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Mosley owns WBC, WBA titles

Shane Mosley falls away from a right from Oscar De La Hoya in the eighth round of their WBC/WBA super welterweight championship bout in Las Vegas, Saturday. PHOTO: AP

Sugar Shane Mosley was even sweeter the second time around.

Mosley came on in the late rounds again Saturday night to beat Oscar De La Hoya for the second time in three years, winning a close but unanimous decision to take the WBC and WBA 69.3kg titles.

De La Hoya said he planned to hire lawyers on Monday to investigate the decision.

"I'm not doing this because I'm a sore loser," De La Hoya said. "I'm doing this for the sport of boxing."

But Marc Ratner, director of the Nevada Athletic Commission, said the result wasn't out of line.

"There's nothing to protest," Ratner said. "It was a judges decision."

De La Hoya was leading on two scorecards and even on a third midway through the fight, but Mosley won the last five rounds on two cards and the last four on a third.

"It happened in the [Felix] Trinidad fight and it happened here," De La Hoya said. "I thought I won the fight. I didn't even think it was close."

All three judges did, though, scoring it 115-113 for Mosley. AP had Mosley winning 116-113.

The fight may have meant far more than a few gaudy belts for De La Hoya. He vowed before the bout to retire if he lost again to Mosley, who took a split decision from De La Hoya in June 2000.

Just like the first fight three years ago, Mosley was fresher and faster in the later rounds, while De La Hoya looked weary and tried to win rounds by fighting in flurries in the final seconds.

The fight before a sellout crowd of 16,268 at the MGM Grand Hotel was billed as redemption for De La Hoya, who lost to Mosley when both were young amateurs and again when they met as pros.

But it turned more into vindication for Mosley, whose career hit the skids when he lost twice to Vernon Forrest and who hadn't won a fight in more than two years.

"I thought I won by one or two rounds," Mosley said. "He gave me a lot of movement. I knew I hurt him. He never hurt me."

Mosley was the aggressor throughout the fight, though he pressed the action only in spurts. By the late rounds, though, he was putting on more pressure, and the two fighters went toe-to-toe in a hotly paced final round before the bell rang and they hugged like two warriors who had given their all.

De La Hoya was guaranteed US$17 million, though he agreed to pay Mosley US$500,000 of that if he lost. By winning, Mosley pocketed US$5 million.

The money, though, wasn't De La Hoya's biggest motivation. He desperately wanted to avenge one of only two defeats in a remarkable career in which he has won titles in five weight classes and earned some US$150 million in the ring.

By the 12th round, that desperation showed through as De La Hoya came out and the two met in the center of the ring and threw punches almost nonstop for the first minute.

"We were never concerned in the corner," De La Hoya's trainer, Floyd Mayweather, said. "We never even thought of losing. It never crossed our minds."

Punch stats showed De La Hoya landed 221 punches to 127 for Mosley.

"I felt such overwhelming power throughout the fight," Mosley said.
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