Bernard Fernandez

PHILADELPHIA -- Sgt. Steve Little Jr.'s voice was filled with the kind of pride befitting a United States Marine. But then, the 24-year-old son of the late former WBA super middleweight champion always sounds that way when speaking about his father, who was only 34 when he died of colon cancer on Jan. 30, 2000, leaving behind a grieving wife and six children.

"Obviously, I wasn't around, or was very young, when he was boxing," Steve Jr. said of his dad, whose professional career spanned from 1983 to '98. "But from what I've heard from people who knew him then, and seen for myself on DVDs of his fights I was able to obtain, he was a real technician in the ring. Opponents hated to fight him, because he gave everyone problems and he never quit.

Carl Froch imagines himself to be a much harder puncher than Andre Ward, and maybe he is. But the outcome of another boxing match a week earlier could have an effect on how the two reigning super middleweight champions go at it Saturday night in the Showtime-televised unification bout that brings the curtain down on the "Super Six Classic" in Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall.

Last Saturday night, in Lamont Peterson's hometown of Washington, D.C., Peterson upset WBA/IBF junior welterweight champion Amir Khan, of England, on a controversial split decision. The scores were 115-110 for Khan and 113-112, twice, for Peterson.

PHILADELPHIA -- The dedication will be private and unannounced. Maybe it will come in the form of trunks and shoes that resemble those worn by Joe Frazier in one of his biggest fights. It could be a subtle gesture toward heaven before the opening bell.

Or possibly Mike Jones (25-0, 19 KOs) will simply try to close the show in his Dec. 3 bout against Argentina's Sebastian Lujan (38-5-2, 24 KOs) the way his first boxing mentor, the great Smokin' Joe, might have, with double left hooks delivered downstairs and then upstairs in one continuous motion.

CANASTOTA, N.Y. -- Mike Tyson was the quintessential knockout artist, defeating his first 19 opponents as a professional boxer inside the distance, 12 of whom went down and out in the first round.

MONTREAL -- You can't really manufacture history, but you can try to manufacture hype.

When the rematch of WBC light-heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (26-0-1, 16 KOs) and challenger Bernard "The Executioner" Hopkins (51-5-2, 32 KOs) was announced in February, the Washington D.C., media-relations firm that handles Hopkins came up with the idea to have him enter the ring here Saturday night at the Bell Centre in a vintage Bobby Clarke sweater, ostensibly to remind the crowd of some of the great hockey battles between the Flyers and the Montreal Canadiens.

PHILADELPHIA -- This isn't the best of times for homeowners. My roof is leaking and needs to be replaced, my annual property taxes are more than $10,000, and the value of my residence plunged when the housing market crashed.

But whenever I am inclined to feel sorry for myself, I remember that there are those who are spending their nights sleeping on grates or in large cardboard boxes beneath highway overpasses. For many homeless persons, necessity dictates that all their worldly possessions must fit into a shopping cart or a plastic garbage bag.

All these years later, it turns out Brother Charles Klein was right.

Klein was my high school chemistry teacher. Once, after he chided me for my seeming lack of interest in his course, I told him that it was not my intention to become a chemist and that upon obtaining a passing grade, I no doubt would quickly forget the atomic weight of every element on the periodic table. Good man that he was, he patiently responded to my impertinence by saying the information he had endeavored to plant in my brain someday might prove useful.