Body Shots Keep Mosley Unbeaten

The expectations are so high for Pomona lightweight (Sugar) Shane Mosley that even dominating performances are becoming unacceptable for some people. Mosley won every round before stopping Las Vegas’ Johnny Bryant at 53 seconds of the eighth round Thursday night at the Irvine Marriott before 1,172 restless spectators.

Bryant (9-8-1) was a difficult target because he covered his head throughout the fight. But Mosley’s devastating body attack began to take a toll in the fifth round. The ringside doctor, James Jen-Kin, checked on Bryant at the end of the seventh round, then stopped it when Bryant went down from a digging left uppercut.

“He hit me with a good body shot,” Bryant said. “It was adding up. It didn’t make sense standing there taking any more of them.”

Said Mosley: “When I started on the top, it wasn’t doing the damage, so I said, ‘Let me try going down low.’ When I started hitting him, I could tell it was starting to get to him.”

Afterward, Bryant was grimacing badly as he talked about Mosley’s potential.

“He’s good,” Bryant said. “He’s just a lot better fighter. He throws some sharp punches. He’ll do all right.”

But the crowd wasn’t nearly as impressed. Some of them began leaving before the fight ended.

Mosley, who raised his record to 12-0 with 11 knockouts, wasn’t thrilled with his performance, but he wasn’t disappointed either.

“I felt I did pretty good,” said Mosley, the ninth-rated lightweight in the world by Ring Magazine.

Mosley said he would have been sharper had he not had to lose four pounds three days before the fight.

“I thought we were going to fight at 138, then they told me to get to 134,” said Mosley, who, like Bryant, eventually weighed in at 135.

The featured undercard bout between middleweights Randy Smith of Azusa and Seattle’s Waleeb Underwood turned into a dance contest amid a chorus of boos. Smith (11-1), who tried to press the action, easily won a unanimous decision over the listless Underwood (9-8).

In a lightweight bout, Anaheim’s Joey Martin (12-4) was stopped in the fifth round by a straight left jab from Mark Reels (9-3) of Patterson, N.J.

Bantamweights Jose Gallegos of Acapulco, Mexico, and Johnny Vasquez of Huntington Beach fought for the second time in two months with Gallegos winning his second consecutive majority decision. In the first round, referee Larry Rozadilla threw Vasquez into the ropes as he was attempting to get Vasquez off the fallen Gallegos. Gallegos recovered to win the next three rounds and take the decision.