Chavez Jr vs Martinez Undercard: Mike Lee's Opponent Named

Mike Lee, the Subway guy who went to Notre Dame and is thus kinda famous because his squeaky-clean image makes him a pearly white marketer's dream, will be part of the HBO pay-per-view undercard for all of those reasons on September 15, and now has an opponent named.

Those hoping Lee (10-0, 6 KO) would fight a live body will be disappointed, as he'll be taking on Missouri club fighter Paul Harness (4-3-1, 3 KO). Missouri is known for a lot of things in boxing, but among them today is a really healthy club scene where non-fighters are given professional records, which allows them to be served up as an appetizer to someone else later on.

I mean, I don't say this to "hate on" Paul Harness, who probably never really imagined he'd ever be on an HBO pay-per-view. Good for him.

It's just that no matter how hard I try to be more positive, and nice, and laid back about these things, because really, it doesn't matter, especially if you start getting into The Grand Scheme of Things, where all of boxing is pretty insignificant, I have a hard time discussing things like this in press release speak, where maybe instead of going "he's just some dude from Missouri, really, and he's no threat to Lee, or at least that's the intention," I would say something like:

29-year-old Paul Harness, a native of Saint Joseph, Mo., has never been stopped in his professional career. On September 15, Notre Dame's Mike Lee will look to become the first man to knock out the durable Harness, when the two meet on the HBO Pay-Per-View undercard of Chavez Jr vs Martinez, live from the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.

I could do that, I guess, or I could talk about things in a way that amuses me and hopefully someone else, somewhere, because you'll have plenty of press releases to read if you look around long enough. So to the Mike Lee fans I may deeply offend, or the Missouri residents who might "why I oughta" at my stereotyping their club fighters as pre-meal snacks for real, or potentially real, fighters, or for those fighters who would in turn, and rightly I guess, say, "," my sincerest apologies.

For the rest of you, the Subway guy is fighting some dude from Missouri on September 15 and it's on a PPV show. He is there because he brings in some fans and Top Rank wants to see if he might sell a few pay-per-views, too, to people who couldn't care less about Chavez Jr-Martinez. As it is "good for" Harness that he's here, "good for" Top Rank, I guess. Because AT THE END OF THE DAY, who really cares one way or another? This is a fight that is on card that you were either going to watch, or not going to watch, and the existence of this changes nothing, because it's not important enough to change anything. Bon appétit!