By David Mayo, The Grand Rapids Press
Jack Mosley was there from the beginning for the boy Shane Mosley. Such is the nature of fatherhood.
Jack Mosley also was there from the beginning for for the fighter Shane Mosley, a distinctly different dynamic whenever the line between father and trainer blurs in combat sport. He remembers how Shane whipped much older boys from the start. He remembers winning 2000 Trainer of the Year honors for guiding his son to the first of two wins over Oscar De La Hoya.
And he remembers getting fired, twice, when the son deemed his work ethic to be slipping.
The upcoming Floyd Mayweather-Shane Mosley welterweight blockbuster offers bountiful promise inside the ropes and more than a little familial intrigue outside them, with both men trained from childhood by fathers who no longer serve in those capacities.
For now, Floyd Mayweather Sr. is in his son’s camp regularly after years of personal estrangement.
But Jack Mosley hasn’t seen a single training session since his son set up camp in Big Bear City, Calif., under the tutelage of Naazim Richardson, whom he is reluctant to credit for any development of Shane Mosley after their one fight together.
“Shane's already been trained,” Jack Mosley said. “Shane already knows how to fight. I trained him from age eight up until now, and that's 30 years. So if he doesn't know how to fight now, he never will. I don't think anybody could train him how to fight any different."
The paternal trainer and fighting son form one of the most combustible relationships in sports, with the Mayweathers topping the charts, though hardly alone among elite pairings of this era.
In addition to the Mosleys, Roy Jones Jr. was trained by his father before dismissing him early in his pro career, only to bring him back as assistant trainer before a 2006 loss to Antonio Tarver.
After that fight, Jones Jr. complained that his father interfered with head trainer Alton Merkerson’s instructions, and promptly dismissed him again.
“It just ended up being more trouble than it was worth to have him there,” Jones Jr. said in a 2008 interview with The Press.
Not all such relationships between fail. Felix Trinidad Jr. was trained throughout his career by his father, who earned Trainer of the Year and Manager of the Year awards.
Grand Rapids also saw the gamut of father-son boxing relationships long before the Mayweathers: Tony Tucker dismissed Bob Tucker as manager and trainer amid a convoluted web of contractual relationships which gave away enormous chunks of the heavyweight’s unification payday to fight Mike Tyson in 1987, while Buster Mathis Sr. remained professionally linked to his son right up until his death just months before Mathis Jr. fought Tyson in 1995.
The Mayweather fight will be Shane Mosley’s fifth with a trainer other than his father.
Jack Mosley remembers his eight-year-old son whipping experienced 10- and 11-year-olds from the first time he laced up gloves, and said he “wanted to know everything, absorbed everything, to be the best."
But Jack Mosley’s grasp of his son’s unique energy began several years earlier.
"When he was in nursery school, we had to get him a tricycle -- a Big Wheel, they called it -- because when all the other kids were taking naps, Shane was never tired,” he said. “So they asked for us to bring in a tricycle, or a Big Wheel, so he could play while they rested.
"I remember when we first started training, I thought 'Well, this boxing is going to wear him out.' It never did. To this day, it never does."
Jack Mosley, 65, is “still hitting the bag, jumping rope, doing all kinds of things,” and said his 91-year-old father still gets around well.
So when people bring up that Shane Mosley is 38, five years older than Mayweather, the father dismisses it.
“That's just a number right now -- for the Mosleys, anyway,” Jack Mosley said. “Now, some other bloodline, it might be something bad for them. But our bloodline, we're living for a long, long time and doing a lot of good stuff."
Jack Mosley worked his son’s first 40 fights, resulting in a 36-3 record and one no contest, before he was fired after the first of two losses to Winky Wright in 2004.
John David Jackson trained Shane Mosley for three fights, including the second loss to Wright and a key victory over Fernando Vargas in 2006, but had a conflict for the Vargas rematch that same year.
Jack Mosley was rehired, staying on four fights -- including wins over Vargas and Ricardo Mayorga, and a loss to Miguel Cotto -- until he was dismissed again, and replaced by Richardson, before Shane Mosley’s most recent bout, a knockout win over Antonio Margarito 15 months ago.
Jack Mosley said he is confident his son can win fights without anyone in the corner, and is not likely to give Richardson much credit in the event of an upset next week.
“We’ve been having a strategy to fight Floyd since Floyd’s been boxing,” he said.
He said he knows he is a great trainer, regardless who works his son’s corner.
“If he asked me to train him, would I train him again?” he said. “Yes, of course, I would do whatever my son wants me to do to help him in his career. So that's where I'm at with it. Right now, I'm in a father's role. And I'll support him as his father."
E-mail David Mayo: dmayo@grpress.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/David_Mayo
Source: mlive.com
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