BERT SUGAR: POST-FIGHT ANALYSIS

July 17, 2006 - by Bert Sugar

A good controversy is to boxing what garlic is to a salad, it enlivens it. And last Saturday's Sugar Shane Mosley-Fernando Vargas fight was enlivened by the biggest controversy of what was to be used between rounds since Panama Lewis asked for the bottle "I mixed during the Aaron Pryor-Alexis Arguello fight some 20 year ago."

This time round the ingredient was an electrolyte-replacement drink called Gatorade. Seems the Nevada State Athletic Commission earlier in the week had issued a set of rules devoted to protecting fighters, one of which dealt with the potential dehydration of fighters during bouts. And then, in their ultimate non-wisdom, the Commission selectively allowed the Vargas camp to use Gatorade during the fight inasmuch as Vargas had trained on the drink. However, the Mosley camp appealed the Commission's decision, and won a temporary restraining order preventing Vargas' corner from using the liquid.

As it turned out it was all a tempest in a Gatorade bottle. For nothing, short of a trip to Lourdes, could have helped Fernando in this the rematch of their February fight--which ended in the 10th when Vargas, sporting a grotesquely-swollen left eye and looking like an understudy in "The Elephant Man," was stopped because of his inability to see Mosley's incoming right hands.

This time, with two eyes, Vargas couldn't see Mosley's rights nor his final left hook, one which dumped Vargas on the seat of his trunks at about the two -minute mark of the sixth. In fact, prior to that dynamite-laden left, Vargas had not only not won a round, he hadn't won one minute of any round, his three speeds having been slow, slower and "fugadaahboutit" as Mosley outsped, outpunched and outmanuvered the once "Ferocious" Fernando who looked strangely lethargic. (During the fight, Pernell Whitaker, one of those in Vargas' camp, keep hollering, "go to the double jab!" There was a single jab?)

The fight itself was like the watering of last year's crops as Mosley returned to the form that had carried him to 32 wins and 30 knockouts as a lightweight, his combinations working overtime and his right hands over the top of Vargas' attempts at a jab scoring time and again. As Vargas attempted to defend against the Mosley right. Mosley, after throwing a jab in Vargas' direction, set his feet and delivered a picture-perfect left hook, right to the point of Vargas' jaw. Down went Vargas. Struggling to get up, he finally made it to his feet before referee Kenny Bayless had counted the fatal "ten." The fight continued, but not for long, as Mosley threw seven unanswered punches to the head of the dazed Vargas--including two "thank-you-maam's "even while Bayless was trying to get between the two to halt the bout.

The ending at 2:38 of the sixth signaled a rejuvenation of Mosley's career as a marquee fighter, one who can now pencil in on his dance card the name of Floyd Mayweather Jr. for a fight, maybe sometime next year. And for Fernando Vargas? His once-brightly lit career seems to be at an end, his struggles to make weight at 154 meaning he has nowhere to go but up to middleweight at 160. And then, who knows?

But for now, it seems that Gatorade and its use was all a croc. Bottles or no bottles in the corner, the fight's the thing. And for that, there was no controversy, it was all Mosley.