Happy Holidays, everybody. I hope you'll be enjoying some quality family time, gaining a few pounds and relaxing for a couple days. I'll be doing some of that myself, so I won't be blogging as much as usual over the next few days, I expect.

I did, however, want to take this occasion to do three things: review the blog's 2009, meta-style; offer a sincere thank you to the people who read and contribute to this blog for making it one of the more fulfilling elements of my life; and encourage you to help me take it the blog the next level by contributing even more -- with your own blog entries.

(This may all come off as a bit self-congratulatory, by the way, but it's really as much about you as it is about me, plus it's the holiday season and I'm thinking about what I'm thankful for, and to whom I'm thankful.)

I thought I'd revive the Open Thread for a day or more to give people the chance to reflect on the last decade of boxing, including this year that's expiring now. As much as I rambled on, I'm sure there's some stuff I left out.

So: Favorite memories of the 2000s? Favorite fighters of the 2000s (which is different than "best")? Best at each weight? Funniest moment? Saddest moment? All of that stuff.

Since the Open Thread began including videos before it died out, here's my favorite track of the decade. If you guys wanna take the thread in some insane direction, feel free, as always.

We knew it would happen, didn't we? That at some occasion during negotiations for Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao, prospectively the richest fight in boxing history, everybody would throw up their hands, say the fight was dead, point fingers at the other side. Maybe more than once.

We're at that once, and the whole thing just seems so foolish that I feel like a stooge for even weighing in on it. This is boxing, and these kind of things happen, especially when each boxer stands to gain $40 million. But it's the thing everybody's talking about, so ignoring it isn't an option. Both sides say the fight is off. I suspect it isn't, but then, I haven't gotten swept up by previous pronouncements that the fight was on, either.

It boils down to this: Mayweather's team wants some ultra-rigorous drug testing that could involve blood being drawn randomly and frequently leading up to the fight. Pacquiao's team doesn't, saying they're willing to do random urine tests any time and draw blood well before and right after the fight.

Mayweather's team, wholly without evidence, claims Pacquiao is on steroids. Never mind that Pacquiao has never failed a test. Never mind that the thing they say is so impossible -- Pacquiao's continual effectiveness as a pro at weights from 106 pounds to 147 pounds -- is exactly what Mayweather has accomplished, if you include his amateur career. (At age 16, the age when Pacquiao began as a pro, Mayweather was an amateur champion at 106 pounds.)

Pacquiao's team has thrown around its own unconvincing answers. Pacquiao is squeamish about needles, but so am I, and I can tell you that Pacquiao has way more tattoos than my zero tattoos. Pacquiao's training could be affected by the random testing, they say, which I guess it could for a few days out of three months. And just a few days ago, nobody seemed to have any trouble with this "Olympic-style" testing regime.

My view on this is that this issue should not be a deal-breaker when there's this much money involved. I guarantee there's some compromise that could be arranged. Pacquiao's team has said they don't want blood drawn 48 hours before the fight, because it could weaken their fighter. Fine. Make it so the random blood samples don't apply to that period, and there's an immediate blood test after. What kind of megasupersecretsteroid would Pacquiao have to be on to turn himself into a monster with a drug he took two days before the fight that could also disappear by fight night? Four to six blood withdrawals over a span of a couple months seems excessive, too. Cap it at three. This is just an outline, a way to demonstrate there has to be a compromise here.

From what I can tell, most of the boxing world is taking Pacquiao's side on this. That's fine. I, too, think Mayweather's demands are irrational. They strike me more as psychological games than authentic demands. Or maybe it's retaliation for the $10 million per pound over weight penalty Pacquiao's side wants; even then, though, we have evidence Mayweather will come in over weight, because he did it against Juan Manuel Marquez in September, unlike the lack of evidence of Pacquiao's steroids.

My view is I'd like to see Pacquiao meet Mayweather in the middle. Mostly because I want the fight that bad, but also because everybody would then have to shut up about whether Pacquiao is on any performance-enhancing drugs. America has a weird mindset about drug tests -- the thinking is that if someone suggests mandatory drug testing, and you don't want to submit, you must have something to hide. And there's a chance that while the boxing world might be on Pacquiao's side, the wider world won't. On the other hand, if Pacquaio's side proposes compromises and Mayweather won't negotiate, then we'll know who's to blame.

This whole spectacle is somewhat embarrassing, really, and I hope it's taken care of soon. There isn't a whole lot of time left between now and March 13, the fight's planned date, and I'd rather spend my time talking about the build-up to the fight than b.s., petty negotiating crap. But that's what I've been forced to do, alas.

Stop being goofy, team Pacquiao and team Mayweather. Find a way to make this fight happen and quit wasting our time with this junk.

