By Steve Cummings

There you have it folks. "The Contender" was a great concept that was brilliantly done and helped put boxing in a positive light for a mainstream audience.

Then they went "live" one time too many and the scourge of boxing was on display yet again. And for a huge audience, no less.

On Saturday night, Peter Manfredo Jr. did a masterful job of avenging his defeat at the hands of Sergio Mora in The Contender's million dollar final bout last spring. Mora clearly won their first battle during a live telecast. Manfredo clearly won this past weekend before another live telecast. Only Larry, Moe and Curly didn't see it that way this time around.

Their first encounter capped off a successful run that, after a couple of twists and turns, resulted in ESPN picking up the series for second run after NBC balked at an encore. The rematch, scored for Mora, put a bad decision in the limelight to kick off season number two.

The show aired on NBC last year was carefully and brilliantly packaged for prime time television. Capitalizing on the then-hot reality show craze, the fighters were shown in-depth as people while each show built up to a boxing match. None of the grudge matches were on the scale of Hagler-Leonard or Ali-Frazier, but there was human drama that came to a conclusion that pitted one fighter against another.

The bouts themselves were shown in nicely-edited sequences that showed the biggest moments, enhanced by special effects, and took away the possibility of the viewers disagreeing on who won the fight. They showed and emphasized key moments, and when the winner was announced, the viewer had virtually no concern for the sequences of the bout that weren't shown. The decision couldn't be argued.

They went live with the final and Mora won handily, though there was good action. Manfredo gave a good effort, Mora was better. No problem.

Saturday night was a different story. Manfredo made the necessary adjustments, fought a different fight and carried the day. Mora got the decision. In front of an ESPN audience that just witnessed Anthony Bonsante get jobbed in a decision that went to Jesse Brinkley that incensed the crowd in a way that couldn't be ignored.

"The Contender" was a great idea that worked, despite the fact that NBC didn't want the show back for another season. They look at ratings in that particular time slot in a certain way and this show's numbers didn't work for them.

But that doesn't mean it was a failure. Hardly. The positive exposure for the sport, bringing fighters and their families into mainstream America's homes and adding depth to the buildup of a fight, it was priceless.

When I was growing up in the '70's and '80's we knew of fighters such as Ray Leonard, Danny "Little Red" Lopez and Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini because they fought regularly on network TV. We followed them, love 'em or hate 'em, from one fight to the next.

The fighters in this batch obviously haven't built careers on the scale of Leonard, Lopez and Mancini yet, but there are a lot of people in America who know who they are now. People who can't name any of the welterweight world champions, or what weight limit corresponds to what class. But they love or hate these "Contender" guys and will watch them fight whenever they can.

And for those people, we have ushered them out of "reality television" and into the reality of boxing with two horrendous decisions.

Great job, judges.