By Sean McDaniel: World Boxing Association (WBA) heavyweight champion David Haye (24-1, 22 KO’s) is picking WBA welterweight champion Shane Mosley (46-5, 39 KO’s) to beat Floyd Mayweather Jr. (40-0, 25 KO’s) tonight at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. In an article at Sportinglife, Haye says “Floyd Mayweather and Shane Mosley are my two favorite modern day warriors, who I’ve studied in depth over the years. Both fighters are guaranteed to go down in history as greats as they’ve fought and beaten great world champions in many different weight divisions. This fight will be very tense and competitive contest from the start, similar to the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight, but the difference, I feel, will be that Mosley will push hard down the final straight.”
Haye’s thoughts echo my own. While I think Mayweather is a great natural talent, I don’t think his overall game is geared for the kind of brawling that Mosley will be bringing to him tonight in Las Vegas. It’s one thing for Mayweather to beat a smaller, wide open and technically flawed Ricky Hatton, but quite another thing for him to beat a skilled bigger fighter like Mosley. Mayweather will be the smaller fighter and the one who is least suited to the kind of rough and tumble style of fighting that Mosley likes to use in his fights. Mayweather will do okay in the first part of the fight, but I expect for him to begin to have problems in the second half of the bout, where he will start to take more and more punishment from the hard hitting Mosley.
Mayweather feels totally confident about his chances of winning tonight, describing himself as a great fighter, better than Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali. Mayweather get a good chance of proving that tonight against Mosley, but he’s going to have to bring it a little more than what he’s become accustomed to in his recent fights. Mayweather has become something of a minimalist in recent years when it comes to throwing punches and throws mainly one shot at a time as if he’s sharpshooter.
That has normally been more than enough against the smaller, overmatched opponents that he’s been put in with, but tonight he’s going to be finally facing a legitimate welterweight with talent and he’s going to have to prove that he’s for real. Mosley is one of the few fighters that Mayweather has faced that has hand speed close to his. It’s not quite at Mayweather’s level, but it’s plenty fast enough to land. Mayweather was hit cleanly a number of times in his last fight against the smaller and slower Juan Manuel Marquez last year in September.
Mosley is a lot faster than Marquez and bigger than him as well. He could make things very uncomfortable for Mayweather before long and take away his unbeaten record in the second half of the fight the way that David Haye sees it going. It would be a crushing loss for Mayweather, but he’ll still be getting a good payday of a possible $58 million of the fight brings in 2 million pay per view buys. That should help nurse Mayweather’s hurt feelings.
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