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This sad image is what happens when you're only in it for the money.. and when you're too blinded by your 2,500-watt smile and million dollar paydays arrogant to see that you're time has long since passed.

It's easy to say that Oscar de la Hoya should have called it a day after Floyd Mayweather took his boot of justice to him in the final rounds last May, but even with hindsight being what it is, was there ever any doubt?

In rounds 9 - 12, Pretty Boy taxed the gold finish off de la Hoya with 71 connects (vs. 27) and 27 power shots (vs. 23). And what was so disheartening about it all wasn't that Mayweather's slick counterpunching was suddenly too much to handle; it was that Oscar didn't have anything left for a proper response. He had no legs, no power and a connection rate that you'd expect of a tomato can on Friday Night Fights. Still, he managed a respectable split decision that allowed him to leave the ring with his head held high. And with Mayweather's retirement scuttling the possibilities of a rematch, it was the perfect opportunity to walk into that quiet good night.

But no, de la Hoya went looking for trouble because as much as he loves making money, he clearly loves blowing big fights even more. What's worse is this time, he not only blew the fight but also had to sit idly by while his corner threw in the towel. It was a shameful moment for boxing that never should have happened.

Sure, de la Hoya v. Pacquiao seemed like a waste of time what with ODLH sporting 4-inch height and 6-inch reach advantages against an undersized guy with a suspect jaw that jumped 2 weight classes to fight him. But Manny Pacquiao isn't The Contender's Steve Forbes and he isn't a smoking, boozing and slightly insane Ricardo Mayorga either. Manny Pacquaio is a tenacious, ferocious pugilist. And while that wouldn't have mattered against Oscar even three years ago, it certainly does and did in a year when a guy that couldn't even win a boxing reality show easily took him the distance.

Oscar de la Hoya should have been doing the rumba with one of those oversexed broads on Dancing with the Stars. He should have been buying a Grammy for another one of his lame Latin Pop "records." He should have been making a bajillion dollars promoting young, talented fighters through Golden Boy Promotions. He should have been anywhere but the ring and now his legacy will pay dearly for it.

It's pretty sad. But let me take a selfish angle here and tell you what else will suffer - any affection I ever had for Oscar de la Hoya. And no, it's not because he and his old balls went down like a one-eyed bitch. Or because he's been a weak 3 - 3 since his failed rematch with Shane Mosley. It's because now, Manny Pacquiao will fight and beat Ricky Hatton and do you know what that will do? It will pull Floyd Mayweather Jr. out of retirement to counterpunch Pacquaio back to the Philippines and take official ownership of the mythical pound-for-pound title. Don't get me wrong, Pretty Boy is a joy to watch but I've had enough of his "I'm an insufferable, ungrateful, preening douchebag that leaves my house just to wave around hundred dollar bills" to last a lifetime. We get it, Floyd. You're the best. You're the greatest. You're rich. And even more, you hang out with 50 Cent.

Thanks to Oscar de la Hoya, we're about to hear more about it. Times ten.

Great work, Oscar. Ass. 

In the most laughable case of denial in sports, George Foreman is now claiming that he was secretly drugged prior to 1974's Rumble in the Jungle - the heavyweight title bout against Muhammad Ali in Kinsasha, Zaire. 

Foreman believes his trainer gave him a tainted cup of water (he only remembers it as being "strange-tasting") just prior to the fight:

"I almost spit it out ... Man, I know this water has medicine in it," Foreman told his trainer at the time, according to his book. "I climbed into the ring with that medicinal taste still lingering in my mouth ... After the third round, I was as tired as if I had fought 15 rounds. What's going on here? Did someone slip a drug in my water?"

No, George. Muhammed Ali rope-a-doped you to death in oven-like heat until you'd punched yourself into exhaustion. And when you were finally gassed, he dotted your face up with combinations before busting you in the jaw and sending you head first into the canvas. How hard is it to wrap your brain around that result?

If you're Foreman, I know it's probably easier to think that one of the greatest sporting events of the 20th century - and likely all time - was rigged.. that there exists some plausible explanation for why you - the single greatest puncher in heavyweight history, the man that turned Joe Frazier into a beaten child in two rounds - lost a fight because your opponent essentially allowed you to punch yourself into oblivion. But there is none. Ali's strategy was legal and if Foreman had been poisoned, he would have gone down long before the 8th.

In the end, it comes down to this - did you win? If not, sell your grills and shut your mouth. It's been 30 years.

As a side note, I can't help but be amused at the title of Foreman's memoir, "God in My Corner." Say George, where was God when your trainer slipped you that mickey finn? Maybe he was in Ali's corner working on a conversion.

Since that night in Las Vegas, I've been hopelessly drawn to the most brutal of sports. Foolishly, many believe that boxing isn't an athletic competition but a showcase of barbaric corruption that brings the masses to that primitive place in their souls and feeds their lust for bloodsport.

