Nasty drugresistant staph infection Check

Unfortunately, fans will now forever associate the "Tijuana Tornado" with the word “loaded” in a whole different way.Before a January fight with Shane Mosley, opposing trainer Nazeem Richardson suspected something funny about Margarito’s hand wraps. That hunch turned out to be correct, as resulting tests found an illegal substance that not only earned Margarito and trainer Javier Capetillo one-year suspensions, but also cast a cloud of doubt over Tony’s previous victories.To add injury to insult, Mosley’s fists did all the significant damage en route to a ninth-round TKO. It’s true that Margarito never should have been cheating to begin with, but getting caught right before the biggest fight of his career was a stroke of bad luck from which he may never fully recover. 4. Yet that’s essentially what happened to the 44-year-old Hopkins, who was unable to capitalize on his dominating October 2008 victory over Kelly Pavlik.Hopkins and his Golden Boy team tried in vain to land a big fight this year.

He was linked to the likes of Carl Froch and Tomasz Adamek but had to settle for beating up on lightly regarded Enrique Ornelas in December.At least it appeared "The Executioner" would have a chance to avenge his 1993 loss to Roy Jones Jr. As a result, 2009 will go down as one of the most forgettable years in Hopkins’ mostly brilliant career. 3. Kelly PavlikThough the attention of the sports media and casual fans is currently (and rightfully) focused on Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, it wasn’t too long ago when it appeared that the "Pride of Youngstown" was best positioned to become a mainstream star. His bad run of luck actually started when his team put him up against Hopkins, but it got worse in 2009.Nasty drug-resistant staph infection Check. Life-threatening reaction to medication intended to fight that same infection Double check.If that wasn’t enough, team Pavlik spent a great deal of time and energy discrediting rumors about "The Ghost’s" non-boxing activities.

19, next year has to be better for the middleweight champ, because it can’t get much worse. 2. Most observers thought he did enough to win anyway, but a dubious final round point deduction for excessive grabbing meant the bout ended up as a majority draw .On short notice, Martinez took on Paul Williams in a thrilling December battle that could have gone in his favor. One judge never even gave him a chance, though, turning in a ludicrous 119-110 card for Williams that in no way reflected the tense nature of the fight.We’ll be hearing from Martinez again, but he’ll have to be mentally tough to shake off his experiences over the last 12 months. 1. Ali FunekaThis South African lightweight opened eyes with two impressive performances fighting outside his homeland for the first time. Amazingly, he’ll be home for the holidays with a 0-1-1 record for the year and no championship belts.First, Funeka had a shot at some gold when facing Nate Campbell, who failed to make weight but fought anyway. Both men gave it their all, but even though many observers thought Ali won, the judges felt otherwise.