Last night while watching ESPN Friday Night Fights ESPN expert analysis/commentator Teddy Atlas dropped a bomb of sorts. On national television Atlas suggested that perhaps Shane Mosley’s poor performance against Floyd Mayweather was due in part to the possibility that he was finally fighting without PED’s. Mosley had previously dominated Antonio Margarito using quickness and a very aggressive come forward style. This was all for not against Floyd Mayweather. Shane seemed to have gassed out after the 3rd round against Floyd, his mouth was wide open, and he looked sluggish and slow. Was this all due to the fact that he was finally fighting without having performance enhancing drugs in his system? Or do we need to give Floyd Mayweather the credit here? Atlas suggested on ESPN last night that perhaps it was both. Teddy did give Floyd his props, ” Let’s face it, Floyd Mayweather is pretty darn good. He is slick, and he is extremely talented in that ring.” Atlas then would go on and suggest that there is a very real possibility that Mosley’s performance or lack there of, was due to finally fighting clean, “It’s a fair question” said Atlas, “He’s tested positive before, and he confessed to this in a sworn testimony. He’s put himself into this position to be asked about it.” I for one, being a fan of the sport of boxing hopes that Shane’s accomplishments in the ring were at least somewhat due to his hard work, and his boxing skills and not as a result of steroids. It would be a crying shame if his hall of fame career was due to steroids and not talent. The same questions can be asked of many baseball players. Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, the list goes on. Would any one of these guys have achieved their level of greatness without steroids? You know what sucks? There were a lot of baseball players who played clean, no steroids, and were all passed over by the All Star voters for All Star Game consideration because guys like Sosa and McGuire had these huge steroid enhanced HR and RBI numbers. Many players did not earn the money that they deserved because teams had capped out because of paying steroid using All Stars. Hopefully the same thing is not happening in boxing. I went into Jackson, Mississippi last night and hit up some of the sports bars and got some of the boxing fans thoughts on steroids. I spoke with Jason Keller of Jackson, MS and got his thoughts on Mosley and steroids, “Well it looked pretty strange how in Shane’s last fight he was a killer with wicked speed, and then last Saturday he looked 50 years old. I don’t think Father Time caught up with him that fast. I think the guy was juicing all the way up until Floyd made him take blood tests.” Of course we all heard by now about the lawsuit filed by Manny Pacquiao. The Mayweathers all believe that Manny is taking some sort of PED’s. Manny denies these charges and will have his day in court against the Mayweathers. There are other fighters that support the Mayweather’s claims on Pacquiao and steroids. Former Jr welterweight world champion Paulie Malignaggi also has indirectly suggested that Pacquiao is using something as well. Pacquiao has agreed to take the blood tests but not within 14 days of fight day. I am no expert in this field, but wouldn’t steroids show up in someone’s blood if they used them 14 days out? I give a lot of credit to Atlas for speaking his mind and putting the question out there on national television for all of us to digest.
