By Manuel Perez: Let me start of by saying that I’ve always been a big fan of Shane Mosley (45-5, 38 KOs). I have an immense amount of respect for what he’s accomplished in his career, in particular his exciting battles against a prime Oscar De La Hoya, his domination in the lightweight division, as well as his two wins over a shot Fernando Vargas. He’s had a great career, there’s no doubting that for a second. With that said, I think Mosley is going to take a severe beating on January 24th, in his title bout against World Boxing Association (WBA) welterweight champion Antonio Margarito (37-5, 27 KOs).
As much as I like Mosley as a fighter, he’s going to knocked out by Margarito, there’s no doubt about that. The only question will be in which round it will occur. Margarito, 30, is at the top of the welterweight division, a virtual punching machine who recently took apart Miguel Cotto, stopping him in the 11th round in July to capture the Puerto Rican’s WBA welterweight title.
Margarito chased Cotto all round the ring for the first nine rounds, finally catching up to him at the end of the 10th round and hurting him with a big left uppercut followed by a flurry of punches. In the next round, Margarito hurt Cotto with a big right hand, then dropped him with a left-right combination the head that sent Cotto down to one knee.
When Cotto got up, his fast was a bloody mess, looking as if he had been run over by a lawn mower. Cotto then ran to the far corner, where he took a second knee as Margarito chased after him like a runaway locomotive. The fight was then stopped moments later after a beaten Cotto got to his feet.
Mosley, now 37, looked positively crummy in his last fight, stopping former welterweight champion Ricardo Mayorga with 1 second left in the 12th round in September. And though two of the judges had Mosley ahead at the time of the stoppage, I had him losing by at least two to three rounds. He looked bad in the fight, unable to pull the trigger on his punches, taking punishment, terrible defense and looking like a shot 40-year-old fighter.
If I were to be kind, I’d say he would say that maybe he looked so bad because he was having an off night, that anyone would look bad against the unpredictable style of Mayorga, who makes a lot of opponents look bad at times. But Mosley had a different look to him. He just looked old, decrepit, like someone who had suddenly aged five years in the span of 10 months.
Sometimes people age like that. Who knows? Maybe it was Mosley’s last fight with Cotto that did it to him? In that fight, which took place in September 2007, Mosley fought bravely, taking a lot of punishment in the first half of the fight, but rallying in the second half of the fight and getting the better of Cotto but ultimately losing a close 12-round decision.
Mosley took a lot of head shots in that fight, and perhaps there were lingering effects that he took with him in his fight against Mayorga 10 months later. Whatever the case, Mosley looked positively awful, nothing like his former self from a year earlier and light years away from his former pound-for-pound greatness in the last 90s.
Now, Mosley is going to be entering the ring with the busiest, most aggressive punchers in the welterweight division in his fight against Margarito. Many boxing experts are, naturally, predicting Mosley to loss badly to Margarito, and they question his decision making in taking the fight in the first place.
This wasn’t the fight that Mosley probably should have taken given his age, his recent performances and with the overwhelming talent that Margarito possesses. Even in his prime, Mosley would have struggled against some like Margarito, but now that Mosley is 37, fighting well below his former prime, he’s almost guaranteed to take a severe beating.
I think he has it in him to last seven, maybe eight rounds against Margarito, but no more than that. His legs won’t be able to move him around the ring like Cotto’s, and he’ll be forced to fight it out with Margarito in a kind of replay of Custer’s last stand. As such, I see this as a terrible route that will be ugly for Mosley from start to the bitter finish. Hopefully, he’ll retire immediately afterwards.
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