By Glenn Wilson

Working a lovely job that keeps me underpaid and overworked, with the occasional hours of 6 AM to 8 PM, and told that I will be working even later at the last minute, I find that my personal life really takes a hit, whether it's visiting the parents or going to my nephew's baseball game.

I also realize that my writing suffers the most because when you are mentally exhausted it is hard to keep your thoughts going in the same direction, I basically become scattered brained and can't focus on one idea. Believe me I am not looking for sympathy, surveys show that most people hate their jobs, want different jobs or are barely able to tolerate their tedious day to day jobs.

But when it interferes with my love of boxing or writing, let's just say that it doesn't make me Mister Happy. So instead of stressing out I begin to notice little things, like how much I look forward to reading my local sports page, you see twice a week a local columnist writes a section that is just notes and thoughts, a couple of sentences that make me think, laugh and also some that really get me riled up. 

Then when I read Rusty Rubin's Random Thoughts, it made me think about what a writer once said, " write something everyday, no matter how short or long, important or unimportant, like a great hitter taking extra batting practice, always strive to improve".

So until my job allows, here are some things that cross my mind:

To this day I hate it when I hear somebody say that to become the champ you must convincingly beat the champ, unless I am dumber than I thought, and believe me I have my days, fights are scored by rounds and if I beat Mr. X 8 rounds to 4 then I should get the belt, but I still hear people that believe the champ should get the benefit of the doubt, so in their minds you should have to practically knock the champ down in every round to win. It irked me when I was 12 and it still does today.

Why don't the states with the better commissions, you know the guys that usually host the biggest fights, take a note from baseball and keep track of how their judges perform. I know that some rounds are close and can be seen going either way, but some scorecards are so ridiculous that those judges should be assigned to 4 and 6 round fights until they show improvement. 

Baseball keeps scorecards on their umpires during the regular season, with the umpires with the highest scores receiving the playoff and world series assignments. Mistakes are still made but the chances of them happening become a little less frequent.

The Liakhovich-Brewster fight was exactly what boxing, not just the Heavyweight division, needed. Two fighters paying the price to win, while we remember the cheers, we forget all the hard work that each man put into getting to that moment and all the pain they felt days later when the crowds were long gone.

I was not overly impressed when I first heard that Oscar De La Hoya had picked Ricardo Mayorga to be the first fight of his comeback. After remembering that De La Hoya had not fought in over a year and a half I thought about his last two fights, a competitive loss to Bernard Hopkins and a win over Felix Sturm that many thought should have gone to Sturm.

Throw into the mix that Oscar's power is not what it use to be, his tendency to fade in late rounds, Mayorga's wild, dangerous punches and all of the sudden I find myself wanting to see this fight - it could be great.

Can't wait to see Ricky Hatton fight this month. The only reason I subscribed to Showtime was the chance to catch fighters Hatton and Kostya Tszyu's fights. I personally sent emails to Hatton's official site two years ago saying that if he wanted more exposure in America , then he should consider fighting on HBO. Showtime actually has better fights during the year but the problem is easily summed up like this, out of all the boxing fans I personally know here where I live, I am the only one that subscribes to both HBO and Showtime.

Recently read a nice story in a major boxing publication about one of my all-time favorites, Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini. This was a fighter, was he great-no, but he was exciting as hell. I love fighters, not defensive specialists. I want to see punches thrown with bad intentions. I never cared for ballet and I don't want to see it in my boxing ring.

They talk about ring entrances, I thought it was so cool when I was younger to hear Pat Travers' " Boom Boom, Out Go The Lights" whenever Mancini entered the ring. Nice to see him doing so well, class guy.

Growing up, I often read where Alexis Arguello was afraid to move up to Lightweight for fear of facing Roberto Duran, Duran was my all-time favorite fighter but I can not believe that Arguello would have ducked anyone, in most of these instances it was the manager or promoter that was worried more about his own income should his fighter lose , thus they would use tactics like pricing their own fighter out of a possible fight, as is the case today.

Great fighters believe that they can beat anyone and Duran and Arguello were two of the best ever, I figure they would have fought around April 1978, it should of happened.

When Emanuel Steward is busy training a fighter, HBO should consider a couple of fighters to replace the departed Roy Jones, Jr. Just a couple of the more well spoken fighters who would be a good fit as a color commentator in my opinion are Antonio Tarver, Joe Mesi, Oscar De La Hoya and Diego Corrales.

Lots of great fights on the horizon, one that stands out is Jose Luis Castillo-Diego Corrales 3. If Castillo-Corrales 3 is anything like 1 and 2, it would be one of the great trilogies in boxing history. I just worry if Corrales takes another beating like he did in the second fight, will he ever be the same fighter.

More stories coming soon----I hope.