By Chris Williams: It always amuses me when Shane Mosley (46-5, 39 KOs) says something. Apparently, Mosley wants to fight the winner of the Ricky Hatton vs. Manny Pacquiao bout for Ricky’s International Boxing Organization title tonight at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. I bet he does. It’s too bad Floyd Mayweather Jr. is going to foul up Mosley’s wishes and leave him in the cold without either of Hatton or Pacquiao.
Who knows? Maybe the loser will want to fight Mosley, although I don’t think that’s what Mosley had in mind. Oh well, Mosley can always call out Paul Williams. I’m sure Williams would love to fight Mosley, don’t you think?
I think Mosley would like to fight Williams about as much as he’d like to fight heavyweight Wladimir Klitschko. As such, Mosley might have to make some hard decisions about what he wants to do, because I don’t see anything here for him unless he wants to risk his health and try fighting Williams.
You never know, Mosley might beat him, but I seriously doubt it. More than likely, Mosley gets beat worse than he did by Vernon Forrest and Winky Wright put together. Mosley thinks that the winner of the Hatton-Pacquiao fight will be the number #1 pound-for-pound boxer in the world.
Oddly enough, this was a title that Mosley held for a short period of time before it was ripped away of him after he was beaten in back to back 12-round defeats by Vernon Forrest in 2002. I don’t agree with Mosley about the winner of Hatton-Pacquiao being the pound for pound number #1 fighter in the world.
I think maybe that title should go to someone like Chad Dawson or another fighter. If Pacquiao emerges at the winner, he would still need to beat a couple of other light welterweights like Timothy Bradley and Kendall Holt before I would even consider him for this pound for pound nonsense.
Pacquiao won’t fight those, and neither will Hatton. That’s the problem. Hatton is fighting Pacquiao, but Hatton hasn’t tested himself against what I consider to be a talented light welterweight for a long time. Paulie Malignaggi doesn’t qualify for that to me, because I think Bradley and Holt would both beat Malignaggi with ease.
So the winner of the Hatton-Pacquiao will be nothing more than an unproven fighter in my eyes. To me the fight is nothing but a popularity contest for two fighters that still haven’t cut their teeth on the best in their weight classes. Let Pacquiao fight Bradley, Holt, and Nate Campbell. You can add Breidis Prescott to make it interesting, because I see him as being better than David Diaz and Marco Antonio Barrera, two of Pacquiao’s recent opponents.
As for Mosley, I think he’s running out of time at 37. He might want to try and land a fight with Andre Berto. I think he’d beat Berto, but I can’t see Berto fighting him unless he was his mandatory challenger. Mosley could always move back up to the light middleweight division and go after someone like Sergio Martinez or Forrest.
Of course, none of them would bring in the mega bucks that Hatton or Pacquiao would, but at least Mosley could stay busy. I think Forrest is still probably too good for Mosley, though, so that might not be a good idea. Maybe Mosley could go after WBO/WBC middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik.
They could fight at a catch weight of 155 or something. Pavlik already had a taste of Bernard Hopkins, but it might be easier for Pavlik if he gets to move down in weight a few pounds to fight the smaller Mosley. I think Mosley could easily beat Pavlik, and make it looks about as easy as Mosley did in stopping Antonio Margarito in the 9th round in January 2009.
It would be a dangerous fight for Mosley because of Pavlik’s big power and size advantage, but Mosley would certainly have the speed to beat Pavlik. If that doesn’t interest Mosley, I don’t know what else there is for him. I can’t see Pacquiao or Hatton ever fighting Mosley in this lifetime, so he’s probably dreaming if he thinks that either of them will want to fight him. There’s always Felix Trinidad or maybe Roy Jones Jr.
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