Shane Mosley Conference Call about De La Hoya-Mayweather
KELLY SWANSON: Hello everybody. Thank you again for joining us for another installment of our weekly conference call series for the May 5 welterweight Oscar de la Hoya versus Floyd Mayweather for WBC’s Super Welterweight Championship. At this time I’d love to turn the phone over to Richard Schaefer, Chief Executive Officer of Golden Boy Promotions. Richard? ..
RICHARD SCHAEFER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, GOLDEN BOY PROMOTIONS: Thank you Kelly Hello everybody. I’m actually here in Puerto Rico. We are having the media day today, a tremendous turnout. I think we have close to 150 reporters and cameras here from as far away as Germany. We have the Mexican TV crews and writers here and Main Lines as well, so a great turnout. It’s actually still ongoing.
Yesterday, just some of you might have heard about it or seen it already, the Athletic Commission picked a referee and the judges for the fight. And, the referee is going to be Kenny Bayless. The judges are going to be Chuck Giampa, Jerry Roth, and Tom Kaczmarek. Again, the referee is Kenny Bayless and the judges Chuck Giampa, Jerry Roth, and Tom Kaczmarek.
On today’s call we have two guests. We have Mark Taffet, Senior Vice President and head of HBO pay per view and marketing who is going to be talking about the HBO 24/7 series and Sugar Shane Mosley who is here sitting here with me in Puerto Rico and who is going to give you some insights on how the camp is going here, what he has seen, and his thoughts on Oscar.
First now, I’d like to turn it over to Mark.
MARK TAFFET, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETING, HBO: Thank you very much Richard and good morning and good afternoon, depending what time zone you’re in, to all of you and thanks for joining us on today’s call. Well, we’re coming down the home stretch on de la Hoya and Mayweather. And, there are a few important items that I wanted to report to you.
First of all, on the HBO pay per view front, we’re very pleased to announce that the May 5 live De La Hoya and Mayweather telecast will be available to over 61 million pay per view households. That’s a record for an HBO pay per view event and consistent with the magnitude of de la Hoya and Mayweather.
And, we’re thrilled also that the pay per view distributors will be opening their ordering windows early to accommodate what we really expect to be a huge surge of consumer orders as the fight approaches. In fact, satellite distributor Dish Network is already taking orders as we speak. It’s the earliest they’ve ever allowed consumers to buy a pay per view event.
Second, we’ve got some very exciting news to report on the HBO Sports front. As you all probably are aware by now, HBO Sports is presenting an exclusive four-episode all-access series called De La Hoya and Mayweather 24/7 in the weeks leading up to the mega showdown. And, the first half-hour episode of De La Hoya and Mayweather 24/7 debuts this Sunday night, April 15, at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time. That’s this Sunday night, April 15, at 10:30.
And, there will be two more episodes debuting on subsequent Sundays, April 22 and April 29. Importantly, you should note that the first three episodes of 24/7 debut immediately following new episodes of HBO’s hit series “Sopranos” which is on at 9:00 p.m. and “Entourage” which is on at 10:00. And, the fourth and final episode of 24/7 will debut on Thursday, May 3, at 9:30. That’s Thursday, May 3, at 9:30 just two days before the fight so we can take you right up to fight time through the press conference and everything that’s going on in Las Vegas that week.
In this Sunday’s premiere episode, the HBO cameras will follow the two fighters as they go across the country on the 11-city promotional tour that we were all on to publicize their showdown. And, emotions ran very high as you are aware during that press tour. We’re also going to take you inside both fighters’ training camps. You’ll see the incredible bond that exists between Floyd Mayweather and Roger Mayweather now that Roger is back as they work together on Floyd’s camp. And, you’ll also see Sugar Shane Mosley in training camp with Oscar as Oscar prepares for the May 5 fight. And, we know that that’ll provide some very special interaction and moments not only for them but for all of the fans watching 24/7 on HBO.
So, these are very exciting times for us. And, I look forward to seeing all of you in Las Vegas in a few short weeks. Thank you very much. Don’t forget to tune in to 24/7 as we all get ready for De La Hoya and Mayweather. Everyone is talking and we believe the world will be watching. And, I’ll turn it over now back to Richard Schaeffer. Thanks again.
