Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao put on one of the decade's best fights in 2004. HBO is currently replaying the fight online. (Photo via www.reviewjournal.com)

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In anticipation of the September 19 fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Juan Manuel Marquez, HBO is playing Marquez's epic first fight against Manny Pacquiao from 2004. For those that have never seen it, it's a genuine classic, one of the decade's best and most memorable fights. The resolve, skill and heart that Marquez showed in this fight is on another level.

Click here to watch the fight on HBO.com (QuickTime format, there's also a Windows Media option)

Another good reason to watch this fight right now: If you're having trouble getting yourself hyped for Mayweather-Marquez, I think watching some of Marquez's greatest fights is a good way to get in the mood. It's the warrior spirit and guile of Marquez that will make this fight memorable if anything does.

Marquez might well go down hard and swinging on September 19, but this fight proves one thing for sure. He's a hard man to keep down.

This is one of the few times I'll say something really positive about this fight's promotion. Actually, HBO has done fine, putting a "24/7" in place and now doing stuff like this. They're trying here, but they're fighting an uphill battle and then some at this point.

When the third man in the ring does his job well, the spectator shouldn't even really know they're there - they should be making sure nothing dirty happens, and facilitating the flow of the fight.  Here are a few prime examples of where the referee wasn't doing their job. And please - feel free to add your own in the comments.  There are so many of these out there that I'm not mentioning that are poorly done for so many different reasons (e.g., every Laurence Cole fight, Joe Cortez not letting Ricky Hatton fight on the inside, etc.) that I can't possibly name all of them.  And I know there were a few old, old fights that I just don't know well with all kinds of horrible things happening, especially in the old Vegas fights where local politicians and mob bosses with no experience were often the referees.

Juan Martin Coggi vs. Eder Gonzales - This fight had one of the strangest sequences ever.  Coggi knocked down Gonzales and appeared to be cruising on his way to victory.  As Coggi backed Gonzzales into the ropes, Gonzales came back with a HUGE right hook over the top, knocking Coggi down like a tree.  Coggi didn't get up until about 15, and even then, he was bouncing off the ropes like a pinball.  Gonzales was then knocking the snot out of Coggi in the corner, when the referee inexplicably broke them up and didn't give Coggi a count.  At that point, Coggi still couldn't stand, but the referee didn't intervene.  The referee then hugs Coggi, as if the fight is over, and Gonzales starts celebrating that he just won the championship, but the fight isn't over!  Then Coggi's corner gets up on the ring apron, which should have been an automatic disqualification (notwithstanding the fact that Coggi had already been knocked out twice), the time stopped for about 30 seconds for Coggi to recover, and the fight continued.

Arthur Abraham vs. Edison Miranda I - Here's another example of home field advantage, and poor refereeing led to a rematch.  Edison Miranda was deducted a total of five points in this fight, two of them on ticky tacky calls, but that's not the big part.  In the fourth round, Miranda broke Abraham's jaw.  Abraham, tough guy that he is, fought on with the fairly gruesome injury, and continued to come forward.  In the fifth round, Miranda nailed Abraham with an unintentional headbutt.  It was a legitimate butt, but didn't really buzz Abraham.  Despite this, the referee Randy Neumann gave Abraham the full five minutes to recover, all the while letting both the doctors and his corner come up on the apron to treat Abraham's broken jaw.  At that point, there were really three legitimate options - Abraham DQ because his corner was on the apron during a round, doctor's stoppage because Abraham was unable to continue, or the doctor checks out the injury, lets Abraham continue and the fight moves on without serious recovery time.  Instead, none of those things happened, and Abraham was given lots of time to recover and the fight continued.  Abraham won by controversial decision, in part because of the deductions, but then cleared things up in a rematch, knocking out Miranda in 4.

