The Kingpin Trio/How Three Bay Area Champions Became the Class of Boxing

INTRODUCTION

AT A STANDSTILL

Nonito Donaire. Robert Guerrero. Andre Ward. Theirs would have been household names in the San Francisco Bay Area of an earlier era, back when boxing was a major sport that newspapers like the San Jose Mercury News and San Francisco Chronicle covered vigorously.

The Chronicle’s Jack Fiske was still writing nearly 100 column inches on boxing per week as late as the 1990s, but few other daily newspaper boxing writers were doing it full time by the turn of the century.

It’s a shame Fiske didn’t survive to see the Kingpin Trio.

Even considering that boxing superstar does not equate with household word these days, the Bay Area threesome’s simultaneous ascension was agonizingly slow, delayed who knows how long by the paucity of publicity boxing was getting in 2008 with Fiske and other newspaper boxing writers having been cast asunder.

That’s when I got in on what seemed like the ground floor of a great story. The variety of ethnicities alone among Donaire, Guerrero and Ward -- Filipino, Mexican-American, African-American/interracial -- was perfectly emblematic of what makes the Bay Area special, and the bonds the three forged as adolescents in the 1990s made the combination more than symbolic. Each had been trained early on by his father. Each was wholesome and presentable and each was adept at being interviewed on camera. But mostly they were outstanding craftsmen as boxers. All three were regarded primarily as brainy stylists -- often to their detriment.

Surely the Bay Area had never had three boxers as simultaneously hi-falutin’ as this trio was capable of becoming. The San Francisco and East Bay papers perfunctorily covered the East Bay’s Ward, and the South Bay’s Mercury News covered Guerrero, but they didn’t convey any cohesive sense that we had something special going on here.

Donaire had lived in the Bay Area since moving to San Leandro in pre-adolescence but was getting most of his publicity in the Philippines, where he was clearly subordinate to the great Manny Pacquiao but was seen as a strong No. 2. Bay Area media seemed oblivious to his San Leandro ties, but the passion in the Philippines and among the Bay Area’s numerous Filipino-Americans was potentially lucrative for Donaire -- and for me. Ward grew up in Hayward, near Donaire, and had received much attention in 2004 by becoming the last American man to win an Olympic boxing gold medal. Four years later, he seemed capable of drawing more than 5,000 to Oakland’s Oracle Arena once he matured enough to take on a suitable opponent, but his progress seemed glacial. Guerrero, from the renowned garlic center Gilroy, about 25 miles south of San Jose, also had yet to prove he could attract a major league crowd at HP Pavilion, the Shark Tank. At least he was a name fighter, having appeared on Showtime several times, as had Donaire and Ward, though none of them had been seen on the more prestigious HBO.

Still, they were well positioned for simultaneous success.Yet they were not on a fast enough track.

In 2008, Ward was four years past his 2004 Olympic gold medal and still hadn’t fought anyone of note. Donaire was only one year past his stunning knockout of 112-pound king Vic Darchinyan and was being hailed as one of the best flyweights of all time, and Guerrero had held two featherweight world title belts, but both fighters were restless. Both were itching to move up in weight class, income and in class of opposition, and each landed in a rut chasing those aspirations.

That’s why Guerrero and Donaire both shifted to premier promoters in 2008, with Donaire jilting Gary Shaw in favor of Bob Arum’s Top Rank, and Guerrero defecting from Goossen-Tutor to Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions. Ward remained a Goossen client, already clearly one of the two or three most important. But Guerrero had been important too, and Dan Goossen had fought hard to retain him, putting the fighter in boxing limbo for much of 2008.

As if there weren’t enough impediments.

Guerrero’s wife, Casey, had been diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia in 2007, and had been in and out of remission. Guerrero famously had knocked out formidable featherweight Martin Honorio in 56 seconds just hours after learning of Casey’s diagnosis. Despite that plucky achievement, Guerrero was saddled (as was Ward, it turned out) by what became palpable prejudice against Californians, who presumably are never tough or gritty enough to make it in boxing.

Donaire was married in 2008 to former martial arts star Rachel Marcial, who had a strong effect on his career, too, as she began to manage day-to-day aspects of his affairs, including the boxing/training schedule, and wound up at loggerheads with Donaire’s father-trainer. The rift that ensued became a big soap opera in the Philippines that got even more attention than Casey Guerrero’s fight for life received in the U.S. So Donaire, ignored in California, was reviled in the Philippines for being too, well, Californian.

And that’s where I came in...

Boxing coverage on the Internet really accelerated in 2008, and I took part by joining the new online news venture Examiner.com, ostensibly to fill the void Jack Fiske had left.

