Oscar-Shane; Juice and scandles-Pacquiao-Barrera: Evander goes for a title

The first thought that came to mind when the “Sugar” Shane Mosley steroid scandal was recently revisited in an SI.com piece four years after the fact was, what does Oscar De La Hoya think about the idea that Mosley was juiced up prior to their second fight in 2003? Especially since Mosley won on a decision, as he did in their first fight in 2000.

We spoke to De La Hoya on Saturday afternoon at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, only hours before Manny Pacquiao defeated Marco Antonio Barrera for the second time. Interestingly, De La Hoya said that not once did he say to himself, “So that’s why he won, because he was on steroids.”

“Not at all, not at all,” said De La Hoya, president of Golden Boy Promotions. “I believe in Shane Mosley. He’s a good guy. Shane Mosley has the ability to beat anybody. And I came to a conclusion and I realized that you know what? He is a better fighter. I mean, he beat me and I’ve known him since I was a kid and I’ve always realized that he is a great fighter and he proved it against me.”

It should be noted that the day the SI.com story broke, Mosley told the New York Daily News that he does believe that he had taken two steroids prior to that second fight with De La Hoya, but that he did so unknowingly because he was misled by BALCO founder Victor Conte. Conte denied it.

But what De La Hoya found perhaps most curious of all was that this situation again reared its ugly head four years after it was seemingly over.

“My only thoughts are, what a coincidence that all of a sudden it comes up four years later when it was all resolved,” De La Hoya said. “He went in front of a grand jury and he gave his story and he even took a lie detector test and he passed with flying colors. What a coincidence that this pops up once again when another situation of mine personally is happening. And I believe that something was behind this to tarnish Golden Boy’s image.

“And we’re not going to stand for that. We’re not going to let that happen. I mean, we’re going to continue on with our business and move on.”

The other personal situation De La Hoya spoke of was the photos of him dressed in drag that recently popped up on the Internet. A reporter asked De La Hoya about those during a conference call 12 days before Pacquiao-Barrera, which was co-promoted by Golden Boy and Top Rank Inc. Not surprisingly, De La Hoya said little.

“These pictures are obviously fabricated and I’ve been advised by my attorneys not to comment further,” De La Hoya said on Sept. 24. “Obviously, I’m convinced that this whole mess will be cleared up…”

Speaking of Barrera-Pacquiao, last Saturday’s rematch – Pacquiao won their first fight four years ago via 11th-round technical knockout – was, unfortunately, not the greatest fight we’ll ever see. But that should not astonish any of us. We should have known that there was no way Barrera was going to slug it out for any length of time with Pacquiao. That would have been close to committing suicide for Barrera.

Pacquiao is the most vicious fighter in the game today, and Barrera’s only chance was to box, box and box some more. Give credit to Barrera, though. He did go toe-to-toe with Pacquiao a few times; he just didn’t stay in there very long. The good news is, the 10,112 fans seemed to love the 12-round bout. Especially those rooting for Pacquiao. You have to love the Filipino faithful. They make as much commotion as any fan.

As for Barrera, we can only hope that he is actually going to retire, as he said he would in the post-fight news conference. Let’s face it, boxers un-retire more than any athlete. Sometimes, they don’t even mean it in the first place, as must have been the case with Floyd Mayweather Jr. Barrera might be only 33, but that is considered old when one has been toiling in the lower weights. Sure, a heavyweight can be in his prime at that age, but not a smaller fighter. Certainly not one who has been in the amount of wars Barrera has. This is the perfect time for Barrera to get out of the game. He has his wits, and he has a family that surely would love to see him on a more regular basis.

I have been covering boxing for 14 years, so I go back to when Barrera was making his bones out of the Forum in Inglewood, Calif. It was always such a thrill to watch him work. Barrera began what will surely be a Hall of Fame career 18 years ago in Mexico. He needs to make sure that it ended last Saturday in Las Vegas. …

Alas, there’s another old dude, Evander Holyfield, who Saturday will be trying to almost duplicate what George Foreman did when he won the heavyweight championship at the age of 45 with a 10th-round knockout of Michael Moorer in November 1994.

Holyfield, 44, will take on Sultan Ibragimov – who holds one of the four heavyweight belts – in Russia in an attempt to become five-time heavyweight champion. Holyfield is already the only four-time champion in what used to be boxing’s bread and butter division.

Regardless of what happens in this fight, you have to give Holyfield kudos. He was defeated by Larry Donald in November 2004. It was Holyfield’s third consecutive loss, and it appeared he had finally come to the end of his road at age 42. Twenty-one months later, Holyfield came back, declared himself free of shoulder injuries he said had hampered him and ran off consecutive victories over Jeremy Bates, Fres Oquendo, Vinny Maddalone and Lou Savarese. Oquendo and Savarese were at one time at least close to being world-class fighters. They were not when Holyfield fought and beat them, but they weren’t bums, either. Neither were Bates and Maddalone. Rather, one could say they were decent club fighters.

Bottom line is, Holyfield has somehow put himself in a position to again wear a major title belt. During a recent conference call, he sounded very proud of that.

“I am the only one to be heavyweight champion four times, so that is already there,” Holyfield said. “The way the heavyweight division is right now, it would be an attention-grabber to bring people back to watch the heavyweight division. There happens to be this guy who is 44 years old and he goes in, with skill and not one-punch power, to go in and do what it takes, would bring people out to watch.”

Holyfield went on to say that with a victory over Ibragimov, he would like to unify the division. Holyfield on Saturday will be six days shy of his 45th birthday. If you don’t like this story, then you have no passion.