Boxing Championships

The next stop on the professional boxing merry-go-round will be Saturday night in Las Vegas. As the world of boxing turns, only names and faces change. This time, it will be Manny Pacquiao against Juan Manuel Marquez. Seven weeks later, it will be Oscar De La Hoya against Stevie Forbes. Each is promoted as if it has a chance to be the next Ali-Foreman. Neither, of course, will be.

Boxing was not the path chosen for their youngest son by Mike and Debbie Pavlik of Youngstown, Ohio. "If we'd raised him to play golf or tennis," Mike says, "I'd love it. I'd be a lot happier now." At least Mike can bear to watch, never straying too far from training camp or trips that take his youngest into the limelight all over the country. Debbie never watches. "She won't even listen, even when his fight's on TV," Mike says.

He didn't become the first non-heavyweight boxer to attract 1 million pay-per-view buys in back-to-back fights, but unbeaten welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. came close enough for HBO executives to proclaim "a new road has been opened for the sport." Mayweather's 10th-round technical knockout of previously unbeaten Ricky Hatton of Britain on Dec. 8 in Las Vegas produced 850,000 pay-per-view buys worth $47 million in revenue, HBO officials said Monday.

LAS VEGAS -- Floyd Mayweather Jr. boxed the heart out of Ricky Hatton on Saturday night, repeatedly pounding the gutty Englishman on his way to a 10th-round technical knockout that confirmed the flashy welterweight champion as his sport's most skilled tactician. Mayweather (39-0, 25 knockouts) completed a night-long destruction of Hatton in the 10th by first sending him crashing downward into a corner post pad.

LAS VEGAS -- The British invasion of the Las Vegas boxing world started to stumble midway through the third round and fell flat on its back in the 10th. In that round, Floyd Mayweather Jr. silenced all the noise and songs and hoopla that had traveled across the big pond. He did it with a left hook that boxers only dream about. It landed on Ricky Hatton's chin and sent him face-first into the ring's corner post.

LAS VEGAS -- Before the British invasion of fans arrived and started narrowing the odds by swarming the sports books, Floyd Mayweather Jr. stood as more than a 3-1 favorite to defeat England's Ricky Hatton on Saturday night. The thinking by the majority of astute boxing observers is that Mayweather is too fast for Hatton in all aspects, notably counter-punching, footwork and defense.

NEW YORK -- Miguel Cotto's star power just punched upward to new heights. The Puerto Rican welterweight defended his World Boxing Assn. championship Saturday with an impressive unanimous decision over former three-division world champion Shane Mosley of Pomona in front of 15,251 at Madison Square Garden. In an entertaining battle of continuous exchanges that had no knockdowns, Cotto (31-0, 25 knockouts) pleased his raucous, supportive crowd.

MOSCOW -- Evander Holyfield's quest for a fifth heavyweight title ran into a roadblock Saturday: Sultan Ibragimov. Ibragimov kept his World Boxing Organization title with a unanimous decision over Holyfield, who turns 45 next week and was trying to become the second-oldest heavyweight champion. Fighting before a home crowd, Ibragimov improved to 22 wins and one draw with a slick, counter-punching display. Holyfield dropped to 42-9 with two draws.

NEW YORK -- Samuel Peter withstood three early knockdowns to pull away from Jameel McCline and keep the WBC heavyweight championship Saturday night. Peter, nicknamed the "Nigerian Nightmare," was living through a bad dream in the second and third rounds. But hedominated the latter rounds for a unanimous decision that was heartily booed by the Madison Square Garden crowd.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Atlantic City doesn't necessarily bode well for up-and-coming boxers from Youngstown, Ohio. Ray Mancini was unbeaten in 20 bouts when he lost a lightweight title fight to Alexis Arguello in 1981 in his Atlantic City debut. Harry Arroyo was also unbeaten when he lost his lightweight title to Jimmy Paul in Atlantic City in 1985. Tonight, Youngstown's Kelly Pavlik makes his Atlantic City debut.