Boxing: Highlights and lowlights

By Richard O'Brien, SI.com

Manny Pacquiao claimed his seventh world title (in seven weight divisions) with a TKO over Miguel Cotto on Nov. 14, 2009. Ethan Miller/Getty Images 2000s: Boxing/MMA O'Brien: Boxing highlights and lowlights Gallery: The boxing bout of the decade is ... O'Brien: Top 10 pound-for-pound boxers Gross: MMA highlights and lowlights Fowlkes: 10 signature moments from MMA Gross: Top 10 pound-for-pound MMA fighters More 2000s: By Sport NFL MLB Pop Culture NHL NBA College Basketball College Football Golf Tennis Soccer Olympics Boxing MMA Auto Racing Horse Racing Cycling High School Decade across sports

BEST FIGHTER: Manny Pacquiao
Pacquiao opened the decade as a 21-year-old, ex-WBC flyweight champion who owned a 27-2 record and had fought just three times outside his native Philippines. His final pre-2000s excursion resulted in a third-round knockout loss to Medgoen Sengsurat in Thailand in 1999. Today, Pacquiao (50-3-2 with 38 KOs overall; 23-1-2 with 20 KOs this decade) owns seven world titles in as many weight classes, and is quite possibly the finest fighter in the world, pound-for-pound.

With an improbable combination of speed and power, he's an electrifying presence in the ring, a relentless attacker and a master of distance, who comes at opponents from surprising angles while still maintaining tremendous leverage and balance. He also fights with an urgency and a joy unseen since the young Roberto Duran. Best of all, Pacquiao, 31, may not even have peaked yet; under trainer Freddie Roach, he just keeps getting better.

Click here for Richard O'Brien's top 10 pound-for-pound boxers of the decade

BEST FIGHT: Diego Corrales vs. Jose Luis Castillo I
"At some point," said WBC lightweight champion Castillo, heading into his May 7, 2005, showdown with WBO champ Corrales, "it will be bombs away." That point, it turned out, was the opening bell. For nine rounds, the action never flagged, the momentum swung back and forth and each man took tremendous punishment. Then came the 10th, and things got really amazing.

Thirty seconds in, Castillo dropped Corrales with a crushing left hook. Amazingly, "Chico" beat the count, gaining a few extra seconds to recover when his mouthpiece came out. Castillo jumped on him immediately and, 30 seconds later, Corrales was down again, badly hurt. But again, the mouthpiece came out and this time referee Tony Weeks deducted a point. It seemed academic, as Castillo moved in for the finish, but Corrales, both eyes nearly swollen shut, fired back with a furious flurry, leaving Castillo hanging helpless on the ropes and forcing Weeks to end the fight with 54 seconds left in the round.

Click here for Bryan Armen Graham's top 10 fights of the decade

BIGGEST UPSET: Antonio Tarver vs. Roy Jones Jr. II
Jones, 35, came into the bout, on May 15, 2004, with the light heavyweight title, a record of 49-1 and a reputation as the best fighter of his generation. True, he had squeaked past Tarver on a close decision just six months before, but that was viewed as an aberration. In the rematch, everyone would see the return of the real Roy Jones. Instead, what everyone saw was Jones pole-axed by a huge left hand from Tarver and counted out less than two minutes into the second round.

BIGGEST OVERACHIEVER: Ricky Hatton
The product of a Manchester, England, housing project, Hatton was an every-bloke figure, just another Man City soccer fan who loved nothing more than frequenting his local pub, where he drank enough ale between fights to earn (and embrace) the nickname "Ricky Fatton." He was also a relentless, hard-hitting bulldog of a fighter who won two world championships (knocking out the heavily favored Kostya Tszyu in 2005 for the IBF 140-pound title) and ran up a record of 29-2 in the decade, losing only to a couple of guys named Mayweather and Pacquiao.

BIGGEST UNDERACHIEVER: Zab Judah
Can a three-time world champion really be an underachiever? He can if he squanders as much talent as Zab.

A three-time New York Golden Gloves champ and one of the most highly touted amateurs in recent memory, Judah began the decade by winning the vacant IBF 140-pound title. He was 22 years old and 22-0 and, with his blend of unearthly speed and ring smarts, appeared on track for pound-for-pound greatness. But a lack of discipline and focus repeatedly derailed him.

In 2001, Tszyu knocked him out in two rounds. Judah came back to win, and then carelessly lose, two welterweight belts; melted down in a bout against Floyd Mayweather Jr. that he had a shot at winning; and lost by technical knockout to Miguel Cotto. Judah's record for the decade: 17-6.

BIGGEST CONTROVERSY: The Hands of Antonio Margarito
On July 26, 2008, Margarito knocked out previously unbeaten Miguel Cotto in Las Vegas to take the WBA welterweight title. Margarito, who brought a 36-5 record into the bout, lost most of the early rounds, but came on strong to batter Cotto into submission in the 11th.

Six months later, in Los Angeles, just before Margarito entered the ring to face Shane Mosley, one of Mosley's cornermen noticed a "white, pasty substance" on Margarito's hand wraps. Forced to rewrap his hands, Margarito went on to lose to Mosley by technical knockout in the ninth. The California commission subsequently determined that the substance was sulfur and calcium, which combine with oxygen to form Plaster of Paris. On Feb. 10, 2009, Margarito and his trainer, Javier Capetillo, were suspended for "at least a year."

The Mosley incident threw an immediate shadow over Margarito's knockout of Cotto, and while Margarito has denied any wrongdoing in that fight, most observers believe Cotto was the victim of an egregious crime.

HOTTEST FEUD: Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Bob Arum
Arum knows feuds. His many battles with rival promoter Don King are the stuff legends are made of. Mayweather, too, has been known to throw down. (He once derided a multimillion-dollar contract offer from his long-time network, HBO, as "slave wages.")

So, when the two parted ways in 2007, after Arum had promoted Mayweather for a decade, it was no surprise that some acrimony ensued. Mayweather charged Arum with underpaying and under-promoting him, while Arum asserted that the fighter was notoriously hard to deal with.

All that would just be more colorful fodder for boxing gossip, save for the fact that it threatens to get in the way of the next decade's first superfight: a showdown between Arum's Manny Pacquiao and the now self-promoted Mayweather. No sooner had Pacquiao beaten Cotto, clearing the way for a date with Mayweather, than Arum was referring to Floyd as "just a problem and a head case." Mayweather countered by calling Arum "a very old, grumpy man."

Still, in boxing, money (and we don't mean "Money" Mayweather) talks. Even the Hatfields and the McCoys would get together for the kind of bottom line Manny-Floyd will generate.