A 12-round professional boxing match lasts 36 minutes. It took Shane Mosley 35 minutes and 59 seconds, but he finally knocked out Ricardo Mayorga in a dramatic, stunning finish that had the Los Angeles crowd on its feet, roaring in approval.

The ending of the fight saw Mosley (45-5, 38 KO) drop Mayorga (29-7, 23 KO) after a powerful flurry of punches. With five seconds left, an unsteady Mayorga was allowed to continue by referee David Mendoza, which I maintain as the right call. If you can, don't let a fighter who has gotten up have a fight taken away from the ringside judges with that little time left. That's why those guys are there.

But instead of letting it get to those judges, Mosley simply sprung in on Mayorga, threw a single left hook, and crushed his foe with wicked ferocity. It was an excellent finish to a fight that was both entertaining and frustrating to watch.

No one will argue this as one of Mosley's greatest or prettiest performances. Though he was ahead 106-102 on my scorecard and would have won 116-110 had Mayorga not been knocked out, only the final moments of the 12th round and a dominant, punishing sixth round truly showed the vast gulf in skill that exists between these two fighters.

Judge Pat Russell had the fight in favor of Mayorga at the time of stoppage, which I find slightly remarkable, especially considering that Mr. Russell is such a fine referee, the man that was brilliant in his handling of current Fight of the Year front-runner Vazquez-Marquez III. By CompuBox numbers, Mosley decimated Mayorga, who was far busier but way less accurate.

Still, I thought Mayorga won his share of rounds, mostly because Mosley occasionally took his foot off the gas pedal and did absolutely nothing. Mayorga is awkward to fight, but no one as good as Shane Mosley should respect Mayorga's unorthodox flailings as much as Shane too frequently did.

The other thing to take into consideration was the weight, in two different ways. First off, Shane has never been a great 154-pound fighter. It's just too high for him. He was at his best at 135 pounds (where I'll maintain he's one of the greatest, ever, period) and was still excellent at 147. But at 154, he's just not been the same guy. He won the contested second fight against Oscar de la Hoya and twice vanquished a fading Fernando Vargas, but he was also beaten two times by Winky Wright and has just never quite looked like the Shane Mosley we know in those fights.

Secondly, both weighed in at 153 1/2 pounds, but Mayorga bounced up to 170 on HBO's unofficial scale, giving him a 10-pound in-ring advantage on Mosley.

Mosley probably has a couple more fights left in the gas tank, and I wouldn't object to any potential 147-pound fight out there. He's a legitimate contender still, and could be trouble for anyone. I'd love to see him fight Paul Williams next year, but he won't. As far as Cotto or Margarito go, he's probably just out of the running there until late next year.

It probably goes without saying that I'd also like to see him fight more than once a year.

Mayorga? Who cares what's next? Though he stood up longer than I thought he would tonight, he was whiny, he clinched a lot, and he never hurt Mosley. He brawled and got Mosley suckered into his sort of fight, where the opponent waits on Mayorga to throw his haymakers, but he was clearly outclassed. Again. There are Mayorga fights I'd watch still, but none that I would put in any other fighter's five fights I'd most like to see them in, if that makes sense.

On the undercard, Andre Berto took home a routine unanimous decision against veteran Steve Forbes, who is apparently contemplating retirement. Hey, there's really nothing out there for Stevie. At 147, he's grossly outmatched against the best fighters. He can't go heavier than that. No way he gets down to 135 anymore, and even if he did, what's he going to do there? 140 is a wasteland, essentially, with little money to be made if you're not fighting Ricky Hatton. If Stevie is comfortable with his lot in life and feels he's made his money and doesn't want to stick around as a gatekeeper, I say happy trails. Not many fighters walk out of the sport healthy and having never been knocked down, let alone out.

On the untelevised portion of the undercard, Luis Collazo returned with an eighth round TKO of Russell Jordan; ex-Klitschko bum of the month challenger Ray Austin won an eight-round decision against pitiful Domonic Jenkins in his first fight in 18 months; and super prospect Daniel Jacobs finally went the distance, improving to 10-0 (9) with a six-round decision win against Emmanuel Gonzalez.

