ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- It doesn't make any sense to pretend that this undercard is worth much, but talented welterweight Kell Brook is on it, and Edison Miranda and Yordanis Despaigne are on it in tune-ups for a potential rematch of last year's excellent light heavyweight bout, so it's worth a tiny something. Keep coming back for chronological updates in the event that Brook, Miranda or Despaigne are your favorite fighters, or just because you're a completist.
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As the vice president of the Carson Jones fan club, I'm duty-bound to show you this video of the exciting junior middleweight taking out Ricardo Williams. ESPN2, are you watching? Get this man on your program!

There ain't a whole lot to Quick Jab, but promises were made. Besides the items in the headline, we have a turkey hijacking, Tomasz Adamek moving on from Main Events and more.
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(From the weigh-in Friday: Carl Froch 167.5; Andre Ward 168)

Tomorrow night, the historic, groundbreaking Super Six World Boxing Classic wraps up after beginning more than two years ago when Andre Ward and Carl Froch meet in Atlantic City for the Super Six cup, vacant Ring Magazine 168-pound title, as well as their respective alphabet soup titles.

We were able to speak to a majority of the fighters, promoters, and trainers who took part in the Super Six experience on a variety of subjects related to the tournament, most importantly who they feel will win tomorrow night.
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It has taken two years to get to Saturday night, when we find out on Showtime who is the best super middleweight in the world. It's been a convoluted journey, to say the least, but with a day to go waiting for Andre Ward and Carl Froch to bring the Super Six tournament to a big finish, it sure feels worth it to me, a journey enhanced -- oddly enough -- by how difficult it was to arrive at this moment. Over the course of those two years, Ward and Froch have gradually become arguably two of the 10 best fighters in any weight class; they definitely have become the two best in the division after weaving their way through a phalanx of murderous opposition, and thus are about to crown a new lineal 168-pound champion; and they both have shown themselves to be hard-nosed, ultra-confident, multi-dimensional boxers.

Watching Ward and Froch Stare each other Down or Face each other Off or whatever Showtime calls it, you get the impression from that clip that you're seeing as good a preview as you'd get of how the actual fight between the two best super middleweights in the world will go Saturday night. Ward's idea in the ring is to keep the temperature low, to be poised -- that's when he's in control. Froch's idea in the ring is to make things wild, to get his opponent to mix things up -- that's when he's in his element. Verbally, in the clip, Froch tried to agitate Ward, to make him lash out. Ward responded by trying to put Froch into a box, to limit and confine him.

That's not the sum total of each man's game; Froch is capable of fighting a disciplined fight, while Ward is more than capable of getting rough around the edges. But it's a basic blueprint.

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As the waning moments of 2011 slip away, the new year beckons forth a fresh horizon of matchmaking to tantalize and tease the boxing enthusiasts' fanciful minds.

Looking forward to the staredowns and faceoffs that may grace the sport in the coming year, there is only one surefire hookup signed at this moment, the welterweight rematch between Victor Ortiz and Andre Berto. The first go-around was a Fight of the Year candidate and both men have had lively matches since last they met. It should make for another all-action shootout.

But beyond that, the new year is a vast unsettled frontier. Floyd Mayweather has staked his flag at May 5, and claims finally to want a welterweight Manny Pacquiao meet-up. Who knows if those two will ever find common ground? Canelo Alvarez, the redheaded Mexican superstar, may have the inside track on landing a play date with Mayweather, though, and recently redeemed Miguel Cotto has been bandied about as a foe for Floyd too. Regardless of who gets the gig, the only certainty is that it's gonna be a "Money May."

Light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins claims to have a March date in hand and he's interested in a marquee cash clash with Canadian superstar Lucian Bute or in unifying a couple of the belts floating around the light heavyweight division. While some have grown tired of Hopkins, he continues to be one of the two or three major players in the sport able to create compelling storyline's in just about every fight.

