By Jim Dower: In East Side Boxing’s On the Ropes program, Freddie Roach, the great trainer for Manny Pacquiao, said that he thinks that unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (40-0, 25 KO’s) will beat the 38-year-old Shane Mosley on May 1st at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Roach says “It will be a great fight. I feel Mayweather will win. Shane does well against fighters that come forward. He does have problems with speed and people that move like Mayweather. And I think Mayweather will outscore him. It’s a very competitive fight, and hopefully the winner of this fight will fight the winner of the Pacquiao and Clottey fight. It will be a great fight.”
Mayweather, 32, is six years younger and a little faster than Mosley. But what makes Mayweather hard to bet against in this fight is his movement and defensive ability. Mayweather is hard to hit even by fighters that move well like him, but against a rusty 38-year-old Mosley, who hasn’t fought in well over a year, it will likely be a big problem for Mosley to try and land his shots. Mosley has done well in his career against opponents that stand directly in front of him.
Of Mosley’s best wins of his career – Oscar De La Hoya, Antonio Margarito, Fernando Vargas, Luis Collazo, Ricardo Mayorga and Raul Marquez – have come against fighters that stood directly in front of Mosley making it easy for him to land his shots. Mayweather won’t be there for Mosley, and it’s going to take a lot of leg movement for Shane to get his shots off. Mayweather will likely circle the ring constantly against Mosley, and use a lot of direction changing to keep Mosley constantly guessing.
It is interesting to see how Roach has changed his opinion about a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao. During the failed negotiations between Mayweather and Pacquiao last time out, Roach often sounded nonchalant about the fight happening and seemed to take a hard line stance about the random drug testing that Mayweather was asking for. Now, however, Roach seems eager for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight to happen for some reason.
Could it be that Roach sees this as the last change for the fight to happen before Pacquiao hangs up his gloves and retires from boxing? Roach, no doubt, will get a huge payday if the Mayweather-Pacquiao takes place. Of course, the thought of getting a huge payday for training Pacquiao for the Mayweather fight probably hasn’t even crept into Roach’s mind. He just wants to see a good fight and cares about Pacquiao’s legacy. But it is refreshing to see Roach all of a sudden eager for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight to happen.
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