By Jake Donovan

Let the games begin.

Not the Winter Olympic games, mind you. Thankfully, that bunch has left the building, with no other major sporting event for the time being posing enough of a threat to prevent boxing from putting its best foot forward.

No, judging by the upcoming fight schedule, it’s safe to say that boxing is ready for a grand arrival, with no signs of slowing down in the foreseeable future.

As solid as the fights have been on the sport’s second tier (ESPN2, Fox Sports, both of whom have delivered strong lineups to begin the year), attention will only be paid at the higher level.

It’s on that note, that our boxing season is set to officially begin, and with several twists and turns offered in the upcoming months.

While there are still those who feel letdown by the Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather fight falling through, its implosion turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Yes, we’re left with two price tags instead of one – and still no head-on collision. But we’re also getting a view of the sport from a different light.

With Tuesday’s press conference in New York City marked the official countdown to the May 1 welterweight superfight between “Sugar” Shane Mosley and Floyd “Money” Mayweather.

The bout itself is more than ten years in the making, with neither side holding a lot of love for the other through the years. Such was exhibited during a near-brawl at the presser, one which many who were on hand to witness insist that it wasn’t offered merely as means to get people talking and to sell tickets.

Even without the shoving and shouting, the fight is worthy of headlines on its own merit. Some will argue that it should define welterweight supremacy, with Mosley considered by many to be the best welterweight in the world, going up against its most recent lineal claimant in Mayweather, who relinquished the crown when he opted to sever all ties from the sport during his faux-retirement announcement in 2008.

Those who refuse to invest such stock into the fight are undoubtedly of the belief that any discussion of the lineal welterweight crown should involve Pacquiao, a current alphabet titleholder and the sport’s best pound-for-pound fighter today.

The good news is that Pacquiao gets to have his say in the ring, well before the aforementioned May 1 event. The three-time Fighter of the Year (and Fighter of the 2000’s) makes his return to the ring next weekend (March 13, HBO PPV).

The potentially bad news is that it’s a dangerous assignment, as he prepares to defend his belt against former welterweight titlist Joshua Clottey.

While any Pacquiao fight these days is an event in and of itself, the backdrop for his latest ring appearance has created a different kind of buzz throughout the industry.

After years of threatening to bring the sport out of the casinos and back into the big arenas, Top Rank head honcho and Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum came through on his promise, securing a deal to have the fight take place at the newly renovated, state-of-the-art Cowboys Stadium in the Dallas area.

If there were any lingering effects of Pacquiao’s next opponent not being Mayweather, it certainly hasn’t shown at the box office. The event is on target to sell 45,000 tickets, making it the largest attendance for a boxing event in the United States in more than a decade.

As big as are the aforementioned events, it’s hardly all that the sport has to offer in the next few months.

This weekend alone offers dueling broadcasts on HBO and Showtime.

The former presents its first leg of a series of bouts in the 140 lb. division, with the idea – while not quite tournament style – to eventually produce the next young superstar to include in the mix of big named (and high-priced) welterweights.

Opening the unofficial series is an alphabet unification match between Devon Alexander and Juan Urango. The boxer-versus-banger matchup, which marks Alexander’s HBO debut, airs live this Saturday at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, CT.  

Airing opposite HBO’s show is the return of super flyweight king Vic Darchinyan, who tops a broadcast that will also include the Showtime debut of undefeated junior welterweight contender Leonardo Zappavigna.

The Showtime card was to originally mark the return of its critically acclaimed Super Six World Boxing Classic. However, a back injury suffered by Andre Dirrell forced a three-week postponement – and a venue relocation - of his bout with Arthur Abraham, now scheduled for March 27 in Detroit, and which leads to our next HBO-Showtime conflict.

The HBO side of the March 27 dueling telecasts features another 140 lb. title bout, this between Marcos Maidana and undefeated contender Victor Cayo. The show, which airs from the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, will also include a lightweight title rematch between Joan Guzman and Ali Funeka.

As strong as is the month of March, April packs a much bigger wallop – and that’s even with the schedule being weighed down by the April 3 pay-per-view between legendary geriatrics Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones.

The two have been bickering for the better part of the 17 years that have followed their first fight, and will finally meet, albeit in a bout that few want to see and one in which no major network was willing to invest its time or money.

What fans will want to see is what HBO and Showtime have to offer on every other weekend of the month.

It was with a heavy heart that Andre Berto was forced to withdraw from his previously scheduled dance with Mosley due to the devastation that ran rampant through his native Haiti, claiming several family members among the thousands of lives lost and citizens displaced.

The 2004 Haitian Olympian now plans to use the events as motivation for his ring return, which comes April 10 on HBO against former welterweight titlist Carlos Quintana.

One week later marks a split-site broadcast, with HBO offering a super middleweight title fight between Lucian Bute and Edison Miranda live from Canada, followed by Kelly Pavlik’s defense of his lineal middleweight crown against hard-luck junior middleweight titlist Sergio Martinez, who came oh so close to claiming victory in a terrific scrap with Paul Williams – incidentally enough in a bout where the Argentinean filled in for an injured Pavlik.

Originally planned that evening was an equally strong doubleheader on Showtime, featuring Super Six matchups from Denmark (Mikkel Kessler vs. Carl Froch) and the United States (Andre Ward versus Allan Green).

Instead, Showtime decided to maximize its coverage of the heavily invested tournament and bumped the bi-continental twinbill back a week, to April 24.

The show still competes against HBO, but at least is now on a night where you don’t have to choose between two broadcasts focusing relatively on the same weight class. Showtime instead puts its Super Six doubleheader against a pair of guaranteed slugfests in Ontario, CA.

Headlining the show is regional favorite Chris Arreola, who faces former cruiserweight king Tomasz Adamek. Appearing in the chief support is the always-exciting junior middleweight contender Alfredo Angulo against divisional gatekeeper Joel Julio.

Boxing life in the fast lane doesn’t exactly end one week later with the May 1 Mosley-Mayweather clash.

HBO is piecing together a strong doubleheader on May 15, yet another broadcast dedicated to its junior welterweight series. One week later brings us the fourth leg of the epic rivalry between former junior featherweight kings Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez.

It was a long wait to get to the truly good stuff, but the next several months will undoubtedly put boxing back in the bright lights and in a very big way.

Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com and an award-winning member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Contact Jake at JakeNDaBox@gmail.com .