The bantamweight division has some of boxing?s best talent, with elite fighters like Nonito Donaire, Abner Mares, Joseph Agbeko, Vic Darchinyan and Anselmo Moreno at the top of a deep list.
But because of the nauseating and childish feud that exists between Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank, don?t count on seeing the matter of the best 118-pounder actually decided in the ring.
Donaire is the fifth-ranked pound-for-pound fighter in the world, according to the November Yahoo! Sports ratings. But Mares, who faces a tough test on Saturday when he faces Agbeko in a Showtime-televised rematch from the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., could be a difficult opponent for him.
Mares has already beaten Darchinyan and Agbeko and, with a win Saturday over the gritty Ghanaian, will have a case of his own for being the best 118-pounder on the planet.
A dream bantamweight fight between Mares and Donaire, though, will likely never happen. All you need to know is that Donaire is promoted by Top Rank and Mares is with Golden Boy.
That simple fact alone will scuttle what could have been a sensational battle sometime in 2012.
Golden Boy president Oscar De La Hoya has taken to Twitter to continue his feud with Top Rank chairman Bob Arum. On Tuesday, he referred to Arum as ?the snake? in a tweet about a Ring column in which Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer laid into Arum with a few shots of his own.
A little more than a week earlier, Arum was tweaking De La Hoya at a post-fight news conference in Houston, referring to a lawsuit filed against De La Hoya by a New York woman who claimed he wore women?s clothes, used drugs and acted extremely oddly.
The three sound more like a group of 13-year-olds rather than businessmen with a vested interest in working together.
Imagine the president and CEO of a leading tire manufacturer feuding with the head of General Motors and refusing to work together to put its tires on GM?s new cars.
That kind of idiocy, though, is exactly what is happening with this disgusting feud. Fans are laughing at Arum, Schaefer and De La Hoya for failing to see the harm they?re doing to their own business.
Mares would be just another victim if he gets past Agbeko and doesn?t get the shot at Donaire.
The first meeting between Mares and Agbeko in August was a highly controversial verdict in which the former was aided largely by a series of questionable calls (and non-calls) by referee Russell Mora.
Mares landed a series of low blows, most of which weren?t called and one of which was incorrectly ruled a knockdown. Still, Mares insists he won?t avoid the body when they meet again on Saturday.
?I?m a fighter who always likes to go to the body,? Mares said. ?Agbeko is the kind of fighter who leans down, but you?re not going to see any of that [Saturday]. ? I?m a perfectionist and I?m definitely going to go to the body. I?m going to throw a lot of body punches. If I see that the ref is saying my punches are too low, then I?m going to stop doing it.?
Mares? response shows that he gets it, and that he has learned from his mistakes.
Is it too much to ask millionaires like De La Hoya, Schaefer and Arum to do the same?
? The month of December is going to decide the Fighter of the Year, which is a good thing since so many of the candidates are in action. The leading contenders on my list heading into December are the winner of the Super 6 between Andre Ward and Carl Froch, Amir Khan and Brandon Rios. Ward and Froch fight Dec. 17 in Atlantic City, N.J. Amir Khan meets Lamont Peterson on Dec. 10 in Washington, D.C., and Rios faces John Murray on Saturday in New York.
? I?ve been highly critical of HBO Sports? recent efforts with its 24/7 series. The Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez series was abominable, and with the exception of the ending of the first episode, so too was the Floyd Mayweather-Victor Ortiz series. But in an abbreviated two-part 24/7 on Miguel Cotto-Antonio Margarito, HBO hit all the right notes and produced compelling television. Anyone who saw it has to be interested in buying the fight.
? Things didn?t go so well for HBO on its fight card last Saturday. It pitted Saul ?Canelo? Alvarez, Adrien Broner and Gary Russell Jr., in complete mismatches that ended predictably. This kind of stuff has to stop.
? The 2012 International Boxing Hall of Fame class will be announced on Dec. 6. But it?s not too soon to look ahead to the Class of 2013 and one of its most glaring omissions right now is leaving out referee Richard Steele. At his peak ? and it was a long one ? there was no better referee in the world than Steele, who unfairly came under criticism from fans for his stoppage of the first Meldrick Taylor-Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. fight.
? Here?s hoping the discussed heavyweight title fight between Vitali Klitschko and David Haye comes to fruition. Haye talked his way into a title shot against younger brother Wladimir Klitschko earlier in the year, but performed horribly and lost a one-sided decision in which he put up little fight. Haye, though, has the talent to at least make it a fight against Vitali and considering the sparse state of the heavyweight division, his return is welcome even if he did fight horribly last time out.
