Regarding the “buzz” on Bradley-Alexander, I can tell that it’s pretty low outside of the Detroit area, too. I haven’t received many emails about the despite the fact that it’s a high-profile matchup of two of the best fighters in one of the sport’s deepest divisions.

I know hardcore fans are looking forward to watching the fight. I’m not quite sure why most are “mum” about it now that it’s fight week.

Bradley and Alexander are young, athletically gifted, skilled, battle tested and undefeated. What’s not to like about the matchup? My guess is that both boxers simply lack the charisma/personalities that cause fans to react in extreme ways. Nobody hates Bradley or Alexander, but nobody is in love with them, either. You get what I’m saying?

Regardless of the fighters’ personalities, and the plain fact that the fight belonged in St. Louis (where Alexander is a moderate draw in comparison to Bradley’s dismal numbers in Southern Calif.), I can’t help but think that the promoters of the card (Gary Shaw and Don King) dropped the ball on the local promotion of the show. It seems like everyone involved was more concerned with how much they’d get paid rather than with building the “event” into an attraction for Pontiac- and Detroit-area fight fans.

The promoters went with the SilverDome because they got a good site fee ($600,000) but the moment that freakin’ cavern became the location they should have done everything in their power to put local attractions on the undercard.

It’s going to take a lot more than Vernon Paris to get folks to drive from Detroit and other areas surrounding Pontiac and plunk down their very hard-earned cash for tickets.

Why isn’t newly crowned junior middleweight beltholder Cornelius Bundrage on this card? “K9” is a Detroit native and he’s promoted by King.

Ronald Hearns should be on this card. I know he’s got an alphabet middleweight title shot at Felix Sturm scheduled in Germany next month but if the promoters had their act together they would have secured the venue for the bout a long time ago. Perhaps if Shaw and King could have found a site sooner than Dec. 1 (two months after the damn fight was finalized) they would have sold more tickets (which didn’t go on sale until Dec. 20) and they might have landed the son of a Detroit legend before the Sturm-Hearns fight was agreed to (Dec. 30).

Even without the Hitman’s son on the card, they could enlisted the services of the great Thomas Hearns to help promote the event locally. Yeah, they would have had to pay Tommy a little something, but with the site fee and the licensing fee they’re getting from HBO, I think they could’ve afforded it. And given what’s at stake, the future marketability of Bradley and Alexander, I think they should’ve afforded it.

The last time I was in the Pontiac area was for an internet broadcast of local fringe contender Rubin Williams and a not-yet-shot Antwun Echols from The Palace in Auburn Hills, Mich., in January of 2007. More than 10,000 fans were on hand to witness the main event (which ended in an entertaining 12-round draw), but it wasn’t Williams or Echols who sold those tickets. It was female fighter Mary Jo Sanders (the daughter of Detroit Lions legend Charlie Sanders) who brought the crowd in.

Sanders hasn’t fought since earning a 10-round draw against Holly Holm at The Palace in October of 2008, but if I were promoting this event I would have made her a very attractive offer to come out of retirement. I would have done pretty much anything it took to put butts into the seats because it’s not going to look good for the main event participants — the two very talented young boxers who we all hope can be developed into “stars” — to have to fight in an empty arena that can hold as many as 90,000 fans.

How is it going to help the future negotiating power of the winner of Bradley-Alexander when everyone involved with the sport knows they couldn’t sell more than a few thousand tickets against each other?

I agree that Alexander got too much credit for beating Urango (but I understand why there was so much excitement and hyperbole following his victory — brutal knockouts tend to have that effect on people) and I also agree that he was lucky to get the nod over Kotelnik.

I also agree that Montiel is going to have serious problems with Donaire, however, even if the budding Filipino star brings the same game he brought to the Sidorenko fight, he’s going to have a much tougher time looking dominant against the dual belt holder from Los Mochis. Montiel has the footwork and technique to slow down Donaire’s offense. He also has the speed, power and counter-punching ability to be a threat in every round.

Montiel caught Hasegawa nine seconds before the end of the fourth round. Donaire better keep that in mind and maintain a steely focus for three minutes of every round against this veteran.

I did watch the Matthysse-Corley bout. I was amazed that Corley got up and continued to fight as readily as he took a knee and I was perplexed by the referee’s decision to allow the bout to continue after the fifth or sixth knockdown. I also thought that Corley may have to change his nickname from “Chop Chop” to “Drop Drop” after this bout (sorry, couldn’t resist).

First, Golden Boy Promotions doesn’t have a “hold” on THE RING or RingTV.com’s editorial coverage. I don’t want to name names (and if you pay attention, I really shouldn’t have to) but if it seems like our coverage has a “slight slant” it may have more to do with a certain promoter’s refusal to speak to us than any sort of mandate from the parent company of the publications.

Second, Manny Pacquiao’s “titanic” move to Showtime has yet to be officially announced (by the network or by his promoter). There is plenty of coverage on this “monumental” (is that a strong-enough adjective for ya?) event to come from this website and other publications. Heck, my old haunt of MaxBoxing.com, which pride’s itself on this kind of story, has yet to really sink its teeth into the subject. Steve Kim, who specializes in industry happenings, discussed it a little bit at the bottom of a piece on Freddie Roach and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on Saturday. In that same story my good buddy stated that Thomas Hauser, who practically lives for this kind of story, would have a “detailed account” (an understatement to be sure) of the development on Monday morning.

