Former lightweight and welterweight great “Sugar” Shane Mosley has officially retired from boxing. The 45 year old told ESPN of his decision, stating how he realised he had to “let it go as far as me trying to compete as a fighter any more.”
In truth, Mosley should probably have retired a few years back, say around 2011, after his heavy decision loss to Manny Pacquiao, or certainly in 2012, after his even heavier decision loss to Canelo Alvarez. The final five bouts of Mosley’s career were somewhat tough to watch, for those fans who remembered Mosley when he was at as dazzling prime, in 1997 to 2002, especially.
Mosley, fighting largely from memory in these final five bouts, beat Pablo Cesar Cano, a faded Ricardo Mayorga, and Patrick Lopez, but was stopped (for the only time in his long career) by Anthony Mundine and was decisioned by David Avanesyan in his final appearance in May of 2016.
Overall, Mosley exits with a 49-10-1(41) record, but from his debut in February of 1993 to his first loss, to Vernon Forrest in January of 2002, Mosley was putting on sensational performances that convinced many good judges he was one of the greats. As a 135-pounder especially, “Sugar” proved he was worthy of the famous nickname reserved only for the special ones.
Incredibly fast, accurate and powerful and possessing seemingly limitless stamina (the peak Sugar Shane never once looked tired in a fight) Mosley had just one problem as a lightweight: he had no mega names to fight. The move up to welterweight took place in 2000 after eight retentions of his lightweight crown.
Scoring a brilliant win over megastar Oscar De La Hoya in a quite fantastic fight, Mosley became, in June of 2000, a two-weight king. Three quick retentions of his WBC title followed, and then there was only one place Mosley could go: down. Losing twice to Forrest, a fighter he never could really figure out, Mosley took real punishment in the first fight.
A repeat win over De La Hoya came at 154 in 2003, before Mosley made another poor career choice. Twice facing the avoided Winky Wright, Mosley now had four losses on his record. There was one truly great performance to come. Mosley, fighting as aggressively and as superbly as he did in his prime, smashed Mexican warrior Antonio Margarito to stoppage defeat in January of 2009. This fight would be best remembered for the infamous “loaded wraps” scandal, with Margarito’s wraps found to be loaded upon pre-fight inspection.
Mosley scored a great win but he couldn’t get himself a fight for quite a while; 16 months to be exact. When he did fight again, back down at 147, Mosley gave Floyd Mayweather one helluva scare in the second round of their clash, cracking Floyd with two of the hardest shots “Money” has ever been hit with.
Another loss was suffered, however, and Mosley’s final chance to rule the world again had come and gone. Now the end has come for Mosley the fighter. He is a sure thing for The Hall of Fame.