There’s nothing like the terror felt when you have a big black bear snarling and snorting and hunting you down, eager to stuff your tender head into his mouth, to make you run as fast as you’ve ever run.

Thanks, Dana White, aka the big black bear.

Thanks for waking up the semi-slumbering powers that be, and forcing them to acknowledge that boxing needed to step up its game, or be eaten alive, and shifted even further back in the sports world’s relevance race, in 2007.

With UFC threatening to snarf up those much lusted after PPV dollars, the suits went into overdrive, and worked smarter, and harder, to give fans compelling matchups.

They agreed to get along to get money, and they relegated the sanctioning bodies, with those moronic mandatories, and instead listened to you, the consumer, and booked the fights that made sense.

Nobody worked smarter or harder than the PR arms for HBO, and “Money” Mayweather, the artist formerly known as Pretty Boy Floyd. Through his appearance on the ABC reality dance competition “Dancing with the Stars,” and stubbornly effective marketing by HBO (24/7 before the De La Hoy and Hatton showdowns were masterful mini-movies which whet appetites of even non fight fans), “Money” emerged as a pay per view attraction who can take the baton as the premier earner from Oscar De La Hoya.

He transcended the sport, and boxing added another player to the mix of fighters that even non-fight fans in the US recognize the name of. Now there’s Mike Tyson, Oscar De La Hoya, and Floyd Mayweather…

Boxing, a sprawling mess of interests lacking a central organization that insures cohesiveness in marketing, and message, and mission, relies on a central figurehead to maintain its precarious perch in the mainstream sports information flow. Mayweather, a savvy marketer who has outgrown his periodic outbreaks of youthful indiscretions, is a superstar that fits our age to a T.

He knows exactly what buttons to push to keep his name in the papers-—or, more accurately today, on computer screens—and feeds us rabid presshounds of negativity and turmoil red meat, with his intra-familial beefs and 50 Cent-inspired rants proclaiming his peerlessness.

The only thing holding Mayweather back is his own talent, probably, as he owns too much of it. He blew out De La Hoya, and Hatton, and like Roy Jones in his heyday, he so dominates his opposition, that drama is missing from his fights. Most of us tune in to the sport to savor the drama that comes from one man reaching deep into the well of heart and guts to bring forth reserves even he didn’t know he possesses, and imposing his will on an opponent who had been imposing his will upon him. That sort of drama, as manufactured by the late Diego Corrales, is the variety that the sweet science can deliver like no other sport.

We saw it in excess in 2007, from my personal choice for 2007 Fighter of the Year, Ohio’s Kelly Pavlik.

He dug into his well, after getting knocked to the floor in the second round of his tussle with middleweight champion Jermain Taylor, and refused to lose.

All of us could apply his tenacity in staying on his feet, and roaring back to topple Taylor with a furious flurry in the seventh round of their Sept. 29 battle, in our own lives. We all could identify with, and root for, the TSS Fighter of the Year.

One could argue that Mayweather, with ultra high profile wins over De La Hoya and Hatton, who did as much as anyone to keep the sport relevant in the last 12 months, deserves the TSS FOTY honor. As referenced before, maybe his superior level of talent has set the bar too high for us nitpickers. We may be prone to be too hesitant to bestow praise on Floyd, because he makes it look too easy. Sorry, Money, it’s possible you are being penalized for just being too damned good. You certainly are the runaway frontrunner for Fighter of the Decade…

Pavlik, we didn’t know how good he was coming in to this year. We knew how good his promoter, Bob Arum, thought he was. But we reserved judgment, unwilling to make too much of wins over Lenord Pierre and Bronco McKart. We became believers, to a point, when the Ohio native showed boxing skill and a closer’s mentality with his January win over Jose Luis Zertuche (KO8), and true believers with his dominant march over Edison Miranda (TKO7), the heavily hyped Colombian who was no match for the Youngstown hitter’s work rate in their May match.

But we still withheld a measure of respect before Pavlik met Taylor, the middleweight king, in Atlantic City. Maybe we had been burned by (not as great as we were led to believe) white hopes in the past, and were worried that hype and marketing were his greatest attributes as a boxer. The respect came pouring forth when he stayed on his trembling legs in the second round of his September scrap with Taylor, and intensified when he closed the show with a KO crack in the seventh.

The fighter has to be rewarded for staying the course, and not allowing himself to be knocked off the title path since turning pro in 2000, and progressing at a sometimes snailish pace, and sticking with his no-name trainer Jack Loew even though some experts urged him to trade Loew in for a flashier model, and battling frail hands, and getting pinched for slugging an off-duty cop in 2005.

