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03/12/2004 Archived Entry: "Kellerman on Mosley-Wright: "This is a tremendous risk for Shane""
Kellerman on Mosley-Wright: "This is a tremendous risk for Shane"
By J.D. Vena
Well, it’s the eve of yet another big fight. The winner of tomorrow night’s unification bout between WBC and WBA titleholder, "Sugar" Shane Mosley and IBF counterpart, Ronald "Winky" Wright will not only crown a unified champion at jr. middleweight, it will help manipulate the boxing landscape for the rest of the year.
When you’re a fight fan, like yours truly, you look forward to the coverage of a big fight. What you’ll sorely miss tonight is the perspective of popular boxing analyst, Max Kellerman. For over five years, Kellerman, along with his ESPN studio co-host, Brian Kenney and a ringside team, which included Teddy Atlas, have had some great insight and commentary for big fights. As you’ve probably read and noticed, the enthusiastic Kellerman is no longer with the network and will join the Fox Sports team in the upcoming weeks.
Though he won’t be in front of the camera tomorrow night, Kellerman is just as excited about one of the year’s most crucial fights and for very good reasons.
"This is a tremendous risk for Shane," Kellerman told the CBZ. "In fact, Shane would admit, he wasn’t trying to jump in the ring with Wright even a year ago. No one in boxing is dying to get in the ring with Winky Wright. Guys like Bernard Hopkins and Mosley would fight him, but they would only fight a guy like Winky if they had to. So hats off to Shane, because he’s the champ and Winky is the next top available opponent that he hasn’t fought."
The accomplished Wright (46-3/ 25 KO’s) has been a top fighter in the jr. middleweight division for over 10 years, having received his first title shot against Julio Cesar Vasquez way back in 1994. Wright, a native of St. Petersburg, FL was decked five times that night in losing a decision, but has been the IBF jr. middleweight champion for nearly three years and hasn’t come close to losing since a disputed decision loss to Fernando Vargas, four years ago.
"Winky is a long-armed, tall southpaw with underrated power,” said Kellerman. "He obviously doesn’t have one-punch power but he’s not slapping in there either. He’s throwing real punches and he’s just a complete fighter."
So is "Sugar" Shane. His alias came about when someone suggested that he would be the next in the proud line of Sugars. After beating Oscar De La Hoya the first time four years ago, many thought he was on the right path for achieving such greatness. He continued to look great at welterweight until losing convincingly to his slick amateur rival, Vernon Forrest. Another close loss to Forrest would follow and suddenly, Mosley was either considered overrated or washed up, but a win over De La Hoya last September gave Mosley new life, a third world title and put him back with the elite.
"It’s funny when hear someone say, ‘So and so doesn’t like it to the body, so go to his body.’ Find someone who likes it to the body. Everyone is going to be bothered to the body and everyone is bothered by slick boxers. Obviously, a good boxer like Vernon is going to give Shane trouble. Shane’s beaten Oscar twice, the first time decisively and the second one was close. Maybe it’s an issue of styles: Shane over Oscar, Forrest over Shane. But every other fighter Shane has fought has been dominated. Not too long ago, a lot of people were calling Shane the best fighter in the world pound for pound for good reason. Now suddenly after losing twice to Forrest, who may just have Shane’s number, people think he’s just okay? I don’t get that."
Many would argue that it’s Winky who is just okay. With wins over the likes of contenders Bronco McKart, Tony Marshall, Angel Hernandez and Juan Carlos Candelo, Winky has yet to notch a win over a big name fighter. Though he may have been a little wet behind the ears when he met Vasquez, he seemed to come up short in his tilts with Vargas and Harry Simon.
"I think the Vargas fight was a good example of how Winky has fared in big fights. Winky had the fight won after nine rounds. I had it 6-3 in rounds for Winky. With Vargas hustling, he swept the last three rounds and made it a draw on my unofficial card. The judges had it a majority decision (116-112, 115-113 and 114-114)."
It’s what kept him good enough for the elite to stay away from, but not good enough to command the money and attention he’s been craving. It’s been the story of his career, which he will have the chance to re-write on Saturday night.
"The difference between top fighters in any era is very slight. Once in a while you get a Sugar Ray Robinson or Roy Jones, Jr., who are just better than everyone else, but usually it’s just a slight advantage for the very top guy over his chief rivals. Sugar Ray Leonard fought Wilfred Benitez, stopped him late in a close fight and never gave him a rematch. The only reason why he fought Roberto Duran a second time was because he lost to him the first time. He stopped Tommy Hearns late in a fight he was behind in and then gave him a rematch when it really didn’t matter. But most felt that Tommy won the rematch anyway and he never gave Hagler a rematch. Even the great Sugar Ray Leonard, if you could argue, wasn’t any better than his contemporaries. The difference for Leonard was that when it was crunch time, he came up big. So far, Winky has been the anti-Ray Leonard. He’s just as good as his contemporaries. If you look at Shane, Trinidad, De La Hoya or Vernon Forrest, they are all about the same level more or less. Where as Leonard does just enough to win, Winky has done just enough to lose."
So, will history repeat itself?
"For Winky, it’s just a matter of stepping on the accelerator in the championship rounds and not letting up and my feeling is that, based on their histories, when it comes to crunch time, Shane will flurry just enough to take a very close decision. The other thing is, Winky’s style could gives Shane problems from round one and dominates the fight. That’s not unthinkable but, I think Shane will win a close decision because while Winky tends to decelerate in late rounds of big fights, Shane accelerates, so he’ll do enough to win a close decision."
Replies: 2 Comments on this article
Thanks JC! I'm leaning towards what Max said, except, I expect Winky to be more cautious in the early going.
Posted by JD @ 03/12/2004 10:58 AM EST
Nice piece! This is, no doubt, an interesting and dangerous matchup for Shane.
I'm curious to see how this fight unfolds! Will Winky perform as Vernon Forrest managed or will the fight go the route suggested by Max Kellerman?
Cheers,
Juan C. Ayllon
Posted by Juan C. Ayllon @ 03/12/2004 10:50 AM EST
