A new season of our pick'em game has started.  Please check out Bad Left Hook to play.

As many of our readers are already aware from the announcement on Bad Left Hook, The Boxing Bulletin will be joining forces with BLH in 2011.

While this is exciting news in many respects, it also means that we will no longer be operating as an individual site and TheBoxingBulletin.com will cease to be updated.  On behalf of all our writers and photographers, we wish to thank you for visiting us over the last two years.  We hope that you have enjoyed our work and will continue to follow our writers in the future.

- Lee Payton & Andrew Fruman

Where you can find The Boxing Bulletin writers in 2011 and beyond?

As Scott Christ mentioned on Bad Left Hook, Andrew Fruman, Lee Payton, Sidney Boquiren and Jason Karp will be writing for BLH.  You can add Dave Oakes to the group as well which means BLH will be the place to go for British and Japanese boxing coverage.  Also writing for BLH will be Anthony Wilson, formerly of The Rumble.

Our writers will also be moving on to a couple of other great sites, with The Cruelest Sport and The Queensbury Rules the new home for a number of TBB contributors.

Writing for The Cruelest Sport will be Michael Nelson, Patrick Connor and Andrew Fruman.  You can expect to see occasional pieces from Dave Oakes and Sidney Boquiren on TCS as well.  Patrick's work can also be found on his blog, Violent Meditation.

Corey Erdman, Andrew Harrison and Anthony Wilson will be writing for The Queensbury Rules.  Andrew has written for TQBR in the past, and you can always read more from him on his blog, Safe Side of the Ropes.  As he's been doing on TBB, Andrew will also be filling in on occasion for The British Scene on BLH.  Corey can also be found over the airwaves on Pound 4 Pound Radio on Sirius 98.

Jeff Pryor, who wrote a number of excellent feature stories for us over the last two years will confirm in the near future where his writing can be found in 2011.  Chances are you'll be able to find him at one of the aforementioned sites.

Joseph R. Holzer and Frank Zhong have also yet to confirm their plans for 2011.

Ivan Montiel can be found at FightFan.com.

If you're a Boxing Bulletin pick'em game player, the game will be starting up again the weekend of January 21/22 on Bad Left Hook.

If you have any questions, we can still be reached via e-mail.

The Boxing Bulletin writers voted over the last week for their choices for the best of 2010.

Here are the winners...

Fighter of the Year

Sergio Martinez

There was no doubt about this one, with Martinez taking the honor unanimously.

The Argentinean middleweight upset the odds with a convincing decision win over Kelly Pavlik back in April, before emphatically stamping his claim as this year's top fighter with a stunning one punch knock-out of Paul Williams in November.

Fight of the Year

Amir Khan UD12 Marcos Maidana

This was a close vote, with Khan's thrilling twelve round points victory against a hard charging Maidana just earning the nod over Humberto Soto's bruising decision win over Urbano Antillon.  Also receiving first place votes were Giovanni Segura's knockout of Ivan Calderon, Juan Manuel Marquez's TKO over Michael Katsidis, and Ricky Burns' upset win over Roman Martinez.

Knockout of the Year

Sergio Martinez KO2 Paul Williams

No surprise here, with Maravilla's flush left hand blast earning the unanimous vote of the TBB writers.

Performance of the Year

Carl Froch UD12 Arthur Abraham

Using a sharp accurate jab and ring smarts, Froch outclassed his heavy handed Super Six rival from start to finish.  The Nottingham fighter also mixed in some solid body work and crisp right hands that had Abraham noticeably wilting down the stretch.  It was an all-around outstanding effort from Froch against an opponent that many fight aficionado's picked to win by knockout.

Several other performances received first place votes, with Juan Manuel Marquez earning runner-up honors for his victory over Michael Katsidis.  The 135lb champ proved his mettle once more by climbing off the deck to eventually wear down his gritty opponent with a counter-punching clinic.

Also receiving first place votes were Nonito Donaire's destruction of Wladimir Sidorenko, Floyd Mayweather's domination of Shane Mosley and the comeback effort of Bernard Hopkins against Jean Pascal.

Upset of the Year

Jason Litzau SD10 Celestino Caballero

The Minnesota fighter's decision victory over Caballero in November was a runaway choice for this award.  Expected to be nothing more than an opponent in a stay-busy outing for the highly rated Panamanian, Litzau seized the opportunity by outworking Caballero in the majority of rounds to earn the nod on the cards.

The runner-up was the shocker pulled off by Gilberto Keb Bass.  The 33-year-old Mexican journeyman with 20 losses on his ledger, upended countryman Omar Nino in early November with a 12 round majority decision win.  Scottsman Ricky Burns also received a first place vote in this category for his surprise victory over Roman Martinez in a terrific action fight.

Sidney Boquiren recaps Sunday's boxing action from Japan.  For more Japanese boxing updates, you can follow Sidney on twitter: RingwalkNippon@Twitter

Koki writes Japanese boxing history, becomes first three-division champ

Japanese boxing purists and critics of the alphabet organizations may discount the feat that Koki Kameda achieved on Sunday at the Saitama Super Arena when he won the WBA bantamweight title and became Japan’s first ever three-division champion.

With the inception of the junior divisions and the sheer number of belts handed out in each weight class, the once difficult task of finding success in multiple divisions has clearly become much easier. The very fact that a belt was available was stupefying – the man who had previously held it, Anselmo Moreno, was elevated to the organization’s "Super Champion" status, leaving the "regular" championship vacant. One could also argue that neither participant in yesterday’s bout had been worthy of the title opportunity. Kameda had never fought, let alone beaten, a true contender at 118-pounds; Alexander Munoz retired last November, only to return eleven months later and barely squeak by a sub-.500 journeyman.