RICHARD SCHAEFER: Thank you Mike. It’s a pleasure for me now to introduce to you four-time World Champion and current WBC Welterweight World Champion, Sugar Shane Mosley, who will give you some insights from training camp. Please Shane?
SUGAR SHANE MOSLEY: Well, first of all I’d just like to say hi to everybody out there. And, you know it’s great out here in Puerto Rico having a good time. Camp has been very good with Oscar. He’s looking very sharp. He’s fast. He’s working on his jabs and his hooks and getting his right hands over the top of Mayweather’s jabs. And, you know he’s working on a lot of great things. He’s working hard. I mean it’s very hot out here. So, you know the weather can really bear down on you and make it real tough for you to workout.
When he gets to Vegas he going to do absolutely a great job. Without giving too much, I think that Oscar is probably too big and most likely is going to catch him later on in the fight. It’s going to be a great fight. I’m looking forward to being there May 5.
RICHARD SCHAEFER: Great, thank you Shane. We would like to open it up now for some questions please operator.
MARCUS STARK, THE LONG BEACH EYE: Shane, how did you react when Floyd made what many people considered to be inappropriate comments regarding your career calling you nothing more than basically a glorified sparring partner?
SUGAR SHANE MOSLEY: You know, I really don’t – I really don’t care about what Mayweather said. You know I’ve always worked with Oscar even when he went to the Olympics. I sparred with him a lot of times. I mean I spar a lot of world champions to get them ready for their – for their fights. So, those comments really don’t bother me. I’m just – my job is to come out here. I’m having a good time in Puerto Rico. I come out here and help Oscar to sharpen up his tools so he can be ready to fight with Floyd.
RICHARD SCHAEFER: I’d just like to add to that. I think it shows with Shane as superstar a legendary fighter to come out and help Oscar prepare for the fight what kind of person Shane is. And, I think it takes special athletes. But in particular, it takes a special person to do that. And, that is what Golden Boy and that is what Shane and Oscar and Bernard and all of those guys are all about. And, I think Floyd Mayweather could take out a big page from that book which I’m sure he never learned so far or never read so far. He could take out a big page of that book what it means to stick up for your friends and be with your friends. And, that’s the comment I wanted to make.
MARCUS STARK: Shane, has everybody – has anybody here been discovering – you know, as you well know when you fought Oscar twice that in some of his fights he’s always had a bit of a stamina problem. And, Freddie Roach said he would get down to the bottom of it and discover what caused it. Have they been able to figure out what’s been causing that problem in some of his fights?
SUGAR SHANE MOSLEY: You know I think that coming down here and working with Oscar – I think that one of the problems he might have had in his fights is that he wants to win so back and he works out so hard until maybe he might leave a little bit in the gym and get a little tired in the fight. I think that he’s figured that out. And, I think he’s going to do a lot better when he’s in the fight – when he fights Mayweather.
TRAE THOMPSON, FORT WORTH STAR: Shane, real quickly, I was going to ask you while you’ve been down there what is the biggest surprise? Is there something you’ve learned about Oscar that you never knew before with sparring with him?
SUGAR SHANE MOSLEY: No. I mean – like I said, I’ve been sparring with Oscar for a long time. So, I know Oscar very will, since kids. You know basically, it’s the same look that I’ve – that I’ve always seen when I spar Oscar. It’s only little subtle changes that he’s doing with Freddie to get the right shots in that he wants to get in for the fight with Mayweather.
TRAE THOMPSON: OK. And real quickly too if you can explain from your side, how did the conversation first come up? I mean, did Oscar approach you about sparring or did you go to him to say, “What do you think about this?” How did that originate?
SUGAR SHANE MOSLEY: It originated a while back where way before – I think before they even signed the fight, they kind of thought out you know “what do you think about you know sparring with Oscar and kind of help him?” because I’m basically similar to Mayweather with the speed. And I said, “Yes no problem.” You know, I told him “no problem.” Then, when it came up again after they signed the fight and everything I was like you know just send me out there and I’m ready to go, you know no problem. You know? I love doing – I love to be in the ring. I love to workout. I love to train. And, I love to help out a fellow friend.
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