Our thoughts this time of year tend toward reflection, trying to summarize and evaluate the events that made up the fabric of another year now dimming, rain washed, snowbound, closing. In boxing, as with every year, titles were won and lost, fighters and their cadres push toward lofty goals of money and fame or find themselves victims of irrational daring or unforgiving naiveté, the promoters and managers of record and notice preening or repositioning based on events beyond their economic manipulations. And as with each calendar year, there are rights of passages predicted, legends in passing and legends passing, the blight and might and matter of the sport continuously repopulated yet holding itself back, mindful of the sentiment for former moments of glories, champions just yesterday the blushing ring warriors of ultimate regard; time does that to all things mortal, memorialized.

On the evening of December 19, undefeated junior middleweight sensation Enrique Palau spent the evening gambling at the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut with his trainer, onetime middleweight prospect Sean Fitzgerald.