The Battle Within

His soft voice and deliberate speech were a sharp contrast to the roar of jets overhead.

Boxing promoter Cedric Kushner was making a sales pitch in the corner of a hotel restaurant near LAX, and manager/trainer Jack Mosley and his boxing son, Shane, were listening intently.

Before he could finish, however, Kushner was interrupted by a message that he had a fax waiting for him in the lobby. Kushner excused himself, but as he made his way through the hotel, he bumped into Tony Curtis, then the matchmaker at the Forum.

“I see you in the corner over there talking to the Mosleys,” Curtis said. “Shane Mosley is the best unsigned fighter in the world today.”

Looking back on that pivotal moment four years ago, Kushner smiles.

“Never leaving things to chance,” he says, “I decided to pick the fax up later.”

The conversation turned into a relationship both sides desperately needed. Kushner, who had made a fortune as a music promoter by dealing with such groups as the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac, had never handled a boxing superstar. Mosley, despite an unbeaten record and talent that made the sport’s aficionados shake their heads in awe, had never been able to punch his way into the spotlight.

That was all about to change.

Upon signing Mosley, Kushner got him a shot at the title of another of his fighters, International Boxing Federation lightweight champion Philip Holiday. On Aug. 2, 1997, Mosley won a decision over Holiday in Uncasville, Conn., to win his first championship. Mosley went on to defend that title eight times, then moved up two weight divisions to 147 pounds, where he won the World Boxing Council welterweight crown from Oscar De La Hoya on a split decision last June at Staples Center.

For Mosley, who will defend his title Saturday at Caesars Palace against Shannan Taylor, the win over De La Hoya was the biggest of his career, one that was supposed to catapult him into superstardom.

So why aren’t sponsors falling over one another to sign him? Why aren’t fans filling huge arenas to see him? Why aren’t viewers racking up record numbers to watch him?

Boxing is a sport crying for role models. Here, it would appear, is the answer.

Most boxing experts put Mosley in one of the top two positions on the list of best fighters in the world, pound-for-pound, with Felix Trinidad holding the other spot.

Mosley’s ever-present smile and clean-cut looks are attractive to women. His personality, accessibility and honesty are attractive to the media.

His humility is refreshing in a sport where that quality is rarely seen.

During a conference call with reporters, a phone number was given out for a tape of the call.

“Could you repeat those numbers?” said Mosley, who was obviously writing them down.

“Shane,” said his publicist, Norman Horton, “you don’t have to do that. I’ll take care of it.”

“Oh,” said Mosley, refreshingly unaccustomed to having others do things for him. This is a man approaching 30 who lived with his parents in Pomona until three years ago.

This is a man whose personal life is as spotless as his ring record, which stands at 36-0 with 33 knockouts.

This is the anti-Tyson.

So where are the tens of millions in purses that Mike Tyson gets, or the millions in endorsements that come De La Hoya’s way?

Why isn’t Mosley the new Golden Boy?

Ask that question of those around Mosley and they insist it is coming. But while neither side in the partnership that was forged in the shadow of LAX wants to criticize the other in public, there is a noticeable tension in their answers about the progress of Mosley’s career, a feeling that it is perhaps coming too slowly.

Jack Mosley believes in keeping his son’s business in the family, yet he expects Kushner to produce the kind of spectacular results the sport’s most successful promoters--Don King and Bob Arum--have produced for others.

Kushner strongly defends his game plan for Mosley’s ring career but feels the marketing strategy is out of his hands.

Contributing to the tension is the size of the venues for Mosley’s two fights since the blockbuster against De La Hoya. Mosley’s match against Antonio Diaz in November was in a 4,800-seat theater inside New York’s Madison Square Garden and Saturday’s fight will be in a Caesars Palace ballroom that seats 2,800.

The egos of most superstars wouldn’t fit in such tight quarters.

“This is a difficult time for selling seats [to boxing events],” Kushner said. “Boxing tickets in this town have been like napkins. You can pick them up at every table for free. Look at the tickets for Oscar’s next fight [against Arturo Gatti on March 24 at the MGM Grand]. They are going very slow. Everyone knows that.

“The hottest ticket in town is the one you can’t buy.”

With a sellout assured at the small Caesars venue, there are now plans to sell additional seats for a closed-circuit showing.

“At end of the day,” said HBO vice president Kery Davis, “it’s not a bad idea to leave people wanting more. Is it better to put him in a 9,000-seat arena or put him in the theater with standing room only? It’s a difference in philosophy. The game plan is to build him into a hot attraction.”

It’s a game plan Kushner is confident will work.

“Understandably, people always want more,” Kushner said. “They want to earn more and they want to fight in bigger fights. It often takes time. Marvin Hagler waited 15 years to get a title. Sometimes, you are not blessed with high-profile guys to fight. To have a megafight, you have to have two ‘A’ fighters.

“But Shane’s time will come. It will come.”

In Kushner’s defense, he took a fighter who did not have the decided advantage of an Olympic medal with which to launch his pro career, a fighter who was mismanaged, who fought no-names in places like San Bernardino, Pomona and Santa Cruz and catapulted Mosley into a position to get the De La Hoya fight.

De La Hoya-Mosley drew 588,000 pay-per-view buys, highest number of any match last year.

“Shane Mosley beat De La Hoya,” said David Vinturella of Envision, a Los Angeles-based marketing firm specializing in sports, “but he hasn’t sustained the momentum. He didn’t follow it up. He hasn’t fought other people the caliber of De La Hoya.”

Mosley has the advantage of boxing in a time when heavyweights are not a factor.

“No company wants to touch Tyson,” Vinturella said, “and with Lennox Lewis being from England, companies would rather deal with someone from the States.

“Among the non-heavyweights, you had Sugar Ray Leonard, who had great adversaries and style, and De La Hoya, who has style and is good looking, well spoken and has the interest in music. Plus, both had Olympic gold medals to propel their professional careers.

“But Shane Mosley, scandal-free with a good image, coming from California, being close to Vegas, if he can unify his title and fight bigger opponents, he should be a great endorsement candidate.”

Said Horton, “Some hit it big early, some in between, some down the road. There is still more selling to be done on Shane. But I am very confident that, before Shane’s career is over, he will be in an elite status very few reach.”

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Fight Facts

* When: Saturday.

* Where: Las Vegas.

* TV: HBO, 7 p.m.

*

MOSLEY and TAYLOR

29: Age: 28

36-0-0: Record: 28-0-1

33: KOs: 18

91.7%: KO Pct.: 62.1%

197: Total rounds: 153

5.5: Avg. rd. per fight: 5.3