real contributors on the major league level. But these aren't prospects that delivered in their first games. These are ... bums. I don't want to be mean, really, but they're bums. They're guys that wound up in our system because other teams didn't want them, they've never progressed the way they should have/were expected to, and they are really just minor league filler.

I couldn't get excited about David Newhan, either. I couldn't get excited about Tike Redman. Travis Driskill is springing to mind. That's the same type of player we're talking about.

And doesn't it strike you odd that these things happened on back-to-back days? Doesn't that just make you think, "Waters was awesome, but now freaking Lou Montanez is hitting a home run in his first major league at-bat. This is a rib, right?"

Luis Hernandez hit .290 last year.

In almost every single case in the history of the organized, civilized world, results at the major league level can be seen coming from the minor league level, and not just when the guys are beating up on players they're simply more advanced than, either. Waters and/or Montanez succeeding in the majors would be a miracle.

I'm rooting for them. I really am. But I'm going to avoid the hysteria about it all, because we're looking less at this:

than we are at this:

In a Sports Illustrated article that reports that negotiations are almost secure for Oscar de la Hoya to face Manny Pacquiao on December 6, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer decided to speak on that matchup, and why Antonio Margarito wasn't considered an option.

Schaefer had this to say:

"We have made it clear [to Top Rank] that we think Margarito has some unfinished business. Frankly, I find it disgusting how people are overlooking Paul Williams. Oscar wanted to fight Cotto because he was undefeated. But Williams beat Margarito. Just because Margarito beat Cotto, why does that make him the best welterweight? Why isn't it Paul Williams? He had that first round knockout of Quintana and he already beat Margarito. So I think it is very disrespectful of Williams. Those two should fight again."

OK...

For real, I don't even disagree with Schaefer that Margarito and Williams should tangle again, particularly since Margarito is not going to get a big payday against Oscar and Williams' other option appears to be Michael Jennings, who isn't quite a Gary Lockett-level mandatory but isn't a whole lot better. (If the Lockett Scale for mandatories was a 0.0-5.0 scale, Jennings would be about a 4.2 Lockett.)

But this is so transparent that I can't help but just laugh at it. I hate slamming Oscar for not fighting the best guy available, because the concrete fact of the matter is that he's made a career out of taking on great challenges. He fought Mosley twice, Trinidad, Vargas, Hopkins (which was foolish), Mayweather, Whitaker, Quartey, and a host of others. Hell, let's even give Oscar the respect and continue: Gatti, Carr, Chavez twice, Camacho, Castillejo, Campas, Paez, Gonzalez, Coley, Mayorga, Sturm...

It also leads me to another brief aside, the stupid claim they first made that Oscar didn't want to end his career fighting another Mexican. Like he was doing Mexican fans a favor or something, you know?

He beat the tar out of an old Julio Cesar Chavez on two occasions. He fought Vargas and Campas in recent years. The fact that Margarito is Mexican only had something to do with this decision to not fight him because Oscar's final fight would have had him as "the villain" to some of the staunch Mexican fans that love guys like Margarito and have never warmed to de la Hoya, no matter what.

Oscar also could have avoided all of this if he hadn't said that "the winner" of Cotto-Margarito -- his words, not anyone else's -- would be a great December opponent. He meant to say that if Miguel Cotto won, he'd fight him. Schaefer's saying now that Cotto would have been considered because he was undefeated.

Where's one of those eye-rolling emoticons?

Oscar choosing Pacquiao even paints him into a corner where he can't say, "Well I don't want to fight at welterweight." Now he has to fight at welterweight!

It is somewhat sad that Oscar de la Hoya's final career moves are going to forever be questioned. No matter what happens in a fight with Pacquiao, he won't escape the fact that he fought a much smaller man in order to avoid someone else. It seems like we've seen this before. (And yes, this will be a license to print money just as that was.)

Schaefer interjecting Williams is sort of a nice distraction method, because who will really disagree? OK, Margarito can't fight Oscar. He should fight Williams, the man who beat him last year and holds a welterweight title himself. We can all get on board with that?

So we're left with the feeling that Richard Schaefer is speaking the truth, letting his voice ring loud for the poor boxing fan who can't speak for him or herself. He also ignores Williams' loss to Quintana when wondering why many think Margarito is now the No. 1 welterweight, and not Williams.

