Jake-N-Da-Blog - Edition 5 

By Jake Donovan

It drives me nuts, and I know I'm not alone.

One week, the boxing action is thin – no major Saturday night card, with your weekend basically ending on Friday. The following week, you're forced to decide what to watch live and what to catch later.

This week is one where Tivo's get a workout.

Following a week where boxing all but ended on Friday the 13th, the sport once again gets healthy. Starting with tonight's telecast of ESPN2's Wednesday Night Fights, stateside fans get to enjoy – or at least choose from – a whopping seven televised cards.

The Deuce gives its weekly double dip, going Wednesday and Friday, with the latter card being one of four scheduled shows for Friday. Telefutura continues with its Solo Boxeo series; Telemundo returns for the second straight week with their late night special, while ShoBox returns for the first time in well over a month, live from the Cayman Islands.

Then of course on Saturday night, it's back to the network wars, with HBO and Showtime offering cards staggered an hour apart. The timing is far enough to where you can catch the co-feature on Showtime and main event on HBO, but will most likely be forced to choose or give your remote a workout during Showtime's headliner and HBO's televised opener.

No need to fully recap; all that would do is repeat what's already been said by my trusty colleague Cliff Rold in his weekly "Television Picks of the Week" column (click HERE for this week's edition). Instead, I have to ask: why so many shows one week and so few in others?

Last weekend was the first pre-Fathers Day Saturday in recent memory to not offer televised boxing of any kind. The most notable card of the night was in Mexico, headlined by the ubiquitous Edgar Sosa, who made the fifth defense of his junior flyweight alphabet title since winning it just 14 months ago. Nothing at all on HBO or Showtime.

It wasn't a nothing like May 31, where there was originally something (Shane Mosley-Zab Judah) but became nothing after Judah suffered an injury, forcing the show to be postponed and eventually cancelled. This was nothing as in, nothing planned to air, hope you enjoyed last week; if not, tough, you'll just have to wait until next week.

For whatever reason, this Saturday evening will only be the second in the past five where live boxing appears on television – and both of those dates featured dueling broadcasts from HBO and Showtime. The stat comes with an asterisk, as Ricky Hatton's May 24 homecoming show was picked up mid-afternoon on Versus network. Still, it was the only boxing offered for the day, whereas the ideal Saturday would've been for that afternoon card to serve as a primer for a bigger show later that evening.

Instead, both HBO and Showtime shied away from the date. HBO claimed that Memorial Day weekend is traditionally a weak ratings pull; Showtime's excuse was closer to being acceptable; this weekend's card was actually designed for the May 24 slot, with Edison Miranda to have been facing Mikkel Kessler.

Instead, Kessler opted for another fight (which ironically enough also comes on Saturday, though in Denmark), while Miranda gets a second crack at undefeated middleweight Arthur Abraham four weeks later than he had hoped to return to the ring.

Meanwhile, all of the dear old Dads had nothing to look forward to the night before being showered with ties, homemade gifts and all sorts of other things they wouldn't normally buy or make for themselves. HBO at least tried last year, with Paul Malignaggi's alphabet title win over Lovemore N'Dou headlining a pre-Father's Day doubleheader.

Father's Day weekend '06 featured Winky Wright and then-unbeaten middleweight king Jermain Taylor battle to a controversial draw in Memphis, in the network's highest rated live telecast of the year. The year prior, Antonio Tarver's rematch win over Glen Johnson pulled in over 12,000 at the very same FedEx Forum that hosted Taylor-Wright, considerably surpassing pre-fight expectations.

The Home Depot Center in Carson, California hosted a boxing card for the very first time on Father's Day Eve in 2004, with Marco Antonio Barrera recovering from his prior beating against Manny Pacquiao to retire Paulie Ayala in the evening's main event. HBO viewers would also get a look at Jermain Taylor for the second of his three appearances that year.

None of the cards went up against another. Yet this year, we get dueling broadcasts for the second time in three weekends, both times following empty Saturday nights. In fact, six of the seven cards this week find themselves overlapping another. Though considering the alternative, such a scenario should be viewed as a good problem to have.

It would just be nice to be faced with that dilemma more often.

DO WE ONCE AGAIN BEGIN THE WEEK WITH AN UPSET?

Add my name to those pleasantly surprised with the results so far produced from ESPN's Wednesday and Fright Night series this year. At first glance, neither schedule seemed to offer anything beyond showcase bouts. But the truth is, no other series has consistently offered more upsets in 2008.

The most notable upset on the Deuce came this past March, when then-undefeated middleweight prospect Andy Lee couldn't get out of the way of Brian Vera's fists, bowing out in the seventh round of a Fight of the Year contender.

But merely gets lost in the shuffle after what's been offered over the past couple of months.

Last week, we saw Sechew Powell suffer his second – and potentially career-damaging – loss at the hands of unheralded and severely underrated Deandre Lattimore in the ESPN2 Wednesday Night Fights headliner. The week before, James Moore was dropped and eventually outhustled by Gabriel Rosado in being handed the first loss of his young career.

Those upsets followed a May month full of shockers and career-ending losses. Freddie Norwood, Stevie Johnston and Chris Byrd were potentially beaten into retirement, all on the wrong end of brutal knockout losses further exposing the fact that each fighter is beyond shot.

Promising cruiserweight prospect Aaron Williams found out the hard way that his chin is a liability, as his undefeated ways came to a crashing halt against Jose Luis Herrera. As shocked as he was to lose his "0", he wasn't even the first in the month to suffer such a fate. Highly touted super bantamweight contender Mike Oliver was biding his time while awaiting a mandatory shot at an alphabet title, only to watch it go out the window after he was laid out by Reynaldo Lopez.