But boxing is the closest any athletic contest comes to purity. It is a nasty reflection of life, rife with pain and failure, greed and hate, dishonesty and corruption. For the worthy, it offers pride and grace, honor and nobility, but the worthy are few and far between.

All my love for soccer, football, baseball, and basketball does not change the fact that boxing has always been my favorite. The sport has declined in recent years but it remains a beautiful display of determination, durability, and power that demands constant training of both the body and the mind. Miss a workout, skip some roadwork, waste some time partying and chasing wool, and you'll be exposed in the ring.

Unlike team sports, where ineffectiveness and laziness are rewarded by a teammate picking up the slack, all a fighter has is himself, and no matter how badly he's losing, he's still in the game. If a team is down by three touchdowns with 3 minutes to go, they need four, Peyton Manning, and some help from God. But in boxing, a fighter can lose 9 straight rounds but only needs one punch, that knockout blow, to shift the tide.

How can you not love that? The footwork, the dips, slips, bumps, and pushes... The sweet science is poetry in motion and there's nothing better in sport than watching two professionals with a true understanding of their trade putting on a show. Tonight's bout between Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. may be the sweetest of them all.

Since the date was announced months ago, I've begged and begged my father to get tickets and about a month and a half ago, he came through - just like he always does. Since then, the wait for May 5 has been almost too much to bear but now that the day is finally here and we're in Vegas yet again, things feel a bit, I don't know, bittersweet. Less than six hours remain before my dad and I are thirteen rows away from watching the greatest fight twenty years. But less than six hours also remain before the last great fight of a dying sport is under way. As excited as I am for things to get started, I can't help but feel a twinge of sadness in knowing that by the time midnight rolls around, the sport of boxing that I have grown to know and love - a sport that has provided some of the great memories of my life - will be gone.

Heart Prediction: de la Hoya by TKO
Head Prediction: Mayweather in a decision 

I’m guessing that I'm the only person around here that watched the Mosley-Collazo fight on HBO Saturday night, yah? … I know, I know – boxing isn’t nearly as cool as MMA; boxing sucks; it’s not 1980 anymore; blah blah blah. I hear you but it’s just not sinking in. I will be loyal to boxing for the rest of my days and nothing can be said that will convince me of MMA’s superiority.

Anyway, if you come to my house on Saturdays, you know that it’s fight night. And this past week, we had Sugar Shane Mosley and Luis Collazo squaring off for the WBC Welterweight title. But the mood grew bleak about a minute before the two touched gloves when Larry Merchant actually said:

"When Callazo's handlers said the other day that sugar melts under heat, Jack Mosley (Sugar's dad and trainer) responded that sugar can give you diabetes and is bad for the heart... one of them (dramatic Larry Merchant-esque pause) has to be wrong."

Oh, ya think, Larry, you self-righteous, senile old fuck!! I want to clock you in the face. You'd think Jim Lampley would be good for it but he's too busy beating on his lady friends. Christ.

Before Mosley foolishly upped sticks to the junior middleweight division a few years ago, he was a joy to watch. Fast, fluid, and powerful, he was the kind of fighter that made all the brutality look beautiful. He was the best pound-for-pound fighter in boxing and even when he took down Oscar de la Hoya (my then-favorite) in a 12-round decision, I couldn’t help but love and appreciate his style. 

But then he started putting on muscle mass and even more muscle mass. It wasn’t long before his name came up in the BALCO scandal, which, given the looks of him, wasn’t too surprising… he could have benched 80 pounds with his ear lobes alone.

Too tight to punch accurately or throw combinations, he settled for the Mike Tyson method – loading up for single blasts under the theory that bigger men required bigger power. Though he beat de la Hoya for a second time to become one of the few boxers to reign in three divisions, he got his ass handed to him twice by Winky Wright. Eventually he came back to his home at 147 and here we are.

Though Mosley looked good in his bout against Fernando Vargas last year, I thought he’d go down on Saturday. Collazo was a counter-punching southpaw with youth on his side. No matter how good Mosley said he was feeling, Collazo would jab, jab, and jab again until Mosley simply wore out. And at 35-years-old, what could Mosley possibly do to prevent it?

Beat his ass – that’s what he could do. And that’s what we happened. Mosley destroyed Collazo in a 12-round unanimous decision, knocking him down once and lighting him up like an unworthy chump in each successive round.

Shame on me for expecting a sluggish, aging Mosley. He turned back the clock and delivered an impressive, dominating performance. Mosley’s footwork and combinations were dazzling; he sported quick hands, harder punches, and a zip, passion, and energy unseen in years.

Collazo had a few eye-catching punches and tried to throw the jab so successful against Ricky Hatton but Mosley ducked them, got to the inside, and dotted up Collazo’s face and body with three-punch combinations. It was brutal. And it’s exactly what I’ve been wanting out of a boxing match since Floyd Mayweather Jr beat Arturo Gatti into a bloody mess nearly two years ago. I don’t know who Mosley has next but I’m looking forward to it… After Mayweather and de la Hoya retire, at least somebody will be left that knows what he’s doing.

