Miranda Offers Career Advice To Abraham Calling in from his training camp in Puerto Rico, super middleweight contender Edison ‘Pantera’ Miranda chuckled when he was read the latest statements from his June 21st opponent, Arthur Abraham, who stated that in their highly controversial first bout in 2006, if he failed to beat a man who had his jaw broken, he would have taken a job as a night watchman. • “I agree with you Arthur, if it was a one-on-one fight,” said Miranda of the first bout, one marred by questionable officiating.  “Unfortunately for me, I was fighting you and the referee, and most people who saw the fight still believe I won…” —Source: www.boxeomundial.net

Magic Man Ready For Hatton IBF light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi should be fit for a potential autumn showdown with Ricky Hatton despite fracturing his hand on Saturday. • Malingnaggi sustained the injury during his split-decision win over Lovemore N’Dou at the City of Manchester Stadium on the undercard to Hatton’s title defence against Juan Lazcano… —Source, www.skysports.com

Mancini Says Pavlik Will Knock Out Lockett It was a case of one favorite son to another. • Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini showed up at Youngstown’s Southside Boxing Club to take in a workout by world middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik last week. The lightweight champion from 1982 to 1984 was also back home on business from Los Angeles as he worked on a documentary about his old stomping grounds. • Mancini, 47, said Pavlik (33-0, 29 KOs) should be able to take care of business when he defends his WBC-WBO titles against Gary Lockett (30-1, 21 KOs) in Atlantic City, N.J., on June 7. But there are intangibles… —Source: www.cleveland.com

Episode 4: Pt.2— Gary “Kid” Stark, Jr.

Episode 3: Pt.1— Gary “Kid” Stark, Jr.

Episode 2: Gotham Boxing • Episode 1: Kid Chocolate

Pre-Fight preview with some of boxing’s top journalist and personalities including Bert Sugar (ESPN) and Harold Lederman (HBO). 

Part 1: Cotto vs Margarito

Hungry Hatton Out To Prove Naysayers Wrong Against Lazcano A red-eyed Ricky Hatton staggered into the room after a night on the town. • Quietly, he sat down in a small conference room adjacent to the MGM Grand Garden Arena, his features and demeanor betraying the raw emotion of genuine grief as he faced the full gathering of British media. • His words were drawn out but he spoke with a heartfelt passion. • “I’ll be damned if Ricky Hatton is going to finish [fighting] after getting knocked out for the first time in his life by someone,” Hatton said. “No chance. You all know me and you know that I’d rather die than finish on a loss, lying flat on my back. Now could you please switch off the camera before I start crying?” —Brian Doogan, sports.espn.go.com

Juan Lazcano Keen To Exploit Ricky Hatton Weaknesses In Manchester Juan Lazcano believes that Ricky Hatton’s return to the ring so soon after his first defeat is a brave move, yet premature, and explained his plans to exploit this against the Mancunian, still considered the world No 1 light-welterweight prize fighter. • Lazcano admitted yesterday he took two years away from the ring following his first career defeat back in 1994 – partly to grow up, partly to recover emotionally - yet the 33-year-old Mexican-born fighter feels he is facing Hatton at the perfect moment. —Gareth A Davies, www.telegraph.co.uk

New Champ Bradley Seeks More Success Timothy Bradley, whose first professional fight outside his native California has earned him the WBC light-welterweight title, is keen to become undisputed world champion in the division. • Bradley was a surprise winner against champion Junior Witter in Nottingham on Saturday night, putting the Englishman on the canvas on his way to split points decision. —Source: edition.cnn.com 

Mike Tyson Film Takes A Swing At His Old Image IF, as the novelist Joyce Carol Oates once wrote, “boxing has become America’s tragic theater,” then one might cast Mike Tyson — the former world heavyweight champion and self-professed “baddest man on the planet” — as the leading man. • Yes, against all odds, Mr. Tyson is still alive. A pudgy 41-year-old who is millions of dollars in debt to the Internal Revenue Service, he has been living in the Las Vegas suburbs for about three months. And he is sober — 15 months now, he says — after years of drug and alcohol abuse. But this was not an envisioned outcome just a few years ago. In Mr. Tyson’s own words, “I never thought I’d live to this age.”—By TIM ARANGO, www.nytimes.com.

(Bradley/Witter photo by John Gichigi/Getty Images)

Esquire Covers Commemorate Boxing’s Prime There was a time when the sport of boxing actually had what one might call “juice.” Boxing once enjoyed broad cultural capital, as evidenced in words such as “pugilist” and phrases such as “the sweet science,” which echoed across everything from sweaty boxing gyms to haughty literary salons. I am reminded of boxing’s back-in-the-day ethos every time I see the George Lois-designed Esquire magazine cover from December 1963. This particular cover features a close-up of boxer Sonny Liston’s mean mug, while he sports a red and white Santa Claus hat. Might this image be what The Godfather of Soul had in mind when he said “Santa Claus go straight to the ghetto”? —Todd Boyd, sports.espn.go.com 

Electronic Arts Announces New Boxing Video Game Project: Fight Night Round 4 In a glitzy event Wednesday that brought in media from around the world and some of the top boxers in the sport’s history, Electronic Arts launched the development of its Fight Night Round 4 video game, promising it will raise this virtual world to new heights of realism. • The event at the company’s Burnaby campus was a hyped fusion of sports, entertainment and technology, blurring the boundaries between all three. With pulsing music and an authentic boxing ring set up in the games giant’s motion capture studio, “Sugar” Ray Leonard, Lennox Lewis and Ronald “Winky” Wright all came bounding out from behind a curtain to take centre stage under a sea of red lights and cameras that would capture their every move. —Yvonne Zacharias, Vancouver Sun

Mayweather Session Leaves Khan Looking For Fresh Directions Ricky Hatton’s nemesis, Floyd Mayweather, has an ominous message for the Hitman. “Tell him I went easy on him because I kinda like the guy, but if we fight again at Wembley, which is what he wants, I’ll really turn it on. There’ll be no mercy this time.” The chilling warning was delivered in Las Vegas to Amir Khan, when the Commonwealth lightweight champion spent an educational hour in Mayweather’s flamboyant company before the Calzaghe-Hopkins fight. • Khan was invited to Mayweather’s gym for a workout and was surprised when the welterweight champ, recognised as the world’s supreme fighting machine, offered advice. “I couldn’t believe it,” Khan says. “He seemed to know everything about me, where I came from, who I’d fought, how many knock-outs I’ve had. —Alan Hubbard, www.independent.co.uk

(Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)

>> Check out the ‘Fight Party!’ pics from Oscar De la Hoya vs Steve Forbes, Home Depot Center (Carson, California 5/3/08) Enjoy!

(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)