Is Mosley The Best Margarito Could Do?

By William Mackay: Of all the opponents that World Boxing Association (WBA) welterweight champion Antonio Margarito (37-5, 27 KOs) could have chosen for his next fight, he settled for 37 year-old Shane Mosley (45-5, 38 KOs) in a 12-round bout scheduled to take place on January 24th at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Rather than stepping up against Paul Williams, the World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight champion who beat Margarito by a close 12-round unanimous decision in July 2007, Margarito is descending to a fight against Mosley. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with Mosley, he’s good, sound fighter, is highly ranked in the IBF and WBO and still has good overall boxing skills.

However, Mosley, as high ranked as he is, doesn’t frankly doesn’t compare with a fight against Williams or a fight against Andre Berto, the WBC welterweight champion, two fighters that Margarito should have been aiming for rather than Mosley.

I would have no problem with this fight if Mosley was four to five years younger than he is now, and seemingly more on top of his game like he was in his 20s and early 30s. However, with the way that Mosley looked in his last two fights against Miguel Cotto and Ricardo Mayorga, it seems rather unfair for Margarito to take on Mosley at this point in his career.

Mosley looked old and faded for most of his fight against Mayorga, having big problems with pulling the trigger, taking a lot of punishment and looking as if his timing was shot. If you wanted to be nice, I suppose you could blame it on ring rust on his part, because after all, he’d been away from the ring for ten months prior to this bout, last fighting against Cotto in November 2007.

But even in that fight, Mosley looked not the same, timing off, reflexes slowed, and work rate way down compared to his prime years earlier. Mosley looked down right terrible against Mayorga until the last round when he suddenly let his hands go in a desperate effort to take Mayorga.

Luckily for Mosley it worked, because without a knockout, I had Mayorga winning the fight by a couple of rounds. What makes this so bad, however, is that Mayorga has been a shell of his former self for the past five years since turning 30 in 2003.

Mayorga had been easily beaten by Oscar De La Hoya in 2006, and Felix Trinidad in 2004, and one would think that if Mosley had anything left in the tank, then he should have also taken out Mayorga like De La Hoya and Trinidad.

Short of that, he should have been able to box circles around him, and easily beaten him by a point’s decision. He didn’t though, and didn’t show accuracy or a good work rate, looking old and slow throughout the fight.

Given that Mosley now has to fight Margarito, probably the second best welterweight in the division after Williams, it would seem to suggest that Mosley is going to take a major beating against Margarito and probably will get stopped in the process.

Unlike Cotto, Mosley doesn’t have the wheels at his advanced age to allow him to run from Margarito in order to survive longer. Because of that, Mosley will be forced to stand and trade with Margarito for the duration of the fight, however long it lasts for him.

Without wheels to run, Mosley will be a sitting duck and will take a terrible beating whether on the ropes of in the middle of the ring and will probably be reduced to a bleeding, pitiful mass of flesh on the canvas by the 7th or 8th rounds under the best case scenario.

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