Boxing

Golden Boy Promotions tentatively plans to stage former junior-welterweight champion Amir Khan's next fight July 7 at the Honda Center, company Chief Executive Richard Schaefer said Thursday. England's Khan (26-2, 18 knockouts) was supposed to fight Lamont Peterson on Saturday in a rematch of their controversial decision won by Peterson in December. Peterson, however, tested positive for synthetic testosterone, and Golden Boy scrapped the fight. In Anaheim, Khan initially targeted new World Boxing Council junior-welterweight champion Danny "Swift" Garcia (23-0, 14 KOs)

LAS VEGAS -- Dana White was upset and wanted to make something clear. Last Friday night, as White attempted to lounge inside his office building where cable network FX films live fights for the Ultimate Fighting Championship's reality show, "The Ultimate Fighter," he wanted to return to the topic of mixed-martial-arts journalism. As president and chief promoter of the UFC, White seeks as much attention as possible for his organization, but occasionally — if not often — he is chafed by the accuracy of online reporting by MMA writers.

Manny Pacquiao's skyrocketing popularity created chaos that no mere mortal could be expected to balance. Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 knockouts) appeared more human than ever in his last fight, however. As he prepares now for his next bout June 9 against Timothy Bradley, Pacquiao and his trainer acknowledge Everyman's frailty has been his most imposing contender. "All the distractions caught up to Manny in his last fight," Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach said Thursday of the boxer's narrow decision over Juan Manuel Marquez in November.

DELHI, INDIA - Delhi, India, is closed today. My guide, a solemn man named C.K. Gupta, is deeply apologetic. It is, he informs me, not a holiday, but a peaceful protest. "Too high prices in the shops. " It is 2010, and I am in Delhi on vacation. It is my first time here. Receiving this piece of early-morning information, I am all set for empty sidewalks. The occasional whining ambulance. Maybe a bus. But when we leave my rented car near the Defence Colony, it is impossible to move.

FOR America's big-league sports, L.A. was a distant outpost for the first half of the 20th century, impressive for an off-season vacation, impractical as a home base. Before jet travel, any team moving to the West Coast would have presented a scheduling nightmare. The Rams, who played only once a week, were the first to make the leap, coming in the 1940s. The Dodgers followed in the late 1950s, the Lakers not until 1960. But boxing was different. Unencumbered by the need to regularly transport a full team a thousand miles or more, boxing found its way here even before the start of the last century.

Bantamweight Alain Limarola of France stopped Finland's Antti Yuntamaa after seven rounds of a scheduled 10-rounder in the first professional boxing match in the Soviet Union.

BEIJING -- Oh, how Howard Cosell would mock this. Having followed the halcyon days of Cassius and Smokin' Joe and Big George and the young Sugar Ray, how it would have pained the perspicacious Howard to watch these pusillanimous pugilists of our 2008 U.S. Olympic boxing team land with a thud and a dud. The latest and last victim was our flamingo-legged heavyweight, Deontay Wilder, who brought literal meaning to "never laid a glove on him"...

Lance Whitaker guards himself closely and can be as elusive as a shadow. If only he can perfect those traits in the boxing ring. Whitaker would be the tallest world heavyweight champion in history, as well as the first from the San Fernando Valley. But that's a very tall order. Whitaker, 6 feet 8 inches tall and a chiseled 240 pounds, has plodded a slow path as a professional and appears a longshot at reaching the summit of boxing's most lucrative and storied division.

ROUND 1: Referee Tony Weeks gave final instructions, and the fight's underway. Mayweather throws a left hook. Mayweather jabs. Cotto keeps his head down, leading with his left. They're separated twice. Cotto tries a hard right, Mayweather dodges. It happens again. Mayweather sneaks a left to the body. Judges: Robert Hoyle, 10-9 Mayweather; Patricia Morse Jarman, 10-9 Mayweather; Dave Moretti, 10-9 Mayweather. ROUND 2: Cotto picks up Mayweather and leans him to ropes.