Pavlik’s rise in 2007 came the old fashioned way, via training his tail off, and staying on message mentally, and rising to the occasion when the situation offered a softer, easier choice.

There was no mega marketing machine bombarding our short attention spans with a campaign to make Kelly Pavlik into the torchbearer for the sport in 2007.

But the 2007 leg of his march to prominence reaffirms the best of what the sport has to offer, and reminds us that with talents like Pavlik, the sweet science will never crumble into obsolescence.

When Harold Sconiers of Tampa, Florida, looks in the mirror these days he doesn’t see the journeyman heavyweight with a 15-17-2 (10 KOs) record that most other people do.

What he sees is the dynamic, hard-hitting heavyweight who made it to the finals of the 1996 Olympic Trials, and began his pro career with six straight knockouts and one decision victory.

Since being stopped in the first round by then undefeated Bermane Stiverne, who had won all nine of his fights by knockout, in February 2007, Sconiers has completely reassessed his life and career.

He has come to understand what transformed him from an exciting amateur and fledgling young pro with seemingly limitless future to a nominal heavyweight who had at one point lost 10 fights in a row.

Now aligned with a new manager, David Selwyn of New York, he plans on utilizing that newfound knowledge to embark on what he believes will be the comeback story of 2008.

“I always knew I had a lot of talent, but I never let that talent completely develop,” said the 31-year-old Sconiers, who has lost to such notables as Clifford Etienne, Maurice Harris, Donovan “Razor” Ruddock, David Defiagbon, DaVarryl Williamson and Eric Kirkland.

“I had a lot of different problems, but my biggest problems were self doubt and self sabotage. I would do things to make sure I never rose above a certain level.”

During his intensive, exhaustive and brutally honest re-examination of himself, he chose to forego all of the negative aspects of his career and instead focus only on the positive. Through lots of reading and candid discussions with his former trainer Larry Berrien, he went about changing the mindset that made him so comfortable with losing.

The first thing he did was look at his complete record from a totally different perspective. Rather than just dwell on the losses, Sconiers lauded himself for beating six previously unbeaten or once beaten fighters. Among them was Ray Austin, who was 14-1 at the time and later challenged Wladimir Klitschko for the heavyweight title.

He also fought Edward Escobedo, who was 12-1, to a draw, and lost a split decision to Ruddock, who has always been a formidable ring presence.

When he examined his 10 fight losing streak, he realized that his opponents had a combined record of 164-32-8. Of the 32 losses, Harris, who had revitalized his once dismal career in much the same way Sconiers hopes to, had incurred 10 of them.

And the always competitive Sherman Williams, accounted for another 10, which means eight other opponents had only 12 losses between them. Several were undefeated at the time they faced Sconiers.

“Losing to all of those guys gave the boxing world the perception that I was washed up and just didn’t care anymore,” said Sconiers. “I realized I had to change that perception, and the only way to change it was to change my old habits and my old ways of thinking, dissect everything I’d been doing wrong, and working really hard to establish a new belief system.”

Tapping deep into his own psyche, Sconiers came to realize that much of his lack of self worth was rooted in childhood issues. As a kid he had a passive personality, and both of his parents were college graduates who held what he calls high ranking positions in the corporate world.

He was bright enough to skip grades in school and he scored high on IQ tests. In no way was he destined to become a boxer. His parents had told him on many occasions that he would be well-suited as psychiatrist or attorney.

His life changed when his father held a Mike Tyson fight party at the family home. To say that Sconiers was mesmerized would be a gross understatement.

“I was instantly locked in,” said Sconiers. “I told myself that I have to do this.”

Sconiers ventured to the Frontline Outreach Gym in Orlando, where he met Antonio Tarver, who was roaring through the amateur ranks en route to the 1996 Olympics. Because Tarver was a few years older than Sconiers, he became a surrogate big brother to him. To this day, Sconiers has the utmost respect for Tarver as both a fighter and a friend.

During Sconiers’ amateur career, which consisted of 77 fights, of which he lost 9, his mother continuously reminded him that, in her opinion, “boxing was for dummies.”

Still, he managed to win a silver medal in the 1996 U.S. Nationals, where he beat eventual Olympic representative and future heavyweight title challenger Calvin Brock, as well as the finals of the 1996 Olympic Trials. In that tournament he lost to Williamson and Lamon Brewster.

When his pro career began to get derailed, the young and immature Sconiers blamed everyone but himself for his shift in fortune.

