The California State Athletic Commission on Wednesday made the right decision by ruling, 5-1, against restoring the boxing license of junior middleweight Antonio Margarito. In explaining their vote, members of the commission argued that Margarito hadn't shown enough contrition for or taken adequate steps to correct what happened the night in 2008 when illegal wraps were discovered in his glove; that there should be a zero tolerance standard on safety in the boxing ring; and questioned what he was thinking in seeking a license elsewhere before returning to the commission that punished him.

It was the right decision for all those reasons, but most especially because, under the rule in California -- and it's a good rule -- the boxer is held to "strict liability" for his equipment and what he puts in his body, even if he claims that his trainer was the one who was to blame. As one commissioner said in explaining his vote: "You can delegate authority, but you can't delegate responsibility." And, as another commissioner said earlier in the hearing, a mere one-year license revocation could send the wrong message that loading one's gloves is worth the risk of getting caught because if one doesn't get caught, cheating in that way could lead to a win that would pave a fighter's career path with gold.

But I'd be surprised if it affects whether Margarito fights in America again, as it should per the usual standard of one state honoring another's rulings. Texas is the preferred location for Margarito's fight with Manny Pacquiao, wherein Margarito will make more money than he ever has. Promoter Bob Arum said he expects Texas to provide a license, and last week came reports that Margarito's team had been "assured" that he would receive a license. Maybe Arum's wrong, and maybe the unnamed source who said Margarito was "assured" of receiving a license is unreliable. But all signs point to the likelihood that, no matter what California did, Texas was going to be on board for the fight.

So there was probably no justice done Wednesday, in reality. But what California's commission did is, at minimum, a victory for principle. And that's worth something.

Maxboxing’s Steve Kim has an interesting interview with Kathy Duva, the woman running the show at Main Events, in advance of this weekend’s Tomasz Adamek fight. I entirely agree with her approach of keeping fighters busy, with or without HBO money, and was quite surprised to see her say that Adamek’s stay-busy bout with old heavyweight Michael Grant could earn Adamek more money via ticket sales than it could via cash from the network giant. These young, talented fighters who can’t draw fans – your Paul Williamses, your Timothy Bradleys, etc. – should take the same approach as Adamek: Pick a home, fight there a lot and build a fan base, then fight on HBO or whatever when the opportunity comes. According to Duva, some are thinking of doing just that. There’s another upside that isn’t even discussed in the Kim piece, and it’s that fighters who fight often are better and sharper than when they don’t.

It’s not a panacea, though. For one, Adamek’s fan base is heavily ethnic, and whatever the reason, black fans these days aren’t coming to support black fighters the way Polish fans are coming to support Polish fighters. Maybe that would change if Williams, Bradley et al got them motivated and fired up the way Polish fans are motivated and fired up by Adamek; the crowds for Adamek shows in New Jersey are bigger than when they began, but it’s also the case that Adamek started with a bigger base than Williams and Bradley because of Polish fans’ indigent support. Bradley’s fought at Agua Caliente Casino a few times, and still didn't sell out the place last time without his promoter Gary Shaw buying up all the tickets.

For another, there is some value in HBO effectively serving as a promoter, although Kim’s piece doesn’t spell it out. “When you build an attraction and don’t have a clearinghouse to deal with, you are basically unhindered in who you can tab as an opponent,” Kim writes. That worries me, to some degree. HBO doesn’t always use its muscle wisely (like when it put Adamek-Chris Arreola in California), but does anyone dispute that it’s good HBO is putting pressure on a Williams-Sergio Martinez rematch? I don’t have a problem with Adamek fighting Grant between bigger bouts, but not everyone is going to be as eager to challenge themselves as a determined boxer like Adamek if they discover they can sell out a building fighting nobody. If you want evidence of that, look at, say, most of Chris John’s career. There’s value in HBO’s muscle, is what I’m saying, and if there’s nobody putting pressure on a fighter to break free of a regional deal that makes him as much money as HBO, then we’ve got a new problem.

At any rate, I’m not advocating against people mimicking the Adamek plan. Maybe it doesn’t work as well for Williams as it does for Adamek, but at this point, why shouldn’t Williams try?

MONTREAL -- Round and Round. What comes around goes around in the "fights in the works" universe. I’ll tell you why:

(Jean Pascal, left; Chad Dawson, right)

MONTREAL -- If nothing else, last night's light heavyweight fight between Chad Dawson and Jean Pascal offered a pretty rich tapestry for fingers to be pointed, for credit to be given and for perceptions to be altered. There were a lot of nuances, although there was also a considerable amount of flamboyant emotion on display afterward.

