By Jake Donovan

This was the point in the boxing season last year when the sport received a much needed shot in the arm. The night was September 29, 2007. A major boxing telecast hadn’t made its way to American airwaves in seven weeks by the time Showtime would grace our TV screens.

Joseph Agbeko got the ball rolling, dominating bantamweight titlist Luis Perez en route to one of the year’s biggest upsets. As memorable a performance as it was, it was destined to be lost in the shuffle by night’s end. That’s because on HBO, Kelly Pavlik would go from undefeated contender to newly crowned unbeaten middleweight king, peeling himself off of the canvas to knock out Jermain Taylor in seven of the best rounds of the year.

So began perhaps the best stretch of boxing witnessed in a long time. Pavlik-Taylor was the first of three bouts that featured undefeated fighters colliding for a division’s linear crown, with Joe Calzaghe-Mikkel Kessler (super middleweight) and Floyd Mayweather-Ricky Hatton (welterweight) coming in the weeks that followed.

There was also plenty of noteworthy action to fill in the blanks in between super fights.

Miguel Cotto would score a win over a fourth Top 10 welterweight (Shane Mosley) in a span of just over eleven months.

Manny Pacquiao (UD12 Marco Antonio Barrera) and Juan Manuel Marquez (UD12 Rocky Juarez) would win on separate shows four weeks apart in clearing the way for an eventual rematch earlier this year.

A lightweight discussion erupted into a full-scale debate. For the second straight fight, Juan Diaz forced another titlist (Julio Diaz) to quit on his stool in their October unification, four weeks before linear champion Joel Casamayor ended a 13-month hiatus with a tainted win over Jose Armando Santa Cruz in what many still regard as one of the most disgraceful decisions in boxing history.

All told, the stretch run from September 29 to December 8 would result in one of the best boxing quarters in recent memory. The sport couldn’t count down quick enough the days until last summer ended, as a series of fallouts had the sport seriously limping into fall. The payoff was well worth the wait, with fans returning to arenas, and boxing worth watching returning to our living rooms on a regular basis.

Fast-forward one year later. It appeared for a while that the momentum would hold up, especially with March 2008 going down as a month for the time capsule, producing no fewer than three fights that still rank among the year’s best, along with a slew of upsets on every network. From HBO PPV all the way down to ESPN2 preliminaries, no fighter was safe – and no boxing fan was displeased.

Then came the April showers; it’s been a gloomy overcast ever since.

Showtime, ESPN2 and Telefutura all picked up the pace, producing memories in small moments throughout the year. But a lack of general exposure resulted in their offerings becoming the proverbial falling tree in a vacant forest. It’s HBO whose pockets run the deepest and boasts the largest boxing audience. Simply put, as far as the industry is concerned, they are the straw that stirs the drink.

So it was with great disappointment that their spring and summer lineups were littered with high-priced showcase bouts (a nice way of saying expensive mismatches). Poor business decisions squandered whatever momentum the sport had going in its favor, instead resulted in record-low ratings, one show getting worse than the next in that regard, leaving behind very little buzz and loading up its schedule with the best of yesterday while desperately searching for the right fighters to eventually market as the stars of tomorrow.

Which leads us to the fall schedule.

In the land of prime-time network programming, it’s the time of the year for season premieres to familiar shows and the launching of several new ones. Most come on the heels of summer re-runs, or crappy summer reality programming that otherwise doesn’t warrant the maximum exposure that comes with fall broadcasting.

For boxing, it’s the time of the year where fans are served up the first taste of the best the sport has to offer, which is supposed to last through November – sweeps month – and partially into December before reloading for next season.

Last year, the run was forced to begin called, with postponements on three straight weekends resulting in the summer ending with a fizzle and the anticipation that much greater.

A better primer has been served up this year, as we begin the fall season. The summer ended with Juan Diaz and Rocky Juarez scoring big wins in their Houston hometown, and Juan Manuel Marquez advancing from eventual Hall of Famer to potential first-ballot entry with an 11th round knockout of Joel Casamayor to win the linear lightweight crown.

Three more linear champions appear on the fall schedule, though only one of which defends his world title. That would be Ricky Hatton, who puts his junior welterweight crown on the line against Paul Malignaggi, who dumped an alphabet title for a shot at the real thing when the two collide on November 22 in Las Vegas.

Two weeks prior, Joe Calzaghe – still the super middleweight king until he officially declares that he’s done with the division for good – fights for the second time as a light heavyweight and in America. In a bout ten years in the making, the undefeated pound-for-pound entrant will take on former four division titlist Roy Jones Jr at Madison Square Garden, in a bout that headlines one of three remaining HBO PPV telecasts for the year.

It is hoped that the winner of Calzaghe-Jones will face the last man standing in the October 11 showdown between Antonio Tarver and undefeated Chad Dawson (SHOWTIME, Las Vegas). But the more likely scenario would have either Calzaghe or Jones facing the winner of the October 18 PPV catchweight battle in Atlantic City between faded former middleweight kingpin Bernard Hopkins and its current ruler, Kelly Pavlik.

