by David P. Greisman

This is a world extensively preoccupied with guessing games.

Quiz shows. Casino tables. Fantasy drafts. Lottery jackpots. Televised talking heads making predictions. Everything has to do with timing and luck and chance and suppositions and hypotheses and theory.

They can keep on guessing. I’ll keep on knowing.

We know what happened in 2010. I know what is to come in 2011.

The ball has dropped on the new year. Let us peer into the crystal ball for a preview of what is to come:

JANUARY

Devon Alexander and Timothy Bradley will put on a Fight of the Year contender that will end as a controversial draw but will have taken place in front of an amazing 93,189 people at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich. – just barely breaking the arena record set there 24 years ago by WrestleMania III. It will not matter that 90,000 of those tickets had to be given away.

Erislandy Lara will win a keep-busy fight and call out Alfredo Angulo. Vanes Martirosyan, in advance of a keep-busy fight, will call out Miguel Cotto. In separate interviews, each will say he will only fight the other if the other wins a step-up fight. Neither will fight a step-up fight, though, as they are both too busy keeping busy.

FEBRUARY

Sergio Mora will go from being in the main event of a pay-per-view to being in the main event on ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights,” facing Brian Vera. More people will watch Mora-Vera than did Mosley-Mora. The fight will also be better. Mora will remain more frustratingly inconsistent than the past 15 years of “Saturday Night Live.”

With its Feb. 18 episode of “Friday Night Fights” headlined by Fernando Guerrero vs. Saul Roman, ESPN will have put on its first 3D boxing broadcast. This leads to an immediate lack of television dates for one-dimensional fighters.

In the second round of his rematch with Jesus Soto-Karass, welterweight Mike Jones will again let excitement take over him, this time throwing a total of 300 punches in one round. The CompuBox counting unit assigned to Jones will catch on fire, forcing the Las Vegas arena to be evacuated and leading to yet another postponement of what would’ve been the main event – Fernando Montiel vs. Nonito Donaire.

Congress will pass another financial bailout bill – this one helping HBO recover the money it’s wasted on Andre Berto.

HBO will immediately use that cash to overpay Danny Jacobs and underpay Sergio Martinez.

MARCH

Ismayl Sillakh will fight fellow light heavyweight Yordanis Despaigne in the main event of ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights.” Teddy Atlas will take one look at his bout sheet and decide not to even try to pronounce the fighters’ names correctly. Hilarity will ensue.

Evander Holyfield, 48, will venture to Copenhagen, Denmark, to face Brian Nielsen, nearly 46. On the undercard, Tonya Harding, 40, will take on Brigitte Nielsen, 47.

A week before his fight with Miguel Cotto, Ricardo Mayorga will say terrible, classless, uncalled-for things about Miguel Cotto’s late father, reminding people of what Mayorga said years ago to Cory Spinks. No one will call for Mayorga to be fined or banned from the sport. “That’s just boxing,” people will say.

Days before the fight, Ricardo Mayorga will shove Miguel Cotto during a press conference, then call Cotto terrible, classless, uncalled-for names. No one will call for Mayorga to be fined or banned from the sport. “That’s just boxing,” people will say.

Cotto will stop Mayorga on a body shot. It will come out later that Mayorga once again used a diuretic to make weight. He will be fined but will not be banned from the sport. “That’s just boxing,” people will say.

Mayorga will apologize for everything he said about Cotto and his late father. He will get another big fight one year later against another come-backing opponent. “That’s boxing,” people will say.

APRIL

Floyd Mayweather Jr. will plead guilty to reduced charges stemming from the criminal case involving him and the mother of his children. He will be sentenced to six months in jail and three years of probation.

Juan Manuel Lopez will face an opponent who is not Yuriorkis Gamboa.

Prior to Wladimir Klitschko’s fight with Dereck Chisora, trainer Emanuel Steward will come down with a bad case of laryngitis caused by his mispronunciation of the word “elite” as “e-light.” It will not matter – Klitschko will not need any pep talk, but rather will score a second-round knockout over Chisora.

