Shane Mosley Is A Physical Freak

Thirty minutes after Shane Mosley finished his precise dissection of Luis Collazo, I should have been ready to hit the sack. But I didn’t. Instead, I was pedaling my recumbent bike furiously, maniacally attempting to carve some stubborn blubber from my 37-year-old belly.

Shane Mosley deserves the blame, or the credit, for spurring this post midnight workout session, because I was blown away by the amazing fitness level he showed off against the Queens, NY-based southpaw.

In the last two rounds, Mosley had more energy than any 35-year-old man, or woman, had any right to have. His step was light, and his movement was as peppy as it was since the bell rang to kick off the festivities at the Mandalay Bay. Collazo, the poor devil, had to be amazed that his opponent showed that level of vitality so deep into the match.

All of us—and I mean that literally—every one of us who sees themselves as any sort of fight pundit has to eat a heaping helping of their words. Really, who amongst us thought, after two losses to Vernon Forrest, and two losses to Winky Wright, and uninspired outing against David Estrada and then Jose Luis Cruz, that Shane Mosley would be here? By here, I mean, bandied about as a pound-for-pound top tenner…

There is another vantage point you could take when assessing Mosley that I must throw out there, if only for the sake of provocation…

Maybe we shouldn’t overestimate the worth of this win against Collazo, who was a penny stock before he opened eyes with his rock-solid May 2006 showing against Ricky Hatton. Maybe we should instead downgrade Hatton from blue-chip territory to market laggard…

I’m just throwing that out there for you to chew one, and digest…

No, Mosley has to be seen as a certifiable physical freak, having fought six times at 154 since 2003, and now dropping back down to 147. Such movement from class to class typically isn’t a positive indicator of a boxer’s career arc—you can think of it the same way you view Paris Hilton’s dating resume—chrissake, pick one boyfriend and stick with it for awhile, will ya?

Mosley could’ve walked away with a sweet pile ‘o cash after the Wright defeats in 2004, after determining that he just didn’t have the pop to dissuade the upper-echelon battlers at 154 from coming forward. But he chose to press on.

He revamped his training regimen, managed to shrug off the taint that came from being forced to testify before a grand jury in the BALCO steroid/THG factory scandal and the dismissal of his pop from his corner in 2004. Not all that much was expected of Mosley, who more and more often was referred to without the sacred fight game prefix “Sugar” by the media. His career was petering out, like a preschooler hyped up on Coke and Oreos, after his body comes down from the fructose high.

But Mosley has kicked it into another gear, and now he’s unequivocally the logical choice to meet Floyd Mayweather if Junior does the expected and outfoxes and outboxes Oscar De La Hoya on May 5.

No one, not a single soul, would have predicted that a year or two or three ago.

SPEEDBAG Was it just me, or where any of you put off by Mosley’s wife’s comments that aired during HBO’s magnificent prefight introductory featurette? Let me acknowledge that this may have been a case of very selective editing, but Jin Mosley basically whined about how hard it is for her to take care of the kids (she was busily attending to three little ‘uns in the sequence we saw) while her husband is out gallivanting at training camp. Where to begin here? First, Mosley has made mad money in his career, and the Missus can afford ample childcare assistance if she so chooses. In fact, she may have two live-in nannies on staff for all I know. If she doesn’t, she could. She has the means. Second, does she think that during training camp her husband is on a month-long boys-night-out retreat, where poker parties, Kobe steak eat-a-thons and lapdances are at his constant disposal? Um, Jin, the dude is training for a fight. Sure, he’s shooting the bull with his camp-mates, but this is work. We saw him running in a snowstorm, huffing and puffing up a hill. This isn’t Club Med. Hey, it may just be me. But if that was my wife, and she was talking that smack, there would be a conversation after I got wind of it…

—Who else caught this? Michael Buffer flubbed a line, and that doesn’t happen all that often. “Oscar De La Hoya’s Don King Productions,” the golden-throated emcee said, before catching and correcting himself. Hey, does he know something we don’t know? Do I small a mega merger?

In The Spitbucket
Shame on the Philly commission for allowing heavyweight comebacker Bruce Seldon to step in with Marcus Rhode on Saturday night. The result was to be as expected to anyone who has a computer and has access to Boxrec—KO1. Actually, Rhode usually makes it into the second before he impersonates an accordion, and folds. Paying customers at the Klein Jewish Community Center deserve better than sham matches like this, in any jurisdiction.