Gamboa Makes Short Work Of Solis

In his first fight of 2011, Yuriorkis Gamboa found the distance, created distance, and closed the distance. He found the distance to land his devastatingly fast punches on Jorge Solis. He created distance between himself and ordinary opponents like Solis as well as between himself and the other Cuban pros with whom he is so frequently lumped in. And he closed some of the distance between himself and the sport's premier fighter, Manny Pacquiao, by wiping out Solis in half as many rounds as Pacquiao did four years (and four weight divisions) ago.

Photo: Will Hart Read more at HBO.com

Alvarez Wins Title with Unanimous Decisio

by Peter Owen Nelson Ed Mulholland/HBO Saul Alvarez may be the most overrated fighter since Cassius Clay. Expectations are high. The potential is there. A substantive challenge, however, has yet to materialize. On Saturday at the Honda Center before 11,674 (the second largest boxing bout in the history of the venue), the expectations weren't dashed, but a challenge wasn't met in Matthew Hatton (41-5-2) in a bout won by unanimous decision. Read more on HBO.com

Khan Answers The Questions, Defeats Maidana

by Kieran Mulvaney

Two years and three months ago, Amir Khan's career seemed in tatters as he crumbled under the first round onslaught of unheralded Colombian Breidis Prescott. Even as he built an unbeaten career, there had always been questions about his chin, and the rapidity and totality of the Prescott loss seemed to confirm those questions with authority.

Photo: Ed Mulholland

Two years and three months later, Khan has answered those questions just as emphatically with a hard-won unanimous decision against Marcos Maidana.

Maidana entered Saturday's fight with 27 KOs in his 29 wins. He had recovered from three knockdowns to force Victor Ortiz into submission. The man can punch.

And he landed punches on Amir Khan, 156 of them in total, many thrown with the worst of intentions and landing with concussive power.

Early in the very first round, it looked as if the Mandalay Bay crowd may be about to witness Breidis Prescott redux, as Maidana's right hands hurt the WBA super lightweight champion. But it was Maidana who found himself on the canvas, courtesy of a crushing left hand to the body that had him wincing in agony.

But the challenger toughed it out, and again and again he tested Khan's chin, his heart, and his resolve. In the tenth round, he landed bomb after bomb that had Khan reeling around the ring. But the champion didn't go down, even though doing so voluntarily might have been a wise choice.

Instead, having withstood the worst crisis of his career since that night in September 2008, he survived the round, and the fight, and it was he, not Maidana, who was throwing punches at the final bell.

Amir Khan showed on Saturday night that he is more than a boxer. He proved what some had doubted, that he is also a fighter, and a damn good one.

And because of that, the last big fight of 2010 may also have been the best fight of 2010.

(For more coverage, go to HBO.com)

Pacquiao Wins Eighth, Dominates Margarito

by Peter Owen Nelson Before a crowd of 41,734 in Cowboys Stadium (about 10,000 fewer than Pacquio's victory over Joshua Clottey last March), Pacquiao out-punched, out-landed, and out-classed Antonio Margarito en route to a unanimous decision. Saturday's fight between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito began in the locker room between the corners. Pacquiao's camp disputed the reported presence of Hydroxycut (containing a banned substance similar to ephedrine) in Margarito's dressing room and Margarito's disputed the tape that trainer Freddie Roach used to wrap his fighter's hands. A member of the Texas State Athletic Commission mediated a conversation in Pacquiao's locker room between Roach and Mararito's trainer Robert Garcia, in which he chalked up both claims to the camps "playing mind games with each other." While the trainers' rhetoric escalated, Pacquiao smiled as he shadowboxed seemingly unaware of the drama. Each side relented in the interest of getting the fight underway. Read more on HBO.com