SHANE MOSLEY EXPLAINS WHY ANTHONY MUNDINE FIGHT FELL THROUGH: "IT WAS BOOTLEG...WE WERE ABOUT TO GET STIFFED"
By Ben Thompson | October 23, 2013
"What happened was when I went out there, they were supposed to give me $700,000 before I entered the ring 10 days before the fight. So Joe, J [Prince] and Josh [Dublin] was trying to get at him [Vlad Wharton] and he couldn't be found...And by the way, they only sold 1500 seats, and that was like a day before the weigh-in, so that means that they didn't even have enough to pay me let alone Anthony Mundine, so what are they gonna pay...It was contracted that they have it 10 days before the fight. I waited 10, 9 all the way to 3 days before the fight, and they still didn't have the money. It's a breach of contract. Vlad and Millenium breached the contract. We tried; Golden Boy tried. Joe, J, Josh, they all tried, and then they're talking about a line of credit? Come on. We were about to get stiffed," stated multi-division world champion "Sugar" Shane Mosley, who explained to FightHype.com what caused the breach of contract that prompted him to pull out of his proposed matchup with Anthony Mundine just days before it was scheduled to take place. You don't want to miss what else he had to say! Check it out!
BT: What's poppin, SugarMan? I thought by this time today, we would be talking about your victory over Anthony Mundine.
SM: I know. Me too, man. They out there on some different stuff, man. They tried to be slick.
BT: So I heard. What the heck happened over there?
SM: What happened was when I went out there, they were supposed to give me $700,000 before I entered the ring 10 days before the fight. So Joe, J [Prince] and Josh [Dublin] was trying to get at him [Vlad Wharton] and he couldn't be found. He was trying to get the money, the $700,000. So what was going on is he wouldn't answer them until the last minute. They were like, "Where's he at? Go find him and put him on the find right now!" But he wasn't out there. Every now and then he'd say, "I'ma get it. I'ma get it," but then he would just take off. I think what they were trying to do was get the pay-per-view buys out there first and then pay me the money. The problem was that the contract stated that we get the money upfront. I think the reason for that was because Roy [Jones Jr.] or somebody else didn't really get paid the money they were supposed to get paid [when they fought in Australia]. They'll say, "Oh yeah, we're going to take care of it," but then it don't happen and you end up fighting for free. So he's telling me he's getting a line of credit from the bank, $500,000, and then he's giving me $200,000 cash. But I'm like, no, we're supposed to have all of it 10 days before. I waited and waited and waited and tried to let them get it, but they never got it. Even up until the weigh-in, he still didn't have the money. So when I'm at the airport, I think it was Anthony Mundine's manager who called me and said, "Don't leave. We have the money; all $700,000." So now I'm like, you know what, they getting money from all these people that are betting and stuff like that; they're trying to get money from these different people and these people basically want Anthony to win. If they want Anthony to win, then I have to knock him out to win. If I don't knock him out, then it's a wrap; I lost the fight. I didn't want a fight like that. I was going to fight him because they were going to pay me $1 million, but then, there was a chance I wouldn't get it because they're trying to pay me from the pay-per-view? Anthony's still gotta get paid too. I wasn't going to get all mine and he wasn't going to get all of his; that's why I was trying to get mine upfront because I didn't want them to say, "Well, we didn't make any money on the pay-per-view buys." And by the way, they only sold 1500 seats, and that was like a day before the weigh-in, so that means that they didn't even have enough to pay me let alone Anthony Mundine, so what are they gonna pay?
