by David P. Greisman

There’s no need for tarot cards. Stow away your Magic 8-Balls and Ouija boards. Close the book on Nostradamus.

Forget the supernatural. When it comes to predictions, I’m a natural.

As Tony Soprano once said, “Remember when” is the lowest form of conversation. So let us push aside those year-end awards for 2009 and decade-end awards for the double-ohs, the aughts, the zeroes – whatever you want to call ‘em.

There’s no more need to ponder 2009 now that 2010 is under way.

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

JANUARY

Paulie Malignaggi and Floyd Mayweather Sr. will accuse Manny Pacquiao of being a cyborg.

Rogers Mtagwa will knock out Yuriorkis Gamboa.

Luis Carlos Abregu and Richard Gutierrez will have the first candidate for “Fight of the Year.” Nobody will see it because the fight will begin just before midnight Eastern Time on a Friday night on an episode of “ShoBox.”

Jorge Arce will fight for a 115-pound world title for the fourth time since 2007, this time against Angky Angkota. This time, Arce will win, and will then sign for a rematch with Cristian Mijares.

Shane Mosley will score a technical knockout over Andre Berto, but the world will continue to forget that he is the number-one welterweight.

Glen Johnson and Yusaf Mack will have the second candidate for “Fight of the Year.” Nobody will see it because HBO will only have aired Mosley-Berto.

FEBRUARY

Daiki Kameda will outpoint Denkaosan Kaovichit to capture a flyweight world title. Between Daiki Kameda and Koki Kameda, they become the second pair of brothers to hold titles in the same weight class. They will pose for a picture with two men who, individually, are more than the Kamedas’ combined weight – Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko.

Evander Holyfield will stop Francois Botha in Uganda in a battle of 40-something heavyweights. Holyfield will move on to face Oliver McCall somewhere in the Sahara Desert.

Bernard Hopkins and Danny Green will finally come to terms and sign to fight. Hopkins, never shy of crossing the line, will promise to be the stingray to Green’s Crocodile Hunter. Ricardo Mayorga will call Hopkins and tell him, “You’ve gone too far.”

Lennox Lewis will make a good point.

MARCH

A pedometer manufacturer will sign a sponsorship deal with Andre Dirrell in advance of his fight against Arthur Abraham. Dirrell, however, will decide to be less mobile this time around, and will upset Abraham.

Paulie Malignaggi and Floyd Mayweather Sr. will accuse Manny Pacquiao of falsifying statistics involving global warming.

March 13 will come and go. A week later, Pacquiao will win a unanimous decision over Yuri Foreman to capture a world title in an eighth weight class.

Wladimir Klitschko will score a technical knockout over Eddie Chambers. David Haye will talk trash about Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko but will still refuse to sign for a fight with either.

At the end of its initial slate of fights on Fox Sports Net, Top Rank will stick Tye Fields into a main event.

APRIL

Mikkel Kessler will win a wide decision against Carl Froch, and Andre Ward will score a stoppage over Jermain Taylor.

The WBC, fresh off the success of its “Diamond Championship” belt for catch-weight contests, will decide to create the “Cruiserweight Super Middleweight Championship,” in recognition of cruiserweight BJ Flores’ preferred choice of opponent.

A bored matchmaker will set up a bout between welterweight prospect Stanislas Salmon and junior middleweight prospect Austin Trout.

Chris Arreola will weigh in for a fight at 285 pounds.

MAY

Just before the fourth fight between Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez takes place, Hamas and the country of Israel will send Vazquez and Marquez letters pleading for the boxers to put aside violence and give peace a chance.

Juan Manuel Marquez will give up on getting a third bout with Manny Pacquiao, and instead will petition for Filipino citizenship in hopes of challenging Pacquiao in that country’s Congressional election.

Paulie Malignaggi and Floyd Mayweather Sr. will accuse Manny Pacquiao of being on the grassy knoll in Dallas in November 1963.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. will knock out Matthew Hatton with the same left hook he used against Ricky.

Rocky Juarez will get another title shot.

JUNE

In Antonio Margarito’s first fight back from his suspension, inspectors with the local athletic commission will discover “The Thinker” tucked within the hand wraps on Margarito’s left hand and “Venus de Milo” tucked within the hand wraps on his right.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao will finally sign to face each other, with the bout scheduled for November. There will be much rejoicing. Bob Arum will promise another “spectacular undercard.” There will be much coughing.

Tavoris Cloud, who sat on his ranking to get a light heavyweight world title shot and is now sitting on his world title to get a payday, will finally fight again after 10 months of inactivity. It will be aired on an ESPN2 undercard.

The first fight will be successfully negotiated via Twitter.

JULY

Paulie Malignaggi and Floyd Mayweather Sr. will accuse Manny Pacquiao of faking the moon landing.