*****

Over in Hamburg, Denis Inkin (34-0, 24 KO) captured the vacant WBA super middleweight title by beating Fulgencio Zuniga (21-3-1, 18 KO) via wide unanimous decision. On the same card, Guillermo Jones (36-3-2, 28 KO) knocked out Firat Arslan (29-4-1, 18 KO) to capture Arslan's WBA cruiserweight title; heavyweight Juan Carlos Gomez beat Vladimir Virchis via unanimous decision; and unbeaten cruiser Alexander Alexeev stayed perfect (16-0, 15 KO) with a third-round TKO of American road warrior Rob Calloway (70-8-2, 56 KO).

We will be here tonight with live, round-by-round coverage, scoring and analysis of the HBO World Championship Boxing card, headlined by Shane Mosley v. Ricardo Mayorga at 154 pounds, and featuring a welterweight title fight between WBC titlist Andre Berto and challenger Steve Forbes.

Coverage will officially start at promptly 10:30pm ET. Join us and talk some fights tonight!

via www.hbo.com

via www.hbo.com

We've talked betting odds before, just for kicks. Just to see how the bookies are thinking.

The couple of times I've done this, I never recommended anyone take my advice.

But Shane Mosley at -800 this weekend against Ricardo Mayorga (+500) is worth putting down some serious coinage. I am so certain that Mosley will trample Mayorga that I'll pay your losses if I'm wrong.*

*Note: I will not actually pay your losses. Who am I, Rockefeller?

For as wide as the odds are, this is just a sure thing, I think. Mosley will have zero trouble with Mayorga. He's being respectful and saying Mayorga's wild tendencies worry him when he's asked about any concerns, but what he means to say is, "There's no way this barroom brawler can hit me with his power shots. My youngest child could see these haymakers coming a half-mile away."

The other HBO fight has Andre Berto at a massive -1100 against Steve Forbes (+600). That's not worth a bet unless you bet on Forbes, who has no chance against Berto any more than he did Oscar de la Hoya. We've gotten to the point where Forbes' crafty competitiveness has gotten him overrated. He is not that good of a fighter. I respect the hell out of him and think he's a great dude. He's the type of boxer that if you saw him in the hotel lobby bar, you'd buy him a drink and not take no for an answer. Great guy. Solid fighter. And presents zero threat to the younger, stronger, faster, bigger Berto. I don't think Andre will be able to knock Forbes out, but I also think he'll have no trouble with the feather-fisted challenger. I would go so far as to expect a clean sweep if there weren't those rounds the winning fighter takes off to reserve the energy tanks.

Mayorga and Forbes have almost no chance tomorrow night. Yes, every fighter has a chance. Mayorga has a puncher's shot and Forbes' savvy might worry some. But talent generally wins out. Mosley and Berto have it in spades.

Ricardo Mayorga is fun.

He talks, he swears, he smokes, he drinks. He sells fights. He acts like he's never been beaten senseless (assuming he has much sense to begin with) by better fighters. He acts like his genuinely notable wins go further than Vernon Forrest. He acts as if he's an unbeaten fighter of impeccable skill.

He's full of it. I'm sure he knows it. But, again, he sells fighs. And money makes the boxing world go 'round.

That's why Sugar Shane Mosley is fighting Ricardo tomorrow night in Los Angeles. Not because Mayorga is the best opponent, and not for any title. He's fighting Mayorga because Mayorga is bankable and shouldn't present much of a test.

Oops, sorry. Is that last part discouraging you from watching?

It shouldn't. Mayorga also makes for exciting fights, even when he gets creamed, as I feel he should tomorrow night. Mosley is the slightly older man at 37, but he's also the remarkably better fighter, a quick-fisted boxer with a superb chin, light on his feet at his advanced age, and simply put, he is a lot better than Mayorga.

But Ricardo will come out swinging. He's already come out talking.

Still, at 29-6 and with memories of the Forrest wins (especially the sensational first victory) fading in favor of memories of manhandlings at the hands of Oscar de la Hoya and Felix Trinidad, how many more times can Mayorga be counted on to sell a fight? At what point does he firmly become labeled a journeyman who happened to have Forrest's number?

