Lawmakers Fight To Get First Black Heavyweight Champ Off Ropes With Pardon For False Conviction » Jack Johnson, the first African-American to become world heavyweight boxing champion, overcame racism and poverty to slug his way to the top. • Efforts to clear his name of a bogus conviction for transporting a white woman across state lines for immoral purposes, however, have not been as successful… GROMER JEFFERS Jr., www.dallasnews.com

Pacquiao: Floyd Needs Tune Up Before Facing Me » With talks about Floyd Mayweather Jr. “going unretired”, Manny Pacquiao has shared his thoughts about the return of boxing’s former pound-for-pound king. • There were observations that Mayweather Jr. maybe opting to come out from retirement to challenge Pacquiao, the current ruler of the pound-for-pound list… abs-cbnNEWS.com

Is KO Artist Edwin Valero The Lebron James Of Boxing? » Knock Out sensation Edwin Valero from Venezuela just may be the LeBron James of the sport of boxing. • Edwin Valero has an amazingly impressive boxing fight record of 24 wins all by way of KO and 0 losses. The first 18 of those wins came by a first round knockout setting a new record at the time for most 1st round KO’s ever. • Valero even grabbed a few championship belts such as the WBA super feather weight belt from Vincente Mosquera via a 10th round TKO. • So you may say to yourself well why the hell have I never seen this exciting boxer fight before… King J, bleacherreport.com

Boxing’s Black Eye   The race-related talk for the last few years has been all about baseball. So many concerns, so little activity, so waiting on results. • The decline of the black ballplayer seems to be the new epidemic: The sport that changed racial relations and acceptance in America has an African-American population of around 8 percent, less than half of what it was in 1997 (17 percent). • But with all the concern about the lack of blacks in baseball, another plague has slipped under the race radar in sports. • If you think baseball has a black problem, start looking at boxing… Scoop Jackson, espn.com