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When Gov. Jim Doyle signs the bill sometime this week, Wisconsin will become the 43rd state to regulate mixed martial arts.

It's one that doesn't regulate it that still stands out, however. The Ultimate Fighting Championship has been desperate to get into New York and has spent thousands on its lobbying effort.

But there will be no MMA in New York any time soon, even if the state legislature sends a bill to the desk of Gov. David Patterson for his signature in the next few months. That's because once the bill is signed by the governor, there would be a 120-day window that would have to pass before the bill became law and the sport became legal and regulated by the New York State Athletic Commission.

If the state does pass a bill this year, this is a thought that may essentially give UFC president Dana White a license to print money: Hold the company's annual New Year's Eve show in Madison Square Garden with a bout featuring reigning

You can follow Kevin Iole on Twitter at @KevinI

Bob Arum is getting ready to promote a fight that may draw as many as 50,000 fans to Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Richard Schaefer is working to finalize one that may be the most significant bout of the year. And yet, I'm not sure either promoter fully understands how deep the public resentment is over their failure to make a fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr.

The bout fell apart over drug-testing issues. Pacquiao, who would not agree to Mayweather's demand for Olympic-style drug tests, instead will fight Joshua Clottey on March 13. Mayweather wouldn't bend and is now hopeful of fighting Shane Mosley on May 1.

Pacquiao-Clottey is a solid fight, and Mayweather-Mosley is the second-best fight that could be made in boxing behind Mayweather-Pacquiao.

Still, the public's anger is palpable. The inbox at Yahoo! Sports has been almost nothing but Mayweather-Pacquiao for more than a month. It's been several weeks since

NEW YORK – For the next six months, perhaps a year, boxing promoter Bob Arum is going to be like the kid who dangles a toy on a string just out of a cat's reach.

Mere seconds after Juan Manuel Lopez had knocked out Steven Luevano in a featherweight title match in The Theater at Madison Square Garden, Arum was inundated with pleas to make a match between Lopez and the other winner on Saturday's card, Yuriorkis Gamboa.

Gamboa was electrifying while retaining his World Boxing Association featherweight title with a second-round stoppage of Rogers Mtagwa, setting the idea firmly in everyone's mind that a Lopez-Gamboa fight had to be next.

Not so fast, said Arum, who relishes the idea of letting it percolate while building the fighters' profiles. It's an intriguing fight now, but a year from now, when both have appeared on HBO a few more times and their visibility expands beyond their hardcore bases, a match between them could be the modern-day equivalent of the 1981 classic between Sugar

NEW YORK – Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa are on a collision course for featherweight supremacy, as each won their championship bout in spectacular fashion Saturday at The Theater at Madison Square Garden.

Lopez stopped Steven Luevano at 44 seconds of the seventh round to claim the World Boxing Organization featherweight belt. In the opener on the HBO-televised doubleheader, Gamboa put on an electrifying performance in stopping Rogers Mtagwa in the second round.

"One of these two guys is going to become the next Manny Pacquiao," Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said of Lopez and Gamboa.

Lopez controlled the classy Luevano throughout, out-boxing him and hurting him repeatedly with straight left hands and quick hooks. He gave up the WBO's super bantamweight title to challenge Luevano.

"I want to be a world champion in four divisions, and this is the second one," Lopez said after improving to 28-0 with his 25th knockout. "I'm very happy I gave the crowd a great fight."

Lopez caught

NEW YORK – Juan Manuel Lopez was about to complete one of his job's many obligations, when he was suddenly interrupted.

A group of reporters had clustered near the stage at The Theater at Madison Square Garden to speak to him about his move to featherweight, where in an HBO-televised fight on Saturday he will challenge World Boxing Organization champion Steven Luevano.

The affable Lopez, whose face is almost always covered by a toothy grin whenever he's not in a ring, saw his children racing across the stage behind him. A photographer wanted to take a picture of Lopez's children, but that was difficult as the children were scurrying around the stage.

Lopez looked back, saw the chaos, turned to the reporters and shrugged sheepishly and then went back to tend to his brood.

He joined a group picture with them, his wife, Barbara, as well as with Luevano, his wife and their three children. All the while, the 26-year-old Lopez beamed, occasionally mugging for the camera and playing with the

NEW YORK – Steven Luevano is an acquired taste. You're not going to walk past the television set, see him for 20 seconds and instantly adopt him as your favorite fighter.

He's calm, patient, rational and methodical in the ring, none of which helps make him an especially big name but all of which makes him one of boxing's more successful champions.

Luevano, whose record stands at 37-1-1 with 15 knockouts, received a diamond ring Thursday from World Boxing Organization president Francisco "Paco" Valcarcel as a gift for the five successful defenses he's made of his featherweight title.

Yet, in boxing parlance, he'll be the "B" side in his bid for a sixth defense when he meets Juan Manuel Lopez on Saturday in The Theater at Madison Square Garden on an HBO-televised card.

Lopez is everything Luevano is not: powerful, flashy, speedy and charismatic.

But Luevano's steady-as-you go style has proven invaluable. Since going on the road to knock out hometown favorite Nicky Cook in London in 2007,

Bobby Lashley is a young fighter with enormous talent who may someday become one of the elite heavyweights in mixed martial arts.

Expectations, though, are soaring already. Lashley will fight on the Showtime-televised Strikeforce card against an opponent to be named – currently rumored to be veteran Wes Sims – on Jan. 30 at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Fla.

Because he has many similarities with Brock Lesnar, the Ultimate Fighting Championship's larger-than-life champion – both men have outstanding amateur wrestling backgrounds, were successful pro wrestlers, are better-than-expected boxers and are massive, hulking specimens with enormous power and surprising quickness – there is a large contingent who expects Lashley to be knocking off the best fighters in the world.

Lesnar, though, is a physical freak, the type of fighter who comes along very rarely. Lashley may eventually develop into a fighter as good – or better – but that's no given. Lashley is not going to walk in, fight

Rogers Mtagwa doesn't have the backing of a high-profile promoter or an influential manager. Nor does he have a television network clearing dates to broadcast his fights. He doesn't have his own publicist. He's rarely, if ever, called out by anyone.

He operates far from the spotlight that shines so brightly on guys like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Manny Pacquiao and Shane Mosley. He speaks next to no English and can't plead his own case, like a Mayweather does so effectively. He struggles to get by on his boxing income, so much so that he still goes to work as a roofer, weather-permitting, in his adopted hometown of Philadelphia.

Yet, know this: Miss a Mtagwa fight at your own peril.

For all the things he's not, for all the things he doesn't have, he does have this: A fighting spirit unsurpassed in professional boxing.

All one had to do to know that is to have seen his 2008 bout with Tomas Villa, when he came back from the brink of being knocked out to stunningly stop Villa with a