Boxing’s small-but-passionate audience was perfect for the Internet, but writers weren’t being paid much to produce content. It was almost more hobby than job. I had no intention of becoming a full-time boxing writer, and in fact felt overdoing would reduce my earnings-per-hour, which seldom equaled minimum wage in this venture, and probably would reduce my dignity as well.

There were intangibles, often bizarre. I was one of Showtime’s press-row judges for a Ward fight, so viewers saw and heard my name a couple of times. I spent five hours with Donaire and his entourage the evening before a fight in Las Vegas, with Nonito joking that I’d been kidnapped. Better yet, I was on a major Bay Area sports TV talk show a couple of times, once with Guerrero. Even better yet, I sat front-row center covering a Donaire fight for the Mercury News at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Still better yet, I was seen on national television in the Philippines singing that country’s national anthem -- in Tagalog.

What really made my venture worthwhile, however, was the steady progress the three fighters made on my watch.

It all unfolded clearly in my work from 2008 to 2014 on Examiner.com. The Kingpin Trio contains the highlights from the boxing world and some lowlights from the blogging world to provide some of the context for a venture that has been more successful than I envisioned for me, not to mention the Kingpin Trio. They entered 2013 with a collective record on my watch of 30-0, with one no contest, and an impressive registry of victims.

Here’s how it went down.

FALL 2008

THE PACQUIAO PILGRAMAGE

I didn’t even meet Robert Guerrero or Andre Ward before 2008 was up, but I met Nonito Donaire Jr. at the Shark Tank in November, hours before his split with his father, Nonito Sr., was becoming news.

I was just back from my first really big plunge into this new boxing beat, a close encounter in Los Angeles with Manny Pacquiao himself, which wound up immersing me deeply in the boxing scene nationally and internationally.

Examiner.com had alerted me that a couple of my mentions of Donaire and Pacquiao had brought me thousands of page views instead of the usual dozens, thanks to a portal in the Philippines, Philboxing.com. Proximity to Pacquiao could only help, so off to L.A. I went.

Examiner.com had just reached the 1,000-writer level nationally (I was No. 802), with a wide range of expertise among the examiners, who in San Francisco alone ranged from the Cigar Examiner to the Paranormal News Examiner to the Real Cougar Lifestyles Examiner. My SF Boxing Examiner postings were usually easy to find on Examiner’s San Francisco home page. At a penny per page view, hardly any examiners were making as much as I had made as a 10-year-old paperboy decades ago. The way I looked at it, the meager earnings from blogging might be enough to offset my pay-per-view expenses as a boxing fan, not to mention, a sounding board. But very few Examiners would make more than $3,000 per year for a 15-hour a week job; too little to suit a veteran professional.

Others bailed, but I was only the second boxing writer on the site and quickly became one of the more visible examiners.

I made about $700 that fall writing about Pacquiao’s call-out of Oscar De La Hoya, which turned into the December bout that was to be boxing’s signature event of 2008. The build-up to Pacquiao’s eight-round TKO victory over De La Hoya dominated boxing in my early months with Examiner. I was quickly part of the mix, especially after the pilgrimage to see Pacquiao training at the subsequently famous Wild Card Gym in Hollywood run by trainer Freddie Roach.

Manny, egged on by Roach, had agreed to augment his 2008 move from 130 pounds to 135 by moving up near 147 to challenge De La Hoya, who at 35 still seemed to be one of the best welterweights and junior middleweights in the world. He would hulk over Pacquiao, we all cried. However, I came back from L.A. convinced, by Roach’s comments about his former client De La Hoya, and by how well Pacquiao was carrying 152 pounds, that the Filipino would pull off the upset.

My Wild Card visit coincided with HBO’s preparation of a 24/7 documentary series on the Pacquiao-De La Hoya fight, a sequence that made the Wild Card famous and led to my Honda Accord’s appearance in parking lot footage.

Three days after my return from L.A., Pacquiao’s brother, Bobby, fought in San Jose. When I reached Bobby’s dressing room door after he was beaten decisively, Donaire was there and we quickly established a comfort level.

Then Donaire and his wife headed to the Philippines for the winter just as news of his rift with his dad was surfacing and Rachel was being heavily implicated.

Family strife was previously almost unknown among the Kingpin Trio. Ward’s father, Frank, a notable amateur heavyweight in the 1970s, introduced Andre to boxing and turned him over to Virgil Hunter before dying suddenly at 46 in 2002. Guerrero’s father, the sometimes-raffish Ruben Guerrero, has been Robert’s head trainer nearly his entire career. Donaire’s father had been both trainer and co-manager. And now: animosity within that framework that was too big in the Philippines to ignore.