Schaefer is doing a great job here trying to make Oscar-Manny seem viable. Listen, I know a lot of people are taking a real dump on this fight, and that some (like ESPN's Dan Rafael) really like it for any number of reasons. I am somewhere in the middle.

I do think Manny could beat Oscar. For one thing, I don't know how Oscar's body will respond to getting down to 147, and I don't think he has any real firepower left. Manny is a pop-pop-pop fighter whose awkward style has translated into his better skillset as the years have gone on.

But we're talking about a guy that has one fight in his career over 130 pounds and came into boxing at 106. I know it's about money and a few other, less important things. Still, I can't shake that gnawing feeling that this fight just isn't right somehow, and that win or lose, Oscar will never live down some of the backlash he's going to receive. If I were Oscar or Schaefer, I think I'd consider those things a little more than how many Mexicans would boo me were I to fight Margarito. "The Golden Boy" has the pick of the litter when it comes to opponents, and he's choosing someone he outweighs on fight nights by 20 pounds.

I was looking around for an interesting KO of the Day but ran across this video that highlights the legendary Corrales-Castillo fight, and I just couldn't pass up the chance to watch it again. The Sky Sports call was even more breath-taking than the American version, I'd say.

So I thought I'd put it up here, too. It's never a bad day to reflect on this fight.

God, what a battle. I've said it before, I'll say it again: I could live until I'm 110 years old, see my share and then some of great fights, and probably never see another one that was this good. I get chills just thinking about the fight now, especially with Diego gone. There are few like him.

via d.yimg.com

8 innings, 1 hit allowed, 0 runs, 3 strikeouts, 3 walks

Enough said.

It looks like the favorite to face 21-year old British lightweight champion Amir Khan in his September 6 bout is 36-year old American Derrick "Smoke" Gainer.

Gainer had previously turned down the Khan camp because of his obligation to fight on the September 20 undercard of Calzaghe-Jones, but now that that fight has been moved, he's back in the mix.

I really like Khan, and someone as crafty and downright annoying as Gainer is about the last guy I'd watch to put him up against. There's real upset potential here. Khan will have to catch rumblin', bumblin', stumblin' Gainer before he can hit him with his combinations and power shots, and that's no easy task.

On the other hand, Gainer has been very inactive in recent years. He lost badly in 2003 to Juan Manuel Marquez, and lost his next fight in 2005 to Chris John. Since then, he's won a 12-round split decision over tomato can Phillip Payne (who had lost six in a row), and a 10-round split decision over Carlos Navarro in 2007.

Chances are Khan smokes Gainer, and Derrick rides off into the sunset with a final payday. But there is that concern that the savvy vet gives Amir fits. Things like that have happened many times before.

Former WBC 108-pound titleholder Brian Viloria will get another crack at a world title when he faces IBF titlist Ulises Solis on October 11 in Macau. Rumor has it that Nonito Donaire will fight on the same card, but we'll see about that.

Viloria's camp is confident that their fighter is stronger and a better puncher than Solis, but I'm not. Viloria's reputation as a big puncher has gone by the wayside. "Hawaiian Punch" (22-2, 13 KO) was upset in a wide decision against Omar Nino in 2006, then went to a frustrating majority draw with Nino in the rematch, later ruled a no-decision when Nino failed his post-fight drug test. Edgar Sosa was next for Viloria, and Sosa won a tight majority decision.

Viloria is 3-0 in 2008, winning a pair of eight-round decisions and his last fight by third round knockout. I don't think he hits hard enough to be considered a one-punch type of guy against top competition, and Solis is absolutely top competition, arguably the best 108-pounder in the world. Solis (27-1-2, 20 KO) hasn't lost since 2004, when Nelson Dieppa won a weird majority decision (108-120, 108-120, 114-114).

If Viloria is outclassed by Solis, as I expect he will be, he's going to have a tough time getting another title shot. Or else he won't. Maybe he'll lose big and get another title shot against someone else right away. Solis winning would put a big mark on Viloria that he can't beat the best, which makes him attractive for a lot of top fighters.

Should WBA 140-pound titleholder Andreas Kotelnik succeed in his September 13 defense against Norio Kimura, an offer will be made for Kotelnik to face Dmitriy Salita on the Calzaghe-Jones undercard in November.

