Shane Mosley and Winky Wright Hang Up The Gloves

Published

12 years ago

June 4, 2012

AlvarezMosley Hogan 9 Two stellar pugilists exited the stage this weekend, though, we must caution, this being boxing, retirement announcements are always best taken with a lump of caution. Shane Mosley on Sunday night made it known that he was hanging up the gloves, after nearly 20 years as a professional, and Winky Wright earlier in the day told the world that he was through.

The Mosley news broke on the Ring website, as Lem Satterfield reported he got the word from Mosley's camp coordinator that his loss to Canelo Alvarez on May 5 would be his final scuffle. His record stands at 46-8-1. He didn't address the news on his official Twitter account right away, so I initially wanted to add a note of caution: boxers contemplate comebacks until they head for that final dirt nap. But on Monday morning, he Tweeted this: “Good Mourning everybody Just want to thank you for showing me so much love. Had a great career and loved every moment of it. win, lose or draw.”

Mosley didn't look horrid against Canelo, and in fact could beat a fair number of folks at that weight class, even at age 40. But as of today, you can start the countdown to his entrance into the Hall of Fame, in 2017. The ex lightweight ace, who also held crowns at 147 and 154 pounds, will be remembered for truly emerging on all radar screens when he went from 135 to 147 and beat Oscar De La Hoya, via split decision, in June 2000. His star dimmed a bit from back to back losses to Vernon Forrest in 2002, but he regained his shine with another win over Oscar, in 2003.

It emerged in 2008 that Mosley used an illegal PED prior to this bout, an admission the California boxer made in grand jury testimony. His rep took a hit, as he told one and all–including me, looking me in the eyes as he said it during a one on one for a then cancelled Mosley-Zab Judah fight– in defending himself that the accusation of PED use was bogus, that he must've been dosed unknowingly, before admitting under oath that he knew what he was doing when receiving chemical aid from Victor Conte at BALCO.

Back to back losses to Winky Wright in 2004 had many pundits proclaiming that clearly Mosley's best days were far behind him. But he proved doubters wrong, to an extent, with back to back wins against Fernando Vargas, in 2006. Vargas, though, was near the end of his line at the time. Many thought Mosley got the better of Miguel Cotto when they met in NYC in 2007, but the judges said otherwise, giving the Puerto Rican a UD nod. Now 37, Mosley's late-career apex came when he whacked Antonio Margarito around, and scored a TKO9 win in 2009, right after inspectors found hardened hand pads in the Mexican's mitts prior to their bout.

Critics of Mosley will say that Margarito wasn't the monster many thought, and was in fact an ordinary boxer if not able to use a PED in his gloves. Mosley didn't have much luck against Floyd Mayweather in his next bout, though he did buzz Money on the way to a wide decision loss. Mosley next engaged in a dreadful waltz with Sergio Mora, and followed that with a pick-up-the-paycheck effort against Pacquiao in May 2011. But he regained fans with a spirited effort against the phenom Canelo on the Mayweather-Cotto undercard. “Canelo can go a long ways,” Mosley said after the loss to a man 19 years younger than he. “When the kids start to beat you, you might need to start going to promoting.”

Indeed. Mosley says he has ample money in the bank, despite the theory that a divorce picked his pockets. He was always willing to take on an immense challenge and he must be lauded for never being a ducker. It could be argued that he maybe didn't live up to the sum of his parts, losing a bunch of efforts to fighters many experts thought he was more skilled than, but his willingness to test his personal boundaries will never be questioned. Best of luck to Shane Mosley in his retirement, and staving off that inevitable urge to test himself in the ring just one more time.

While Mosley's Hall call seems imminent, Winky Wright's will be up for more debate. He came back to the ring on June 2 after being away for three years, and looked OK against young gun Peter Quillin. But at 40, the reflexes weren't as cooperative as they once were for a man whose real name is “Ronald” but was tagged Winky by his grandma as a toddler. Once of the best defenders of his era, Wright was knocked down in round five and hurt a few other times. Sunday morning, after sleeping on it, he Tweeted: “It was fun while it lasted I did what I set out to do and that was to be great. Part of being a good boxer is knowing when to call it quits.
If I can't be the champion again theres no need to keep boxing. But I thank all of u from the bottom of my heart for always supporting me & I'll still be ringside at all the fights!”

