Apologies for the lateness of this post. I've been busy with family stuff -- I'm an uncle twice over as of this weekend! -- and I still don't have time to give a full take on last night's excellent action. Here's the short version:

• Congratulations to Mikkel Kessler for getting some points on the board in the Super Six tourney. Kessler beat fellow super middleweight Carl Froch by unanimous decision in a bout that got better the longer it went on, with the 12th round a Round of the Year candidate. He won it 115-113 on my scorecard (judges scored it 115-113, 116-112 and 117-111, the last of which was very questionable -- this home turf thing has been problematic for the tournament) basically through determination to outwork the usually ultra-determined Froch, who admitted afterward he'd had a mental letdown because of the possibility of the fight being canceled and suffered his first loss. As Showtime's team pointed out, Kessler isn't the same fighter he once was, technically, but after getting his guts ripped out by Andre Ward, it's clear at least that he's stuffed his guts back in his abdomen. Next for Kessler is Allan Green, which figures as a tough fight for him, as Green has the speed that has bothered him in the past and Kessler's chin looks less reliable all the time. We'll see if that comes off on schedule, because that was a Froch, meanwhile, takes Arthur Abraham next, and I don't see Froch being able to employ the same formula to beat the German demonstrated by Andre Dirrell, so that's a tough fight for him, too. Ultimately, this is all good for the tournament, to have gotten such a stirring battle that puts almost everyone on the same footing as of now, with the final round just around the corner.
• Tomasz Adamek beat Chris Arreola in his first bout with a top heavyweight in a fight that like Kessler-Froch wasn't necessarily a Fight of the Year candidate but had a ton of nice action. I scored it a draw, as did one of the judges, but Arreola didn't object to the other two judges scoring it for Adamek, and has become one of the funniest post-fight interviews in the whole sport ("I look like Shrek," he said, noticing his swollen lumpy face). Arreola was by far the heavier puncher, but it wasn't as if Adamek wasn't exacting a toll, bloodying Arreola's mug the way he did. Adamek started to figure out Arreola a bit in the middle rounds, timing him well and ducking most of his shots, and it was clear he was the better fighter. But Arreola summoned some energy late -- was this the fight where his lack of conditioning betrayed him? -- and overcame an injured right hand to make some of the final rounds competitive. As I mentioned before, this fight was not particularly meaningful, as Adamek or Arreola would be mere bait for a pounding by division bosses the Klitschko brothers, but it was nice to get some heavyweight action with a couple busy, brawl-natured big men, as opposed to, say, watching the Klitschkos dissect someone with their jabs.
• Alfredo Angulo landed a beautifully-timed right to knock out Joel Julio in the 11th of a fight he was controlling even if Julio was giving Angulo trouble with his movement. Angulo's tombstone will read, "Good Action Fighter, Had Trouble With Movement." Julio didn't look bad, as he boxed smartly, but he didn't have enough boxing chops to stay out of harm's way, and he never really sat down on his punches to see if he could dissuade the forward-charging Angulo from charging so forwardly. I don't know what Angulo does next. There are some good fighters in his junior middleweight division, but as previously demonstrated, promoter Gary Shaw is going to keep him away from the likes of Sergio Martinez. Miguel Cotto, maybe, if Cotto wins his 154-pound debut? The James Kirkland dream fight?

If you don't want to know anything about what happened in the Carl Froch vs. Mikkel Kessler fight before it airs on Showtime, read no further. But if you can't wait until then to comment, this is the place to do it.

Moreso than in a long time, the news of this week was heavily focused on the fights of the weekend. I haven't measured it statistically, but I do think the HBO card got more attention than the Showtime card. I don't get it. Carl Froch-Mikkel Kessler is a more significant fight in a better division (super middleweight) than the likewise exciting but less important heavyweight bout between Chris Arreola and Tomasz Adamek. Fortunately, viewers won't have to pick between the two bouts -- Showtime's event starts at 9 p.m. (it's a re-airing, so friends in Europe, please refrain from commenting until then unless I create a dedicated results thread) and HBO's starts at 11:15 p.m. ET.

We have a healthy number of new participants in TQBR Prediction Game 2.0. It's the kind of weekend where you could get both fights right or neither, so don't get discouraged.

Until then, there are a small number of Jabs that require Quick attention, like the question Jabs in the headline, the answer Jabs in a couple recent Ring magazine pieces and some somewhere inbetween Jabs in the potential comebacks of a couple big-name fighters.

The Showtime and HBO main events Saturday are where it's at this week for your boxing kicks. But there are a couple other modestly noteworthy bouts, too. I shall note them modestly, because that's what they're worth.

(Chris Arreola, left; Tomasz Adamek, right; flames and stuff, all around them. Photo: Jan Sanders)

One potential Fight of the Year candidate this weekend isn't enough. I'll take two, please.