There's a faint air of impossibility about Manny Pacquiao's achievements that, to this day, makes it hard for me to fully accept them. It all just seems so damn unlikely, especially when you review where he started 2000 and where he ended up in 2009. But it's all very real, and that's why Pacquiao is the Fighter of the Decade in the 2000s, heading up a class at the start of the new millennium that is pretty stellar.

It's easy for me to say Diego Corrales-Jose Luis Castillo I is the Fight of the Decade, under the circumstances. It's because I think it's the best fight ever. Period.

There are good arguments for Marvin Hagler-Tommy Hearns and Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier III, among a handful of others. If you haven't watched Castillo-Corrales, though, I want you to stop reading right now. I want you to go watch the whole fight, sans any description of what happens in it. I then want you to come back and tell me how many days it took you to believe what you saw.

I have the fight on my iPod, and forget, occasionally, that I have it there. When I'm on a long flight, I'm always happy to rediscover it. I've seen it so many times that when I show it to people by way of proof that boxing, at its finest, blows every other sport out of the water, I sometimes mumble the lines of Showtime broadcasters Al Bernstein and Steve Albert at the same time they do. (P.S.: It never fails. Nobody who sees Castillo-Corrales [Why's it usually in that order, by the way, even though Corrales won?] can deny boxing's greatness, not that I've met yet.)

As recently as the late 1990s, I had serious moral qualms about boxing, and I still harbor a few. By around 2002, I'd begun to watch fairly regularly, largely because I'd come down with a bout of insomnia and with live boxing, I never knew the ending, unlike the infomercials and television reruns that are often on at late hours. I became a real boxing fan after another Fight of the Decade candidate, Toney-Jirov, when something HBO commentator Jim Lampley said crystalized the sport for me: "It is amazing that humans can do this." But Castillo-Corrales turned me into a boxing fanatic.

I actually believe Castillo-Corrales is a monument to what mankind can achieve. Corrales getting up after two knockdowns to score a knockout in that same 10th round -- a round in which Corrales probably needed a knockout because the ringside physician was right on the verge of stopping the fight due to his badly swollen eyes -- is as good an example of mind over matter as exists. It's why, a few years ago, then-New York Jets coach Eric Mangini played it before a game for his team. The Jets won, 23-16. I couldn't make this up.

None of this, by the way, takes into account that even if you sliced off the ending to Castillo-Corrales, it still would have been a strong contender for Fight of the Decade. For nine rounds, these two lightweights exchanged dozens upon dozens of head-snapping, knee-weakening power shots, and both absorbed inhuman amounts of punishment. They went one better than toe-to-toe -- they were cheek-to-cheek. Several times, both of them were in danger of going down, and somehow nobody did until the 10th. Castillo never even went down at all. Knowing their back stories, everyone anticipated this would be a classic; Castillo was the unhurtable force, Corrales the unstoppable power with a dubious chin but not a dubious heart. But few saw it live, and it's become kind of Woodstock moment in boxing, where everyone said they were there.

It says a lot for Castillo-Corrales that it shared space in the 2000s with two fights each from the Gatti-Ward, Barrera-Morales and Vazquez-Marquez trilogies and came out on top. There's plenty of lore from Castillo-Corrales I'd love to revisit, but I think it's overdue that somebody writes a book about the fight. If that person's me, I'd like to save some of it for then.

Ten years of boxing, boiled down to the "best of" in four categories: Round of the Decade, Knockout of the Decade, Fight of the Decade and Fighter of the Decade.

Sunday: Round of the Decade candidates, plus Knockout of the Decade candidates. Monday: Round of the Decade and Knockout of the Decade winners and Fight of the Decade candidates. Today: Fight of the Decade winner now, plus Fighter of the Decade top 10 later. Wednesday: an awards-season Open Thread.

Ten years of boxing, boiled down to the "best of" in four categories: Round of the Decade, Knockout of the Decade, Fight of the Decade and Fighter of the Decade.

Sunday: Round of the Decade candidates, plus Knockout of the Decade candidates. Today: Fight of the Decade candidates now, plus Round of the Decade and Knockout of the Decade winners earlier. Tuesday: Fight of the Decade winner, plus Fighter of the Decade top 10. Wednesday: an awards-season Open Thread.

Ten years of boxing, boiled down to the "best of" in four categories: Round of the Decade, Knockout of the Decade, Fight of the Decade and Fighter of the Decade.

Sunday: Round of the Decade candidates, plus Knockout of the Decade candidates. Today: Round of the Decade and Knockout of the Decade winners now, plus Fight of the Decade candidates later. Tuesday: Fight of the Decade winner, plus Fighter of the Decade top 10. Wednesday: an awards-season Open Thread.

