By Manuel Perez: Shane Mosley better find the fountain of youth by this Saturday night or else he’s going to end taking a beating from Antonio Margarito. Up until his last fight against Ricardo Mayorga, Mosley has been fortunate not to take a lot of punishment during his long 16-year pro career, but that may change against the World Boxing Association (WBA) welterweight champion Margarito, who specializes in dishing out punishment against his opponents, overwhelming them with his high punch output.
Margarito recently defeated Mosley conqueror Miguel Cotto in an 11th round stoppage in July that left Cotto a bloody wreck of a fighter. Cotto tried using evasive tactics, moving a great deal and avoiding costly exchanges with Margarito as much as possible. But in the end, Margarito caught up to him anyway, hurting Cotto first at the end of the 10th and then putting him away with a hail of punches in the 11th.
Mosley, 37, has never been a runner and probably won’t start now. Even if he wanted to, his body probably wouldn’t allow him to move enough for it to matter against a fighter as relentless as Margarito. With his Golden Boy connections, Mosley will likely try to duplicate fellow co-worker Bernard Hopkins’ performance against Kelly Pavlik by using speed, movement and selective flurries to frustrate and confuse the slower Margarito.
I wish I could say that it would help Mosley, but it probably won’t. Margarito, though not really fast on his feet, isn’t a straight ahead plodder like Pavlik and is much better at cutting off the ring than Pavlik ever was. Additionally, Margarito has the height and reach advantage over Mosley, something that Pavlik didn’t have in his fight with Hopkins.
This means that Mosley’s only hope to win the fight is if he can beat Margarito at his own game and try to outwork him at close range. That’s not going to happen in this lifetime, I hate to say. Mosley will be able to do well for a few rounds, but then will be blasted apart by Margarito as he won’t be able to keep up with the constant incoming punches thrown his way.
Mosley will try to stick and move, sometimes mixing it flurries but he’s going to have to fight backing up and circling the entire time and I suspect he won’t last long doing that. Mosley hasn’t faced a fighter like Margarito at any time in his career, with perhaps Mayorga coming the close to.
Mosley didn’t do well with the pressure that Mayorga put on him throughout the fight and was hit often and appeared to be losing the fight going into the last round. Mayorga ended up getting knocked out with one second left in the 12th, but in losing the fight, he showed that Mosley doesn’t have the energy to fight for a full three minutes of every round like he did in his younger days.
The best that Mosley could do was offer up a few pot shots in every round and an occasional flurry. Mostly, he looked too small, old and weak against Mayorga. Later, Mosley would say that he had problems with Mayorga’s awkward, unpredictable style of fighting.
However, Mosley just looked past it to me. I don’t expect him to look any better against Margarito, who typically throws twice as many punches per round than Mayorga does. Mosley may be able to get out of the way of some but eventually he’s going to get snowed under and stopped in the same manner as Cotto and Kermit Cintron was.
Prediction: Margarito by 7th round TKO.
Comments are closed.