Showtime is airing the first and, I think, more compelling of the prospective FOY candidates Saturday. HBO is airing the other, a heavyweight brawl between Chris Arreola and Tomasz Adamek. It is the rarest of species these days -- a heavyweight fight I'm hotly anticipating. Neither Arreola nor Adamek have demonstrated to this point they are in the league of the Klitschko brothers, but neither have ever been in a bad fight, and they are two of the better men in the division.

Floyd Mayweather must be awfully tired from all of the standing he’s doing of late. First of all, he took a stance against performance enhancing drugs within the sport, one which, to all intents and purposes, cost him his mega-fight with Manny Pacquiao. Now, he’s leaping into action against the alphabet bandits by refusing to pay the WBA a fee so that he can fight for their title. If he’s not careful, he’ll end up blowing his role as Vader to Shane Mosley’s Skywalker.

Whilst the truth behind both of Floyd’s stands can be questioned, the principles are to be applauded. The removal of drugs from the sport is a good thing, of that there’s little doubt. There are many also who would welcome random testing to eradicate alphabet organisations, who charge fighters fortunes each year in sanctioning fees yet offer little in the way of good influence over the sport.

So, in light of Mayweather’s rebuttal, what exactly does that little black belt, the one Shane Mosley pays thousands of dollars to sling over his shoulder for the briefest of spells at the end of each contest, actually represent? Join me now on an odyssey of discovery… (warning: this may cause drowsiness, nausea and mild confusion).

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After claiming the linear middleweight championship (despite being more of a blown up junior middleweight), Sergio Martinez has some options that he didn’t have a few years ago, when he was better known as “Who the Hell Is” Sergio Martinez?

A rematch with Kelly Pavlik looms, thanks to a rematch clause in Pavlik’s contract. A rematch with Paul Williams is arguably the most attractive fight for Martinez, given the sensational battle they fought in December of last year. Alfredo Angulo and the Plaster Blaster are other candidates, though I find those options less attractive (terrible style matchup for Angulo, and I’m not even opening the can of worms that is A****** M********).

However, the fact that Martinez is a relatively small middleweight, combined with the fact that Floyd Mayweather and Shane Mosley are occupied with one another and Pacquiao is talking of fighting later this year whether or not he wins his election, led me to consider a notion that seems slightly insane on the surface: could Pacquiao fight for – and possibly win – the middleweight championship of the world?

(All aboard!)

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(Mikkel Kessler, left; Carl Froch, right; mean-looking stone lion, center)

With Saturday night's entry in Showtime's excellent Super Six tournament, which brings together the cream of the crop of the loaded super middleweight division, we are getting what might turn out to be the most action-packed bout of the event. Whereas the other bouts have thus far manufactured drama in controversy, strategic intrigue and/or upsets of the tournament favorites, Carl Froch-Mikkel Kessler figures as a brawl between men who usually prefer to come straight forward. But it has its own drama, aside from that. Kessler, who owns zero points in the tournament, badly needs a win. He is a better technician than Froch and possesses edges in most physical categories, but he's shown some emotional fragility, and Froch is used to out-gutting better specimens and sweet scientists who don't possess his steely resolve. If it all works out as expected, I think we'll have a candidate for Fight of the Year.

It's one of two such potentially action-packed fights this weekend, and we'll get to the HBO card later. I started my weekly previews with this fight because I think the Super Six tournament is suffering from a kind of criminal disregard by boxing writers, a view Froch promoter Mick Hennessy also recently espoused. Lucian Bute beats yet another one-dimensional brawler this past weekend on HBO and suddenly everyone's ready to dismiss the whole tournament yet again, when we all knew from day one that Bute's absence from the tournament was a flaw. Ultimately, the Super Six is where it's at in this stellar division, with six fighters ranked in the top 10 all fighting each other, all with different styles and backgrounds, in a far superior series of fights than anything Bute could ever manage in the division until the tournament is over. Listen: This tournament remains one of the most exciting things happening in boxing, and neither Bute nor a delay in the schedule nor other niggling complaints have changed that no matter the size of the bandwagon.

[TQBR Prediction Game 2.0 begins with this fight. For those of you joining now, please review the rules. For those of you who have played before, please look them over again as they have been slightly revised.]

There remains much to discuss about the past weekend, especially the waterfall of weird coming out of the Edwin Valero case.

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Want to see a good fight in New Jersey? Just make your way down to Atlantic City anytime Kelly Pavlik or Sergio Martinez are in town. In 2007, Pavlik engaged in a Fight of the Year candidate with Jermain Taylor at Boardwalk Hall, the venerable AC fight establishment. Last December, Martinez engaged in the TQBR Fight of the Year with Paul Williams, losing a razor-thin decision.

On Saturday, Pavlik and Martinez lived up to the hype – while not quite Fight of the Year worthy, they engaged in an entertaining, unpredictable struggle for the middleweight title. The main event was excellent, the undercard was highly entertaining, and the ring card girls were looking good. That means it must be time for another Jersey Fight Journal.

(OK, so these weren’t our actual ring card girls, but they are a pretty fair substitute.)

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