The WBC will institute a new “Most-Feared Fighter Championship,” sanctioning a rematch between Paul Williams and Sergio Martinez.

Chad Dawson will pull out of his fight with Jean Pascal once he realizes he’s being paid $3 million in Canadian dollars, not American.

Elin Nordegren will hire Andrew Golota to put a stop to Tiger Woods’ philandering.

AUGUST

Despite hiring a new general manager, the Washington Redskins again will fail to replenish its depleted offensive line. A desperate Daniel Snyder will bring bloated former fighters Ricky Hatton, Fernando Vargas, Naseem Hamed and Roberto Duran into training camp.

Nonito Donaire will once again knock out Vic Darchinyan, again with the counter left hook.

South Korean bantamweight prospect Big Yoo will come to the ring to the tune of the Foo Fighters’ “Big Me.”

Vitali Klitschko will face Nikolai Valuev in a fight featuring two of the tallest heavyweights. Klitschko will retire in his corner after the 11th round due to pains in his neck from having to look upwards for the first time in his career.

Chris Arreola will weigh in for a fight at 300 pounds.

SEPTEMBER

Dominick Guinn, Audley Harrison and Kevin Johnson will enter group therapy with a sports psychologist to determine why they freeze up when faced with their biggest opportunities.

Paulie Malignaggi and Floyd Mayweather Sr. will accuse Manny Pacquiao of shooting and killing both Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G.

Boxing reporter Dan Rafael will set a new record for longest chat on ESPN.com with a time of 22 hours, 4 minutes and 53 seconds. The transcript is published in book form and marketed as the sweet science’s equivalent to Bill Simmons’ “The Book of Basketball.”

HBO will poach Timothy Bradley from Showtime.

OCTOBER

ESPN writer Rick Reilly will take a break from copying his old Sports Illustrated columns and put together an extended feature about the decline of Don King.

The group stage of the Super Six tournament will end. Moving on will be Arthur Abraham, Andre Ward, Mikkel Kessler and Carl Froch.

A smart matchmaker will pair Yohnny Perez and Jhonny Gonzalez in an action-filled bantamweight title fight. The contracts will stipulate that the loser must change the spelling of his first name.

NOVEMBER

Mayweather-Pacquiao will take place. People will celebrate the biggest fight ever, yet the arena still will not be filled until a few minutes before the main event.

After Mayweather-Pacquiao, the usual reports will come out of people in the Philippines dying of heart attacks during the fight due to the excitement and tension. Meanwhile in the United States, there will be stories of people who had their homes foreclosed because they bought the exorbitantly priced tickets and could no longer afford their mortgage payments.

Chris Arreola will skip his final fight of the year and will be found instead at the buffet.

Lazy sportswriters who fall back on the incorrect “Boxing is dead” storyline will be forced to explain why boxing is dead but horse racing isn’t.

DECEMBER

Paulie Malignaggi and Floyd Mayweather Sr. will accuse Manny Pacquiao of being a witch.

Kelly Pavlik will finally be scheduled to face Paul Williams. The bout will be postponed due to a power outage at the arena.

Jose Canseco will retire from Celebrity Boxing after a stunning knockout loss to Ivan Calderon.

All of the above aside, boxing will have a great year. We will all look forward to 2011.


The 10 Count

1.  The previous decade of boxing started with HBO airing 28 cards in 2000, be they pay-per-views, “World Championship Boxing” broadcasts, “Boxing After Dark” shows, or episodes of the network’s short-lived “KO Nation” series.

The domestic industry leader had 254 cards total in the decade: those 28 in 2000, plus 29 in 2001, 23 in 2002, 23 in 2003, 21 in 2004, 22 in 2005, 32 in 2006, 28 in 2007, 29 in 2008, and 19 in 2009.

There were definitely years in which the tallies were inflated by the number of pay-per-views, plus broadcasts in which only one fight was shown. But the good news is that while HBO’s boxing budget has been cut down from what it once was, many of those superstars who demanded the largest of purses are now retired or approaching the end of their careers.

That means we get more variety, more sorting out of which fighters are worth showing on television, more figuring out which fighters will take up the mantle over these next 10 years.

2.  My fighters of the decade, by division, based solely on the body of work in that weight class between 2000 and 2009:

Heavyweight: Wladimir Klitschko.
Cruiserweight: Jean Marc Mormeck.
Light heavyweight: Roy Jones Jr. and Antonio Tarver.
Super middleweight: Joe Calzaghe.

Middleweight: Bernard Hopkins.
Junior middleweight: Winky Wright.
Welterweight: Shane Mosley (in recognition of his two reigns as the division’s No. 1).
Junior welterweight: Ricky Hatton (Kostya Tszyu’s reign straddled the decades).

