(Leo Santa Cruz throws a right hand at Albert Guevara; photo credit: Tom Casino)

For a while Saturday, Alberto Guevera was in danger of turning CBS' happy lead-in of Leo Santa Cruz as a family-friendly plugger into a tale of a guy who suffered his first loss and needed to learn to fight a little better after spending 12 rounds in the ring with the college student who knew a few tricks between the ropes. But Santa Cruz abandoned his volume-punching style and instead began throwing single punches with the intention that every one of them counted, and before long he was doing serious damage against a less experienced young man who looks like a future contender but wasn't seasoned enough to have gone 12 rounds with someone like one of the best bantamweights in the world.

Through the first four rounds, Guevara's movement, speed, defense and counterpunching practically froze Santa Cruz. It was the exact right approach against a volume puncher, but it was surprising to see such an untested fighter pulling off the strategy, especially given what a killer Santa Cruz had looked like. The 3rd went to Santa Cruz, but only because Guevara foolishly decided to stand in Santa Cruz's range. After the 4th, Guevara began to slow a great deal, the damage from solitary power punches beginning to pile up as it became clear that some of those shots could wobble Guevara.

Guevara never wilted entirely, even as the blood and swelling began to mass. He had a pretty good 10th round, although I didn't score it for him. The judges had it for Santa Cruz 118-110, 116-112 and 119-109, with my score looking closer to 116-112 than the others. Santa Cruz revealed a vulnerability we suspected he had, but that no one had laid bare before.

It was a solid, entertaining fight for boxing's return to network TV, with Santa Cruz's apology for not putting on a good show well-meaning but misplaced. Both men gave a good account of themselves, and the style clash gave Santa Cruz his first taste of real competition, something he'll grow from, while Guevara ought to be back as on television before long, with a little extra experience and no doubt having grown from this himself.

We were expected to get the pro debut of U.S. Olympian Joseph Diaz, Jr., to, but the fight didn't air, presumably because the Indiana-Butler basketball game went into overtime. At least that quality game ensured some people were tuned in to CBS on a Saturday afternoon, although it wouldn't have hurt CBS to mention during the game that boxing was on next.

The Internet suffers for no lack of pictures of women with boxing gloves draped over their breasts, but none have a worse haircut than that. (h/t unofficial TQBR visual consultant Che)

Saturday suffers from no lack of boxing. You could watch boxing on TV in the United States starting on CBS at 4:30 p.m. until it wasn't Saturday anymore, although the schedule has been rejiggered a little. Junior featherweight Guillermo Rigondeaux lost his opponent, Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym, after he reportedly tested positive for HIV, so that fight's off. And HBO added the latest episode of "Fight Game" to the schedule, so you can watch that now too, in addition to all the other things.

But Rigondeaux will be back on HBO soon, for all those Rigondeauxiacs. He'd face an opponent to be determined on a Feb. 23 double-header with junior welterweight Timothy Bradley, who looks like he'd be facing Ruslan Provodnikov. The early 2013 calendar is already getting crowded, with the likes of Adrien Broner, Austin Trout, Paulie Malignaggi, Carl Froch and several more working on their next fights.

Mark "Too Sharp" Johnson, just inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame this year, was arrested this week and charged with possession of liquid PCP with the intent to distribute.

The arrest darkens what had been a celebratory period for Johnson, the only boxer born and raised in Washington D.C. to enter the Hall. Johnson was arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department on Dec. 11 and appeared in court Dec. 12. He was released on bond and is scheduled to appear in court again Jan. 16.

The acclaimed boxer, born Marcellus Joseph Johnson, previously served an 11-month jail sentence for violating his parole stemming from a previous drug charge. He told The Washington Post that it helped his boxing career: “I felt to me it was the best thing,” Johnson said of his incarceration. “It gave my body that time to heal because I had been boxing since the age of 5. So it gave my body time to heal, and I came back and won another world title.”

An incident report states that besides the alleged possession with intent to distribute, Johnson also allegedly tampered with evidence. The incident report does not give any additional information.

Johnson did not respond to answer his phone Friday or respond to a text message. His attorney, Frederick Iverson, declined to answer any questions about the arrest.

(Photo via)

(Santa Claus helps Leo Santa Cruz [no relation] work out in advance of his appearance on CBS; photo credit: Esther Lin, Showtime)

If you read boxing ignoramuses like ESPN's Scoop Jackson, boxing died this past weekend, just like critics have taken any occasion over the last 100 years-plus to declare it dead. So it must come as some kind of shock to Scoop and anyone who believes his tripe that, this weekend, and then again next weekend, boxing will be back on network television, first CBS and then NBC.