You might also enjoy: http://www.examiner.com/article/pacquiao-klitschko-brothers-deserve-greater-admiration-from-americans

SEPTEMBER 2008

Chapter 1

FOR TOP RANK’S DONAIRE, A LOW-PROFILE TITLE DEFENSE

Nonito Donaire, from San Leandro, is arguably the Bay Area’s most important fighter, even though he’s far from the best known. He has been the International Boxing Federation (IBF) world flyweight champion (112 pounds) since scoring the most stunning knockout of the decade to win the title from Vic Darchinyan in July 2007. Since then, Donaire has fought only once. He was going stir-crazy as promoter Gary Shaw failed to get him fights -- at least not in the six-figure range Donaire ought to command now -- so Donaire has defected to Bob Arum and Top Rank.

Donaire is facing a mandatory title defense and apparently is getting a credible opponent for it on Nov. 1, as part of the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.-Matt Vanda pay-per-view card Top Rank is expected to stage in Las Vegas.

Donaire (19-1) will take on once-beaten South African Moruti Mthalane, whose No. 1 ranking actually seems predicated on ability. At worst he is no walkover for Donaire.

Mthalane has even less revenue-generating clout than Donaire, so as a main event Arum got stuck with Chavez Jr.-Vanda (a rematch of a July middleweight fight many feel Chavez didn’t deserve to win, especially not by such a lopsided decision). Arum’s intended main event -- a rematch between welterweight champion Antonio Margarito and Joshua Clottey -- fell through because Clottey (not Margarito, the true gate attraction) demanded too much.

Young Chavez is unbeaten, but he’s unaccomplished. The only reason he’s a main event attraction of any kind is that he is the son of a boxing legend. Mexican fans are very interested in the son even though he’s nothing like his father.

Donaire will have to tune out the undercard aspect in this tune-up bout of a title defense, which could be his last at 112. In the long run, Donaire appears to be in line for higher-profile bouts at super-flyweight (115). His father-trainer Nonito Sr. says Junior will face Mexican star Jorge Arce if both win their upcoming fights. There’s also talk of Donaire as an attractive opponent for dynamic Sinaloan Fernando Montiel.

American boxing fans may not be familiar enough with Donaire, but you can be sure Arce and Montiel know who he is.

ALL-AMERICAN BROTHER ACT: Nonito Donaire and his older brother, Glenn, are still fighting in the shadow of Manny Pacquiao, who has given Filipino boxing the respect it had long-since earned but, let’s face it, is not an American.

Somehow, despite nearly two decades in this country, the Donaire brothers are viewed as exotics, too, but not by anybody who has ever heard them at a microphone. They have crossover appeal, and of course they have the backing of the large, boxing-hungry Filipino-American community.

Glenn may not be on the rise, but he’s still credible in the 108-pound division, despite his unanimous-decision loss to Ulises Solis in Hermosillo, Mexico in July. No judge awarded Glenn a round in a bout some observers thought he had won. So you see, Glenn is becoming a lovable underdog, which Americans sometimes admire.

OCTOBER 2008

Chapter 2

DONAIRE IS FIL-AM GUY WITH BAY AREA POTENTIAL

IBF flyweight (112 pounds) champion Nonito Donaire would love to put Bay Area boxing on the map. He’s positioned to do so like no one since, oh, Bobo Olson 55 years ago. But his Bay Area ties don’t seem to be part of his image. Not yet, anyway.

The boxing world sees him as the No. 2 Filipino in the sport’s recent upswing in respect for the Philippines. No. 1, of course, is lightweight champion (135 pounds) Manny Pacquiao, the electrifying left-hander whose Dec. 6 date with Oscar De La Hoya may well set pay-per-view records. Manny is likely to continue to overshadow Donaire.

Now there are those who think of Nonito, who held a telephone press conference with boxing writers Thursday (Oct. 23), as a Las Vegas fighter as he prepares for his first bout since hooking up with Top Rank, a Nov. 1 title defense against little-known South African menace Moruti Mthalane at the Mandalay Bay.

But . . .

San Leandro has been the longtime base, training and otherwise for Nonito, and now he’s based in San Mateo with his new wife, Rachel. Still based in San Leandro is older brother Glenn Donaire, the former light-flyweight champion and still a contender. Nonito, feeling his East Bay ties, says he still likes to run in the shadows of the hills above Lake Chabot with my friend Andre Ward. When we were younger, we ran that hill a lot.

Nonito is only just now emerging from the shadow of Ward, the only American since 2000 to win an Olympic boxing gold medal. But Ward, though unbeaten in his middleweight/light-heavyweight classes, still has to be considered untested, and by Donaire standards, he is.

