LAS VEGAS – Every season, it seems, Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White makes a variation of the same speech to cast members of the reality series "The Ultimate Fighter."

Something is going wrong in the house, one or more of the fighters are acting up and White appears at the UFC training center and angrily asks the assembled group: "Do you want to be a [expletive] fighter?"

Matt "The Hammer" Hamill heard the speech when he was a contestant on Season 3 of "The Ultimate Fighter." Hamill has demonstrated with his actions that he understood White's message and that he does indeed want to be a fighter.

His lifelong dream has been to wrestle in the Olympics; he came close in 2004, when he was a runner-up in the U.S. Olympic Trials.

He's 33 now, would be nearly 37 at the time of the 2012 Games, and still hasn't fully gotten the idea out of his head.

"Being in the Olympics really means the world to me," Hamill said.

His trainer, Duff Holmes, flashed an impish grin as he

Roy Jones Jr. has long been Bernard Hopkins' nemesis. Jones defeated Hopkins by a wide margin while fighting with a broken hand in 1993, and Hopkins has been more or less desperate to get a rematch ever since.

And when finally the rematch was at hand, Jones went out and scuttled Hopkins' plans yet again.

He got himself knocked out.

Badly.

In the first round.

By a guy, Danny Green, most fans had never heard of in a fight that occurred while the majority of Americans were either plugging away at work or still sleeping.

Hopkins, who won a workmanlike unanimous decision over journeyman Enrique Ornelas Wednesday in Philadelphia in a bout that was broadcast on the cable channel Versus, still hopes to make the fight with Jones. It seems a pipe dream to think anyone would pay much to see that fight now.

One of boxing's most egregious problems has long been having two stars fight separate and less-than-quality opponents on the same night to set up a fight between them at some point down the

The much-anticipated bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao is all but set for March 13, a source told Yahoo! Sports.

Mayweather has agreed to terms and promoter Bob Arum is making a trip to Manila, Philippines, to finalize a deal with Pacquiao, the source said.

Las Vegas, Dallas and New Orleans are the front-runners to host the bout, which is expected to become the highest-grossing boxing match in the sport's history.

Pacquiao is the top pound-for-pound fighter in nearly every major ranking, including Yahoo! Sports. Mayweather is No. 2 in most rankings and was No. 1 in nearly all of the polls before he briefly retired in June 2008.

Pacquiao is coming off a 12th-round stoppage of Miguel Cotto on Nov. 14 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, a bout in which he won the World Boxing Organization welterweight championship and erased fears that he is not a legitimate welterweight.

Cotto was a legitimate welterweight in his prime and Pacquiao dominated, knocking him down

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LAS VEGAS – In U.S. politics, there are red states and blue states. Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White sees them as green states, yellow states, white states and gray states, however.

And when a little more green was added to his map on Monday, he was as thrilled as he has been at any point in the nearly nine years he's owned the UFC.

On Monday, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signed a bill that will regulate mixed martial arts in the state. That turned it from a yellow state to a green one on White's map and guaranteed a summer card at the TD Garden in Boston.

Green states, in White's world, are the ones where the state sanctions MMA. When he and partners Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta bought the UFC in January 2001, only New Jersey sanctioned and regulated MMA.

After the addition of Massachusetts on Monday, there are 42 states where MMA is regulated in the U.S. There is legislation pending (yellow states) in New York,

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No athlete accomplished more in his or her sport in 2009 than Manny Pacquiao did in boxing.

No athlete did more for his or her country in 2009 than Pacquiao did for the Philippines.

No athlete in 2009 better exemplified the ideals of sportsmanship, grace under pressure and determination than Pacquiao.

No athlete was a better choice in 2009 as Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year than Pacquiao.

Alas, the magazine's many esteemed editors and writers on Monday awarded the honor to New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, who is one of the great players in history and a good guy on top of it.

But it was Jeter who came to see Pacquiao compete and not the other way around.

In May, Pacquiao scored a pair of stunning knockouts, stopping Ricky Hatton in the second round to become the linear super lightweight champion. He moved up again in November and knocked out Miguel Cotto in the 12th to win the World Boxing Organization welterweight title.

If

The worst part of any sport is the officiating. When they get it right, as they most often do, nobody cares. When they make a mistake, there is often no recourse.

Alan Davis and Benoit Roussel made a mistake – a horrific, egregious mistake – when they judged the lightweight championship fight Saturday in Quebec City, Canada, between Ali Funeka and Joan Guzman a draw.

The third judge in that bout for the vacant International Boxing Federation lightweight belt, Joe Pasquale, was conservative in calling it 116-112, or eight rounds to four, for Funeka.

Funeka clearly dominated the fight and should have won a minimum of eight rounds, if not nine or 10.

Funeka kept a hard jab in Guzman's face, bloodying it. He won the fight when it was contested on the outside. He was the superior man when the battle moved to the inside. He landed the more telling blows and, indeed, nearly scored a stoppage when he badly hurt Guzman in the eighth. Only the sound of the bell saved Guzman from being knocked

LAS VEGAS – Kelly Pavlik's nickname is "The Ghost," but he only wishes he could vanish in his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio.

Pavlik, the power-punching World Boxing Council/World Boxing Organization middleweight champion, is all too well aware of the downsides of fame, of being a big fish in a small pond. He was born in Youngstown, raised in Youngstown and became a world champion while living in Youngstown.

"Probably going to die in Youngstown, too," he said.

A rich young man in a town which has the lowest median income in the country among cities with 65,000 or more residents – Census Bureau statistics in 2007 showed Youngstown's median income is just $21,850 – is going to garner attention.

And Pavlik gets more than his share.

While most of it is the simple stuff of hero worship, a darker side has emerged. Pavlik's career has taken a hit. A whisper campaign has suggested that he's hanging with the wrong crowd, that he's on the verge of financial collapse, that he's at odds with the

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As boxing promoters Bob Arum and Richard Schaefer have begun the process of hammering out a deal for a 2010 showdown between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, officials in Las Vegas are scrambling to keep the fight on the Strip.

Las Vegas has been hit harder than most cities by the recession and, with 13 percent unemployment, is in need of major events to bolster tourism and invigorate its economy. A potential Pacquiao-Mayweather bout would likely be the largest-grossing boxing match in history. Predictions for the pay-per-view sales alone have reached as high as 5 million.

Predictions for PPV sales alone for the potential Pacquiao-Mayweather bout have reached as high as 5 million.
(Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)

Pacquiao is the top-ranked fighter in Yahoo! Sports' ratings of the world's best boxers with Mayweather sitting at No. 2. They're each in their prime – Pacquiao is 30 and Mayweather is 32 – and each fights at welterweight.