Mosley’s On Top Right Now: Can He Stay There?

By Dan Ambrose: Right now, Shane Mosley is sitting pretty having just beaten Antonio Margarito to win his WBA welterweight title with a 9th round TKO on Saturday night, and that’s got to feel good for the 37-year-old Mosley, who many boxing experts felt was on the downside of his career. Mosley showed his old speed and power, hurting Margarito in both the 8th and 9th rounds and knocking him down once in each round until the fight was stopped when Margarito’s corner threw in the towel as he was absorbing punishment against the ropes in the opening of the 9th.

As good as Mosley’s win was, the big question is can he stay on top of the welterweight heap for long? His win over Margarito was a great victory, but it might be more of a case of Mosley having the style to beat him rather than Mosley showing any new real skills.

From my perspective, he’s the same fighter who lost to Miguel Cotto, Winky Wright and struggled badly against Ricardo Mayorga. The only difference is that he had better hand speed than Margarito and beat him in the inside game. Mosley didn’t have to fight someone that jabbed him from the outside or threw bombs at him from long range like in his losses to Wright and Vernon Forrest.

Margarito, a slow inside fighter, was more or less made for Mosley. Given this victory, can Mosley hang onto the WBA welterweight title if he has to fight Cotto in a rematch or face the winner of Manny Pacquiao vs. Ricky Hatton.

Because of his size advantage over Hatton, I’d give Mosley a good chance of beating him. It wouldn’t be easy, though, because Hatton is a lot quicker and more compact than Margarito. Add to that, Hatton is a better inside fighter than Margarito, maybe even better than Mosley in some ways.

I still think Mosley would have enough size to beat him but it would be no easy win for him, because Hatton would get his pound of flesh. Cotto would be a much tougher fight for Mosley. The last time they fought, Cotto fought well in the first half of the fight, making Mosley look more or less his age. However, Mosley came on in the last four rounds to make the fight close.

He still lost but he did seem to have the better stamina in the second half. In a rematch, I’d be willing to guess that Mosley would want to fight extra hard in the first half of the fight to ensure that he doesn’t come up short in the end. I don’t know that would work for him in this case, because he doesn’t have the power than Cotto does and if he comes at him hard in the same way that he fought Margarito on Saturday, I can see Cotto landing often enough with flush shots to win most of the rounds.

It may very be that Mosley fought the best he can do in his previous fight with Cotto and can’t improve on it without greatly risking being knocked down or knocked out by Cotto. Don’t get confused about Cotto being less of a fighter because he was beaten by Margarito. Styles make fights, and Cotto seems to have a style that is troublesome for Mosley, whereas that’s much less the case with Shane and Margarito.

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