Huge underdog Taylor wants brawl vs. Mosley

Dean Juipe

Thursday, March 8, 2001 | 10:10 a.m.

Just look at the betting odds and you can see that few, if any, boxing fans in Las Vegas expect Shannan Taylor to defeat Shane Mosley when they fight Saturday night at Caesars Palace.

Taylor, despite his 28-0-1 record that includes 18 knockouts, is an astronomical 20-1 underdog. The exact numbers -- Mosley minus 2000 and Taylor plus 1400 -- reflect the perception that Mosley may be in for an easy night.

And until you meet and talk to Taylor it's easy to dismiss him.

But on closer inspection, he's a tough guy who can't be taken lightly.

"I've had about 200 street fights," he said in an engaging, matter-of-fact style. "It's not nice to say, but I come from a rough background and the fact is I've been in situations where it was life and death and I had to dig down to get out of it.

"There've been times I could have been killed and yet I fought back and came through it. I know what I've got."

Mosley, who is 36-0 with 33 KOs and owns the World Boxing Council welterweight championship, acknowledges his opponent has his dangerous side.

"He's a street fighter," Mosley said. "He's a guy who's going to try and get by on brute strength.

"But me, I'm a thinking fighter, and that could be the difference."

Bettors at Caesars do not anticipate the fight will go the scheduled 12-round distance, as it's a minus 150 that it won't and a plus 110 that it will.

Mosley and Taylor are fighting in a 2,500-seat room in front of a crowd that, for the most part, may be comped in by the Park Place resort conglomerate. While tickets are available to the general public -- at a staggering $100 minimum -- most of them were purchased and distributed by the city's Park Place hotels.

HBO will televise the bout, which is worth $1.7 million to Mosley and $300,000 to Taylor.

"My mates and I are going to bet $100,000 on me to win the fight," Taylor, an Australian, said. "People may not realize it yet, but I'm going to win the fight."

With the exception of a fight on the Mosley vs. Oscar De La Hoya card in Los Angeles last June, Taylor has never appeared in America. And if bettors and fans are skeptical of his abilities, that one fight -- vs. journeyman Charles Whittaker -- was so unimpressive that Taylor has been pigeonholed as a questionable if not inadequate opponent for the likes of Mosley.

But Taylor has a handful of reasons why he struggled with Whittaker and went the full 10 rounds that night.

"I'd just fired my trainer, who was useless, and I took the fight only for the money," he said. "I had a broken (right) hand and I felt like a dog."

The old trainer was ousted and replaced by former world champion Jeff Fenech, who is taking a confident yet cautious approach to this fight.

"I'm a great admirer of Shane's and he's the ultimate gentleman," Fenech said. "Obviously, we have a difficult job on our hands but if Shannan sticks to the game plan he can win this fight."

Taylor's game plan is simply to be aggressive.

"Mosley's great and he's a credit to boxing," Taylor said. "But you can tell by my spirit that I'm ready.

"I honestly never thought I'd get a shot at a world title, so I'm going to give it all I've got. I'm willing to die for this title."

Some in the audience shuddered as Taylor made a similar statement at Wednesday's prefight press conference, adding that "if I win this fight and die a month later, I'll die a happy man."

If Taylor's comments made for an ominous few minutes, they were in contrast to the lighthearted atmosphere in the room earlier when Taylor held, petted and fed a carrot to a "boxing kangaroo" that was brought to the dais in a visual ploy.

"We know Shannan's a tough guy," said Shane Mosley's father and trainer, Jack. "But we don't want anyone to die in there."

Later, Shane Mosley said "I know where Taylor is coming from with that dying-in-the-ring stuff, but I think he picked the wrong guy to say that to. I'm not going to be playing around with him in there."

Taylor, ranked No. 2 by the WBC at 147 pounds, does have a few wins over known commodities, such as Jake Rodriguez, Willy Wise, Livingstone Bramble, Lonny Beasley and Nick Rupa.

He's 29 years old and has been fighting professionally since 1992.

"It's a blessing in disguise that people are underestimating me," he said. "If Mosley took me lightly, I'll knock him out by the third round. If he trained hard, I'll beat him in 12.

"I didn't look good on his card (in LA vs. De La Hoya) but that was his party. This one is mine.

"I'm a good-looking white guy who is about to become a world champion. It's beautiful, isn't it?"