By Cliff Rold

Baseball has the all-star break.  Boxing has July 1st.  For each sport, it marks the same landmark: the passage of mid-season.    There is no off-season because the boxing season never really ends, or begins for that matter.  It’s one of the places boxing will always have America’s pastime beat.  This dynamic doesn’t stop fans and pundits from marking the passing of time with the movement of the calendar. 

At the end of each year, fighters and fights are anointed as the best of the last twelve months.  Thus, it makes sense in the middle of each year to gauge where the sport is and where it’s headed.

To great excitement, both the ‘is’ and the ‘where’ of this ‘season’ are the best boxing has experienced in quite some time.  2007’s first six months, and the indications for the next six, mark a stark contrast with the shrill death watch boxing was under on May 4.  There have been excellent fights, excellent fighters and an infusion of new blood.  To all our benefit, the best may be yet to come. 

So today, cheating by a just few days, my thoughts on the first half of the boxing year beginning with…

Fighter of the Half-Year: Floyd Mayweather Jr.

There may have been fighters with bigger personal moments, and certainly greater accomplishments, than World welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather (38-0, 24 KO) amassed in his single night of well-hyped, victorious combat against Oscar De La Hoya (38-5, 30 KO).  In my estimation, all those arguments die with the words “over 2-million pay-per-view buys.’

Mayweather had long cried out for his shot at the global stage and he delivered strong both before the bout and at the box office (if only mildly during the fight).  While it’s easy to argue that Oscar De la Hoya has always been an easy sell, the fact is that Mayweather was the soul of that promotion. 

Casual fans may have tuned into the first episode of HBO’s 24/7 series because of Oscar, but some 4-million per week came back to see what Floyd would do next.  Floyd says a lot of stuff that sounds ridiculous to educated viewers, but saying that Oscar is a boring persona, particularly in contrast to Floyd, isn’t one of them.

Remember, on paper Oscar’s fights with Felix Trinidad, Fernando Vargas, Ike Quartey and Shane Mosley were all better fights than the bout with Mayweather promised to be.  While the reach and availability of pay-per-view in 2007 is greater than it was for those bouts, it wasn’t some 600,000 to 1-million buys better.  Mayweather sold those extra homes.

That means Floyd was the face of boxing for the first half of this year, and the winner of the biggest marquee fight in almost five years.  At the halfway mark, Floyd Mayweather is the fighter of the year but that begs the question…

Will He Hold?  With six months to go, Mayweather’s ability to finish 2007 where he is at the halfway mark depends entirely on him.  He claimed to be retired, but that’s one of those ridiculous things I mentioned above.  There are two logical big-money fights at welterweight that Mayweather can take and, if he won either cleanly, he’d likely lay claim to yearly honors.

The first is Shane Mosley (44-4, 37 KO).  One week ago I’d have called it, easily, the biggest money fight in boxing besides Mayweather-De la Hoya II.  It’s got a great story (long time rhetorical rivals, past failed negotiations, aging warrior looking for one last big win, the backdrop of welterweight history).  It also has the look of a great fight.  Even in his mid-thirties, Mosley promises a combination of speed and experience that can push Mayweather to the limit.  A win for Floyd would mean two legitimate stars on the dossier in one year.

The problem for Mosley is that he may no longer be the best money even if he might remain the biggest potential challenge.  World jr. welterweight champion Ricky Hatton (43-0, 31 KO) of the UK changed the economics of Floyd Mayweather’s future last Saturday night when he showed he could bring some 10,000 fans to the United States.  His devastating domination and stoppage of former World lightweight king Jose Luis Castillo (55-8-1, 47 KO) only added to the equation. 

It was two summers ago that Mayweather-Hatton was all the buzz in boxing but Hatton lost a bit of his momentum.  He’s got it back now in spades and could very well cash it in for dollars.  The issue of how many dollars, and whether Hatton’s camp is going to enter into the honest negotiations they appeared to avoid in 2005, could be as big a factor in the rest of Floyd’s year as anything else.

Best of the Rest:  There are a number of other fighters who have had a great half-year and who linger as potential fighter of the year honorees…Rafael Marquez (37-3, 33 KO) captured the World jr. featherweight crown in a barnburner with Israel Vasquez (41-4, 31 KO) and those two will meet again in August.  Another victory could set up a battle with wicked #1 contender Celestino Caballero (26-2, 18 KO)…Ricky Hatton, should he snare a fight with Mayweather, becomes an instant factor…Middleweight Kelly Pavlik (31-0, 28 KO) has snared two devastating knockout wins this year, one against top contender Edison Miranda.  Securing a fight with, and then defeating champion Jermain Taylor (27-0-1, 17 KO), might make him the biggest domestic U.S. star under 30…Both World super middleweight king Joe Calzaghe (43-0, 32 KO) and his top contender Mikkel Kessler (39-0, 29 KO) will be factors if they face each other…Finally, welterweight Miguel Cotto (30-0, 25 KO) has emerged as the sports newest superstar after his win over former World champ Zab Judah and could have Antonio Margarito in the fall.