He will be known, as will Mosley, as one who sought stiff challenges. (Though he also had a rep as a “too tough” negotiator, with some thinking he often asked for more many than his popularity called for.) Wright, who debuted in 1990, built up a nice record in Europe, as he fought for the Acaries brothers. He was known to hardcore fights fans as he wracked up title defenses of the IBF 154 pound crown he won against Robert Frazier in 2001. In his fifth defense, when he downed Shane Mosley, his time had really arrived. “A lot of people always told them that I was good but they didn’t believe it because I never fought one of the big dudes. Now that I beat one of the big-name, pound-for-pound so-called fighters, you gotta give it up to me. I did what I said I can do,” he said then. Another win against Mosley and his thorough domination of Felix Trinidad in 2005 gave him pound for pound cred in a big way. No, he wasn't a bomber or a trader, and therefore his skills were best appreciated by true fans of the sweet science. His jab and impenetrable D, featuring the longest elbows known to man, were frustrating even for the most skilled sharpshooters. Wright didn't agree with the judges who saw his 2006 clash with Jermain Taylor a draw, and he stubbornly clung to a dollar figure he thought he deserved, which squashed a rematch. Instead, he bettered Ike Quartey in December 2006, in Quartey's last bout.

Wright went out of his comfort zone, and paid for it, when he agreed to go to 170 to snag a payday with Bernard Hopkins. He suffered his first loss in eight years in that one, then took almost two years off. He flirted with fights, and sometimes marinated in self-pity and frustration. “Why should I go fight these lesser guys when I know I'm above them?” Wright said in 2008. “You got De La Hoya. He's a steady loser; he lost two of his last three. Taylor lost his last fight. All of these fighters lose. But they have opponents who want to fight them again. I have nobody that wants to fight me because they know they're in for a tough fight. They're ducking me, they don't want to fight. That's why I'm left out. They want me to fight Kessler. Why do I need to fight these dudes? I'm at the top.” He capitulated, and took a tuneup date with Michi Munoz for December 2008, but hurt his hands and cancelled it. A face-off with Arthur Abraham was discussed but instead Wright decided to lock horns with Paul Williams. It didn't go well; Long Tall Paul outboxed Wright clearly. He licked his wounds, set up a fight with Grady Brewer, and the plug got pulled on that card at the end of 2009. Kelly Pavlik went in another direction, a crack at Sergio Martinez in April 2010, so Winky went back to the links, and waiting. A K9 Bundrage gig didn't happen, neither did a scrap with Matthew Macklin in April 2011, because of a Wright injury. He filled the time helping out Chad Dawson, while eyeing Canelo or Miguel Cotto. He got a chance against a young gun, in Peter Quillin, and in that scrap Saturday, determined that at 40, he just can't do what he used to be able to. So he bid adieu to the game.

Will he resist the inevitable lure? Hard to predict…If you had to wager if either he or Mosley would un-retire, you have to think there is a decent chance that happens. It's human nature, it's especially human nature in boxing, with no teammates around to drill the truth into you in training camp. We at TSS thank both men for their service in entertaining us, and hope that their choice does them justice, in every which way, for them, their family and their long-term health and well-being.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

Published

1 day ago

July 25, 2024

David A. Avila

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

East Los Angeles has long been a haven for some of the best fighters around if you can keep them out of trouble. For every Oscar De La Hoya or Seniesa Estrada there are thousands derailed by crime, drugs or drinking.

Boxing has always been a favorite sport of East L.A. Every family has an uncle or two who boxes.

On Friday, 360 Promotions’ Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) fights Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1) in the main event at Commerce Casino, in Commerce, CA. UFC Fight Pass will stream the fight card.

The City of Commerce used to be part of East L.A. until 1960 when it incorporated. It’s still considered to be part of East Los Angeles, but informally.

Plenty of fighters come out of East L.A. but few make it all the way like De La Hoya and Estrada. Will Trinidad be the one?

The first world champion from East L.A. or “East Los” as some call it, was Solly Garcia Smith back in the late 1800s. Others were Richie Lemos, Art Frias and Joey Olivo. There is also 1984 Olympic gold medalist Paul Gonzalez.

Once again 360 Promotions brings its popular brand of fights to the area. On this fight card includes two female bouts. One features Roxy Verduzco (1-0) the former amateur star fighting Colleen Davis (3-1-1) in a featherweight fight.

All that action takes place on Friday.

Elite Boxing

The next day, also in East L.A., Elite Boxing stages another boxing card at Salesian High School located at 960 S. Soto Street in the Boyle Heights area of East Los Angeles.

Elite Boxing has promoted several successful boxing cards at the Catholic high school grounds. The area is saturated by many of the best eateries in Los Angeles. Don’t take my word for it. Check it out yourself and grab some of that delicious food.

Boxing has long been a favorite sport of anyone who lives in East L.A. It’s a fight town equal to Philadelphia, Brooklyn or Detroit. There’s something different about the area. For more than 100 years some of the best fighters continue to come out of its boxing gyms. Some will be performing on these club shows.

For tickets or information go to www.eliteboxingusa.com

Claressa Shields in Detroit

Speaking of fight towns, pound-for-pound best Claressa Shields who won two Olympic Gold Medals in boxing, moves up another weight division to tackle the WBC heavyweight world champion Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse on Saturday, July 27, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan.