It's been a while since live boxing appeared on one of the four major networks, and that has assisted the decline -- decline, mind you, not death -- of boxing. While it was away, the sport declined further, then began slowly climbing back out of the morass, and likewise the nature of television audiences changed, reliant less on the four networks than before but not so much that those networks weren't still the most powerful in the business.

In that way, boxing's return to CBS and NBC is a major event, if not the "Holy Grail" it was once thought to be. Consider this a guide to how boxing got off TV, why it's back on, and -- for neophytes -- who you'll be seeing on those networks this weekend and next.

British junior middleweight champion Brian Rose attempts to capture the Lonsdale belt he carries but does not yet own, against one of its former custodians, in cut-prone Chislehurst man Sam Webb. Back on benevolent hunting ground at Blackpool’s Winter Gardens -- a 19th century opera house turned entertainment complex in the heart of the seaside town -- the well-regimented Rose has been pegged as a strong 2/5 favourite to retain his championship and win the belt outright with a third successful title defence.

Happily, the best domestic match-up of the week found a television outlet at the 11th hour (after it was initially overlooked) and so fans have averted exclusion from a clandestine cracker. After being similarly snubbed last weekend, Manchester lightweight Anthony Crolla outlasted his tenacious cross-town rival Kieran Farrell in a reportedly fierce affair on a Dave Coldwell show only accessible either live or via an innovative Apple application. After brokering a deal earlier in the week with free-to-air Sky channel Loaded TV, a beleagured Frank Maloney, in conjuction with Steve Wood and VIP Promotions, launches a maiden boxing telecast on Friday that shapes up as a potential winter warmer.

Thanks, Next Media Animation, for rendering much of this blog post redundant. That's quality coverage -- Mitt Romney's losing stink infected Manny Pacquiao, Pacquiao lost because he loves cockfighting and women and has the wrong religion and doesn't train hard enough, etc.

We've already had plenty to say about the past weekend: My stories on Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez 4 that night, on the undercard, and the next day; Jeff Pryor's view; a note on the replay schedule from Alex McClintock; Andrew Harrison's take on James DeGale's win; Joseph R. Holzer's take on the NBC Sports card; my write-up of Mikkel Kessler's win; and Mark Ortega's ringside coverage of a couple cards, although one of them kicked off the weekend more than it was part of it.

But damn if weekends like this past one don't leave the boxing world with plenty to talk about for days afterward. Eat it, Taiwanese animators! We can discuss what's next for both Pacquiao and Marquez at length, or offer reflection on Marquez and the performance enhancing drug suspicions, or what's next for Yuriorkis Gamboa, better than any silly 1:42 YouTube clip.

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The above video of ducklings trying to cross a road, Frogger style, is nerve fraying. Watching, you don’t know the outcome, whether the ducklings and their mother will make it to the other side of the freeway. Looking at the week’s boxing schedule, you can’t say the same. The vast majority of the fights this week are likely to be one-sided.

Oh well, there’s always the replay of Juan Manuel Marquez’ emphatic victory over Manny Pacquiao airing on HBO on Saturday night, if you’re into something a bit more heart stopping than ducklings.

We bore witness to enduring history last night, the kind of event that boxing aficionados will talk about for generations. And it's not too early to play boxing historian, either; it's often better to wait more than a day before foisting such sweeping declarations on a thing, because it is the nature of history for the long view to be the sharper-eyed one. But when Juan Manuel Marquez knocked out Manny Pacquiao Saturday night, any number of automatic, identifiable triggers were pulled, beyond the intuitive feeling from every boxing fan who saw it that they had just seen something they would never forget, something that was imprinted on their brains via instant flash burn.

That knockout was one of the most shocking one-punch KOs of a high level fighter ever. It's already been compared, rightly, to the likes of Thomas Hearns-Roberto Duran in 1984. Its nearest competitor is Sergio Martinez-Paul Williams II two years ago, and as highly-regarded as Williams was, he had no status as an all-time great, the way Pacquiao has. Pacquiao's knockout of Ricky Hatton in 2008 doesn't come that close because Pacquiao was the favorite to win.

