Friday 19 February 2010

Shane Mosley: "In This Division, I'm The Best"

By Thomas Gerbasi

Can you picture this? Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant is walking down the street and gets called on to join in a pickup game at the local schoolyard – and he agrees.

Yeah, I can’t see it either. But take a little trip further up the mountain in California to Big Bear, and that’s precisely what Shane Mosley does when he’s not preparing for a fight. No, not pickup basketball (though he does do that too) – he fights.

“I’m always in the gym,” said Mosley. “Amateurs or pros, I get in there with them, and its work. Even when I wasn’t supposed to be in the gym, they’d call me or see me walking down the street. ‘Hey Shane, my guy needs some sparring. Can you work with him for a couple days?’ What time you want to go? ‘Today, about two.’ Let’s go. And I get in there and spar with the guy, no problem. It’s like playing basketball to me, getting in the ring and boxing.”

Yeah, you read right. All it takes for Shane Mosley, three-division world champion and future Hall of Famer, to spar with somebody is a simple request. That must be some shock for a kid in the amateurs or a budding pro to be in the ring with one of the sport’s true superstars.

“Some days, the first day they might be in a little bit of awe, but I work with them and I don’t go all out,” said Mosley. “Then you start to see them getting better and better and that ‘star’ thing wears out. And in turn, it makes me better and makes me sharper. So it works both ways.”

Things went along like this for Mosley throughout 2009, a year which should have been one of the biggest of his then-16 years in the game. It started off well enough, with a nine round drubbing of Antonio Margarito before a huge crowd at LA’s STAPLES Center. But then…

Nothing.

No big fights, no little fights, no keep busy fights. Nothing.

“It was a little frustrating, but I kept myself working, kept myself in the gym, and worked with other fighters getting ready for their fights because I thought that maybe a fight might come in the middle of the year,” he said. “But it didn’t. Nobody really wanted to show up and fight. I shouldn’t say nobody. The fights I wanted were (Manny) Pacquiao or (Floyd) Mayweather, but they didn’t happen.”

By the end of last year, Mosley finally got a fight. It wasn’t the one he wanted with Pacquiao or Mayweather, but it was a well-received matchup with WBC welterweight champ Andre Berto on January 30th of 2010. That ended up falling by the wayside as well when Berto withdrew from the bout due to the earthquake in Haiti which devastated him and his family there.

It wasn’t the way Mosley wanted to start off the year, but as soon as the Berto fight was scrapped, the behind the scenes wheels started turning, and earlier this month he had a new fight for May 1st, one he wanted, a big one, against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

It’s without question the biggest fight of 2010 thus far, and may end up being the biggest of the year if the winner doesn’t meet up with Manny Pacquiao in the fall or winter (assuming Pacquiao gets by Joshua Clottey in March). And despite Pacquiao and Mayweather’s claims otherwise, Mosley says he’s the man to beat in the welterweight division.

“In this division, I’m the best,” he said in an interview conducted before the cancellation of the Berto fight. “I beat the number one guy, and that makes me the number one welterweight.”

It’s simple boxing math, the kind that used to suffice in the glory days of the sweet science. Now you’ve got businessmen masquerading as boxers and the most interesting fights happening outside the ring and not between the ropes. Enter Mosley, who, unlike Mayweather, was never interested in protecting his perfect record. In fact, when he was an unbeaten lightweight champion on his way to the top of the pound-for-pound list, he told me that he knew that one day, someone would have his number. But that wouldn’t deter him or keep him down. When reminded of that chat, he smiled.

“I knew what type of desire and heart I had,” he said. “I’m the type of guy who never gives up, who never quits. Back then, I believed that. Even though I knew I was gonna lose someday, I also knew that I was still gonna be on top of my game. And I’m still gonna be on top. Even four, five years from now, if I’m still fighting, I believe I’m gonna be at the top because I’m gonna do all the things necessary to be the best and to be on top. That’s just the way I am.”

Mosley, even at 38 years old, still talks about being hungry. Despite all the accolades, titles, and big fights, he still wants more, and is still competitive to the point where the May battle with Mayweather may finally see ‘Pretty Boy Floyd’ pushed to the limit. Why? Because Mosley has the speed and attitude to make him fight. That will then do one of two things – it will lift Mayweather to new heights in the ring, or it will make him realized that counting his money on the sidelines is a safer pursuit than walking up those four steps into the boxing ring. In other words, Mosley will be Mayweather’s very own truth machine, and that’s a title he embraces.

“I love to fight,” said Mosley. “It’s a job, but it’s not really a job to me because I’m a warrior in the heart. So when it’s time to fight, I fight. Until I finish my career and do what I’ve got to do, I look at myself as one of the top fighters right now. This era of the fight game can still have great fights, but right now there’s not a lot of guys that have heart like I do. Me and Bernard Hopkins, we’re two older guys who fight with our hearts, which is good.”

Old guys? He laughs.

“They keep calling me old all the time, so I’m gonna agree with them. But I feel like I’m 23 right now.”

Shane Mosley will need all the weapons in his arsenal to beat Floyd Mayweather this spring. He knows that and he’s fine with it. But when facing one of the best of this era, “Sugar Shane” just might have the secret ingredient his opponent appears to have lost – he still loves the game.

“When I’m in the ring and I’m doing my thing, I’m enjoying myself,” he said. “I think that a lot of guys, young guys say, ‘I want the big bucks, to retire undefeated, and just get all the money I can before I leave.’ Boxing, to me, you want to get in there and see who the best is. It’s a competitive sport and I have a competitive sport. I want to be the best, so I want to fight the best. And I said from Day One, ‘bring it on.’”

Source: Boxingscene.com

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