Mosley Pounds Collazo, Harris Wins War With Lazcano

LAS VEGAS—Looking like the old Sugar Shane Mosley, the Pomona speedster zipped through the talented Luis Collazo on Saturday and was awarded the WBC interim welterweight title after 12 rounds.

Speed and guile won this contest before 5,761 at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, as five-time world champion Mosley (44-4, 37 KOs) bedazzled Collazo with an assortment of punches, feints and counters that left the Brooklyn southpaw tentative and looking for answers.

None came forth.

From the first round Mosley, 35, looked like a revved up machine as he jabbed and moved out of range of the clever Collazo. It looked like the Mosley would race away from the onset but the Brooklyn fighter’s southpaw style allowed him to regroup for a brief moment in the second round.

After that, the answers were hard to find for Collazo. He was knocked down in the 11th round with a counter right hand that punctuated the results.

“I wasn’t’ able to fight the way I wanted to,” said Collazo (27-3, 13 KOs), making his first foray into Las Vegas. “I wish I could have done better, it was the best I could do.”

Mosley nullified Collazo’s left hand counter by darting in and out and used an effective jab that flicked at the bald head of the New Yorker throughout the fight. By the fourth round Mosley was able to land the right hand without receiving much in response.

In the fifth round, Mosley was in such command that when Collazo tripped and seemed headed through the ropes, the Pomona boxer kept him from falling, stood him up and ripped off four punches.

Mosley looked too fast, too strong and too wily for his young opponent. He looked much like the same fighter who was able to beat Oscar De La Hoya as a true welterweight seven years ago.

“It felt good to be a welterweight again,” said Mosley, who ventured into the junior middleweight division in his last two fights against Fernando Vargas. “His southpaw style confused me a little.”

After figuring out Collazo’s left-handed stance, the punches came fast and furious. In the eighth round Mosley dominated his opponent and seemed to stun the willing youngster with a right-left-right combination.

“I knew I was faster than him and I could hit him with the quick jab,” Mosley said. “I felt light on my feet.”

Collazo said he hurt his left hand in the third round.

“He did his job tonight,” Collazo, 25, said of Mosley.

Mosley said the Brooklyn fighter was dangerous to the end.

“I knew he’d catch me with his left hand if I wasn’t careful,” Mosley said.

According to Compubox, Mosley landed 200 punches. A total of 173 were power shots. Collazo landed 87 and 67 were power blows.

The judges scored it 119-108 and 118-109 twice for Mosley.

Other bouts

The WBC junior welterweight elimination bout between Vivian Harris and Juan Lazcano was a serious confrontation between two highly skilled professional boxers. As expected, it evolved into a close tug-of-war.

Harris (22-2-1, 18 KOs) jumped out to a two round lead behind his heavy-handed combinations while Lazcano fought carefully and defensively. But in the third round the Texan who fights out of the Wild Card Boxing club began pinning Harris on the ropes as he attacked the body.

The two boxers tried to force their style of fight as the action went back and forth, with Harris fighting on the outside with a steady stream of jabs and Lazcano firing body blows. A series of low blows to the body in the 12th and final round caused referee Tony Weeks to penalize Lazcano one point. It was a crucial deduction. The judges scored it 114-113, 115-112 twice for Harris and gave him the last round. Many felt Lazcano won the last round.

“I thought it was close,” said Lazcano (37-4-1, 27 KOs). “Little by little I went inside. I thought I won the fight. The fans thought I won the fight.”

Harris will now fight the winner between Ricky Hatton and Jose Luis Castillo who are set to fight in June.

“Lazcano was a tough fighter,” Harris said. “I’ve been studying a lot of his videos. I worked very hard for this fight.”

Middleweight Juan Rodriguez (10-0, 2 KOs) was too busy a puncher for Miami’s defensive-minded Cesar Valentin (4-4). Unable to block and slip the flood of Rodriguez’s punches, Valentin took two knees, once in the second and a final in the third. His corner stopped the fight at 1:39 of the third round for a technical knockout.

In a 10-round featherweight match Australia’s Billy “the Kid” Dib (15-0, 9 KOs) had a sparring match with Mexico’s Carlos Contreras (20-13-3, 13 KOs). The speedy Dib used his foot and hand speed to win a decisive unanimous decision 100-90 according to the judges. The Aussie fighter has the physical tools to go far but doesn’t set when he punches.

Scotland’s Craig McEwan (4-0, 3 KOs) with his high-powered corner in support of Roach, Justine Fortune and cutman Joe Chavez., blew through Isidro Arreola (1-1) of Texas with non-stop punching for three rounds. Referee Robert Byrd stopped the battering at 44 seconds of the fourth and last round of the middleweight bout.

Brooklyn’s Leon Green (3-1) dominated a four-round welterweight contest against Bryan Mullis (1-1) of North Carolina. There were two knockdowns by Green and the judges scored it 40-34 for the Brooklyn fighter.