Everyone knows that boxing is a tough, cruel game, but that’s not the entire definition. Boxing is also a business, and one where being too good can make things hard on a fighter. Take, as a case in point, Jason “the Hammer” LaHoullier. With a 21-0 record, LaHoullier is the most exciting boxer to emerge from Maine since the heyday of Joey Gamache. But the Hammer hasn’t had a fight since last March, and nearly a whole calendar year will have elapsed when he climbs back into the squared circle for a bout on ESPN early in the spring.

Despite LaHoullier’s dearth of recent fights, “I think he’ll be busy this year,” says Bobby Russo, who is LaHoullier’s manager, trainer, and the leader of the Portland Boxing Club. Russo says making the right kinds of fights gets more difficult as a fighter’s career develops, especially when he amasses a record as impressive as the Hammer’s. “There has to be all the right type of circumstances, and of course, he’s 21-0 now, so he has to win every time out to move forward,” Russo points out. “It’s hard to get opponents for him, or it’s easy to get the opponents that you don’t want.”

Boxing’s latest mega-fight, the Floyd Mayweather-Ricky Hatton brawl last month in Las Vegas, which Mayweather won in the 10th round, was another example of how the business’s vagaries have been unkind to the Hammer. Ricky Hatton’s little brother, the less impressive “Magic” Matthew Hatton, always fights on his brother’s undercards. In fact, in May 2006, when Ricky Hatton fought Luis Collazo in Boston, Magic Matthew's camp deemed the Hammer too dangerous. Instead, the fight, the money, and all of the opportunities that come with fighting (and maybe beating) the brother of one of the sport’s true superstars went to Jose Medina, a fighter whom the Hammer had disassembled live on ESPN from Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, the previous summer. Magic's people chose wisely, too, because Medina, despite losing the decision, acquitted himself well that night, giving the Magic man all he could handle.

Had they sent the Hammer in against Baby Brother, it would have been the worst whipping that the British received in that part of the world since Bunker Hill. A year and a half after Boston, in the run-up to the recent action in Vegas, Magic Matt still didn’t want any part of fighting the Hammer, who had again been offered as an opponent, and again declined. “We’ve actually lobbied for that fight a couple of times,” Russo said. So when Magic fought on the Mayweather-Hatton undercard, who was his opponent? The eminently beatable Frankie Santos, who got knocked right on his ass.

The Hammer did fight that night in Boston, way back in 2006, but against whom? A slow, lumbering kid from Philadelphia named Michael Melvin who, through the course of the bout, never really looked like he wanted to be in the ring. Melvin wasn’t even as good as his anemic 7-5-3 record suggested. The win the Hammer collected that night added to his impressive numbers, but it was not an impressive win. Impressive wins require the vanquishing of impressive opponents, which is something that Jason “the Hammer” LaHoullier will return to this year. Hopefully, with Russo carefully guiding his career and making the right kinds of fights, local fans of the sweet science can find that, while the lay-off may have seemed long and interminable, when action recommences this coming March it will have been worth the wait.

Rick Wormwood can be reached at rickwormwood@excite.com .