Frankly, I think we're at that breaking point. Though his grudge match-style fight at 164 pounds with Fernando Vargas last December turned out to be a hell of a battle, it meant nothing, and everyone knew it. Vargas had clearly been on his last legs for a little while, and never became the fighter many thought he could have been. He was essentially Mayorga, the Mexican version. Talk, talk, talk, and when it came time for the talking to end, he usually wound up taking the short end of the stick.

If Mayorga is dominated by Mosley in a fight that Shane himself has recently described as "not a big fight," then what's really left? 29-7 is not an attractive record at all. At some point, people aren't going to care anymore about Mayorga losing one-sided scraps to good fighters.

This could be it. This could be Mayorga's final chance, not at getting bigger fights, but just staying at the level he's at now. He doesn't have to win, but he has to make a better showing than he did against de la Hoya, for an example. He simply cannot afford to get dominated by Mosley. And there's a very good chance he will be.

Either way, Mosley-Mayorga is intriguing for me as a fan of both guys. I'm a fan of the two men for very different reasons. Combine it with a somewhat interesting welterweight title fight between Andre Berto and Stevie Forbes, and it's a fine two-fight card for HBO.

But a prediction? Mosley within six. It won't be close. Adios, Ricardo?

Source: Associated Press

Oh, man. Mayorga hasn't talked quite as much as usual, but this is some classic stuff:

"I've been in training camp for about three months," he said. "We have enough talent and enough skills to win this fight easily. I would make (my conditioning) equivalent to when I won my first title against Six Hands Lewis."

...

"(Mosley) is going to be fighting with his laundry at home. I'm going to be fighting for a world title," Mayorga said when asked to look beyond this bout.

...

"Obviously, Oscar's been a thorn in my side," Mayorga said. "Oscar's definitely on the hit list. I want to fight De La Hoya. Let him retire fighting a true super welterweight or middleweight. How's he going to retire fighting a featherweight? After I beat up his dad (Mosley), who beat him twice, I want another opportunity."

Mayorga is just ridiculous. He goes on to say that Mosley "no longer has the speed nor the conditioning" that he had before losing twice to Vernon Forrest -- six years ago.

Now, look, is Mosley as fast as he used to be? Nah, but he's still fast. And conditioning? MAYORGA is questioning conditioning?

See, now, this is the kind of moronic trash talking I can get behind. Mayorga is hilarious in his silly B.S., and even when questioning the skills of his opponents, he comes off more as a comedian than anything else.

Man. Mayorga's gonna get smoked this Saturday.

Really, Big Kev's mailbag isn't so bad this week. In fact he's pretty spot-on, I think.

But he did wonder about something, and I think I have some answers. When asked by a reader whether or not Shane Mosley would fight Antonio Margarito if he beat Ricard Mayorga on September 27, Iole said this:

Manny, it’s not IF Mosley will defeat Mayorga. That’s all but a slam dunk. I can’t understand why Mayorga keeps getting these kinds of fights.

What's there to fail to understand?

1. Mayorga makes money. He promotes fights to the best of his ability, talks them up like he's going to take someone's head off, and there remains the remote possibility that he just might. He's bankable.

2. He's easy to beat for a good boxer. We've seen it. Oscar made him look like a total chump, and Forrest deserved the decision in their second fight, even if it was fairly close. Mosley will steamroll Mayorga.

3. Mosley will steamroll Mayorga, and people will watch.

4. Because people like to watch Mayorga.

5. And since he's easy to handle for a top-notch fighter, that means easy payday.

This is hardly the freaking Da Vinci Code.

But to be fair (since again, I think he's solid this week), here's one thing of his I totally agree with, and wish would be said more often:

One of the problems in finding judges is that it’s hard to train them in the pro game. The amateurs use a different (and completely ridiculous) scoring system. It used to be that a judge could do amateur fights and then move up to the pros. That’s no longer an option and now it’s almost on-the-job training. And while I see a lot of scores I disagree with, I don’t think it’s corruption.

Bingo. Judging fights is hard. If you're the type that scores fights while you watch on TV, ask yourself if you've ever watched later and found that you were probably a little off. Maybe you were drunk. Maybe you just weren't 100% in that one. Who knows? But it happens. I know I've done it. God knows I've done it...

