Witness: You got to, this is America, man.

(Omar coming)

The Wire, the late HBO series that can best, and most simply, be described as being about how a city (specifically, Baltimore) works, and more importantly, how what doesn’t work stays that way, is my favorite television series of all time. The Wire surpasses all other televised entertainment in its stubborn refusal to play by the established rules of fictional drama – the good guys act bad sometimes (and not in a cool antihero Tony Soprano kind of way), the bad guys can be disturbingly sympathetic, mistakes accumulate, complexities abound, and there is never a neat bow to tie everything together at the end. The essence of The Wire is that people find themselves in institutions – law enforcement, the drug trade, the shipping industry, education, the media – that are long established and irrevocably damaged. No matter how people respond to these institutions, be it by taking advantage of their flaws for personal gain, struggling in vain to make things better, or simply trying to go with the flow and survive to see tomorrow, the institutions never change. They never improve. They just steamroll on, leaving a trail of bodies and broken dreams in their wake.

Like the institutions in The Wire, boxing is hopelessly flawed. Some of us involved in boxing lash out at the elements of the institution that we consider the most corrupt, but they never change. Some take advantage of the flaws in the system and line their pockets. Some just float by day to day, punching in and punching out and trying to get as little dirt on themselves as possible in the time between. All of us are powerless against the beast. Nobody has any answers.

There is no better reflection of the fundamental flaws in boxing than the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao-Antonio Margarito debacle. Fans and supporters will choose their sides, but there are no good guys in this story. There is no triumph over adversity or growth or evolution. There are no winners. There are only flawed men trapped in a failed institution.

You remember those "grosser than gross" jokes from grade school, about chopped up babies and what not? I can't say Manny Pacquiao-Antonio Margarito -- set for November, according to Kevin Iole -- amounts to something as disgusting as one dead baby in three trash cans, but when combined with the fact that it's the fight that's been made instead of Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather, it's super-morally repugnant, and adds up to a week that counts among the worst for me personally as a boxing fan. Rather than the most important and anticipated fight of my generation, we get a fight pitting the best boxer in the world against a pariah, a man who is banned from fighting in the United States because the last time he fought here, he got busted with loaded gloves. Really, this is one of those moments when no angry rant can equal the amount of disappointment, rage and embarrassment I feel, so let's forego it. Everyone's sick of this whole saga anyway. My vomiting all over the computer screen would only make you more likely to vomit yourself. Congrats on your future eighth world title (at junior middleweight), Pacquiao, no matter how disgusting it will be for you to get there! At least it's not on pay-per-view so I don't have to give my personal money to Margarito! YAAAAAAY!

There's more in the boxing world to discuss, so let's set aside the fake joy and honest-to-God sick to my stomach feeling and talk about the other things. Yes, it's a little like pushing through with drinking some alcohol after you toss your cookies, but sometimes that can be cathartic. And sometimes, you just NEED to do that.

What with the business going on I mentioned here and all the distraction of the latest Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao debacle, last weekend didn't get the attention it deserved in this space. For instance: How good does bantamweight Fernando Montiel look in the clip above? Rafael Concepcion has lost a few fights, sure, but he gave Jorge Arce and Nonito Donaire as much as they cared to handle, and Montiel pancaked the man (which was gratifying, given Concepcion's knack for foul play). Please, evil boxing gods, don't get in the way of Montiel-Nonito Donaire with your accursed magic!

But hey, that was last weekend. It's freaking Thursday already. We must think of this week's schedule, too, light though it may be. So herein, we'll combine The Week's Boxing Schedule with Weekend Afterthoughts.

(via CoachJohnWooden.com)

Aside from the endless debates, speculations, accusations, hand-wringing, hair-pulling, and general mental instability surrounding the proposed Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather fight, another less heated, less debilitating, and ultimately more rectifiable debate has surrounded the two preeminent practitioners of the sweet science – who is the best fighter in the world, pound for pound?

