Double-headers intended to hype a future bout between the two featured fighters are usually as risk-free as boxing matches come. The headliners are never in very tough, because they're showcase fights meant to whet the appetite for the idea of the headliners meeting up, and the chance of a loss could spoil it all.

That is absolutely not the eye-rolling path Saturday's double-header on HBO is taking. Top Rank Promotions says it wants to get its featherweights Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa in the ring against each other at some point in 2010 (although apparently not this summer, as we'd been led to believe). They are two of the finest young boxers in the land today, and their eventual meeting is one of the most anticipated bouts of the new year. But while they are both favored to win this weekend, their opponents, Steven Luevano and Rogers Mtagwa, respectively, amount to the toughest fights of their young careers.

Luevano is very good. He's ranked #2 in the division by Ring magazine, a division where Lopez hasn't fought yet. Mtagwa is crude, but he nearly knocked out Lopez in a 2009 classic, and Gamboa's ability to take a punch is dubious.

It's the first big fight card of 2010, and I could hardly be looking forward to it more.

I never gave away the Muhammad Ali poster from the t-shirt design contest during the summer, because the winner, Kevin, was only really interested in the Manny Pacquiao bobblehead doll.

So here's the deal. Below is a comic by Kate Beaton. She does really wonderful work; my brother recently bought me her book, "Never Learn Anything From History," which made me laugh uproariously, and you can check out her website here.

Here's the riddle:

Why would I publish this particular comic on my blog?

First person with the correct answer wins the Ali poster. Go!

Andre Berto announced Monday he is pulling out of his Jan. 30 welterweight fight with Shane Mosley, saying the the destruction in his native Haiti -- during which he reports that he "lost several relatives" -- has left him "physically and mentally exhausted."

What can you do about that? Berto said he couldn't fight in this state, and obviously my sympathies are with him. Mosley's team says he can understand Berto's decision. For boxing fans, it's a total bummer. Since it was signed, Mosley-Berto has been one of the most looked-forward to fights on the 2010 calendar, and the bumpy ride boxing has taken its fans on lately continues unabated. For people who were planning to attend live, it's a double-bummer because there was a pretty good undercard scheduled, too.

Golden Boy Promotions says this improves the possibility that Floyd Mayweather will meet Mosley, likelier in May than a March 13 duel with Manny Pacquiao's own pay-per-view. I bet it gets moved back. And it's a tremendous fight, it really is, which is why everyone's wanted to see it for so damn long, and would be smart for business reasons because Mosley is a far better opponent for Mayweather than Joshua Clottey is for Pacquiao. Will I be surprised if Mayweather-Mosley ever happens? Totally. There were serious reports earlier today that Mayweather was in real talks with 19-year-old prospect Saul Alvarez, a fight that when first raised every Mayweather fan was like, "No way, that's just a ploy!" That such a woeful mismatch would even be in talks tells you everything you need to know about Mayweather's fighting spirit.

It'll be a pleasant surprise if I'm wrong. Mayweather-Mosley isn't Mayweather-Pacquiao, but it's about the next best thing.

[UPDATE: David Mayo seems to think Berto took some step-aside money to get out of the way of Mayweather-Mosley, although he doesn't offer any direct knowledge or say that he even knows it to be the case -- just lots of strong hinting. It's a possibility that has to be considered, but until I see otherwise, I'll presume that Berto's expressed motive is authentic.]

[UPDATE II: Some commenters have raised a very fair point about whether Mosley should have some kind of tune-up fight. After all, if the fight is in May, he would be coming off a nearly 16-month layoff. That's not a good move for a 38-year-old man; even an ageless boxer like Bernard Hopkins showed symptoms of ring rust in his return to the ring after a lengthy layoff. Ideally, that tune-up would have been a replacement opponent for Jan. 30. There is cause to wonder why that didn't happen. And if Mosley looks terrible against Mayweather, there will be critics who wonder if this all wasn't by design, given Mayweather's history of taking fights when an opponent is at some disadvantage before the bell even rings. Also, it's possible the fight could be later in May than May 1, the date that had been talked about. There's a UFC event scheduled for May 1, and while Mayweather-Mosley probably crushes it, there's no need to go head-to-head when both events would prosper better on different nights -- especially with this many months to decide matters.]

