Brown’s Survival Tactics Don’t Help Against Mosley

What would you expect from a guy who trained for Saturday night’s main event at the Fantasy Springs Casino by wrestling alligators and getting hit in the head with coconuts?

Wrestlemania, what else?

Having spent several weeks in a wooded area near Atlantic City, N.J., preparing to challenge International Boxing Federation lightweight champion Shane Mosley, John Brown used much of what he had learned in survival training--holding, wrestling and tackling.

But ultimately, style and punching power won out as Mosley scored an eighth-round TKO to improve his record to 32-0 with 30 knockouts in front of an announced crowd of 2,700. Brown is 19-6 with 10 knockouts.

In the more conventionally fought semi-main event, Angel Manfredy won a unanimous decision over Ivan Robinson in their 10-round lightweight bout.

“He’s short,” the 5-foot-9 Mosley said of the 5-2 Brown, “and he dropped down even further. It was hard to go to the body the way I like to. He held me and I couldn’t throw my shots. I could not fight the way I want to. I wanted to be explosive.

“Finally I bent my knees and the shots came.”

At the end of the eighth round, battered by a series of right hands and a strong left hook from Mosley, Brown was dazed at the bell.

So dazed, he first started to go to Mosley’s corner.

So dazed, he next started toward a neutral corner.

Finally, Brown made it back to his own corner where Dr. Paul Wallace decided that the Atlantic City fighter had had enough.

“It was so hard to go inside on him,” Brown said, “but I had my moments. I’ll be back.”

If so, he may not find Mosley. The 135-pound champion is talking about moving up to 140 pounds.

Even Eugenia Williams couldn’t have helped Robinson on Saturday night.

Robinson has been linked to Williams, the judge being investigated for her questionable scoring of last month’s Evander Holyfield-Lennox Lewis fight, through a series of phone calls to her house--calls Robinson says were made to the judge’s son and daughter, with whom he is friendly.

But there was no controversy in Saturday night’s judging. Manfredy nullified the height and reach advantage of Robinson, burrowed his way inside and stayed there all night, alternating effective, crisp combos with devastating body shots.

Robinson was unable to hold off charge after charge by Manfredy, the body shots to the kidney area seeming to take their toll as the fight wore on.

When it was over, judge Fritz Werner called it a shutout, giving Manfredy all 10 rounds and a 100-90 victory. The other two judges, Marty Denkin and Lou Filippo, had it only one round closer, giving Manfredy the decision, 99-91.

Although neither fighter went down, Robinson was staggered by a body shot in ninth round that seemed to take much of the remaining resistance out of him.

This was a case of two men meeting at the crossroads of their careers. The stock of Manfredy (27-3-1, 21 knockouts) had soared in January 1998 when he scored an eighth-round TKO over Arturo Gatti.

But that stock dropped last December when Floyd Mayweather stopped Manfredy in the second round.

Now, with an impressive victory over a respected opponent, Manfredy is back on the upswing.

Promoter Cedric Kushner refers to the man who wears a devil’s mask into the ring and has a body marked by tattoos as the “Dennis Rodman of boxing.”

But while the curtain appears to have fallen on Rodman’s act, Manfredy is back on center stage. One possible opponent for him is Mosley, if the IBF champion can be persuaded to stay at 135 pounds for one more fight.

The future doesn’t appear as bright for the 28-year-old Robinson, who also had boosted his career at the expense of Gatti, a loser at the hands of Robinson twice in 1998.

“I’m one of the best,” Robinson (27-3, 10 knockouts) insisted after the fight. “I just didn’t prove that tonight. . . . Some other guys would have quit.

“Reporters are going to tell me I’m washed up. They told me that once before [when he lost to Israel Cardona in 1997] and I came back.”