Is it true? Is he really retired for good? Will he never compete professionally again? Will his enormous pride allow him to finally walk away from what he has done at such a high level for so many years? Clearly, he is nowhere near the athlete he used to be, but have we in fact seen the last of Kevin Kelley?

Well, who did you think I was writing about, Michael Jordan?

Kevin was a very good fighter for a good long time. He fought and beat the likes of Goyo Vargas and Derek Gainer. He rumbled in a classic with Naseem Hamed. He could box, and he could slug.

This last Saturday night he was knocked out by featherweight champion Marco Antonio Barrera. "Barrera has made adjustments and is boxing smarter now than he used to, he's fighting 'older'," Kevin told me after the fight. Kevin's been fighting "older" too - older as in past his prime - for at least three or four years now.

His last fight should have been his knockout loss to Erik Morales, Barrera's chief rival. But after the Morales fight, Kevin convinced himself (and tried to convince anyone else who would listen) that he could have beaten Morales if only he wasn't drained from making weight. He will eventually talk himself into the idea that he could have beaten Barrera, too.

"No, I'm retired," Kevin says. "At my age I get injured in training. My body can't tolerate the abuse. Boxing training is abusive. I got a nutritionist, a physical therapist - when you need all those things just to do what you used to do by yourself, it's time to stop."

It has been written so many times about so many athletes that I hate to write it now, but here goes: the irony is that Kevin Kelley's pride, a quality that made him so tough to beat for so many years, is now the very thing that will keep him fighting on, in spite of his claim that he is done.

"No, I've been a professional broadcaster for 12 years now, on television and the radio, that's what I am now, a broadcaster." Yeah, until the next six figure boxing paycheck presents itself. Think that's impossible after being dominated by both Morales and Barrera? Stranger things have happened than a Hamed-Kelley rematch. It really is not unthinkable.

***

This week on Friday Night Fights we have Michael Grant in against Gilbert Martinez. Martinez is in his late 30's and began his career as a middleweight, but he is a southpaw, and he did get a win over David Bostice last year.

The fact that our own Teddy Atlas is both FNF's ringside analyst and Grant's trainer always makes for compelling television. Would Teddy put Grant in with a guy who could beat him on Friday Night Fights? Of course not. This Friday is not about finding out whether Grant can win, it is about seeing how he wins.

The time has come for Grant to begin winning impressively. There have been enough fights against lesser lights since his back-to-back debacles against Lennox Lewis and Jameel McCline. But before Teddy lets Grant back in with a fighter who poses a genuine threat to actually win, Michael will have to show consistency. It will not be enough for him to "look good in spots," as Teddy is wont to say. Sure, the fact that Martinez is lefthanded and has beaten some name heavyweights makes him acceptable as a TV opponent, but Martinez was stopped last year by Jeremy Williams.

At 37 years old, Lennox Lewis will not be around for much longer. There is no potentially dominant heavyweight ready to take his place. Michael Grant must absolutely master the likes of Martinez if he is to ever be taken seriously as a force in the soon-to-be wide-open heavyweight division.

Max Kellerman is a studio analyst for ESPN2's Friday Night Fights and the host of the show Around The Horn.