Perspective is always such a wonderful thing. On March 18, HBO Sports president Ken Hershman rocked the boxing world when he announced that his company – long considered the most influential boxing broadcast entity – would no longer do business with Golden Boy Promotions.

The phone lines were burning the morning the news broke, as boxing insiders couldn't wait to gossip about the wholly unexpected event. "Unbelievable" and "stunning" were the words most insiders uttered.

Nonito Donaire Jr. could provide Top Rank with another golden moment Saturday. (Getty Images)And yet, less than a month later, it hardly seems so bad.

Top Rank has put on back-to-back sensational shows on HBO, with Timothy Bradley defeating Ruslan Provodnikov and then Mike Alvarado topping Brandon Rios.

On Saturday in New York, HBO has what could be another gem when it airs the super bantamweight unification bout between WBO champion Nonito Donaire Jr. and WBA kingpin Guillermo Rigondeaux.

"There are so many choices people have for their entertainment," Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said. "You need

Read More »from Golden Boy vs. Top Rank may be the main event, but boxing fans are still getting great fights

Three men who have won their division on "The Ultimate Fighter" have subsequently gone on to win a UFC world title belt.

Matt Serra won the welterweight title by scoring the biggest upset in UFC history, knocking out Georges St-Pierre in his first fight after defeating Chris Lytle to win TUF 4.

Uriah Hall (R) and Kelvin Gastelum face off on 'TUF' to promote Saturday's bout. (Getty Images)Serra, though, was an anomaly among TUF winners because he appeared on a "comeback" season in which veterans who had left the UFC came back for a chance at redemption. In most other seasons, the fighters on the show have entered it with little or no previous UFC experience.

That was the case with both Season 1 winner Forrest Griffin and Season 2 winner Rashad Evans. Each man won the UFC light heavyweight title in their eighth fight after winning TUF.

Chael Sonnen, who coached Uriah Hall on Season 17 of "The Ultimate Fighter," believes Hall is already a contender in the UFC's middleweight division.

That's a remarkable step for any fighter to be a contender so quickly. Even

Read More »from After tearing through TUF competition, Uriah Hall appears primed for UFC stardom

Paying amateur athletes millions of dollars to compete as professionals is fraught with peril, even for those with the greatest scouting systems and access to every morsel of information that might indicate future performance.

For every sixth-round pick in the NFL who turns out like Tom Brady, there are five JaMarcus Russells.

Guillermo Rigondeaux works out for reporters, Tuesday in New York. (AP)It's worse, though, for boxing promoters and managers who want to sign the many exceptional Cuban amateur fighters. Many have gone broke sinking their fortunes into star-studded Cubans who were unable to parlay their extraordinary amateur success into huge paydays in the professional ranks.

Guillermo Rigondeaux, a two-time gold medalist for Cuba who defected on a speed boat in 2009, is one of the few who has managed to come close.

Rigondeaux, 32, is 11-0 as a professional and holds the WBA super bantamweight title. On Saturday at Radio City Music Hall in New York, he'll meet Nonito Donaire in an HBO-televised bout for the WBA/WBO belts.

Donaire,

Read More »from Guillermo Rigondeaux trying to do what most other Cuban defectors have not

LAS VEGAS – The reaction to Miesha Tate's victory over Julie Kedzie in August, her first bout since losing her title to Ronda Rousey five months earlier, was unanimously positive.

Tate submitted Kedzie with an arm bar following a rollicking fight that left television viewers on Showtime Extreme, fans in the Valley View Casino Center in San Diego and, significantly, UFC president Dana White roaring their approval.

Miesha Tate (right) says she wasn't herself in her win over Julie Kedzie. (Getty Images)Tate, though, wasn't among those who were impressed. According to her, she was in some sort of autopilot state. There was little she was happy about, from being left off the main card to the way she fought.

"I talked to Dana right after and he was very impressed," Tate said the other day as she was finishing preparations for her bout Saturday at the Mandalay Bay Events Center against Cat Zingano. "I wasn't [impressed] though. I know it made for a great fight. Julie Kedzie, she is one hell of a tough fighter. I didn't feel, despite what people saw looking in, me, on

Read More »from Miesha Tate refuses to submit to the public pressures of the UFC spotlight

LAS VEGAS – Prior to his rematch victory over Ivan Menjivar at UFC 157 in February, the tide seemed to be turning against Urijah Faber.

