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Albert Sosnowski deserves a heavyweight championship shot about as much as Sylvester Stallone, only he has less chance to win the belt than Rocky might.

He faces World Boxing Council champion Vitali Klitschko in what is certain to be another one-sided Klitschko beatdown Saturday in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Sosnowski is 45-2-1 with 27 knockouts, which is a championship-worthy record. Records in boxing mean next to nothing, however, because of the time-honored tradition in the sport of padding a record with more soft touches than a Dairy Queen.

Sosnowski has zero – yep, zero, as in none – quality wins. He's never fought a legitimately ranked contender before, let alone beaten one.

In his last four fights, he lost every round of an eight-rounder to the eminently forgettable Zuri Lawrence; he stopped a year's-over-the-hill Danny Williams in eight; he drew with Francesco Pianeta and he won a wide unanimous decision over Paolo Vidoz.

The stuff

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LAS VEGAS – Quinton "Rampage" Jackson would be on any short list of the greatest mixed martial arts fighters of all time, but it's always seemed like, despite all of his accomplishments, something was missing.

He won the Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight title by knocking out Chuck Liddell at UFC 71. He became the first man to simultaneously hold UFC and the PRIDE Fighting Championship belts when he defeated Dan Henderson at UFC 75.

Yet, for much of his career, the sum of his parts was greater than the whole.

Jackson is rarely what you expect him to be. For instance at Wednesday's news conference to promote his grudge match with Rashad Evans at UFC 114 on Saturday, many sought the wise-cracking, fun-loving guy he is at most public appearances. Instead, onlookers got the serious, almost brooding man who seemed miserable as he sat through the hour-long session in the Hollywood Theater at the MGM Grand.

Expect the lazy,

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John Hathaway made his Ultimate Fighting Championship debut at UFC 93 in Dublin, Ireland, but his unknown status made it barely memorable that he was even on the card.

Hathaway met Dubliner Tom Egan, a charismatic and colorful guy who was stealing the headlines. Hathaway, it seemed, was simply there because Egan needed someone to fight. But Hathaway surprised everyone when he dominated Egan and stopped him at 4:36 of the first round.

Following that debut, Hathaway defeated a pair of highly respected welterweights – the powerful Rick Story at UFC 99 and Paul Taylor at UFC 105 – and clearly has moved into the group of contenders at 170.

And it's obvious that Joe Silva, the UFC's top-notch matchmaker, likes what he saw of Hathaway, since he matched him with Diego Sanchez on the main card of Saturday's UFC 114 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Hathaway, a Londoner with a 12-0 record, was a bit stunned when asked to face Sanchez, one

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Not surprisingly, my news story that revealed the final blood draw taken from Floyd Mayweather Jr. was 18 days before his May 1 fight with Shane Mosley generated a lot of comment from Yahoo! Sports readers.

I'll respond to questions and comments about that, another about the Yahoo! Sports rankings and several about the Israel Vazquez-Rafael Marquez fight in this week's edition of the boxing mailbag.

Manny Pacquiao argues drawing blood close to a fight affects performance.
( Frank Franklin II/AP)

If Travis Tygart, the CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency says "If you know you aren't going to be tested within the last 14 days, you can cheat and get away with it," doesn't this mean that current boxing drug testing procedures accommodate doping? If this is the case, shouldn't we assume that we are watching doped fights? When Pacquiao says that he thinks drawing blood close to a fight would affect his performance,

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Short shots about the world of professional boxing:

Israel Vazquez has been one of boxing's most courageous and exciting performers in his 15-year professional career. If he retires, as he should, following his third-round technical knockout loss to Rafael Marquez on Saturday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, he'll go out with a 44-5 record, 32 knockouts and an 8-3 record in world title fights.

When ring announcer Jimmy Lennon introduced him on Saturday, he called Vazquez a future Hall of Famer.

I'm not so sure that's correct, though.

For as exciting as Vazquez was during his career, he doesn't have a lot of very notable wins on his record. His biggest wins were two over Marquez and one in a bout with Oscar Larios.

He was primarily a super bantamweight, but didn't face a lot of the true greats who were in that division while he was at a championship level. Vazquez first fought for the WBC super bantamweight title in 2002, losing to

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LOS ANGELES – The series between Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez ended Saturday as it began three years ago, just a few miles down the round – with Marquez beating up Vazquez and claiming an impressive technical knockout victory, in front of 9,200 fans at the Staples Center.

Marquez stopped Vazquez at 1:33 of the third round Saturday in the fourth battle in one of the greatest boxing rivalries ever.

More big fights, against the likes of Juan Manuel Lopez, Celestino Caballero and, yes, perhaps even Vic Darchinyan, await Marquez. He remains one of boxing's stars and elite champions.

The future is much more murky for Vazquez, who suffered a gash on his left eyelid and eyebrow that was so large the bone was exposed. Plastic surgeon Pearlman D. Hicks had to go three levels to close the cut. Miguel Diaz, Vazquez's fabulous cut man, said he'd only seen one cut that could compare to the one Vazquez suffered when he was ripped open by a

LOS ANGELES – Kevin Iole's unofficial scorecard from Rafael Marquez's third-round TKO victory over Israel Vazquez at the Staples Center on Saturday night. Judges Max DeLuca and Steve Mora gave Marquez both of the first two rounds on their scorecard; Alejandro Rochin gave Vazquez the first and Marquez the second.

The United States Anti-Doping Agency confirmed Friday that the final blood sample taken from Shane Mosley was April 12 and the final one taken from Floyd Mayweather was April 13 as part of their agreement to undergo random, Olympic-style testing prior to their May 1 welterweight boxing match in Las Vegas.

Mayweather won the fight by a wide unanimous decision. Each man was tested seven times prior to the fight and then again on the night of the fight by USADA, which will retain their samples for future testing. Each of the eight tests included required the fighters to provide urine samples; they were required to give blood four times.

Mayweather gave blood and urine on March 22, April 1, April 13 and then May 1 after the fight. He gave urine only on April 3, April 6, April 21 and April 24.

Mosley gave blood and urine on March 23, March 31, April 12 and then May 1 after the fight. He gave urine only on March 29, April 7, April 20 and April 26.

The news of the date of the final pre-fight