Mosley says that fighters that come at him like Pacquiao, he knocks out

By Boxing News - 12/09/2010 - Comments

Image: Mosley says that fighters that come at him like Pacquiao, he knocks outBy Chris Williams: In What will likely be Manny Pacquiao’s next easy opponent, 39-year-old Shane Mosley (46-6-1, 39 KO’s) actually thinks he has a good chance of beating Pacquiao when he fights him on April 16th. The fight still hasn’t been officially announced yet, but this is the name that Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum keeps mentioning over and over again as the one he wants Pacquiao to fight next year in April.

In an article at the La Times Blog – latimesblogs.latimes.com, Mosley said “They think I’m the easier fight. That’s fine with me. I was supposed to be done before [Antonio] Margarito too. I didn’t look good against [Floyd] Mayweather or [Sergio] Mora, but Mora was running from me, and Mayweather’s the best defensive fighter in the world. Pacquiao’s a fighter like me. He comes forward. I promise you, I’ll hit him on the chin. His defense is not that good. The guys who come that me, I know out.”

I agree that Mosley would have knocked out Pacquiao, but that was only if a young version of Mosley were fighting him and not the current slightly decrepit version of Mosley. That version of Mosley has looked nothing short of terrible in fights against Mayweather and Mora, losing to Mayweather and fighting to a gift draw with Mora.

I think Arum is making a mistake in selecting Mosley as Pacquiao’s next opponent. Certainly Arum can do better than this, can’t he? However, at least Arum is consistent, if nothing else. Mosley fits in nicely with many of Pacquiao’s opponents during the past two years. Oscar De La Hoya was weight drained, old and shot when he fought Pacquiao in 2008. Ricky Hatton looked weight drained from having stripped off a ton of blubber during training camp, and he had been knocked out by Floyd Mayweather in 2007 and hadn’t looked the same since then. Miguel Cotto had been really pounded by both Antonio Margarito and Joshua Clottey, and then had to come in at a catch weight to fight Pacquiao, even though Cotto was the champion and Pacquiao the challenger.

Margarito had been beaten up in his loss to Shane Mosley, and looked like a shell of his former self. Clottey simply didn’t belong in the same ring with Pacquiao. I don’t even understand that fight other than Arum was doing one of his Top Rank stable fighters a big favor by letting him fight Pacquiao. As turns out, it actually may have not done Clottey any favors because he ended up embarrassing himself by hardly fighting back and just taking punishment for 12 rounds.



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