Some cancellations to report:

First and worst: Boxer Jimmy Lange's scheduled July 25 fight in Greensboro, N.C., is off. A Lange spokesman told me over the weekend that the cancellation, first reported by the great local boxing clearinghouse boxingaroundthebeltway.com, came "out of the blue" after North Carolina  authorities refused to sanction Lange's opponent, Jimmy LeBlanc. Lange's camp surmises that LeBlanc's record (12–16–4, with 10 of the losses coming in his last 12 fights) had regulators fearing a mismatch with the former cast member of NBC's reality fight show, "The Contender." Lange, from Great Falls, had hoped to use the Greensboro bout, his first outside of Fairfax since gaining TV stardom, to expand his considerable fan base beyond the beltway.

And Bruce Smith's hometown of Virginia Beach has cancelled a festival to honor the former Redskins defensive end. The cancellation comes after Smith was convicted last week of DUI, following his franchise-record-breaking third drunk driving arrest in the last 12 years.

Also, there will be no Allen Iverson Celebrity Softball or Flag Football games around here this year. The former Georgetown star's events had been held for several years at Prince George's Stadium and attracted an impressive number of big-name sports celebs to our area. Iverson this year moved the party to the Tidewater region of Virginia, the stomping grounds, so to speak, of his youth. Iverson's three-day shindig, now called the CrossOver Celebrity Weekend, was thrown over the weekend.

Tom Sedlacek, a spokesman for Prince George's Stadium, says: "We were open to holding it here again this year, and kept dates open on our calendar, but apparently there was no interest from [Iverson] to do it here."

I wonder if Iverson let Josh Howard sing the National Anthem this year?

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In chess, D.C. has never threatened Moscow or New York as a talent epicenter. But these days our town is as prominent as it's ever been in the game of kings, thanks to Larry Kaufman.

Kaufman, a 60-year-old District native reared in Silver Spring and now residing in Potomac, is currently holding two major world chess titles.

As written in this week's Cheap Seats, Kaufman is the reigning global champ of the 60-and-over set by way of his win in the World Senior Chess Championship a few months ago in Germany.

He's also an author of Rybka, a computer program that is the two-time defending champ of the World Computer Chess Championships. No human can last long on the board against Kaufman's digital pawn-pusher.

Kaufman will soon step into a steel cage with reigning UFC Heavyweight Champ Brock Lesnar in hopes that his chessboard dominance will translate to the octagon and allow him to bring home yet another world title.

OK, OK: Not really. Kaufman's gonna stick to chess.

But shouldn't two title belts be enough to get the guy some attention in his hometown?