DAZN will stream the heavy-duty fight card.

Shields (14-0) cleaned out the super welterweight, middleweight and super middleweight divisions and now wants to add the big girls to her conquests. She will be facing Canada’s Lepage-Joanisse (7-1) who holds the WBC belt.

The last time Shields gloved up was more than a year ago when she fought Maricela Cornejo. Don’t blame Shields. She loves to fight. She loves to win. The last time Shields lost a fight was in the amateurs and that was three presidential administrations ago.

Shields doesn’t lose.

I wonder if Las Vegas even takes bets on her fights?

The only fight she may have been an underdog was against Savannah Marshall who was the last opponent to defeat her. And that was in 2012 in China. When they met as pros two years ago, Shields avenged her loss with a blistering attack.

Don’t get Shields mad.

Perhaps her toughest foe as a pro was in her pro debut when she clashed with Franchon Crews-Dezurn in Las Vegas. It was four rounds of fists and fury as the two pounded each other on the undercard of Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev in November 2016.

That was a ferocious debut for both female pugilists.

Assisting Shields on this fight card will be several intriguing male bouts. One guy you should pay special attention is Tito Mercado (15-0, 14 KOs) a super lightweight prospect from Pomona, California.

Many excellent fighters have come out of Pomona including Sugar Shane Mosley, Shane Mosley Jr., Alberto Davila and Richie Sandoval who just passed away this week.

Sandoval was best known for his 15-round war with Philadelphia’s Jeff Chandler for the bantamweight world title in 1984. Read the story by Arne K. Lang on this link: https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/featured-boxing-articles-boxing-news-videos-rankings-and-results/81467-former-world-bantamweight-champion-richie-sandoval-passes-away-at-age-63 .

Fights to Watch

Fri. UFC Fight Pass 7 p.m. Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) vs Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1).

Sat. ESPN+ 12:30 p.m. Joe Joyce (16-2) vs Derek Chisora (34-13).

Sat. DAZN 3 p.m. Claressa Shields (14-0) vs Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse (7-1), Michel Rivera (25-1) vs Hugo Roldan (22-2-1); Tito Mercado (15-0) vs Hector Sarmiento (21-2).

Omar Trinidad photo by Lina Baker

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Arne’s Almanac: Jake Paul and Women’s Boxing, a Curmudgeon’s Take

Published

3 days ago

July 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Jake Paul can fight more than a little. The view from here is that he would make it interesting against any fringe contender in the cruiserweight division. However, Jake’s boxing acumen pales when paired against his skill as a flim-flam artist.

Jake brought a 9-1 record into last weekend’s bout with Mike Perry. As noted by boxing writer Paul Magno, Jake’s previous opponents consisted of “a You Tuber, a retired NBA star, five retired MMA stars, a part-time boxer/reality TV star, and two undersized and inactive fall-guy boxers.”

Mike Perry, a 32-year-old Floridian, was undefeated (6-0, 3 KOs) as a bare-knuckle boxer after forging a 14-8 record in UFC bouts. In pre-fight blurbs, Perry was billed as the baddest bare knuckle boxer of all time, but against Jake Paul he proved to have very unrefined skills as a conventional boxer which Team Paul undoubtedly knew all along. Perry lasted into the eighth round in a one-sided fight that could have been stopped a lot sooner.

Jake Paul is both a boxer and a promoter. As a promoter, he handles Amanda Serrano, one of the greatest female boxers in history. That makes him the person most responsible (because the buck stops with him) for the wretched mismatch in last Saturday’s co-feature, the bout between Serrano and Stevie Morgan.

Morgan, who took up boxing two years ago at age 33, brought a 14-1 record. Nicknamed the Sledgehammer, she had won 13 of her 14 wins by knockout, eight in the opening round. However, although she resides in Florida, all but one of those 13 knockouts happened in Colombia.

“We found that in Colombia there were just more opportunities for women’s boxing than in the United States,” she told a prominent boxing writer whose name we won’t mention.

The truth is that, for some folks, Colombia is the boxing equivalent of a feeder lot for livestock, a place where a boxer can go to fatten their record. The opportunities there were no greater than in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1995. It was there that Peter McNeeley prepped for his match with Mike Tyson with a 6-second knockout of professional punching bag Frankie Hines. (Six seconds? So it would be written although no one seems to have been there to witness it.)

Serrano vs Morgan was understood to be a stay-busy fight for Amanda whose rematch with Katie Taylor was postponed until November. Stevie Morgan, to her credit, answered the bell for the second round whereas others in her situation would have remained on the stool and invented an injury to rationalize it. Thirty-eight seconds later it was all over and Ms. Morgan was free to go home and use her sledgehammer to do some light dusting.

