Round by Round: Weekly Boxing Notes

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↵Poetic Justice for Mosley?↵It’s a shame for Shane Mosley, but maybe also a little revenge from the boxing gods, that in the week following his astonishing upset of Antonio Margarito, a week that he might have expected to be dedicated to celebrating his accomplishment, the boxing headlines have been dominated by the controversy surrounding the “plaster-like” substances discovered in Margarito’s hand-wraps prior to the fight. ↵
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↵When I spoke to HBO commentator and Hall-of-Fame trainer, Emanuel Steward, earlier in the week about the situation, he couldn’t help but point out the bizarre role-switch that happened for Mosley on Saturday night.

↵“The irony of it,” Steward said, “is that the fighter who has been criticized and more publicized for using some kind of illegal substance than any other boxer in history was a guy named Shane Mosley. The controversy of him using performance enhancing drugs in his second fight with De La Hoya was one of the most dominant stories in the whole pre-fight lead-up.” ↵
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↵Steward is of course alluding to the fact that Mosley used the infamous “clear” and “cream,” BALCO’s designer steroids, prior to his rematch with Oscar De La Hoya in 2003. Mosley has given the standard athlete’s half-confession of guilt in the matter, admitting that he used the substances but that he did not know they were steroids. BALCO mastermind, Victor Conte, has directly refuted that claim, saying that Mosley knew exactly what he was taking and that Conte had witnessed Mosley inject himself with EPO. Because of those statements and because of a book that Conte was planning to release that included other allegations, Mosley sued Conte for defamation. Conte quickly countersued. Those cases are still ongoing. ↵
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↵As of yet, it hasn’t been proven that Mosley was aware that he was using steroids, but at the same time, it may never be conclusively proven that Margarito knew what was inside the pads that his trainer prepared and planned for him to wear to fight against Mosley. In both instances, one has to ask if it matters. The fact remains that Mosley was doping prior to his rematch with De La Hoya, and his victory in that fight, once considered among the finest moments in a great career, is now utterly tainted. Oscar may have been able to beat a non-doping Sugar Shane at 154 pounds that night. We’ll never know.↵
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↵So the fact that Shane Mosley’s most recent glorious victory has been completely overshadowed by another fighter seeking an illegal edge, well, it does not seem inappropriate at all. It’s the law of the schoolyard writ large – what goes around comes around.↵
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↵The Golden Boy Chooses Hatton… Woe Is Hatton↵Speaking of Oscar De La Hoya… at the press conference on Wednesday that finally, officially announced the Manny Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton fight for May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Oscar said the following: “I think Hatton will de-throne Pacquiao as boxing’s pound-for-pound king.”↵
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↵Never mind the fact that in this writer’s humble opinion, that is utter lunacy. Let us concentrate on the fact that his Golden-ness doesn’t exactly have the greatest track record at the moment on gauging the abilities of Manny Pacquiao. After all, this is the same guy who thought he had himself an easy payday picking on the much smaller Pacquiao last December and instead ended up getting the bejabbers beaten out of him and quitting on his stool after eight lopsided rounds. ↵
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↵Ricky, mate, is this the bloke you want backing you right now? I know he’s promoting you and all, but you might ask him to change his pick to Pac Man just for the sake of luck. Yeah cheers, innit?↵