By Dave Lahr: World Boxing Association welterweight champion Shane Mosley (46-5, 39 KO’s) is confident and upbeat about his chances against unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (40-0, 25 KO’s), saying in an article at Yahoo Sports News, “It’s not going to be personal. I’m not going to be upset. I’m going to have fun. I’m going to have fun beating Mayweather.”
Mosley, 38, faces perhaps the biggest test of his career when he goes up against the lightning quick Mayweather on May 1st at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
This isn’t Oscar De La Hoya, who suffered from stamina problems in his two fights against Mosley, or a faded Fernando Vargas. Mayweather is still at the top of his game and doesn’t have weight or stamina issues weighing him down like De La Hoya and Vargas did in their battles with Mosley. This is a fight in which Mosley is facing someone who is fighting at their best. Mosley, on the other hand, could be rusty and might not be at his best due to the extended period of time that he’s been out of the ring.
Mosley last fought early last year in January 2009, beating Antonio Margarito by a 9th round stoppage. Ring rust could be a problem for Mosley, although he would be the last one to tell you this. Additionally, at 38, who knows how much Mosley has deteriorated as a fighter. Mosley says “40 is the new 30.” That sounds nice on the surface, but I don’t buy it. When you’re 40, you’re not the same fighter and/or person you were at 30. Things change physically.
Mosley may be smarter than he was at 30, but that doesn’t mean that he will be able to beat a fighter like Mayweather on smarts alone. Mosley is going to have to have enough of his physical tools left for him to win this, and I’m not so sure he’s going to have enough left to get the job done on May 1st. To be sure, Mosley once was arguably the best fighter in the welterweight division at one time, but that was like over nine years ago before Mosley suffered back to back losses to welterweight Vernon Forrest.
Since that time, Mosley has been a good fighter, but clearly not the best in the welterweight or light welterweight divisions. Mosley lost two more fights to Winky Wright in 2004. And it’s admirable that Mosley, at one time the best fighter in the lightweight division between 1997-1999, moved up to light middleweight to try his hand at that weight, but there’s no mistaking that he came up short. I think Mosley is going to come up short against Mayweather.
This may not be even close. Mayweather has won titles in five divisions and has dominated boxing for the past 10 years. There hasn’t been anyone good enough to even compete with Mayweather. Recently, Mayweather was looking to get a fight against Manny Pacquiao, a fight that Mayweather almost certainly would have won due to his size, speed and movement, but the fight fell through because Pacquiao wasn’t willing to take random blood tests up to 14 days before their March 13th fight.
It’s perhaps a good thing for Pacquiao that the fight fell through, because I think Mayweather would have wiped the deck with Pacquiao and easily beat him on that night. But with that fight off the table, Mayweather was clever enough to find Mosley as an alternative to fight Pacquiao fight. The choice of Mosley has had the effect of almost entirely out-shining Pacquiao’s choice of opponent, a former international Boxing Federation welterweight champion Joshua Clottey, who is coming off a loss to Miguel Cotto.
Mosley seems cocky about the Mayweather fight for some reason. Mosley says “It won’t be the fight of my life, but I just want to make a point that I’m the best fighter. There’s not a welterweight out there who can beat me. I don’t just want to talk about it. I want to do it.” I think Mosley is deceiving himself if he thinks that it’s not the fight of his life and if he thinks he’s the best welterweight.
I think Mayweather is going to destroy Mosley. I also think that Antonio Margarito can beat Mosley if they were to have a rematch. Margarito wasn’t in the best of shape for their fight, and Mosley took advantage of his poor conditioning and did a lot of hitting and grabbing to prevent Margarito from getting his high volume offense going on that night. There probably should have been points taken away from Mosley for all the holding he was doing in that fight.
Comments are closed.