Anyway, I'm not saying terrible cards (Hamada's 115-113 Katsidis, Tucker's 120-108 Navarro, those blind mice that judged Casamayor-Santa Cruz, etc.) shouldn't be criticized and looked into. But people aren't fixing fights. The mob isn't controlling boxing. This isn't a pulp novel. Calm down with the conspiracy theories and the corruption.

Ricardo Mayora is boxing's greatest villain, and he's a classic villain at that. Sure, he'll thunder his way through the riff-raff, but generally speaking, give him a real challenge against a top guy, and we can all be pretty sure he's going down. Like Gargamel or Dr. Claw, we know that by the time our half hour is up, the good guy will prevail, and the bad guy will be back to fight another day.

I know I've chided the silly actions of fighters like Bernard Hopkins before, but part of that stems from me thinking B-Hop is too good for all that mess. Mayorga? This is exactly who Ricardo is. On a very limited amount of boxing skill, Mayorga has crafted a long-running, successful career. Just when you think he might be down for the count, he comes back somehow. Spewing personal venom at Oscar de la Hoya got him manhandled by a superior fighter, but he fought Fernando Vargas at a blown-up 164 pounds and sent the Mexican warrior into retirement. Now, he's back to fight Shane Mosley.

He has made promises that he'll take Mosley out in three rounds:

"This is going to be a short fight, like in the amateurs, only three rounds. This will be Shane's permanent return home because the old lady needs a home. ... I'll be the man that night and he'll be my woman...I'm from the country where we only breed men..."

Mosley, predictably, is just laughing Mayorga off. What else would he do? Respond? Get angry? If Mayorga goes after Mosley's wife or kids, as he did with Oscar, then maybe Shane will get mad.

Ricardo is all for show. He's also taken some shots at WBA welterweight titleholder Antonio Margarito:

"Who is he? Who is he? A mariachi guy? A taxi driver? I don't know him."

You have to admire one thing about Mayorga, if nothing else, and if you're sick of hearing him talk, then I can't blame you. But the thing is this: he will fight anyone. He will sell that fight to the best of his ability. And he's so nuts when in the ring that he actually does go ahead and stick his chin out for his opponent to give him their best shot. He did it with Trinidad (which wound up with Tito kicking the crap out of him) and he says he'll do it with Mosley.

Mayorga has made a career out of beating Vernon Forrest two times and being the best s***-talker this business has seen perhaps since Muhammad Ali. The difference? Obviously, Ali usually backed up his boasts. Mayorga rarely does.

But he'll put on a show when Shane beats the hell out of him on September 27, I'm sure of that. If Mayorga beats Mosley, end the Upset of the Year voting, because that would be it.

Andre Berto will make his first defense of the WBC welterweight title against veteran Steve Forbes on September 27, the main undercard bout on the HBO broadcast of Mosley-Mayorga.

I really like Berto because he's got incredible raw talent and he sparks up the future of the 147-pound division. Whether his status as a titleholder is really relevant or not (and I argue it's not, he beat Miki Rodriguez, for God's sake) isn't the question. If the young man keeps developing the way he has these last few years, it soon will be a real deal alphabet soup strap to respect.

Forbes is a nice step-up opponent. He's a tough veteran that has never been on the mat, has never lost by KO or TKO, and has really good boxing skills and ring smarts. He'll give Berto a far stiffer challenge than the last two cans that Andre has wasted. I still can't get over how big of a joke that Michel Trabant fight turned out to be.

I'm not trying to bash Berto (22-0, 19 KO) at all, either. It was Berto's skills, his speed and power and aggressiveness, that made Trabant and Rodriguez look like such chumps, and for a guy with 22 fights, he's been matched fairly well. The one time we saw him backed against a wall to any degree was against Cosme Rivera, who put Berto on the canvas, and Andre recovered to score a wide unanimous decision.

This is really last shot time for Stevie Forbes (33-6, 9 KO). He's still way too small to be fighting at welterweight, and the talk out of his camp was that he might even go back down to 135 pounds after the Oscar de la Hoya loss. Instead, I'd have to guess this chance to dethrone a young, hot titleholder was too good to pass up. Who else was he going to fight?

