Friday 4 May 2012

Sugar Shane the man with a golden name?

We all know that in boxing your name can mean more than your real worth and in the past few years it seems that for Sugar Shane Mosley that is all he has. The former 3 weight world champion started his career with an excellent run of 38-0 whilst also winning the IBF Lightweight and WBC Welterweight titles between 1993 and 2001. He had legitimately become one of the genuine pound-for-pound fighters of the era and whilst it's true that he was lucky to get the win over Oscar De La Hoya in 2000 he was competing with some of the best in the world.

In the following decade or so however Mosley has been unable to ever get near the sort of success he once had and has gone 8-7-1-1 since knocking out Adrian Stone way back in July 2001. Losses to the likes of Vernon Forrest (twice), Winky Wright (twice), Miguel Cotto, Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao are nothing to be ashamed for but the manner of the losses, especially to Pacquiao and Mayweather showed that Mosley is a fighter that is there for the taking. In fact Mosley is so show I'd not be shocked to see the horribly over-rated Saul "Canelo" Alvarez stop Mosley who is 0-2-1 in the last 3 years!

Whilst it's not unheard of for former champions to be getting undeserved chances (Jose Antonio Aguirre being another notable example) this is merely taking the mick now a days. Since the victory over Stone Mosley is 2-7 in world title bouts (or 3-7 if you include interim title fights) and at 40 years old someone needs to stop giving him these chances. Maybe it will take a KO loss to Canelo to make him think twice. Saying this however I personally would love for Shane to land a bomb on Canelo and burst that hype bubble.

In a similar "story" we've read that Mikkel Kessler will be facing Allan Green in a bout for the WBC Silver Light Heavyweight title. As with Mosley we've no idea how Green is managing to get yet another title opportunity. Green was beaten in 2 of his last 4 bouts with 1 of those losses coming in a very undeserved world title bout (where Green joined the Super 6 and faced Andre Ward) and yet he's being "rewarded" with another world title bout at a higher weight? Sorry but when will this sport start taking it's self seriously again?

I've given up ranting about robberies (which we see on a weekly basis) but I won't stop ranting full stop.

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