The former World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight champion, once the unquestioned star of mixed martial arts' lighter weight classes, seemed to have lost his appeal. He wasn't in the same kind of furious demand from the media that he regularly had been.

Urijah Faber is savvy when it comes to the UFC's hype game. (Getty Images)He went into the bout having lost two of his last three, and had lost his last five title bouts. There was speculation he'd be cut if he were beaten by Menjivar.

But during a five-minute interview with Kenny Florian and Dominick Cruz on Tuesday on Fuel TV's UFC Tonight show, Faber proved why he's still a key part of the organization.

Faber fights his friend, Scott Jorgensen, on Saturday in the main event of The Ultimate Fighter Finale at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

He appeared on Fuel to hype the bout, where he was interviewed by Cruz, his long-time nemesis and archrival.

Cruz

Read More »from Urijah Faber's value in UFC extends beyond his still-formidable abilities in the Octagon

Carl Williams (R) walks to his corner after being stopped by Mike Tyson. (AP)Carl "The Truth" Williams, one of a core of solid heavyweight contenders in the 1980s, died Sunday of complications from throat cancer at 53, according to the New York Daily News.

Williams, who finished his career 30-10 with 21 knockouts, lost heavyweight title bouts to Larry Holmes by decision in 1985 and to Mike Tyson by first-round knockout in 1989.

Williams fought a veritable who's who of the world's best heavyweights during his era, defeating Trevor Berbick, Bert Cooper, Jesse Ferguson and James Tillis and losing to Tyson, Holmes, Tim Witherspoon, Mike Weaver, Tommy Morrison and Frank Bruno.

Williams was a skilled fighter who fought in a quality era. Randy Gordon, the former chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission, told journalist Lyle Fitzsimmons that Williams would have been a legitimate contender in the current heavyweight divisions.

[Also: Boxer Nonito Donaire Jr.'s latest obsession is being a good father]

To me he was a fighter who came along at the wrong time, right between Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson. I have no doubt that if Williams were fighting today he'd be the one guy capable of upsetting the Klitschko brothers and certainly capable of teaching the rest of the division how a heavyweight should use the jab.

Read More »from Carl ‘The Truth’ Williams, who lost title bouts to Mike Tyson and Larry Holmes, dies at 53

LAS VEGAS – A torrent of mixed martial arts fans rushed to Matt Mitrione's defense after the embattled UFC heavyweight ripped into transgender MMA fighter Fallon Fox on Monday, saying she had an unfair advantage competing against women.

Mitrione's unprovoked, vitriolic attack on Fox's "The MMA Hour" went largely unchallenged in the media despite the nature of his comments being so overtly obtuse.

"He's chromosomally a man," Mitrione said. "He had a gender change, not a sex change. He's still a man. He was a man for 31 years. Thirty-one years. That's a couple years younger than I am. He's a man. Six years of taking performance de-hancing drugs, you think is going to change all that? That's ridiculous. That is a lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak."

His comments came Monday, a day before the UFC publicly released its official Fighter Code of Conduct exclusively to Yahoo! Sports, and proved beyond doubt why such a document is so desperately needed.

Mitrione is

Read More »from UFC hopes new code of conduct will help educate fighters like Matt Mitrione on decisions they make

LAS VEGAS – Some people go on vacation and visit historic sights or play a few rounds of golf. For her vacation, though, Cat Zingano traveled halfway around the world to learn a bit of Muay Thai boxing in the country where it originated and, despite zero experience, wound up taking a pro fight.

On Saturday, she'll face Miesha Tate on the main card of "The Ultimate Fighter Finale," with an opportunity to coach opposite UFC women's champion Ronda Rousey in the next season of TUF going to the winner.

The Mandalay Bay Events Center, where Zingano will meet Tate in the most important bout of her fighting career, is thousands of miles away and light years removed from the tiny, filthy gym in Thailand where Zingano unexpectedly took a professional Muay Thai fight last year.

Zingano, her husband, Maurice, and their son, Brayden, went to Thailand for vacation last summer. An All-American wrestler at Cumberland College and MacMurray College, Cat Zingano was going to teach a seminar on

Read More »from Cat Zingano's wild 'vacation' in Thailand shows her eagerness to face, conquer fears