Redemption over irrelevance

LAS CRUCES, N.M. – And you thought it was flat and dark on a nighttime drive from Phoenix to Tucson? The current view from I-10 East: Indian reservations, 18-wheelers, dust and an unobstructed view of where the sky touches the road. It is not picturesque. Still, you can understand the metaphorical appeal; a boundless expanse that enchants wandering souls.

There’s lots of time to think out here. Lots to think about, too. For boxing fans, Saturday brought a pleasant surprise worth treating. So let us.

All indications are that Floyd “Money” Mayweather will make a welterweight title match with “Sugar” Shane Mosley on May 1 at MGM Grand. Your reaction to this announcement passes for a litmus test. If you smile, shake your head and say “I never thought Mayweather’d do it, but I’m glad he did!” you’re capable of an objective view, despite Mayweather’s shenanigans. If you can’t pass even a smidgeon of begrudging admiration Mayweather’s way, though, you might be everything “Money’s” obnoxious fans say you are.

Chemist, reveal thy composition.

I will by way of a confession and a pledge. The confession? Back in December when 15rounds.com’s intrepid editor Marc Abrams sent a questionnaire that included “Fight you’d most like to see in 2010,” I didn’t choose Pacquiao-Mayweather. That fight won our survey, of course. But I chose Mosley-Mayweather and meant it.

Shane Mosley presents a more complicated challenge to Floyd Mayweather. There’s a good chance that if 2010’s most-demanded fight had happened – if it does yet happen – Mayweather would retreat to the ropes, take away much of the leap in Pacquiao’s left cross, solve Pacquiao’s timing, pop him with short rights, threaten him with a high left elbow, and then hold him till half the television sets in Manila were switched off in disgust. None of that plays with Mosley.

Mosley’s style is not complex as his speed makes it look. But it’s plenty complex. It’s also a style employed by a fighter that has seen every defense there is and knows that, often as not, physicality wins the day. Or as “Mad Men’s” Don Draper thought to put it: “At a certain point seduction is over, and force is actually being requested.”

Mosley understands force. And he will not be surprised by Mayweather’s reflexes. Mayweather, though, might be surprised by Mosley’s fearlessness. However underestimated Mayweather’s strength might be, there’s no chance it’s greater than Antonio Margarito’s. You saw how Mosley manhandled him.

Whatever the fighters’ history over the last decade, today Mosley offers Mayweather his best chance at redemption. But how in the world did a former multi-divisional champ with a 40-0 record come to require redemption? Steadily.

Whenever things first kicked-off and the name Floyd got switched to “Fraud” by a writer or two, doubts really got rolling round the time of the Carlos Baldomir fight. Mayweather bought his way out of a contract with promoter Top Rank and forwent a lucrative offer to fight Margarito – then the WBO welterweight champion – to face Baldomir instead. The fight was dreadful.

Then came the fight to save boxing with Oscar De La Hoya – a made-for-TV event that launched HBO’s “24/7” franchise and revealed Mayweather as thoroughly unlikable. Not unlikable in the professional-wrestling-heel sense so much as in the kid-who-shoplifts-a-candy-bar sense. Mayweather delighted in his own cleverness and originality while stringing together hip-hop clichés. Afterwards he retired. Then he came back. Then he retired.

Boxing fans realized they didn’t miss him. But he came back again anyway. He chose the lightweight champion for his welterweight return. He made no effort to weigh 144 pounds – as Golden Boy Promotions had promised he would – and looked three weight classes larger than Juan Manuel Marquez by the time the opening bell rang. But then Mayweather ran into R.A. the Rugged Man, a Long Island emcee, and got thoroughly outclassed on the radio; Rugged Man ran a check on Money’s credit and found him wanting.

The end of negotiations for a fight with Manny Pacquiao, combined with rumored invitations issued to junior welterweights, were the last confirmation Mayweather’s myriad of critics needed. Mayweather stood on the precipice of irrelevance, three years or so from a VH1 reality series like “Where’s my ‘Money’?”

But an earthquake struck Haiti, and the WBC’s Haitian-American titlist Andre Berto suddenly had to withdraw from his welterweight unification bout with Shane Mosley. And with Mosley and Mayweather sharing the same promoter and both available in the spring, well, redemption presented itself – cornering Mayweather. To his credit, Mayweather has met the challenge.

That brings us to the pledge. If he makes this fight with Mosley at the welterweight limit and beats him, however he does it, I’ll give Mayweather nothing but praise. I praise him today just for agreeing to the fight.

Mosley will turn 39 this year and might well be an old man by the time May 1 arrives. So be it. The assumption we must make is that Mosley is the same beast that went directly through Margarito a year ago. That also must be the assumption under which Mayweather signed, and now prepares, for this fight. Mosley is the sort of relentless body-puncher against whom making a “boring fight” would be a mark of excellence. If Mayweather makes May 1 dull, in other words, he’ll deserve our admiration.

If something happens to preclude this fight, though, scorn will be the order of the day. There likely won’t be press conferences or future “24/7” episodes enough to restore Mayweather’s standing.

The kids’ll forgive you, Money. A smug sound bite, a tour of the Big Boy Mansion, another roll of Benjamins unfurled at an HBO camera, Uncle Roger explaining why you’re better than Sugar Ray Robinson – they’ll get the job done. But remember, kids don’t write history. Adults do. And the adults are now gathered and watching closely. Your ultimate legacy is in the offing.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter.com/bartbarry