The new year is upon us, so here are some of the things I'd like to see in boxing in 2009:
• For the Ricky Hatton-Manny Pacquiao fight to be signed, sealed and delivered as quickly as possible so nothing messes it up.
• For Floyd Mayweather Jr. to end his farce of a retirement and fight the winner of Hatton-Pacquiao -- preferably Pacquiao, since we've already seen Mayweather knock out Hatton.
• For Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz, a lightweight championship fight that lives up to its considerable potential.
• For Oscar De La Hoya, if he elects to fight again, to not make excuses about his weight or training camp as a reason he was annihilated by Pacquiao.
• For Juan Manuel Lopez, Victor Ortiz, Daniel Jacobs, Alfredo Angulo, Devon Alexander, Danny Garcia, James Kirkland and Yuriorkis Gamboa to carry us into the next era.
• For promoter Don King to realize that he promotes the talented Alexander and to actually do his job.
• For Israel Vazquez, an eye that heals well enough for the junior featherweight champ to safely resume his career.
• For Wladimir Klitschko, a rival worthy of a heavyweight championship fight we can care about.
• For any American television network, the belief in boxing to pick up the slack for Telefutura's "Solo Boxeo" and ESPN2's "Wednesday Night Fights."
• For big talker David Haye to stuff a sock in it.
• For Larry Merchant, the option on his contract to be exercised by HBO.
• For Vasyl Lomachenko, the brilliant 20-year-old Ukrainian featherweight Olympic gold medalist and winner of the most outstanding fighter award in Beijing, to turn pro.
• For HBO, a full year as outstanding as the first quarter of 2009 looks.
• For Showtime, a better year than its first quarter of 2009 looks.
• For Miguel Cotto and Kelly Pavlik, the strength to bounce back after rough losses in 2008.
• For Glen Johnson, another shot at glory.
• For Evander Holyfield, a winning lottery ticket so he doesn't keep fighting at age 46.
• For Nikolai Valuev, a big enough rock to hide under after that embarrassing display against Holyfield.
• For Pierluigi Poppi, Mikael Hook and Guillermo Perez Pineda, the revocation of their judging licenses for the horrific scorecards they turned in at the end of Valuev-Holyfield.
• For Shane Mosley, a news conference during which he can just come clean already about everything he knows about the BALCO mess, so we can all just move on.
• For Antonio Margarito, the inner fire to stay hungry now that he's finally made it to the top.
• For Top Rank and Golden Boy, another year of peace between the once-fierce rivals who now combine regularly to deliver fans the biggest fights the sport has to offer.
• For Top Rank and Golden Boy to deliver those big fights with undercards that don't stink out loud.
• For Roy Jones, the smarts to walk away so we can remember him when he was great, not a shell of himself.
• For Versus to continue televising boxing in a meaningful way after a great stretch run in 2008.
• For Andre Ward, Ruslan Chagaev, Abner Mares and Alexander Povetkin, good health.
• For Oscar Diaz, continued medical progress.
• For Paulie Malignaggi, inner peace to understand that his corner stopped the fight against Hatton for his own good and that he has nothing to be ashamed of.
• For Showtime's Gordon Hall, another batch of interesting foreign title bouts that he can cherry-pick to put on "ShoBox."
• For Zab Judah, a punch-proof shower door.
• For manager Shelly Finkel, a spreadsheet to keep track of all of his talented prospects.
• For Cristobal Arreola, enough discipline so he can reach his potential.
• For promoter Dan Goossen, Arreola to reach his potential.
• For Jeff Wald, a serious star to emerge from "The Contender."
• For Joe Calzaghe, an appreciation for what boxing has given him instead of dumping all over it.
• For Chad Dawson, a fight with Calzaghe, if Calzaghe decides to fight on.
• For Bernard Hopkins, a rematch with Calzaghe, if Calzaghe decides to fight on.
• For Zsolt Erdei, an opponent with a pulse.
• For Mikkel Kessler, a plane ticket to the United States to fight instead of one to come over here just to tell us that he wants a big fight here.
• For Jermain Taylor, a shot at Kessler.
• For promoter Lou DiBella, a day at a spa so he can relax -- with an open chair next to him for Bob Arum to do the same.
• For American fight fans, a look at Roman Gonzalez.
• For Librado Andrade, just a few more seconds against Lucian Bute.
• For Joel "Love Child" Julio, a meaningful fight that isn't against a southpaw.
• For Felix Sturm and promoter Peter Kohl, the stones to stop ducking Arthur Abraham.
• For Paul Williams, a top fighter in the welterweight, junior middleweight or middleweight division to accept his challenge.
• For Timothy Bradley Jr. and Kendall Holt, a junior welterweight unification fight that is so exciting that the public wants to see the winner against Pacquiao.
• For Col. Bob Sheridan, just like last year, a 900th world title fight to broadcast.
• For Nate Campbell, enough big fights to get himself out of his financial hole.
• For Jorge Linares, more than one fight a year. Ditto for Joseph Agbeko.
• For Winky Wright, more than one fight every two years.
• For promoter Artie Pelullo, a good Italian restaurant no matter where in the world he promotes a fight.
• For Mario Santiago, the rematch he deserves with Steven Luevano.
• For Vic Darchinyan and Jorge Arce, a fight as good as the trash talk figures to be before they throw down.
• For Cristian Mijares, a better game plan next time.
• For Ivan "Iron Boy" Calderon, the credit he deserves for being so good.
• For boxing to find its way back to network television.
• For Tomasz Adamek and Steve Cunningham, a rematch of their stellar cruiserweight championship fight on a network willing pay good money for it.
• For the sanctioning bodies, a clue. (I can dream, can't I?)
• For all the Fight Freaks, great fights all year long.
• And, as usual, for peace on Earth, but not inside the ring.
Happy New Year.
Dan Rafael
