Hors D'Oeuvre

The Taylor/Pavlik rematch, the Povetkin/Chambers title eliminator, the Klitschko/Ibragimov belt unifier, the Vasquez/Marquez rubber match, the Pac Man/Marquez rematch... people I tell you, I can't remember the last time a new year had so many fights already made that I was this excited to see. 2007 was a breakthrough year for the sweet science, and to understate the case considerably, it looks like 2008 is going to keep the gravy train rolling.

With that in mind, tomorrow night's Paulie Malignaggi/Herman Ngoudjo fight for Malignaggi's IBF belt at 140 is little more than an appetizer for the main courses on the horizon. If that's the case, however, it's shaping up to be a pretty tasty morsel. Keep in mind that Malignaggi has a potentially huge payday at stake, as he has been routinely mentioned of late as a major player in the Ricky Hatton sweepstakes. And even without that incentive to watch, Paulie Walnuts is one of those rare treats in the squared circle, a fighter with very little pop whose speed and style and moxie all make him incredibly entertaining to watch.

Ngoudjo, meanwhile, is no slouch, a Cameroon-born slugger fighting out of Montreal who sounds like he's hellbent on crossing over into the never never land of serious money. Here's how I described Ngoudjo after his very impressive split-decision loss to Jose Luis Castillo last January - "gorgeous footwork, a long, kinetic jab, with powerful, fast hands when he got inside."

Now I have to temper that praise by pointing out that Ngoudjo (one of the many black boxers out there fighting under a "Panther" nickname) was less auspicious in his split-decision win over Randall Bailey in July, and a tough time with a fighter of Bailey's caliber does not make me love his chances against a Magic Man with Hatton-money on his radar screen. Then again, consider this - Malignaggi's last two opponents have been sub-par talents (Edner Cherry and Lovemore N'Dou), he easily could be caught looking past Ngoudjo to Macnunian millions, and his hands are about as brittle as a fighter's hands can be. One thing we can be almost certain of going into this fight - if someone is going to get unconscious in there, it's going to be the champ and not the challenger.

In the final analysis, neither of these guys ever backs away from a throwdown, and the pre-fight trash-talking has been epic (for some of Ngoudjo's heavily inflected rage check out his interview with Franchise over at Jarry Park), which bodes well for a nice little overture to the positively operatic year of boxing we have ahead of us. I'm not going to prognosticate on this one - my instincts tell me Paulie in a close decision, but I don't have much of a feel for it on the whole and certainly wouldn't be surprised to see Ngoudjo steal the belt with a command performance. So let's just sit back and enjoy, and, you know, whet our whistle for the big boys.