But with little more than these fleeting shadows of fights to come and only errant clues, a hint and a wish or two, here are other fights that would be fun to see in the new year. Some are likely lay downs, others are simple deal designing daydreams, but all would be explosively entertaining endeavors.
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Showtime's innovative super middleweight tournament concludes Saturday after a two-year journey, and it ends with a fight that is virtually unimpeachable: Andre Ward, Carl Froch, two of the original Super Six, arguably two of the 10 best boxers in the world, fighting for the vacant lineal championship of the 168-pound division in a match-up that has something to get almost every kind of fan's blood up.

Depending on what you've read prior to now, the Super Six has either been A. probably not worth the trouble, B. basically good but fundamentally flawed, or C. a success. I offer a fourth option, D. dunno yet.

It really depends heavily upon which standard you measure it by; personally, I have deeply enjoyed it and we haven't even gotten the coup de grace yet. I'm not alone. There are others who have instead found a good deal of it boring. But we don't really know via the available reporting in any statistically measurable way how many enjoyed it or loathed it, not just in the United States but worldwide. For intance, by one standard -- determining who's the best in the division, a goal I didn't know if it could accomplish -- it's about to succeed, barring a draw between Ward and Froch. For another example, by another standard -- creating new stars -- we don't yet have the answer.
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It's been forever and a day since we've gone all Quick Jabs or Round And Round, a product of me slowly waking up from my hibernation of a few weeks back. That, and not having all that much compelling material. But the incoming mail tray is stacking up, so we need to get back to emptying it. Look for both columns to appear as regularly as they once did, starting.... NOW.

Besides the fighters/fights/networks mentioned in the headline, we'll look at a shifting in the balance between HBO and Showtime, fights in the works/fights made for Erik Morales, Andy Lee and several others.

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The California State Athletic Commission voted 5-1 Tuesday to change Bernard Hopkins' October light heavyweight loss to Chad Dawson from a 2nd round TKO to a no contest. Which is fair enough since, you know, Chad didn't actually knockout Bernard. He picked him up and dropped him on the canvas, causing B-Hop to injure his shoulder.

It was pretty obvious to all who saw it that Dawson's throw was a foul, not a legitimate part of the bout. Whether it was deliberate or not was open for debate, but it wasn't a punch. Mainly because it was a throw. Did I mention it was a throw?

So now the commission has done the right thing in response to an appeal filed by Golden Boy Promotions. B-Hop will keep his title and Chad will go back to being Chad. Not that he ever stopped being Chad. I just wanted to say that.

One of the interesting elements of the whole mess is that the Ring Magazine never stopped recognising B-Hop as the lineal champ at light heavyweight. That was a decision that was seen as strange and a potentially dangerous precedent in October when they announced it. There were two elements of concern: that B-Hop, as a Golden Boy fighter, was getting preferential treatment from the new team at the magazine; and that waiting on appeals in boxing is madness, since one seems to get filed from virtually every fight. For its part, the WBC also continued to recognise Bernard as its title-holder, but they're not exactly paragons of virtue. The fact that the fight has now been ruled a no contest doesn't justify either decision. Hopefully this does not become standard behaviour from The Ring.

As for the fighters, it doesn't seem like we'll be seeing them in a ring together any time soon/ever. The reported 40,000 pay-per-view buys of the first edition would indicate that people weren't all that keen originally (though it's also pretty obvious that that show should never have been on PPV in the first place). B-Hop has been talking about facing Lucian Bute in Quebec. That fight makes sense; he probably made a lot of fans there after his exciting two fights with Jean Pascal. Apparently he's good to start training in January, after recovering from his shoulder surgeries.

Dawson, whose team still claims that Hopkins was faking it, seems most likely that he'll face Pascal in a rematch of the fight he lost via technical decision in August 2010. Dawson doesn't have a whole lot of followers, but I don't think many boxing fans would have a problem with that fight. The fight was decent the first time, with Dawson coming on hard when the bout was stopped and a rematch would make money in Quebec. Whatever happens, he'll continue to be Chad. no comments

The schedule this week is pretty sparse, apart from the one bigsexyhugemouthwatering fight: Andre Ward vs. Carl Froch. Since it's one of the very best fights that can be made right now and we have no idea who is going to win, we'll just have to deal with an otherwise quiet week. There are a fair few good boxers fighting, just not against other boxers of note. Shows and boxers worth mentioning, such as they are, include Marco Antonio Rubio against Matt Vanda, a battle of second generation Mexicans in Omar Chavez vs. Jorge Paez Jr., junior featherweight Roberto Marroquin fighting on FSN/Fox Deportes, Orlando Salido and Hernan Marquez.

