By Sean Waisglass: Television cameras caught a poignant moment during Lucien Bute’s ring entrance inside Montreal’s Bell Centre Friday night. As the Romanian-born IBF super middleweight champ - who’s now a beloved adopted son of the Canadian boxing Mecca - walked the aisle in the midst of spotlights, a live band, and nearly 14,000 cheering hometown fans, the broadcast cut to a shot of challenger William Joppy, waiting in his corner, his face darkened by the shadows of the dimmed ring lights as

By Sean Waisglass: Montreal based Cameroonian Herman Ngoudjo is stepping back into the ring and onto the airwaves today in his first bout since his split decision loss on HBO to Jose Luis Castillo in January. The junior welterweight contender will look to climb his way back up the rankings by taking on hard-hitting former title-holder Randall Bailey on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights in Montreal’s Uniprix Stadium.

By Sean Waisglass: The recent death of Trevor Berbick and the resulting mention in his obituaries about how he was the last man to both fight and defeat Muhammad Ali jarred loose the disturbing memory of a televised pre-fight dressing room interview I’ve got on tape from that night in Nassau.

By Sean Waisglass: HBO and Golden Boy Promotion's "Too Close To Call" card was a rare beast - a Pay Per View actually worth Paying To View. The mouth watering triple bill of Barrera/Juarez II, Vasquez/Gonzalez, and Guzman/Barrios gave fight fans a nice variety of punch for their dollar: a hard fought boxer vs. slugger match that saw the rise of a new future star in the sport, an all-out war featuring a division champ that's a candidate for Fight of the Year,

By Sean Waisglass: There's no arguing that the Barrera/Juarez rematch was somewhat of a letdown considering the intensity and drama of their first bout, when it looked like the aging superstar's career might finally be winding down as he worked to fend off the charges of the next generation.

By Sean Waisglass: Poor Ricardo Mayorga. First Oscar De La Hoya busts him in the chops and takes his junior middleweight belt, then he gets kicked in the groin by journalists while he's down.

By Sean Waisglass: Middleweight contender Kingsley Ikeke must be taking some measure of solace in fellow 160 pounder Winky Wright's fight Saturday.

While the California-based Ikeke is travelling to Germany to battle contender Arthur Abraham on the same night in order to finally get in the ring with someone in the division's top tier, Wright is facing off against Sam Soliman in a showcase bout on HBO that's attempting to set up a PPV match against current champ Jermain Taylor.

By Sean Waisglass: Capable of much more than the average person, top level athletes are often superheroes of sorts in that they allow us to transplant the kind of admiration usually reserved for fictional comic book, novel, or movie idols to reality.

By Sean Waisglass: There it was in the weekend paper: a Reuters news agency photo of two boxers in the ring sitting on their stools. Both men were stripped to the waist and wearing standard-issue trunks, their hair wet with sweat. All the trappings of a typical bout were present plus one glaring and notable addition - a chess board placed between the two combatants.

By Sean Waisglass: After a tumultuous year that saw Steve Molitor leave his long time trainer/manager, undergo eye surgery to correct his vision, wait out an eight-month layoff, and go through another trainer switch just weeks before a serious fight, things are finally back on track for the undefeated Canadian junior featherweight.