The Paul-Perry and Serrano-Morgan fights played out in a sold-out arena in Tampa before an estimated 17,000. Those without a DAZN subscription paid $64.95 for the livestream. Paul’s next promotion, where he will touch gloves with 58-year-old Mike Tyson (unless Iron Mike pulls a Joe Biden and pulls out; a capital idea) with Serrano-Taylor II the semi-main, will almost certainly rake in more money than any other boxing promotion this year.

Asked his opinion of so-called crossover boxing by a reporter for a college newspaper, the venerable boxing promoter Bob Arum said, “It’s not my bag but folks who don’t like it shouldn’t get too worked up over it because no one is stealing from anybody.” True enough, but for some of us, the phenomenon is distressing.

—

The next big women’s fight happens Saturday in Detroit where Claressa Shields seeks a world title in a third weight class against WBC heavyweight belt-holder Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist, undefeated in 14 fights as a pro, Shields is very good, arguably the best female boxer of her generation which makes her, arguably, the best female boxer of all time. But turning away Lepage-Joanisse (7-1, 2 KOs) won’t elevate her stature in our eyes.

Purportedly 17-4 as an amateur, the Canadian won her title in her second crack at it. Back in August of 2017, she challenged Cancun’s Alejandra Jimenez in Cancun and was stopped in the third round. Entering the bout, Lepage-Joanisse was 3-0 as a pro and had never fought a match slated for more than four rounds.

Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse

True, on the women’s side, the heavyweight bracket is a very small pod. A sanctioning body has to make concessions to harness a sanctioning fee. Nonetheless, how absurd that a woman who had answered the bell for only 11 rounds would be deemed qualified to compete for a world title. (FYI: Alejandra Jimenez was purportedly born a man. She left the sport with a 12-0-1 record after her win over Franchon Crews Dazurn was changed to a no-contest when she tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol.)

Following her defeat to Jimenez, Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse, now 29 years old, was out of action for six-and-a-half years. When she returned, she was still a heavyweight, but a much slender heavyweight. She carried 231 pounds for Jimenez. In her most recent bout where she captured the vacant WBC title with a split decision over Argentina’s Abril Argentina Vidal, she clocked in at 173 ¼. (On the distaff side, there’s no uniformity among the various sanctioning bodies as to what constitutes a heavyweight.)

Claressa Shields doesn’t need Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse to reinforce her credentials as a future Hall of Famer. She made the cut a long time ago.

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Former World Bantamweight Champion Richie Sandoval Passes Away at Age 63

Published

4 days ago

July 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Richie Sandoval, who won the WBA and lineal bantamweight title in one of the biggest upsets of the 1980s and then, not quite two years later, suffered near-fatal injuries in a title defense, has passed away at the age of 63.

News circulated fast in the Las Vegas boxing community on Monday, July 22, the grapevine actuated by a tweet from Hall of Fame matchmaker Bruce Trampler: “Boxing and the Top Rank family lost one of our own last night in the passing of former WBA bantamweight champion Richie Sandoval. It hurts personally and professionally to know that Richie is gone at age 63. RIP campeon.”

Details are vague but the cause of death was apparently a sudden heart attack that Sandoval experienced while visiting the Southern California home of his son of the same name.

Richie Sandoval put the LA County community of Pomona, California, on the boxing map before Shane Mosley came along and gave the town a more frequently-cited mention in the sports section of the papers. He came from a fighting family. An older brother, Albert “Superfly” Sandoval, became a big draw at LA’s fabled Olympic Auditorium while building a 35-2-1 record that included a failed bid to capture Lupe Pintor’s world bantamweight title.

Richie was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic boxing team that was stranded when U.S. President Jimmy Carter (and many other world leaders) boycotted the event as a protest against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.

As a pro, Sandoval’s signature win was a 15^th-round stoppage of Jeff Chandler. They fought on April 7, 1984 in Atlantic City. Chandler was making the tenth defense of his world bantamweight title.

Despite being a heavy underdog, Sandoval dominated the fight, winning almost every round until the referee stepped in and waived it off. Chandler, who was 33-1-2 heading in and had avenged his lone defeat, never fought again.

Sandoval made two successful defenses before risking his title against Gaby Canizales on the undercard of Hagler-Mugabi in the outdoor stadium at Caesars Palace. In round seven, Sandoval, who had a hellish time making the weight, was knocked down three times and suffered a seizure as he collapsed from the third knockdown. Stretchered out of the ring, he was rushed to the hospital where doctors reduced the swelling in his brain and beat the odds to save his life. This would be Richie’s lone defeat. He finished his pro career with a record of 29-1 (17 KOs).

Bob Arum cushioned some of the pain by giving Richie a $25,000 bonus and offering him a lifetime job at Top Rank which Richie accepted. And let the record show that Arum was good to his word.

A more elaborate portrait of Richie Sandoval was published in these pages in 2017. You can check it out HERE. May he rest in peace.

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