Hollywood Swinging: Mayweather, Mosley, Cotto, Canelo and More

(Hogan)

HOLLYWOOD-Just a few days ago the motion picture Academy Awards were held a few doors down and the statuettes known as the Oscars were presented to the many winners.

On Thursday, an Oscar with a famous last name and just as golden was presenting “Ring Kings” to the media and the adoring and not so adoring public at Graumann Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

One day you’re on top of the world and the next day you’re an also ran. Just like the motion picture industry an actor can be hot one day and gone the next. So it is in the not so gentle sport of boxing. But in boxing, you get clobbered in the face.

Floyd “Money” Mayweather and Miguel Cotto were presented Hollywood style with all the glitz and glamour befitting tinsel town. Not so much for Sugar Shane Mosley who fights the new darling of Mexican boxing Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.

As Mosley began to speak to the media and public somebody shouted, “You’re washed up.”

You might as well have assassinated Mosley because those words cut to his heart with a look of pain on his face that hurt more than a dozen Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao or De La Hoya punches combined.

“Somebody better escort that person out of here,” said Mosley, but the hurt look remained on the proud warrior from Pomona, Calif.

Boxing is like Hollywood, it’s all about “what have you done lately?”

Because Mosley lost three of his last six and fought to a draw that many saw as a loss, more than a few doubt his ability to fight on the grand scale. But not those who actually exchanged punches with him in the ring.

“You can never underestimate Sugar Shane Mosley,” said De La Hoya who fought Mosley as an amateur and twice as a pro. “I know. He’ll surprise you.”

Mosley hasn’t won a fight in three years and that came against Antonio Margarito in January 2009. The match against the Mexican welterweight ended with a resounding knockout for Mosley. One thing the Pomona prizefighter knows a thing or two about is fighting Mexican style fighters

“I grew up fighting Mexicans,” said Mosley, who was a regular at the now defunct Brooklyn Gym where boxers like the late Genaro Hernandez, Zack Padilla and visiting fighters such as Julio Cesar Chavez would look for sparring. Mosley fought everyone in grueling battles that a few privileged spectators saw for free.

Now 40, Mosley faces a young, super strong junior middleweight who has only been slightly tested but has youth, youth and more youth on his side.

“It’s an honor to fight someone like Shane Mosley,” said Alvarez, 21. “I watched tapes of his earlier fights.”

One thing Mosley knows is how to fight Mexicans. It’s second nature to the Pomona fighter. That fan shouting out derisive remarks would have been slapped silly had he said it face to face.

“Nothing against Mexicans,” said Mosley. “I love the Mexican people.”

Just don’t step in that ring against Mosley.

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