MORE MERCHANT: Larry On JMM, Floyd, Oscar

By Michael Woods

He is not the sort who when he is not assigned to an event, chooses to steer clear of all things fistic. Larry Merchant didn’t work the Juan Manuel Marquez/Juan Diaz HBO Championship Boxing card in Texas on Saturday, but he did watch that thriller, and the entertaining co-feature as well. TSS reached out to one of the fight game’s top pound for pound analysts, poet laureate Larry Merchant, to get his take on what went down.

Merchant was impressed by JMM’s work against Diaz, and like all of us wondered early in the fight if the 35-year-old had gone graybeard overnight, and wouldn’t be able to keep up with the young buck Diaz, ten years his junior. read more

Filed under: Floyd Mayweather, juan diaz, Juan Manuel Marquez, Larry Merchant, Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao, Ricky Hatton

Will the Golden Boy call it a career?

By Dan Rafael

Pardon Oscar De La Hoya if he just doesn’t know what to do. The 10-time titleholder across six weight divisions is really struggling right now.

Should he stay?

Or should he go?

It has been three months since he took the beating of his life, an eighth-round TKO loss to Manny Pacquiao in which the favored De La Hoya was not at all competitive against a smaller man. After the eighth round, his face swollen and his spirit broken, De La Hoya retired on his stool, and many wondered whether it would be the last time they saw him box.

Since a postfight interview with HBO’s Larry Merchant in the ring following the bout, De La Hoya has kept a low profile. He didn’t attend the news conference after the fight because he was at the hospital, and he came out of his cocoon only briefly in January to help promote a mixed martial arts event with which his company, Golden Boy Promotions, was involved. read more

Filed under: Bernard Hopkins, Dream Match, Golden Boy, Larry Merchant, Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao, Manny Pacquiao, Oscar de la Hoya, Sugar Shane Mosley