Weights: Mosley 159.4, Mayorga 165.4

By Boxing News - 08/28/2015 - Comments

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By Jim Dower: To no surprise to anybody, 41-year-old Ricardo Mayorga (31-8-1, 25 KOs) came in overweight at today’s weigh-in for his pay-per-view fight against 43-year-old Shane Mosley (47-9-1, 39 KOs) at The Forum in Inglewood, California. The originally agreed upon weight was 158 pounds. Mayorga came in at 165.4 pounds, which would put Mayorga 7.4lbs over the 158lb limit.

According to Fight News, Mayorga will be fined $50,000. However, it’s unclear whether he’ll be fined or not. Mosley came in at 159.4lbs. That would obviously put him over the 158lb limit too. In the big scheme of things, it’s not big a deal what weight these guys come in just as long as they agree on the weight, and are willing to step inside the ring on Saturday night.

Mayorga had too much weight to take off to start with. He hadn’t fought since last December when he stopped Andrik Saralegui in the 5th round. Mayorga weighed 173lbs for that fight. Obviously his weight has gone up a bit now that’s no longer fighting on a regular basis. I do think that Mayorga could have trimmed down to 158 if he had extra time melt off all the fat that he’s put on, but he’d likely be too weak to fight if he lost it all.

As out a shape as Mayorga looks now, it’s hard to believe that he previously fought in the 147lb division. That’s his real weight once you take the fat off of him. The problem is it takes too long to take all the weight off that he’s put on over the years.

The Mosley-Mayorga fight is going for $49.95 on PPV. That’s going to be a tough ask to get boxing fans willing to purchase the fight in high numbers, but you never know. It is an interesting fight, and in some ways even more entertaining than the Abner Mares vs. Leo Santa Cruz fight, which taking place on the same night on free television on Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN.

That could hurt the PPV sales having the Mares vs. Santa Cruz on around the same time on ESPN. Additionally, the ticket sales for the Mosley vs. Mayorga fight are probably not being helped due to the proximity of the two fights to one another. The Mares-Santa Cruz fight is taking place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. That’s not far from Inglewood, where the Mosley-Mayorga fight is taking place.

Mosley is coming into this fight having lost 4 out of his last 7 fights since 2009. You can make an argument that Mosley’s record in the last six years should be 2-5, because the draw that he got against Sergio Mora in 2010 appeared to be another loss for Mosley. A lot of boxing fans think Mora should have been given a victory over Mosley.

It’s been two years since Mosley last fought when he was stopped by Anthony Mundine in the 7th round in November 2013. You can’t take too much away from Mosley for losing to a big puncher like Mundine. There’s a lot of guys in the 154lb division that would lose to Mundine right now.

Mosley and Mayorga fought each other seven years ago in 2008. Mosley rallied to score a 12th round knockout. While the judges had Mosley ahead on the scorecards at the time of the stoppage, a lot of boxing fans felt that Mayorga was ahead. I personally had Mayorga with a commanding lead going into the 12th.

Mosley did a great job of coming on in the final seconds to get the stoppage win. But earlier in the fight, Mayorga was using his size and strength advantage to get the better of Mosley. Mayorga was clearly the stronger fighter of the two. I’m not sure if that’s something Mayorga will be able to do on Saturday night.

With all the eight that Mayorga has put on, I think he’ll give Mosley problems for five or six rounds, and then after that steadily fade. But it’s hard to tell how Mosley will fight, because he’s looked terrible in all of his fights in the past five years of his career.

Mosley isn’t the same fighter that knocked out Mayorga in 2008, and of course Mayorga isn’t the same fighter either. But I think Mayorga has more of his ability still intact than Mosley does. The defeats that Mosley suffered against the likes of Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and especially Saul “Canelo” Alvarez were punishing defeats for him. Mosley took a lot of hard head shots in all those fights.



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