By Michael Katz

Photo © Fightwireimages.com

Boxing, as a whole, returned to the PENTHOUSE in 2007. The view may be just as good, or better, in 2008. I still say, “Bah, humbug.”

As I sip the bitter brew from my curmudgeon’s cup, the one with the pictures of Grumpy, euphoria easily gets tempered, especially when my fighter of the year talks not of facing his obvious challenger but of investigating mixed martial arts. It matters not that the cup was a present from that fighter’s attorney.

On the other hand, if Floyd Mayweather Jr. does leave the scene of his untoward millions to mess around on the floor of some unpapered cage, would anyone hear British boors (no, that’s not redundant) booing the Star-Spangled Banner in the forest?

There was a re-surge in boxing this year, especially down the stretch. Pay-per-view records were shattered, crowds swelled here and abroad and best of all, good fighters were fighting good fighters. The axiom of good fights make good fights is holding true; the early schedule of 2008 indicates a continuation of the upward spiral. The heavyweight division may be populated by stiffs, but at least the best stiffs seem to be lined up against other best stiffs early in the year. There is another Olympics on the way, which of course means more Cuban defections to infuse fresh blood into the sport.

A year in which we lost Hank Kaplan sadly, Diego Corrales tragically, and where the competitive ends came for such stars as Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales and James Toney, was balanced in part by the removal of Hap Hazzard as New Jersey czar. But Jose Sulaiman is still doing his darndest to ruin everything.

The loss of Mayweather in 2008 would scarcely create a murmur. His seeming reluctance to fight a real welterweight contender, the deserving Miguel Cotto, would lead to arguments not as to his place in ring history, but to his character.

Frankly, I don’t think that much of either.

His latest self-given nickname, “Money,” in place of “Pretty Boy,” makes him the Madonna of boxing. His concern for material goods, as opposed to glory, diminishes his appeal to the unwashed masses. Tossing away $100 bills at strip clubs is as endearing as throwing his boxing skills on the ground and rolling around.

He should be interested in building his boxing resume. He can not say, though he does, that he has nothing more to prove. Yes, he is a hall of famer even if he were to quit now. Thing is, if his hands give out next time they hit Uncle Roger’s pads, he will not have accomplished nearly enough to make his way into history’s top fifty and we would then always wonder if he coulda been a contender for all times.

He is not yet. Mayweather is of course the best around these days, but despite his Sugar Ray Robinson imitation against Ricky Hatton – he knocked Hatton down, and virtually out, with a left hook moving backwards, a la the true greatest against Gene Fullmer? – I still sense he would not have done as well against a 147-pound Sugar Ray Leonard or Thomas Hearns. Never mind Robinson – whoever would make that match could be accused of premeditated manslaughter. I’d be inclined to pick Pernell Whitaker and/or Aaron Pryor against him.

I’m still not positive Mayweather would beat some of the bigger welterweights of today, like Cotto or Sugar Shane Mosley. Not that I would bet against him unless I got some unlikely generous odds. Mayweather is damn good. And I’d rather watch him make an opponent miss than have to view crap like Sakio Bika and Jaidron Codrington wind up like Dontrelle Wills like boxing novices, no matter what the Dandy Dans and Joe Tessitores say.

Mayweather is smart and he has remarkable business acumen. It is why I suspect he feels that the Cotto match is not quite at the boil, not quite ready to become the brightest jewel in his collection. It is not within his character to be clamoring for a match with the undefeated Puerto Rican icon. His mantra has long been that he has proved his worthiness and doesn’t need any more gold stars. Don’t believe him. This whole business with mixed martial arts is, I feel, as sly a feint as any he performs in the ring.

A showdown with Cotto is big now, but imagine how it would grow if between now and, say, next fall, Cotto defeats a Joshua Clottey (a gimme) and Antonio Margarito (a bit tougher, but not much). Mayweather won’t have to clamor for the match; the rest of the sports world will.

