In El Paso, Texas, Julio Cesar Chavez Jnr successfully defended his WBC world middleweight title by stopping ‘Irish’ Andy Lee in the seventh round, thereby setting up a mouthwatering September showdown with linear champion Sergio Martinez.
As Mark Twain would have said, it seems that reports of the death of pugilism have been exaggerated.
Boxing’s obituaries notices were posted after Manny Pacquiao was subjected to the biggest robbery in Las Vegas since the Ocean’s 11 movie.
But then they usually are when the judges at ringside get it so wrong that they might have been standing outside the building.
So should football be shut down when the referee fails to award an obvious penalty?
The abolitionists scream ‘fix’ whenever there is a furore in boxing but what we saw in Vegas was nothing better or worse than incompetence.
Football cries out for goal-line technology but there is no such remedy in the prize ring.
Scoring fights is a question of judgement, often subjective, while to err is human.
Ironically, it may be just as well that there is no such hi-tech remedy for the hard old game. Controversy fuels public interest.
Pacquiao returned home to his familiar hero’s welcome in the Philippines, even though the only eight-division world champion was adjudged to have lost for the first time in seven years. And while the man who was supposed to have beaten him, American Tim Bradley, argued that all we critics of that decision should watch a video replay with the pro-Pacquiao commentary turned off, the PacMan took it with a dignified shrug.
A conspicuously reborn Catholic, Pacquiao led his fans and fellow worshipers in prayers of acceptance for a verdict denounced, also, by 91 per cent of the respondents to an HBO network poll in America.
Then, even as he was being showered with confetti by well-wishers in Manilla, he urged the crowds to cut short the tributes and join him in helping the thousands of families in his home province of Sarangani who have been made homeless by devastating floods.
The rematch can wait while this Congressman attends to humanitarian business. But when it does take place be sure the arena will be sold out, with the pay-TV sales going through the roof. Revenge is a dish best tasted at the box office.
Meanwhile, the show goes on, even widening its appeal as it does so.
The west country, more specifically Clevedon in Somerset, will be the unusual venue for a fairly big fight when British heavyweight hope Tyson Fury returns to action on July 7.
The opponent will be New York’s Italian Stallion, Vinny Maddalone.
Fury will be hoping to move closer to a world title clash with one of the Klitschkos, as will his domestic rival David Price in a bout to be announced shortly.
Nothing could be better timed to restore dignity to boxing than the London Olympics. Britain ? for whom Amir Khan was the only gloved representative in Athens eight years ago ? has 10 fighters competing in the 2012 Games, seven men and three women.
No fewer than seven of them are expected to be among the top three seeds in their weight classes.
But just as we can anticipate medals, so it is certain there will be disputes arising from the even more convoluted amateur scoring system.
Bring It on.
Our old friend controversy is expected to fill West Ham’s football ground on July 14 for the dubious financial rewarding of David Haye and Dereck Chisora for their shameful brawl at a media conference in Munich.
If that not-so-big heavyweight fight cum faux-grudge match can’t kill the game, nothing can.
Maybe, instead of trying to move forward into a future of some complex scoring technology, boxing should go back to the brutal days of the fight to the finish.
