With the Joshua Clottey-Carlos Quintana fight off for December 5, heavyweight slugger David Tua could be in position to capitalize. (Photo via www3.pictures.gi.zimbio.com)

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Dan Rafael reports today that with the cancellation of Kelly Pavlik's fight with Paul Williams on December 5, the welterweight clash between Joshua Clottey and Carlos Quintana that was going to be positioned as the co-feature is also down the drain. Williams will keep the December 5 date, but Top Rank (promoters for Pavlik and Clottey) have totally pulled out of the event.

I really feel bad for guys like Joshua Clottey and Carlos Quintana, who were supposed to open the HBO telecast Dec. 5. Now they're out because that was Top Rank's fight, and it won't be involved in a reformulated card. It would be nice to see HBO stick with the fight, but that's not going to happen. Instead, don't be shocked to see the return of heavyweight Cristobal Arreola. And don't be surprised if David Tua faces him. Clottey went from thinking he'd meet Shane Mosley in December (until HBO reneged) to being bumped to an undercard against Quintana to being left with nothing. Quintana was supposed to fight Saturday in Puerto Rico but was taken off the card for the bigger opportunity against Clottey. Now Quintana has nothing, either.

This is something I mentioned yesterday when the cancellation news came down the pipe, that it would be truly unfortunate if Clottey and Quintana got scrapped because of the Pavlik pull-out, and that's the case indeed. It's a good fight -- not a great fight, but a good fight -- and both guys had a strange journey to get there in the first place. Mosley-Clottey was an HBO jerk-around, and Quintana dropped out of a tune-up fight this Saturday in Puerto Rico to take a bigger, more important, and much tougher fight with Clottey. Now they'll both sit around and make no money.

The possibility of Arreola-Tua is somewhat intriguing, though I hesitate to get all excited about a potential war. There's a good shot at an early knockout. Tua can still punch, and Arreola can throw some bombs himself. I almost want to favor Tua because I've been a fan of his for so long and he's a great guy and all that, but I just don't have the rosy memories of David Tua: Mr. Destruction that so many people seem to have. I remember him knocking out some guys, and that John Ruiz crushing, and then having all kinds of trouble when he stepped up in class. Arreola has basically done the same thing, except he's only stepped up once. And I take little from Tua's bashing of Shane Cameron, because Cameron isn't near Arreola's league.

But all that said (and I don't know who I'd pick because it's such a shootout scenario), I guess if I have to watch heavyweights lumber around, I'd at least like to watch the two that throw punches. A loss to Tua could really crush Arreola, though, especially considering losses to Tua usually came at the end of a brutal barrage of punches.