By Lee Groves

It is a place where no fighter ever wants to find himself. A place of doubt and desperation where speculation swirls about his place within the sport. The unrest is unrelenting, and it comes from multiple sources: The people around him, his family and friends as well as fans and media. More often than not the worst of it comes from within because one can never get away from it.

It is boxing’s No Man’s Land, where fear and uncertainty wrestles with hope and ambition for control of a fighter’s mind, body and spirit. Many times a boxer finds himself in this place following a loss but sometimes even a hotly disputed win such as Oscar de la Hoya’s over Felix Sturm can plunge a fighter toward this destination.

There are only three known ways to escape its poison. The first is retirement. The second is indifference. The third is victory.

In recent weeks three fighters have found themselves in this most unenviable wasteland – Shane Mosley, Mikkel Kessler and Chris Arreola. Each are at a different place within this environment; one is a fresh arrival, one is mired in a two-out-of-three drought while the other has produced a response.

Mosley entered Saturday night’s showdown with Floyd Mayweather as the greatest hope to finally test “Money’s” mettle. Even at 38, he was thought to have the right blend of velocity and venom to take Mayweather to locales he had seldom experienced.

When Mosley stunned Mayweather with two booming rights in the second round, all the pre-fight visions of Mayweather’s destruction became stunningly real. The throaty roars indicated that while most of the 15,117 heads at the MGM Grand were with “Money” their hearts were filled with “Sugar.”

But Mayweather showed everyone he was much more than style and flash as he shook out the stars flashing inside his head and rode out the rest of the round. From that point forward Mayweather broke out the backhoes, asphalt rollers, milling machines and chip spreaders and built Mosley’s road toward No Man’s Land.

The scope of Mayweather’s victory was such that it forced some to rethink how they perceive Mosley. Just two days before, his destruction of Antonio Margarito was the dominant vision in those minds that couldn’t conceive how Mosley could have been a 4-to-1 underdog. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, the template is that Mosley was a rusty battler who looked every day of his 38-plus years.

As usual, the truth lies somewhere in between but the question now is whether Mosley will again step inside the ring to find out for himself where he stands. Wisely, he refused to commit until he had a chance to view the video. As HBO’s Jim Lampley put it, Shane won’t like what he sees.

Once the initial sting of defeat wears off, the battle lines within Mosley will be drawn. The side that will tell him to fight on will ask whether he wants the Mayweather fight to be the last memory fans and historians will have of him. It will remind him that he hurt Mayweather like no other fighter since DeMarcus Corley had six years earlier. It will inform him that he is still capable of beating the best of the rest and that fighters like Mayweather are genetic anomalies.

Meanwhile, the side that advocates retirement will tell him that the Mayweather loss will have no effect on his ultimate legacy, that he will receive his plaque and Hall of Fame ring in Canastota in June 2016 if he steps away now. It will say that nothing, much less a elite-level boxing career, lasts forever and that the eight-figure pay check that will come his way will offer him and his family an added financial cushion.

The prospect of training his son Shane Jr. along with Naazim Richardson could be an attractive way to begin his post-career transition without completely giving up the sport he loves. If that doesn’t work out, he remains a partner in Golden Boy Promotions.

A fighter’s time in No Man’s Land is a deeply personal one and the emotions that come with it are raw and ceaseless. Each option has its pros and cons and only time can provide a definitive answer in terms of whether the correct decision was made.

If Mosley decides to fight on, perhaps he can draw some inspiration from Kessler. When “The Viking Warrior” lost his WBA super middleweight title to Andre Ward in Stage One of the Super Six World Boxing Classic last November, he was instantly transformed from pre-tournament favorite to potential also-ran.

Ward’s domination at all levels was such that it didn’t matter that the fight took place in the American’s hometown of Oakland, Calif. He carved up Kessler’s defenses with his gloves while a few well-placed butts did the same to his face. No matter how it came about the final result was the same: Ward had become the 168-pound division’s newest star while Kessler was labeled aging and one-dimensional.

The tournament’s round-robin format proved to be a salvation for Kessler, for it guaranteed him an immediate crack at Carl Froch’s WBC belt. Also, because he fought Ward away from home, the challenger was given the rare privilege of fighting in Denmark, where he had gone undefeated in 40 previous fights, while the champion, despite being undefeated in 26 contests, was forced to go on the road.

Though he had to be comforted by the circumstances, Kessler still knew major changes had to be made if he were to escape his personal No Man’s Land. He began the New Year by jettisoning his career-long trainer Richard Olsen in favor of Jimmy Montoya, a master motivator with a deep wellspring of knowledge. With that came an adjustment in style as his fundamentally sound patience was replaced with risk-taking aggression.

The momentum see-sawed over the bout’s first half but the final six rounds proved pivotal to Kessler’s return to the top. As Froch’s output waned Kessler filled the vacuum with desire, confidence and activity. His punches carried more impact and inflicted damage, but in creating his success he also had to suffer. He tasted plenty of strikes from “The Cobra” and several of them opened a deep wound over the left eye.

Kessler’s emergence from his personal limbo was exemplified by what transpired in the final moments of his victory over Froch. As Froch raked Kessler with several well placed shots, the tiring Dane summoned a final push that told everyone watching just how much he wanted this victory.

