The Boxing Fan Gets That Much Closer To Extinction

Sometimes I hate boxing, especially when moments occur like they just did this past Saturday night when Sergio Mora fought Sugar Shane Mosley to a draw. This is the second time in recent memory that Golden Boy Promotions successfully sold a dancing contest to fight fans and got away with it.

In April 2010, Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones held hands and ran circles around the ring for 40 minutes and we had to swallow it, if we bough the hype, and bought the fight. Now, Mora and Mosley just did the same thing.

After the fight Mora said, I shouldve listened to my corner. They were telling me that it was a close fight. I thought I was winning, so I didnt fight as hard because I have respect for Shane. I didnt want to hurt him.

“So I didn’t fight as hard? And I didn’t want to hurt him?

Did I just read that correctly? What sport is this again? Boxing or fencing? I really cannot help myself from shamefully laughing out loud.

In all relativity, Sergio Mora is not a household name. People could point to the Contender reality series as a point of reference. But only boxing fans would relate. No one remembers who wins these reality shows anyway. And quite frankly nobody cares. If we polled 1000 people on who won the first Contender series I bet less than 100 of them would get it right. People do not even know who won Dancing with the Stars years ago, but we are sold Sergio Mora because he won a fringe boxing reality series six years ago. It really does not make any sense.

“I didn’t want to fight as hard.

Who is Sergio Mora again?

Oh yeah, that’s right, all of a sudden Sergio Mora is the next Oscar De la Hoya. Mora does not have to fight hard to win a fight. He could just hold back and expect to win on the judges’ scorecards. Oscar De la Hoya attempted to do that against Tito Trinidad in 1999. But De la Hoya failed. De la Hoya vs. Trinidad was co-promoted by Top Rank and Don King respectively.

Mora and Mosley are both house fighters under the Golden Boy banner. So not fighting as hard, and not wanting to hurt your opponent, is easier to get away with.

In the long run, the outcome of a draw is perfect for Mosley, Mora, and Golden Boy Promotions. Mosley gets to save face by not losing to an opponent he would have dismantled in his prime. Mora gained respectability because he fought to a draw against a man that beat De la Hoya twice and wobbled Floyd Mayweather, and Golden Boy Promotions wins because now they have a fighter in Sergio Mora that they could sell on more than just a boxing reality series that no mainstream sports fans truly cared about.

But ultimately in the end, it is the boxing fans that got hoaxed again. These promoters need to remember that boxing fans are like an endangered species. So when two of the best fighters in the world do not want to fight because of the money, or when we get sold a circus act instead of a real boxing fight, then fans will continue to lose interest almost to the point of boxing extinction.