Fight of the Half-Year: Jean Marc Mormeck-O’Neill Bell II

There have been no entrants onto the list of all-time classics as yet, but there have been a number of highly entertaining brawls.  While the adrenaline provided by the Madison Square Garden crowd made Cotto-Judah seem like a great fight, second viewing revealed it to be fairly one sided.  The same can not be said of the cruiserweight World title rematch in March.  Marred though it was by late stalling tactics from Mormeck (33-3, 22 KO), arguably brought about by the use of the WBC’s open scoring system in France, this bout still holds up as the best of the half-year. 

Mormeck, who had been drilled into the canvas in the 10th round of their first encounter in January 2006, jumped on Bell (26-2-1, 24 KO) early and built a lead.  The two would trade devastating shots throughout, with Mormeck left reeling at the end of the fifth only to war his way back.  Even the late stalls occasionally added to the drama as Bell chased Mormeck, occasionally catching him, with Mormeck gutting up to stop and trade just enough to hang on and reclaim his title. 

It was for the first eight rounds an absolute epic and for the last four still an intriguing fight.  Better yet, absolutely no one didn’t want to see these two trade leather a third time.  Cotto-Judah had a better, more satisfying finish but this was a better, more competitive fight.

Runner-Ups:  That is not to say that Cotto-Judah wasn’t thrilling.  Cotto weathered some nasty storms even as he won probably nine of the eleven rounds before his knockout win…Under the radar for the mainstream, lightweights Michael Katsidis and Graham Earl engaged in holy brutality for five rounds in March.  The second round saw both on the deck and is easily the best three minutes of boxing this year:  Katsidis had pounded Earl in the first and was doing the same in the second…Earl’s corner tried to throw in the towel…the ref threw it back…Earl dropped Katsidis and Ragnarok ensued.  The fourth also saw ferocious trading.  Katsidis dominated the bulk of the bout but both were colored in honor…As mentioned above, Marquez-Vasquez was superb as was Pavlik-Miranda as was Juan Manuel Marquez-Marco Antonio Barrera.

Will it Hold?  As stated above, nothing I’ve seen so far in 2007 is an absolute all-time classic.  There has been nothing like Sithchatchawal-Monshipour last year.  That leaves a lot of room for something down the stretch to assume the end-of-year honors.  Hatton-Mayweather, based on styles, probably would be the best bet if it got made.  Fans can not forget: Mayweather can be very entertaining against the right foe and Hatton has been entertaining for all but a few fights.  Kessler-Calzaghe would also be a safe bet for a probable classic.  It just depends on what gets made.  Regardless, I have a hard time thinking we’ve already seen the best fight of this year.

What’s Ahead:  With an obvious strong start to the year, next week I will examine where the sport is going in the second half of 2007.

The Ten-Second Bell:  After hearing for the last few years how hard it is to make a heavyweight unification bout, WBA titlist Ruslan Chagaev (23-0-1, 17 KO, Ring Magazine #3) and WBO titlist Sultan Ibragimov (21-0-1, 17 KO, #6) came out of nowhere and made a fight for October.  Props to both for showing up their constantly politicking brethren…If you can, likely online or via satellite, do find a way to see this weekend’s bout between 2004 Olympic Super Heavyweight Gold Medalist Alexander Povetkin (13-0, 11 KO) and American veteran Larry Donald (42-4-3, 24 KO).  Donald should be a great gauge of whether Povetkin is ready to go from prospect to contender and, possibly, to becoming the future of the division.  So far, he looks like the goods…The main event of that card is also well worth the time.  Dimitry Kirilov (28-3, 9 KO) was robbed silly last year in a contest for the IBF 115 lb. belt against then-titlist Luis Perez; with Perez having vacated he has a chance to win that strap against veteran Ricardo Vargas (39-12-3, 13 KO).  Neither is a big puncher but they both get in the trenches…Finally, check out the highlights available on sites like YouTube for last weeks middleweight battle between top ten contenders Amin Asikainen (20-1, 14 KO, #8) and Sebastian Sylvester (26-2, 12 KO, #7).  Sylvester avenged his knockout loss with an eleventh round stoppage and both of their fights, in full, serve as more evidence of the depth and quality to be found at 160 lbs.  They are also evidence of the need for a rubber match.  As I always remind, boxing is a global sport more now than ever and true fans should do their best to check out the fights beyond their borders.

Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com