TALE OF THE TAPE: Wright v Mosley II
by
Carl Rice
11/19 - Saturday, November 20 is a huge day. Two titans will clash to see who the best is on this day. No, I’m not talking about the legendary 101st meeting between THE Ohio State University and its arch rival Michigan, I’m taking about the two titans that stand atop the Jr. Middleweight division.
Ronald “Winky” Wright will be looking to hold on to and defend what has taken him years to garner, and that’s the respect of the boxing world and Undisputed Championship.
“Sugar” Shane Mosley, on the other hand, is not only looking to get back the championship he lost in his last fight, but also some redemption.
The Sugarman’s roller coaster career has taken him to the peak of K2 mountain and the depths of the Mariana’s trench, and many are saying that if he doesn’t win this fight, he should go the way of the American Buffalo and just disappear.
However, if he wins, people once again look at Mosley with glowing eyes. Wright has a great deal to fight for as well. With Mosley being the only name opponent he has beaten, if he loses, the first fight will be looked upon as a fluke and that all this take about people avoiding him is just yaketty yak yak, but a victory will solidify his place as an elite champion. Public opinion is solidly leaning toward Winky, but before you slap any money down on this fight, check out the tale of the tape.
Ring Walk
Wright, 47-3 with 25 KOs, comes from St. Petersburg, FL. Standing at 5’9 ½ with a reach of 72”, he’s small in terms of other fighters in or above his weight class, but is able to hold his own with a tight defense and accurate punching. Winky began his career in October 1990 and won his first 25 fights before losing a unanimous decision to Julio Cesar Vasquez in his first title fight in 1994. Two years later, Wright righted the ship, winning the WBO title from Bronco McKart in the first of their three meetings, which he would hold until facing and undefeated Harry Simon in August 1998 and losing a majority decision. Two fights later, he would face a rolling Fernando Vargas, a fight which many felt he would get destroyed. But Wright not only gave a good showing of himself, but more than a few people felt he won that fight (I’m not one of them).
Regardless of the result, Wright served noticed that he was not a steppingstone and has went on another winning streak, pulling off 8 in a row, including Bronco McKart twice. But during that win streak, he had some subpar performances, namely, against JC Candelo. Although the scores do not reflect the closeness of the bout, Wright looked a little sluggish and make thought he would be toppled as soon as he fought top flight competition. Then enters Mosley: Coming off a win over De La Hoya, Shane was favored as he entered the ring but put on a pitiful, lackluster performance, as Wright earned the respect of the boxing world with a lopsided decision over Mosley to become the first undisputed jr. middleweight champion.
Mosley, representing Pomona, CA, comes into the ring with a record of 39-3 with 35 KOs. Although he’s one of the smaller men at this weight, standing at 5’9”, he has extraordinary arm length at 74, which serves him well when combined with his speed. His career started in 1993 and then he reeled off 9 straight wins by KO. By the time be fought for his first championship against Philip Holiday in 1997, his record was 23-0 with 22 KOs! He went on to defeat Holiday by unanimous decision, and thus began his Caligula-like reign of terror.
Mosley destroyed everything and everyone in his way, winning every fight in a very impressive manner, all the while with a smile on his face. After leaving the lightys (some saying prematurely, as there were still some good fights to be made), Mosley completely bypassed the jr. welters to go after Oscar De La Hoya in the welters. In his first fight at welter against Wilfredo Rivera, a fight that he was in jeopardy of losing, he stormed back to KO a well respected former champion. Then came the fight with De La Hoya in June 2000. Most predicted that Mosley would be bullied (once again, I wasn’t one of them), but it was Mosley that showed what he was made of as he outhustled De La Hoya down the stretch to become welterweight champion. His reign continued until he ran into Vernon Forrest, his nemesis from the amateurs. He was thoroughly beaten in that fight and although he did better in the rematch, he lost again. After a move up to jr. middle, he no contested with Raul Marquez, received a debatable win in a rematch with De La Hoya, then lost the unification bout to Wright earlier this year in a terrible showing.
Pre Fight Instructions
Winky has toiled in obscurity more than Tom Arnold before hooking up with Rosanne. It’s likely that Vargas chose to fight Wright because of the loss to Simon one fight earlier, but after coming so close in that fight but just short, Wright started to get the recognition that he deserved. Unfortunately, it worked against him because now he was cast in the role of spoiler, a guy that you avoid because there is great risk for little money and they can get other fights for less risk and for more money. One has to look no further than Oscar De La Hoya to prove this fact.
After beating Vargas, De La Hoya had the opportunity to take on several opponents, including Wright. But Bob Arum absolutely would not make that fight; he blamed it on Winky’s style being unappealing to boxing fans, but everyone know anything about boxing knows that styles make fights and Wright’s style make no fight with Oscar. His style, which is similar to Mike Tyson’s peek-a-boo defense, has been tough for fighters to get through. He also have deceptive quickness; he doesn’t have fast hands like Roy Jones or Mosley, but he does have some speed, and an ability to switch up angles and catch guys with shots that they did not expect. They may see them but they cannot get out of the way. Also, he’s a southpaw, so that assists in confounding fighters. That was exactly what helped him with Vargas and Mosley, and it also a reason many fighters don’t want to fight him.
