Shane Mosley, Sergio Mora Fight to Dubious Draw

9/18/2010 11:55 PM ET By Michael David Smith

Shane Mosleyfought Sergio Morafor 12 mostly uneventful rounds Saturday night in Los Angeles, and the judges ruled the fight a draw, leaving some fans booing and some fans yawning, but very few cheering.

I scored the fight for Mosley, as did everyone on the HBO broadcast team commentating on the bout. How one judge gave it to Mora and another scored it a draw was hard to comprehend, but that's just what happened: Kermit Bayless 115-113 for Sergio Mora, David Denkin had it 116-112 for Mosley, Lou Moret had it 114-114 even for the 12-round draw.

FanHouse's round-by-round tabulator, Lem Satterfield, had it for Mosley, 115-113.

"You know what, I mean, Sergio fought a hard fight. I thought that maybe it would go my way. But a draw, you know, we both fought hard, so what can you say?" said Mosley. "I think that it was a good fight. Sergio is not a big puncher, so he had to box. And that was his main thing was to box, and move around and stuff like that. And I knew what my job was, but it was hard to get at him. I knew that he was moving pretty fast, but what do you say?"

Mosley (46-6-1, 39 knockouts) had hoped that the bout would launch him into another mega fight, this, following May's unanimous decision loss to Floyd Mayweather. But in truth, Mosley, who turned 39 on Sept. 7, looked his age at times against the 29-year-old Mora (22-1-2, six KOs), who, at times, beat the older man to the punch.

"I think that this was a different type of fight. This man is a middleweight [160 pounds] who was coming down to 154. He moved very well. He kept me away and he kept me at a distance," said Mosley. "You know, it would probably be a different fight with somebody who was my size and who was my weight I think that it would have been more of a slugfest, if you will."

Both boxers were tentative in the early going, but Mora moreso. Mora basically just backed away from Mosley for the first couple rounds. By the end of the third round the crowd was booing at the lack of much energy from either fighter.

"Yes, I thought that I won the fight. I thought I did enough to win this decision, but I respected the man way too much. I know that Sugar Shane Mosley is a legend, and he's a great guy, you know," said Mora, who has split bouts with the late Vernon Forrest, who twice defeated Mosley.

"With Vernon Forrest, God rest his soul, I wanted to hurt him. But with Shane, I wanted to win. But I respected him so much, but I thought that I won the fight," said Mora. "I felt that I won this fight by at least two rounds. I think that going 24 rounds with Vernon Forrest and going 12 rounds with Shane Mosley, that says something about my career."

The fourth round featured a little more action and also featured a clash of heads that left Mora with a cut over his right eye. But that didn't seem to light any kind of fire under Mora, who continued in the fifth round to box passively and wait for Mosley to bring the fight to him. HBO announcer Jim Lampley ripped Mora's performance during the fifth round.

"This is pathetic," Lampley said. "This is a pathetic performance in a big-opportunity fight by Sergio Mora. ... If Mora's performance was embarrassing before now, I think it was even worse in this round."

The next couple of rounds featured a little more action, but not a lot: It was still a cautious, tactical, tentative and boring bout, and the fans continued to seem restless and uninterested.

In the late rounds Mora did start to seem more active, as his corner warning him that he was losing the fight appeared to motivate him to go on the offensive. But it was Mosley who was pressing the action, doing more damage with his hands and controlling the fight. Mosley deserved to win.

Instead we got a draw, which Lampley referred to as "atrocious," "a joke," "a travesty" and "an injustice."

Lampley was right. This was a bad deal for Mosley, and a bad deal for boxing.