Forbes has lost three of his last four, but I'll always maintain that he beat Demetrius Hopkins and that D-Hop was given a terribly generous gift that night. Forbes doesn't run, doesn't back down. I have to say, this is a fight I like on paper for a lot of reasons. The younger, stronger, bigger, faster Berto should be the heavy favorite, obviously. But Forbes is the type of slick cat you never can totally count out.

Source: Dan Rafael

From the Dan Rafael story at ESPN.com:

Unable to secure a meaningful opponent to wage a middleweight championship defense against in the fall, Kelly Pavlik will move up in weight and face former light heavyweight champion and middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum told ESPN.com Thursday.

Arum said he and Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer struck a deal Thursday for the nontitle fight, which will take place Oct. 18 on HBO PPV at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J.

Pavlik, 26, will move up 10 pounds and face Hopkins at 170 pounds, five under the light heavyweight limit, Arum said.

"There's a deal, but there are a few details to be tied up," Arum said. "But the fight is happening."

Well, that seems to be that. The fight will have a 50-50 revenue split, Jack Loew is saying all the nice things ("Bernard's great, this is an honor," etc.), and Arum is even admitting this isn't exactly what they wanted, but there's just nothing else out there.

Let's kind of point-counterpoint a good-bad list for this fight.

Good: This moves Mosley-Mayorga from PPV to regular HBO, and changes its date to Sept. 27. After two straight PPV weekends, it'll feel nice to not pay 50 bucks to watch Mosley wreck up Mayorga without breaking a sweat. Seriously, they thought they were going to charge us cash for this mismatch.

Bad: Seriously, they're charging us cash for a Bernard Hopkins fight. What is the last Bernard Hopkins fight that you wouldn't have minded paying money for? Hopkins-Tito? If you had paid 50 bucks for his April fight with Joe Calzaghe, wouldn't you have been disgusted with yourself? Bernard is great. He's also a butt fugly fighter with a dreadfully dull style.

Good: More attention for the 26-year old Pavlik, arguably the greatest hope for American boxing to achieve a new mainstream sort of star with the likes of Oscar and Floyd moving on. It is a major fight, perhaps the biggest of his career.

Bad: There's a real good chance Bernard Hopkins puts a dent in Pavlik's record. B-Hop can beat anyone. He won't knock Pavlik out, but as good of a puncher as Kelly is, I don't think he's knocking Bernard out, either. That means 12 rounds, and any Bernard Hopkins fight that goes 12 rounds can be won by Bernard Hopkins.

Good: The fight being made is a decent sign that we aren't yet going to enter another Top Rank-Golden Boy Cold War, as some had feared lately.

Bad: This is the best fight we get out of the Top Rank-Golden Boy ceasefire this year? Past Pacquiao-Marquez II, anyway.

Let's think about this fight, too. 43-year old Bernard Hopkins against 26-year old Kelly Pavlik.

The best thing that can happen -- for Pavlik, for boxing, for the fans -- is Kelly Pavlik knocking Hopkins out and sending him into retirement. As a fan, I don't hate Bernard Hopkins. I have the utmost respect for his talent, for his career, and for his toughness.

But it's guys like the 43-year old Hopkins that have been construction workers on the road that has led this sport to where it is. For years now, Bernard has maintained his status as an excellent fighter, a Hall of Famer-to-be, and a shrewd businessman. He's also rarely been worth the money or even time it took to watch his fights.

Bernard, because of the way he fights, is one of those guys I would never suggest a casual fan or slightly interested observer watch. And I'm not someone that thinks only slugfests or brawls are good for those fans. I've had people watch Mayweather and they're amazed by his pure speed and the way he moves. So it's not that. It's that what Bernard does isn't obvious. And it's certainly not exciting.

With the way Hopkins tired against Calzaghe, huffing and puffing his way through the last four rounds or so, it might be in Pavlik's best interest to come out and fight Bernard fairly hard for a while, and then turn up the heat and test what the old man has left in his legs and lungs. I'm betting -- because he's 43 years old -- that it's not enough.

But you know what will matter to Bernard? This fight is more money for the bank account. Once again, he's landed the big fight. Whether the paying public is interested will be another story.