I like that fight as a PPV undercarder. Salita is noted for his guts, and at 28-0 (16), he deserves a good fight. He's signed with Roy Jones' Square Ring company now, so Roy and Co. are working to get him something good. This would be something good. Plus, I like Kotelnik. Right now, Salita is slated to face Willie Limond on the PPV, but if Kotelnik-Salita can be made, Limond would be moved into a fight with Darling Jimenez. I really pray that Calzaghe, Jones and HBO don't think Limond-Jimenez is a pay-per-view quality fight.

If you missed tonight's West Coast game, then consider this an invitation to my gangsta nation.

The Orioles got a crap start from Dennis Sarfate and a crap finish from George Sherrill, who walked Chone Figgins to score the winning run and give Anaheim the 6-5 win.

And oh yeah, the Orioles had scored four in the top of the ninth just to make it 5-5, which was all for naught because ICE WATER VEINS walked in the winning run with Chone Figgins at the plate.

I've about had it with Sherrill. Where are all the "best O's closer since Randy Myers!" dudes at now? That was malarky then, and even worse now.

The biggest story might have been the fact that Gary Thorne is so in love with Mark Teixeira that he tried to call a Teixeira single off the wall like it was a walkoff grand slam from Nick Markakis. Thorne seems convinced that Teixeira would actually consider playing for the Orioles just because he's from Maryland. It won't happen. I'm sure he'll listen to an offer, and we do have a nice relationship with Scott Boras now, but we can't offer him the money that, say, the New York Yankees can, so don't get your hopes up.

Chris Waters is going to start tomorrow, they think. Urgh. Lou Montanez is coming up, too. Augh.

Welcome to the dog days.

Alright, dudes, ladies, and general boxing fans, we're putting out the call. We need to update our pound-for-pound top 20, and I'm just not a fan of doing one that's all my opinion, and I'm not sure how many ballots I can get filled out in a reasonable amount of time. I'm thinking we have three right now, but I want more. In fact, I want many.

Here's the deal, though: we're trying to take it fairly seriously and present a good top 20, so don't vote if you are going to try to scam it to get your favorite fighter near the top or something of that nature. Do vote if you really want to -- I don't consider myself any great expert, as I've said before, just a big fan. So if you're a fight fan and your initial thought is, "Well, I don't know enough," then forget about that, because you probably do know plenty enough.

BLH is designed to have lots of interaction between our bloggers and our readers, up to the point that we want to have you guys blogging along with us in the FanPosts (so get on more of those!).

Now, I really want everyone that stops by regularly (or you, if you just happened to stumble along here) to get a ballot in.

Here's how it works:

1. Fill out your top 20.
2. Put one paragraph or so (a little less, a little more) by as many fighters as you want. You can do all 20 of your guys, 10 of them, 15, 12, 8, 3, 1, or 0. Comments are encouraged, but not necessary. If you're not super with writing, don't worry, we'll clean it up and edit it for you without changing your thoughts.
3. E-mail your list to me. My e-mail link can be found on the bottom of the site, or in my SBN profile.
4. Make sure you let me know what your username is so I know who I'm crediting when we post the final tally. Also, if you want your real name posted, indicate if you just want first name, or if you want first and last. Only your username is really required.
5. Additionally, if you have a blog of your own or something like that that you want linked with your name credit, let me know and I'll be more than happy to do so.
6. HAVE FUN! WINNERS NEVER QUIT!

The September 13 head-to-head between Showtime Championship Boxing and HBO pay-per-view is a pretty legitimate question. You have to ask yourself, "Do I want to pay 40-50 bucks to see Joel Casamayor and Juan Manuel Marquez, or does Nate Campbell-Joan Guzman stack up just as well?"

The HBO undercard is offering a rematch between 154-pound titleholder Sergio Mora and Vernon Forrest, while Showtime is offering a 140-pound title bout between Timothy Bradley and Edner Cherry.

The Showtime card also has finally landed a home, at the Beau Rivage Casino in Biloxi, Miss.

What pains me is that I think I'll wind up paying the money for the Casamayor-Marquez card, because I think that main event could be fantastic, and I have the gut feeling that Guzman is going to box circles around Campbell, who put in a career-best performance and was aided by a horrible opposing cutman when he beat Juan Diaz in March. The difference between Diaz and Guzman is huge; Campbell was able to stand and trade with the volume-punching Diaz, but Guzman won't let him do that. As far as pure boxers go, Joan is among the best in the business.

