By Manuel Perez: Four-time champion Shane Mosley (44-5, 37 KOs) tries to kick start his lagging career against former three-time champion Ricardo Mayorga (29-6-1, 23 KOs) who also hopes to reignite a failing career on Saturday night in a non-title bout at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California. Mosley who’s been out of action licking his wounds since last being defeated by welterweight Miguel Cotto in November 2007, is counting on a victory over Mayorga so that Mosley can keep alive his goal of facing WBA welterweight champion Antonio Margarito at some point in the future.
As for Mayorga, he’s hoping that Oscar De La Hoya will give him a rematch someday so that Mayorga can try to avenge his 6th round TKO loss to him from May 2006. However, the chances of facing De La Hoya again are about zero. Mayorga has trained hard for this fight, and in recent photos he looks lean and in the best shape he’s been in years. That doesn’t mean that he’ll necessarily fight well against Mosley because Mayorga, 34, has a lot of miles on him, and has twice been stopped in the past two years, once by De La Hoya and another time by Felix Trinidad. The major question is whether or not Mayorga will be able to take the shots from Mosley if he decides to engage him in a war. Mayorga typically goes toe-to-toe with his opponents instead of using any real fight strategy, which sometimes works for him, like earlier in his career in bouts with Vernon Forrest and Andrew Lewis.
But, in the past five years, Mayorga’s brawling has worked against him more often than not, resulting in losses to De La Hoya, Cory Spinks, and Trinidad. It’s too bad, because when Mayorga is using his boxing skills, he’s not a bad fighter. He was able to get away with a lot of bad technique when he was younger, because of his outstanding endurance and good chin. However, both his endurance and his chin as degraded over the years, making him more susceptible to punches and more prone to wear out in the second half of his fights.
Mosley, now 37, has chosen the toughest opponent in years with Margarito, and probably at the worst time for himself, because he doesn’t look to be in the same league as Margarito at this point, and there would appear to be nothing to gain from such a fight other than a good payday and likely beating.
Mosley would like, if possible, to hang around boxing for another three years, but that maybe nothing more than pipe dream for him unless he plans on fighting good but not great fighters. If he does beat Mayorga on Saturday night, Mosley will probably get his wish to face Margarito – or some other welterweight champion – because Mosley has the backing of Golden Boy Promotions behind him, who will probably help him arrange a fight against one of the champions.
Being well known and still very marketable as a fighter, won’t hurt Mosley’s chances any at getting a title shot. However, he probably needs to consider stepping away from the sport in the near future unless he scales down his goals a little and decides on taking on a lesser welterweight champion like Andre Berto or Joshua Clottey rather than the dangerous Margarito. Who knows? If all else fails, there’s always Oscar De La Hoya out there for Mosley, whom he’s twice beaten already.