By Chris Williams: Just think boxing fans could have been given a treat of watching Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez for a third fight, boxing fans will have to settle for seeing Pacquiao beat up on 39-year-old Shane Mosley on May 7th.
This is so sad for the fans of the sport, this looking for the most money at the expense of competitive fights. In Pacquiao’s last two fights, fans have had to sit through mismatches against Top Rank stable fighters Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito.
Now that both of them have been beaten up and sent on their way, Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, has dug up 39-year-old Mosley, who in many ways is a worse choice than Clottey and Margarito. At least those guys had enough stamina to fight hard for more than four rounds without gassing out completely.
We’ll be lucky if Mosley doesn’t fade completely by the 2nd round and just stand there like a statue for the remaining 10 rounds of the fight, if it makes it that far. I would have much preferred to see Pacquiao in with Marquez for a third fight given how exciting their two previous fights were.
And forget about this nonsense that Arum was talking about recently about Marquez fighting WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto to prove himself worthy of fighting Pacquiao a third time.
If Marquez, a three division world champion, isn’t qualified enough based on his prior world title experience and the fact that he appeared to beat Pacquiao in their two previous fights, I don’t know who is qualified. Certainly not Clottey, who had won only one title in his life and yet was given a shot against Pacquiao.
The weird part about all this is that many of Pacquiao’s fans are happy with the choice of Mosley, and don’t want Pacquiao to fight Marquez again. It’s weird. Could it be they’re protecting Pacquiao from getting beaten?
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