So it's only fitting that Wednesday night's telecast features yet another spoiler on the B-side of the promotion. Cornelius Lock looks to turn his second straight upset in as many fights as he takes on fringe super featherweight contender. Roger Gonzalez

Lock was on the delivering end of one of the year's bigger upsets two months ago, scoring a stunning fourth round knockout over previously unbeaten and highly touted prospect Juanito Garcia on Telefutura. The win was a shocker to everyone but the Motor City southpaw, who attributed his success to his joining forces with Roger Mayweather and rededicating himself to the sport he loves.

Gonzalez' only loss is to murderous hitting underrated boxer-puncher Jhonny Gonzalez four years ago. It's been a slow road back, but he's since won four straight heading into tonight's headliner, which takes place at the ARCO Arena in Sacramento, California.

For what it's worth, all four of his victims are of the less-than-stellar variety, with even a journeyman like Lock serving as his best opponent in four years. 

Oddsmakers would be wise to keep action off the table for this one – though the same could be said for a handful of ESPN2-televised bouts in 2008.

JAKE-N-DA-(MAIL)BOX

Two e-mails, both indirectly involving Floyd Mayweather's recent retirement announcement. One asking who's now the best in the game; the other theorizing with skepticism why a future star is already contending for a piece of the welterweight crown.

Pound-For-Pound Best, Calzaghe or Pacquiao?

Honestly, both of these guys were better than Floyd (all around ) before he retired. Calzaghe has simply done what no one thought he would, by dominating one division for years, and Pac man has fought everyone two or three times and moved around to other divisions and taken on all the tough fights. They both have done all that should be required of being pound for pound best fighters. But maybe Pac has a slight edge because of the level of competition. Erik Morales and Barrera are not fighters that most people have dominant performances over. Pac certainly has been worthy of the pound for pound title for some time, in my opinion. Calzaghe simply keeps beating all of the opponents that a lot of people think he will lose to. He was a heavy underdog against Lacy, and there were serious doubts before Kessler. He has had years of that same kind of treatment, only to prove over and over that he is quite a special fighter and athlete. (He's a smart guy too! ) He also represents the sport very well, we can only hope for more guys like Joe to come along. With the embarrassing knockdown from Hopkins aside, he has taken on very tough and difficult fighters and made them look quite different than most people expected, and that is what Joe can do. In my opinion he did to Hopkins what Bernard claims he does to others, and he obviously pressured Hopkins in a way that few have. (Not just anyone can do that to such a dirty fighter) Joe also has a solid knockout percentage. He may have a chance to try to do the same with Pavlik, and I feel sure he will once again be a big underdog. That may be a fight I decide to bet on, because over the years Joe Calzaghe has proven all of us wrong at some point... In visualizing a Pacquiao / Floyd fight in the past, one of the things that came to mind was that even with a weight disparity, Pacquiao would be chasing Floyd all over the ring, and when they exchanged, Pacquiao would be one of the few with the hand speed and power to win a lot of those exchanges. I think that is why he should have already been rated higher than Floyd.

- Scott Reed

Jake's Take: It's interesting; a year ago, even with Floyd in the game, people were arguing that Pac should be the best. Now that Floyd's gone (at least for the moment), you'd think Pac would advance by default, yet here comes Joe with wins over Kessler and (though in a less impressive showing) Bernard Hopkins to make an argument.

Personally, I give Pac the edge, though it can easily be argued that Joe is the more talented of the two. My only issue with Calzaghe is that he just recently started to face the best. Aside from Robin Reid (a much better version back then) Joe's reign was lengthy but oh so unspectacular prior to 2006. Regardless of who was to blame for a unification bout between he and Sven Ottke never happening, the bottom line is that it only contributed to the weak state of the super middleweight division from late 1996 (when Roy Jones departed) through the next ten years.

I never argued with anyone that already had Pac as number 1 with or without Floyd in the game. Not that I invest a lot of stock into pound-for-pound to begin with, but Pacquiao to me is the very definition of a pound-for-pound king for the simple fact that he turns hypothetical debates – which 99% of pound-for-pound matchup are - into reality.

The argument ultimately becomes divisional dominance over success at multiple weights. But why I favor Pacquiao is with his weight jumping through the years, he's fought and beat the best in oh so many weight classes (linear and alphabet titles at 112, 122, 126 and 130, with 135 pending). Calzaghe just recently began fighting the best contenders, but can't say that he's beat the best super middleweights of the past ten years.

A Title Too Soon For Berto

(Andre) Berto doesn't deserve a shot at a championship and it goes to show that having a good relationship with HBO is what got him the shot. He is not even a top 10 welterweight at this point and winning the championship will be bad for his career. Him winning the championship means he will have to fight guys that can set his career back a couple of years. – Jose D.

Jake's Take: I agree that he's not yet at the point where he should be fighting for a title. But that he even recognizes the belt at stake (merely being vacated rather than his fighting one of the division's best) is a symbol of bigger things to come tells me his head is in the right place.

I thought his fight with Estrada was a decent enough test for a guy three years into his career. Sure he gets more shine than most due to his appearing on HBO, but he's also making the most of the opportunities given to him. Compare him to the other 2004 Olympic Andre's - Andre Dirrell had an HBO slot and decided to do all he can to ensure that they never bring him back. Andre Ward is just now making a name for himself on the ShoBox level - after having appeared two or three times on HBO.

Andre will get criticized more than others due to the level he's at, but I chalk it up to the old saying, "It's better to be at the top of the mountain dodging arrows than at the bottom shooting them."

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