Olė: The Final Swing Of The Cape For El Matador

By Jason Autry

At this point and at any point in their careers, the word that best embodies the match-up between Shane Mosley and Ricardo "El Matador" Mayorga is CLASS.  Both inside and outside the ring, Mosley is and has always been a class act (save the disputed Balco drama) in the way he has conducted himself and behaved while fighting and talking about fighting.  The lead up to Saturday’s showdown has been no different for Sugar Shane.  Mayorga, on the other hand, should be a regular caller to Dr. Laura.  He is a mess, and although freakishly entertaining, the consummate picture of classlessness.  One needs to look no further than his proclamation to Cory Spinks that he was going to reunite him with his deceased mother and then went out and stunk up the joint in perhaps one of the sorriest displays I’ve seen. 

Conversely, I remember watching Shane Mosley toward the middle of his career and thinking someone should put this guy's training camp and fights on an instructional video and show it to kids at local boxing gyms.  I recall believing that this is what the sweet science was designed to look like.  The fluidity and crispness of his style won him many amateur fights and facilitated his rise to welterweight supremacy.  Not much has changed in the present other than Father Time catching up to him a bit; Mosley still possesses great boxing technique, adept footwork, athletic balance, coordination, power and a pretty good beard.  The Cotto fight supports all of these assertions. 

When I first saw Mayorga bouncing out of his locker room to face Vernon Forrest for the first time in January of 2003, my immediate reaction was, “Who is the street fighter?”  I thought the promoters had raided the local pub and picked up some truck driver on a bet.  Then I watched in horror as Forrest, a superior boxer, inexplicably allowed Mayorga to club him like a baby seal into submission.  Still, I was not impressed with the Nicaraguan and to this day, never have been.  He is often out of position, limited in punch assortment, off-balance and more of a wild swinger than Adam Dunn.  Fernando Vargas ought to literally be ashamed of himself for losing to Mayorga.

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