For the past five weeks HBO has been airing its second edition of its outstanding 'Hard Knocks' series, which chronicles the trials and tribulations of fledgling football players who hope to make it to the big time in the National Football League.

Last season HBO featured the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens, this season it's the Dallas Cowboys. We get a behind-the-scenes look at Emmitt Smith, who prepares to break the all-time rushing record held by Walter Payton, first-round draft choice Roy Williams' adjustment to the pro game and the unfortunate season-ending neck injury to Raghib Ismail. But the real drama lies in the fight for roster spots by unknown names like Deveren Johnson, Randal Williams, Woody Dantzler and Pete Hunter.

We won't know exactly who will make the final roster for the Cowboys until the final episode this Wednesday night, but it's safe to say, that those unknowns who make the 53-man squad will have taken a much harder road than the one taken by Clinton Woods who takes on Roy Jones this Saturday night on HBO in Portland, Oregon.

Woods, who is the WBC mandatory challenger, comes in with an impressive mark of 32-1 with 18 knockouts. It's an impressive mark until you delve further into just who he was beating to get to this lofty status. According to a record taken from Boxrec.com (an invaluable tool that everyone in boxing should be checking out, by the way), out of Woods' 32 professional wins, 17 have come against fighters with records of .500 or below. (Editor's note: Boxrec.com does not always display the full record of lesser-known fighters because their official ledgers are often hard to obtain. Thus, the opponents of the better-known fighters sometimes appear worse than they really are. However, this is not to state that much of Woods opposition was not mediocre to poor.)

In other words, Woods ain't exactly knocking off Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles or Bob Foster.

His last bout was this past March was against a guy by the name of Clint Johnson, who sported a ledger of 9-11-1 and was coming off a three-bout losing streak. I've heard of protecting and sitting on a ranking, but that's ridiculous. Two fights before that, Woods would down a Paul Bonson, whose record was 11-38-6 coming in and was on a five fight skid. Two fights before that in his 29th pro bout, he would take on a Greg Scott-Briggs whose record was 15-22 and had lost three out of his last six coming into his match with Woods. Predictably, Woods would stop Scott-Briggs in three.

His record is littered with soft touches- but to be fair, all prospects who are moved have them. But Woods' dossier seems to have more than the usual amount: Terry Ford (17-18-1, with a record of 0-3-1 in his last four coming into his bout with Woods), Jeff Finlayson (5-5), Danny Juma (2-7-1, with a five-bout losing streak prior to facing Woods in October of 1997), Darren Ashton (7-7-0, with a stretch of losing five out of six bouts coming into his date with Woods), Rocky Steve Shelly (2-5, that saw him lose five of his last six), Ernie Loveridge (19-38-3), John Duckworth (10-16-5), Phil Ball (6-9-2) and then Paul Murray (19-73-9) who came into the bout with a long losing streak but I guess the fact that it was only Woods' seventh pro fight, makes this matchup somewhat excusable since Murray had the edge in experience.

Yeah, it's losing experience, but work with me, I'm trying to look on the bright side.

Woods' two most notable wins come against a 38-year-old Yawe Davis, a 12-round decision win that was a WBC title eliminator last September in Sheffield, England and a ninth-round TKO against Ole Klemetsen in March of 2000. His other 'notable' wins have come against Europeans like Crawford Ashley (TKO 8) for the European, British and Commonwealth light heavyweight titles, Mark Smallwood (15-0) and Mark Baker (20-1).

Forget Moore, Charles and Foster, he hasn't exactly been downing the likes of Antonio Tarver, Eric Harding or David Telesco. But HBO's commercials for Jones-Woods, insist on telling us that Woods is 'Europe's top rated light-heavyweight' forgetting all about Dariusz Michalczewki and the fact that they, themselves don't recognize the WBO title that Michalczewki holds, thus in effect, making him a light heavyweight contender in their own eyes.

His one loss came against David Starie for the Commonwealth super middleweight title, a 12-round decision loss in March of 1998. Starie, if you recall (and you're lucky if you don't) is best known to U.S. audiences for stinking out the joint with Joe Calzaghe on a Mike Tyson undercard on Showtime a couple of years ago.

