It doesn’t appear the relationship between “Sugar” Shane Mosley and Golden Boy Promotions will be mended any time soon. Mosley walked away from Golden Boy recently so he could pursue a fight with Manny Pacquiao, which he successfully secured for May 7 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
In Mosley’s mind, had he continued to fight for Golden Boy, he would likely not have been able to get the fight because of the ongoing feud Oscar De La Hoya’s company has with Bob Arum and his Top Rank Inc., which promotes Pacquiao.
Not only that, Mosley believes that Golden Boy wanted Juan Manuel Marquez to get a third fight with Pacquiao and that De La Hoya and his CEO, Richard Schaefer, didn’t show any loyalty to a fighter – meaning Mosley – who was also a partner in Golden Boy.
“I think that is what is angering me more, that they wanted to have Juan Manuel Marquez have the fight,” Mosley said. “I didn’t realize it at the time, that the real focus was on Juan Manuel Marquez.”
Mosley said that left a “bad taste” in his mouth. It became more sour when he saw that Golden Boy had begun inviting Mosley’s soon-to-be ex-wife, Jin, to some of their recent cards.
“It seems like it was all a conspiracy,” Mosley said. “The whole thing stinks. Now that I’m not in the picture, she is best friends with (matchmaker) Eric Gomez and Golden Boy, hanging out and going to the fights. And I’m like, ‘Wow.'”
Mosley said at this point he just wants to put it all behind him.
“I’m not going to cry over spilled milk,” he said. “What’s done is done. I want to move forward with my boxing career and be part of boxing like I always wanted to be.”
Mosley said he will soon begin promoting fighters under his “Sugar” Shane Mosley Promotions banner.
“And I will be signing fighters,” Mosley said. “That is something that is going to happen in the near future.”
Mosley said he still has one bit of business left with Golden Boy. He said De La Hoya’s company recently sent him a check for $1,000 meant to buy him out for the holdings he still has in De La Hoya’s company.
“The way the contract is written with being a partner, it is kind of one-sided, if you will,” said Mosley, who said he will likely be taking Golden Boy to court in this matter.
“They sent me a check for a thousand dollars saying that I sold back my percentage of the company, to my divorce attorney,” Mosley said. “We sent it back the same day.”
Schaefer was reached by telephone Monday for a reaction. He sounded disgusted with the whole thing.
“This is exactly the kind of BS I don’t want to get involved in,” Schaefer said. “The fact is he went out there and now he is no longer part of Golden Boy and he is doing his own thing with ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley Promotions. He is not under contract to us and that is what he wanted to do to get the Pacquiao fight.
“That was his decision and that was what he did. Life goes on and one doesn’t need to start pointing fingers. It is what it is. He is no longer part of Golden Boy. It was his decision, it wasn’t my decision.”
Schaefer was asked about the alleged $1,000 check sent Mosley meant to buy him out of his partnership.
“He knows what the contract is and what it says,” Schaefer said, “and I’m not going to make any comments in the media about contracts.”
Schaefer scoffed when asked about Golden Boy’s relationship with Jin Mosley.
“Anybody can go to fights,” Schaefer said. “I’m not going to get into a back and forth with Shane Mosley about these things.”
Schaefer said he was more than proud of what he accomplished for Mosley during his five years with the company.
“I can hold my head high,” he said. “If he decides he wants to go and talk s**t about me and Golden Boy, then let him go and do that. What goes around, comes around.”
Does His Recent Work Merit This Fight?
One of the big beefs experts have with Mosley-Pacquiao is that Mosley didn’t do anything recent to have earned such a big fight against boxing’s most popular figure. Mosley was dominated by Floyd Mayweather Jr. in May and could only earn a draw against Sergio Mora in September.
But Mosley believes that his time in the game and all his accomplishments should go a long way.
“Yeah, I think I deserve this fight,” he said. “I’ve been fighting for a long time, I’ve been on top of the circuit for a long time. I definitely deserve a mega fight.”
Ramirez Not Upset With Change
When it was announced recently that Ronnie Shields was going to be brought in to co-train heavyweight contender Chris Arreola, one had to wonder what Henry Ramirez thought about it. Ramirez has trained Arreola for the past nine years.
Well, BoxingScene.com spoke with Ramirez on Wednesday afternoon, just 15 minutes before Arreola was to have his first training session with Shields in Houston; Arreola is scheduled to take on Joey Abell (27-4, 26 KOs) on Jan. 28 at Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, Calif.
Ramirez demonstrated a lot of class during a telephone interview, but he was also very candid. He said he tried many things to try and get the best out of Arreola, from switching Southern California training camp sites numerous times to hiring strength and conditioning coach Darryl Hudson.
