 The Worldwide Boxing Magazine Site |
Got your free t-shirt yet? |
| articles from the magazine ... |
|
April 2001
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
|
 |
BETTER STILL Growing regard as the top fighter, pound-for-pound, seems to suit Sugar Shane Mosley. But he's not resting on his laurels, as GRAHAM HOUSTON reports from Las Vegas |
|
WINNING SMILE: and if you were as good as Mosley you'd allow yourself the odd grin
- Get Big Pic It’s astonishing. Sugar Shane Mosley, already arguably the best boxer in the world, actually seems to be getting even better. We knew Mosley to be a wonderful fighting machine, with the speed, the moves, the reflexes and the combinations that would have made him a great fighter in any era. But when the welterweight champ hammered game but outclassed Aussie Shannan Taylor in five rounds in Las Vegas on 10 March we saw a new dimension. For, in this fight, Mosley became a power puncher. He did not simply outbox Taylor, he destroyed him, not with bursts of punches but with carefully picked thunderbolts from either hand. It was a scientific display of awesome, accurate bombing that brought gasps and "oohs" and "ahs" from the capacity crowd of about 2,800 at the Palace Ballroom at Caesars Palace hotel and casino. Afterwards, he explained why he fought the way he did. It was not that he is starting to get away from the trigger-fisted style that has won him accolades, but rather a well-thought out strategy by the fighter and his father-trainer, Jack Mosley. He had, he said, noticed in watching videos of Taylor that the Australian liked to catch an opponent at the end of punches - meaning that he would cover up and then unload when the other man had finished. "I knew if I caught him with two or three, he was looking to catch me with a big one," Mosley said. "So I toned it down a little bit and threw power shots instead of flurries." And what power shots they were. Late in the opening round a big right slammed Taylor to the canvas, and he got up to be saved by the bell. There were brutal body shots, more of those overhand rights, stiff jabs to both body and head. Taylor, nose bloody, did everything he could, including rough stuff that became so blatant that, in the fourth round, referee Vic Drakulich told the judges to take a point away from the challenger. But nothing Taylor did had any effect on the inevitable outcome. Mosley glared when the Aussie brawled and mauled, and occasionally shot an enquiring look at the referee as if to ask: "Can’t you see what he’s doing?" But Mosley didn’t complain. He carried on punching. When Taylor grabbed, Mosley merely frowned as if slightly irritated that his opponent might be spoiling the perfection of his performance, pulled his arm free and then lined up his man - his eyes measuring the distance between them - for the next debilitating delivery. This was a master craftsman at work. Taylor, the World Boxing Council’s mandatory challenger, was rough, tough and dead game. He could fight, and he clearly could punch. But nothing in his career of 29 fights (28 wins - 18 by KO - and a draw) had prepared him for what he faced in Las Vegas. It was as if a time portal had opened and Taylor found himself face to face with Sugar Ray Robinson. And, yes, I do believe that we can now compare Mosley with probably the greatest fighter who ever lived. Mosley, 29, had been dazzling in his first defence of the WBC title last November in New York when he dismantled the tough Antonio Diaz in six rounds. This time Mosley was almost assassin-like as well as being artistically flawless in scoring his 37th win in a row, 34 inside the distance. In the nine months since he outpointed Oscar De La Hoya to win the title he seems to have developed an aura that makes him appear more powerful and more dangerous than the night shocked the Golden Boy. He was a 20-1 on favourite. It might as well have been 200-1 for all the chance that Taylor stood. But Taylor was defiant almost till the very end. The 28-year-old from the mining town of Bulli (pronounced "Bulleye") in New South Wales did not let himself or his country down. "Shannan Taylor epitomises the expression ‘Comes to fight’," promoter Cedric Kushner said afterwards. But what can a fighter do when he is in the ring with someone who is faster, stronger, hits harder and is much more skillful than himself? Taylor did the best he could, and he might at least have lasted the seven rounds that was the "under/over" betting proposition in Las Vegas had he not been caught by Mosley’s big right in the closing seconds of round one. "I was fighting on heart," Taylor said afterwards. "I don’t even know if I got knocked down in the first or second round. Shane Mosley’s as fast as switching the switch off - the lights. It was an honour to be in the ring with him." I do not think that Taylor fully recovered from the knockdown. He had seemed to relax when the wooden clappers signalled that there were 10 seconds to go in the round. Mosley shot out two quick jabs and then sent over the right hand the way a missile follows tracer bullets to the target, and Taylor went down hard, blood oozing from his nose. The Australian got up at the count of four and nodded to the referee that he was all right, but his legs told another story and he was so disorientated that he stumbled across the ring towards the neutral corner where Mosley was standing during the eight count. The champ gently guided him away, then reached out to touch gloves with the Aussie as the bell sounded. This was nothing personal - this was business. It looked briefly as if the fight might be stopped during the minute’s interval, with the doctor in Taylor’s corner. Taylor’s trainer, the three-weight world champ Jeff Fenech, said afterwards he was on the verge of retiring his man. He said it took 20 or 30 seconds before Taylor responded "Caesars Palace" when asked where he was. Mosley was always poised to punch, sometimes standing right in front of Taylor while moving his gloves around in little, circling motions as if to keep the Aussie guessing which blow was coming next. Then, when Mosley punched, it was like a cat springing so that in one fluid motion he had closed the distance and landed yet another hit. The only danger for Mosley was that he might get cut by colliding with the Aussie’s head as Taylor rushed him. In the fourth, Taylor swung Mosley against a corner post and a point was deducted. But Taylor could not keep taking the punches that Mosley was thudding into him. Late in the fifth, a left hook to the body, a real rib-bender, physically caved in Taylor. He bent almost double, like a partially folded jackknife, and took a few more punches when, for the second time in the fight, the bell saved him from being knocked out. But this time his corner decided there would be no point in allowing him to continue. "He can come back and win a world title, maybe this [the WBC] title if Shane moves up in weight," Jeff Fenech said afterwards. Indeed, Mosley had already thrown out a challenge to light-middle champ Felix Trinidad, without realising that "Tito" was committed to moving up to middleweight. There is also the new World Boxing Association champ, Andrew "Six Heads" Lewis, of Guyana (featured on page 26 of this issue), as a possible opponent. One thing we do know. Mosley will not be ducking anyone. "I’m the best, pound for pound," he said after the fight, and he is willing to prove it. |
|
Also available to read from issue:
|
|
On sale on the last Thursday of every month Ensure you never miss a copy . . . buy your subscription or back issues here. |