David Haye will announce that his next opponent will not be against either of the tall and talented fighters Wladimir Klitschko and Vitali Klitschko, but instead will be against the winner of a fight between tall but limited fighters Tyson Fury and Tye Fields.

MAY

Ted Williams, the formerly homeless man with the amazing voice, will take over for Michael Buffer on announcing duties for Manny Pacquiao’s fight with Shane Mosley.

Manny Pacquiao will stop Shane Mosley in the ninth round. During the post-fight interview, Juan Manuel Marquez will storm the ring, accompanied by Bernard Hopkins, demanding a third fight between them. Marquez will offer Pacquiao the lion’s share of the money. Pacquiao will eventually agree, then threaten to drop out of the fight unless he also receives foreign distribution rights to Marquez’s new urine-flavored energy drink.

Brett Favre, after seeing Ines Sainz working the broadcast of Pacquiao-Mosley, will send text messages to the attractive broadcaster with photos of his genitalia.

JUNE

Yuriorkis Gamboa will face an opponent who is not Juan Manuel Lopez.

Emanuel Augustus will become the first boxer to do The Dougie in the middle of a fight.

Just before Carl Froch and Glen Johnson are to face each other in the semifinal round of Showtime’s “Super Six tournament,” Joe Calzaghe will announce his comeback, saying he will return against the loser of Froch-Johnson, giving one of them a fight that both have been clamoring for, dating back several years.

Froch-Johnson and the other semifinal fight, Andre Ward vs. Arthur Abraham, will air on the same broadcast, with Ward-Abraham airing as the main event. Ninety percent of the viewing audience will change the channel the moment Froch-Johnson ends.

JULY

A cruiserweight boxer actually and truly named Brad Pitt will conduct an interview with the assembled press in his native Australia. He will come close to breaking two famous rules by talking about “Fight Night Club,” Golden Boy Promotions’ monthly boxing series.

Major boxing news will happen, and the talking heads on ESPN’s “First Take,” “Around The Horn” and “Pardon The Interruption” will once again pretend to know what they’re talking about and once again will fail miserably.

Kimbo Slice’s boxing debut will be announced for the undercard of a major boxing event. It will not happen.

AUGUST

In what might seem, for the moment, like completely unrelated news, Shaquille O’Neal will be traded back to the Miami Heat.

After long teasing a jump to mixed martial arts, Kermit Cintron – a former high-school wrestler – will finally leave boxing behind. In an interview, he will say that he finally switched sports because he knows he won’t be able to fall out of a cage.

Andrei Arlovski’s boxing debut will be announced for the undercard of a major boxing event. It will not happen.

SEPTEMBER

An over-the-hill heavyweight will defeat another over-the-hill heavyweight in a bout seen by dozens.

Impressed by the success of Mark Wahlberg playing Micky Ward in “The Fighter,” a major film studio will sign Donnie Wahlberg to play Wayne McCullough in a feature production of “The Fighting Irish.”

Jim Lampley will sign to provide the sound effects for a Broadway production based on the original Batman television series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. He will bring to “BAM!” and “POW!” and “ZAP!” what he once did to “BANG!”

OCTOBER

Floyd Mayweather Jr. will get out of jail. TMZ will cover the story with 15 people – four reporters, four photographers, four videographers, and three people in helicopters.

Ironically, the terms of Mayweather’s probation will include random drug testing.

WikiLeaks will reveal that Andre Dirrell was not really injured but had instead been secretly drafted into a United States spy mission in which Dirrell had been directed to REDACTED.

NOVEMBER

Topping the day in 1996 on which Roy Jones Jr. played a semi-pro basketball game and then knocked out Bryant Brannon, Manny Pacquiao will first cast a vote in the Philippines Congress, then will score a knockout over Juan Manuel Marquez and finally will headline a post-fight concert – all within a 24-hour period.