Mayweather held the top spot for several years before abdicating with his “retirement” in 2008. Then Pacquiao assumed the throne with his historic ascent through the weight classes. When Mayweather dominated Shane Mosley earlier this year, however, the debate re-opened, with some observers moving Mayweather to the top of the heap for handily defeating (second round notwithstanding) the man generally recognized as the welterweight champion of the world, while others kept Pacquiao atop the list due to his outstanding recent body of work.

The problem with the pound-for-pound list in general, the way I see it, is that it’s not descriptive enough. The gulf between Floyd and Pac and the rest of the fighters in the world is tremendous. The gap between Floyd and Pac is slight. Yet with Manny at one, Floyd at two, and anyone else at three, the same number of spots separate Manny from Floyd and Floyd from anyone else on the list.

The solution? Steal from Bill Simmons. Simmons came up with the Hall of Fame Pyramid idea a few years ago and it’s stuck with me (and him, he references it often) ever since. It is genius because it is a very slight modern wrinkle on the timeless tradition of putting together lists – it’s basically a list with ranges. Plus, it would clarify the pound for pound rankings significantly. Manny and Floyd might be one or two spots away from the number three fighter, but they would be in a different tier. They would be distinguished from the rest of the fighters on the distinguished list. And for now, they should.

Sorry for the delay in tallying up the standings in TQBR Prediction Game 3.0. I had some girl drama to attend to, a busy stretch at the day job and frankly it was a pain in the ass mathematically that I put off because I knew it would be a pain in the ass mathematically.

Through the midway point, we have two new leaders: Geordie Dancer aka Andrew Harrison, and nazarioz. They propelled themselves into the lead with consistent accuracy in the four weekend fights. Accuracy is good fuel. Seventeen people are perfect in their predictions of the winners so far, in part because most of the bouts' winners have been little in doubt, so accuracy in the method of victory is the only difference between those 17 people. I won't do much more mathematical analysis than that, as what math I've done today has taken an hour and a half, but I'll point out a few trends:

1. Most of the people who dropped a bit in the standings were people who took a risk on Ishe Smith to upset Fernando Guerrero. They almost got their wish in a close fight.

2. Nobody picked Rafael Concepcion to beat Fernando Montiel, wisely. Nor did anyone pick Joachim Alcine to upset Alfredo Angulo, wisely. Only one person, the very brave but unwise Team Judge Smails aka willfrank, went with Luis Carlos Abregu to upset Timothy Bradley, although truth be told it was a closer fight than many expected, in part because Abregu was a bit better than many expected. It wasn't quite Smails-Czervik competitively, but I don't suppose WF was VERY unwise.

3. Calls of the week go to stickfigure, Drederick Tatum aka Scott Kraus and JB for calling a 3rd round knockout for Angulo -- closest to the actual result, the 1st -- and Ben Olson for calling a 3rd round knockout for Montiel, which was dead on.

4. I'm bad at math, if you haven't picked up on this. Really, check your scores if you have an iota of doubt, because I victimize someone weekly (my victims in the last tally: JB and Not Sure aka Jay Ari Yin) and with things this close, it could be the difference between sweet, sexy victory and stinging, ignominious defeat.

As for what's next, we'll definitely tackle the July 31 pay-per-view headlined by the Juan Manuel Marquez-Juan Diaz rematch. The question is, how many of those fights should we do? Several are worthy, at least by the standards of boxing's current dry spell. Let me know which ones you'd want to predict.

Now, your standings.

Either Briggs took a dive that the entire Italian soccer team would be proud of, or he should never have been allowed near that ring.

Certainly the fact that Briggs came in three kilos overweight in the cruiserweight bout suggests that he didn’t take the fight seriously.

There’s not much to recap. By my count, each man threw two punches – so I guess we can cover them in detail. Briggs came out at the bell and threw a left hook, which bounced off Green’s gloves. Later, he pumped a fake/jab. Green threw two jabs, one to the body and the other (the "knockout punch") that skimmed the top of Briggs’ head.