“It was with limited success,” said Ramirez, who said he will work as co-trainer but Shields will be in control. “It was time to try something different, bring in a different voice. As his longtime trainer, I thought it was time for me to take a step back.”
Ramirez said the idea came from Arreola.
“The trainer is always the last to know,” Ramirez said. “But I didn’t resist. If he wasn’t going to commit to training at home, and maybe if we had hit a wall, I had already been kicking it around in my head. So it was no surprise. It was something I had already been pondering myself.”
Ramirez and Arreola are also good friends, which could make the transition easier. Asked if he was upset at all of this, Ramirez said he absolutely is not.
“No,” he said. “I’ll be honest, I’m not the problem. I feel that I have never not put 100 percent into this. I’ve been training Chris for nine years and it has to come from him.”
Ramirez said both he and Hudson were met with resistance from Arreola, whose poor training camp habits as well as between-fight pig-out sessions have been well-chronicled.
“The change is going to have to come from Chris, and only Chris,” Ramirez said.
Arreola, 29, of Riverside, Calif., is 29-2 with 25 knockouts. He had a shot at Vitali Klitschko’s championship, but was stopped after 10 rounds in September 2009 in Los Angeles. His other loss came this past April via majority decision to Tomasz Adamek in Ontario, Calif. He won a wide decision over Manuel Quezada in August in Ontario, but Quezada is not the world-class fighter his and Arreola’s promoter, Dan Goossen, portrayed him to be ahead of that bout.
The last time Arreola – who is 6-foot-4 – came in at a good weight was when he weighed 239 pounds for Chazz Witherspoon in June 2008. In seven fights since, he has not been under 250 and has been as high as 263. In that mode, he is flabby and slow.
The way Ramirez sees it, bringing in Shields was a move that almost had to be made.
“At the end of the day, if this doesn’t work, at least we could say we tried everything,” Ramirez said, “that we left no stone unturned to get him back to where he could be and beyond that, to redeem himself in a lot of people’s eyes and, more importantly, probably in his eyes.”
Ramirez said he had his first meeting with Shields on Wednesday.
“There is a good line of communication between him and I,” Ramirez said, “and we just want to see if we can help Chris reach his potential.”
‘Ghost’ More Friendly This Time
Kelly Pavlik this week was discharged from the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif. It was his second stint in rehabilitation for treatment of alcohol abuse.
His manager, Cameron Dunkin, is optimistic that Pavlik is seeing things a bit differently this time around. He said he believes Pavlik is finally starting to realize he has an issue with alcohol.
“Until you admit it, you’re dead,” said Dunkin, who said he had a son who dealt with substance abuse for several years. “Is he finally starting to say, ‘I have a problem.’ I don’t know. But it does sound like he has a better attitude than the last time. The last time he was pissed, saying, ‘These people don’t know anything.’ This time I think we are headed in the right direction. He is much more calm this time.”
Dunkin said Pavlik was told during his first rehab stint that he had the liver of someone in his 50s. He said doctors told him if he continued at his pace, he could die an early death.
Dunkin said Pavlik, 28, was drinking heavily.
“He doesn’t just drink, he passes out, he doesn’t know what day it is,” Dunkin said.
Pavlik was scheduled to be released Tuesday, but was discharged a day early on Monday. Dunkin said when the former middleweight champion returned home to Youngstown, Ohio, he received a nice welcome.
“He was already home last night and he went to dinner,” Dunkin said Tuesday night. “A bunch of people were supporting him and wishing him well. He worked out (Tuesday) and he went to the YMCA where he lifts and swims and everybody came up to him. That made him feel really good.”
Dunkin said Pavlik has been sober two months.
Bantamweight Tournament
Schaefer said he continues to work on solidifying the date and site for the Showtime Bantamweight Tournament championship fight between Abner Mares and Joseph Agbeko.
Schaefer said that hopefully it will take place in Los Angeles and that everything could be settled “within the next few days.”
Mares, of Hawaiian Gardens (southeast of Los Angeles), won a split-decision over Vic Darchinyan on Dec. 11 in Tacoma, Wash. On that same card, Agbeko got revenge on Yonnhy Perez by winning a unanimous decision as well as Perez’s world championship belt. Perez had taken the title from Agbeko with a unanimous decision in October 2009 in Las Vegas.
As per the tournament setup, Perez and Darchinyan will fight each other in a consolation bout that same night. Perez, 31, of Colombia, is in his homeland but is expected back in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., in February to begin training for Darchinyan.
“It’s a big fight for Yonnhy and he has to prove himself all over again,” said Alex Camponovo, general manager of Thompson Boxing Promotions, which co-promotes Perez.
Robert Morales covers boxing for the Los Angeles Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram, and BoxingScene.com.