The 9th round of Micky Ward-Arturo Gatti I began with HBO's Larry Merchant saying "We're not sure" Gatti can persevere against a fighter like Ward, the way we know Ward has persevered. Oh, dramatic irony. I'm not sure why Merchant wasn't sure of that, but we'd all soon be very, very sure.

Ward dug in his trademark left hook to the body early in the round, putting Gatti down. HBO's Emmanuel Steward was convinced Gatti wouldn't get up, but he did. Ward rained down shots on Gatti's head and kept going back to his body, too, where Gatti was so not enjoying the experience he spent about half the round bent over, like he was being sawed in half and was trying to keep his midsection away from the teeth. He'd rather take it to the head, please, he seemed to be saying, dipping it forward to give Ward a better target.

Merchant got back on track with "In the past, this is where Arturo Gatti has been dangerous." True to form, when Ward became tired from smacking Gatti around, Gatti got dangerous. He started pounding Ward with humongous body punches, left and right, then moved upstairs for more of the same. Ward suddenly was backing up. HBO's Jim Lampley chimed in: "Can you believe there's still a minute and a half to go in the round?" That's my exact thought every time I watch it. We'd gotten two totally different fights in half a round.

Thirty seconds later, Ward again turned the tables on a tired Gatti, catching him with uppercuts and a fusillade of shots on his suddenly upright opponent. Both of them made it plenty easy on the other to land blows, of course. Neither cared a lick for blocking punches, so convinced of their own offense and ability to withstand the other man's that everyone imagined well in advance that this fight would be something like an action nirvana. "You know," Steward said as Ward pushed back Gatti, "you dream of fights like this, but very seldom do they live up to expectations. This is even more than you could dream of."

Mere seconds later, Lampley was exhorting the referee to stop the fight, so bad was the punishment Gatti was taking. But HBO's team had underestimated Gatti yet again. In the waning moments of the round, Gatti found one more power combination, and survived to the bell. "This should be the Round of the Century," Steward said.

It's got a chance, at least in my book. It's the Queensberry Rules Round of this Decade, a decade Gatti did not see the end of after his tragic death in 2009. It barely nudged Diego Corrales-Jose Luis Castillo Round 10, the most dramatic ending to a fight I've ever seen, but one that doesn't stand on its own as a round sans the entire fight quite as well to me as does Ward-Gatti I's 9th round.

Nine more decades to go.

I hate to be anticlimactic, but Manny Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton (like Gatti-Ward, a junior welterweight bout) just won our award for Knockout of the Year for 2009. I said all I needed to say about it when it won that award, so I can't say much more in giving it the award for Knockout of the Decade. Check out what I wrote for the 2009 award here.

Still, hell of a picture there, from the moment of impact for the left hook that left Hatton sprawled and helpless. Second place? It wasn't as pretty a shot as the one flyweight Nonito Donaire landed on Vic Darchinyan, but I have to go with light heavyweight Antonio Tarver's knockout of Roy Jones, Jr., just for the shock value. Interestingly, all of these are lefts. I'm a southpaw myself, so maybe I'm biased -- or maybe it's just that the left is the punch that nobody ever sees coming.

Ten years of boxing, boiled down to the "best of" in four categories: Round of the Decade, Knockout of the Decade, Fight of the Decade and Fighter of the Decade.

Today: Round of the Decade candidates earlier, plus Knockout of the Decade candidates now. Monday: Round of the Decade and Knockout of the Decade winners, plus Fight of the Decade candidates. Tuesday: Fight of the Decade winner, plus Fighter of the Decade top 10. Wednesday: an awards-season Open Thread.

Maybe you don't have enough Latin American brawling in your life. After this you will be well on your way. Below, Ring mag's #1 lightweight Edwin Valero stops Hector Velazquez in Venezuela, and Johnriel Casimero springs the upset on #6 junior flyweight Cesar Canchila in Nicaragua. (I only have the last round of Casimero-Canchila, but will add the rest when/if I can. Here's a summary of the rest of the fight.) Head butts factor into both bouts, decisively so, I'm afraid, in Casimero-Canchila, although all the knockdowns Casimero scored in the fight suggest it wasn't a fluke upset.

Ten years of boxing, boiled down to the "best of" in four categories: Round of the Decade, Knockout of the Decade, Fight of the Decade and Fighter of the Decade.

Today: Round of the Decade candidates now, plus Knockout of the Decade candidates later. Monday: Round of the Decade and Knockout of the Decade winners, plus Fight of the Decade candidates. Tuesday: Fight of the Decade winner, plus Fighter of the Decade top 10. Wednesday: Fighter of the Decade top 10 and an awards-season Open Thread.