NO WIN

What Sugar Shane Mosley needed was a devastating win. What he got was a deeply unsatisfactory three-round no decision result. And as the crowd at the Mandalay Bay casino resort in Las Vegas booed the abbreviated finish to Mosley's scheduled 12-rounder with Raul Marquez on 8 February, the prospects of Sugar Shane landing his projected rematch with Oscar De La Hoya, already in trouble, seemed to be fading fast.

 Promoter Bob Arum, heading out of the arena to catch a flight for a private function, indicated that Mosley was out of the picture. Sugar Shane's vacillation over a $4 million purse had put the fight in jeopardy. Then came the sorry affair with a huge underdog whom he was expected to destroy. Marquez certainly wasn't outclassed but seemed to give up when cut over both eyes. 

The ringside doctor recommended the fight be stopped, and as four rounds hadn't been completed it goes into the records as a "no decision'. The crowd of 4,942, having had its appetite whetted by two competitive if untidy rounds, was understandably disgruntled and the boos were followed by a chant of "Bullshit!' Not only had there not been a winner, no one was any the wiser as to how carrying the extra weight will affect Mosley. And to see how effective Mosley looked at light-middle was about the only compelling thing about the fight. 

Mosley was certainly muscled at 154lbs (11st), and he was winning, but as he himself admitted you couldn't judge him on this fight. So it was all a bit pointless. Not only was the bout short it was ugly and brutish, marred by head clashes and mauling. Marquez, 31, was in the fight, but he walked away after collisions in the third left him cut over each eye. 

Referee Kenny Bayless called in the ringside doctor and the fight was stopped after two minutes, 41 seconds of the round. Marquez at first asserted that Mosley had butted him deliberately but after watching the TV replays seemed to accept that the clashes were accidental. He said he had been prepared to fight on ("You know me, I'm a warrior'). 

But his actions -gesticulations, taking out his gum shield, walking away -suggested otherwise. Mosley was polite afterwards about a fighter he has known for years from the U.S. amateur circuit, but his father and trainer, Jack Mosley, was adamant that Marquez had quit. Marquez, who had not yet left the post-fight press conference, responded to the accusation by yelling at Jack Mosley: "I quit? That's fucking crazy, man!' A brief shouting match ended with an agitated Jack Mosley telling Marquez: "We can talk one-on-one -me and you -about that.' But, whether or not one thought that Marquez had had enough, the sad fact is that Mosley needed a conclusive victory and instead came away with a fight that had no winner and which left the crowd unhappy and unsatisfied. 

Mosley had looked good in flashes against the 31-year-old southpaw from Houston, Texas. He fired some solid right hands to the body to try to bring down the high guard of Marquez, and he managed to get in some rights through his rival's gloves, as shown by the spreading red blotch on Marquez's right cheek. But Marquez had landed some punches, too, and Mosley blinked when hit by left-handers, which clearly were not to his liking at all. 

The head clashes came when the fight was providing lively entertainment. Marquez fought back after getting hit. But Marquez has a history of getting cut and swollen around the eyes and many thought it was a matter of time before he got busted up. Sure enough, it happened again, in the third, when heads met and Marquez suffered a slice over the right eyebrow. 

The doctor was called in for an inspection and the fight went on. But soon heads came together again, this time Marquez's left eyebrow unzipped and the doctor ruled that the fresh damage was too bad to permit further hostilities. It did look to me as if the second cut, so early in the proceedings, had taken the fight out of Marquez. 

I have no doubt that Mosley would have come on to win convincingly, with or without cuts. The trouble was, in the time the fight lasted he was having his hands full, as I saw it, with a boxer who was outclassed in 11 rounds by Fernando Vargas three and a half years ago and who had won four low-profile bouts in a comeback. Although Mosley's right-hand shots to the body looked good, Marquez shook his head "No.' The former IBF junior middle champion had not been put in his place -not yet, anyway -so there was still a whiff of unfinished business about the encounter. 