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Congratulations to A.F., our season 4 pick'em winner with 229 points.  The new champion held off a strong late season push from waldo47, who finished only 8 back in second spot with 221.  Matt (Yorkshire) took third place with 182, followed by sigidy in fourth with 164 and Brickhaus taking fifth with 141.5.

We have prizes for the top 5 players.  Please e-mail us at TheBoxingBulletin@gmail.com.

Rounding out the top 10 were Violent Demise with 139.5, TheChampIsHere 137.5, BrianBrock 132, thenonpareil 129.5 and Michael Nelson with 122.5.

Thank you to everyone for playing.

The complete weekly standings and overall leaders...

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It's not a fight boxing fans were hoping for, but the news that Shane Mosley has won the latest  Manny Pacquiao sweepstakes is certainly not a surprise. All signs pointed to the former champion as Top Rank's choice for the May 7 Vegas date, and while many hoped either Juan Manuel Marquez or Andre Berto would get the call, it sounds like neither were ever truly in the running.

Very few followers of the sweet science truly believe this will be a competitive fight, but Top Rank and Pacquiao will make their money, and Mosley will too.  This is hardly something to look forward to for the rest of us, but we'll save further complaints for a later date.  For now let's take a look around the net for more reaction to the fight...

Bad Left Hook - Manny Pacquiao-Shane Mosley Done for May 7

The fight is sure to draw criticism, and rightly so. Mosley is old and looked worn out this year. While it's worth asking who else was really available, I would point to Andre Berto, though with the admission that Berto is nowhere near Mosley's star level. Our friend Corey Erdman spoke with Lou DiBella, Berto's promoter, and Lou said, "It was never a true sweepstakes. [Pacquiao-Mosley] is not a surprise. Smart business, but maybe not good for boxing."

Boxing Scene - How Pacquaio vs Mosley Impacts The Rest Of The Sport

Depending upon whom you ask, news of Manny Pacquiao and Shane Mosley agreeing to terms for a May 7 showdown is a dream come true or the worst possible scenario.

Popular opinion leads far more towards the latter. When you think about who wins and who loses in the aftermath of Tuesday’s announcement, it’s easy to understand why.

The winners from this event do not make for a very extensive list.

ESPN - Manny Pacquiao-Shane Mosley a bad fight for boxing

Forget all the nonsense we've heard since Pacquiao beat down Antonio Margarito, about how Pacquiao's next opponent was going to come from a list of Mosley, Juan Manuel Marquez and Andre Berto.

The real list was more like Mosley, Mosley and Mosley. But Arum had to include a couple of other names so he could leverage Mosley into believing it was a competition and, therefore, drive down his price. Mosley is desperate for the fight after being beaten almost as badly in his recent divorce settlement as he will be by Pacquiao, who should have put his foot down and demanded a better fight. Make no mistake: Pacquiao is culpable here, too.

Boxing FanHouse - Bob Arum: Shane Mosley-Manny Pacquiao 'Most Sellable Fight'

How much did the obviously strained relationship between Top Rank Promotions and Golden Boy Promotions factor into the negotiations, as well as the asking price of the purse demands of Juan Manuel Marquez?

Bob Arum: Golden Boy, they agreed to step aside and to allow us to promote a third fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez. They gave us the call on everything that we wanted. So that was not an obstacle.

But what was an obstacle was that they had priced themselves so high, that it was something that Manny became offended about. They were asking for more than double the money that they made when Marquez fought and lost to Floyd Mayweather.

I don't think that that was fair or that it was right, and Marquez, because of that, was a non-starter.

LATimes.com - Manny Pacquiao vs. Shane Mosley said to be a done deal

Marquez's promoter, Richard Schaefer, said he proposed to Arum that if a Pacquiao-Marquez III bout generated a pay-per-view audience of 1.2 million, Marquez, 37, would collect $5 from every buyer beyond 500,000 for an $8.5-million purse. Pacquiao and Top Rank would earn more than $28 million — "More than fair," Schaefer said.

"Good luck to [Mosley]," Schaefer said Tuesday. "He turned his back on Golden Boy, so be it. Everybody moves on. It is what it is. There's nothing I can do but wish him luck."

A look at the career of Eddie Machen, a gifted heavyweight who never reached his potential because of a shaky psychological make-up. He died, in mysterious circumstances, at the age of 40 - by Carlos Acevedo of The Cruelest Sport.

Perhaps he crossed the path of a black cat once too often, or was given to recklessly overturning saltshakers. Whatever he did, Eddie Machen, a top heavyweight in the late fifties and early sixties, was the personification of bad luck in a business–prizefighting–where bad luck is an accepted occupational hazard. A naturally gifted boxer, Machen had a habit of bringing more than just his gloves into the ring; he also dragged with him the kind of bad juju common to characters in a Cornell Woolrich novel or a particularly bleak film noir.

Eddie Machen was born in Redding, California on July 15, 1932. During the midst of the Depression, Redding was an anomaly: a Boom Town–or at least as close as you could get to one in those lean days. The construction of the Shasta Dam, which began in 1936, nearly doubled the population of Redding, and brought in its wake a blue collar workforce as well as the rough and tumble atmosphere typical of hard laborers during lean times.

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