Shane Mosley steps back into the ring this Saturday for the first time since the worst beating of his career at the hands of Floyd Mayweather Jr. This time, the opponent is the less formidable Sergio Mora, who made his bones winning the first season of The Contender. But with so many giving Mora little to no chance of pulling the upset, perhaps the “Latin Snake” is just too conquerable to make the fight worth Mosley’s time.
Despite his knack for self-promotion, Mora brings little to the table as a quality opponent. He doesn’t do anything exceptionally well but has good speed and a sturdy chin. His quality of opposition has been abysmal for the most part; in fact, some of the more noteworthy moments of his career actually resulted from him turning down fights with big names. But what he lacks in ability and experience he compensates for in putting out a workmanlike effort.
With such an obvious gap in class, Mosley-Mora has churned up minimal interest at best in the boxing public. Yet it’s an important fight for one reason: to see what Mosley, who turned 39 last week, has left in the tank.
Given his embarrassingly one-sided loss to Mayweather in the spring, Mosley has already been written off by many as too far past his best to compete with the best at 147 and 154 pounds. But that’s getting carried away. Losing to Mayweather is nothing to be ashamed of. And the fact that Mosley was able to put Floyd in the most trouble of his undefeated career suggests that Shane can still bang with the best.
Reasonable pound-for-pound lists have kept Mosley in the top ten since the loss to Mayweather, which means he’s still one of the top three fighters in boxing’s best division. But when he steps into the ring with Mora, it will be as a junior middleweight, a division where Mosley has not fared well in the past.
After picking up the 154 pound titles with a controversial win over Oscar De La Hoya in 2003, Shane would promptly drop the gold in his next fight against Winky Wright. A rematch rendered a similar outcome and ultimately sent Mosley back down to welterweight to continue his career. And even when pitted against his 147-pound rival Vernon Forrest, Mosley couldn’t find a way to control a bigger man the way he was able to dominate so many others before.
Sergio Mora is a big man. He’s naturally a middleweight who will compete at 154 pounds to make a fight with a big name he feels he can beat. Such was the case in the only outstanding win of Mora’s career: a close decision over Forrest, who defeated Mosley twice. But when he granted Forrest his contractual rematch, Sergio was utterly outclassed in what ended up being the last fight of Vernon’s career before his untimely death in 2009.
So what can Mora do for Mosley? Plenty.
A victory gets Shane back on the winning track and keeps his career alive. A dominant win, and the Mayweather fight will be seen as nothing more than a loss to the best fighter on the planet. A knockout, and Mosley sees he has the power to hurt a bigger man and possibly guns for a title in the junior middleweight division.
But if Shane finds himself in a fight this Saturday, then the whispers of being “shot” grow louder. A loss, and concerned friends and family may very well be begging for Mosley to hang up the gloves. It’s win or go home time for Mosley, and Mora is the man who will help him decide.