For once the video on top has something to do with the schedule. Who do you reckon got the best of the staredown? Froch's smugness annoys me an entirely unreasonable amount, so I'm inclined to think that Ward came out on top.

• Andre Ward vs. Carl Froch, Saturday, Showtime, Atlantic City. There's probably a tendency to underestimate just how good and important this fight is. Not only is it the final of the Super Six, it's a fight between two arguably top-10 pound-for-pound fighters and a fight between two of the three best super middleweights in the world, which will crown a lineal champ. Tim will have the full preview later in the week. There are some interesting fights on the non-televised undercard as well. British welterweight prospect Kell Brook (25-0) makes his American debut against Luis Galarza (17-2). Brook looks impressive, mixing good fundamentals with agression and power. Light heavyweights Yordanis Despaigne (9-1) and Edison Miranda (34-6) are fighting different opponents in an attempt at building buzz for the February 2012 rematch of their July fight, which Despaigne won mainly by pretending he'd been low blowed. Neither of their opponents, Cornelius White (17-1) and Kariz Kariuki (24-9-2) respectively, figure to too be much of a challenge. Also on the card, Tongan American heavyweight prospect Bowie Tupou (21-1) faces Donnell Holmes, owner of an improbable 33-1-2 record, his sole defeat coming against Brian Minto.
• Roberto Marroquin vs. Carlos Valcarcel, Saturday, Fox Deportes/FSN, Thackerville Oklahoma. Texan junior featherweight prospect Roberto Marroquin headlines the year's final edition of Top Rank Live from Oklahoma on Saturday. He's taking on the tough Carlos Valcarcel (12-3-4). Marroquin (20-1) is still on the comeback trail after a shock loss to Francisco Leal in a bloody fight in April. Marroquin seems to have a nice mix of skills and power-punching, with an especially nasty uppercut. Puerto Rico's Valcarcel figures to be a good stop on Marroquin's comeback train and will give him nothing for free. Also, lightweight prospect Jose Roman (12-0) faces the dreaded TBA.
• The Rest. It's a big week for Mexican veterans/inflictors of huge upsets. First, middleweight veteran Marco Antonio Rubio (52-5-1) fights Matt Vanda (44-13) in Las Vegas on Friday. Rubio kind of likes these types of fights, so I'm not sure whether to feel sorry for him for not doing better after his shock victory over David Lemieux earlier in the year.. Then on Saturday Juan Manuel Lopez conqueror Orlando Salido (36-11-2) fights the Dominican Republic's Carlos Manuel Reyes (23-1-1), who lost to the only .500 fighter he ever faced, in a featherweight bout in his hometown of Ciudad Obregon in Mexico. It's more of a stay busy bout for Salido, who has his eye on a much anticipated rematch with Lopez next year... Flyweight action hero Hernan “Tysoncito” Marquez (32-2) faces recent Giovani Segura victim Eddy Zuniga (7-6-1), hopefully on the way to facing Segura himself, on Friday in Mexico... Second gen Mexicans Omar Chavez (27-0-1) and Jorge Paez Jr. (29-4-1) have a little anticipated (at least north of the Rio Grande) welterweight scrap lined up Saturday night in Tuxtla Gutierrez. Omar, who is just mediocre, will most likely be too much for Paez Jr., who is truly terrible.

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Ouchie, Giovani Segura. The junior flyweight champ's first real capable opponent at flyweight, Brian Viloria, did a number on that noggin of his Saturday, for sure. (Via) Viloria made him look like he was in danger of becoming The Leader, if he could've evened things out on the other side.

Viloria, as the headline indicates, might actually have a case for Fighter of the Year, and he's obviously not alone. We'll spend most of our time talking about the HBO card headlined by Lamont Peterson's upset of Amir Khan, but we'll touch on some other business, too, like Viloria-Segura and a big knockout from the weekend and more.

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