For a while, Mike Tyson's Maori warrior mask tattoo was big news. But like everything else, today becomes yesterday.

Edwin Valero has a big Mao like Hugo Chavez tat dead center on his chest, just south of what became the ugliest cut on a boxer's head in recent memory. The cut was definitely worse than the tattoo but the tattoo was pretty bad. Especially for a demented fighter tried to get a US visa.

Diego Corrales wore some of my personal favorites, not because they were great in themselves but because I loved Diego. The tattoo reminded us that the mild manner exuded in his interviews was emanating from a former gang banger and a killer in the ring.

Now Kelly Pavlik has re-appeared with a body full of some of the most absurd if not the ugliest panoply of tattoos since Popeye was taken off the air.

I am a believer that there is a correlation between fighters who have tattos and those who, after career changing losses, begin to tattoo themselves. Cotto was beaten badly by Margarito and came back to meet Josh Clottey with, yep, a body covered in tattoos. Margarito was beaten by Mosely and sure enough, new tattoos. Now Mosely post Floyd has his own shoulder set with new ink.

It is almost as if these warriors have chosen to create a shield of sorts. Whether it is to project or to protect them or both, I do not think massive ink is a coincidence. Freud may have  a better explanation but I see a correlation.....and a pattern. But that's just me.

But I ask you: Who do you think has the worst tattoos?

Or for the matter who do you think has the best?