Kim and Hauser are all about what happens (or doesn’t happen) behind the scenes with HBO (and to a lesser extent, with Showtime). Michael Rosenthal and I? Um, not so much. I’m sorry if that’s the kind of boxing coverage that floats your boat, but you are mistaken if you believe that all fight fans are interested in industry happenings. (To illustrate my point I’ll have you know that I’ve only received two emails, including yours, on the “titanic” news.)

However, as the fight nears, I can assure you that Showtime’s (and hopefully CBS's) involvement in the Pacquiao-Mosley pay-per-view event will be a major storyline on RingTV.com (if not the primary feature subject). For now, our focus is going to be on high-profile up-coming fights.

I’m guessing you missed it, and I’m not surprised. That’s our fault. One of the major drawbacks to the web design of RingTV.com is that the homepage can only hold a maximum of 14 stories/news items at one time (four links in the top-of-the-fold area, four “feature stories,” and six “blog items”), and once a story is moved off the homepage there’s no way to access it. We have no archive system. That’s going to change (obviously for the better) very soon. We are going to get a new homepage layout that includes more room for story links and on the backend we are getting a new (and supposedly faster) CMS (content management system) that will enable us to post news items quicker. So you can expect Rosenthal and I break more news (and actually get credit for it because the item will have a decent shelf life on the site).

Now, if Arum decides to make all future Pacquiao and Cotto fights exclusive to Showtime AND moves all of his top fighters to the network — something I seriously doubt he would do, but one never knows how far the old man will go in the name of spite — that would have a serious impact on HBO’s boxing programming. However, it wouldn’t necessarily “destroy” it.

Maybe I’m just a half-full kind of guy (which I admit is very rare for a boxing writer/fan), but I just view Arum’s recent decisions as a boon to Showtime’s boxing programming (which you’ve been missing out on because I believe it has been slightly superior to HBO’s since about 2005 when the late Jay Larkin’s “Great fights, no rights” policy finally began to pay dividends).

Who knows? It could be also boon to HBO’s boxing programming. Without Top Rank’s vast stable of fighters to pull from maybe HBO’s sports executives will elect to do more business with Lou DiBella, Kathy Duva, Don King, Gary Shaw, Dan Goossen, and non-U.S.-based promoters such as Frank Warren, Kalle Sauerland and Yvon Michel.

Just because a network is on Arum’s s__t list doesn’t mean that it can no longer provide compelling on-going boxing programming. Please examine ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights series as a prime example.

There are plenty of compelling fights that can be made without Top Rank talent (even without HBO’s supposed favorite son, Golden Boy Promotions).

Tomasz Adamek (Duva) vs. Alexander Povetkin (Sauerland) or Chris Arreola (Goossen), Povetkin vs. Adamek, Adamek vs. Arreola II, Beibut Shumenov (Goossen) vs. Tavoris Cloud (King), Shumenov or Cloud vs. Nathan Cleverly (Warren), Sergio Martinez (DiBella) vs. David Lemieux (Michel), Kermit Cintron (DiBElla) vs. Alfredo Angulo (Shaw) II, and the Bradley (Shaw)-Alexander (King) winner vs. Zab Judah (Duva) are all good style matchups between top fighters in their respective divisions and these fights can be made for reasonable license fees.

If you add GBP to the mix there are many more attractive matchups that can be made: David Haye (GBP) vs. Adamek or Arreola or Povetkin, the Bradley-Alexander winner vs. Amir Khan (GBP) or Victor Ortiz (GBP), Andre Berto (DiBella) vs. Saul Alvarez (GBP), Angulo vs. James Kirkland (GBP), Andre Ward (Goossen) vs. Librado Andrade (GBP), and James DeGale (Warren) vs. George Groves (GBP) are among them.

And there are numerous Boxing After Dark-level matchups that can be made without Top Rank’s roster, such as Erislandy Lara (GBP) vs. Joel Julio (Duva), Adrien Broner (GBP) vs. John Molina (Goossen), Molina vs. Luis Ramos (GBP), Rico Ramos (Goossen) vs. Charles Huerta (GBP) or Chris Avalos (Shaw), Shawn Estrada (Goossen) vs. Bastie Samir (GBP), and Archie Ray Marquez (Shaw) vs. Fidel Maldonado Jr. (GBP) to name a few.

I doubt HBO would drop boxing and pick up the UFC. The network discussed a deal with Dana White a few years ago and I don’t think the UFC president was satisfied with the manner in which HBO wanted to produce the shows.

But let’s say HBO does drop its boxing programming. Is the sport going to die in the U.S. because of that? I don’t believe so. What if the lack of HBO’s huge licensing fees forces U.S. promoters to developing more local attractions and to pay more attention to the live gates of their events (like successful promoters in other countries)? What if no more HBO money forced major U.S. promoters to get off their high horses and make reasonable deals with basic cable? Imagine if HBO-caliber fights were suddenly seen on ESPN, Fox Sports Net and Telefutura (networks that are in three times as many U.S. homes as HBO). What if the sport's elite fighters have to fight more often — as many as five and six times a year — in order to make the kind of money HBO was paying them for one or two fights a year?

Does that sound like it would be bad for the sport, Kyle? Think about that.

It’s true, I do believe he beat Mosley (handily, and I’m not alone, but you don’t have to respect that opinoon if you don’t want to) and I have no problem with having a different opinion from my peers.