By Ryan Songalia

Both Shane Mosley and Andre Berto share the same birthday, September 9, twelve years apart. When the two meet up on January 30th in Las Vegas, Mosley will once again have to prove that he is closer to his prime than social security. Against an unbeaten, 26-year-old opponent, a single grain of sand in the hour glass of time can make the difference between an Indian Summer and a one way ticket to Shady Acres Retirement Home.

Mosley, aged 38, is old by boxing standards. But if you ask "Sugar Shane", age is simply a mindset and being old is not something he chooses to subscribe to. Mosley is staring down a younger opponent primed to "change the guard" and send him to the land of eternal boxing irrelevance.

Mosley was in a similar position in 2007 when Luis Collazo - still riding high from his attention grabbing close call with Ricky Hatton - was a popular pick to upset the aging legend. Forty-eight minutes and many one-sided rounds later, Mosley had re-established his world class credentials.

Against Antonio Margarito this past January, Mosley was seen as a tuneup opponent while Miguel Cotto recovered for a proposed Summer rematch with his Tijuana conqueror. Instead of being sent into retirement, it was Margarito's career (and reputation) that sustained irreparable damage. And, for the first time since 2002, Mosley was king of the welterweights.

Given his recent history, how can anyone tell Shane Mosley that he's "old"?

"I feel like I'm still 25 years old," WBA welterweight champ Mosley tells BoxingScene.com. "I'm in tremendous shape and I love to fight. I've been fighting for 30 years and I can't get enough of it. I'm getting tired waiting for everyone to come out and get in the ring. If I don't fight, I might end up in the ring and the age will catch up with me. I think this is a good fight for me, to keep me in the fighting spirit and keep that burning fire in my gut."

By the time Mosley, 46-5 (39 KO), steps back in the ring next year, he would have been out of the ring for a year and six days. Compound that with the fact that he had fought only once in 2008 and once in 2009 and it's hard to imagine a scenario where Mosley doesn't lose a step.

Mosley counters that Berto, who hasn't fought since schooling Juan Urango in May, hasn't been active, either. To stay sharp, the Pomona, California native has been in the gym helping his 15 year old son Shane Jr., an aspiring amateur with five fights to his credit.

"I've been in the gym with my son training, getting up in the morning to run and doing things to make myself a better fighter. You know, keeping my eyes sharp. Has Berto been doing that? I don't think so. Has he been in the ring sparring?"

Berto, 25-0 (19 KO), is considered smack dab in the middle of his prime. Three defenses into a WBC welterweight title reign, Berto has scarcely faced adversity in his five-year professional career.

While Margarito was a tough test on paper for Mosley, he presented a plodding, face-first style that was tailor-made for an older fighter to excel against. Berto is young, mobile and energetic.

Furthermore, he's hungry.

"Since I'm the underdog, of course [I have something to prove]," Berto was quoted as saying in an ESPN.com article by Dan Rafael. "But I'm going to go in there and do what I gotta do.

"He used to come and talk to me after my fights and he was amazed and said I reminded him of himself when he was coming up. My last two or three fights, when I was basically worked on some things and moved around and boxed a little bit, he probably forgot that aggressive style I have. And I think I just have to try to give him a reminder about it. I'll show him what he was nervous about a few fights back."

Berto himself is in a position where he must prove something to critics. Though being unbeaten, public support has been iffy since a tough defense with Collazo earlier this year. To borrow verbiage from a recent Boxing Digest cover story, some are wondering if Berto has also "reached his ceiling." Mosley dismisses such critiques.

"I'm high on Andre Berto," says Mosley. "I think that he's a good fighter. He's good for the sport and will go out there and fight. He might have bitten off a little more than he could chew at this point in his career but I respect him for getting in the ring.

"He wants to enter the realm of great fighters and in order to do that you have to fight the best fighters out there. I take my hat off to him for taking that step. I don't know if that's the right step yet but he took that step. Hopefully he can fight Collazo again or get another ABC belt because he still has a long career ahead of him. He's only 26 years old. If he lasts as long as I did, he has another 12 years ahead of him."

Removing one of the other titlists in the division - especially one with HBO's backing - would go a long way towards putting him in line for one of the mega paydays everyone in and around those divisions desires: Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr. or the winner of a proposed bout between the two.

Even with his legacy secured as a former lightweight, welterweight and junior middleweight champion with two wins over a prime Oscar de la Hoya, Mosley still finds himself as the odd man out in that equation. Beating Oscar did not make him Oscar.

Perhaps it's because he narrowly missed making the 1992 Olympic squad. Or perhaps it's because instead of thinking like a businessman and avoiding rematches with Vernon Forrest and Winky Wright - two tall boxers that just had his number - he thought like a fighter and tried against logic to reverse his fortunes. Whatever it was, he doesn't look back with regret.

"By the time I started boxing I had a local promoter. I didn't have anybody going out there and promoting for me like that. I guess I paid for it.

"I'm happy though because I've made millions of dollars. I could have made 50-60 million. IRS takes half of that and then, you know. But I've been making good money since 1998, that's a long time to make money. I've been making mega money since 2000 when I first fought Oscar."

Mosley's best case scenario is that the egos of Pacquiao and Mayweather impede negotiations, leaving him next in line.

Mosley, who will fight three times in 2010 on HBO, hopes to get one of them in April or May, and then have another big fight in November or December. If he had his pick, he'd prefer Pacquiao due to the combustible styles employed by both.