Julio Cesar Chavez vs. Meldrick Taylor I - This was actually a well-refereed fight, but the ending is too controversial not to be mentioned here. Taylor was beating Chavez pretty soundly in the fight, although Chavez had been beating Taylor up to the body all night.  Taylor's corner gave him some all-time stupid advice before the 12th, telling him he needed the knockout.  Rather than playing safety first and cruising to a decision victory, Taylor came out, guns blazing, and got in a firefight.  In the last 30 seconds, knowing he needed a knockout, Chavez went whole hog, wailing with bombs and eventually backing Taylor into a corner, knocking him down with 16 seconds left to go.  Taylor got up by the count of 7, but didn't take a step forward or lift his gloves.  Referee Richard Steele looked in his eyes, and later said he saw a glassy look like Taylor didn't know where he was.  With 4 seconds left and Taylor otherwise ensured of a victory, Steele waved off the fight, giving Chavez the KO victory.  Taylor was never the same after that fight.  While he was the better fighter in the ring that night, he took a ton of damage, enough to effectively end his career as a top fighter.

Sven Ottke vs. Robin Reid - The referee probably snatched victory away from Reid this night, ensuring that Ottke could keep his VERY questionable undefeated record.  First, Reid very clearly knocked down Ottke with a hard right to the head.  The referee called it not a knockdown, and the fight continued. Then the referee kept warning Reid for leading with his head, when it was Ottke who was pulling Reid into headlocks.  Then, the referee actually deducted a point from Reid for - landing a punch!  He said the deduction was for a headbutt, but there was no butt, only two right hands that landed.  Reid ended up losing by two points.

Danny Williams vs. Konstantin Airich - This was just one of the strangest fights out there, period.  The referee deducted points when there was no foul.  The referee called no knockdown when there was a knockdown.  The referee called knockdowns when there was no knockdown.  The referee complained to the fighters that they were actually throwing too many punches.  One of the rounds got shortened by over a minute because the promoter rang the bell when his fighter was in trouble.  Despite the referee doing everything in his power to ensure an Airich victory, Williams was able to score the knockout.  Here's Scott's full post on this one, which goes into all the shenanigans in detail.

Lucian Bute vs. Librado Angrade I - A bad job refereeing, but in my opinion, the right call.  You already know this one, but here's the video:

Sergio Martinez vs. Kermit Cintron -This 'draw' was one of the worse robberies in history.  Martinez knocked down Cintron with a big right hand.  The referee counted to ten while Cintron was on the ground, but Cintron got up before the referee waved off the fight.  Still, the rules say that at the count of ten, the fight is over.  Cintron then proceeded to complain to the referee that he was knocked down by a headbutt (on replay, it was clearly a punch, and a very good one at that).  The fight continued, even though the referee made it to 10.  In the end, Martinez only made it out with a draw in a fight where he clearly won at least 8 rounds and scored a knockdown.  One of the only fights I can think of where the fighter was robbed by both the referee and the judges at the end of the fight.

Feel free to add some of your own in the comments, especially with respect to older fights.  It just seems like there's been a lot of very questionable refereeing lately, but I'm sure this is nothing new.

In the current era of four major belts and diluted power among the sanctioning bodies, some pretty crummy fighters have won (and sometimes even hung onto) belts.  If a belt is only as strong as its champion, then here are a few guys that the ABCs should be ashamed they let even get into a position to win a belt.

Luis Santana.  Santana had lost 7 of his last 10 fights when he got his opportunity for titles and the lineal championship at 154 against Terrible Terry Norris.  He won the title by faking getting knocked out by a punch to the back of the head.  This was similar to what Francisco Lorenzo was able to pull off against Humberto Soto, only this time the sanctioning body didn't say they wouldn't award the belt.  Then, he managed to actually defend his titles in a rematch with Norris by constantly jawing at him, until Norris got so ticked off that he actually decked Santana between rounds, getting disqualified again.  At about the 55 second mark of this video, you can see exactly how Santana both won, and defended, his belts:

Outside of Norris, his best win was against Shawn O'Sullivan, a protected Canadian fighter.  He faced many of the best of his era, and he literally lost to all of them.  He retired with a career record of 42-17-2, including the two disqualification wins that he's most famous for.

