By Bill Dettlof of The Ring:

This dovetails nicely with the sense, held among many, that the sport is in real danger because its lone huge star, Oscar De La Hoya, is 35 years old and at the brink of retirement following his humbling loss to Manny Pacquiao.

Before we get to that, it’s worth noting the immense hypocrisy inherent in Calzaghe’s observation that there are “too many belts and too many champions, which dilutes real champions like myself.”

This is like Rod Blagojevich complaining that American politics is too corrupt. For 10 years, Calzaghe paraded around as the WBO “champion,” helping to publicize what had been at the beginning a mostly European, mostly unknown and entirely laughable sanctioning body.

He had help, though. A lazy American fight press and Calzaghe’s legions of European fans kept calling him a champion, and here we are, with four “champions” per division, which Calzaghe now, suddenly, thinks is too many.

At any rate, this sense of doom at the passing of a star is as old as the sport itself, as is the worry that boxing is on the brink of extinction. But don’t take my word for it. Take a cue from the ghosts of boxing past, who were gone long before De La Hoya had to “save” boxing again and again.

Writing in the April 1930 (!) issue of The Ring after the Max Schmeling-Jack Sharkey heavyweight title fight, Nat Fleischer said, “This is a drastic cure, but something will have to be done to save boxing. The public is tired.”

Twenty years later, Jersey Jones wrote in the February 1950 issue of The Ring: “As the Twentieth Century, Anno Domini, moves into its halfway mark, the American chapter of the fistic fraternity finds itself confronted by one of the most crucial periods it has known since the knuckle dusting trade became big business. Boxing is in a mighty precarious state of artistic and financial health at the moment.”

Almost 30 years on, Nat Loubet got it right when, commenting on Muhammad Ali’s retirement, he wrote in the April 1979 issue, “Boxing will survive, Ali or no Ali. A knight on a horse will gallop onto the stage, a new young face to capture the imagination of boxing buffs – and the heavyweight handicaps will be off and running again.”

After Dempsey left, there was Louis. After Louis there came Marciano. After Marciano there was Ali and after Ali, Ray Leonard. After Leonard came Tyson, and after Tyson there was De La Hoya.

So don’t pull the sheet over this old game yet. As Gene Tunney told Ring writer Al Buck in April 1950, “There is nothing the matter with boxing that another Jack Dempsey couldn’t cure.”