"This would be the best thing for boxing. I could beat Berto then come back on Cinco de Mayo and fight Pacquiao. Me and Pacquiao would be the best fight because we're both fighters. You know it's going to be phenomenal. Let's get it on.

"You put Mayweather in the mix and you know it's going to be a twelve round snooze fest with Mayweather-Pacquiao because Mayweather is going to potshot and run. That's the biggest hype fight but the best fight is with me and Pacquiao. Mayweather makes money with hype, he has a lot of hype. It'd still be a good fight, I think.

"With Pacquiao fighting Mayweather, they'd need to figure out how to trap him to make a fight. When you got Pacquiao, he's going to come to fight, I'm going to come to fight. It'd be a force, there'd be bombs going on in the ring. With Mayweather, we'd have to try to figure out how to get the fireworks together."

Of all the many opinions voiced on a possible Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, perhaps none are more relevant than Mosley's due to his position as possible opponent down the line. He says his perception of Pacquiao's chances with Mayweather changed after his fight with Miguel Cotto a few weeks ago.

"I think that it's going to be [an issue] if Pacquiao can get to him and be effective. Pacquiao can throw a lot of punches and wear him down. The only thing with that is Mayweather's counterpunching. With everybody else that Pacquiao fought, they went in chin-first thinking that Pacquiao was a little guy. [Ricky] Hatton, Cotto, they thought, 'This guy's smaller than me, he can't hurt me.' Once they got hurt, 'Oh what happened now?' Then he starts throwing rapid fire and they don't know what to do.

"With Mayweather, the cat's out of the bag. He knows [Pacquiao] can crack and knows he's dangerous. He's gonna use that little check left hook and knock him off balance with that. Mayweather doesn't like southpaws, he hates fighting them. That could be a problem. It could be a problem for both styles. Can Mayweather keep up his style for the whole fight?"

One possible opponent that can be ruled out is former welterweight champion Paul Williams, the 6'1" giant that challenges junior middleweight champ Sergio Martinez this weekend. He says the size disparity between him and Williams makes the fight impractical.

"Paul Williams is a middleweight, but he's fought at welterweight. He's like me when I was fighting lightweight. He's really a middleweight and could possibly go to light-heavyweight like Bernard [Hopkins] did. He's a great fighter, a great talent and he fights hard to the last breath. That's what you look for in a great fighter."

Mosley has seen his ups and downs, a two year stretch where he went 1-4-1, witnessing the ugliness of boxing politics and the such. These "learning experiences" are lessons that he intends to pass onto his son when he decides to become a pro fighter.

"Things happen in certain ways. The mistakes that I've made, I can pass those lessons onto my son when he goes up the ranks and decides he wants to be world champion. The legacy will still live on through him."

History has shown that the sons of contenders (Mayweather Jr, Mancini, Trinidad) have fared much better than the sons of champions (Frazier, Hearns, Pryor) in their own careers. Mosley points out that this was not something he had forced upon his son, as so many fighters have, but a decision he made on his own about his future.

"He's his own man now, he can choose his own destiny. I support all of his decisions. He knows what he wants to do. I didn't discourage him. My father and I have been doing a lot of training with him. He's improving and getting better. He fights a little similar to me but he just needs to get a little sharper. He moves good and he's developing well. The only thing left is to see how he holds up mentally."

Despite the next generation of Mosleys on the rise, "Sugar Shane" has no intentions on ending his career anytime soon. Even if 2010 is the banner year he is hoping for, he plans on continuing for another four years. Perhaps the success of Golden Boy partner Hopkins has inspired older fighters the way George Foreman did in the mid-90s.

"I definitely will miss boxing 4-5 years from now but my son will still be doing his thing and I'm going to be there to watch him. I feel good about putting it down because I know I will still be in the boxing world until the day I drop dead being a partner in Golden Boy Promotions with Oscar and Bernard.

"After four years, I'll pass the torch to my son and let him take over the legacy. In the meantime I'm going to be around to cause problems for these guys." -RS

Ali Still a Champion...Forever

"A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life."

This quote has always been my personal favorite from Muhammad Ali, who even to this day maintains iconic status among young people and old alike. Television cameras were on hand for nearly every moment to capture Ali in his element, from his training camps in Deer Lake to his notorious press conference verbal assaults. We know how he viewed life at 20. Champions Forever: The Definitive Edition shows how he viewed the world at 50.

Even though I was born during the Tyson era and had to acquaint myself with the Golden era of heavyweight boxing through ESPN Classic, the story of Ali, along with those of Joe Frazier, Larry Holmes and George Foreman have always served to cultivate my appreciation for the sweet science. Producer Craig Glazer accrued countless hours of interviews and footage for his 1990 documentary that reunited the five heavyweights that defined the 1970s boxing and naturally it couldn't all fit in one film. The reissue includes over 30 minutes of lost interviews with Ali 20 years after it's initial release.

As Ali's Parkinson's Disease has progressed, his speech and ability to express himself have deteriorated. This DVD captures Ali after his career had long been over in his playful, yet always introspective element. Ali throws his hands with surprising hand speed, boasts in the way only he could get away with and sheds light on some of his classic moments. Most amusing is his answer to the eternal question: Who would win, Muhammad Ali or Cassius Clay?

Champions Forever: The Definitive Edition is an essential piece to any hardcore boxing or Ali fan.

Ryan Songalia is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Send all questions and comments to songaliaboxing@aol.com .