ESPN Boxing

One by one, fighters in important fall fights were dropping like flies from injury and illness.

Fernando Vargas? Had to postpone a Sept. 8 fight against Ricardo Mayorga because of anemia.

Juan Manuel Marquez? Had to reschedule a Sept. 15 fight with Rocky Juarez because of an infection in a cut on his knuckle.

Vitali Klitschko? A back injury knocked him out of a Sept. 22 fight with Jameel McCline and he might not fight again.

Adrian Diaconu? A bad hand meant he had to withdraw from a mandatory light heavyweight title shot against Chad Dawson on Sept. 29.

Oleg Maskaev? His balky back forced him out of an Oct. 6 heavyweight title defense against Samuel Peter.

As each fight fell by the wayside, the whispers grew louder: When would super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe (43-0, 32 KOs) of Wales come up lame as he has so many times before? When would he reinjure his chronically bad left hand and have to pull out of the highly anticipated Nov. 3 (HBO, 9 p.m. ET) unification fight against Denmark's Mikkel Kessler (39-0, 29 KOs)?

One suggestion, perhaps only half-joking, was that the injury-prone Calzaghe should spend the remainder of his training camp inside a plastic bubble to avoid injury so as not to jeopardize a fight for which a crowd of 60,000-plus is expected to fill Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

After all, Calzaghe has canceled or postponed several fights during his career, such as the time he suffered a wrist injury during a September 2005 defense against Evans Ashira that many advised him not to take because he was supposed to face Jeff Lacy in a unification fight a few months later. Sure enough, Calzaghe hurt his wrist and the Lacy fight had to be postponed several months.

Now, with one of the biggest bouts in super middleweight history just a couple of weeks away, Calzaghe, a champion for 10 years, says that for one of the few times in his career he is going into a fight in perfect health.

"At the moment, I'm sparring well, I'm punching out in the gym," Calzaghe said. "My hands feel 100 percent. You can't go into any fight thinking about injuries or you just shouldn't fight, so I'm going in there with a 100 percent positive attitude that I'm going to be punching 12 rounds, full power.

"[Kessler] is going into this fight thinking I can't punch. I'm really looking forward to wiping that smile off his face on fight night because both my hands have been really strong in training. The only time that my punching power is lacking is when I break my hands or I have a hand injury, but for this fight my hands have been strong and I'm really looking to unleash some power punching on Nov. 3."

Calzaghe detailed the various injuries he's had: "I've broken my hand a couple of times, my left hand. A wrist injury, elbow injuries. … I had three or four defenses where I couldn't spar."

There was also a wrist operation that once sidelined him for several months. He went into the rescheduled March 2006 fight against Lacy with a bad wrist and into the October 2006 defense against Sakio Bika with a bum left hand.

That hand has given him problems for years.

"From about 14 to 15 years old I have had a really bad, sort of dodgy, left hand," said Calzaghe, a southpaw whose money punch is his left. "Sometimes it goes, sometimes it doesn't. I've probably fractured it about three times in fights. Basically, I've busted it up, bruised it up in a lot of fights. This is one of the things that's boxing. At the end of the day, you put the 10 ounces [gloves] on, you land a good punch, it goes."

Quartey returns

Former welterweight champion Ike Quartey will end a yearlong layoff by fighting in his native Accra, Ghana, promoter Lou DiBella told ESPN.com. Quartey will fight a 10-rounder against an opponent to be named Nov. 30 at 150 pounds as he makes his way back to the talent-rich welterweight division.

Quartey, 37, has been fighting at junior middleweight and fought his most recent bout at middleweight. He wants to return to welterweight, where he feels he has the best chance to win another title and make the most money.

Quartey (37-4-1, 31 KOs) has lost his past two fights, but one was a decision to Winky Wright at middleweight and the one before that was a controversial decision to Vernon Forrest.

"This will keep him busy and keep him ready for a [bigger] fight," DiBella said. "He had nothing to be embarrassed about in his last two fights. Most people thought he beat Forrest. Against Winky, he was a lot smaller and he hung in there. Then Winky went all the way up to light heavyweight. I think Ike has a terrific shot against a guy like [welterweight titlist Kermit] Cintron. There are possibilities for him at welterweight, but he has to get in there, get a 'W' and keep active and show people he can move toward 147."

Quartey hasn't fought in Ghana since ending a nearly five-year layoff in January 2005 by stopping Clint McNeil in the eighth round.

"Ike needed to get back in the ring and there was no television for Ike in the U.S. and he enjoyed the last time he fought in Ghana," DiBella said.

NYSAC disciplines Duva

Promoter Dino Duva was suspended for six months and fined $10,000 by the New York State Athletic Commission this week. His infraction? Trying to sneak a peak at the master scorecard during interim heavyweight beltholder Samuel Peter's unanimous decision win against Jameel McCline at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 6.

In its complaint, the commission said that Duva, Peter's co-promoter, three times tried to look over the shoulder of the commissioner in charge of compiling the master scorecard between rounds, which is against the rules.

New York commissioner Ron Scott Stevens told Duva to stop but he did it two more times. Duva said he never saw the scores and admitted that his emotions had gotten the better of him during such a pivotal fight.

With Peter tentatively scheduled to face belt holder Oleg Maskaev at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 2 (Showtime), it is possible that Duva won't be able to participate in the promotion unless an appeal to reduce the suspension is granted.

Pac-ing it in

Manny Pacquiao's decision against Marco Antonio Barrera in their Oct. 6 rematch at Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay generated a little more than 340,000 buys and nearly $17 million on HBO PPV, multiple industry sources told ESPN.com. The fight also generated a live gate of $2.963 million, according to the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Pacquiao co-promoter Bob Arum told ESPN.com that he no longer will allow HBO PPV to release buys for his PPV cards, good or bad.

The 340,000-plus figure is more than Arum and Golden Boy anticipated when they made the fight. It also sends Barrera into retirement with his best-ever PPV performance. According to HBO PPV figures, Barrera's 2001 fight with Naseem Hamed did 320,000, the third bout with Erik Morales did 310,000 in 2004 and the second fight in 2002 did 300,000.

For Pacquiao, the figure fell shy of his 2005-06 trilogy with Morales: 350,000 (fight No. 1), 355,000 (No. 2) and 345,000 (No. 3).