They opened up the show with recent news about what Shane Mosley is going through, including the steroid talk, the firing of his dad as his trainer, and the recent story about his separation and divorce from his wife Jin, who was his manager. I can’t imagine that helped his training, but I do imagine that getting out there and doing what he does best is probably a great distraction for him.

Sugar Ray Leonard, Sly Stallone, George Lopez, Mark Wahlberg, and Joe Pesci are in attendance. Oscar De La Hoya is in Anaheim at the Affliction show and Larry Merchant joked that they paid him $5 million to help in the promotion and Merchant said that’s how much it would take him to go to “one of those things”. Come on Larry, us MMA fans love boxing too. But it’s not like you’re in the demo my friend.

By the way, I’m all for these fights being on HBO. Last year, they would’ve put this fight on PPV for $50 with a terrible undercard. This year? We get it on HBO and in HD. Things can’t really get better.

At Staples Center in LA, Mosley was booed. Cuba Gooding Jr. and LaDainian Tomlinson were in the ring with Sugar Shane. I’m sure there’s a reason they were there with him. No one called Cuba by the name of Radio by the way.

Someone found an illegal pad in Margarito’s hand wraps according to Merchant and his hands had to have been wrapped three times.

Antonio Margarito vs. Shane Mosley

Round One
Shane is coming out swinging with uppercuts. Margarito looks big. Mosley threw a right hand and followed it up with a swooping left uppercut in which he slipped. Margarito is complaining about head butts already. Mosley is scoring and then getting out of dodge.

Round Two
This crowd is cheering every time Margarito comes close to landing. But Mosley is still busier and landing the better looking punches. Shane is actually the one locking Margarito up so that he can’t get off on the inside. Mosley takes his second round.

Round Three
Margarito landed a nice uppercut and immediately complained about a butt. Mosley is landing some really sharp straight rights. They aren’t doing damage, but they look great. Arnold is sitting right next to Sly by the way. Awesome little slugfest to end the round. This might be one of those fights where Mosley looks better because he’s landing the more impressive punches, but Margarito is slowly but surely landing the harder punches. It might be too early to tell yet, but for three rounds, that’s what it looks like. I think the jab is going to start puffing Mosley’s face up.

Round Four
Margarito has the Eddy Guerrero mullet going on. Shane is throwing the hell out of his right hand and Margarito is just walking through it. It’s scoring though. Mosley tagged him in a great flurry. There’s definitely a difference in hand speed and Margarito hasn’t really caught him yet. They both hit each other with right hands to end the fourth.

Round Five
Lampley just said that Margarito is landing softer punches just to hit him and it definitely looks that way. He hasn’t yet opened it up because even on the inside, Mosley’s beating him to the punch. And he’s definitely looking strong on the inside. Margarito hasn’t been able to muscle him on the inside. Mosley’s also throwing a wide left hook as a counter to Margarito’s misses. So far, Mosley’s pitching a shutout.

Round Six
Shane might’ve hurt Margarito with a right hand that backed Margarito into the ropes. Unless he was playing possum. He landed two more big ones. It was a pretty boring round up until then. Mosley just took another one.

Round Seven
The tape on Mosley’s left glove came loose to start the round. Mosley’s just loading up the right hand. Margarito doesn’t see it coming. He just turned southpaw to land a left hook. This might be Margarito’s best round just based on activity, but Mosley is still landing just as much.

Round Eight
Margarito finally landed a good straight right. He’s starting to open it up a bit more. BHop is part of Golden Boy and he has to sit three rows behind Sly and Arnold. He’s shouting instructions to Mosley whenever he can. This is Margarito’s round so far, but Mosley is smirking as if he’s not even worried. Mosley landed with a huge left hook/right hand combination that rocked Margarito. He landed huge power right hands and Margarito goes down. He got up at nine and staggered towards the ref and I’ve seen fights stopped in these situations. The ref let him go and the bell saved him. So much for it being Margarito’s round.

Round Nine
Some of Margarito’s corner didn’t want to let him back out. Margarito has zero legs right now. Mosley is landing at will. Mosley had him up against the ropes and the ref stepped in about two shots too late. Margarito took two flush and was on his way back down again. Tremendous performance for Mosley. That was awesome.

Winner: Shane Mosley by 9th round TKO

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