Forget civil; give him some unrest

NEW YORK -- They held a boxing news conference here last week, and a rash of civility broke out. Can the Apocalypse be far behind?

When it was over, they called the two fighters, Miguel Cotto and Shane Mosley, to the front of the stage and Cotto presented Mosley with a birthday cake. It was square and had a cute little boxing ring on top. Then Cotto put his arm around Mosley and they posed for pictures like two guys about to be roommates. No chin-to-chin stares. No snarls. Just smiles and happy chat.

Mosley was turning 36 and his sport, at this moment, was turning upside down.

Earlier, promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank told the gathered media and hangers-on how proud he was of his fighters and the people onstage who had spoken, how well-behaved they’d all been. And he prattled on about how nice it was to work with Oscar De La Hoya and Richard Schaefer, who run Golden Boy Promotions and who, until a few months ago, were embroiled in a nasty lawsuit with Arum.

In the good old days, a newspaperman could call Top Rank and get angry rips about Golden Boy, and vice versa. Now, they posed for pictures together and used words such as “teamwork” and “cordiality.” It was a newspaperman’s nightmare.

Arum even got in a slick political plug, as if he thought maybe Ron Brownstein or Tim Russert were in the audience. No way. The sport they cover is much nastier than boxing.

“I have a dream,” Arum said, “that two or three years from now, Miguel Cotto [his fighter, of course] will be invited to the White House and the President will be there to greet him, and she will give him an award. . . . “

There were, of course, still some of the things that keep us coming to these events. Boxing has more news conferences than baseball has steroid users, or the NFL has sideline video cameras. It is the sport of the big sell, which almost always translates to many pre-fight exaggerations, which almost always translates to $49.95 pay-per-view buys.

Until the birthday cake and Arum’s ode to civility, this gathering was just fine.

It was in a theater connected to Madison Square Garden, and the place was dark and dingy and your shoes stuck to the floor. This was good. This was boxing.

Then there was the usual parade of speakers, always including the TV guy from the sponsoring cable network who talks about how great the fighters are and how this is a match made in heaven and how the venue -- fill in the blank: any Las Vegas hotel, Staples Center, Madison Square Garden -- is the only real spot to hold something this thrilling and important. He usually gets around to mentioning $49.95.

There are also the fighters and their entourages, all speaking bravado with bad grammar. This is usually when one fighter calls out the other, or his trainer, and then there is a fake melee on the stage.

This time, with everybody making nice, a good fake melee would have been preferable.

Among the speakers was current boxing star Bernard Hopkins, who apparently is on the Golden Boy payroll to show up for such things. Hopkins, boxing’s answer to Petros Papadakis, spoke on the greatness of Madison Square Garden, the 9/11 attacks, Felix Trinidad, fighters who fold under pressure, Ultimate Fighting Championship, the sacred nature of the nickname “Sugar” for a boxer and, we are pretty sure, the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and the gross national product.

Our purpose, other than to experience the oratory of Hopkins, was to interview Mosley, a decent guy whose career we’ve documented before. When he fights Cotto on Nov. 10, it will be his 50th fight, including one no contest. He has been a world champion four times and made his mark by twice beating De La Hoya, now his promoter and good friend.

Mosley lives in La Verne and fights out of Pomona. His dad, Jack, trains him and, for the most part now, his wife Jin manages his business. She is feisty and fun, and is one of seven living people who can talk T.J. Simers down off his high horse. The other six are state troopers.

We worry about Mosley letting his career go on too long, but he still seems fine, bright, with it. He says that, after a win over Cotto, the ideal next step would be a match against Floyd Mayweather Jr. When we suggest that might be a good stopping point, he slaps his hands together, clenches his fist and says, “No quit. Never.”

So we worry some more, and wander out to listen to all the hype about how “Cotto can hurt people” and how “Cotto starts by working on his opponent’s hips and then goes to the shoulders and . . .” Mosley talks about how he wants this to go about five or six rounds before he finishes it because he “wants the fans to get their money’s worth.”

As more post-birthday-cake time passes, more hype and nonsense fly around and it is starting to feel a lot more like a boxing gathering. This fight is called “Fast and Furious.” We are still waiting for the first “Slow and Sluggish.”

Did we mention the pay-per-view will be $49.95?

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.