By Chris Williams: Photo credit Tom Casino/Showtime – It’s always nice to see a promoter hard at work trying to build up a fight between one of his champions and mismatched challenger. In this case, Arum did his best to explain why 39-year-old Shane Mosley looked so wretched in his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. and his gift 12 round draw against Sergio Mora. It wasn’t that Mosley was completely 100% shot, but rather Mosley fought a “stinking fighter” in the case of Mora, Arum says.
Arum says Mosley doesn’t do well against defensive fighters, and presumably he’ll do better against Manny Pacquiao on May 7th because the Flipino puts less concentration on his defense compared to Mayweather and Mora. That doesn’t explain why Mosley went into vapor luck against Mayweather after the 3rd round, and why he looked so dog tired in that fight and the Mora fight. Was that because they were so defensive that it affected his stamina.
Here’s what Arum had to say about Mosley in an interview at USA Today: “Mosley, at his age, has difficulty fighting defensive fighters because he has to spend so much energy looking for them. So when he fights Mayweather, it’s very difficult for him. He clocked Mayweather pretty good but wasn’t able to catch up with Mayweather. And then in his next fight they put him in with Mora, who’s a stinking fighter, just you know, who stinks you put, as they say, and it was very difficult for Mosley to cope with that.”
If I didn’t know already, I’d swear it seems like Arum is working for Mosley as his PR agent because he’s really building the guy up. It doesn’t work for me because I saw the Mora and Mayweather fight and Mosley just looked tired and old. Didn’t matter if those guys were standing right in front of him or moving, Mosley was just too tired to do much about it. I had him losing the Mora fight by four rounds. That sealed it for me.
I can’t see Mosley being anything more than a punching bag for Pacquiao to pound on all night long on May 7th. I think Mosley is going to make Joshua Clottey, one of Pacquiao’s worst opponents in recent years, look good in comparison on May 7th. It wouldn’t have a problem with Pacquiao pounding on another mismatched opponent if the fight weren’t going for $54.99 on Showtime pay-per-view. That’s way too high for me for this kind of fight. When I watch mismatches, I’d prefer to see them for free on cable, and not have to pay to see it.
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