| -& Sats Mayweather makes the right move By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor ell, Floyd Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao might not be in the cards for the foreseeable future, but at least we’ll get to see one hell of a show in its place. The announcement was recently made by Golden Boy Promotions that the undefeated Mayweather will battle with 38-year-old icon Shane Mosley. Mosley has been chasing Mayweather for years now, and it’s about time that the two of them finally meet. It is equally nice that in the stead of Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, which when it happens will be the biggest fight of all time, at least financially, we'll get to see a first-class bout. Whereas Pacquiao has already scheduled a fight with Joshua Clottey, a guy who, while a capable fighter, doesn’t have anywhere close to the star power that Pacquiao (or Mayweather) does and who has already lost to Pacquiao’s last victim, Miguel Cotto. That makes for a less than suspenseful fight without much drawing power. With Mayweather though, he stepped up after things fell through with Pacquiao and chose the next best thing in Mosley. Sugar Shane has proven many of his critics wrong who have said that he’s long past his best before date. He’s one of the most famous and best welterweights of his generation and for a time was second only to Oscar de la Hoya (who Mosley has beaten twice in his career) as the most popular boxer on the planet. He’s got the star quality and the ability to make people whip out their credit cards to order the pay-per-view on almost at the same level 18 as Mayweather does. Mosley has lost just once in the last five years, and that was a hard-fought decision to, at that time, an unbeaten Cotto. Yes, he’s 38, but in his latest fights against the disgraced Antonio Margarito and Ricardo Mayorga two months before that, both of which were big knockout wins, Mosley more than proved that he’s still got it. Here’s the rub that Mayweather critics will pounce on (as they always seem to do). When Mayweather-Mosley goes down sometime in March, it will have been a full 14 months since Mosley’s last fight, against Margarito. It can be hard for an athlete, any athlete, to come back from that kind of long layoff, especially at 38 years old. Mosley is exceptional though, and regardless of his time away from the ring, he’s got the charisma to make this fight work, and more importantly, sell this fight. If Mayweather is the best talker in the game, then Mosley is a close second. Both have done work in entertainment outside of boxing (Mayweather with several appearances in WWE, Mosley acting in the T.V. show Las Vegas), and both can be absolutely hilarious when they want to be. If Mayweather wins, and I think he will, he’ll be one step closer to proving that he is not only the best pound-for- pound fighter alive today, but maybe of all time. Even if he does defeat Mosley though, all roads lead to Manny Pacquiao before he finally gets the credit he deserves. Get geared up, this should be entertaining no matter who wins. Synchronized diving By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor ow, while it is normally true that the world’s greatest sporting event is the Olympic Games, there’s also no question that the Olympics are home to some of the most befuddling “sports” anyone has ever seen. One of those I’m talking about is synchronized diving. Now, if you’ve ever seen the people who do this in action, it’s quite the sight. I don’t think anyone would disagree with their ability or the hours and hours of practice and work that has to go into perfecting the moves they pull off in pretty much perfect unity. To be able to perform complex and truly spectacular aerial manoeuvres in dead synch with another person while diving off of a ten meter platform obviously takes a tremendous amount of skill, and it is clearly a superb athletic achievement, but does that necessarily make it a sport? I suppose technically, you would have to say right away that yes, synchronized diving is indeed a sport since it’s classified as one by the IOC and in the Olympics. Alright, that may be true, but let’s look at this from a more practical standpoint. Most, but not all, more widely acknowledged sports require a variety of skills and abilities that are quite common, running in football or skating in hockey say, meshed with other skills and abilities to create a unique activity. Football, hockey, baseball and swimming are all good examples. With synchronized diving though, the skills and talents needed are so polarized and so far removed from everyday life that it’s hard for people to connect and get into it. Being able to do two reverse back flips while turning 720 degrees is certainly impressive, but it is also something that the vast majority of people couldn’t even fathom doing. And while this doesn’t disqualify it from being a sport, there’s also the fact that before and after the Olympics (and maybe for most people, even during the Games) I don’t know a soul who actually cares about synchronized diving. Now, that’s a negative by- product of a number of Olympic events, but it’s true. I mean, when was the last time you heard any water cooler talk about the synchronized diving world championships? I’d have to stretch my memory back pretty far to find the answer to that for myself. THE VERDICT: Is synchronized diving fun to watch once every four years? Is it a quirky, made-for-television event? Yes to both of those. It may be odd, it may be impossible to watch outside of the Olympics and it might have a grand total of two followers the world over, but synchronized diving is a sport, barely.