By Robert Morales
Even though Bob Arum said Friday that he has made a deal for his fighter, Joshua Clottey, to challenge "Sugar" Shane Mosley for his welterweight world title Dec. 26 at Staples Center in Los Angeles, there has been no formal announcement. Arum told BoxingScene.com last Friday, "I made a deal with Richard Schaefer [CEO for Golden Boy Promotions] and confirmed it with HBO."
As Mosley awaits word that the deal is absolutely done, he has something else on his mind. Monday he will be in New York City to give a deposition in his defamation lawsuit against BALCO founder Victor Conte.
Mosley in December 2003 testified before a grand jury investigating BALCO that he ingested what later were identified as the steroids "the cream" and "the clear" during preparation for his second fight with Oscar De La Hoya in September of that year. Mosley also took EPO, a blood-doping agent that raises red blood cell production.
Mosley has claimed all along he had no idea what these drugs were and that he was relying on personal trainer Darryl Hudson and Conte to make sure he was taking nothing that was banned by the Nevada State Athletic Commission; the fight, won by Mosley, was held in Las Vegas.
But Conte has said that Mosley knew "the cream" and "the clear" were undetectable steroids, thus Mosley's lawsuit. Conte in June lost a motion to have the lawsuit dismissed.
"I have a lawsuit against him because he is saying I knew I was taking steroids," said Mosley, speaking in animated tones to BoxingScene. "He is messing with my character."
Mosley called Monday to reiterate that he never actually tested positive for steroids after that De La Hoya fight, as was incorrectly written by this reporter last week in the "Insider Notebook."
He, of course, is right. He did not test positive. He became involved in this situation when Conte's San Francisco-area lab was raided by FBI agents. Mosley's name came up when a copy of a check he had written Conte was found. Mosley said the idea that he wrote a check to Conte shows he was not trying to hide anything.
"He (Mosley) was tested and he came back clean, so did Oscar," Keith Kizer said Tuesday. Kizer became executive director of the Nevada commission in June 2006, but he worked for the state Attorney General's office in 2003 and the commission was one of his clients.
Kizer noted that no one knew of "the cream" and "the clear" at the time of Mosley-De La Hoya II. He also said that the FBI called then-commissioner Marc Ratner less than two months after that fight and asked if the urine sample Mosley gave was still available.
"We checked with the lab ... and when the test comes back negative, they destroy it after 30 days," Kizer said. "It came back negative because there was no test for 'the cream' or 'the clear' back then."
Mosley subsequently testified before the grand jury and was never punished by any entity. He also noted that he testified truthfully and that's why he was never in any trouble with the feds.
"That's why I'm not in jail," Mosley said.
Marion Jones," the disgraced former track star, served nearly six months in prison for lying to federal BALCO investigators in November 2003 about her use of steroids, as well as her involvement in a check-fraud hustle with another former track star, sprinter Tim Montgomery.