By Craig Joseph Daly: We are already closing in on three months of boxing action banked in the calendar year. Like years past, the commencement of 2011 began as one of hope for the boxing fan as we salivated at the prospect of a Wladimir Klitschko vs. David Haye showdown finally materializing just as we had longed for the Pacquiao / Mayweather negotiations to finally bare fruition each of the two previous years.

It appeared, at least upon the offset of 2011 that we humble fight fans were to once again masticate ourselves on a serving of bitter disappointment. That is of course until the first week of March, when amidst the darkness and seemingly insurmountable pigheadedness, rational trains of thought came ‘a hurtling over the horizon and the men at the core of these previously long drawn out negotiations finally exercised some powers of resolution and got done what needed to get done. Perhaps Adam Booth and Bernd Bonte (the two men at the helms of each of these previously failed contract talks), respectively had a craftmatic mattress or new lazy-boy recliner installed, subsequently woke up from the best sleep they’d enjoyed for the past 18 months and finally deemed that at present there is really only one fight to be made in the heavyweight division that can generate sufficient worldwide attention. Whatever the reason, you won’t find a naysayer amongst those involved with the pugilistic arts regarding this much anticipated bout finally being put together, unless of course your name is Derek Chisora. Now let us all reserve our unbridled excitement, at least until the first bell sounds, for fear our collective sigh of relief were to injure one of the combatants thus throwing the fight into limbo once again.

Although the years biggest fight thus far failed to live up to expectations, I am of course referring to the snoozefest staged at Detroit’s Silverdome between Timothy Bradley and Devon Alexander, I have been relatively pleased with the overall return up to this point. Even now while typing Alexander’s name I feel obliged to google the event for confirmation that he did indeed turn up on the night of January 29th, when both boxers but particularly Alexander, fought the type of fight that made the city’s NFL franchise Lions and their dismal last decade of play seem like a non stop thrill ride. The recent performances by two of the sports pound for pound best in Nonito Donaire and Sergio Martinez, along with the entertaining Cotto vs. Mayorga scrap, always exciting James Kirkland resuming his work following a prison stint and the emergence of, if nothing else a huge ticket seller in Saul Alvarez, has all served to cleanse the aftertaste of the aforementioned 140lb unification. We are, at the time of writing this article (March 23rd), yet to feel the reverberations of a monumental upset. I accept that on paper Yuri Foreman getting pulled out in the 6th round vs. Pawel Wolak and Junior Witter losing on points over 10 rounds to Victor Puiu were both upsets in their own right but Witter was moving up in weight, having lost 2 of his last 3 fights and had looked increasingly easy to hit. As for the beat down Wolak put on Foreman, well the more I examine events leading up to the bout the more apparent the outcome should have been to all of us. Foreman 30, coming back from his first loss at the hands of Miguel Cotto, was fighting for the first time in almost nine months following knee surgery and his former trainer was now working the corner of his pressure fighting opponent Wolak. Also prior to both these fights, one thinks not even Foreman or Witter’s respective mothers would’ve made the argument that either man was considered a boxing superstar, so they failed to register significantly on the Richter scale of shock. From an earthquake standpoint, both results were more tremors. The following are a short compilation of upcoming fights that a betting man would advise the common punter “not to sleep on”. So do you smell the faint scent of upset?