Pugilistic pleasures

WHAT better metaphor to judge this year in and out of the ring than the sport itself. Like a journeyman pro, the sport has in 2006 been all things to all men.

There’s been plenty of nonsense, much ugliness and enough bad stuff to keep Santa’s naughty list running into the next millennium.

There have, however, been flashes of brilliance, some rare moments when the humdrum has been suppressed and boxing has reached out of its skin to remind us all that somewhere inside this lumbering, punch-drunk veteran there is a slick operator capable of achieving the spectacular and the scintillating.