By Eric Thomas: Welterweight champion Shane Mosley was interviewed on Friday night fights by Brian Kenny, and Mosley didn’t seem happy with Floyd Mayweather’s excuses for not fighting him, saying “Floyd, quit running. Stop saying I’m not a pay per view attraction. I’ve been making money longer than you. That’s probably why you came back to the sport. Now you come back to get some money. We can make money together, alright?”
Mosley was upset with the comments Mayweather said the other day to Kenny when he responded to a question about why he won’t fight Mosley by saying that Mosley wasn’t a PPV attraction and that Juan Manuel Marquez, Mayweather’s next opponent on July 18th, is more of a PPV star because he has a country [Mexico] behind him.
Mayweather also made reference to Mosley’s five losses on his record, making a face as he mentioned it as if dismissing Mosley due to the losses. Mayweather then finished off the Mosley topic by saying “a belt don’t make me,” meaning that Mayweather could careless that Mosley has a title and he doesn’t.
Trainer Freddie Roach, also on Friday Night Fights as a guess host, had few good things to say about Mayweather, highlighting Floyd’s tendency to “pick and choose his opponents” that he feels that he can compete with. Roach feels that Mayweather has no defining fight in his career.
Mayweather does have wins over Diego Corrales, Oscar De La Hoya, Jose Luis Castillo, and Ricky Hatton, which seems to suggest that Roach may be just trying to get at Mayweather a little bit with that comment. Mayweather doesn’t have many exciting fights in his career, though, because he’s been so dominant over his opponents.
Likewise, Mayweather’s safety first style of fighting and his running at times seems to prevent Floyd from being more interesting to watch. That will likely change as he ages, as Mayweather won’t be able to dominant his opponents forever nor will be able to stay on the move like he’s done against certain opponents in his career to foil their attacks.
Roach thinks that Mayweather chose Marquez rather than Pacquiao as his first opponent during his comeback because Mayweather wants to fight at a “slower pace,” and Pacquiao obviously wouldn’t allow Mayweather to fight like that against him. Roach also said there’s three guys that Mayweather won’t fight, but didn’t say who they were.
Instead, Kenny jumped in and named Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley and Paul Williams, and Roach agreed with him. Mayweather has shown little interest in fighting these guys, even before he retired two years ago. There’s something about Mosley, Williams and Cotto that makes Mayweather hesitant to commit himself to a fight with them.
Back two years ago, Mayweather had somewhat of an excuse for not fighting them, because none of those fighters were as popular as De La Hoya or Hatton. However, both Hatton and De La Hoya have been badly beaten by Pacquiao recently, so there’s no excuse for not fighting Cotto, Williams or Mosley.
They’re pretty much all that’s left after Mayweather fights Pacquiao. That is unless Mayweather wants to comb the super featherweight division for opponents like Humberto Soto or Yuriorkis Gamboa. That wouldn’t go over very well with boxing fans, which would probably see it as Mayweather ducking the best welterweights in the division.
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