Richardson did the right thing by not pulling Mosley out against Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 06/02/2011 - Comments

Image: Richardson did the right thing by not pulling Mosley out against PacquiaoBy Chris Williams: Trainer Naazim Richardson is starting to take some heat from some boxing fans for not pulling the plug on his fighter 39-year-old Shane Mosley in his recent fight against Manny Pacquiao. With the news that surfaced today of Mosley wanting to have the fight stopped, some people in the sport are quick to second guess Richardson for not agreeing with his fighter to have the fight waived off.

However, Richardson knows what he’s doing and obviously still saw that Mosley was defending himself well and had a chance in the fight. Mosley wasn’t taking a vicious pounding from Pacquiao. Sure, he was getting hit from time to time, but Pacquiao was missing a lot and this wasn’t a fight where Mosley took a lot of punishment like in his two fights against Oscar De La Hoya.

Mosley took some shots in the 3rd, but after that we went into the defensive mode and spent the better part of the fight making Pacquiao miss with his shots and look bad. I thought Mosley – at least on defense – fought like a man half his age. He exposed Pacquiao’s flaws in a big way and showed how you can beat the small 5’6″ fighter. Mosley was moving, sometimes jabbing and landing some nice shots from time to time. The problem for Mosley is that he didn’t throw enough punches and focused too much time on defense.

But to question Richardson for not yanking Mosley out of there is just plain wrong. Mosley was more discouraged than hurt and needed his trainer to motivate him, and that’s what Richardson was doing. He knew how much Mosley wanted this fight and he saw how flawed and vulnerable that Pacquiao was. Pacquiao looked slow, old and little more than a plodding fighter. Is it any wonder that Richardson would want the fight to continue. I’m proud of Richardson. I think he did a heck of a job working that fight. He was giving the right advice all the way through it but the problem was Mosley’s age seemed to be too much of a factor for him to follow the advice that he was being given.



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