“I thought the problem was outside me, and thought everyone was responsible but me,” he said. “I dumped Larry in order to self-manage myself. I left what had always kept me grounded. Some of the fights I lost I could or should have won. There’s no way I should have lost to Etienne, but all I did was show up. The Ruddock fight should have been mine.”

As Sconiers lost interest and motivation, he also began dabbling in drugs and alcohol. More times than not, he would take fights on short notice. Even if he had time to train, he never cared if his opponents were switched or where he was lacing them up. Resigned to the fact that he was just fighting for money, he didn’t train hard, if at all.

He’d also pick up a few dollars working as a sparring partner for the likes of Etienne, Shannon Briggs, Jameel McCline, Larry Donald and Kirk Johnson, but the passion was gone. Many of those fighters, as well as their trainers, told Sconiers to snap out of his trance because he was a lot better fighter than he gave himself credit for.

While working with Etienne, the esteemed trainer Don Turner told Sconiers he could make him heavyweight champion of the world if only he’d “get his (stuff) together.”

Sconiers said he was at his personal abyss in mid-2003, when he was stopped by Kirkland, who was 16-1, in the first round in Vallejo, California.

“That was a real bad time for me,” he said. “I was up all night using drugs and alcohol and just didn’t care about anything.”

Although it would be nearly four more years before Sconiers embarked on his personal renaissance, when he looks back on his sordid past that is his most vivid memory. He has learned to use that memory to his advantage.

“A lot of people go down the same route I did and destroy themselves completely,” he said. “I was close to that point around the time of the Kirkland fight, but managed to survive another four years. It is so obvious to me now that I was trying to destroy myself.”

Sconiers is the first to concede that once you fall into the role of an opponent, it is hard to extricate yourself.

“A lot of guys go through this and fall by the wayside,” he said. “Look at Emanuel Burton (Augustus). He’s an immensely talented guy who’s good enough to be competitive and probably beat anyone. But he is in that opponent role, which is hard to snap out of.”

Having done lots of reading on positive thinking and overcoming psychological roadblocks, as well as completely revising his physical training regimen, Sconiers believes he has snapped out of it.

Besides the steadfast support of his beloved wife of six years, Jennifer, who just earned her master’s degree, he believes that his association with Selwyn is a pivotal component to the success he foresees for himself.

They plan on having a momentous and memorable 2008.

“Harold says he is going to be the Cinderella Man of 2008,” said Selwyn. “We plan on keeping a very busy schedule. History has shown that heavyweights are always just a few wins away from redemption. At his best, Harold is very good. It is undeniable that he was his own worst enemy in the past. Now he believes in himself, Larry believes in him, and I believe in him. I’m really looking forward to working with him so he can reach his full potential.”

“We plan on a busy schedule and a lot of upsets,” added Sconiers. “After my first couple of wins, people will probably say they were a fluke. I’m not quite the Cinderella Man and I’m not quite Rocky, but I am an underdog who can make it. Hope sells in boxing, and I plan on being one of the biggest stories of the new year.”

Manager Dave Selwyn can be contacted at: Boxingkid@aol.com or 845-893-2829.

*photo courtesy Harold Sconiers

In January 2006, cruiserweight Steve Cunningham of Philadelphia blasted out Lloyd Bryan in five rounds on the undercard of the Zab Judah-Carlos Baldomir title bout at Madison Square Garden.

Afterwards he told a gaggle of reporters that it was his destiny to become a world champion, and that when he did all of the hard work he put into his career would pay off.

“I always listen to the little voice in my head, and that voice is telling me that I’m going to be the champion of the world,” he said. “I can do anything I put my mind to.”

Cunningham has seen his lofty dreams come to fruition, but it has been a circuitous road to the title. In his very next fight after beating Bryan, in November 2006, he traveled to Poland to take on once-beaten local hero Krzysztof Wlodarczyk for the vacant IBF title.

Although the American judge scored the bout 119-109, the two European officials, one of whom was Polish, saw the local guy winning by three and four points each.

Distracted but undeterred, the never-say-die Cunningham returned to Poland seven months later, in May 2007, to dethrone Wlodarczyk by majority decision.

He now travels to Germany to take on the challenge of another local hero named Marco Huck on Saturday, December 29th. A native of the former Yugoslavia who now lives in the Deutschland, the hard-punching, 23-year-old Huck is 19-0 (14 KOs).

While the 31-year-old champion is 20-1 (10 KOs), and has beaten such notables as South African strongman Sebastian Rothmann, Guillermo Jones and Kelvin Davis, the challenger is heavily favored to win.