Nobody can really say what kind of fighter Woods is (since hardly anyone out here has ever seen him), but it's clear that what he is, is a product of a ranking organization that has allowed themselves to be manipulated for their benefit, the beneficiary of an adroitly conceived plan by his management to protect him until they get that one big payday and the tool of a fighter (Roy Jones) who continues to take advantage of a contract that allows him to maximize his earning potential while eliminating his risk.

Hey, it's a great gig for Jones, keep collecting these $4 to $5 million licensing fees while taking on the likes of Woods.

Even HBO, which in the past has staunchly defended Jones at all cost, is getting fed up with this racket. They are making no bones about it, Jones-Woods is being aired on their network -- not because they want to, but because they have to.

"Our attitude is we're reluctantly airing it," admits Xavier James of HBO Sports. "The bottom line here is I don't know how Clinton Woods became a top 10 light heavyweight and I prefer not to telecast it. But, contractually, we have very little latitude in that regard. As far as I'm concerned, I'd prefer Roy to fight a more competitive fight."

Join the club, Xavier, but it doesn't look like that may be happening anytime soon. Even after months and months of talks involving match-ups with the likes of Bernard Hopkins and Vassiliy Jirov, Jones is taking on another "mis"-mandatory challenger. And despite what came out of the Jones camp or what other web-sites would excitedly and breathlessly report (the one about Jones facing Jirov in Dubai, being the doozy of them all), those bouts were pipe-dreams.

"Again, unless the deal is signed, sealed and delivered, I didn't think it was going to happen," said James. "Whether that was a Jirov fight or a Hopkins fight. I didn't think any of those fights were going to happen unless the deal was signed. Now, with respect to Hopkins, Roy did make a good faith effort in trying to make that fight happen. It didn't happen I guess because Bernard's number was too high. But I didn't think that the Jirov fight was going to happen and again, where it comes to Roy Jones, I want to see the deal signed before I go out and start promoting a fight."

James would not state the exact number of bouts Jones has left on his current deal with HBO but says "he has many more fights". So how many more Glen Kelly and Woods fights can we expect in the future?

"It depends on how long Roy wants to fight and it depends on his perspective during the remainder of his career," James said. "I prefer fighters to have what I call the 'Marco Antonio Barrera motto', which is you ignore the sanctioning bodies and you fight the best fights. You don't accept a title necessarily, you just fight the best fights. And if a fighter is intent on maintaining title belts then you will get what we get -- a series of non-competitive match-ups against guys you've never heard off. I want to get to a point where titles are completely irrelevant."

Barrera, in the last year or so, has taken on the likes of Naseem Hamed, Erik Morales and is scheduled to take on Johnny Tapia in November 2nd.

"That's a model for success," James, points out. "Not fighting mandatory after mandatory after mandatory; that's a recipe for not being well thought off in this business."

However, it has fattened Jones' pocketbook at Time Warner's expense, but James says that his company is changing it's philosophy in that regard to make sure fighters they sign to multi-fight agreements don't take advantage of them.

"We've already changed that contractual philosophy and going forward we will have much more contractual latitude to not accept a non-competitive fight," James said. "In our last two multi-fight negotiations, Barrera, and currently with Vernon Forrest, we make it clear to the other side that at the end of the day, we want the best match-ups in the world. We pay a premium for it, we don't pay a premium to maintain his belt by fighting some guy we never heard off. That's not good programming and that's not getting our money's worth.

"So we make it clear going forward that we're not going to buy such match-ups and contractually protecting ourselves against these types of situations."

Call it 'the Roy Jones Rule'.

SMOKE-FREE

At least Jones isn't shoving his lil' buddy Derrick Gainer down our throats like he has in the past. On this telecast, instead, we get a bout between Winky Wright and Bronco McKart.

Yeah, we probably don't need to see Wright-McKart for a third time, but anything beats seeing Gainer bore us to death.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: 'Smoke' Gainer is hazardous to a network's ratings.

ROYCOTT?

Some folks out there have been e-mailing me about a Roycott for this bout with Woods. I say one is not needed, after all, it's not pay-per-view, so you might as well sit down and watch it if you want.

For me, this bout takes a backseat to all the college football going on next Saturday, especially when my Miami Hurricanes go into Gainesville, Florida, to take on the Gators.

If I have a few minutes to spare, then I'll check out HBO.