Andre Ward will win a close decision over Carl Froch to become the “Super Six” tournament winner. Alas, Lucian Bute will have suffered an injury while training for a fight, pushing back the determination of a true champion at 168 for another 12 months.

DECEMBER

The speculation about whether Floyd Mayweather Jr. will ever face Pacquiao comes to a head when Mayweather decides to announce his next fight live on an hour-long special on ESPN. After 27 minutes of pointless procrastination on the program, the cameras will cut to a brief interview with Mayweather, conducted by Ines Sainz. Mayweather will announce that he’s taking his talents to South Beach, where he will face Shaquille O’Neal on next year’s season premiere of “Shaq Vs.”

All of the above aside, boxing will have a great year. We will all look forward to 2012.

The 10 Count

1.  The metaphorical wisdom of Teddy Atlas, as brought to you on the season premiere of ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights.”

If you missed it, there was lots of it, and it was beautiful.

It was as if our fair Teddy had waited and waited for college football to end so he could let it flow…

Here is Atlas regarding the difference in name recognition for whether Manny Pacquiao should face Shane Mosley or Juan Manuel Marquez.

“You walk into a store, you gonna buy Hershey’s chocolate, or are you gonna buy Joe’s chocolate? Well you’re going to buy Hershey’s. Joe’s might be great. But Hershey’s is recognizable.”

And here is Atlas talking to Brian Kenny about Bernard Hopkins’ draw with Jean Pascal:

“If you have an old car – well, Hopkins is an old car. Guess what, Brian… do not take it on the Autobahn. Take it in the back streets a little bit. Where there’s not much traffic. Where you can go nice and slow. And guess what? Hopkins got to go in the back streets. He got to go nice and slow. Pascal jumps all over the place, only fights in spots. Hopkins got the kind of speed limit, the kind of ride that he needed at this point in his life.”

2.  But wait! There was more!

The metaphorical wisdom of Teddy Atlas, as brought to you by Round 4 of Ruslan Provodnikov-Mauricio Herrera:

“You know, to be a good cutman, you have to be like a gardener,” Atlas started. And God bless Joe Tessitore, who responded: “In what way? I gotta hear this.”

Atlas continued: “They gotta get the weeds out before they choke the plants, before it’s too late, before they overrun the whole garden. You can’t wait. And they’re letting the weeds grow a little too long over there. You gotta get on that swelling very early, not late in the game.”

He wasn’t done. It ain’t metaphorical, but it was amusing. Here’s more from Round 4:

“If Herrera had a Christmas wish, and now it would be a New Year’s wish, it wouldn’t be to get his two front teeth, it would be to have a little power, a little pop, to keep Provodnikov off him.”

3.  The Lennox Lewis-ification of Devon Alexander, as brought to you in a brief ringside interview on “Friday Night Fights” about Alexander’s upcoming bout with Timothy Bradley. Here are some amusing segments of that interview:

Joe Tessitore: “Hey, you’ve got some big plans coming up at the end of January.”

Alexander: “Definitely.”

Teddy Atlas: “Bradley, you know he’s going to try to attack this place right here [Atlas taps Alexander’s right side].”

Alexander: “Definitely. Definitely.”

Atlas: “I was just talking about fast feet. I got a funny feeling we’re going to see some footwork with you.”

Alexander: “Oh, definitely. Definitely. Why would I sit there?”

Round 5 between Provodnikov and Herrera soon got under way, and Alexander stayed ringside to analyze it a little.

Atlas: “It reminds me a little bit … you remember the fight years ago, Meldrick Taylor and [Julio] Cesar Chavez?”

Alexander: “Definitely. Definitely.”

4.  So… USA Today picked Manny Pacquiao as the “Fighter of the Year” for 2010 over Sergio Martinez because “Martinez had to be concerned with getting ready for only two fights” while Pacquiao multitasked between being a fighter and being a member of his country’s congress.

