In looking to create a more "radical" atmosphere of music and sound for Saturday's world championship boxing pay-per-view event at Madison Square Garden, promoters Bob Arum and Todd duBoef of Top Rank knew there was only one man for the job – world-famous DJ Justin Hoffman, nephew of radical activist and Chicago Seven alumnus Abbie Hoffman. Hoffman, a native of the Boston area, is the DJ at Tryst at Wynn Las Vegas, where he spins the Las Vegas nightlife until dawn.

NEW YORK – The arena is electric and the sellout crowd of 20,658 is heavily pro-Miguel Cotto and is loudly chanting his name.

Whenever Zab Judah appears on the television screens, he is resoundingly booed. Everyone is on their feet as Judah begins to walk to the ring. A DJ asks the crowd to welcome Judah, and he is met with an ear-splitting chorus of boos.

Judah is pacing in his corner as Cotto begins to walk to the ring to a tremendous ovation. Cotto goes to a neutral corner upon getting into the ring and falls to a knee in

UFC president Dana White is quick to admit he wasn’t the academic type when he was in school. The library wasn’t one of his must-stop destinations.

But White said he was thrilled to be back in school on Saturday after having delivered the commencement address at his alma mater, Hermon High School in Hermon, Maine.

White, who graduated in the Hermon Class of 1987, said he was thrilled when he was asked to deliver the address by school officials. “It was pretty cool,” White said. “If you would have asked me 10 years ago if this is where I would have been in 10 years, I would have laughed in your face.”

White talked to the graduates about his rise from a bellman in a Boston hotel to become the most recognizable face in mixed martial arts.

He said he urged them to get a job they’re passionate about.

“A lot of times, kids go to college and take a major because they do what they think they’re supposed to do,” White said. “I told them I believe 90 percent of America gets up in the morning and

NEW YORK – For the last month, there has been a mini-hysteria in the boxing community regarding Larry Merchant's future as the analyst on HBO's boxing telecasts.

It turns out that the hysteria is about 14 months late.

That's because it was approximately 15 months ago that HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg contractually agreed to give Merchant's job to Max Kellerman.

A source close to Kellerman confirmed that Kellerman agreed to a deal in March 2006 that would make him the lead analyst on all HBO World Championship Boxing and HBO Pay-Per-View telecasts as of June 1, 2007. The contract called for Kellerman, 33, to serve as the analyst on HBO's Boxing After Dark telecasts prior to that, which he has done.

Merchant's contract with HBO expired on May 31, but he agreed to return to his old job for Saturday's WBA welterweight title fight at Madison Square Garden between unbeaten champion Miguel Cotto and Zab Judah.

But Merchant has now agreed to a two-year contract extension with a two-year

NEW YORK – Miguel Cotto, the WBA welterweight champion, is quickly becoming recognized as one of the top fighters in the sport. He defends his belt Saturday in Madison Square Garden against former undisputed champion Zab Judah. Here are what each man must do to come out on top:

NEW YORK – Physical pain is part of the job for Anthony Thompson.

The 25-year-old super welterweight boxer has accepted the punishment. The early morning runs that make the lungs burn. The punches that make the nose sting. Thompson understands tolerating such torment is a means to an end.

But the pain Thompson knows goes far beyond what he's experienced in the ring.

He has lost two young daughters to a rare genetic disease called Zellweger Syndrome. When you're still a child yourself and you've lost two of your own to a disorder which has no cure, you want to rage.

Thompson, who fights unbeaten Yuri Foreman on Saturday at Madison Square Garden on an HBO Pay-Per-View card, is a deeply spiritual Hebrew Israelite who said his faith has sustained him through the difficult times.

Now the father of five, he said he accepts his losses as a part of God's plan. No more waking up in the night with tears rolling down his cheeks. No more wanting to scream.

A piece of him is gone forever, he said

NEW YORK – They made a movie about a boxer once that was called, Somebody Up There Likes Me.

It wasn't about Zab Judah.

But it could have been.

How else do you explain this colossal waste of talent repeatedly getting second chances?

Judah is fighting unbeaten Miguel Cotto for the WBA welterweight title Saturday in a bout that will drive the first sellout to Madison Square Garden since 2001.

He hasn't won in more than two years, but he's competing in what is shaping up to be the biggest non-Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather Jr. event of the year in boxing.

That's nothing new, though. Judah is the guy who as the undisputed welterweight champion in 2006 didn't train properly, failed to make weight, lost to a no-name journeyman, was given his belt back and then got a chance to fight Mayweather Jr.

He lost – of course – but not before starting a riot at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas that netted him a one-year suspension from boxing.

That didn't sit well with promoter Bob Arum, who

Eight days before his fight with Zab Judah at Madison Square Garden, Miguel Cotto arrived in New York and began something of a barnstorming tour.

The WBA welterweight champion attended a street festival in the Bronx, where he was mobbed by an adoring crowd estimated at more than 20,000.

He threw out the first pitch at a game at Shea Stadium, accompanied by his slugger pals, Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado of the New York Mets.

He did the weather for a local television station. He's tooled around Manhattan in a custom-painted bus adorned with an oversized image of himself and a logo promoting his fight.

And even as fight time rapidly approaches on Saturday, Cotto, 26, works the telephones, doing last-minute interviews.

He's promoting himself as if his paycheck depends upon it even though more than 90 percent of the tickets were sold before he ever left Puerto Rican soil and flew to New York.

The bout is on HBO Pay-Per-View and Cotto is more than willing to do his share to land every

It's too bad for boxing that Roger Goodell already has a job.

The sport could use the NFL commissioner to protect it from itself. And Antonio Tarver is lucky Goodell has guys like Pacman Jones and Tank Johnson to keep him busy or he wouldn't be fighting for a while.

Tarver, the former light heavyweight champion, is a colorful character who has done a lot of good for boxing. But last week, on a conference call to promote Saturday's Showtime-televised doubleheader in which he and WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson appear in separate bouts, Tarver suggested he might have been drugged when he was routed by Bernard Hopkins last year.

It was an unsubstantiated and out-of-line comment that only served to sully the sport's already seamy reputation.

That there was little outcry when Tarver made the remarks is indicative of the low expectations most have for the sport.

If Rex Grossman had accused the Colts of drugging him prior to his disastrous outing in the Super Bowl, the allegations