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When Young and Strong, Mosley and Wright Made A Mark
January 2009 was the last time Mosley showed us more than a glimpse of the old “Sugar.”
There was a certain odd symmetry to the way things ended for Shane Mosley and Winky Wright this week.
Both announced their retirement from boxing at the age of 40 on the same day. Both had recently lost one-sided bouts to far younger men, beaten as much by the calendar as the young men in front of them. Both had, at one time, been joined in that odd way two fighters become entwined when they challenge each other twice and one proves to be superior.
Yet what is oddest of all about their career arc is that Mosley will be rightly remembered as the better fighter and the more popular one yet it was Wright who twice defeated him when they were still in their prime or close to it. That is boxing for you, a sport where one man can simply be the endless nemesis of the other while never quite as good when facing different opponents or trying to please a crowd.
Last month Mosley lost every round to a 21-year-old champion who was the same age as his son. Apparently, that loss to Saul Alvarez made Mosley think when other defeats had not and he decided he’d had enough.
The winner of five world titles in three weight classes, Mosley was never better than when he was a lightweight. He had blinding speed at 135 pounds and withering power. Some compared him to Roberto Duran, although that always seemed like a reach because Duran may well have been the greatest lightweight in boxing history.
Yet even if he was not Duran, Mosley was special at that weight and still good enough to become a world champion later at both welterweight and junior middleweight. His mistake was that after first defeating Oscar De La Hoya by split decision in 2000 he thought that beating “the Man’’ made him “the Man.’’ As many fighters learn the hard way it did not.
Instead of accepting a big-money rematch he defended the welterweight title three times before running into a familiar nemesis, Vernon Forrest. Forrest had denied Mosley a spot on the Olympic team in 1992 and now 10 years later defeated him easily again, dropping him twice and badly cutting him with an accidental butt.
Instead of regrouping, he invoked an immediate rematch clause only to lose again but a year later he upset De La Hoya a second time in a decidedly controversial decision to win a junior middleweight title. Instead of accepting $8 million for an immediate rematch he listened to ill-informed advisor Judd Burstein and challenged the larger and exceedingly complicated Wright to a unification fight.
Wright had long ago been dubbed “The International Man of Misery’’ by boxing publicist Fred Sternburg because for years he toiled in obscurity, fighting and winning around the world as a defensive master displeasing to American audiences but revered in Europe, where the taste for fisticuffs is more refined.
For five years, 1993-1998, Wright fought in eight different countries but seldom in the U.S. even after becoming a world champion. Mosley gave him a shot at something more and he took it, defeating him handily in their first fight and then winning a majority decision when Mosley repeated his mistake with Forrest and insisted upon an immediate rematch eight months later.
Wright (51-6-1, 25 KO) would never please American crowds but he was like fighting the matrix. His defensive prowess was well deserved and his offense came off that defense and did enough damage to twice win him the junior middleweight titles and send Felix Trinidad back into retirement by pitching a shutout against him.
Mosley (46-8-1, 39 KO) was, to be fair, both the superior fighter and the more pleasing one but he could not solve Wright and it seemed his career went into decline after that, especially after losing to Miguel Cotto three years later for the welterweight title. But like many of the best fighters, Mosley had one great night in him and it came on Jan. 24, 2009.
That night he destroyed the myth of Antonio Margarito when first his trainer Nazeem Richardson caught Margarito trying to wear loaded hand wraps, an act that would cause him a year’s suspension and a lifetime of shame. Mosley then beat him half to death for nine lopsided rounds before the fight was stopped with Margarito’s face unrecognizable from what it had been when the evening began.
That victory turned out to be a mirage. Shane Mosley never won again, finishing his career 0-3-1 over the next three years. He lost in lopsided fashion to Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Manny Pacquiao (no shame in that at his age), fought a desultory draw with Sergio Mora in between and then lost for the final time to Alvarez last month.
That last defeat to a kid half his age finally convinced Mosley of the obvious. Like many formerly great fighters he could still see the openings but they closed before he could react. He could still see the punches coming but he could no longer block them before they landed.
No shame in that. It is how it goes in boxing for everyone but the few who leave in time. The only shame actual of Mosley’s likely Hall of Fame career came after the second De La Hoya fight when it came to light he’d used performance enhancing drugs the “clear’’ and the “cream’’ under the direction of disgraced former San Francisco-area supplement distributor Victor Conte and his own strength and conditioning coach, Darryl Hudson.
To this day Mosley insists he was duped and unknowing, although Conte and Hudson have argued otherwise. Regardless of the truth of Mosley’s position, De La Hoya accepted him into his company as a partner for a time and they remain respectful after having been rivals dating back to their childhood days as amateur sensations around Los Angeles.
Mosley was never quite De La Hoya even though he beat him twice but he was one of the finest fighters of his time. Wright was never quite Mosley although he beat him twice and was certainly one of the best junior middleweights in the world for nearly a decade.
Such are the vagaries of boxing, a sport where as Mick Jagger might sing, ‘You can’t always get what you want but if you try some times, well, you just might find, you get what you need.’’
If Mosley and Wright needed to make names for themselves in the difficult world of prize fighting they succeeded. Final defeat does not diminish their accomplishments even though Mosley was 0-3-1 in his final years and Wright lost his final three fights over a five year period in which he retired for three years before coming back to be beaten last weekend by up-and-coming prospect Peter “Kid Chocolate’’ Quillin (26-0) in a fight in which he lost nearly every round.