Mora-Forrest II is a rematch of a bad fight, while Bradley-Cherry is just not that interesting. I like Edner Cherry, but I don't think Bradley will have a whole lot of trouble with him. Cherry's a tough guy and a good fighter, but Bradley's got natural ability that just dwarfs Edner's. The Malignaggi-Cherry fight is still too fresh in my mind.

Casa-JMM seems like the type of fight that I'll be sorry if I miss, a fight that could easily be a war, easily be a great showcase of two tremendous pure boxers, and almost certainly won't be bad. Marquez's aggressive nature the last few years will press Casamayor into action. Plus, Joel is fighting for more paydays now. If he beats Marquez, there's an outside shot he could land a fight with Pacquiao down the line, or step up and fight Hatton or something of that nature. A loss really hurts his marketability.

The best 135-pound fight on the docket, though, is the Juan Diaz-Michael Katsidis scrap planned for September 6 on Boxing After Dark.

Each one of Katsidis' last three fights (Earl, Amonsot, Casamayor) have been Fight of the Year contenders. In fact, I'd put Casamayor-Katsidis over the Cotto-Margarito fight in my race (right now the top four are Vazquez-Marquez III, Marquez-Pacquiao II, Casamayor-Katsidis and Cotto-Margarito).

This fight was rumored last year, was rumored for February/March of this year, and now after both men have suffered their first career losses, they'll tangle in Diaz's hometown of Houston. I don't think the home field advantage will help Juan much because I don't think Katsidis is the type of fighter to care where he's at. He could fight Diaz in Juan's parents' basement and I think it'd all look pretty much the same as it would anywhere else on the planet. Katsidis is going to come forward and try to knock Diaz out.

And Diaz, lest we forget, is a tremendous pressure fighter that will fire back in spades. That fight will be a war. It's one of those bouts where there's just no way it's going to be bad. I think the Fight of the Year race will get a new horse on September 6.

Manny Pacquiao and team want a bigger set of fines for an pound over the 147-pound limit being discussed for their potential fight with Oscar de la Hoya, which may be another snag in the ongoing and increasingly wacky search to land Oscar an opponent for December 6.

It's being said that the Filipino superstar and his handlers want Oscar fined $1 million per pound over 147 should he come in overweight for the fight. This is because, simply, the Pacquiao force is concerned that de la Hoya cannot make 147 pounds anymore. I wonder myself, but it doesn't much concern me. He looked fit at 150 against Forbes, and while three pounds are bigger than they sound in boxing, I don't think it'd be a major hassle for him.

The other real concern for Pacquiao is that Freddie Roach has stated they would probably try to weigh in in the low-140s for the fight -- plus, if Oscar came in overweight, they'd be fools to go on with the fight, no matter how much money was on the line. So in essence, they're counting themselves in for a payday if Oscar should come up short (well, wide), because there are a lot of fights Manny could make for November or December.

Business, man.

And yes, I used a photo of Oscar at his fattest on purpose.

There has been no news on the return of Marco Antonio Barrera, but I was thinking about it earlier today, and I just can't decide what to feel about it.

He's not old and he hasn't shown that he's TOO badly beaten up. He was still in outstanding form last year against Marquez, though he turtled and didn't do a whole lot against Pacquiao, seemingly content to survive 12 rounds and leave it at that.

There was a rumor a while back, you probably recall, that he would return to face Mzonke Fana, who at the time was the IBF's 130-pound titleholder. He lost his strap to Cassius Baloyi in April via majority decision. Barrera has already beaten Fana, knocking him out in the second round back in 2005.

I've seen some fans suggest that he match up with old rival Erik Morales for a fourth time, but to me, that seems pretty sadistic, like you're essentially saying, "You know what I'd like to see? Erik Morales get hurt." Unlike Barrera, Morales has shown definite signs of wear and tear on his body, and reported after his final bout against David Diaz that he heard a ringing in his ears when he was hit in the head. Promoter Bob Arum is often full of crap, but when he says that if Morales tries to fight again he'll have nothing to do with it, I think you can feel sincerity and genuine concern.

