Pacquiao unhappy with writers asking fans to boycott his fight with 39-year-old Mosley

By Boxing News - 01/09/2011 - Comments

By Chris Williams: Eight time world title winner Manny Pacquiao isn’t pleased that some boxing writers are asking fans to boycott his fight with faded 39-year-old Shane Mosley on May 7th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Pacquiao says that he takes risks every time he fights and experiences pain when hit by these fighters. He says none of his fights are easy.

Pacquiao would really help himself if he chose to skip some of the fighters that are presented to him every now and then by his promoter Bob Arum and instead took a risky fight with an opponent that actually had a chance to beat him, such as Juan Manuel Marquez, Andre Berto, Paul Williams, Sergio Martinez, Alfredo Angulo or Sergeii Dzinziruk. If Pacquiao would mix in some of these guys instead of taking on Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters over and over again with lesser threats like David Diaz, a faded Oscar De La Hoya and now badly faded Mosley mixed in, some boxing writers would likely look the other way while Pacquiao dines on one of Arum’s faded fighters in his stable.

Speaking to philboxing.com, Pacquiao said “There is never an easy fight. Every time I step into the ring, I risk by life and my future. I had to find ways to negate advantages in size of Diaz, De La Hoya, [Ricky] Hatton, [Miguel] Cotto, [Joshua] Clottey and [Antonio] Margarito. I have stepped up to face men easily bigger and taller than me. To say that every fighter I face in the ring does not deserve attention talks about ignorance. How can fight be easy when I have been working my hardest efforts every single fight. I am no Superman. When I get hit, I pretend I did not get hurt so as to frustrate my opponent. That’s part of the sacrifice. Funny, these same writers who ask to boycott almost always cover my fights anyway.”

Of course Pacquiao is going to take heat for fighting Mosley after how badly Mosley has looked in his last two fights. I mean, come on. If you’re supposed to be the best fighter in boxing, what are you doing being matched up with guys that are practically 40-years-old and no longer winning? That just seems like a money grab and when people see it as that, naturally they’re going to be turned off about it and mention things like boycotting. Personally, I don’t think boxing fans should boycott the Pacquiao-Mosley fight, but I don’t know how they’ll feel about having paid $50+ for this fight afterwards when/if it turns into the huge mismatch that I think it will be. I don’t see that as good entertainment value.

Where I come from, you have to put in good service if you want costumers to come back. If you give them a crummy deal, then you often lose them for life. This is why I see the Mosley-Pacquiao bout as being a bad fight for boxing because it’s going to be likely setting up a mismatch for casual boxing fans to see. These same fans are likely fans of MMA, which often are much more competitively matched fights. It would be a bad thing if fans get turned off towards sports because of mismatches like this.



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