This Saturday night in Las Vegas, the MGM Grand will host the welterweight title fight between boxing's pound-for-pound king, Manny Pacquiao, and living legend Shane Mosely. The 46-6 Mosely enters the ring as a big underdog, having won only one of his last three fights, facing off against the seemingly invincible Pacquiao, who, with a record of 52-3, hasn't had anything that vaguely resembled a close fight years.
While Pacquiao is seen as a heavy favorite in this matchup, this is boxing afterall, so this fight can turn out any number of ways. Mosely only has one win in his last three fights, and that win came over two years ago, but it was perhaps the greatest victory of his career. In his January 2009 fight with Antonio Margarito, Mosely took on a fighter who was probably the most feared man in boxing at the time, having just handed superstar Miguel Cotto his first loss in an 11-round destruction. Mosely went on to absolutely demolish Margarito, stopping him for the first time in his career with a 9th round TKO. Something that even Manny Pacquiao was unable to do when he took on Margarito a year later. Some critics downplayed the win, however, noting that Margarito was caught with plaster in his handwraps moments before entering the ring, so his head was clearly not in a fight in which he also struggled to make weight . But that shouldn't in any way diminish Mosely's performance, in which he looked quicker and sharper than he had in years.
In his next fight, Mosely took on Floyd Mayweather, and although he lost a very lopsided decision, he did catch Floyd with a devastating right hand in the second round which nearly knocked him down, and in doing so, he basically became the only guy to ever hurt Mayweather, who is by far the greatest defensive fighter of his generation. That shot, along with the Margarito fight, proved that Mosely still has something left in the tank, and he definitely has the skills and experience to challenge Manny Pacquiao. But I still think Pacquiao will win this fight.
Manny Pacquiao is a once in a generation talent. The only fighter to ever win a title in 8 weight classes, Manny seems to get better every time he enters the ring. A lot of the time in boxing when you have a superstar, they tend to avoid dangerous fights, unless the time is right and the money is really good. A guy like Floyd Mayweather has ducked more dangerous boxers (including Antonio Margaito and, of course, Manny Pacquiao.) than he has ever fought. And by no means is he alone. The vast majority of top fighters do this all the time. Shane Mosely is definitely an exception to this rule, fighting dangerous or frustrating guys like Oscar De La Hoya, Mayweather, Margarito, Fernando Vargas, Winky Wright, and Vernon Forrest. Probably the only guy who has taken on more challenges than Mosely is Manny Pacquiao. He has fought everyone, regardless of weightclass. When he moved up 3 classes, from super featherweight to welterweight, to take on De La Hoya in 2008, a lot of people, including me, thought Manny was going to get killed. Oscar was just too big and too talented. But boy were we wrong. Pacquiao gave Oscar the worst beating of his career in what turned out to be the Golden Boy's last fight ever. Since then Manny has only taken on the very best opponents, destroying all of them in spectacular fashion. Making him the best and most popular fighter in the world along the way. There's no such thing as a tune-up fight for Manny, even though a lot of his fights end up looking that way.
And that could be the case again on Saturday night. But here's to hoping that it isn't. I have always been a big Shane Mosely fan. I would love to see him pull out one more great performance on such a big stage. My predicition is Pacquiao by decision. I know that Manny really wants to knock out Mosely because Mayweather could not. But I don't think it will happen. Mosely has never been stopped in 52 career fights. It would be a nice feather in Manny's cap, though, because who knows, the way Floyd Mayweather has been ducking Manny for the last few years, this could very well be Pacquiao's last big fight, or even his last fight altogether. There's really nobody left for him to fight outside of Mayweather, and he wants to move on to his next career as both a congressman in the Philipines and an international singing sensation.
No comments:
Post a Comment