Last year, my dad took me to the Mayweather/Gatti fight, where we witnessed a nasty beatdown from the 7th row. I knew Pretty Boy's next step was the Welterweight WBC crown, so I hoped to fly to Las Vegas with my dad for the action. As luck would have it, my job got in the way and I had to stay around here.

But I couldn't complain - a title fight between a modern-day Cinderella man and the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world on a 60" plasma. It could be a lot worse.

So after the game, we ordered the fight, a few kegs, a lot of pizza, and set up a viewing party at $10 a head. I didn't know about anyone else, but I was expecting a helluva fight.

Before the action began, I called a 12-round, unanimous decision in Mayweather's favor but was sure Baldomir would make it entertaining. I saw what he did to Zab Judah and Arturo Gatti. The Argentinian isn't a puncher with true KO power but he's gritty, durable, and has a chin made of stone. Mayweather lacked the power to bring him down the way pound-for-pounders of old could. If Baldomir could get him on the ropes and unleash a furied, sustained assault on the body, Floyd could make a few mistakes, allowing Baldomir to capitalize and make a run at a great finish.

Sadly, the contender thought too much of himself and too little of his opponent, convinced that natural strength alone would nullify lightning-quick speed and ability.

During the first round, I thought Baldomir looked tentative because he was trying to feel out the situation.  But it became readily apparent that he looked slow because he was doing the last thing a man in his position should -- engaging in a thinking man's game. Floyd Mayweather Jr is too fast and skilled for a guy who moves like Unfrozen Caveman Boxer to handle. You don't box guys like Mayweather; you come correct with a balls to the wall attack and hope for the best.

By the end of the first round, Baldomir had a bloodied nose and cut above his left eye. And as you can guess, things went from bad to worse. Amazingly, it took four more rounds before he realized his strategy was a one-way ticket back to feather-dusting sales in Argentina.

At least, I think it was four rounds... that's how long it took for the "Oh fuck" expression to settle across his face.

Were Baldomir up against any other boxer, he could have turned it around. But Mayweather was boxing on a different plane. He threw too many punches from too many angles and left the Argentinian looking sluggish and overwhelmed. His only answer to Mayweather's hit and run, defensive style were these spectacular whiffs, which occurred at a frequency that would make Jeff Francouer blush.

The fight got so boring that in the 7th round, Larry Merchant - whose inane babbling has reached a head - started rolling out the baseball references:

"So far through 7 innings we have a Kenny Rogers style shutout."

Someone must've written that joke for Merchant. It takes him 45 seconds to voice the most basic of sentences. I refuse to believe this attempt at an amusing metaphor was produced under his own brain power... he was probably reading Jim Lampley's cards.

In any case, it was around this time that Mayweather started coasting. He dipped in here and there for a jab or two, connected on a few straight righthands, and, when we were lucky, a half-hearted attempt at a combination. By the 11th round, the boobirds were in full force, both at the fight and my house.

At the conclusion, Mayweather revealed that he hurt his right hand sometime in the 6th round, which limited his ability to throw punches. But the truth is - he wasn't doing much before the 6th anyway, so that's not much of an excuse. 

This fight was worth about $5 of the $50 pricetag until Larry Merchant got owned.

LM: You've often talked about boxing as entertainment. You came to the ring as a gladiator, but do you think this is particualrly entertaining? There were people booing and leaving their seats after the 10th and 11th rounds...

FM: You always give me a hard time, you never give me the credit I deserve. You're just a commentator; stick to commentating... let me do the fighting. I'm the best at what i do... Don't always be a critic and be so negative. Let's be positive. I got the victory... You've always got your fingers crossed, you're hopin and wishing a fighter can beat me... You always talk, let me do the talking! Larry Merchant's just a commentator, he dont' know nothin about boxing!

(Merchant hemmed and hawed through all of that and then regrouped)

LM: Are you looking forward to fighting Oscar de la Hoya? Do you think this fight will get him in the ring with you?

FM: If Oscar de la Hoya wants to leave by fighting the best, bring it on, and I'll tax that ass too!

LM: *jaw drops.. drooling ensues* 

So in the end, we got our drama. Larry Merchant is an abomination and Floyd Mayweather punched him in the mouth with criticism that I've been dying to deliver for years. That was nearly worth the remaining $45!

That said, I'm not wasting $50 to watch another fight that's over before it even begins. Floyd Mayweather Jr is an unbelievable talent but I'm sick of such underwhelming victories. I want a show, god dammit! I want punches! I want exchanges! I want a fucking brawl! And until HBO can produce quality bouts on regular broadcasts, they shouldn't have the nerve to put them on pay-per-view.

Two thumbs down, HBO. I only wish I had more hands to give this broadcast four thumbs down.