Donaire, after all, conquered fearsome but obnoxious slugger Vic Darchinyan in 2007 to win the IBF title flyweight with one of the most beautiful knockouts of this decade, and he was outclassing Darchinyan before the knockout. Their rematch, presumably at Darchinyan’s new weight (115), could gain Pacquiao-De La Hoya import if it percolates a couple of years. Let’s make it our goal to host that bout in the Bay Area about this time in 2010.

And if Nonito deals successfully with Mthalane, let’s stump for his flyweight summit meeting with Jorge Arce to take place at, say, Oracle Arena in Oakland. And let the massive – and vibrant – Filipino-American community lead the charge toward a level of ticket sales not common in the Bay Area since the aforementioned middleweight Olson was a gate attraction. There’s such an overflow of Pacquiao enthusiasm that a lot of it may well become a Donaire groundswell if he starts mowing down the likes of Arce and the many others lining up in boxing’s second most exciting division these days.

His manager is even more confident about Donaire’s prospects for dominating the flyweights than I am about the Bay Area’s potential for backing Nonito to mutual glory. Cameron Dunkin went so far as to compare Donaire to one of his former clients, the best flyweight I’ve ever seen. Nonito can be as good as Mark Johnson, Dunkin said, referring to one of the few left-handers ever whose stature approached what Pacquiao has going now. Minus the fan base, unfortunately.

Donaire may spend a lot of time with Pacquiao in Las Vegas and the Philippines, but he would love to see his Bay Area base stampede an arena in Oakland or San Jose. We can fill up that place, he said. We can definitely make it fun if we fight out there.

We indeed.

OCTOBER 2008

Chapter 3

WILL DONAIRE-MTHALANE WILL BE VISIBLE HERE?

I’m having trouble ensuring I can receive the pay-per-view telecast of Nonito Donaire's flyweight title fight Saturday Nov. 1. This is exactly why we need to attract his bouts to the Bay Area so we can attend.

Donaire (19-1, 12 knockouts) is fighting at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas against Moruti Mthalane (22-1, 15 knockouts), an obscure but dangerous South African who threatens to become an obstacle instead of a steppingstone to bigger and better things for Donaire, the IBF and IBO champion.

Donaire-Mthalane is a sort of co-feature with the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.-Matt Vanda junior middleweight rematch. It’s a card you’d like to see on HBO, Showtime, ESPN or VERSUS, but not a card for which you can see shelling out $40 (that’s the price tag on this PPV) when you’ve never even heard of all the headliners. There’s an interesting sub-main bout between Jorge Arce, who is likely to be fighting Donaire in a higher profile bout next year, against Isidro Garcia, who has lost eight times. But this is the sort of PPV card I would usually advise y’all to skip.

I could not find a Comcast listing for this card on-screen (on Ch. 800’s PPV listing), but on tvplanner.comcast.net I learned that it should be available on Ch. 801.

I’ll buy it if I can. I almost went to Vegas for the occasion, but that’s a long way off, and so are expense accounts here at Examiner.com. Seems like considerable savings to watch at home.

Donaire is expecting an exciting fight, and that portends a short fight. He’s one-dimensional, Donaire said of Mthalane, but he’s really tough. He can take a punch, and he throws a lot of punches. In other words, Donaire said he expects to hit Mthalane early and often. I’m the type to take a guy out as early as I can.

Arce’s presence won’t cause him to overlook Mthalane, Donaire says. This guy can be tough if you take him lightly. Right now I have a guy in front of me who’s trying to take away everything I have. If that fight with Arce happens sometime next year, that’s when I’ll focus on him.

YOU MIGHT WATCH DARCHINYAN INSTEAD: Another distraction for Donaire (and Arce) on Nov. 1 is the Vic Darchinyan-Cristian Mijares super-flyweight (115) unification fight on Showtime. That Darchinyan (30-1-1, 24 knockouts) and Donaire are fighting the same night on separate cards – the Showtime bouts are set for Carson, Calif. – only whets our appetites all the more for a rematch between those two. Donaire’s 2007 upset of Darchinyan is his signature win and Darchinyan’s only loss. Mijares’ record includes a win over Arce.

NOVEMBER 2008

Chapter 4

DONAIRE STOPS MTHALANE IN 6 ON A CUT

Nonito Donaire stopped South African challenger Moruti Mthalane in six rounds Saturday in Las Vegas, barely raising a sweat, to retain his IBF flyweight title, but his victory wasn’t the most satisfying among the evening’s three major bouts involving flyweights.

Mthalane sustained a cut inside his left eyelid in the sixth round that ended the fight, but he fought respectably and the early conclusion was frustrating.

