By Mike Costello BBC Five Live boxing correspondent

Radio Five Live commentator Mike Costello gives the lowdown on Joe Calzaghe's possible next opponent and ponders the future for Audley Harrison.

He also explains why an England flop at this summer's World Cup could help boxing and welcomes the cash boost designed to produce a glut of winners at the 2012 Olympics.

Boxing's rumour mill suggests Joe Calzaghe's next opponent could be Peter Manfredo Jr, a likeable, lucid lad who lost in the final of "The Contender" series hosted by Sylvester Stallone, shown here and in the States last year.

Manfredo could be Joe Calzaghe's next opponent

I met Manfredo six months ago at the Wild Card gym in Hollywood, where he trains under the guidance of Freddie Roach.

Let's just say it wasn't a good day for Manfredo.

He sparred half-a-dozen rounds with Vanes Martirosyan, a light-middleweight born in Armenia who boxed for the USA at the 2004 Olympics.

Martirosyan, back then in October, was unbeaten in four as a pro (he's now 8-0). He toyed with Manfredo - and it was one of those sparkling sessions that makes even the most bustling of gyms go quiet.

In terms of speed, skill and strength, Manfredo was second best all the time.

Sparring doesn't tell us everything but from what I saw that afternoon in Los Angeles, Martirosyan has that something else.

As for Manfredo, there's no need for Joe to go hiding behind the sofa.

Harrison is left to contemplate what might have been

"If I don't realise that dream, I'm not going to start crying. I will have tried my best and if my best is not good enough then so be it."

Those words sit in the final chapter of Audley Harrison's autobiography, published shortly after he turned professional in 2001.

Maybe he always knew professional glory would lie beyond his reach. In any meaningful sense, his career is now over, the dream unrealised.

So be it. And his legacy?

Joe Calzaghe described him recently as "Ordinary Harrison, Very Ordinary Harrison"; Danny Williams said "he has no heart"; and Chris Eubank was most scathing of all, saying: "To be considered a boxer is an honour and I don't know that Audley Harrison can be considered a boxer."

Fighting men are proud men. To be excluded from the club will hurt. And no swab-stick will ever make it better for Harrison.

Radio Five Live opened the phone lines recently to ask whether any sport can compete with football in the UK.

Success for England's football team could hit boxing's popularity

None can.

Boxing belongs alongside cricket, athletics, rugby and others in the second tier - among sports whose audiences are made up of hard-core buffs and swelled occasionally (the Ashes and Rugby World Cup) by football fans looking for an additional fix.

In boxing, eight million viewers were persuaded to watch Audley's pacifist crusade against Danny Williams in December.

Joe Calzaghe and Ricky Hatton are nestled in the world's pound-for-pound top 10.

And Amir Khan is wowing mums as well as sons and fathers, even though he's yet to leave the nursery.

A resurgence is shaping. But what will happen come June and July?

If England go a long way in football's World Cup, the flags of St George will fly from every window and every car up and down the land; pull-out posters will drop from every tabloid paper; and every angle of every story will be exhausted and exhumed.

The gap between football and the rest, boxing included, will grow wider. Do we really want England to win in Germany?

Comfort zones - all but sportsmen and women are supposed to strive to reach one.

The 2012 effect is flooding sport with cash, and there are parallel debates in athletics and boxing as to whether such funding reduces hunger and desire.

But money, surely, doesn't suppress champions.

Would multi-medallists Linford Christie, Sally Gunnell, Colin Jackson and Steve Backley (all soldiers of the pre-Lottery age) have been impaired by such assistance?

For the best, the extra dosh doesn't dilute their ambitions, it helps fulfil them.

And the increased funding being made available to Britain's amateur boxers has to be welcomed.

It might be that for every pound well spent another will be wasted, but that's the hazard of the system.

Like the Lottery itself, it's a gamble. And we've got to be in it to win it.

Mike Costello will be filing reports every few weeks.