Mosley also toiled in obscurity early in his career, even though he was more spectacular in his performances. Even after dispatching with all of his lightweight opponents under the final bell, he didn’t get recognition in terms of pound-for-pound status until he faced De La Hoya the first time. After that victory, boxing media were more than willing to thrust him to the top of the pound-for-pound ratings. Not to say that he didn’t deserve to be on the list, but I, for one, was apprehensive to hoist Mosley to the top after one signature victory. However, one can see why people that didn’t see him fight much early in his career would want to put him at the top. He has ridiculous hand and foot speed, pin-point punching, is a good body puncher, and has a pretty good chin. But after losing the first and second fight to Forrest, those same boxing pendants started calling him “NutraSweet”, “Bitter” Shane Mosley, and along with all the quasi-humorous nicknames, took him off the list, or at least out of the top 5 or so. But fights with Marquez and the rematch with Oscar did nothing to show that he’s back, even though he got the victory. After that fight, he dispatched long time trainer and father Jack and teamed up with Joe Goosen, one of the top trainers in the game today. If Goosen can get Shane back to boxing and using his legs more, this will be an interesting fight.
Referee’s Instructions
The thing that everyone keeps saying is that Wright is gonna win because of how he won the last fight. Wright did a tremendous job in keeping Mosley off balance by sticking the jab in his face, outlanding Shane 90-30 in jabs. Shane had problems getting away from the right hands of Forrest and the jab of De La Hoya, so that squared his problems against Wright. Winky also maintained a tight defense for most of the fight, which kept Mosley continuously looking for a way in, and as time went on, he started getting discouraged and desperate And when Mosley would throw 1 punch at a time, Wright would effectively counterpunch, putting more doubt in the mind of Mosley. What Wright needs to do is just duplicate the fight plan he executed against Shane last time and he should cruse to victory.
But the problem with that logic is that Mosley has stated that while he felt great going into the fight, he didn’t have the stuff soon after the fight started. Many fighters say that, but it was obvious that Shane was much different than anyone’s ever seen him. During and after the Forrest fights, it had been noticed that Mosley wasn’t the fluid puncher anymore, but a headhunting smaller guy. In the Marquez fight, there were flashes of the old Mosley, but in the rematch with De La Hoya, Oscar seemed to simply outbox Mosley until his stamina once again became a problem. In the first fight with Wright, Mosley was outlanded 250-166 and was outthrown 761-618. Those are pretty low numbers for Mosley; there’s no way he can win this fight with an anemic output like that. If Shane doesn’t get back to “power boxing” as his father coined a few years ago, he’s going to taste defeat again.
The Fight and the Decision
On paper, this fight completely leans in Wright’s favor. He won the first fight and should win the second. In reality this fight is not even close. Shane is the better fighter, straight up. But those losses to Forrest has had some affect on Shane’s psyche, as evidenced by the nice, always smiling Shane has been replaced with a more aggressive, snarling Mosley. Furthermore, if there was something truly wrong with Mosley in the first fight, those problems should be gone now. Wright does have excellent boxing and defensive skills and has proven that he can hang with the big boys, and winning the first fight certainly gives him the mental advantage. But Shane didn’t do anything in that fight, so I feel that the first fight, although an indication of the skills Wright possesses, it is not indicative of the skills of Mosley.
I see Winky coming out just doing what he does, waiting to see what Mosley does. He has to feel confident about his abilities, but Shane uses his quickness in a way that Wright didn’t anticipate. He’s moving more, throwing more combinations, moving his head more. The first few rounds are like this, where both of them have their moments, but after the 5th round, the fight starts to sway in Mosley’s direction. Mosley, unlike the first fight, is able to better avoid the jab and is landing his counterpunches much more affectively than in the first fight. Combine this with the body punching and Wright will start to weaken a little. The 10th round will be when it happens…Shane will land a hard body shot that will double Wright over, and Shane will unload a arsenal of punches to KNOCK WRIGHT OUT! That’s right, I said it, and I’m not going to back off, Mosley will KO Wright. This is not to disrespect the champion, but Wright didn’t see the best Shane in the first fight and will be taken totally by surprise by how well Mosley is able to use his skills in the rematch.
Perhaps it is my strong liking of Mosley that makes me say that, for I do think that he’s one of the best boxers in the world right now, even though his last few performances and results do not reflect that. And I know that the guy that loses the first fight usually loses the rematch. This reminds me of how I felt before the Trinidad-Vargas fight. My head told me that Trinidad was gonna walk over this kid, but my heart told me that Vargas would never give up and pull off the win. My head was right, but me heart was right too. In this fight, my heart is with Mosley, but my head says go with logic and Wright won the first fight. Going back to the Trinidad-Vargas fight, I had to look at the intangible, which was big fight experience. Tito had it, Fernando didn’t, and in the end, that experience helped.
So in this case I have to go with the intangible, and that’s Joe Goosen. He’s been in the corner of some pretty good champions like Joel Casamayor and Diego Corrales. I’ve seen how he motivated those guys and coached them through tough situations and I have no doubt that he’ll get the best out of Shane. I always liked Jack Mosley, but I felt that he left his son in limbo several times in fights that weren’t going his way by not giving helpful instructions. Goosen’s affect will be noticeable immediately and he will be the X factor working in Mosley’s favor.
GO BUCKEYES!
Please send all comments/opinions to crice@catsmpo.com
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After a brief hiatus, top-writer Carl Rice along with his immense understanding of the sport and talent for writing enjoyable articles, is back to the pages of TalkingBoxing.com. Make sure to check out his weekly articles!
