By Jason Kim: Although Floyd Mayweather Jr. clearly wants a fight against Manny Pacquiao in the near future, the negotiations between Mayweather and Pacquiao might make the fight un-doable at this time. Mayweather reportedly wants more than a 50-50 deal, and Pacquiao and his team will likely want nothing less than 50% of the purse split.
Instead, a fight with World Boxing Association welterweight champion Shane Mosley might be Mayweather’s best option for a title fight in his next bout. Mosley, 38, along with Golden Boy Promotions want this fight to happen, and Mosley, unlike Pacquiao, likely won’t have issues taking less than 50% purse split. Currently, Mosley is waiting for the word from Mayweather for fight. Personally, I think Mosley will be waiting for the rest of his life, but you can’t blame him for trying. Mayweather wants another fight with a smaller fighter, and Mosley might be a little too big – read: dangerous – for Mayweather at this point.
The fight makes sense because it would be a great domestic level fight for the U.S. audiences who are much more familiar with Mosley than they are with Pacquiao. It’s also a fight that would likely be more entertaining than a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao, simply because we just saw how badly a small Juan Manuel Marquez did against Mayweather. Pacquiao is even smaller than Marquez, which could make for another huge mismatch involving Mayweather.
Mosley matches up very well with Mayweather in terms of size. Mosley is an inch taller than Mayweather at 5’9” and has two inches in reach over Mayweather at 72”. In contrast, Mayweather was an inch taller than Marquez and had five inches in reach over him. Mayweather looked a lot bigger than Marquez, and appeared to outweigh him by 10 to 15 pounds.
All of those advantages would be nullified by Mosley, leaving Mayweather with a slight speed advantage over Mosley. However, Mosley is a much bigger puncher than Mayweather and a better offensive fighter. Mayweather would have to come up with a way to avoid Mosley’s power shots.
Against Marquez, Mayweather did a good job of either blocking his shots or moving away quickly when attacked. It worked well because Marquez often stopped pursuing Mayweather after a certain point. Mosley would likely have to keep chasing Mayweather in order to land. However, Mosley moves a lot better than Marquez, so there would be a much better chance for him to run Mayweather down and land shots.
Mosley is prepared to fight World Boxing Council welterweight champion Andre Berto on January 30th if a fight with Mayweather doesn’t happen. However, Mosley is holding out hope that Mayweather will decide to fight him first rather than take on Pacquiao next. In a way, this would be the smarter fight for Mayweather to take first. Right now, Mayweather is perceived in some boxing circles as a cherry picker, someone who is interested in only fighting smaller or older fighters rather than opponents his own size.
By fighting Mosley, who is considered to be the best welterweight in the division by most accounts, Mayweather would be raising his reputation if he could beat Mosley. I think this is a fight that Mayweather could win. However, Mosley would be a much tougher opponent that Marquez and Mayweather would have to be ready to take a lot of punishment to get the win. For this reason, I have doubts that Mayweather will chose to fight someone as dangerous as Mosley.
This is a fight that Mayweather could lose unless he fought really well. Mosley usually only has problems against taller fighters and does well with opponents his own size or shorter. Mayweather will likely go after the easier fight against the much smaller Pacquiao.
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