By Peter Wells: It will be over 1 year since Shane Mosley last fought on January 30th where he meets unbeaten WBC Welterweight champion Andre Berto 25-0(19KO’s) in Las Vegas. After plenty of fights being made and cancelled for Mosley, after arranging to fight with Joshua Clottey on Boxing Day. I’m sure it would have been a great Christmas present for one of the fighters, but as soon as it was made, it was canceled. It will be hard for Mosley to return after such a huge lay off, and the worry that Shane can blow hot and cold.

Firstly he struggled badly against Ricardo Mayorga before getting a last second KO, and then he shocked the whole world and stopped the ‘Tijuana Tornado’ Antonio Margarito. But we could see another down performance from ‘Sugar’ Shane. Well we’ll go by the theory that he’ll be in top form which is what Andre will be training for anyway.

Berto is not short of experience now; he had his career best performance this May against former IBF Light-Welterweight champion Juan Urango in his Welterweight debut. Despite Urango coming up a division he was still in tip top form and was a huge victory for Andre. He has also beaten Luis Collazo in a close fight, which did go to Berto, I can assure you that, but that is nothing compared to Mosley’s class of opposition.

The first of Shane’s big fights was against Oscar De La Hoya whom he beat twice despite using steroids which he only admitted to earlier this year. He has only lost to top class opponents in Vernon Forrest (Rest In Peace Champ) twice, Winky Wright twice and Miguel Cotto, his last ever defeat. He has also beaten Fernando Vargas twice virtually ending his career before Mayorga made sure he wouldn’t fight again. Some would say that Mosley is prone to losing to elite fighters, but his victory over Margarito would shut those up.

Berto isn’t an elite fighter yet, but soon will be, and this could be the start of Andre and maybe the end of Mosley. I wouldn’t like to support either fighter over one another but if I go with what my brain says at the moment, I would have to go with the more experienced Shane Mosley to take this on points, but my opinion may change.