Mayweather’s overall advancement is a main reason I picked him over Cotto, Kelly Pavlik, Juan Diaz, Joe Calzaghe and Ivan Calderon, in that order, as fighter of the year (honorable mentions to Nonito Donaire, who scored the knockout of the year over Vic Darchinyan; Chad Dawson, Cristian Mijares and fight of the year participants, Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez). All were highly deserving. True, Cotto beat better opposition in Zab Judah (whom Mayweather defeated last year) and Mosley. Pavlik was close to Cotto, but I feel the Jermain Taylor who almost knocked him out was inferior to the Shane Mosley that Cotto edged. Certainly, the Oscar de la Hoya that Floyd toyed with was hardly in that class and poor Hatton was just too small and, though it made no difference in the long run, was handicapped by another rotten job by Referee Joe Cortez, who broke the fighters every time the Englishman got within range.

Juan Diaz took over the lightweight division by making Acelino Freitas and Julio Diaz quit. Freitas was no big deal, perhaps, but the other unification bout was. Calzaghe, when you think about his wonderful performance against Mikkel Kessler – probably only Mayweather’s closing of the show in the last few rounds against Hatton was better – all he did in 2007 was beat a Contenders loser (Peter Manfredo Jr.) and a Dane. Calderon, slipping at 32 and now fighting monumentally bigger foes after moving from 105 pounds to 108, always deserves at least an honorable mention.

But no other fighter dominated 2007 the way Mayweather did, in the astounding pay-per-view numbers – of course helped by the opposition. He went from a rather unpopular boxing star, especially among a large segment of boxing fans, to a major crossover sports attraction. His management, Al Haymon and Leonard Ellerbe especially, deserve much credit for expanding his universe all the way to “Dancing With the Stars.” (But I’ve got to say, not only did Sugar Ray Robinson hit harder, he was a professional tap-dancer during one of his retirements.)

I don’t take Mayweather’s flirtation with mixed martial arts – note, I refuse to capitalize it – any more than I did with his claims of retirement after he beat de la Hoya (ditto). He’ll be back and he’ll fight Cotto and if Hatton brought out the best in him so far, imagine what the bigger and stronger Cotto might do. At that point, it might come about that we would truly miss Mayweather when he leaves.

GUARANTEED: Despite all the nice talk about Joe Cortez before the fight from the Mayweather camp, there’s no way the Puerto Rican referee will be allowed to work a fight with a Puerto Rican star like Cotto – especially since the Mayweather lawyer who gave me my curmudgeon’s cup, John Hornewer, worked in a similar capacity for Kirk Johnson, who was penalized repeatedly by Cortez for hitting John Ruiz anywhere near the body….Maybe the Ring magazine era of adding to boxing’s confusion is happily coming to an end. No one wants to recognize Joel Casamayor as the real lightweight champion and certainly how the hell can Mayweather be called the real welterweight champion if he ducks Cotto? And never mind Oscar owning the rag…..Love to see Casamayor fight David Diaz – stylistically, it would not be that bad a matchup because the Chicago branch of the Diaz family forces opponents to fight and Casamayor is too old to run very far or for very long. Then the winner could face Juan Diaz and no one would need Ring to say it’s for the entire 135-pound title….Amazing how little the world’s greatest promoter has done with Juan Diaz, one of the most exciting performers around. I hate to say it, but I think Don King has gotten old….Boy, even look as if you’re criticizing Ring and there’s this one sicko-fan writer who goes nuts. When Steve Kim, one of the best around, opined that maybe the alphabets weren’t ALL bad, he incited Eric Raskin to go after him on the same maxboxing.com site, the way he did against me which caused me to leave. Only, Kim is a co-owner of maxboxing and guess who’s the one who had to leave.

NO SALE: Yes, I bought Evander Holyfield’s last title attempt. I bought Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.’s pay-per-view, even the meaningless Ricardo Mayorga-Fernando Vargas pissing contest. But I finally said no to the Valero-Linares double-header for $30 a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t need a divining rod to know the two favorites were going to score knockouts and while I’ve never seen the undefeated Edwin Valero, I knew he wouldn’t be around very long. I was lucky to be ringside when the undefeated Jorge Linares won his slice of the featherweight title against Oscar Larios so I already knew how brilliant the young Venezuelan was….Just a reminder. Tis the day before Boxing Day and all through the house, there were whispers of dives and Bruce (The Mouse) Strauss.