After slapping on a weary clinch, Kessler lowered his head and bulled forward with both hands churning like beaters in a mixer gone mad. With the partisan crowd roaring with untamed passion, Kessler blasted in an overhand right-left hook combo that capped off a most wholehearted effort. A few minutes later, Kessler’s return to prominence was complete as the judges saw him a 117-111, 116-112, 115-113 winner.

“I had a lot of experts saying I couldn’t win over Froch. I was finished. My career was finished,” Kessler said after the fight. “So it’s nice to get my old belt back and show them that I’m still the champ and I’m ready to fight Ward again.”

Several thousand miles and nine time zones to the west heavyweight Chris Arreola took Kessler’s place in boxing’s in-between netherworld as he lost his second fight in three outings against former light heavyweight and cruiserweight champion Tomasz Adamek.

When the previously unbeaten “Nightmare” endured a systematic beating from WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko last year, his standing didn’t suffer that much because everyone loses to the Klitschkos. But dropping a wider-than-it-was-scored majority decision to the naturally smaller Adamek instantly transported Arreola to a crossroads that will require deep soul-searching and career-altering decisions to escape it.

The most common complaint about Arreola is his commitment to conditioning – or rather his lack of it. It is almost beyond belief that Arreola once won a National Golden Gloves title as a light heavyweight (beating Dallas Vargas in 2001) but “The Nightmare” enjoyed his best form when his weight ranged between 229 and 239. A lighter Arreola had the bulk to make opponents respect his size as well as the cardiovascular strength to fire dozens of bombs every round.

Arreola was at his terrifying best against Chazz Witherspoon in June 2008. Weighing 239, Arreola rushed at his 23-0 rival and immolated him with fire-breathing aggression and two-fisted heat-seeking missiles. While the fight ended in a third-round disqualification, Witherspoon’s battered body begged to differ.

It was the kind of performance that turned doubters into believers. Arreola’s combination of youth, power, charisma and heritage was a cocktail that promised tens of millions of dollars in future purses and potential crossover superstardom in a sport starving for a Tyson-esque revival.

Many will say – accurately so – that the Klitschko beating removed the pristine luster of potential from Arreola and that the Adamek defeat all but stripped it away. Arreola’s fate inside the ropes was only the final step in an erosion fueled by piles of cleaned plates and emptied beer bottles.

Naazim Richardson often says that “boxers are made in the gym but champions are made at home.” The truth of that axiom resonates strongly in Arreola’s case and while that may be the root of his problems it may also serve as the route toward his fistic resurrection.

Unlike Mosley, the freshly minted 29-year-old Arreola still has time to extricate himself from boxing’s No Man’s Land. To do so, however, will require a wholesale change in attitude, not necessarily inside the ring but beyond it.

The reason why the Klitschko brothers are so dominant is because they take care of business between fights. According to Wladimir’s longtime trainer Emanuel Steward, “Dr. Steelhammer” actually gains weight during training camp. One reason is that his strength training regimen packs on muscle weight but the other, more crucial, aspect is that Wladimir keeps his weight down between fights by eating the right foods and maintaining an active lifestyle.

Because both brothers hold a Ph.D. in sports science, they know the benefits of remaining disciplined between fights and have built Hall of Fame-worthy resumes on the backs of those who chose to ignore those precepts.

Change is not easy for anyone, especially strong-willed athletes who have experienced a measure of success when competing in less-than-pristine shape. After all, Arreola was utterly dominant when he weighed a career-high 263 against the courageous Brian Minto, who he blasted out in four rounds last December.

But if he still aspires to gain at least a share of boxing’s greatest prize, Arreola must realize that only a robust, everyday commitment to the rigors of conditioning will allow him to maximize his God-given talent.

Fighters need many intangibles to succeed and Arreola has proven he has several. His ability to fight through pain is more than admirable, for that requires a mental toughness that can’t be found in just anyone. His ability to project an Everyman quality is also enviable; it is the rare person who can handle victory and defeat with his level of charming, if sometimes profane, aplomb. Finally, he fights with a fearlessness that has been the hallmark of so many great champions of the past.

For Arreola, the path out of No Man’s Land begins now, in the first few weeks after the fight. Fighters – and Roberto Duran proved this was not limited to heavyweights – have been known to pack on more than 30 pounds in a frighteningly short period of time. While those extra pounds offer physical comfort in the short term, they can be a source of torture once he has to return to training camp.

It is a scenario that has played out again and again in Arreola’s career. If he truly wants to effect dramatic positive change going forward he must first commit to changing his life during those weeks and months when he has no fights scheduled. By doing so, he will gain a vital edge over many of his bloated, unmotivated peers and will take a huge step toward fulfilling his dreams of championship belts and championship-sized pay checks.

The question is, will he actually do it?

The path to success is a narrow and difficult one while the road to failure is easy and wide. Changing one’s ways is immensely challenging even when one has the determination to do so. Habits are called that for a reason and those that are formed over a number of years are even tougher to shake. Arreola knows that as well as anyone, but if he is to succeed he must find a way to do it.

Arreola would do well to emulate the blueprint Kessler adopted in the wake of his defeat. He shook things up, changed his approach and achieved success in the end. The details of achieving this change are entirely up to him and any success or failure that derives from it will also lie with him.

He can also learn from Mosley, who rebounded from a pair of back-to-back defeats to regain his place among the elite through hard work and commitment.

If Arreola chooses to maintain the status quo, however, he will depart boxing’s No Man’s Land. Unfortunately for him, the next destination may well be Oblivion.

E-mail Lee Groves at lgroves@hughes.net