By Chris Williams: WBA welterweight champion Shane Mosley (46-5, 39 KO’s) thinks that he’s spotted where the unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (40-0, 25 KO’s) is starting to show his age. The two fighters will be meeting this Saturday at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, in a big money fight where both fighters will make multi-millions for the fight. In an article at the Grand Rapids Press, Mosley says “I see where he’s [Mayweather] slipped. And I know there’s certain things that’s going on with his body that he doesn’t understand yet. I won’t tell him, either. I’ll show him.”
It’s unknown what Mosley is talking about, but it could be in the area of conditioning. Mayweather hasn’t been active in the ring for the past three years, fighting only one time and living the soft life in his Las Vegas mansion. At 33, Mayweather has had things easy for the past three years, spending big money and living well. Mosley is wealthy too, but he’s remained active up until the past year.
Mayweather appears to have aged since his fight with Ricky Hatton in December 2007. If you compare the photos of Mayweather in that fight to the ones in his comeback fight against Juan Manuel Marquez last year in September, it’s fairly startling. It’s hard not to age physically without aging of the internal body as well, with reflexes becoming slower and stamina taking a major hit as well.
Mayweather had the perfect opponent for his comeback by choosing the smaller, slower and older Marquez to fight. Marquez was a super featherweight only a year before his fight with Mayweather and moved up two weight divisions to take the fight with Floyd. Marquez had been fighting at lightweight briefly before his fight with Mayweather, but he didn’t look nearly as good at that weight as he had while fighting at super featherweight and featherweight.
Some boxing experts feel that the 38-year-old Mosley will be the one that will be showing his age on Saturday night, but there could be a shock if Mosley, who looks about the same physical age as Mayweather, takes the fight to Mayweather like he did against Antonio Margarito in his last fight in January 2009. Mosley wore Margarito out and ended up stopping him in the 9th round of a one-sided bout.
This is likely going to be the hardest test for Mayweather during his career, and it’s coming at possibly the worst time for him – not long after a three year layoff. Mayweather has feasted in recent years against smaller and older fighters, which has kept him from taking punishment. On Saturday night, Mayweather will absorb punishment from Mosley and probably taste more leather than he has in many years. Can Mayweather stand up the punishment that Mosley will inflict or will boxing fans discover that beyond all his flashy boxing skills and blazing hand speed that he was mentally weak when it came to taking punishment.
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