By Dan Ambrose: Coming off what is clearly his worst performance of his 17-year pro career, 39-year-old Shane Mosley (46-6, 39 KO’s) will be facing former World Boxing Council (WBC) junior middleweight champion Sergio “Latin Snake” Mora (22-1-6 KO’s) in a 12 round non-title bout on Saturday night at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles. The bout will be going for a cool $49.95 on pay per view, but if you compare it to the $55 you’d have to pay to see the mismatch fight between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito, the Mora-Mosley fight seems like the much better deal for you money.
The reason why isn’t because the Mosley vs. Mora fight will be interesting to watch, because it probably won’t be. This fight is likely going to be a case of Mosley chasing Mora around the ring and taking a lot of shots for his efforts. But the undercard of the fight has a lot of big names and decent fights with Saul Alvarez vs. Carlos Baldomir, Daniel Ponce De Leon facing Antonio Escalante, Vivian Harris taking on hot prospect Victor Ortiz, and unbeaten light welterweight Frankie Gomez facing Cesar Holguin.
The Mosley-Mora fight will be a curiosity more than a fight that promises to be an interesting fight. Mosley looked all of his age in losing to Floyd Mayweather Jr. last May by a lopsided 12 round decision, and while some boxing fans are attributing Mosley’s poor performance because of the greatness of Mayweather, I’m not so certain. Mosley was coming off of a one year layoff from boxing, but he also seems to have aged during that one year away from the sport.
When you get up near 40 like Mosley, you’re body can lose it quite rapidly. This is why it’s not a good practice to take extended amounts of time off from the sport when you get that old, because you don’t know how much time you have left. As such, Mosley could end up looking really old and losing to Mora this Saturday night. I think Mora will have to look especially good to be given a decision over Mosley, because Shane is a big star and a proven money maker.
They’re probably not going to give Mora the decision if it’s even remotely close. For this reason, Mora is going to have to look good for the entire fight and really make Mosley look as bad as he did against Mayweather. However, Mora may have to work that hard to make that happen if Mosley runs out of gas after two rounds again like he did against Mayweather.
In that case, beating Mosley will be child’s play for Mora because he’s quite capable of fighting hard for an entire 12 rounds without running out of gas. Mosley, however, better have backup batteries for his engine because he’s probably going to have to move more in this fight than he’s had to in many years. Mora is a mover and is good at making his opponents look really bad because of his nifty boxing skills.
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