More satisfying was Vic Darchinyan’s ninth-round knockout of Cristian Mijares in their super-flyweight (115 pounds) unification bout in Carson, Calif. Darchinyan (31-1-1), who has lost only to Donaire, claimed Mijares’ WBA and WBC belts by knocking him down in the first round of their battle of left-handers, winning all but one round on all three scorecards through eight rounds and ending the bout at the end of the ninth with a straight left. Mijares, who unlike Darchinyan was long established at 115, was a slight favorite despite Darchinyan’s heavy-handed reputation. Like Donaire, Mijares is an all-around craftsman, but unlike Donaire he lacked the muscle to stand up to Darchinyan, a native of Armenia who lives in Sydney. Aggressive offense is often the best way to beat a slugger, but Mijares didn’t mount much of an attack until the seventh round.

Also more satisfying than Donaire’s victory was a fourth-round knockout scored by Jorge Arce over Isidro Garcia in their super-flyweight bout on the Las Vegas card. Arce toyed with Garcia before opening up on his fellow Mexican in the fourth and closing the show. Therefore, there remains a lot of talk that Arce (51-4-1), who has held three world titles, will fight Donaire next.

Donaire was a regal flyweight (112 pounds) king against Mthalane, who was getting the chance of a lifetime and seemed intimidated. Donaire sat back and loaded up on counter shots and seemed able to beat Mthalane to the punch. It took the No. 1-ranked challenger three rounds to get untracked against his longer, stronger opponent. In the fourth, Mthalane (22-2) was busy and landed seven or eight good shots, bruising Donaire (20-1), and briefly causing the champion to assume a southpaw stance. The fifth was rather like the fourth, except without the disparity in punches landed, and I scored it even, which means I had Donaire leading 49-47 after five. Donaire fought as a southpaw nearly the entire sixth round and became aggressive with the right jab, apparently landing the telling blow to the eyelid with that stratagem. Then he got more aggressive. I switched up and threw a left, and, boom, it hit him, Donaire said. I knew that was it. There was no need to punish him any more. He couldn't see me.

The Mandalay Bay crowd booed the deliberate pace of the bout (but enjoyed the other main event, in which unbeaten Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. outgunned Matt Vanda to win by unanimous decision in their junior middleweight non-title rematch), yet the cautious approach enabled Donaire to maintain his ring generalship. Had the bout gone on, Donaire seemed likely to establish his strength advantage, but it still might have come down to a unanimous decision win instead of a stoppage.

Even with the unsatisfying conclusion, Donaire looked like the one flyweight nobody (except the revenge-bent Darchinyan) seems to want to fight.

NOVEMBER 2008

Chapter 5

DONAIRE COMMANDING IN HIS CORNER

Finally meeting emerging superstar Nonito Donaire Jr. was a highlight Thursday of a most enjoyable Fight Night at the Tank in San Jose. The IBF flyweight champion and wife Rachel drove down from San Mateo and were in a playful mood outside Bobby Pacquiao’s dressing room when I met them. Nonito was much the hale-fellow-well-met at HP Pavilion, especially when he stepped in to translate for reporters struggling to interview Pacquiao, Manny’s brother, after a discouraging defeat.

I had no idea that Donaire had dismissed his father as trainer this month and that public speculation about the cause of the change had led Nonito to chastise the meddlesome media via a statement released hours before our meeting. Pending our next conversation, let me try to interpret.

Donaire’s impressive presence is all we need to know about the recent changes he’s dealing with. Nonito, 26, is clearly the master of his domain. Most fathers who train elite fighters ultimately reach this crossroad. Unless Don Vito Corleone is your father, you reach a stage where you’re no longer your papa’s subordinate. Boxing-wise at least, the young champion has reached that stage and the filial relationship is being redefined.

Bottom line: Donaire doesn’t need an authoritarian in his corner anymore.

But like President-elect Obama, Donaire needs to lead a rapid transition. By the time Nonito’s broken left pinkie heals in late winter, two of his targeted opponents, Jorge Arce and Vic Darchinyan, probably will be fighting each other instead, and Donaire suspects he’ll be signed for a fight with WBO super-flyweight champion Fernando Montiel by then.

DECEMBER 2008

Chapter 6

GUERRERO’S DEPARTURE FROM GOOSSEN UPHELD

The reason we haven’t seen Robert Guerrero of Gilroy fight since early 2008 is not because he’s hurt or because of his wife’s leukemia. The problem has been Guerrero’s quest to sever his legal ties with promoter Dan Goossen.

That quest ended Tuesday when the California Attorney General’s Office ruled in favor of Guerrero in arbitration of the 10-month-old case. Guerrero announced his freedom. I talked with a spokesman for Guerrero, Mario Serrano, on Monday, and he told me an announcement about Guerrero (22-1-1, 15 knockouts) would take place in a day or two. This must have been it.