A small wooden cabinet went up for auction on EBay. Inside were two locks of hair, one granite slab, one dried rosebud, one goblet, two wheat pennies, one candlestick and, allegedly, one "dibbuk," a kind of spirit popular in Yiddish folklore. The seller, a Missouri college student named Iosif Nietzke, described the container as a "haunted Jewish wine cabinet box" that had plagued several owners with rotten luck and a spate of bizarre paranormal stunts.

Golden Boy Promotions tentatively plans to stage former junior-welterweight champion Amir Khan's next fight July 7 at the Honda Center, company Chief Executive Richard Schaefer said Thursday. England's Khan (26-2, 18 knockouts) was supposed to fight Lamont Peterson on Saturday in a rematch of their controversial decision won by Peterson in December. Peterson, however, tested positive for synthetic testosterone, and Golden Boy scrapped the fight. In Anaheim, Khan initially targeted new World Boxing Council junior-welterweight champion Danny "Swift" Garcia (23-0, 14 KOs)

Re: "Cigarette tax is a lifesaver," Column, May 14 I am not a smoker nor do I have any interest in the tobacco companies. Though I may agree in principle with George Skelton that cigarette companies are deceiving voters about Proposition 29, which would raise cigarette taxes $1 a pack to finance cancer research, I have a problem with the overall premise of the initiative. People have the idea that just throwing more cash at a problem is the best way to solve it. Here, the idea is that we improve cancer research by imposing $800 million in new taxes on smokers.

Men in Black (1997): $251 million domestic, $339 million international Men in Black II (2002): $190 million domestic, $251 million international

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown warned Californians on Thursday to brace for another round of difficult budget cuts as he hand-delivered boxes of petitions to election officials requesting that his proposed tax hike be placed on the November ballot. Brown, who is expected to unveil his revised budget proposal Monday, said he needed far more than the $4.2 billion in spending reductions he asked for in January. And he continued to raise the specter of even deeper wounds to public schools, colleges and other state services if his bid for tax hikes fails.

Manny Pacquiao's skyrocketing popularity created chaos that no mere mortal could be expected to balance. Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 knockouts) appeared more human than ever in his last fight, however. As he prepares now for his next bout June 9 against Timothy Bradley, Pacquiao and his trainer acknowledge Everyman's frailty has been his most imposing contender. "All the distractions caught up to Manny in his last fight," Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach said Thursday of the boxer's narrow decision over Juan Manuel Marquez in November.

World junior welterweight champion Lamont Peterson has tested positive for synthetic testosterone, jeopardizing his May 19 title defense against England's Amir Khan at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Keith Kizer, executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, and Richard Schaefer, Peterson's promoter, confirmed Tuesday they've been notified of the positive test by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Assn. Kizer received a letter Tuesday explaining the result from Peterson's attorney.

LAS VEGAS — At the end of a tough, long night, Floyd Mayweather Jr. was left staring at a June 1 jail sentence and a boxing landscape that he seems to believe cannot deliver another quality opponent. The unbeaten 35-year-old champion late Saturday said he's leaning "80-20" toward retirement. "If it was my last fight, I gave them a bang," Mayweather (43-0) said after his unanimous-decision (118-110, 117-111, 117-111) triumph over Puerto Rico's Miguel Cotto (37-3) at the MGM Grand.

The most reliable predictor of box-office success these days may not be a marquee name or a masked superhero. It's thePG-13rating. Created in 1984 in the wake of the sometimes scary PG-rated movies "Gremlins" and "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" to warn parents that some movies might be inappropriate for young kids, thePG-13 has become an inclusive Good Housekeeping seal of approval - an imprimatur that promises adults won't be offended and...

The mean streets of South El Monte aren't so mean any more as they are tired and sometimes desperate. The tiny bedroom community, which sprouts from the junction of the Pomona and San Gabriel River freeways, was once plagued by crime and gang activity. Now many of its residents are more troubled by poverty and unemployment. "The last three years have been hard, you know what I mean?" sighs Joseph Diaz, an out-of-work truck driver married to a secretary who also lost her full-time job. "Things can't get any worse.