Shane Mosley Still Smiling After All These Years, Not Broke in Reality Show Basement

By Ivan G. Goldman

OK, now we have answers from both Sugar Shane Mosley and his ex-wife Jin regarding the condition of his finances. But before we proceed, remind me never to slip into a steaming vat of reality programming again.

I’m referring here to an earlier story that appeared on this site titled “Shane Mosley Down & Out in Ex-Wife’s Basement? Say It Isn’t So.” Apparently it isn’t so. Mosley declares that despite what we’re told by the reality TV types who made the claim, he’s not broke or living in anyone’s basement.

I believe him, and I’m glad to hear it.

Actually, I took care not to report the story as fact, since it was, after all, a report from the notoriously unreliable reality dating show universe. But that’s no excuse.

Shane’s belated response to the report was a message tweeted to me: “lmao hell no.”

According to an update from his ex-wife Jin, a featured player on Bravo’s Monday night reality show Friends to Lovers, he did in fact live in some section of her residence for four months that ended last May. Apparently this arrangement had nothing to do with the state of his balance sheet.

Jin, after all, has custody of their three children, which probably has something to do with why he was staying there when the show’s crew showed up to shoot the tale of Jin and her friend, club promoter Sydney. They may or not alter the character of their relationship into a romantic one. The show is based on tales of such couples and follows them week to week.

I wish Jin and Sidney all the luck in the world, but really I’d rather write about boxing, which is how I got into this story in the first place. If a major former champion is out of funds two years after retirement, that’s a boxing story, and that was the story coming out of the TV show.

According to summaries of the show compiled by the kind of media that cover this stuff, Sugar Shane was out of funds. The inference was he was one stop from homelessness. Which didn’t make a whole lot of sense when you consider the millions and millions of dollars he earned in his career.

Jin, whose remarks appear beneath my original story, said I was “misled on a few points,” but that it was a “great story.” That’s very kind of her. I like to think that somewhere along the line I’ve managed to write a great story or two, but if I ever did, that wasn’t one of them.

Most of Jin’s remarks have little to do with the story and center more on her quarrel with a publicist who denied everything, and with the state of Mosley’s familial relationships with his children and ex-wife. I’m going to skip all that. Jin encouraged everyone to watch the show.

Instead I plan to tune in ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights out of Mashantucket, Connecticut featuring lightweights Karl Dargan versus Tony Luis.

On the undercard, Rafael Machado of Philadelphia, 0-2, takes on Shane Mosley, Jr. 2-1 (2 KOs), of Pomona, California.

In Mosley’s corner I expect to see his dad, Sugar Shane Mosley.

And in the future I hope he will never again go near any of those dating reality shows, not even as an innocent bystander.

I know I won’t.