Mosley Gets an Undeserved Payday

By Ted Sares: During the past several years, I have taken to using my own version of the bell-shaped curve as a means of assessing a particular boxer’s worth at any given point in time. For me, being on the left hands side means something positive and being on the right hand side means the beginning of the downward trip. This is different from the normal use of this tool which is frequently used by teachers to grade students, and is also used in the far more complicated areas of probability theory and Economics.

But I like to keep things it simple. When I look at a particular fighter, for example, Andre Berto, I can readily determine that he is on the left hand side of the curve on his way higher. In short, he is still growing. But when I observe Sugar Shane Mosley, it’s clear to me that he is on the right hand side and has long since seen his best days. When I look at Wlad or Vitali Klitschko, I see fighters who have stayed at the peak for some time. In fact, if I were so inclined, I could flatten the peak for both so that it would look like a dormant volcano. Still others like bomber Randall Bailey (41-7) are hard to pinpoint and arguably have moved back and forth. Juan Manuel Marques continues to defy the odds as well..

Of course, this doesn’t mean that a fighter on the right hand side could not whip ones on the left side. I suspect guys like Luis Collazo (30-4) or Ishe Smith (22-5) could handle any number of “rising stars.”

Sugar Shane Mosley (46-6-1-1)

All things considered, Sugar Shane’s slaughter of Antonio Margarito might well be his greatest effort. His two close and controversial wins against De La Hoya were not particularly compelling, nor was his win against an aging Ricardo Mayorga in which a last second knockout sent the Matador to Bullring Dreamland. Shane, 39, lost badly to Mayweather in May 2010 and fought to an ugly draw with Sergio Mora in September 2009. If I had to pick his peak, it might have been against Fernando Vargas in 2006 or maybe even against Adrian Stone in 2001 when he was 37-0. Since the Stone fight, he has gone -8-6-1-1, losing twice to both Vernon Forrest and Winky Wright.

The plain fact is, Sugar Shane Moseley has been somewhat of an enigma in the sense that his career has seen sharp ups and downs, but now the writing is on the wall–though the last thing he probably will lose is his early-fight power.

Manny Pacquiao (52-3-2)

Pac Man is special. He is an event fighter like Oscar De La Hoya and Mike Tyson before him. When event fighters duke, they give their opponents guaranteed paydays that often translate to early retirement. Bruce Seldon got one from Mike Tyson, Patrick Charpentier got one from Oscar, and Margarito probably got one from Manny. Sometimes, event fighters give their opponents both the payday and the early retirement as two separate “gifts” as in the case of Charpentier and maybe Margo. Mosley has gotten that gift on any number of occasions which begs the question, what has he done with the money? Others seem more worthy of it in my view. What about Juan Manuel Marques or Andre Berto or the winner of the Bradley-Alexander bout as just three possibilities? How about Juan Manuel López? With catch weight fights in vogue, any number of possibilities exists.

Manny has outside distractions to deal with but he continues to have a magnificent run. While I spotted some ever-so-slight vulnerabilities when he fought Joshua Clottey, his full-tilt boogie beat down of Margarito convinced me that he is still a whirl wind of destruction the likes of which have not been seen in decades. Mayweather had his way with Mosley; Manny likely will be the first to stop him.

One other thing, Father Time doe not wait for any fighter, and Sugar Shane Mosley, 39, will find this out in May when he finds himself on the chopping block against a guy seven years younger and light years more malefic. If this one goes PPV, I will not buy it to fund Mosley’s early retirement.