Fans of Shane Mosley have had little to be excited about lately. The boxing great has turned in a series of increasingly lackluster performances in recent years, culminating in a terribly lopsided 2012 loss to Canelo Alvarez. In fact, you have to go all the way back to 2009 for a Mosley win.
This past weekend, Sugar Shane managed to right the ship - at least a tiny bit. On Saturday, Shane Mosley scored his first win in his last 5 fights, defeating Pablo Cesar Cano by unanimous decision in Mexico (115-113 x 3). As the scores indicate, this was by no means an easy win for Mosley. The 26-3-1 Cano absolutely gave it a go here, pushing Mosley in the opening rounds before the veteran was able to take over later in the fight.
The win marks not only Mosley's first since the Margarito fight in 2009, it's also his first since his very brief retirement in 2012. After the Canelo loss, the then 40 year old Mosley officially retired. It lasted mere months. Not long after, Mosley was on the comback trail, though he was doing so without the guidance of trainer Naazim Richardson, replaced in the Mosley camp by father Jack Mosley.
With his first win in years, his first win after retirement, and his first exciting fight in quite some time, it's tempting to say that Shane Mosley is indeed "back." Golden Boy promoter Richard Schaeffer certainly thinks so, proclaiming it loudly post-fight. And if the promoter says you are back in the title hunt, well, you're back in the title hunt.
So is Shane Mosley actually back? Yes, he is "back" in the sense that, thanks to his name value, he is likely to find himself in higher profile, potential title fights right away. But did the Cano victory show that he is actually "back" as far as his skills go? No. There were slight improvements over the Mosley we saw most recently (particularly the Mosley that plodded his way to a draw against Sergio Mora), but this is clearly still a fighter whose best days are far behind him - nothing in the Cano fight, exciting as it may have been at times, should convince anyone otherwise.
But that's not the real question to be asked. The big question at this point in the career of Shane Mosley is how soon will we hear the retirement talk once again. And as a Shane Mosley fan who was happy to see him win Saturday, my answer: not soon enough.
Check out these Mosley vs. Cano highlights (gifs thanks to our own Zombie Prophet).
Here's some nice defense from both men on display, plus Shane getting inside Cano's guard and cracking him:
Very nice right hand here by Mosley, followed by an uppercut from Cano that just gets cut off:
Mosley, working the distance and finding a home for his stiff jab:
More Mosley offense, including a very nice body shot in the corner:
Finally, here's both men getting wild and Cano ultimately making Mosley pay for it:
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