Imagine my surprise, then, when Ouma taunted, bullied, and outhustled the younger Powell, winning all ten rounds on one judge's card in what was indisputably a one-sided fight. Powell left the ring looking like a whipped schoolboy, and I donated $10 to my friend's favorite charity (as we know, wagering on boxing is illegal in New York State). After the fight, Ouma changed in his dressing room and then came up to visit with his family, who were sitting just a few rows in front of us. His face was still unmarked then -- the Jermain Taylor fight lay four months in the future -- and Ouma glowed with youth, optimism, and good health, kissing babies and posing for pictures, an authentic African folk hero in New York. At that moment, Ouma looked for all the world like one of the top three or four junior middleweights in the world, a good bet to win back the belt he had lost to Roman Karmazin the year before.

Four months later, Ouma would take on the quixotic task of fighting then-middleweight champion Jermain Taylor in Taylor's hometown of Little Rock. Badly outgunned but very game, Ouma absorbed an extraordinary amount of punishment from the heavy-handed Taylor in losing a 12-round decision. Since then, Ouma has not been the same fighter.  He took a year off before losing a split decision to Saul Roman. Post-Roman, rumors of substance abuse and bad training habits have clouded the atmosphere around Ouma, and he has not looked good in losing to Cornelius Bundrage and Gabriel Rosado, fighters he should have been able to handle.

Ouma fought with renewed strength against Martirosyan. He robbed the taller Martirosyan of distance -- Martirosyan punched past Ouma for most of the night -- and did solid work with both hands inside.  (Ouma also used his head effectively, something that has always been part of his game.) I do not know whether to think that Ouma has gotten serious about his work again or that Martirosyan is not what we thought he was -- though I lean toward the former view -- but Ouma definitely held his own against a bigger, younger, fresher guy who had a lot to fight for and Freddie Roach in his corner.

It would have been nice to see Ouma get the decision. He has been a fight fan's fighter, he has a great backstory, and he is a charming personality. Redemption, as we know, is one of the classic memes of the fight game, and as in the case of Rocky Balboa, it sometimes comes even when victory proves elusive. Perhaps Kassim Ouma earned a measure of redemption on Saturday night, even in defeat.

I’ve always been enamored with “heels,” the bad guys, be it in professional wrestling or in boxing. While boxing is a true sport and wrestling is eloquently described nowadays as “sports entertainment,” they share similarities many of us would probably rather ignore. Not me. The following is a carefully considered, objectively reasoned, and utterly biased list of the biggest heels in boxing, the guys we love to hate, pay to see lose, and will ultimately cheer when they are inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame (ok, not all of them). My extremely loose criteria include a history of behavior to raise the ire of fans, enough success to justify their continued presence on the boxing landscape despite said behavior, and an oversized or cartoonish persona that entertains even as they irritate.

With all the animosity and unrest among boxing fans, I figured I might as well add fuel to the fire. (Yeah, I’m not too popular.) On to the list, including heel credentials:

If anything could go ugly in boxing lately, it's gone ugly. It's like everyone involved in the sport is conspiring to kill it. I don't mean literally. I doubt that's the idea. But all its warts are flaring up, and it's really gross to look at right now.

On a Top Rank-produced card on Fox Sports Net, Top Rank-promoted junior middleweight Vanes Martirosyan won a wide decision that should have been close at best and in my view was a win for his opponent, Kassim Ouma. There's nobody who watched this fight who could reasonably have thought it was a bout where Martirosyan won eight of 10 rounds, but that's how one judge had it, and the other two had it seven to three.

