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DON’T COUNT MOSLEY OUT
By Brandon Estrict
If you’re Shane Mosley, you’re ready to go right now. We’re just a few hours away from tonight’s big fight in Los Angeles between Mosley and WBA Welterweight Champion, Antonio Margarito, but imagine the fire burning inside “Sugar” Shane. He has everything in the world to fight for and, seemingly, nothing to lose when he battles the Tijuana Tornado for 147 lb. supremacy.
Shane Mosley is a throwback fighter, and a sure-fire future Hall of Famer. His best days, as evidenced by his previous bout, a sub-par outing against face-first brawler Ricardo Mayorga, are clearly behind him. He is, while not directly at the center of, deeply embroiled in the BALCO steroid controversy, and recently released testimony have showed him to be less than honest when speaking on the topic in the past. His father and former trainer, Jack Mosley, made some comments to the media last week that Shane and wife/business manager, Jin, may be having marital problems. It is at least noteworthy that Shane now handles all of his own business matters. Combine all of this with a new voice in the corner of Mosley, long-time trainer of the legendary Bernard Hopkins, ****m Richardson, and all of the turbulence involved in making that transition from Jack, and Mosley has a tremendous amount of things to deal with heading into ring tonight.
But, like I stated earlier, Shane Mosley is a throwback fighter, a warrior, and a man with a love and a passion for his craft that you rarely see in fighters at this stage and on this level of their careers’. His loyalty has not been strictly to money, but to boxing and it shows. It is the reason that he is even at this point now, trying to tame one of the young lions and boxing’s hottest fighter in the Tijuana Tornado. Shane Mosley didn’t say “there isn’t enough on the table for me,” because Shane Mosley wants to re-assert his greatness. He wants to test himself against the very best before hanging the gloves up and he has an agenda to go out there and prove everyone writing him off to be wrong. The squared circle is not a place you carry with you the burdens of chaos, it is a release from those burdens. Shane can, if only for tonight, forget about everything going wrong in his life, and get back to what he does best, FIGHT. It is a place of comfort to him in my opinion and we will see a revitalized Mosley in there tonight. He knows he has a lot of eyes on him, and I don’t believe his performance will fail to disappoint.
Will it be enough to stop the hard-hitting Margarito in his tracks? That I can’t answer, I will get that information over 36 hard minutes with the rest of you later on. But Shane should be complimented for taking this fight at this stage of his career. Everything is in place tonight, and when you look back on this event 25 years from now you’ll be able to say that this is the stuff that legends are made of. I foresee a fight even better than the one HBO gave us last weekend in Berto-Collazo, and I can not wait for this one. May the best man win.
By Brandon Estrict
If you’re Shane Mosley, you’re ready to go right now. We’re just a few hours away from tonight’s big fight in Los Angeles between Mosley and WBA Welterweight Champion, Antonio Margarito, but imagine the fire burning inside “Sugar” Shane. He has everything in the world to fight for and, seemingly, nothing to lose when he battles the Tijuana Tornado for 147 lb. supremacy.
Shane Mosley is a throwback fighter, and a sure-fire future Hall of Famer. His best days, as evidenced by his previous bout, a sub-par outing against face-first brawler Ricardo Mayorga, are clearly behind him. He is, while not directly at the center of, deeply embroiled in the BALCO steroid controversy, and recently released testimony have showed him to be less than honest when speaking on the topic in the past. His father and former trainer, Jack Mosley, made some comments to the media last week that Shane and wife/business manager, Jin, may be having marital problems. It is at least noteworthy that Shane now handles all of his own business matters. Combine all of this with a new voice in the corner of Mosley, long-time trainer of the legendary Bernard Hopkins, ****m Richardson, and all of the turbulence involved in making that transition from Jack, and Mosley has a tremendous amount of things to deal with heading into ring tonight.
But, like I stated earlier, Shane Mosley is a throwback fighter, a warrior, and a man with a love and a passion for his craft that you rarely see in fighters at this stage and on this level of their careers’. His loyalty has not been strictly to money, but to boxing and it shows. It is the reason that he is even at this point now, trying to tame one of the young lions and boxing’s hottest fighter in the Tijuana Tornado. Shane Mosley didn’t say “there isn’t enough on the table for me,” because Shane Mosley wants to re-assert his greatness. He wants to test himself against the very best before hanging the gloves up and he has an agenda to go out there and prove everyone writing him off to be wrong. The squared circle is not a place you carry with you the burdens of chaos, it is a release from those burdens. Shane can, if only for tonight, forget about everything going wrong in his life, and get back to what he does best, FIGHT. It is a place of comfort to him in my opinion and we will see a revitalized Mosley in there tonight. He knows he has a lot of eyes on him, and I don’t believe his performance will fail to disappoint.
Will it be enough to stop the hard-hitting Margarito in his tracks? That I can’t answer, I will get that information over 36 hard minutes with the rest of you later on. But Shane should be complimented for taking this fight at this stage of his career. Everything is in place tonight, and when you look back on this event 25 years from now you’ll be able to say that this is the stuff that legends are made of. I foresee a fight even better than the one HBO gave us last weekend in Berto-Collazo, and I can not wait for this one. May the best man win.
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