I’m more or less speechless and unable to say any more about the fight itself. What can be said? If there’s any justice, Briggs’ purse will be held. He had no business in that ring tonight. If nothing else, it was a vindication of the NSW Combat Sports Authority, whose decision that Briggs was unfit to fight forced the bout to be moved from Sydney to Perth.

The real loser is the Australian boxing fan/me. I wouldn’t blame any Aussie boxing fan for never watching another domestic fight again. Between Danny Green’s first round wonders and Anthony Mundine’s twelve round bumfights, there’s not much on offer.

To be fair, you could say that we’d come to see an execution... and the way that Briggs’ trainer, Billy Hussein, hugged him before the bell kind of confirmed that. But even at an execution, you expect to see a better undercard.

The two showcased fighters, Shane Cameron and lightweight Willie Kickett, won unanimous decisions that, to my eye, were much closer than the judges’ scorecards. Cameron sucked especially hard, landing almost no punches to beat Daniel Ammann in a heavyweight snoozer.

Cameron was in the ring with Green after the bell, as Briggs fled under a chorus of boos and a shower of beer. The expectation is that the two will meet somewhere down the line. Colour me not giving a fuck. Cameron lost to David Tua in no time, who in turn (more or less) lost to Monte Barrett on the weekend. Who cares?

At this point, Danny Green is beginning to equal compatriot Sakio Bika (super middleweight) as one of the most mismanaged fighters in the sport today. Australian boxing fans are beginning to hate him almost as much as Mundine.

Until such a time as Danny Geale fights a top middleweight, I won’t be bothering with Australian boxing – especially not on pay per view.

The camp of Floyd Mayweather -- including Mayweather himself -- has now weighed in on their view on what happened with the potential Manny Pacquiao welterweight megafight, and it's not very illuminating. Incriminating, more than anything. But we still don't have the whole story.

As I said over the weekend, though, missing the whole story doesn't mean we don't know the fallout. And it's possible I underestimated that fallout. There are some boxing writers who would rather find the silver lining; there are some who'd like to ignore the fallout altogether, preferring to look at what is happening in boxing rather than what isn't. I'm not that kind of boxing writer, because like it or not, Mayweather-Pacquiao is THE story in boxing -- and the fact that it isn't happening IS what's happening in boxing.

For example, I showed up nice and early to the Tropicana Casino Resort in Atlantic City to get my press pass so I could eat a leisurely dinner without worrying about time before the Star Boxing card headlined by David Tua and Monte Barrett began. Also, I wanted to splash some chips around on the tables for a while, as I am wont to do. For once, I had no issues getting my press pass (which in this case was a blue wristband with stars, like you’d get at a bar with a cover – nothing but the best for the boxing press). However, when I arrived for the start of the card a few minutes before 8:00, a Tropicana employee that didn’t seem to understand how the media works asked me, “Who are you the press for? The casino or the promoter?” I tried explaining that her question was nonsense (in friendlier terms, I assure you), that I wrote for a blog and was covering the fight, but she just didn’t seem to get it. She kept asking me that same question over and over, occasionally pointing at other members of the press walking by with the same silly wristband and asking, “Do you work with him?” It was a little surreal. Finally, I told her, “I don’t work for your casino or your promoter. I work for the fans. I work for the people.” With that, she let me pass.

OK, so all that is true except the, “I work for the people,” line, which I came up with when I sat down and started typing. It would have been a good line, though. Like, “The jerk store called, and they ran out of you.” Actually, she just let me go without resolving the question at hand. Regardless, I thought she inadvertently asked a somewhat ominous question, given the shady nature of some boxing coverage. Based on some of the things I glimpsed on press row, some members of the boxing press are engaging in nothing more than public relations disguised as journalism.