Boxing has got to do something about its judging. It's becoming a major crisis, and when paired with some recent mega-foolishness -- Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao falling through, Bernard Hopkins-Roy Jones II happening -- it's a real turn off.

A review of the fight, the card, and a side of Friday Night Fights thrown in there:

The above ad may or may not be running in Boxing Digest and other places. PETA was kinda weird about answering my questions about it, saying it was a PSA that would run wherever publications had space for it, since PETA is a non-profit and was hoping pubs would run it for free, although I see they also have paid PSAs.

Whatever. I'm happy to show it to you all. It's a topic I've long cared about, and I think it's a point well-made. I've always rejected arguments that boxing and dogfighting are in any way morally equivalent, and it's cool of Shane Mosley to use his fame to make the same case. It's also free publicity for him in advance of his Jan. 30 welterweight fight against Andre Berto, so it's win (for dogs) win (for Mosley) win (for me).

This edition of Quick Jabs avoids any discussion of a certain recent collapsed megafight. Besides the headline, it'll take a look at what's next for the likes of Erislandy Lara, Randall Bailey and Michael Katsidis, and plenty more on top of that. I should like it if they give you satisfaction, these Jabs, thrown Quickly.

We're not supposed to be saying the zed-word, I know. We did the autopsy of Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao and we'd begun moving on. But a development like this -- it doesn't just get buried, never to surface again. This is the kind of thing that hangs around for a while, and we're going to have to live with it, even if it's dead.

The rehashing continues, and some of it is worth visiting. The projecting what will happen next continues, and it, too, is worth visiting. There are news developments to consider; there are ways in which we should maybe be thinking about how the media -- which includes myself -- and we, as fans of the sport, could do better.

Be forewarned: This is rambling material that borders on free association. It is befitting a flood of information and fallout for which patterns are only just emerging, of opinions expressed and trends manifested that are scattershot.

This is the time of year when boxing writers begin to forecast who's "next" in the sport. Ring's Doug Fischer has already done a great job of running down the list of up-and-coming prospects. Maxboxing's Gabriel Montoya has compiled a nice list of boxers a notch above that: prospects who could be graduating to contenders. Me? I'm thinking of more proven -- but still young -- fighters who could be making a quantum leap, be it from promising talent to stardom or, perhaps, from stardom to the standard-bearers for professional pugilism.

Last year, I did something quite similar. As before, I'm limiting those I considered to 30 years old or under. There are always late bloomers who develop into big stars after they turn 30 -- think Juan Manuel Marquez or Israel Vazquez suddenly becoming ticket-sellers later in their careers -- but for the most part I'm looking for people who could stick around for a while. And what do I mean by stardom, exactly? I mean boxers who could become members of boxing's elite, the pound-for-pound types, or could advance on that list if they're already there; I mean boxers that hardcore fans or even casual fans want to watch perform. It's a kind of mix of each. I've got two tiers: one for the particularly strong candidates and another for good candidates, the former getting more extensive treatment than the latter. They aren't in much order besides that. I've also limited my focus to stardom in the United States. I love boxers in Japan and everywhere else, but as global as boxing has become, most everyone still wants to become a star in America, when it comes right down to it. It remains the biggest stage for the time being.

To say the least, this is an inexact science, as it requires predicting the future. (Ask HBO, which inaugurated a similar list in 2009 and saw some of its candidates suffer setbacks.) Some will advance to the next level and some won't. Some will lose and bounce back in 2011. Some people who didn't make my list last year made unexpected quantum leaps in 2009, so somebody not even on my list may emerge. All I'm doing here is trying to give my guide to people to watch out for, in my opinion, of people who have a chance of making it bigger.

The garden is looking rosy for British boxing right now, with a handful of leading lights in full bloom and a host of promising young bulbs beginning to pop their heads out of the soil and up into the sunshine. In a bid to set up what may be in store for 2010, let’s take a gander through the stables of Britain’s pre-eminent matchmakers.