By Allan Fox: Shane Mosley (46-7-1, 39 KO’s) will be turning 41-years-old in September, and he hasn’t won a fight in ages since beating up on a slow Antonio Margarito in January 2009. Like Evander Holyfield, another fighter in his 40s that seems to have lost a step, Mosley refuses to retire and why should he?
Mosley will haul in $650,000 payday tonight in his fight against WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (39-0-1, 29 KO’s) in their HBO pay-per-view fight on the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Miguel Cotto undercard in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Mosley, tired of boxing fans asking him when he’ll finally hang up his gloves for good, said “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere yet. Stop saying ‘when are you going to retire? or ‘When is your last fight?’ I don’t want to hear that.”
It seems that Mosley is getting kind of worn out from the constant questions from fans and sportswriters alike asking him about when he’ll be retiring. Fans and writers aren’t doing it out of kind of spite against Mosley. They just don’t like to see him taking punishment and looking bad in getting beaten by guys at this late stage in his career.
Tonight, Mosley is pretty much being used as a name for Canelo Alvarez to pick up a scalp to impress boxing fans who might not be aware of how deteriorated Mosley is at this stage in his career. Mosley’s well known among casual boxing fans and highly respected because of his wars with Oscar De La Hoya and Miguel Cotto. But even in his prime, Mosley’s success was uneven. He did well against De La Hoya, but failed big time in fights against Vernon Forrest and Ronald “Winky” Wright.
Mosley’s big wins were limited to De La Hoya, Luis Collazo and a shot Fernando Vargas and Ricardo Mayorga. It’s hard to believe but those were the biggest wins of Mosley’s career once he left the lightweight division. At lightweight, Mosley was a phenom, an unbeaten, unstoppable force. But he had much less success after moving up to 147 and 154.
Tonight, Mosley probably has no chance of winning against the younger, stronger Alvarez. Maybe if Mosley was in his prime, he could fight hard enough to make it close but his prime is so far in the past that it’s hard to remember how good Mosley was when he was at his best. He may not want to retire, but Alvarez is going to give Mosley some good reasons why he may want to consider doing so.
If Mosley wants to continue to get big fights like he’s getting tonight, along with the big paydays, he’s going to have to start winning some fights every now and then because going three years in between wins isn’t going to help his case. He needs to beat somebody, even if they have to drag out a C level opponent for him to beat.
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