If I seems like I am dwelling in the past, there is a valid reason. The present of boxing doesn't offer much and the future appears to hold even less promise.

Look at the current Ring rankings. The Heavyweight class is without a champion. Valdimer Klitschko sits at number one with 172 weeks in the ratings, but it is not until you reach number six that you even have someone who could challenge in Sultan Ibragimov. Hell, the field is so desolate that John Ruiz is ranked number nine. One look at the rankings provides the reason behind not having a current champion. There is actually no division.

The same goes for cruiserweight, no champion and no one worthy of the title. After that, the picture begins to grow clearer as to the reason for the deteriorating condition of the sweet science.  Joe Calzaghe holds two weight class titles. In the Light Heavyweight class he reigns over Bernard Hopkins, Andrew Tarver and Roy Jones. Not only are these guys your father's fighters. They are old enough to have fought your father.

Jazz would have died if no one picked up a horn after John Coltrane, or Dizzy Gillespie passed away. Instead, young musicians were nurtured and names like Wynton Marsalis and Joshua Redman were developed. Boxing would do well to learn from jazz. Instead of developing young talent, the sport has hung on to guys who are long in the tooth and over the hill.

As Marsalis Wallace explains to Butch Coolidge in Pulp Fiction, "There is no retirement plan for boxers." He is painfully correct. Those in the sport who still care about the participants, like Teddy Atlas, advocate some sort of retirement, or profit sharing, so boxers long past their prime won't get their brains knocked out just trying to maintain a decent standard of living.

The lack of such a plan explains why Joel Casamayor is still climbing in the ring. On Saturday he was beaten by Juan Manuel Marquez in a match that would have been exciting eight years ago. However, in a sport that, instead of training youngster to climb the ranks picks them from a reality show that is to be expected. To their credit Casamayor and Marquez were willing to get in the ring against each other. They are both competent, if slightly aging fighters. They could have pulled an Oscar De La Hoya and fought someone who couldn't punch his way out of a wet paper bag.

In years past the Olympics would have spawned some notable fighters who would have stepped into the professional ranks, but through mismanagement at the amateur level even that avenue is closed. The AIBA, the governing board of amateur boxing, refused to act on matches that were clearly scored inappropriately and did not sanction referees who influenced the decision by making quick TKO calls or penalizing fighters who had been fouled. When an AIBA official spoke up and revealed that evidence existed to support the accusation that fights were being awarded erroneously, he was censored by his own organization. They claimed he had spoken to the press before clearing it through channels. It appeared those muddy channels were what he was trying to avoid.

Most sports take a black eye when the participants screw up. A baseball player who is discovered to have used steroids, a footballs player who gets loaded and crashes his car, or a basketball player who decides to live out the thug life by drawing a gun in a nightclub are the sources of embarrassment for these sports. In boxing it is the governing boards that bring about the shame.

While Don King was once an ugly exception he has become the rule. A single promoter can control so many fighters that he is, in essence competing with himself. That being the case, is he going to promote a fight between up and comers even if they existed in the ranks? Of course not, better to let someone on the downhill side of his career take the possible loss. The promoter can't lose since, if the vet wins, there's always a rematch. Boxing has taken a page from wrestling's book. If you can get people to pay to watch two guys fight once, you can probably get them to pay to watch them fight twice.

Boxing deserves a better fate; it is a tough sport that gives no quarter. Even when a fight is stopped because one of the participants is getting destroyed, he has still been destroyed. There is no way to lessen the impact of a punch and more punches cause more pain and damage.

Most fighters don't have a big future beyond the ring. There is little in the way of endorsement money and as the sport diminishes in importance, there are fewer outlets for a former pugilist.

George Mitchell was so concerned about what it was that baseball players where putting into their systems that he called for Congressional hearings. Boxing deserves this attention, but not to draw tabloid style response, instead it needs it to protect the individuals involved in the business.

Most fighters are poor kids who were scrapping by in remaining on this side of the law. When they enter into boxing it is usually because they believe they can fulfill a dream. In most cases they wind up meeting people far worse than any outlaws they congregated with previously.

I want to watch boxing like I did years ago. I want to be excited at the prospect of a meeting between two big names. Instead, when I watch fights now, I want to take a shower and make sure I don't make contact with anyone promoting the event. If boxing is dead, then let it die. But, if it isn't, then let's get it out of the gutter. Sometimes I think back to that night in Miami when Ali set the world on its ear by putting Liston's ass on his stool. There has to be more history to be written in the ring. Let's try to make it worthwhile.