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The February 25 bout between Fernando Vargas and Shane Mosley remains an attractive match-up despite coming nearly five years too late. The fact is sometimes great, or near great fighters past their primes feel a certain sense of desperation as the sand in the hour glass starts to quickly run out. He may know, in his heart that he is a bit slower, more susceptible to cuts, more vulnerable because his past is now an open book, but when backed against a wall a true warrior doesn’t cower - he leaps forward and attacks. Both Shane Mosley and Fernando Vargas promise to do just that when they finally square off in the ring.
Boxing fans will embrace this fight for several reasons but the main one may be that close followers of the sport are sensing another Leonard vs. Hearns 2. In that classic rematch, itself eight years too late, Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns, both well past their primes, staged a terrific battle that saw the "Hitman" deck his nemesis twice, in the third and eleventh rounds, and seemingly gain his revenge for their first go-round when he was stopped in the fourteenth stanza. The bout was declared a draw but it proved that those two legendary fighters had that one more blast of fire in their respective furnace.
Although Mosley and Vargas aren’t on the level of Hearns and Leonard they are two of the best fighters of the last ten years. Both men have tasted the spray of champagne after most of their bouts, and both have tasted the canvass and defeat. In Mosley’s case he has never seemed quite the same after he was nearly concussed by Vernon Forrest. He’s won titles after that, including a second victory over Oscar De La Hoya, but his lack of size and diminishing power as he rose in weight hampered his natural abilities and turned him into a less multi-dimensional fighter than he was at lower weights where his extraordinary speed allowed him to do just about anything he wanted to in the ring.
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Boxing fans will embrace this fight for several reasons but the main one may be that close followers of the sport are sensing another Leonard vs. Hearns 2. In that classic rematch, itself eight years too late, Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns, both well past their primes, staged a terrific battle that saw the "Hitman" deck his nemesis twice, in the third and eleventh rounds, and seemingly gain his revenge for their first go-round when he was stopped in the fourteenth stanza. The bout was declared a draw but it proved that those two legendary fighters had that one more blast of fire in their respective furnace.
Although Mosley and Vargas aren’t on the level of Hearns and Leonard they are two of the best fighters of the last ten years. Both men have tasted the spray of champagne after most of their bouts, and both have tasted the canvass and defeat. In Mosley’s case he has never seemed quite the same after he was nearly concussed by Vernon Forrest. He’s won titles after that, including a second victory over Oscar De La Hoya, but his lack of size and diminishing power as he rose in weight hampered his natural abilities and turned him into a less multi-dimensional fighter than he was at lower weights where his extraordinary speed allowed him to do just about anything he wanted to in the ring.
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