The next two announcements are expected to be Guerrero’s alliance with Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions, and perhaps a fight date as early as January. In his last outing, Feb. 29, Guerrero knocked out Jason Litzau to retain the IBF featherweight (126 pounds) title, which he relinquished in June. Guerrero who is a bit more than 5-foot-8, is ready to move up to 130 pounds to fill the void left in 2008 by fellow left-hander Manny Pacquiao’s move up to higher weight classes.

Wouldn’t it be great to see The Ghost go against Pacquiao nemesis Juan Manuel Marquez (after a couple of interim bouts for build-up sake)?

In the meantime, with the Goossen case apparently settled, and with wife Casey’s leukemia in remission, one of the Bay Area’s most important fighters can concentrate on getting better than ever.

WINTER 2009

MANNY/MAYWEATHER MOUTHPIECE

One-on-one sessions with Robert Guerrero and Andre Ward were my first order of business in 2009. I met Guerrero and publicist Mario Serrano at Sue’s Roasting in Gilroy on a bright January weekday, and it was an easy-going 45 minutes. I interviewed Ward by phone for 20 minutes of good copy and met him at his early February fight at a casino in Lemoore, Calif.

But those encounters were not my primary sources of readership.

With Manny Pacquiao and former 140-pound champion Ricky Hatton negotiating through enemy promoters for a May bout, the issue of a purse split other than 50-50 created frenzies in the Philippines and in Hatton’s Great Britain, to my good fortune.

January was my best month ever on Examiner, with roughly 75,000 page views as my rehashes of Pacquiao’s and Hatton’s relative merits were part of a lively mix worldwide. At one point Pacquiao’s publicist in Los Angeles issued a statement from Manny at nearly midnight PST, and I was able to report it first because so many others were asleep in other time zones.

I got credit for a scoop that wasn’t mine at all. The newspaper in Grand Rapids, Mich., the hometown of the recently retired Floyd Mayweather Jr., reported that the 31-year-old’s IRS problems would probably necessitate a comeback. So, topping my Best Fights of 2009 wish list was Mayweather-Pacquiao, and by saying so I got not only one of those 20,000-page-view reactions but also subsequent credit for having reported Mayweather’s comeback.

My perch at Examiner starting getting crowded from February on, though, as examiners were added in New York, Los Angeles, and a half-dozen other spots -- and the others were far more willing than I to put boxing first in their professional lives. One was particularly aggressive about usurping any sway I had with Nonito and Rachel Donaire, who surprised me with a phone call from the Philippines in late February but could be hard to contact.

Still, with Guerrero and Ward finally busy, there was plenty of interesting content in front of me -- especially when Guerrero had a slice of bad luck in the ring.

You might also enjoy: http://www.examiner.com/boxing-in-san-francisco/where-yo-adrian-intersects-barbeau-nevada-s-lower-institutions-feed-into-hbo

JANUARY 2009

Chapter 7

VISITING THE GHOST IN GILROY

If you’re disappointed that Edel Ruiz (31-21-4, 22 knockouts) is the opponent lined up Jan. 24 for Robert Guerrero’s return from an 11-month layoff, imagine how Guerrero feels.

We had no right to expect a title shot for Guerrero (22-1-1) in his first fight as a 130-pounder and his first fight for his new promoter. But Ruiz is one of those sad-sack journeymen you can’t help rooting for, even if he’s fighting one of your homeboys. He has no chance against Guerrero, the former IBF featherweight champion from Gilroy, in their bout on the Antonio Margarito-Shane Mosley undercard at Staples Center in Los Angeles on HBO.

When Guerrero says, I want to be able to say I fought everyone they put in front of me, he means he’s the kind of guy who would have been willing to take on WBA super featherweight champion Jorge Linares and establish right now, short notice and all, that The Ghost is already one of the top two or three men in the division. Instead everyone includes this 31-year-old everyman from Sinaloa whose seven losses in his past 10 bouts include one to Jason Litzau, the very man Guerrero stopped in eight rounds last February in his most recent bout.

Guerrero, 25, is ready for a challenge. During the idle spell caused by his protracted but successful battle to escape his contract with promoter Dan Goossen and join Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions, Guerrero has kept in shape while helping his wife reach remission in her battle with leukemia and helping her raise their small children.

Guerrero and publicist Mario Serrano were good company last week when they let me join them at Sue’s Roasting in downtown Gilroy, and I’ll tell you more about that later. The thing is, meeting The Ghost heightened the sense that it would have been fun to see him thrown into battle against someone almost too challenging, like Linares, who is also a former (WBC) featherweight champion.

And that remains the sort of fight we want for Guerrero in 2009. Preferably right here in San Jose. In the meantime, Ruiz is an experienced professional, and it won’t be any more fun for Guerrero to face him than fun for us to watch, which we probably won’t; HBO isn’t airing the undercard.

