By Matt Stein: On September 18th, 38-year-old Shane Mosley (46-6, 39 KO’s) will be making his first appearance since losing a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision to Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 1st of this year when he takes on former WBC junior middleweight champion Sergio Mora (22-1, 6 KO’s) at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California. Mosley, who turns 39 on September 7th, looked good for all of two rounds against Mayweather before fading badly and doing almost nothing for the remaining nine rounds of the fight. It looked like Mosley was just tired from having expended a lot of energy in trying to take Mayweather out in the 2nd.

Normally fighters are able to get their second wind, but in the case of Mosley he appeared to stay tired for the remainder of the fight. He’s going to have to be a lot better against Mora, because this guy does a lot of the same things that Mayweather can do only slower. Mosley is going to have to get Mora’s attention early in the fight with some big power shots and then stay on top of him to make sure he doesn’t get in the fight. Mosley will lose badly if he doesn’t work hard in every round against Mora. He can’t just try and take him out and put all his cards on that happening.

This could go very badly for Mosley if he’s not able to handle Mora’s movement and fast pot shots. He brings a lot to the table in terms of skills. If Mosley is starting to show his age, he may lose this fight. At this point, Mosley can ill afford another loss on his record. It would really hurt his marketability. A loss to Mora and I think Mosley may need to consider hanging up the gloves for good. It’s nice that he’s taking a big test because it would be sad to see Mosley taking on 2nd tier fighters and thinking he’s better than he is and then getting dominated again when he steps it up against someone good.

The undercard of this fight by far overshadows the main event, as unbeaten welterweight prospect Saul Alvarez (33-0-1, 25 KO’s) takes on former World Boxing Council welterweight champion Carlos Baldomir (45-12-6, 14 KO’s) for the 20-year-old Alvarez’s Silver junior middleweight title. Former WBO super bantamweight champion Daniel Ponce De Leon (39-2, 32 KO’s) fights featherweight contender Antonio Escalante (24-2, 15 KO’s) in a WBO featherweight title eliminator bout. Light welterweight contender Victor Ortiz fights Vivian Harrison, and Frankie Gomez fights Cesar Holguin at light welterweight.