Shane Mosley Admits To Knowingly Taking EPO
Mosley's fight with Floyd Mayweather features Olympic-style drug testing leading up to the fight; believed to have been caused by Mosley's history with steroids.
When news came out that “Sugar” Shane Mosley tested positive for performance enhancing drugs following his controversial 2003 victory over Oscar de la Hoya in a rematch of their classic 2000 match-up, his claim was and has since always been that he took the substances “unknowingly”. When it was announced that Mosley would be fighting Floyd “Money” Mayweather on May 1, along with it came random Olympic-style drug testing for both fighters; testing which Shane maintained would not phase him.
His past, though, is now coming back to haunt him.
Video tapes were recently released by BALCO founder Victor Conte, whom Shane is involved with in a legal battle, of a deposition taken in late 2009. In these tapes that appear in both edited and unedited formats, Mosley admits on camera to knowingly taking the drug EPO, a doping agent that Mosley had taken leading up to his rematch with de la Hoya in September 2003. A calendar seized in a raid on BALCO found that Mosley’s hematocrit, or measure of red blood cells, had increased by 8.2% in a matter of weeks, and in turn caused Mosley’s use of EPO to diminish in the weeks leading up to the fight.
In the video leaked by Conte, the man questioning Mosley asks him, “Prior to going to the grand jury in December of 2003, did you know you were taking EPO, yes or no?” to which Mosley replies, with a rather confused look on his face, “yes”. Other questions regarding Mosley’s EPO use are also posed, all of which directly pinpoints “Sugar” Shane as knowing exactly what he was taking in the lead-up to his fight with de la Hoya.
Mosley’s lawyer Judd Burstein, who oversees his $12 million defamation suit against Conte, hopes that by posting the rest of the depositions online in video form, that it can be understood that though Mosley admits that he knew he was taking EPO, he was not aware that EPO was illegal, or what it did exactly.
Floyd Mayweather’s failed fight with current pound for pound boxing king Manny Pacquiao fell apart over the issue of random drug testing due to the fact that Pacquiao’s superstitious nature makes him believe taking things out of the body weakens it, no matter the amount. Unable to compromise on a cut-off date, the fight fell apart and made room for Mosley to secure a mega-fight with Mayweather that had been brewing since 1999. He in turn also had to agree to the random testing applied by the United States Anti Doping Agency, which was prominently featured on the first episode of “Mayweather-Mosley 24/7″.
In the weeks following Mosley’s fight against Mayweather, tensions regarding the suit against Conte are sure to intensify. For now, though, one can only hope that Mosley’s insistence that talk of his previous indiscretions doesn’t bother him rings true.