So we’ll merely empathize as Guerrero bites his lip and bides his time.

JANUARY 2009

Chapter 8

WARD TO STEP IN AGAINST SUGAR POO

Andre Ward is the marquee attraction Feb. 6 when he fights Henry Sugar Poo Buchanan in a 12-round main event that will air on Showtime’s ShoBox series.

Buchanan (17-1, 12 knockouts) isn’t quite the worthy opponent critics have been recommending for Ward (17-0, 12 knockouts) to face, but it’s an attractive matchup and probably the right one for Ward at this point.

Ward’s pro career has progressed slowly since he won a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, the last American boxer to win gold. Quick, talented, earnest and interesting-looking, Ward has the most obvious box-office appeal of any Bay Area boxer, but he has seemed a bit vulnerable to the occasional pot-shot, and thus his handlers have been careful.

Yes, Ward has been coddled, but he also suffered a knee injury last summer from which he has just recovered. The Oakland super-middleweight has fought only once, a December tune-up win over Esteban Camau, since knee surgery, and in that light Buchanan represents a reasonable test, even though Buchanan’s only previous bout against a world-class foe resulted in a one-sided loss by decision to Jean Paul Mendy in 2006, and Buchanan has fought only three times since then.

However, in light of rumors that Ward was being lined up to face former middleweight champion Jermain Taylor, Buchanan isn’t a substantial warm-up, although one or two second-tier title belts will be at stake. Ward has to beat Buchanan as the house fighter/champion in the ShoBox match in Lemoore, Calif., and then beat someone more high profile to build up sufficient interest for a fight with the likes of Taylor or Mikkel Kessler.

On one hand, it seems we must continue to be awfully patient concerning Ward’s trajectory. On the other, there’s no reason from a time standpoint that Ward couldn’t fight Buchanan, Librado Andrade and Taylor within this calendar year. Maybe Buchanan is the first step toward stepping it up.

JANUARY 2009

Chapter 9

DONAIRE TO FIGHT, BUT NOT AGAINST MONTIEL

Nonito Donaire is training for a March title fight in the Philippines, but excitement began dissipating instead of building during the past week, beginning with the news his opponent March 14 will not be Fernando Montiel and the weight class will not be 115 pounds.

Donaire will not abdicate his IBF and IBO 112-pound titles after all, Top Rank chief Bob Arum said Friday. He will defend them against 5-foot-2 veteran Eric Ortiz (30-8-2, 19 knockouts). Donaire, who is wintering in his native Philippines, probably won’t complain about the diminished caliber of opponent or perhaps even the challenge of getting his 5-foot-6 frame down to 112 again, but this is a very disappointing development for him.

Donaire-Montiel was a dream match for the 115 class, especially in tandem with the Feb. 7 match-up of Vic Darchinyan and Jorge Arce, which is still a go. Then Montiel announced he can’t be a flyweight anymore, and the replacement for him in the WBO super-flyweight title bout seemed to be Puerto Rican veteran Jose Carita Lopez (38-7-1), a credible but less-than-elite opponent for Donaire (20-1, 13 knockouts).

That turn of events knocked Donaire down to the second rung of the March 14 card at Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City. The other bout features light flyweights Brian Viloria and Ulises Soliz, two of Nonito’s brother Glenn Donaire’s most notable rivals. It seems Arum was outmaneuvered and couldn’t wrest Lopez from a February bout against Thailand’s Promuansak Posuwan. For Donaire, Arum instead had to line up Ortiz, who seems a bit of a comedown from Lopez, let alone Montiel.

There’s an awful lot of good competition in the next several weeks, with impressive welterweight Andre Berto fighting tonight against Luis Collazo and the even more eminent welterweight Antonio Margarito facing all-time great Shane Mosley on Jan. 24, with Arce-Darchinyan on Feb. 7, Alfredo Angulo-Ricardo Mayorga on Feb. 14, and Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Juan Diaz on Feb. 28.

In that light, this week’s alterations leave the Quezon City card with a rather borderline doubleheader for Showtime, with a low-profile main event preceded by Donaire in a walkover. I’ll bet Donaire’s Bay Area fans end up not getting to see it.

FEBRUARY 2009

Chapter 10

GUERRERO ON HBO AT SHARK TANK? YES!

With Andre Ward headed for ShoBox next Friday night and Nonito Donaire training for a mid-March pay-per-view fight, it would be something if Robert Guerrero were to top them. He can, if rumors and negotiations pan out.

The Ghost might appear March 7 on HBO, fighting at the Shark Tank.

Once a month your Welterweight Champion here suspends the rules on rumor-mongering while discussing the best and worst fights of the recent past and near future. The Guerrero/HBO/Shark Tank scenario easily tops the agenda.