Eric Aiken.  "Mighty Mouse" Eric Aiken had a 15-4 career record when he got his title shot.  Included among those four losses was a loss to 6-5 Leo Martinez, 2-3-1 Antonio Oliveiros, 5-0 Johnny Edwards and Al Seeger.  Both Edwards and Seeger were subsequently destroyed in one round by Yuriorkis Gamboa.  Aiken got his title shot when he was a late replacement in a title eliminator against Tim Austin, who got knocked out by Aiken while ahead on the cards and subsequently retired.  Aiken then won his title by defeating then-undefeated Valdemir Pereira, who was disqualified for repeated low blows, and who also seems to have retired after that fight.  Pereira himself had only won the title by beating a Thai fighter with a puffed up record (who had lost all of his previous step-up fights) for a vacant title.  Since winning the title, Aiken has gone 0-3-1.  Granted that has mostly been against good competition, but the difference in class was obvious even when he was facing guys like Thomas Mashaba and Monte Meza-Clay, and his draw was against journeyman Cruz Carbajal.  

Carlos Maussa.  Sometimes one punch is all it takes to win a title.  Maussa is a wild mauler, and there's really no better way to describe it.  Immediately prior to getting his title shot, he lost to Arturo Morua, who has gone 6-8 since fighting Maussa.  Even though he was a late replacement, the Harris-Maussa fight probably never should have been sanctioned as a title bout to begin with.  On paper, it was an obvious mismatch, and that mismatch carried forward into the ring for the first 5 or so rounds.  However, Vivian Harris melted down before our very eyes, losing all of his stamina, and Maussa took advantage, knocking Harris out on a wild hook.  His next fight, Maussa was dominated by Ricky Hatton.  Then he was beaten soundly by fringe contender Manuel Garncia, and then knocked out in one by Victor Ortiz. 

Michael Bentt.  When someone tries to tell me that I should count Joe Calzaghe's WBO title defenses from the '90's as major victories, this is about as far as I usually need to go to point out that the WBO title WASN'T a major belt back in the '90's.  Bentt was a top amateur with a bit of bad luck early on.  He actually lost his pro debut to a nobody, claiming that he lost because nobody told him he was facing a southpaw.  After nine easy touches (best opponent: 14-10-1 Mark Wills), Bentt was brought in to be an easy opponent for Tommy Morrison, who was trying to set up a big money fight with Lennox Lewis.  Bentt sparked him quickly.

After that fight, Bentt next faced Herbie Hide, who ended Bentt's career with a one-sided seven round knockout beatdown.  These days, Bentt is an actor, having played Sonny Liston in the movie "Ali", and a big chunk of why he gets the work is because he can plausibly claim to be a former heavyweight champion of the world.

Some other candidates you may know and love (or hate): Leon Spinks (narrowly beat Righetti for a shot, then beat a very old Ali, but lost every other significant fight of his career and ended with a record of 26-17-3); Gavin Rees (Kotelnik exposed how extraordinarily limited he was); Alex Arthur (who won his belt while drinking in a pub because Joan Guzman was stripped, and proceeded to give a speech as if he had just gone 12 hard rounds to win the title); and James "Bonecrusher" Smith (finished his career 44-17-1; had Chazz Witherspoon's number, but everyone else had his).

Feel free to add your own in the comments.

Nearly a decade ago, Joey Gamache was knocked unconscious and nearly died during a controversial fight with Arturo Gatti. All these years later, a brain damaged Gamache is still searching for justice. (via assets.nydailynews.com)

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It may seem to some like the wrong time to talk about this nearly decade-old black eye on boxing given the recent death of Arturo Gatti, and I sort of skimmed past it out of respect for what Gatti did in his career when we discussed his legacy, but there's no mistaking the fact that Gatti's controversial 2000 knockout of Joey Gamache is a story that shouldn't go away until something is done.

I loved watching Arturo Gatti. I was a huge fan of his, as pretty much everyone that loves boxing was. But that February night nine and a half years ago when Gatti knocked Gamache unconscious still sits wrong with a lot of people, and Gamache himself, who nearly died from the fight, is still in court trying to find justice.