Lightweight: Jose Luis Castillo.
Junior lightweight: Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.
Featherweight: Marco Antonio Barrera and Chris John.
Junior featherweight: Israel Vazquez.

Bantamweight: Veeraphol Sahaprom and Hozumi Hasegawa.
Junior bantamweight: Masamori Tokuyama.
Flyweight: Pongsaklek Wonjongkam.
Junior flyweight: Jorge Arce.
Minimumweight: Ivan Calderon.

3.  My fighters of the decade, a baker’s dozen based on entire body of work, starting with the clear top two:

1. Manny Pacquiao
2. Floyd Mayweather Jr.

And as for the rest? Frankly, I’ve always hated compiling this kind of list, just because it leads to quibbling over each little bit of a fighter’s record as we try to compare what, oh, Juan Manuel Marquez did against what Joe Calzaghe did.

Though I did rank these guys in my voting for the BoxingScene “Best of the Decade” awards, I’m gonna hedge here and would rather just say that the best of the rest are, in whatever order:

Juan Manuel Marquez, Joe Calzaghe, Wladimir Klitschko, Bernard Hopkins, Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, Miguel Cotto, Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera, Rafael Marquez, Shane Mosley and Jorge Arce.

4.  Boxers Behaving Badly update, part one: Mike Tyson will not face legal repercussions for a November altercation in which the former heavyweight champion allegedly smacked a tabloid photographer who was getting too close to him and his family at an airport in Los Angeles.

The photographer, Tony Echeverria, said he got hit by Tyson. Tyson said he got hit by Echeverria. Both were arrested, but neither was ever charged.

“We took a look at the evidence and concluded that there was insufficient evidence that either party was at fault beyond a reasonable doubt,” Frank Mateljan, a Los Angeles city attorney’s office spokesman, was quoted as saying in the Los Angeles Times. “It didn’t rise to the level of filing a charge.”

5.  For those rooting for Tyson to maintain stability in his life after years and years and years of self-inflicted chaos and controversy, this news is good news. Had Tyson been charged, he could’ve been back behind bars.

That’s because if Tyson had been found guilty, he also could have been charged with a probation violation. In 2007, he spent a day in jail in Arizona after he pleaded guilty to a charge of cocaine possession and a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence.

6.  On another note, Tyson will be the guest host on the Jan. 11 episode of WWE’s “Monday Night Raw.

Tyson’s had roles in WWE storylines before, appearing on “Raw” in January 1998 and then acting as the “special enforcer” during the main event that year at WrestleMania 14.

At the time, Tyson was 31. Wrestlers Shawn M ichaels, 32, and Triple H, 28, were a team known as D-G eneration X, and Hulk Hogan, 44, was involved with a competing company.

Tyson is now 43. Wrestlers Shawn Michaels, 44, and Triple H, 40, are a team known as D-G eneration X, and Hulk Hogan, 56, is involved with a competing company.

The more things change…

7.  Boxers Behaving Badly update, part two: Former prospect Paul Halpin has been sentenced to seven years in prison for dealing drugs and money laundering, according to southern England newspaper The Argus.

Halpin, 35, was arrested in October 2008, carrying 58,000 pounds he had made as a cocaine supplier.

Halpin’s trial ended this past November with a guilty verdict. His sentencing was in December.

Halpin began his pro career in 1997, capturing a regional featherweight title two years later. But the turn of the century saw him fighting far more sporadically. He last appeared in the ring in June 2007, winning a six-round decision. His record is 13-1-1 (5 knockouts).

Halpin spent two-and-a-half years behind bars as a teen, according to previous reports.

8.  Boxers Behaving Badly, part one: A contestant on the Australian version of “The Contender” boxing reality competition was arrested last month and charged with raping a woman and assaulting a man.

Sonni Michael Angelo, 24, is out on bail, according to The Daily Telegraph. No information was available in the article as to when he will be due back in court.

He is 16-9-2 with 5 knockout victories. His most recent appearance was a decision loss on the television show to fellow super middleweight Victor Oganov.

9.  Boxers Behaving Badly, part two: Junior lightweight contender Vitali Tajbert has been arrested and charged with assault after getting in a fight outside of a dance club, according to reports in the German media (corroborated in a statement from Tajbert’s promoter, and also written about briefly by BoxingScene’s own Thomas Schlabe and Mark Vester).

One man was injured critically. The reports seem to indicate that Tajbert was injured as well.

The incident came a little more than a month after Tajbert, 27, captured the World Boxing Council’s interim 130-pound title with a decision win over some dude named Humberto Gutierrez.

He is 19-1 with six knockout victories.

10.  Shane Mosley is David Letterman. Manny Pacquiao is Tiger Woods.

Nobody talks about Letterman’s indiscretions anymore. Nobody mentions Mosley’s performance-enhancing drug admissions.

The size of the star dictates the staying power of the scandal.

David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com