By Dan Ambrose: #3 WBA “Sugar” Shane Mosley (49-9-1, 41 KOs) will be facing #1 WBA Avanesyan (21-1-1, 11 KOs) for the interim WBA welterweight title on May 28 on CBS Sports Net at the Gila river Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
Mosley hasn’t done much to deserve a fight for the interim WBA 147lb title other than beating 42-year-old Ricardo Mayorga in September 2015 in beating the overweight and ring rusty fighter by a 6th round knockout. In Mosley’s last fight, he stopped little known 2nd tier fighter Patrick Lopez by a 10th round knockout last December.
Mosley will be turning 45 in September. He recently added former world champion Roberto Duran as his new trainer.
Right now, we don’t know how much Mosley has left in the tank because he hasn’t faced anyone good as of yet since returning to the ring a year ago. It would be nice to see how good Mosley still is. We’re not going to learn much from his fight against Avanesyan because he’s a flawed fighter who has been exposed before in the past by less than impressive fighters.
The Russian Avanesyan, 27, hasn’t done much either to deserve to fight for the interim WBA title. His best wins have come against 36-year-old Charlie Navarro, Dean Byrne, and Kaizer Mabuza. Based off that wins, it’s hard to argue that Avanesyan deserves to be fighting for the interim WBA 147lb title. Avanesyan was beaten by Andrey Klimov in 2009 by a six round unanimous decision. Avanesyan never avenged that loss unfortunately.
In 2013, Avanesyan was held to a 12 round draw against Aslanbek Kozaev. That’s another opponent that Avanesyan never chose to fight again in order to clear up who the better fighter was between them.
“I plan to put on a clinic,” Mosley said on social media. “I’m not just gonna win. I’m going to annihilate him. In 2009 they said I was done. #Wrong.”
If Mosley can’t beat a fighter like Avanesyan, then he’ll pretty much will be done. There are a lot better fighters in the 147lb division than Avanesyan. If Mosley can’t beat him, then it would be a pretty good sign that he doesn’t have anything left in the tank.
Mosley has had a long career that started out 23-years ago in 1993. Mosley was thought to be finished as a fighter after his loss to Anthony Mundine in 2013, but he came back two years later and beat a shot Mayorga. It wasn’t much of an opponent, but it still worked in Mosley’s favor, as he was immediately ranked by the sanctioning bodies after the win.
“I’m glad people know this is a real competitive fight,” Mosley said via espn.com. “It will be a challenge, but when I win, the world will know.”
I don’t know if the casual boxing fans of the world will know if Mosley wins this fight, but the hardcore fans will definitely know. For Mosley to get the attention of the casual fans, he’s going to need to face better opponents than Avanesyan.
If Mosley can beat Avanesyan, you’ve got figure he’ll be getting a crack against WBA champion Keith Thurman in the near future. That would be a likely mismatch with Thurman having too much power and youth for Mosley.
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