The judge in the case, Melvin Schweitzer, winced several times during the video, apparently troubled by what took place.

Gamache nearly died in the hospital that night, and sustained permanent brain damage from the nearly six minutes of action.

Soon after, he sued the New York State Athletic Commission for negligence, claiming that Gatti was allowed to weigh in over the contracted weight limit of 141 pounds. Gatti entered the ring with what appeared to be a considerable size advantage.

For those that have seen the fight, or even a photo of the two in the ring together, it's hard to argue that Gatti didn't clearly have a size advantage. He did. The weigh-in was the source of much controversy, as it seemed the scales may have been tampered with. They agreed to fight at 141 pounds. Gamache made the limit fine. Most believe Gatti did not, including highly-respected boxing journalist Thomas Hauser:

"I don't know anybody outside of the Gatti camp who seriously maintains that Gatti made weight for that fight. They jumped him on and off the scale very quickly. It seemed pretty clear to me that someone at the commission had been told in advance that there might be a problem and the response was, 'Don't worry about it.'"

On fight night, HBO's unofficial scales had Gamache at 145 pounds. Gatti weighed 160. And though Joey Gamache has been left brain damaged by the fight that nearly killed him and ended his career, but he doesn't blame Gatti:

"He was a fighter, just doing what he's supposed to do," Gamache says of Gatti. "The commission was supposed to protect us fighters."

Arturo Gatti was scheduled to testify for both sides in this case. We'll never know what might've happened with that. Now, nobody but Gatti's team and the people involved with the weigh-in really know for sure, and the article, while very interesting (especially taking boxing jargon and knowledge into the courtroom), is an emotionally told tale. Still, you can't help but continue to wonder if Gamache's life could have been totally different, and if it should have been. It's one of those terrible stories that shouldn't be forgotten.

The much talked-about documentary covering the infamous 1983 fight between Luis Resto and Billy Collins has been renamed Assault in the Ring (originally called Cornered) and will air on HBO on August 1 at 10pm ET. This is one everyone should watch. It's one of the all-time worst stories in boxing history, but it's important to not forget that it happened.

Here's the original trailer, which I feel is more compelling than the HBO trailer. But rest assured it's the same film.

At this point, there's a very strong argument that Manny Pacquiao is the greatest Asian fighter of all time; however, rather than making my own argument, I'll just present you with some video and key facts, and let you be the judge.

Flash Elorde - 88-27-2 (33 KOs)

Pros:

• First Asian inducted into the IBHOF, in 1993
• Voted by Ring magazine as the 78th best fighter of modern time in 2002
• Arguably the greatest super featherweight of all time, with an eight year reign
  
• Win over inner-circle hall of famer Sandy Saddler

Cons:

• Never won a title at lightweight or featherweight in multiple attempts
• Win over Saddler was at the very tail end of Saddler's career
• Had about 10 losses, not always to top competition, in what was arguably the prime of his career. 

Khaosai Galaxy - 49-1 (43 KOs)

Pros:

• An absolute beast who knocked out just about everyone he faced; had a reputation for being such a brutal puncher that he literally 'ruined' his opponents
• His lone loss came seven fights into his career, meaning he had 43 wins in a row, including 19 title defenses
• Arguably the top super flyweight of all time
• Solid wins over Rafael Orono, Israel Contreras and Ellyas Pical
• IBHOF inductee in 1999, voted by Ring Magazine as the 19th biggest puncher of all time, and the 43rd best fighter of modern time by Ring Magazine in 2002

Cons:

• Never faced many of the other top fighters near his weight class, including Jiro Watamabe and Gilberto Roman (although Watanabe gave up his belt rather than face him)
• Only had four fights with other prior, current or future titlists in his career
• Seven of his title defenses came against fighters with less than 15 fights of experience, several of whom lost the majority of their fights after facing Galaxy
• Only once fought outside of Asia

Fighting Harada - 55-7 (22 KOs)

Pros:

