SATURDAY TO BE MERCHANT'S SWAN SONG ON HBO?

According to Yahoo! Sports, this Saturday's HBO broadcast of Nonito Donaire-Jorge Arce will be Larry Merchant's last as a ringside analyst. If the report is correct, it will be the end of a 35-year run for Merchant, a generally respected and sometimes controversial journalist whose career has earned him induction in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Merchant has covered such legendary fights as Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston I (appearing between Clay's legs in the iconic photograph of him standing over Liston) and Buster Douglas-Mike Tyson. Recently, Floyd Mayweather criticized Merchant for asking why Mayweather wouldn't fight Manny Pacquiao and Merchant famously repsonded that if he were fifty years younger, he would "kick [Floyd's ass]." -Scott Shaffer