That speaks for itself. But then…

For “Fight of the Year,” the newspaper’s award went to Amir Khan’s bout with Marcos Maidana, and the section also made sure to mention Yonnhy Perez-Abner Mares, Juan Manuel Lopez-Rafael Marquez, Juan Manuel Marquez-Michael Katsidis, Manny Pacquiao-Antonio Margarito (“one of the most exciting one-sided fights you’ll ever see”), and Mike Jones vs. Jesus Soto-Karass.

Nothing about Ivan Calderon-Giovanni Segura. Or on Ricky Burns-Roman Martinez. Or on Humberto Soto-Urbano Antillon. Or even on Antonio Escalante-Miguel Roman.

This scribe spent the better part of one day watching six of the best fights back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. And while I still didn’t catch all of the best fights of 2010, I felt comfortable choosing from those half-dozen candidates.

The most hardcore of boxing writers and fans will watch every fight under the sun. Not every boxing writer can do that (I can’t. I don’t). But if you’re going to do year-end awards, you should at least do your research to make sure you’re not missing anything and that you’re properly representing the year that was.

I recall the story of Dan Rafael of ESPN.com telling a room full of boxing writers that they needed to watch the 2006 war between Somsak Sithchatchawal and Mahyar Monshipour – broadcast in France, available on YouTube – before voting for that year’s best fight.

He opened their eyes. They watched. And they voted for Sithchatchawal-Monshipour.

5.  Quick Hits, part one: Chris Arreola now has an additional trainer (Ronnie Shields, joining Henry Ramirez) and conditioning coach (Brian Caldwell, stepping in for Darryl Hudson).

Here’s betting that Arreola will weigh in for his Jan. 28 bout with Joey Abell at 260 pounds.

6.  Quick Hits, part two: Joan Guzman has been released by Golden Boy Promotions, according to Steve Kim of MaxBoxing.com.

Here’s betting that Guzman will weigh in for his next bout… at 260 pounds.

7.  Boxers Behaving Badly, part one: Former bantamweight titleholder Tim Austin has been arrested and charged with felony intimidation of a witness and misdemeanor threatening of domestic violence, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Austin, 39, is accused of “threaten[ing] to harm his wife after she refused to drop assault charges against his mistress,” the newspaper reported.

Today, on Jerry Springer…

(Which wouldn’t be too far-fetched, as Springer was once mayor of Cincinnati.)

Austin has been arrested twice before for domestic violence, but both times those cases were dropped.

Austin left boxing in 2006 with a record of 27-2-1 (24 knockouts).

8.  Boxers Behaving Badly, part two: Elsewhere in Cincinnati, Ron Siler could be going back behind bars, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer.

The former Olympian pleaded guilty last week to one count of possession of crack cocaine. He faces up to a year in prison but will most likely get probation, the newspaper reported.

Siler has a criminal history that would take far too long to detail in this space. Just know that he had to be released from jail to train for the 2004 Olympics, and that the 30-year-old has been in and out of trouble so much that he didn’t make his pro debut until 2010.

He is 1-1 and is scheduled to fight again on Jan. 15. His sentencing, meanwhile, is set for Feb. 7.

9.  Boxers Behaving Badly, part three: Dean Cooper, a retired British boxer who fought at junior middleweight, has been sentenced to nearly 37 years in prison for being part of a cocaine ring, according to the Bristol Evening Post.

Cooper, 41, was one of seven men arrested with 2.5 kilograms of the drug – about 5.5 pounds (weight), worth about 100,000 pounds (money), or about $155,480. He pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

He had “previously served a four-year sentence for conspiracy to supply drugs,” the newspaper said.

Cooper fought from 1990 to 1995 and was 17-3 with three knockouts.

10.  Of course, the Bristol Evening Post referred to Cooper as a “former Western area light heavyweight champion.”

Nope. Junior middleweight.

But can you really blame them for messing up the name of a vacant title that the man won by beating an opponent with a formidable record of 13 wins, 48 losses and four draws?

David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com.

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