A guy was talking about Evander Holyfield the other day and said, "It's hard to believe it's been 10 years."

He was talking about how long it has been since Mike Tyson gnawed off a piece of Holyfield's ear during a heavyweight title fight in Las Vegas.

Here, I thought he was talking about how long it has been since Holyfield had won a significant fight.

Holyfield, though, is moving inexorably toward a heavyweight title shot simply by defeating the boxing equivalents of the Washington Generals.

On Saturday on pay-per-view in El Paso, Texas, Holyfield meets Lou Savarese in the latest step on his, well, comeback to the heavyweight championship. But Holyfield, now 44, isn't content to stop at one belt.

He plans to keep fighting until he has won all four of the major belts. That's about as likely as Kobe winning the NBA's assists title, but you can't blame a man for trying.

Holyfield understands the skeptics and almost laughs when he's asked the last time he's had a truly significant

WATCH VIDEO: Tito Ortiz and Rashad Evans talk trash before UFC 73. (UFC.com)

Tito Ortiz was the UFC's poster boy more than a decade ago, when members of Congress were making rumblings about banning it, no pay-per-view distributor would dare touch it and Dana White was a hotel bellman trying to figure a way to break into boxing.

Now, with White as its president, the UFC is so popular that one of its fighters landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated, its pay-per-view sales in 2006 eclipsed those of the WWE and boxing and it breaks attendance records in most venues it visits.

Ortiz still remains one of the sport's primary draws, along with heavyweight champion Randy Couture and ex-light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell.

Even after a lengthy feud with White, which culminated in a humiliating special on Spike TV in which it appeared that Ortiz had backed out of a planned boxing match between them, his popularity hasn't waned.

The UFC has plastered his face on billboards around the

Lou Savarese's odds of winning an Academy Award are about the same as they are of winning the heavyweight championship, which is to say, not good.

But he's going to have plenty of people who root for him to do both.

He's the rare athlete who doesn't take himself too seriously, and clearly isn't impressed by his own celebrity.

Whatever his limitations as a boxer and an actor may be, Savarese throws himself into both. He's 41 years old and hasn't beaten a serious contender in years, but not only is he talking of defeating former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield in their bout on Saturday in El Paso, Texas, but he's also talking about winning the belt himself.

He speaks of how the division is watered down and how there is no dominant heavyweight and, after a while, you start to believe him despite the feeble effort he gave in a first-round knockout loss to Mike Tyson in 2000 and despite the loss to 48-year-old George Foreman in 1997.

Crazier things have happened, haven't they? The

Former bantamweight boxing champion Wayne McCullough said he retains a love affair with his sport despite its down times and said, "Boxing is my life."

That, though, didn't stop McCullough, who insists that at nearly 37 he's still an active boxer, from taking a job in mixed martial arts with the UFC.

McCullough, who lives in Las Vegas where the UFC is based, said he will be an ambassador for the company and the sport in Europe. McCullough is from Northern Ireland and won a silver medal for the country in the 1992 Olympics.

He said a long-time friendship with UFC president Dana White led to the deal. And though McCullough is aware of the increasingly volatile rhetoric between White and top boxing promoters, he insists there is room for both sports.

"Everyone wants to compare them for some reason, but they're completely different sports," McCullough said. "I don't buy the idea that you're either a boxing fan or (an MMA) fan. I think you can be both."

McCullough, who hasn't fought since

Erik Morales has been something of a franchise in Las Vegas over the past five years. The once-great featherweight has fought 10 of his past 16 bouts in what has been known as the Boxing Capital of the World.

Manny Pacquiao has become a headliner on the Strip, as well, and has fought every other bout in Las Vegas since his enthralling draw with Juan Manuel Marquez in 2004.

Unbeaten welterweight champion Miguel Cotto has fought eight of his 30 fights in Las Vegas, which is more than anywhere he's fought except for the nine times he's been in his native Puerto Rico.

Things, though, are making a distinct shift out of Las Vegas.

Morales will seek to make history Aug. 4 by becoming the first Mexican-born fighter to capture titles in four weight classes. He will try to do so not in what has become his boxing home, but rather in Chicago, when he challenges local hero David Diaz for the WBC lightweight title.

Pacquiao, the super featherweight who is regarded as one of the two best fighters in

LAS VEGAS – For a guy who is reputed to be one of the most talented mixed martial artists ever, it was a long time between wins for B.J. Penn.

But the affable Hawaiian, who submitted arch rival Jens Pulver Saturday to a second-round rear naked choke, is a lot different man at 28 than he was at 26.

Penn had lost his last two bouts – albeit to two of the greatest fighters in the game, Matt Hughes and Georges St. Pierre – and had dropped three of his last four entering Saturday's bout with Pulver.

What Penn proved in dismantling Pulver, who clearly had little chance to win, was that UFC president Dana White isn't far off when he speaks of Penn's potential.

Penn had lost to Pulver in a 2002 lightweight title fight he was widely expected to win and then developed a bitterness toward Pulver when he felt Pulver was reluctant to give him a rematch. He hired a nutritionist and had vowed to shed the fat boy image he had cultivated as his body fat soared to over 23 percent.

White, who has had his

LAS VEGAS – Gray Maynard did a swell impersonation of former UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes, perhaps the strongest man pound-for-pound in mixed martial arts, in his bout Saturday with Rob Emerson at the Palms Hotel & Casino.

After using his strength and wrestling to pummel Emerson in the first round, Maynard lifted Emerson in a power move that came straight from Hughes’ book.

When he slammed Emerson violently to the mat, the fight was instantly over, though there was plenty of confusion over who won.

Referee Steve Mazzagatti seemed ready to indicate that Maynard won, but then reversed himself and the bout was called a no contest when he ruled that neither man could continue.

As he was slamming Emerson, Maynard drove his own head into the mat. UFC president Dana White, sitting alongside the cage, said he felt Maynard was knocked out, as did Tony Alamo, the chairman of the Nevada Athletic Commission.

But Emerson appeared to tap and Mazzagatti didn’t seem to be looking at Maynard

LAS VEGAS – B.J. Penn spent the last 5 ½ years facing some of the world's finest fighters, in weight classes ranging from lightweight to light heavyweight.

It was all, though, for one reason, he said.

"It was to get me back to Jens Pulver," said Penn, who unexpectedly lost a bid for the lightweight title to Pulver in a 2002 fight and has chased a rematch ever since.

He got it on Saturday at the Palms Hotel in the finale of the UFC's reality series, The Ultimate Fighter. Penn and Pulver served as coaches on the show and agreed to fight on Spike TV in the live finale.

Penn dominated the fight from the beginning, punishing Pulver mercilessly, before submitting him on a rear naked choke at 3:12 of the second round.

It was a one-sided beatdown as Penn showed the varied skills that have led UFC president Dana White to call him the most talented mixed martial artist in history.

He excelled in the standup, took Pulver down repeatedly and had a series of submission attempts before finally