No names on Huck’s record are recognizable to American fans, but he did beat previously undefeated Vadim Tokarev, who was 23-0-1, in a title elimination bout. Still, the odds, which are as high as 4-1 at some sports books, can only be attributed to the fact that so many notoriously bad decisions are rendered in Germany.

Although Cunningham would much rather be fighting on American soil, preferably on HBO or Showtime, he is not the least bit concerned with geography.

“He’ll bring his best and I’ll bring my best, and I will be victorious,” said the seemingly unflappable Cunningham.

Cunningham’s faith in his ring abilities is enhanced by his immense belief in God. He does all of the hard work in the gym, and leaves the rest up to the Almighty. He also draws great strength from other sources as well.

Among them are his close-knit family, which includes his wife Elizabeth and two children: son Steve Jr., who is 5, and daughter Kennedy, who is 2. Kennedy was born with hypo-plastic left heart syndrome, which is an underdeveloped left side of that organ.

For her entire life she has been in the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, where she is now on the last, and least dangerous, of the three surgeries required to correct her condition.

The way Cunningham sees things, if his daughter can battle such a debilitating disease in the hospital, a fight in the ring for him is like a walk in the park.

“She’s the real fighter in the family,” said Cunningham. “It’s not me. I want to get her autograph when she gets older and is all better. If she can fight and win her battle, there is no man on Earth that can beat me.”

Another great source of inspiration for Cunningham is the four years he spent in the U.S. Navy. It was there that he became the sensible and responsible adult that he is, as well as where he learned to box.

While serving aboard the U.S.S. America and the U.S.S. Enterprise his job was to refuel aircraft of all kinds. With few off-duty options, he made his way to a small boxing gym in 1996. A quick study, he beat the light heavyweight champion of the entire Navy in his very first bout.

“My opponent’s captain was there, so there was a lot of pride involved,” said Cunningham. “He was expected to take advantage of me. A lot of people were surprised when I beat him, but I wasn’t. When I begin something new, whatever it is, I want to be the best at it. I’m willing to work very hard to become the best.”

After his 1998 discharge, Cunningham moved to Atlanta because he heard it was a great place to jumpstart a boxing career. The Olympic Games had been held there two years earlier, and the amateur boxing scene was flourishing.

He won the National Golden Gloves title later that year, and turned pro in 2000. He honed his skills at whistle stops and way stations in Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee.

When he signed with promoter Don King and found himself winning a tougher than expected decision against Joseph Avinongya at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas in July 2002, he knew he was on the right career path.

“I realized I wasn’t in South Carolina anymore,” said the champ, whose nickname is U.S.S. Cunningham in deference to his naval experience.

While Cunningham realizes the importance of having a connected promoter, he has no aversion to promoting himself. He is affable and friendly with his fans, easily accessible to the press, calls back when he says he will call, has a cell phone number that is not continuously changed, and has an active web site to keep everything and everyone up to date.

Since being crowned a champion, Cunningham has appeared on numerous television and radio programs. He has also been honored by the legendary Blue Horizon, spoken at dinners for a flag football league, attended community center openings with the likes of former heavyweight champions Michael Spinks and Joe Frazier, spoke at a college sports camp, attended block parties, and made himself available for just about every media request that has come his way.

While it is obvious that Cunningham is on solid ground in every aspect of his life, he and his wife are sensible enough to not put all their eggs in one basket, especially a basket made of ring earnings. To that end, they have recently purchased an already established pizzeria which is doing very well under their ownership.

There is no doubt that Cunningham very much likes being a champion. Huck, however, has plans to snatch his title and pursue his own championship legacy. When he heard that Cunningham had opened the pizzeria a few weeks prior to their scheduled fight, he said that after he beat him he’d have plenty of time to tend to his new business.

Huck is talking like he has this win in the bank. But anyone who goes into the ring with Cunningham and thinks its going to be easy pickings better think again. I can’t imagine that Huck would be foolhardy to believe he’s going to win as easy as he says he is, but he just might be.

If there is no tomfoolery involved with the judging, which is a big if in Germany, this corner says Cunningham leaves the country with his first successful title defense under his belt.

Sometimes nice guys do finish first, especially when they work as long and hard as Cunningham has.

“I don’t take shortcuts and I don’t expect anything I didn’t earn,” he said. “There aren’t many fighters that work harder than me. If I was another boxer, the last guy I’d want to fight is me.”

Cunningham’s web site address is: usscunningham.com