It was the best episode yet of the Pacquiao-Marquez rivalry, one that spans eight years and five divisions, beginning at featherweight and working its way up to welterweight. Since the turn of the millenium, the Pacquiao-Marquez series of fights counts among its peers only Arturo Gatti-Micky Ward, Israel Vazquez-Rafael Marquez and Marco Antonio Barrera-Erik Morales. Some of those others featured better individual fights. None of them featured fighters as good as Pacquiao or Marquez.

It will almost certainly end 2012 as the Knockout of the Year; Round 5 will be a strong contender for Round of the Year; the fight itself is a contender for Fight of the Year; and the win might make Marquez the Fighter of the Year. Marquez climbs the list of best Mexican fighters ever by doing what Barrera and Morales could not, which is to destroy Pacquiao, once known as "The Mexicutioner." The record-keepers who etch these kinds of things into books will, in a more permanent way, seal the enduring history of Saturday night.

And, look, this kind of mathematical method of parsing Marquez-Pacquiao 4 in a way turns it into a more clinical thing than it was. This was Mitt Romney's expression when Pacquiao dropped face-first in front of him as he sat ringside. This was Pacquiao's wife Jinkee flying into hysterics. This was the slow-motion replay of Marquez, blood trickling from his broken nose, catching a lunging Pacquiao with a punch of exquisitely destructive beauty. This was the scream of surprise from everyone who watched it happen. This was an idol of the sport laying helpless on the mat, the way he had left so many opponents before. This was boxing fans unable to type messages to their friends with trembling hands, unable to sleep because of the adrenaline coursing through their bodies. Maybe Sportscenter didn't see this as worthy of one of its 10 "Top Plays." But boxing fans know -- in their bones -- what they saw.

The long view might add additional shading for the better. There is one way where the passage of time might turn this event into a pivotal, ugly moment for the sport, in fact. We consider these things now.

(Juan Manuel Marquez celebrates his knockout; credit, Chris Farina, Top Rank)

We finally got a definitive outcome in the rivalry between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez Saturday night on HBO pay-per-view, and in a way that rocks the sport of boxing to its core: Marquez knocked Pacquiao -- one of boxing's two biggest stars -- out cold in the 6th round. It had been a thrilling back-and-forth bout prior to that, one where both men traded knockdowns.

If anyone was thought to be able to render a conclusive end to this bout, it was predicted that it would be Pacquiao, as he was the man who's been living at welterweight for a while and has always been the bigger puncher of the two, while Marquez has only flirted with the division. In the first two rounds, it looked very much like Pacquiao was the one who had come out with the better focus and better game plan -- head movement, feints, using his legs to fire and get out. But in the 3rd, Marquez, who had been investing in body punches, feinted with a left to the body and then caught Pacquiao with a looping overhand right that legitimately dropped Pacquiao for the first time in many years.

Pacquiao recovered, though, both psychologically and physically, in the very next round, and by the 5th he gave Marquez a knockdown of his own, and a more damaging one, and after rising from that straight left, Marquez foolishly traded with Pacquiao until the bell rang in one of the best rounds of 2012.

Everything seemed to be going Pacquiao's way in the 6th, too, until the final seconds: Pacquiao lunged forward, and Marquez, who was crouching down, thrust forward a full-force, crunching, perfect right hand that caught Pacquiao as precisely as you can catch someone. Pacquiao landed flat on his face, unconscious, and frighteningly so; I was legitimately worried that he was dead.

There might be a rematch, but this is the kind of knockout loss that Pacquiao has delivered in the past, the career-ending kind against Ricky Hatton. If it's the end of the road for Pacquiao, he really does go down as THE fighter of this era who has the best resume. If he rebounds from this, somehow, it will be impressive enough, but Pacquiao has enough going for himself as a politician in the Philippines that he ought to consider ending on this note and moving on to the next phase of his life. If Pacquiao is through, then we're at the end of a period in boxing where he has been one of the sport's signature stars. It certainly kills the viability of the mega-fight with the other signature star of this era, Floyd Mayweather.

Marquez finally gets that win that has eluded him after three previous meetings with Pacquiao. Given his association with controversial strength and conditioning coach Angel Heredia, and his cut physique at age 39, there will be those who will chalk up this victory to performance enhancing drugs. There is no proof of any malfeasance, though, and until then all anyone has is suspicion, reasonable or no. What we do know is this: Marquez scored a career-defining win and a knockout for the ages, which will go down as one of the most memorable and meaningful KOs in the sport's history.