Marquez said afterwards: "Let's do it again' but there is about as much chance of him getting a rematch as there is of me getting a date with a supermodel. No chance at all. Only once did Mosley look like the fighter who was once mentioned in the same breath as Sugar Ray Robinson when, in the second, he dug a left hook to the body (the only time in the fight that he connected with his pet punch) and soon afterwards fired three consecutive right hands that moved Marquez back. 

Otherwise, Mosley was not exactly breathtaking. He pawed with his left and looked to drive in the straight rights. I believe that Mosley's slams to the body would have slowed down Marquez after another three or four rounds. But in this sometimes messy affair, with both cautioned in the third as they wrestled in a clinch, Mosley did not really have a chance to shine. 

He said as much afterwards. "Unfortunately our styles wasn't complementary to each other and we kept head clashing,' he said. Both Sugar Shane and Jack Mosley thought that a right hand opened the bout-stopping cut over Marquez's left eye. They were the only ones who seemed to see it that way. But both father and son believed it was only a matter of time before Marquez got stopped. 

"I think in just a few more rounds it would have ended in a knockout in my favour,' Sugar Shane said. "I felt Shane was going to knock him out in the next round anyway,' Jack Mosley said. "I thought Shane had too much power for him. "He [Marquez] felt like he was gonna be knocked out. 

He took his mouthpiece out and basically quit. That's the way I see it. The body shots was getting to him.' But as Shane said: "All this is semantics -the fact of the matter is, the fight was a no contest.' Mosley reiterated that he feels that light-middleweight is the natural division for him to be in after struggling to make weight as first a lightweight, then a welterweight, champion. 

"I felt real strong,' he said. "I was still quick and sharp. I think I did some pretty good things in there as far as the punching, the movement, but I don't know if you can really judge [from] this fight because Raul's a southpaw.' He said that a rematch with De La Hoya is"the one everyone wants to see' but that he wants to be treated fairly when it comes to the purse division."There are other champions out there and other fights,' he said. And it looked at time of writing as if that was the direction in which he would have to go. 

The other big fight on this show was also over quickly, but at least the crowd and Home Box Office television viewing audience saw a definitive conclusion as Mexican welterweight Antonio Margarito overpowered Andrew "Six Heads' Lewis, of Guyana, in the second round to retain his World Boxing Organisation title. For one round this looked like anybody's fight. Lewis, the Brooklyn-based former World Boxing Association champion, moved well, scored with quick lefts followed by sharp rights from out of his southpaw stance and showed no ill effects of the fifth-round clubbing he suffered at the hands of Ricardo Mayorga last March. 

But it was all illusory. The first time Lewis got hit upstairs by Margarito's right hand, in the second round, it was as good as over. The fears that Lewis, 32, simply cannot take a punch anywhere above the neck were proved to be well founded. A right uppercut was the punch that started Lewis going, although earlier a right hand to the head had brought a look of impending doom to the features of the ripped but far from robust Guyanese. Margarito recognised the alarm signals being sent out by his opponent. 

A series of punches had Lewis sagging on the ropes and referee Joe Cortez made a perfectly timed intervention after two minutes, 31 seconds of the round. There were no complaints from the loser's corner. Lewis's manager, Nelson Fernandez, said:"Our game plan was working to perfection with a fabulous first round but Six Heads just got caught -that's boxing.

'Margarito, who brought his won-lost record to 28-3 with 19 KOs, and one no contest, said:"He gave me his best shot in the first round and I didn't feel anything.' Now he wants to meet Ricardo Mayorga, saying:"I know he has power, but let's see if he's still got that power after four rounds.' Margarito has shown steady improvement in the past 18 months but this was his most dramatic win. Bruce Trampler, matchmaker for promoter Bob Arum's Top Rank outfit, told me:"The Mayorga fight can be made. Don King [Mayorga's promoter] and Bob Arum have worked together before. Boy, if they do make it, it will be like Zale and Graziano.'