And then I found out, we didn't know this, but I think that money that I did get came from Jeff Fenech. We didn't know that. When we got there, Jeff picked us up in a limousine and he was taking us out to eat; we were like, "Oh, Jeff is cool." He was like our best friend, coming to the gym and talking to everybody, saying, "You're going to beat Anthony Mundine. You're going to tear him up." We thought he was just betting on the fight. We didn't know he had fronted the money to Vlad. At first, we weren't even going to entertain coming out to Australia unless they gave us some upfront money. They said, "We'll give you $300,000." So they got $300,000 and gave it to us upfront. I guess at first, they were going to get the other $700,000 from sponsorships, but they couldn't get nobody to sponsor the fight because they said nobody likes Anthony. So then they figured they were going to wait for the fight and get the money from the backend pay-per-view. It was crazy. They're talking about a line of credit and then Jeff threw some money up, so he has an investment in it, and then you have this other guy who's going to pay a little bit, $200,000; all these people gotta get their money back so how are they gonna do that. That's crazy. It was a whole bunch of underground bull. The end result was not going to be good. Win, lose or draw, the end result was not going to be good.
BT: Damn! It sounds like this whole promotion was pretty fucked up from the jump.
SM: Yeah, it was messed up. That's why we were trying to get my money before we got out there and 10 days before we fought. Just have my money in the account and I'll get in there and fight no problem. J and Josh were like, "You know what, Shane? Jump on the plane because they don't got it, and they ain't gonna have it either." So I'm gonna go in there and fight, and then I'ma get out and they're going to give me a check for $700,00 and the shit's gonna bounce. Then we'd have to go to court and I would've basically fought for free because there's going to be a whole bunch of bullshit. I was ready. They were supposed to have the money in there 10 days before the fight and I was going to fight, but they didn't. I wasn't nervous. I worked with Sergio Mora and I was sparring with Sam Soliman, giving him bloody noses and hurting him to the body; he'll tell you himself. Even Sergio said I had him pissing blood after sparring. I had some great sparring sessions with Sergio and Sam. I had a great camp. I was ready to fight. I was sharp as hell. I was starting to hit harder and harder. Actually, I hurt Sam to the body a couple times and I busted his nose. Sergio told me I was hitting harder, I was fast and I was sharp; he was complimenting on the speed and power. Both of them were about 172 or 175, so they were bigger than me. When I left, I was like 159; both complemented on my speed, my power and my strength. I was ready.
BT: I saw somewhere that Anthony Mundine said he was going to come out to LA and hopefully talk you into rescheduling the fight at a later date; maybe in December. Are you still open to fighting Mundine or have you decided to move on at this point?
SM: I mean, I'd rather him come out here and fight. I'm not thinking about going back out to Australia and messing with the timezone; I don't have time for that. I'm still struggling right now trying to get back to US time. If you watch the fight with Rigoberto Alvarez and Mundine, he looks like he's in slow motion. I was like, "Damn. Why he look like this?" He was jetlagged or the timezone messes you up for real if you're not used to that. You look like you're all drugged up trying to fight out there. Just watch the fight with Rigoberto and Mundine. It looked like they drugged him. That's how bad it is. So I would rather him come out here and fight on my terms and on my turf because over there, it seems like they're still behind the times with their boxing. It's almost like the mafia days. I'm hearing that people watch the judges; they're sitting behind them looking at them while they mark their scores and shit. If you don't have like the IBF or...Daniel Geale had the IBF officials out there and they went out there to Australia and actually worked the fight and judged the fight. Now, if you just have them, I don't know how it is out there because they don't really have a commission. Their commission is not really strong like ours, so it's like anything goes. That's what I kept hearing. Everybody was like, "Oh yeah, you gotta watch this; you gotta do that." I'm like, damn, it's that bad? I really gotta knock him out, and they don't got my money? Aw, naw! I'ma knock him out and not get paid; hell naw! You know what? I love to fight and I would've did it, but J was like, "Man, jump on the plane." Josh was like, "Man, they talking about a line of credit. That's a promissory not to a promise." The bank was promising that as soon as the pay-per-views come in, I get the first $500,000. Now, on top of that, how is Anthony going to get paid? It was just whack. And then the referees and judges; I don't know who they were. I think they were Aborigine refs and judges or something. It was bootleg. I was like, "Naw, y'all crazy. Y'all trippin'." So I was instructed to get on the plan and get my ass back because it ain't happening.