Waiting for him in his locker room at the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA. after it was over was his old friend and foil, Shane Mosley. They were together one last time, friends and aging warriors upon whom boxing had turned its back as it always does.
Mosley now says he will train his young son and try to build his own promotional company in California. Wright intends to play golf and watch his money wisely with the help of long-time friend, Jim Wilkes, a successful Florida attorney who directed much of his career.
Two great boxers had come to the end of their time inside the ring the way nearly every prize fighter does. They had been defeated by time but raise their hands up one last time for all they achieved because when they were young and strong and fast they made a mark that will be remembered.
The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.
Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.
Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)
Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.
The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).
Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”
A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.
Other winners:
Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon
Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney
Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire
Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix
The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.
The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.
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To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.
He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.
Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.
“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.
“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”
“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)
Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.
During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”
He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.
He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.
On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.
Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.
If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.
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In the showdown between undefeated welterweight champions Jaron “Boots Ennis walked away with the victory by technical knockout over Eamantis Stanionis and the WBA and IBF titles on Saturday.
No doubt. Ennis was the superior fighter.
“He’s a great fighter. He’s a good guy,” said Ennis.
Philadelphia’s Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) faced Lithuania’s Stanionis (15-1, 10 KOs) at demonstrated an overpowering southpaw and orthodox attack in front of a sold-out crowd at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
It might have been confusing but whether he was in a southpaw stance or not Ennis busted the body with power shots and jabbed away in a withering pace in the first two rounds.
Stanionis looked surprised when his counter shots seemed impotent.
In the third round the Lithuanian fighter who trains at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, began using a rocket jab to gain some semblance of control. Then he launched lead rights to the jaw of Ennis. Though Stanionis connected solidly, the Philly fighter was still standing and seemingly unfazed by the blows.
That was a bad sign for Stanionis.
Ennis returned to his lightning jabs and blows to the body and Stanionis continued his marauding style like a Sherman Tank looking to eventually run over his foe. He just couldn’t muster enough firepower.
In the fifth round Stanionis opened up with a powerful body attack and seemed to have Ennis in retreat. But the Philadelphia fighter opened up with a speedy combination that ended with blood dripping from the nose of Stanionis.
It was not looking optimistic for the Lithuanian fighter who had never lost.
Stanionis opened up the sixth round with a three-punch combination and Ennis met him with a combination of his own. Stanionis was suddenly in retreat and Ennis chased him like a leopard pouncing on prey. A lightning five-punch combination that included four consecutive uppercuts delivered Stanionis to the floor for the count. He got up and survived the rest of the round.
After returning shakily to his corner, the trainer whispered to him and then told the referee that they had surrendered.
Ennis jumped in happiness and now holds the WBA and IBF welterweight titles.
“I felt like I was getting in my groove. I had a dream I got a stoppage just like this,” said Ennis.
Stanionis looked like he could continue, but perhaps it was a wise move by his trainer. The Lithuanian fighter’s wife is expecting their first child at any moment.
Meanwhile, Ennis finally proved the expectations of greatness by experts. It was a thorough display of superiority over a very good champion.
“The biggest part was being myself and having a live body in front of me,” said Ennis. “I’m just getting started.”
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn was jubilant over the performance of the Philadelphia fighter.
“What a wonderful humble man. This is one of the finest fighters today. By far the best fighter in the division,” said Hearn. “You are witnessing true greatness.”
Other Bouts
Former featherweight world champion Raymond Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) showed that moving up in weight would not be a problem even against the rugged and taller Thomas Mattice (22-5-1, 17 KOs) in winning by a convincing unanimous decision.
The quicksilver southpaw Ford ravaged Mattice in the first round then basically cruised the remaining nine rounds like a jackhammer set on automatic. Four-punch combinations pummeled Mattice but never put him down.
“He was a smart veteran. He could take a hit,” said Ford.
Still, there was no doubt on who won the super featherweight contest. After 10 rounds all three judges gave Ford every round and scored it 100-90 for the New Jersey fighter who formerly held the WBA featherweight title which was wrested from him by Nick Ball.
Shakhram Giyasov (17-0, 10 KOs) made good on a promise to his departed daughter by knocking out Argentina’s Franco Ocampo (17-3, 8 KOs) in their welterweight battle.
Giyasov floored Ocampo in the first round with an overhand right but the Argentine fighter was able to recover and fight on for several more rounds.
In the fourth frame, Giyasov launched a lead right to the liver and collapsed Ocampo with the body shot for the count of 10 at 1:57 of the fourth round.
“I had a very hard camp because I lost my daughter,” Giyasov explained. “I promised I would be world champion.”
In his second pro fight Omari Jones (2-0) needed only seconds to disable William Jackson (13-6-2) with a counter right to the body for a knockout win. The former Olympic medalist was looking for rounds but reacted to his opponent’s actions.
“He was a veteran he came out strong,” said Jones who won a bronze medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. “But I just stayed tight and I looked for the shot and I landed it.”
After a feint, Jackson attacked and was countered by a right to the rib cage and down he went for the count at 1:40 of the first round in the welterweight contest.
Photo credit: Matchroom
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Filip Hrgovic Defeats Joe Joyce in Manchester
Weekend Recap and More with the Accent of Heavyweights
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Avila Perspective Chap 320: Boots Ennis and Stanionis
Dzmitry Asanau Flummoxes Francesco Patera on a Ho-Hum Card in Montreal
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