MONTREAL -- It was heating up into a classic on HBO, one where Jean Pascal was leading but Chad Dawson had him hurt in the 11th. Then, an accidental head butt ended matters, forcing it to the scorecards, where Pascal rightly got the unanimous decision win over Dawson to become the lineal, true Ring magazine light heavyweight champion of the world. Pascal's unorthodox offense and improved defense made a ton of difference, but so too did Dawson's excessive caution.

A couple years ago, when writing about Canadian boxing being on the rise, I spoke to Canadian promoters and boxers who noted that Canada has had some good fighters over the years, but none of them had ever scored a win over a top pound-for-pound guy. That changed with Pascal's defeat of Dawson -- a top-5 boxer, regardless of weight -- Saturday evening.

It wasn't a complete triumph, though. The ending was unsatisfactory, to say the least, and it could very well have been a barnburner to the end if not for the head butt.

(From left: Nigel Collins, holding the Ring belt; Chad Dawson; Jean Pascal; promoter Gary Shaw)

MONTREAL -- Boxing weigh-ins are rarely a good place for news, unless somebody punches somebody else a night early. Rather, they're a decent spot for getting info on the periphery. So, even though there was some amusing posturing at the weigh-in for the light heavyweight Chad Dawson-Jean Pascal fight Saturday evening (we'll get to that in a minute), this will mostly be a collection of scraps and tidbits from interviews with Andre Berto, Larry Merchant and Gary Shaw.

MONTREAL -- Canadia, you ARE beautiful. This town's percentage of hot women is, approximately, 99 percent, and they all dress so well and look so cool. Its architecture is lovely, too. So far, besides reenacting Chad Dawson-Jean Pascal posters, Mr. David P. Greisman (above) and myself (below) have enjoyed Montreal's Mexican food and Irish pubs, the latter of which featured Salt-N-Pepa/Queen/Queens of the Stone Age dance parties and full-grown men running and leaping into piles of McDonald's trash bags. And we're just getting started.

There is work to attend to between this play, though. First up, it's the Quick Jabs column. Soon, I'll be adding to my unintentionally extensive collection of men posing in their underwear when we head to the Dawson-Pascal light heavyweight weigh-in.

I was going to head up this post with a quote from a certain Walter Sobchak; however, after thinking it through, I’ll keep it on ice (it’ll come in handy at the tail end of things). The one I’ve ran with rather handily fell from the lips of a man who symbolises everything the sport seems to be drifting away from.

The Brockton port-sider sat atop his middleweight throne for seven winters, turning back twelve different men who tried to rob him of his identity. As his two main rivals laid down the building blocks for the way in which elite fighters would operate in the modern world, he elected to look back instead of forward, choosing tradition and history over the multi-weight smoke and mirrors routine.

Whilst Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns pursued title belts in multiple divisions, Hagler didn’t flinch. Born a middleweight, he stayed a middleweight. If only elite fighters today found it so easy to follow his example.

After despatching Juan Diaz last week, lightweight king Juan Manuel Marquez spoke of fighting a junior welterweight and a welterweight. Should he grab himself the light heavyweight championship by finding a way past Jean Pascal this weekend, Chad Dawson has his eyes on a super middleweight. Welterweight Shane Mosley wants to be a junior middleweight then a middleweight whilst the best fighter in the world, Manny Pacquiao, invents a new weight class each time he fights. I could go on.

MONTREAL -- One of the things that makes boxing so captivating is watching people do things I can't do, probably never could do and probably never would want to do. Speed vs. speed match-ups cover the first two categories. Boxing is always about tiny adjustments, about minute amounts of space being the difference between consciousness or getting plastered with the perfect shot on the chin. When a quick boxer fights another quick boxer, those adjustments and spatial relations happen in such higher definition, in such finer tune, with such precision that they're almost imperceptible.

The men who would be the legitimate light heavyweight king, Chad Dawson and Jean Pascal, have never fought anyone as fast as each other. Dawson, more often than not, has fought significantly slower, older fighters -- not a critique of him so much as it is of the median age of the division at this point. Pascal is used to being the fastest guy in the ring. All that changes Saturday night on HBO, when I'll be covering the fight at the Bell Centre.

The speed factor is only the predominant one in Dawson-Pascal. Dawson is more skillful; Pascal, more powerful. It's an intoxicating mix of ingredients for a fight. It might not be the right mix for those who prefer to see two bombs-away sluggers, but Dawson and Pascal -- especially Pascal -- have been exciting in the past. And Dawson may have no choice but to be exciting, because Pascal's speed might force him into exchanges.

[TQBR Prediction Game 4.0 begins now. The usual deadline has been extended to Saturday, 12 p.m., but remember the rules.]

From time to time BoxingScene's David P. Greisman and myself gchat one another. Sometimes we talk about boxing, even. Sometimes, I publish what we say. Monday evening, between prepping for our trip to Montreal, we had some talking to do about the things in the headline, plus the likes of Kermit Cintron, Andre Ward and animated Don Bluth films.