By Peter Howells: On the back of an amazing display from ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley to topple Antonio Margarito from the top of the Welterweight mountain, I’m left wondering.. Is anyone else confused about who the best in the division truly is? Anyone who believed Light-heavyweight king Joe Calzaghe’s words when he said that boxing is dying, only has to look at the Welterweight scene to know that simply is not true. I truly believe that the array of talent around the Welterweight division makes it one the most exciting divisions ever which is great when you consider the state of our Heavyweight division at the moment.
However, the sheer amount of genuine superstars in/around Welterweight makes it almost impossible to tell who the King is at this current moment in time.
You’ve got your fighters who fight there in most of their fights; and that’s confusing enough. Williams beat Margarito back in 2007, only to then lose to Carlos Quintana, which though he avenged this defeat, was a blemish that seemed to put him out of the picture for a while. Then we had last year’s fight of the year which saw Margarito break Miguel Cotto down and knock him out. Margarito was quickly announced the best in the division which was true, right? Wrong. Last night the legend that is Shane Mosley outclassed Margarito for 9 rounds before finally doing the seemingly impossible and knocking out the guy who can’t be knocked out. So stands to reason to assume that Mosley is the true Welterweight champ, right? Wrong again, and there’s only one reason why; Mosley dropped a decision to Miguel Cotto late 2007. So let’s try straighten things out: Cotto beat Mosley, Margarito then beat Cotto, only to then lose to Mosley. I’m lost.
Then we have the fighters who haven’t been fighting at Welterweight regularly recently. The aforementioned Paul Williams looms in the background claiming he’s been avoided by the likes of Margarito and Cotto recently, so has subsequently claimed an alphabet interim junior middleweight championship. Some fans believe that given the chance, Williams would be the best of them all. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to see soon.
English phenom and reigning King of the light-welterweight division Ricky Hatton is also a name sometimes mentioned around the Welterweight scene. While even Ricky himself admits that he struggles with the higher weight, there’s no doubting that he’s a player in the division, considering he won a world title at the weight back in 2006 with a points win over contender Luis Collazo. He’s written off in America a lot but don’t kid yourself, If he expressed an interest in fighting any of the big guns in the division, they’d jump at the chance because of the huge amounts of money he brings to the table.
Just when you think it couldn’t get more muddled, there’s the current pound for pound king himself Manny Pacquaio. He defied all odds recently by stepping up two divisions to completely dismantle ring legend Oscar de la Hoya and show that he deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the rest of them. Whilst completely outsized by his rivals, many believe that after his recent performance he can more than hold his own. Luckily he’s set to try and take over the light-welterweight division first by taking on Ricky Hatton (hopefully!).
And now the cherry on top of this mess of a cake is currently retired but the last man to almost globally be recognized as the best in the division or any division for that matter is Floyd Mayweather Jr. Most (including this writer) feel that he’s just waiting for the right fight to step up, come out of retirement and try and bring some order back to the division. That fight would likely be against the winner of Pacquaio/Hatton but I don’t believe for a second that he’s scared of taking on the likes of Margarito, Williams etc.
There’s no doubt about it, the Welterweight division is jam packed with fighters who all could probably have a claim to be the best. And you know what? I love it. Let’s make as many of these names fight each other as possible in the next couple of years and sit back and enjoy, because I don’t think anyone can really say who the best is quite yet.
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