Cleaning out the inbox

Pipino Cuevas left hooks Pete Ranzany

It's been a while since the inbox was cleaned, so I'll do that while making a series announcement later in the post for the boxing readers out there.

Thanks to Steve Kim of UCN Boxing for mentioning me and my semi-live tweeting of the Roy Jones supposed finale in his piece on the faded former champion.
Steve's my favorite boxing writer, he's a gracious past guest with Ramon Malpica and me on Fightheads and his own podcasts with are must listen for me (One with Mario Lopez and the other with Gabe Montoya ).
Steve covers Roy's career and decline quite well and makes a good point about Jones using his once unparalleled speed and reflexes to spawn an entire era of imitators, who could never approach his ability to the detriment of their careers.
It's a great point and it's similar to what I've blamed Michael Jordan for years- players that grew loving the dunking and thinking it was OK to shoot the basketball 30 times a night to finish with 25 points, no matter the efficiency and not doing the other things on the floor that helped make Jordan such a great all-around player.


We also should have our latest boxing ratings out later this week, which is always fun to me to put together between my thoughts, Ramon's and my "old school pugilism" buddy Vince Samano.
I'm really looking forward to seeing if Oleksandr Usyk's title unifying win over Mairis Briedis was enough to keep him at number one in our cruiserweight rankings or was Murat Gassiev's perhaps more impressive win over Yunier Dorticos in a title unifier of his own enough to lift Gassiev up and over Usyk before their faceoff in the World Boxing Super Series final?

I haven't talked to Ramon about the number of listeners since our shift from live show to podcast format, but I'll try to soon.
Doing boxing shows is so much fun and I love not only talking boxing (Old and New) with other boxing folks, but I love hearing different perspectives as well.
Even if I don't agree, I always like to think about things in a different way to either confirm an opinion of mine or occasionally change my mind.

I'm going to start an occasional boxing series here to join the features such as Forgotten Superstars, Cleaning out the inbox and .
I have three possible choices for the series with the possibilities being a 8 or 16 man tournament in the major weight division with my takes (This might take a long time to play out), a series that discusses great fights that never were or one that looks at worst decisions in boxing which would cover both bad decisions in the ring (judging or tactics) or out of the ring ( mistakes made in fighting the wrong opponent, dodging an opponent or making a mistake that cost fighters and/or promoters lots of potential cash..
I hope to make a decision and start one of those soon.

Now we move to the actual inbox items with the offseason surgery to my favorite golfer Jessica Korda (long-time readers may remember Jessica from the first ever PPM) to her jaw.
Apparently, this has been an issue dating back to childhood and cost her playing time last season and after a surgery that lasted over twice as long as it was scheduled to along with 27 screws in her jaw that left her unable to eat solid food for months. Korda expects to return to the LPGA tour in the next few events as the tour makes in winter swing through the Far East.
Golfweek talks to Jessica all about the surgery and the aftermath.

Anne Dudek has been an actress that I have loved since seeing her on "House" as one of House's associate doctors and I've always thought she was badly in need of a break and she may have gotten one as part of Comedy Central's new comedy "Corporate".
I haven't seen it yet, but have all the episodes on DVR, so I hope to watch it soon.
Hollywood Life talks to the talented actress about Corporate and her acting career.
Hopefully, Corporate is a hit, Dudek deserves a break.

Former Fox News anchor Jenna Lee abruptly left the network last year to move to Texas with her family, but now she is starting a new venture online called SmartHer News.
Readers of the autographing things here might remember in the past when Jenna helped me add cards of her dad-former Vikings and Falcons quarterback Bob Lee to my collection.
Best of luck to her in her new project!

The New York Times gave some space to Mrs. Emily Kelly to discuss the medical issues with her husband, former Ohio State, and Saints safety Rob and the article is just striking.
The Newark Advocate talks to Rob Kelly about his concerns about his health and the future of the game here.
I love football. but the more that you read and hear about the men that play the game after they leave it, really makes you wonder just how much longer the game is going to be around.
I don't think it is going away anytime soon, but the more Rob Kelly's that become known by fans, the decline in interest is going to become steeper and steeper...

Nutria is a large rodent species (Think a cross between a beaver and a rat) that has long been an invasive species in the Deep South, but look out because apparently there are a few in Northern California and when Nutria breed-the population explosion is immediate!
They eat a ton and they can be quite destructive to the habitat, so it'll be interesting to see if California can head off the Nutria before they can establish a new foothold!!!

Inbox cleaned, I have some other posts planned for the next few days that I hope you'll find interesting.