George Kimball/America at Large God knows the subject of drugs in sport shouldn't even be controversial, but over the last couple of weeks the ongoing steroids debate has heated up to the point that it has even attracted the interest of the Washington Senators - in this case, the legislators in the nation's capital and not the defunct baseball team.
At this point the outrage of the lawmakers - and hence, that of the public - appears to be focused on the intrusion of steroids into major league baseball.
Few of the senators appear to have given a thought to the possibility that BALCO could bring down half the United States' Olympic team, for instance.
Events in Las Vegas last Saturday night at least suggest that efforts to purge chemical enhancement from other sports may have claimed another victim.
At the Mandalay Bay Events Centre, 2 to 1 underdog Ronald "Winky" Wright utterly dominated Shane Mosley in unifying the world's light-middleweight titles in a performance that raises still more troublesome questions.
Mosley had been the only prominent boxer who turned up on BALCO's client list when federal agents raided the drug lab's offices two months ago.
Subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, he acknowledged having visited BALCO to consult about "nutritional supplements," but denied having used performance-enhancing drugs. There were attempts to exhume the result of the post-fight drug test administered following his victory over Oscar De La Hoya in order to belatedly test it for THG.
Whether Mosley had or had not used steroids in the past, the scrutiny was such that he had to be clean for the Wright fight.
Mosley had passed up a guaranteed $11 million for a third meeting with De La Hoya, whom he had narrowly beaten twice, and accepted $2.1 million to face the Winkster in a title unification bout that was perceived as a far easier fight.
He had already agreed in principle to a $10 million mega-fight against Felix Trinidad this fall, a blockbuster encounter that would have matched De La Hoya's conquerors. (Undaunted, The Golden Boy found another big fight - if he beats German Felix Sturm in June and middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins defeats Robbie Allen on the same Las Vegas card, De La Hoya will challenge Hopkins in September with all four world titles on the line.)
Wright, who has campaigned at 154 pounds throughout his career, brought a record of 46-3 to Saturday night's encounter: Ten years ago in France he was knocked down five times in a loss to then-WBA champion Julio Cesar Vasquez, and half a dozen years ago he was beaten by Harry Simon in a WBO title bout.
His other loss came against Fernando Vargas, who would later test positive for steroids. An awkward lefthander, Winky was widely recognized as the guy no one wanted to fight, if only because, whatever the outcome, it was almost impossible to look good against him.
Mosley's only two losses in a 42-fight career had been the back-to-back decisions he dropped to Vernon Forrest in a pair of welterweight title bouts in 2002, and by beating De La Hoya last year he seemed to have re-established himself as a contender for the mythical "pound-for-pound" title.
The one-sided nature of last weekend's encounter has forced a re-examination of that evaluation.
Wright didn't just beat Mosley, he thoroughly manhandled him. He out-jabbed him, he outboxed him, and he out-punched him at close quarters, and was the aggressor throughout the night.
"I felt like I had a monkey on my back all night. I couldn't do what I wanted to do," said Mosley after the humiliation. "I never felt like I could get off. I was dehydrated from the fourth round on. I had muscle fatigue."
Midway through the bout Mosley had returned to his corner and said something to his trainer Jack Mosley, who also happens to be his father. We don't know to this day exactly what he said, but we could hear Jack's reply.
"Don't say that," ordered the boxer's father. "Don't ever say that."
Whether Mosley wanted to quit remains unlearned.
It could be, of course, that this was just another example of the time-honored boxing apothegm that a good big man should always beat a good little man.
Wright is a natural 154-pounder; Moseley was at his best as a lightweight and welterweight - as, for that matter, was De La Hoya. (And the Wright-Mosley result may well cause punters to re-examine their position on Hopkins-De La Hoya, where the early line has Hopkins a slim 6 to 5 favourite.)
"Winky," sighed Mosley, "showed the world why so many guys wouldn't fight him."
"I felt I was the better overall fighter," said Wright, stating the obvious. "I was stronger than him."
Mosley, should he choose to exercise it, had a rematch clause in his contract.
Among the 9,051 in attendance at the Mandalay Bay for Wright-Mosley, incidentally, was Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger who has been the poster boy for the senatorial steroid inquiry, but if you supposed that he was there to root for his fellow BALCO client, you'd be wrong. Barry was backing Winky in this one.
