Mosley Is Between a Hard Rock and Big Place in the Fight World

LAS VEGAS —  Surely a boxer with as impressive a resume as “Sugar” Shane Mosley deserves better than this--headlining a card in an intimate room with a capacity of about 1,400 that was designed for up-close-and-personal rock concerts.

What about the 20,000-seat multipurpose arenas that dot this city’s landscape like so many silver dollars? A fighter with Mosley’s pugilistic acumen--he was, after all, the Boxing Writers Assn. of America fighter of the year for 1998--would be a bit perturbed with being reduced to playing such a small venue, no?

No.

The way Mosley sees it, he’s happy to finally be headlining a card in Las Vegas, the long-recognized fight capital of the world.

“I haven’t fought in Vegas before, and I can’t understand it because I’ve had all these great fights, Vegas is where all the great fights take place and I just live down the street,” said Mosley, a native of Pomona. “I’m finally getting my due. Now I have a chance to display my talents in this fight.”

That chance comes tonight when he faces Willy Wise in a scheduled 10-round welterweight bout at the Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino as part of HBO’s “Boxing After Dark” series.

Mosley, 28, is 33-0 with 31 knockouts and is making his second appearance as a welterweight. He gave up his International Boxing Federation lightweight title, which he held for 18 months, and jumped two weight classes, from 135 to 147. In his welterweight debut in September, Mosley stopped Wilfredo Rivera with 22 seconds remaining in the 10th and final round at Temecula, Calif. Until that night, Rivera had never been knocked out.

Mosley is ranked second by the IBF, third by the World Boxing Council.

Wise, 32, of Westbury, N.Y., is 24-6-4 with seven knockouts. He is coming off an impressive unanimous-decision victory over Julio Cesar Chavez in October.

“He looked spectacular against Chavez,” Mosley said of Wise. “This is a fight of a lifetime for him, to fight me. I’m very aware of that and know that he’s coming to take me out, to take my zero. But that’s not going happen.”

If he gets by Wise, Mosley is looking at a potential big payday fight with Oscar De La Hoya, who is hoping to reclaim a version of the welterweight title he dropped to Felix Trinidad in September. That is contingent on Trinidad vacating a welterweight belt by moving up to 154 pounds and De La Hoya then winning that welterweight title. A De La Hoya-Mosley welterweight title bout could then be staged at Staples Center in June or July.

“I think that will happen. I’m pretty sure that will happen,” said Mosley, who beat De La Hoya when they were amateurs. “I don’t [look] past anybody, though. I just want to make sure I lay my groundwork, my path where I want to go. And after I get there to the title, or whatever, the door is open for everybody.”

For Mosley, Staples Center would be a long way from the Pond of Anaheim, where he headlined a card in 1995 that drew only 504 paying customers.

Also on the card, which will be tape delayed at 9:45 p.m. on the West Coast: welterweight Vernon Forrest of Augusta, Ga., will fight Vince Phillips of Pensacola, Fla.

Forrest, 28, is 30-0 with 25 knockouts and is ranked No. 4 by the IBF, No. 5 by the WBC and No. 6 by the World Boxing Assn. Phillips, 36, is 40-4 with 29 knockouts and a former IBF junior-welterweight champion.