Sure, they all forget. Not here though. Over in this section of cyberspace, some of us still call Mr. Mosley "Sugar". Not "Sugar-Free" or plain-old Shane, but "Sugar" Shane.

Why?

Because some of us can't forget the dazzle, the speed, and the love of conflict exhibited by the kid from Pomona who ran through the lightweight division, jumped up two classes to 147 and shocked the "Golden Boy" himself.

But that was a fistic eternity ago. Since that magical night almost three years ago in the Staples Center, Mosley ran into Vernon Forrest - who beat him twice - had a non-descript no contest with Raul Marquez earlier this year, and has seen his ascendancy to the throne of the legendary Sugars (Robinson and Leonard) put on the backburner, possibly forever.

So how ironic is it that Mosley, looking to rise to the top once again, has only Oscar De La Hoya standing in his way? They'll do it this time in September, and while a lot has changed between the two since their first meeting, Mosley believes history will repeat itself.

"I believe it's going to be a carbon copy of the first one," said Mosley, 38-2 (35 KOs), 1 NC. "It's going to be the same thing; we're the same fighters."

But are they?

Since their first bout (won by Mosley via split decision), De La Hoya has bulked up, brought in Floyd Mayweather Sr. in as his trainer, and won an epic war with Fernando Vargas last September. Mosley hasn't won a fight in almost two years. The 31-year-old Mosley brushes aside such talk.

"I really don't miss anything," said Mosley of not having his hand raised since his July 2001 KO of Adrian Stone. "I still have the love of my family and everybody. I just look at it as if I'm competitive, and I'm not a quitter, so I never give up. I don't think about those things. I just look forward to the future and winning this fight. That's all that's in my mind ­ this fight and De La Hoya."

And he may actually be able to live up to that goal of complete focus, having shed IMG as his promoter and moving on to Gary Shaw Promotions, a situation where Mosley actually has someone who knows the sport backing him. It's a load off Mosley's shoulders that he is happy to have lifted.

"It takes a lot of the stress off your mind," Mosley admits. "Before I really didn't have anybody that was ready to fight for me; I was just going with the flow of things. Now I've got a fighter. I'm a fighter inside the ring, and he's a fighter outside."

Shaw concurs, making it very clear that Team Mosley will not play second fiddle to the De La Hoya steamroller.

"It's my job to shield him, to make sure that he's not abused by the De La Hoya camp or by Arum, or by the way the promotion is running itself," said Shaw. "We'll be as cooperative as we can be with Bob Arum to make this as good a promotion as possible. But as an example, if I'm on the dais and Floyd (Mayweather Sr.) keeps going off and off, there's only so long that we're going to sit there as a team and tolerate it. He'll be talking to an empty dais, and they're not used to that from Shane Mosley. They've never seen that. But in my deal with Shane, he gave me everything outside the ring, and I gave him everything inside the ring. So as far as that goes, I have an excellent relationship with the Nevada Commission, and I believe in them. I will scrutinize the officials chosen by the sanctioning bodies and by the commission, as I'm sure Arum will. But they won't be pro-Oscar De La Hoya officials. That's not happening."

Needless to say, Shaw's signing of Mosley has made it evident that he doesn't believe the former lightweight and welterweight champ is damaged goods or a flash in the pan as far as boxing marketability is concerned.

"When (Evander) Holyfield took his losses, was he damaged goods?" asks Shaw. "Or did he come back and beat Mike Tyson? I've been around this game long enough to know that styles make fights, and to try and evaluate when I consider a fighter damaged goods. In my book, when someone is damaged goods, that means it's time to get out of boxing; that's not the time for them to become the opponent. I don't think Shane Mosley is damaged goods by any stretch of the imagination. I think he wins the fight. He's not coming in as the challenger or the underdog. That's one of the perceptions we're going to change. The Vegas oddsmakers can do whatever they want, and the writers can write whatever they want, but all I know is that he was in the ring with De La Hoya at the Staples Center, and as far as I remember, he won the fight. We're coming in as the champion. We may not have the belt; we may not have the rights of the champion, but we know that he already beat this man once."

Can he do it again, though? Mosley is understandably confident, and the parallels to his standing before the first De La Hoya fight are evident. For example, Mosley is still receiving the short end of the purse, he's still the betting underdog, and he is risking a toss back to non-HBO fights with a loss. Or as Mosley puts it:

"Yeah, I see this fight as a must-win."

Yet along with the usual confidence, Mosley is also bringing with him the attitude of someone who has been wronged. No, he won't come out and say it in so many words, but the kid with the winning smile who was the toast of the boxing world a few years ago, still burns with the feeling that he hasn't gotten treated the way he should have, either monetarily or with the outside endorsements so rare in this game.

"The only reason I'm fighting is for the love of the game," said Mosley. "It's not for the money because I'm not getting paid what I'm supposed to be getting, so it's for the love of the game and to get back on top. That's the reason why I took the fight. But you can't be bitter; you just look forward to bigger and better things. You can't dwell on the past; you've got to look to the future, which for me is beating De La Hoya.

Or maybe he took it because it was the smart business move - possibly the most winnable fight, and definitely the most lucrative. And with a victory, Mosley can write his own check for his next fight ­ the ultimate goal of any fighter.

"The plan after September is to continue to fight all the top guys out there," said Mosley. "(Fernando) Vargas is out there, Winky (Wright) is out there, and so are (Ricardo) Mayorga and Vernon (Forrest). I'm just ready to fight."

Shane Mosley says he's going back to what got him to a championship, and that he's bringing everything in full force. He needs to if he plans on beating De La Hoya. But if he can upset the golden apple cart once again, he will have achieved that rarest of rarities - redemption. It's something few ex-champions experience, but there are two who have.

They're both named "Sugar".