(Imagine if George Costanza had been Top Rank’s Assistant to the Traveling Secretary)

Confounding conversations with hotel employees and ringside “press” giving standing ovations to their fighters were not the highlights of the night, however. A fight sheet that looked like a showcase for Tua and a slew of local fighters instead provided sustained, sometimes stunning action with almost universally unpredictable results. For the second time in two weeks, my expectations for a fight card were exceeded by the action in the ring. For the second time in two weeks, smart, diligent matchmaking and attention to the live fan experience produced standout cards. For the second time in two weeks, I went to an overachieving, fan-friendly card and it was not promoted by either of the big two of Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions. Just saying.

This was far from the finest performance of Timothy Bradley's career, this Saturday night unanimous decision over Luis Carlos Abregu, but it did the trick of "introducing" him to the HBO audience and showing he could viably fight at welterweight if he wanted to do so. The top junior welterweight in the world was sloppy and reckless at times, the way he used to be before sharpening up his game in recent fights, perhaps eager to impress by scoring a knockout. Yet he was the far more accurate puncher, at times wobbling Abregu, and he stood up to what punches Abregu, a heavy hitter, landed in return. In an ideal world, what comes next for Bradley is nearest 140-pound challenger Devon Alexander, or, with Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather not happening, a shot at Pacquiao. Neither of those things are likely next.

On the undercard, junior middleweight Alfredo Angulo crushed Joachim Alcine in one round, getting outboxed for part of it then taking advantage of Alcine holding on to his arm by punching with the free hand and forcing Alcine to defend himself up close. That went poorly for Alcine. Angulo is a bad, bad man.

That, and other results from the weekend, await.

Here we are again.

Despite what Manny Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum said this morning about Floyd Mayweather not agreeing to a fight in November, the second time Pacquiao and Mayweather couldn't agree to a welterweight megafight in 2010, it is too soon to start pointing fingers at either camp. We have one side of the story and one side of the story only. With that side of the story, one can say that Pacquiao agreeing to the terms Mayweather set the first time the fight fell apart -- blood testing for drugs up to 14 days before the bout -- is exceptionally reasonable. But for all we know Mayweather had a reason for not meeting the deadline outside of those terms, like, say, the unresolved defamation lawsuit Pacquiao filed against Mayweather's side for alleging he was on steroids. Since Mayweather's side refuses even to acknowledge that negotiations were taking place, we have no way of knowing whether Arum is telling us the truth, and you'd have to be pretty naive to assume Arum is telling the truth based on his record.

What we can do is condemn a sport where the two best boxers of the past decade can't find a way to fight one another. Twice. Whatever the reasons for the fight not being made, this was a demarcation line -- Pacquiao is moving on, according to Arum, to fight someone else in November.

Over the last year or so, boxing had rightly returned to the headlines. But this is all boxing makes headlines for in 2010: The biggest fight in decades not happening -- the ultimate example of the best not fighting the best. It's the old story about why boxing fell sharply from public favor, only to buck the trend in recent years. But it's becoming the new story.

It's a joke -- the unfunny kind. This sort of thing doesn't happen in any other sport I can think of. It doesn't matter what sport it is. If you're the Lakers and you're the best team in the West, at the end of the year you play the Celtics if they're the best team in the East. In table tennis, the two best players meet in the championship game.

You can be optimistic about this if you want. Maybe Mayweather signs a deal before Pacquiao agrees to terms with another November opponent. As Arum says, "There's always next year." But if Mayweather didn't agree to the fight by now, it's hard to imagine why he would suddenly do it next week. And there isn't always next year. Pacquiao is a congressman in the Philippines who has threatened to retire from boxing repeatedly, and Mayweather threatens to retire every other week. If they couldn't get it done twice before, why would they suddenly get it done on the third try?

Already, all anyone who doesn't follow the sport regularly has asked me about boxing recently is, "Why aren't they fighting?" I can only guess the real answer. But that I even get the question speaks disgusting volumes about the kind of gross neglect of its fans boxing is capable of committing.