Boxing Result: Mosley, Mora Fight To A Draw In L.A.

Shane Mosley and Sergio Mora engaged in a light middleweight bout last night at Los Angeles’ Staples Center, producing a 12 round draw in a bout that looked more like a track and field event than a boxing match.

Mora’s strategy entailed running from the 39 year old Mosley and clinching whenever the former multi-weight champion got into range. Mora’s ten year youth advantage allowed him to wear down his opponent in this manner and there was very little action until the later rounds.

When Mosley began to tire by the tenth, Mora started to score well but could not take control of the contest. Mosley got his second wind by the eleventh with some good exchanges resulting.

Mosley became the boss in the final round by the time he finally could get to grips with Mora but it was too late to make a real difference in the scoring, which was announced as a draw with the cards going 114-114 even, 116-112 for Mosley and 115-113 for Mora.

Mosley goes to 46-6-1 (39) while Mora stands at 22-1-2 (6).

The undercard was far more interesting and saw the coming out party of 20 year old Mexican welterweight Saul Alvarez, 34-0-1 (26), who handled the pressure of aging former WBC 147 pound champ Carlos Manuel Baldomir, 45-13-6 (14), enroute to stopping the iron-chinned Argentine for the first time in 16 years at 2:58 of the sixth frame.

Alvarez went up to light middle for the bout, annexing the WBC silver belt, but will likely drop back down to welter for the resumption of his career.

There were more fireworks on tap as former WBO super bantam boss Daniel Ponce De Leon, 40-2 (33), shattered Antonio Escalante, 24-3 (15), at 2:40 of the third to win a WBO featherweight title eliminator.

Light welter Victor Oritz, 28-2-1 (22), dropped Vivian Harris, 29-5-1 (19), three times in the second before knocking out the faded ex-WBA ruler at 0:45 of the third.

The KO train kept rolling right along when Kaliesha West, 13-1-2 (4), rubbed out Angel Gladney, 6-3-1 (5), at 0:59 of the seventh stanza to assume the vacant WBA Women’s bantam crown.