LARRY LEGEND: I was at the New York Daily News when I got the phone call in 1985 from Larry Holmes. He was seeking my help. “I don’t want to look like an ass-hole,” he said. “You know how I felt about the Rock.” A few days earlier, after suffering what the judges said was his first loss, to Michael Spinks in Las Vegas, preventing him from going to 49-0, he had opened his big mouth and put his bruised ego inside.

He said Rocky Marciano, who had of course retired at 49-0, “couldn’t carry my jockstrap.”

Winning fighters are more likely than losers to mumble their way into the OUTHOUSE. Losers usually have the vinegar beaten out of them. That night at the Riviera in Las Vegas, Holmes said all the right things after the very questionable decision went against him (at worse, he should have gotten a draw, I felt). He thanked those who had been with him during his long reign, wished Spinks luck and needed help to make it out of the ring and into the post-fight press conference.

But smirking in the back of the room was Peter Marciano, the Rock’s brother who had been lighting candles in the hopes that Holmes would lose. I remember Stan Musial following Pete Rose around from town to town when The Man’s National League hit record was about to be broken so he could be there in person to congratulate Rose. From what I learned of the Rock, I felt he would have been rooting for Holmes – after all, his record could not be broken, it was his personal record, not some thing in the books like 60 home runs. But Peter Marciano, who later apologized for his behavior, set Holmes off on his tirade.

A few days later, he called and set off a discussion among Daily News editors about whether we could use “ass-hole” in print. I was perfectly willing to accept “ass,” but argued that the longtime heavyweight champion had used the more descriptive noun. It went in the paper as “ass-hole” and I was among those called on the carpet.

I digress. The point is that Holmes was delightful after his two greatest defenses, against his idol, Muhammad Ali, and Gerry Cooney. He could never escape Ali’s considerable shadow; but after beating the ghost of his former boss, he hurried through the post-fight press conference to rush upstairs and visit Ali.

Ali was too weak to attend the press conference and was lying on his bed when Holmes entered his Caesars Palace suite. “Holmes, I want Holmes,” Ali said weakly, repeating his slogan from the pre-fight buildup.

“You want to go a few more rounds, Boss?” said Holmes, who was so proud to be an Ali sparring partner he once ran home with a black eye to show everyone what he had acquired from The Greatest.

“No, man, you’re bad,” Ali whispered.

“Well, look at the teacher I had,” said Holmes.

It was right out of “Gentleman Jim,” the Raoul Walsch film where Jim Corbett, played by Errol Flynn, tells John L. Sullivan (Ward Bond) that he was glad to have fought him when he did, and not years earlier.

That was the real Larry Holmes. His problem was that he talked straighter than that marvelous left jab, perhaps the finest in heavyweight history – not as powerful as Sonny Liston’s perhaps, but infinitely quicker, and not as fast as Ali’s, but much, much harder. In fact, Richie Giachetti, Holmes’s trainer, said Holmes had improved Ali’s jab from their rounds as sparring partners. Before Holmes, Ali would flick his left and be moving backwards before it landed.

Holmes, making it into the International Hall of Fame at Canastota on his first year of eligibility, was in many ways an Ali clone in the ring. When he qualified for his WBC title shot against Ken Norton, Holmes was almost a clone of Ali in dancing and jabbing his way to an incredibly one-sided decision over Earnie Shavers. He had Ali’s foot speed, the great chin and a heart that enabled him to somehow get up when Shavers, in their rematch, knocked him down so hard Larry would joke later that hitting the canvas woke him up.

I’d put Holmes in my top three or four heavyweights, behind Ali and Joe Louis and I’m not sure if anyone else belongs ahead of him – maybe the younger Sonny Liston. He would have been given hell by Joe Frazier, the same as Ali was; he was given hell by Ken Norton, the same as Ali was.

