Mandatory Eight Count: Memorial Day Hangover Edition

Acosta KOs Moses in six, wins lightweight belt (The Ring)
Paulus Moses lost his WBA lightweight belt to Miguel Acosta by sixth round knockout in Namibia on Saturday. Moses (25-1, 17 KO) was part-mirage to begin with, as his best wins came over Yusuke Kobori and Takehiro Shimada, neither of whom are exactly world class, though both are credible enough. Acosta (27-3-2, 21 KO) was fighting for the first time since knocking out Urbano Antillon in a shocker last July. The 32-year-old Venezuelan is quickly moving up the lightweight ranks.

Vazquez keeps title with stoppage of Bedak (MiamiHerald.com)
Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. kept his 122-pound belt on Saturday with a 10th round stoppage of Zsolt Bedak. Vazquez (19-0-1, 16 KO) is quickly becoming one of my favorite young fighters. Bedak (15-1, 5 KO) is one of those technically solid guys who was just overmatched against Vazquez, who has gotten really good pretty quickly. Roman Martinez kept his 130-pound belt in the co-feature, beating journeyman Gonzalo Munguia.

Lazarte Shocks Tamara By Decision To Claim IBF Belt (BoxingScene.com)
Carlos Tamara, who upset Brian Viloria in a hell of a fight earlier this year to win the IBF 108-pound belt, tried to take an easy fight with Luis Alberto Lazarte in Argentina, with his team even admitting that Lazarte was the easiest fight for proper money they could get. Lazarte (47-9-1, 18 KO) won a split decision over Tamara (21-5, 15 KO). That Lazarte beat Tamara is really not terribly surprising. That Tamara ever beat Viloria is, at least if you are able to forget Viloria's up-and-down performances.

Encountering Barrera: Deregulation, bad experiences, and Edwin Valero (15Rounds.com)
The day after Barrera easily survived 12 rounds with Manny Pacquiao, never imperiling himself or Pacquiao, en route to a unanimous-decision loss, I wrote of his relationship with Golden Boy Promotions: "Barrera had become an overqualified employee in De la Hoya’s company, a guy who was too smart for the corporation, quietly resenting each new workday and the boss who caused it." "Exactly," Barrera said, when I paraphrased this for him.

Briggs-Calloway full report (Fightnews.com)
Chris Perry's rather in-depth coverage of a pretty irrelevant fight, with no offense really intended to anyone involved. Rob Calloway believes Shannon Briggs still has a shot against anyone, including the Klitschkos. Briggs probably is still one of the best punchers out there in the heavyweight division, so who knows?

Japanese Scene Update: Daiki/Sakata Finalized, Nagashima Retires (The Boxing Bulletin)
Sidney Boquiren keeps you up to date on the happenings in Japan. Most notable, Daiki Kameda will be fighting Takefumi Sakata.

A Boxing Legend: Angelo Dundee (WTSP)
WTSP in Tampa did a story on Angelo Dundee, now 88 and as talkative and lively as ever. It's kind of refreshing to have a guy like Dundee, who actually still likes and cares about boxing and doesn't dismiss everything as having been better when he was younger.

Why is it so hard to have undisputed boxing champions? (BBC Sport)
Do we have to go through this again? The answer is simple. Greed. Money. Bullshit. People who don't care about boxing being any healthier than it absolutely has to be. TV people who will market anything as a "championship" fight. The only people reading this are the minority of people who realize this is a problem. Everyone else just doesn't care, and they're not about to start.