The other talked-about fighter has been 122-pound champion Israel Vazquez, with the two Mexican fighters perhaps splitting the difference and squaring off at featherweight. I'm sure one of the major sanctioning bodies would find it in their hearts to strip a titleholder or declare an interim strap up for grabs in a Barrera-Vazquez bout.

Dan Rafael says Vazquez is taking the rest of 2009 off to fully recover, which is a smart move.

One thing is certain: should Barrera return as he apparently seriously intends to do, he will not be fighting under Golden Boy's banner, and that seems just wrong in some ways. He was one of their flagship fighters, along with Oscar, Mosley and Hopkins, and he had the distinction of being the one of their "Big Four" that wasn't really associated with de la Hoya as a star.

Personally, if Barrera is up for it, I'd still love to see a rematch with Juan Manuel Marquez, but that would involve working with Golden Boy, so count it out. Most likely Barrera will return against a mid-level or worse opponent, and try to move his way back up the ladder.

We'll see.

I read somewhere that I now can't find that Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr., would be rematching Matt Vanda sometime this final quarter. Vanda put a hell of a scare into JC Junior in a damn good fight down in Mexico, nearly knocking the young, overheralded name out. You'd think first, perhaps, that a rematch would go toward the younger, fresher Chavez, like maybe Vanda made a final last great stand in the first fight. But I think it's legitimately very dangerous for Chavez, who I felt was exposed by the tough Vanda, whose name means nothing. The fact of the matter is that at some point, Arum and Top Rank are going to hit a wall with Chavez. He's just not that good, even with the strides he's made the last couple of years.

I'm pretty anxious to see what PPV numbers Casamayor-Marquez, Pavlik-Hopkins and Calzaghe-Jones pull in, because I don't expect great stuff in any of the fights, particularly Casamayor-Marquez. I understand pay-per-view and accept it as being what it is, but it's hard to lure in fans when you make being one an exclusive club, isn't it?

Sultan Ibragimov says he'll be back. Boy, I can't wait.

So far, so good for Vitali Klitschko not being injured. I still refuse to put that fight with Sam Peter on our schedule until the official weigh-in comes and goes with no shenanigans.

You may have heard that outspoken nitwit Anthony Mundine won a fight on July 30 against Crazy Kim. Latest word is he thinks that will give him a chance to chase Kelly Pavlik or Winky Wright at middleweight. Mundine gave up a super middleweight title so he could not get manhandled by Mikkel Kessler again, and now he thinks that he should get a fight with Pavlik or Wright. I guess I can't really see what Winky's doing that's any better, but Pavlik? That's some feverish dream world stuff, "Choc."

Has any fighter in recent memory done less with a star-making, highly-publicized win than Sakio Bika? Maybe he could fight Allan Green, if Bika's handlers could come up with the latest and greatest ridiculous figure that Green wants in order to take to the ring again.

With Vazquez taking the rest of the year off, I can't help but wonder what's up with Rafael Marquez. I'm hoping he decides to join his rival on the sidelines for the remainder of '08. Then maybe we can see them clash again in the first quarter of 2009. There's just no bigger or better fight for either man.

David Haye still has no opponent for his November 15 heavyweight "debut," though names are constantly being thrown around. Haye will be joined in the heavyweight ranks by faded ex-cruiser champion O'Neil Bell, who similarly claims that the division is a mess and needs a savior. Compared to the in-prime Haye, Bell's claims are akin to generic brand Doritos when the real thing is right in front of you for the taking.

Speaking of heavyweights, money is the big issue in the long-rumored showdown between sluggers Chris Arreola and David Tua. I kind of wish everyone would just move on. This fight is not going to happen. A win would push the exciting, 35-year old Tua right back into title contention, but he's been fighting journeymen since drawing Hasim Rahman in 2003 and taking two years off. Knocking out Cerrone Fox and Saul Montana is one thing; fighting a credible young slugger is another. He and promoter Cedric Kushner both know that, and want every cent they can squeeze. I can't blame then, and frankly I hope they're successful. For as long as it lasts, it could be a hell of a fight.

Frank Warren is all over the news. First up, he's speaking his mind on the Hatton family-Billy Graham rift that finally exploded, saying this was a long time coming, essentially. Also, Frank is suing Joe Calzaghe for £1 million, which has so "disgusted and saddened" the Welsh fighter that he's counter-suing. Oh, those Brits! (And Welshmen!)