• Handed all-time great Eder Jofre the only two losses of his career
• Lineal champion in two weight classes (and fought for the title in a third) at a time when there were only 8 weight classes
• Fought the best of his era, with all but two of his losses coming against other top level fighters (including a close and disputed loss against hall of famer Johnny Famechon)
• Voted the 32nd best fighter of modern time by Ring Magazine in 2002
• Inducted into IBHOF in 1995

Cons:

• Both wins over Jofre were relatively close and on Japanese soil (although there isn't much controversy that they were fair wins)
• Fought almost exclusively in Japan
• Has a couple of bad losses on his record during the prime of his career
• Career was on the short side for someone who fought in his era, as he retired as soon as he thought he was declining

Manny Pacquaio - 49-3-2 (37 KOs)

Pros:

• Only fighter to ever win lineal championships in four weight classes
• Won titles in six different weight classes
• Wins over future hall-of-famers Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera and Oscar de la Hoya (and possibly Juan Manuel Marquez and Ricky Hatton)
• 14-2-2 against former, current and future titleholders

Cons:

• Loss against Morales in the prime of his career, and two very close fights against Marquez that a lot of people thought he lost
• Most of the best fighters he faced were past-prime, and de la Hoya was completely shot
• Relatively shorter career compared to the old-timers
• Only 8-1-2 in official title fights
• Fought in an era with four title belts and 17 weight classes

Pancho Villa - 92-8-4 (22 KOs)

Pros:

• First Asian titlist ever, beating all-time great Jimmy Wilde for the flyweight title in New York City
  
• Probably only scratched the surface of his greatness, as he died at age 24 due to complications from a tooth infection (although some do think he was poisoned)
  
• Voted the 59th best fighter of modern time by Ring Magazine in 2002
• Mostly fought under circumstances that are now hard to imagine - a foreigner who doesn't speak the language, being transported by train all over the country, usually fighting two or three times a month with no set gym to train in.
• Never knocked out, and was only down 5 times in his career, despite facing several big punchers (Wilde is often lauded as the hardest puncher pound for pound in boxing history)

Cons:

• Relatively short career for his era, because of his death
• A couple of losses to less than spectacular fighters
• Outside of Wilde, Jimmy Buff and Frankie Genaro (who he lost to twice), not as many notable names on his record as some others, though a lot of this is mitigated by the fact that he never had the chance to due to his death

I choke up a little bit every time I remember coming in on May 7, 2007, turning on ESPN, and seeing the scrolling news that Diego Corrales was dead.

The exciting "Chico" lived just 29 years and nine months on this earth, but he left boxing fans with a lifetime of memories, most notably but not limited to his unbelievable 10th round stoppage of Jose Luis Castillo on May 7, 2005 -- two years to the day before he died in a motorcycle crash in Las Vegas.

My mind immediately shot back to that fight, and I had to watch that 10th round again. Here it is in all its glory:

It was the greatest fight I have ever seen. And it still gives me chills.

Diego Corrales was not the greatest boxer ever. But he was special. He was a man that refused to give up no matter how dire the circumstances. In this case, he came back and sent shockwaves through the boxing landscape. In other cases (his overwhelming loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. and his final fight against Joshua Clottey), he tried until there was nothing more he could possibly offer, even though the only thing left was a final bell to ring. He was the bravest, gutsiest man I've ever had the pleasure of seeing fight in my generation.

Boxing still misses you, Diego, and we'll never forget your contributions. May you rest in peace.

DIEGO CORRALES

1977-2007

Man, if there were ever a movie I absolutely MUST SEE...

My two favorite Tex Cobb quotes from his fighting days:

1. During the Holmes massacre, referee Mills Lane asks Cobb, "Do you know where you are?" Cobb responds, "I'm in Reno, getting the sh*t kicked out of me."

2. "Larry Holmes doesn’t hit as hard as Earnie Shavers. Nobody hits like Shavers. If anybody hit harder than Shavers, I’d shoot him."

IMDB for Collision Course (1989)

via media-2.web.britannica.com