Ariel Gandulla wasn't able to say goodbye to his family. He wasn't sure he'd ever see his mother or his father or his sister again. The emotional strain was immense. His heart told him to stay, but his mind told him he had to go.

He left Cienfuegos, Cuba, by raft in the dark of that 1994 night, leaving behind his family and the only life he'd ever known in the hope of finding freedom.

He was granted political asylum in the United States and, for most of the past 13 years, has not regretted the decision. He's become one of the world's elite mixed martial arts fighters, and on Dec. 12 he'll meet Doug Marshall for the WEC light heavyweight championship at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas on a card televised by Versus.

Nights like Dec. 12 are when Gandulla cherishes his decision to leave behind Fidel Castro's oppressive communist regime.

Every Father's Day, however, his heart aches and he longs for his hometown.

Shortly after arriving in the U.S., Gandulla phoned Cuba to wish his father, Roberto

LAS VEGAS — Billy Graham ducked outside of the UFC Gym to grab a cigarette as Ricky Hatton dressed for his sparring session on Wednesday.

The affable trainer, who is covered with more tattoos than the mixed martial artists who usually frequent the gym, spied a small group of reporters and approached them with a query.

"Who do you think is going to win the fight," he said, taking a long drag on his cigarette before smiling wryly.

Graham, Hatton's long-time trainer, knew the answer before he asked the question. All three, of course, told him they expected Floyd Mayweather Jr. would win a unanimous decision over Hatton when they meet in a battle for pound-for-pound supremacy in an HBO Pay-Per-View bout on Dec. 8 at the MGM Grand Garden.

"I've heard," he said, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to another, "that a lot of reporters here think Mayweather is going to outclass Rick. Well, believe me, no one outclasses Ricky Hatton. Someone, I heard, said he wouldn't win a round. I've heard a

After what Vernon Forrest has endured, getting out of the bed and walking across the street without getting a jaywalking ticket seems like a significant accomplishment.

The list of Forrest's injuries is longer than Yao Ming's inseam. And the 36-year-old Georgian is probably on a first-name basis with the staff at his local orthopedic surgeon.

For a couple of years there, Forrest probably had as many dark thoughts as anyone this side of Charlie Manson.

You'd have to battle these days, though, to get Forrest to complain about much of anything. It certainly won't happen in a year in which he won his second world championship, some six years after he won his first and only a short time after most had figured him for the scrap heap.

Forrest, who defends the WBC super welterweight title against Michele Piccirillo on Saturday at the Foxwoods Casino in Mashantucket, Conn., may be the world's most giddy champion.

"Oh, it's fabulous," he says of Reign No. 2 as a world title-holder. "I can't even

The loss to Ricardo Mayorga on Friday in Los Angeles in many ways typified Fernando Vargas' boxing career. It was exciting and passionate but when he needed that extra push, he was unable to find it.

Vargas retires with a 26-5 record, 22 knockouts, two stints as a world champion at 154 pounds and a wholly deserved reputation as one of the most entertaining fighters of his era.

His biggest wins were back-to-back, in 1999 and 2000, when he won a majority decision over Winky Wright and a unanimous decision over Ike Quartey.

The win over Wright is the most significant of his career, even though many feel Wright deserved the decision. And while Vargas should be commended for beating Quartey, it also must be noted both that Quartey was moving up in weight and that Quartey had had just one fight, albeit against Oscar De La Hoya, in the previous 30 months.

He had a good career – better than most – but he wasn't great and isn't a Hall of Famer. He'll be remembered fondly as a good fighter who

UFC president Dana White is as good with the hyperbole as any promoter who ever lived, but he was totally correct on Monday when he was praising Georges St. Pierre and Matt Hughes for agreeing to fight each other on Dec. 29 at UFC 79 in Las Vegas.

Hughes was slated to face bitter rival Matt Serra for the UFC welterweight title on that card, but the bout was postponed last week when Serra herniated two disks in his back. The UFC didn't want to keep Hughes on ice and wound up getting St. Pierre to step in for Serra, which actually means a more exciting fight to watch.

It would have been easy for St. Pierre to turn down such a significant bout on short notice, but he did not. And it would have been easy for Hughes to ask for someone else, since he had been training for Serra and St. Pierre presents a whole separate set of problems. But he did not.

Both men should be commended.

With that, let's get to a very full reader mailbag. My answers appear in italics below the questions.

Minutes before Fernando Vargas and Oscar De La Hoya were to weigh in for their 2002 super welterweight title fight in Las Vegas, they were at opposite ends of a long stage, perhaps 50 feet apart.

Vargas removed his shirt to reveal an amazingly sculpted physique. Predictably, he began adopting bodybuilder poses, as if his newfound muscles would somehow intimidate De La Hoya.

De La Hoya beamed as he looked across at his rival and simply pointed to his chin. The weakness in Vargas' game had long been his inability to take a punch and De La Hoya was reminding everyone that no matter how developed the pectorals or how impressive the abdominals, they'd make no difference when a punch landed on the butt of the jaw.

De La Hoya was right, of course. Though Vargas promoted the fight with a lot of bluff and bluster and tried to portray De La Hoya as effeminate, it was Vargas who needed to be saved by the referee.

Vargas' steroid-enhanced body did him no good and he was stopped in the 11th round.

On a cold and rainy Friday afternoon, Urijah Faber sits inside a café in New York City and does his best to drum up interest in his Dec. 12 featherweight title fight with Jeff Curran.

As popular as it has gotten over the last several years, mixed martial arts still hasn't hit the mainstream with the American populace. And Faber, who holds the WEC's championship belt, understands that as big as his bout with Curran is in his world, it's barely above meaningless to most of the people inside the coffee shop who are taking a break from the bitter cold.

That's why Faber has so willingly crisscrossed the country to promote the WEC. He's the organization's most marketable figure because of his combination of looks, personality and talent and the WEC hasn't hesitated to take advantage of that.

Just a month before his fight with Curran, he flew to Philadelphia and then New York for two days of interviews and photo shoots, before flying to San Diego to film a television interview before

Jeff Lacy and Peter Manfredo Jr. were beaten up so badly by Joe Calzaghe that maybe the fairest fight would be to pit the two of them against the veteran Welshman. That way, perhaps, Calzaghe would lose a round.

But instead, Lacy and Manfredo will be fighting each other on Dec. 8 at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas. It is a critical fight in Lacy's career, and it will be the 25th time he steps through the ropes as a professional – a statistic that shows the lunacy of the system.

Lacy, 30, is a good enough talent that he won a world title in his 17th pro bout and was being compared to a young Mike Tyson by his 20th. But it's that 23rd bout – the shutout loss to Calzaghe in a super middleweight title unification bout on March 4, 2006, in Manchester, England – that have many ready to shove Lacy onto the scrap heap.

Boxing consumes its young. Lacy should be a star of the highest order – he has crushing power, an iron chin and an engaging personality – but he had the misfortune of coming