The light heavyweight division has been stuck on stupid for years, and will most likely remained splintered in the court of public opinion over who’s the true leader. That said, the October 11 serves more purpose than potentially producing closure in the Tarver-Dawson rivalry. The night serves as a split broadcast.

Part two takes place in Germany via same-day tape-delay, as Samuel Peter defends his heavyweight alphabet title against Vitali Klitschko who, for the moment, is still healthy enough to return to the ring for the first time in nearly four years. Should he actually make it to fight night, Vitali stands an excellent chance of joining younger brother Wladimir in simultaneously serving as heavyweight titlists.

Whether or not that remain true by years end depends on two outcomes – Vitali defeating Peter, and Wladimir successfully defending against undefeated mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin (December 13, HBO).

Like light heavyweight, the heavyweight division will remain in a state of confusion as we enter 2009. Wladimir gained major momentum as the world’s best heavyweight, just not its absolute champion. That status won’t change so long as Vitali regains his old title, as there stands less than a 1% chance of the two ever facing one another in a sanctioned prizefight.

Meanwhile more than 100 lb. south, the junior bantamweight division continues to make the fights that matter. One such example is the November 1 main event on Showtime, which features one of the sport’s very best in Cristian Mijares taking on one of its biggest punchers in Vic Darchinyan.

Three major titles will be at stake in the fight, though most believe that the winner would still have to face Fernando Montiel to determine the true 115 lb. leader. Those who still view “the big three alphabets” as enough declare an undisputed champion will have one so long as Mijares-Darchinyan doesn’t result in a draw, no-contest or any other outcome that doesn’t produce a winner.

Thanks to the fallout in the previously scheduled September 13 headliner between Nate Campbell and the soon-to-be-suspended Joan Guzman, Showtime now has extra money in the budget to possibly stage one more show in December. Until then, the rest of their entries come from their ShoBox series, including two shows feature alphabet title fights, both of which will air from Canada.

The super middleweight division received a huge boost when Shobox picked up the tab for the October 24 title fight between undefeated Lucian Bute and mandatory challenger Librado . Andrade (Montreal, Canada). Those good fortunes were extended to the super featherweight division, when a deal was reached for unbeaten Steve Molitor to face Celestino Caballero in a November 21 unification match (Ontario, Canada), with the winner better able to plead his case for a future meet with linear champion Israel Vazquez.

Not quite painting as clear of a picture is what the future holds for the winners for this weekend’s HBO-televised doubleheader (Saturday, Los Angeles, CA).

Undefeated welterweight Andre Berto makes the first defense of his alphabet strap when he faces Stevie Forbes, who “earned” his shot by dropping a virtual shutout against Oscar de la Hoya earlier this year. The main event features former three-division champion Shane Mosley facing former welterweight king Ricardo Mayorga, with the loser pondering which career to next choose, while the winner hangs around for one more payday.

The sport gets a lot younger one week later, when HBO and Gary Shaw once again hook up for another installment of Night of the Rising Stars. Two bouts feature three undefeated fighters – Yuriorkis Gamboa taking on Marcos Ramirez in a battle of undefeated featherweights, while unbeaten flame-throwing junior middleweight Alfred Angulo meets Andrey Tsurkan. The bout is one of two 154 lb. fights on the show, with Sergio Martinez facing resurging Alex Bunema in the evening’s main go.

It’s the last time youth will truly be served on HBO, at least in 2008, unless opponents can be sought for Paul Williams and Chris Arreola for a November 29 date that remains up in the air. A clearer picture will be painted after both take care of business this Thursday on VERSUS – Tall Paul moves up to middleweight to face Andy Kolle, while Arreola puts his undefeated record – and newfound reputation as perhaps the next big American heavyweight sensation – on the line when he meets Israel Garcia.

Their doubleheader is one of four major shows planned for the revamped VERSUS Fight Night series, which escapes from the clutches of Bob Arum, who helped the series get started but chose to screw the pooch for most of the two years he staged bouts on the network.

HBO’s Boxing After Dark promised to revert to old form, and shows like its October 4  edition suggest they are serious. But it’s more of the same on November 15, when former Olympic teammates Jermain Taylor and Jeff Lacy collide in what, almost eight years into their respective pro careers, now boils down to a loser-leaves-town match.

Then of course comes the show for which the sport puts all of its eggs in one basket, December 6 on HBO pay-per-view. Tickets are threatening to go on sale Wednesday,as the sport’s biggest cash cow, Oscar de la Hoya, collides with its best pound for pound fighter in Manny Pacquiao, who moves up two divisions from lightweight, at which he just arrived this past June, to meet in a welterweight bout with cashweight implications.

All of the aforementioned represents what boxing fans have to look forward to in the autumnal equinox. Last year, boxing’s biggest names stepped up at the right time – when the sport was seriously on the ropes. With the surge having long past and ratings regressing with each broadcast, the question looming over the next ten weeks is who will stand up and rise this fall.

Jake Donovan is a voting member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Comments/questions can be submitted to JakeNDaBox@gmail.com.