The HP Pavilion card already has taken shape without Guerrero, though it hasn’t been announced. Pugnacious junior middleweight James Kirkland (24-0, 21 knockouts) is a main attraction who will not be lulled into a boring fight, especially if the opponent turns out to be light-achieving Colombian Joel Julio (34-2, 31 knockouts). On paper that’s a better-than-average Fight Night at the Tank main event, though not of much local interest. The sub-main currently penciled in is junior welterweight Victor Ortiz vs. Mike Arnaoutis, which isn’t bad.

But a second sub-main event featuring Guerrero is what Golden Boy Promotions is eager to promote and HBO would like to showcase. And Guerrero is what San Jose would like to see, as The Ghost is from nearby Gilroy. Dan Rafael of ESPN.com reported that veteran lightweight contender Jesus Chavez turned down the spot opposite Guerrero on the San Jose card. (Chavez was the first to beat Sharmba Mitchell and the last to beat the late Leavander Johnson.)

As for Ward, the 2004 Olympic gold medalist is the main attraction on the ShoBox card in Lemoore, Calif., on Feb. 6, fighting a fairly suitable super-middleweight opponent, Henry Buchanan. It appears I’ll be interviewing Ward early next week, so watch this space.

FEBRUARY 2009

Chapter 11

BAY AREA DOING LITTLE TO HELP DONAIRE

Nonito Donaire’s flyweight title defense March 21 in the Philippines will not be visible in the Bay Area, where Donaire lives. That signifies a crisis point in his career outside the Philippines that needs to be resolved close to home.

Even if Donaire had never knocked out Vic Darchinyan, the flyweight who gets most of what little attention flyweights receive, the Filipino Flash would be anointed the top fighter in the 112-115 range by an impressive range of boxing experts. The Ring Magazine does rate Nonito the top 112-pounder.

Nevertheless, things seemed a lot more rosy for Donaire about two months ago than they do now. Way back in December, a March challenge to 115-pound champion Fernando Montiel appeared destined to put Donaire on a high-profile rung on Showtime, presumably routinely. Donaire was among those who believed the Montiel-Donaire winner would face the winner of Saturday’s Darchinyan-Jorge Arce bout for supremacy at 115. Donaire recently had dumped promoter Gary Shaw in favor of the more high-powered Top Rank, whose Bob Arum is a good guy to know if you want to fight on HBO.

Then Montiel announced he can’t get down to 115 anymore. That meant there wasn’t a match-up worthy of Showtime anymore. As a second opponent fell through and a third match-up was too lackluster for Donaire, the opponent (No. 4) will be Raul Martinez, whose 24-0 record makes him a worthy opponent, yet an unlikely spoiler. Donaire has a chance to look really good.

If only we could see it. There doesn’t seem to be any juice for televising Donaire-Martinez back to the United States.

Understandably, Donaire’s manager, Cameron Dunkin, talks with a perpetual sigh. He feels he can’t get Donaire on Showtime because the split with Shaw runs him afoul of Shaw’s influence at Showtime. And HBO caters (your Welterweight Champion is guilty) to the lightweight-welterweight-middleweight nexus, with no end in sight to the scarcity of flyweights.

Dunkin may be wrong about Showtime. Shaw used to like Donaire, and it’s not as though Donaire hasn’t commanded Showtime’s attention, considering it aired his 2007 knockout of Darchinyan.

But Donaire belongs on HBO, where there isn’t enough interest. Yet. The thing I want to impress upon the primo network’s executives is that Nonito Donaire could step into the analyst chair for one of your telecasts tomorrow and blow everybody away. Add that personality and charisma to the boxing mix, a savvy ring general with elite speed and the largest frame imaginable for a flyweight, and you’ve got a budding superstar.

It would help if there were a more visible groundswell on Donaire’s behalf at home. A couple-hundred thousand Filipino Americans in the Bay Area could lead the way, but it seems to me Donaire should have special appeal for just about every ethnic group I know in the greater San Francisco-San Jose-Oakland area.

I haven’t given up hope that his bouts will become staples of cable TV. But I’m not convinced that local groundswell I’m counting on is a certainty.

FEBRUARY 2009

Chapter 12

GUERRERO’S SAN JOSE BOUT ON HBO A GO

Matched against an intriguing, unbeaten young opponent, Robert Guerrero rounds out one of San Jose’s most important boxing cards in years March 7, a tripleheader at HP Pavilion to be aired on HBO’s Boxing After Dark.

Guerrero’s 10-round bout with 21-year-old Indonesian Daud Cino Yordan (23-0, 17 knockouts) will be regarded elsewhere as merely the third-most