It was a shame that, like Ezzard Charles following Louis, Holmes was never embraced by the public. He had some bad press. There were stalwarts, and I might as well include myself, like Pat Putnam of Sports Illustrated, Fast Eddie Schuyler of the Associated Press and Jerry Izenberg of the Newark Star-Ledger, who were not only chroniclers but silent rooters.

But the influential columnist Dick Young was his enemy. Holmes had an old buddy, Luis Rodriguez, as his nominal publicity man, but the fighter was basically an orphan in the Don King organization. King was more inclined to publicize other heavyweights, like Shavers and Norton. Richie Giachetti wisely allowed the working press into Holmes’ hotel suites before fights to have long discussions. This was Larry at his relaxed best.

One time, though, Giachetti allowed Young in for a one-on-one interview. The trainer left the room, but as he was passing through, he overheard Young telling the heavyweight champion that he would never make it big until he got another P.R. agent. Young recommended a close personal friend (who, incidentally, had no idea that the columnist was doing this). Giachetti, irate that a newsman would interfere like that with his fighter, kicked Young out of the room. The next day, a column about “Larry Who?” appeared and Young almost got into a fist fight with Izenberg. Later, when Young crossed another line, Holmes had him forcibly removed from a training session.

Then there was the racial thing. Before the Cooney fight in 1982, a Boston Globe reporter – no, not Ron Borges, this was before his time – wrote an unsubstantiated piece that Holmes did not like whites. Holmes’ family was filled with white brides for his brothers. The source of the story was a disgruntled former trainer who was somewhat past it.

But the result was that whites stopped going to Holmes’s restaurant and bar in his home town of Easton, Pa. His mail box at home was blown up. Holmes-Cooney, through no fault of the fighters, became a racial war. Both camps brought guns to Caesars Palace.

Holmes survived the fight. He knew going in, from his P.R. guy, Rodriguez, who had competed in the same Long Island Golden Gloves tournaments as Cooney, that the big left-hooking challenger had a good chin, but was vulnerable to blows on the temple. In the second round, Holmes knocked him down with such a shot, but he also knew from Rodriguez that Cooney was perhaps most dangerous when hurt.

From his corner, which that night consisted of Eddie Futch and Ray Arcel (Giachetti had been fired by King), Holmes was told to bide his time, that Cooney would not be able to negotiate a 15-round fight. Holmes, absorbing some terrifying body shots, finished the job in the 13th. He subsequently began to sing Cooney’s praises.

I’ll never forget his advice to me when I visited him in Easton months before the Cooney fight. My wife was pregnant and Holmes said, “Don’t do what I did with my first two kids. I was out making a name for myself and didn’t spend enough time with them. Make sure you see your kid every day.”

He made a name for himself, a great one.

OUTHOUSE: Bernard Hopkins, obviously, for that crack to Joe Calzaghe about he’s not going to lose to no white boy. Shame on the man who, let’s not forget, trampled on the Puerto Rican flag before he fought Felix Trinidad Jr. I’m not saying Bernard is a racist, but like his old buddy, Don King, he seems to be using race as a way of selling fights. Not as obvious, though, he is joined in the sty by his Golden Boy Promotions buddies, Oscar de la Hoya and Richard Schaeffer, who did not wash his mouth out with soap….Also, let us not forget the redcoats, who again booed our national anthem. I did not wait until I saw the red of their bloodshot eyes when they did the same before Ricky Hatton’s fight in Vegas against Jose Luis Castillo. Ian Darke, the British TV commentator, then disgustedly put the drunk and disorderlies down by saying they weren’t really boxing fans but “football (soccer) fans.”

PENTHOUSE: For his performance in the ring, and his behavior immediately afterwards, Floyd Mayweather Jr. deserves some recognition, but that would make the award too narrow. This is for all the guys, and gals, who made 2007 a much better year than what we have become used to and hopefully they will continue in the upcoming months.

R.I.P. He was a giant, Hank Kaplan, and the gentlest of them all. It was a privilege to run into him from time to time and partake of his knowledge, which he gladly shared with anyone asking. There have been better farewells written – the Washington Post, krikya360.com by Ron Ross – than I could manage, but there is no worse way to end a year than to lose someone like Hank.