By Chris Williams: If it’s already not obvious to all, Floyd Mayweather Jr. seems entirely disinterested in fighting Shane Mosley right now – and possibly forever – if one were to read the tea leaves from Mayweather’s comments made about Mosley, in which Mayweather said “I wish him [Mosley] nothing but the best in his career.”
And that’s a real tragedy if Mayweather chooses not to fight Mosley. I can understand Mayweather’s interest in a fight with Manny Pacquiao, because that is the biggest fight that can be made right now in boxing, but in the absence of that fight, the Mosley-Mayweather fight is the biggest one that can be made.
If there is someone besides Mosley and Pacquiao that Mayweather could be fighting, I’d like to know. Miguel Cotto obviously would be an option, but not if he ends up getting drilled into the canvas next month against Pacquiao. I shudder at the thought of Mayweather choosing a beaten up Cotto to fight, and I doubt that the boxing public would have much interest in seeing Mayweather fight Cotto if Miguel ends up getting taken out by Pacquiao on November 14th.
My real point is, if Mayweather is selecting for fighters that are beneath the talent of Mosley, is that an indication that Mayweather is afraid of Mosley and avoiding him? It’s hard not to see it that way if Mayweather continues to fight smaller fighters in the size of Juan Manuel Marquez.
I know Mayweather’s choice of Marquez is now seen as a genius move by Mayweather because of the large Mexican fan base that purchased the fight on pay-per-view, but there isn’t a lot of popular Hispanic fighters within the grasp of Mayweather unless he wants to dive down to the super featherweight division and try to grab Humberto Soto as an opponent.
At this point, I really wouldn’t put it past Mayweather, but I don’t think that Marquez was chosen because they thought he was going to make for a bigger fight than Mosley. I think they saw it as an easier fight than Mosley, one in which they could get a decent payday against and also serve the purpose of setting up a comparison between Mayweather and Pacquiao’s performances against Marquez.
Mayweather screwed it up by not coming in at the agreed upon catch weight, though, and ended up being heavier than Marquez at 146 to 142. We’re not precisely sure how much heavier Mayweather was the night of the fight because he didn’t let himself get weighed.
If Mayweather goes ahead and continues to fight other fighters in the lower weight classes instead of someone like Shane Mosley, it’s going to give the impression that Mayweather is ducking Mosley. Even if Mayweather says that Mosley turned him down in the past, and essentially blew his chance, I doubt that boxing fans will be paying much attention to this.
They’ll see what I see. A fighter picking from opponents in weight classes beneath him. Mayweather already fought Ricky Hatton and Marquez, both below him weight and now Mayweather is looking to fight Pacquiao, also smaller than him. It would be a breath of fresh air if Mayweather fought at least someone his own size or bigger, but I’m not holding my breath on that happening during the remainder of Mayweather’s career. It may be that this is what we’ll be seeing from Mayweather from now on.
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