New York's Madison Square Garden, once a regular host to some of the great boxing matches of yesteryear, is now a distant second to Las Vegas's and Atlantic City's grand casinos, and even tomorrow night's heavyweight fight, sandwiched in between last week's Vladamir Klitschko-Lamon Brewster card in Las Vegas and next week's Vitali Klitschko-Corrie Sanders card in Los Angeles, is the weakest of the three, as far as generated interest is concerned.

At any rate, the show must go on, and now that Lennox Lewis is out of the picture, everyone wants a piece of heavyweight glory. The paper champions and alphabet organizations are salivating for a piece of the pie, and everyone over 200 pounds thinks he has what it takes.

Andrew Golota's last marquee fight was against Mike Tyson on October 20th 2000. In that fight, Tyson apparently broke Golota's jaw; Golota left the ring amidst boos, his boxing career uncertain. He later apologized to his fans, unsure of where he was headed. Since then he has fought twice, both in 2003, scoring knockout wins over Brian Nix (TKO 7) and Terrence Lewis (TKO 6).

Golota is a good boxer, with a strong jab and knockout power; unfortunately he is also as unpredictable as Mike Tyson. Is he a serious heavyweight contender? Why not? The heavyweight picture is wide open, and Golota, 36, has the experience and a lot of tough fights under his belt. Chris Byrd, on the other hand, is 33 and the IBF champion (not the true linear champion, as he never fought Lennox Lewis for the title). His last fight against Fres Oquendo was a controversial win and his fight before that was a decision win over a faded Evander Holyfield. He has no punching power (he has 20 knockouts in 37 wins) and is criticized for being too boring.

Byrd can frustrate Golota with his southpaw style, and Golota will have to double and triple up on his jab. Since Golota doesn't exactly have a chin of granite it isn't inconceivable that Byrd floors him, but if Golota comes into the ring in shape and uses his aggression he could make Byrd's night very difficult.

Golota is hoping to erase the memories of his two disqualification losses to Riddick Bowe, his 10th round TKO loss to Michael Grant (both of which he was clearly winning) and his 1st round obliteration at the hands of Lennox Lewis, but it might be too little too late. It would be nice to see Byrd get dropped. But don't count on it.

Prediction: Byrd by decision.

We all thought that Roy Jones Jr's definitive win over John Ruiz last March meant that we never had to see the Massachussetts Mauler or his annoying trainer, Norman Stone again. Then in December, Ruiz beat Hasim Rahman in a snorefest that barely passed as boxing in which Ruiz may have set a record for clinches per round. And just like that, he won the WBA title, the same title he lost to Jones nine months earlier.

Fres Oquendo is coming off his fight with Byrd in which most of the general public thought he won. "Fast Fres" has decent, but not crippling power and judging from the way he fought Byrd, will not stand for Ruiz's punch-and-clinch tactics. Ruiz has a decent chin, but he won't have as much confidence as Oquendo coming into this fight, and it's hard to imagine Ruiz outboxing him.

Prediction: Oquendo by unanimous decision.