Unless there's a big marquee name like Floyd Mayweather, Mike Tyson, Oscar de la Hoya or Bernard Hopkins, boxing has been relegated to a niche sport for only hardcore fans.

When I was growing up, I could watch a marquee fight with Marvin Hagler or Sugar Ray Leonard on my black-and-white television on prime time on any of the major networks. That's how I became a boxing fan.

Back then, anyone could be a fight fan -- even a skinny, little 10-year-old girl.

When 'The Fighter' came out, starring Mark Wahlberg as struggling fighter Micky Ward, audiences were reminded of the hardscrabble beginnings of most professional boxers. The film followed the real-life struggles and gritty aspects of the sweet science of boxing, not the bright lights of the Vegas showcases we see now.

Bernard Hopkins reminds us of that everyday-man aspect of the sport. At age 46, he may become the oldest professional athlete to win a significant title if he wins on May 21 against Jean Pascal in Canada.

Hopkins isn't just fighting for money anymore -- he has earned a significant amount of money in his 23 years in the sport -- but he's not necessarily fighting for the fame either. Instead, he fights because he loves the sport.

He was one of the last fighters to appear on prime-time television on the Wide World of Sports, when he fought against Joe Lispey in 1996.

Tennis star Serena Williams and gamer Rileah Vanderbilt show off their ass-ets in a new ad for 2K Sports' Top Spin 4.

The ad shows both Williams and Vanderbilt, clad only in black leotards, competing against each other in mostly slow motion.

Now that the ad is public, 2K Sports is distancing itself from the ad:

"As part of the process for creating marketing campaigns to support our titles, we pursue a variety of creative avenues. This video is not part of the title's final marketing campaign and its distribution was unauthorized."

Watch the commercial here:

There's never a dull moment in the Barry Bonds circus.

The trial for baseball's all-time home-run king begins Monday with jury selection in San Francisco.

Bonds is charged with four counts of making false statements to a grand jury in December of 2003 and one count of obstruction of justice.

There hasn't been a day since the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster in Japan that I haven't grimaced at reading what's going on there and hoped for a sliver of good news. Any good news.

Anything besides reading that hundreds, maybe thousands, of dead bodies have washed ashore. Or that another nuclear plant could possibly explode. Or that people are starving waiting for help. That millions of people are without power. That babies and elderly people are waiting for medical care that likely won't arrive. That the Earth's axis has shifted. That these kind of horrific natural disasters will begin to happen more often in places that haven't seen these kind of catastrophes. That innocent people are dead or dying. And parts of cities and countrysides in a place as beautiful as Japan, a country leading the world in restricting global emissions, have been completely obliterated.

I watched the Youtube clips, read the news on Twitter, and braced myself for the requisite racist comment junkies that prowl the Internet. Surprisingly and sadly, I found ignorant comments from one of our own.

I have interviewed Cappie Pondexter, a guard with the WNBA's New York Liberty, and found her to be warm, friendly and engaging. So I was surprised to find out that she tweeted disparaging comments about Japanese people, particularly as they face such devastating circumstances.

Pondexter tweeted on Saturday: "What if God was tired of the way they treated their own people in there own country! Idk guys he makes no mistakes."

She later tweeted: "u just never knw! They did pearl harbor so u can't expect anything less."
Did she really say that? That's impossible. Is she not watching the same images on the news that I am?

The Barry Bonds circus is coming to town. The former Major League slugger is scheduled to have his day in court, finally, after years of legal maneuvering.

While the government is intent to place Bonds behind bars for perjury and obstruction of justice, claiming that he lied to a grand jury about his alleged use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, the real story lies in his relationship with his former trainer Greg Anderson.

As the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers face off in Dallas this Sunday, fans are storing up on salsa chips and crab cakes and everybody has their Ms. Cleo–like predictions.

University of Maryland will represent the ACC in the Military Bowl presented by Northrop Grumman against the Conference USA representative East Carolina University tomorrow at 2:30pm EST.

In an emotional season culmination, proceeds from the bowl will benefit the USO (United Service Organizations, Inc.) to support the families of troops and Ralph Friedgen, University of Maryland's legendary head coach (pictured above left), will be playing his last game tomorrow at RFK Stadium which will air on ESPN.

In the aching void that has been left by Floyd Mayweather's personal foibles, boxing fans are yearning for a showdown. While not quite the showdown we would get with Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao (pictured right), a Shane Mosley (pictured left) and Pacquiao fight has been set for May 7, 2010, in Las Vegas.

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