Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather proved exactly what his moniker suggested him to be Saturday night in front of a jam-packed MGM Grand Arena. Mayweather was simply ‘money’ against welterweight champion ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley in dominating 12-round performance.
Mayweather backed up his hyperboles and truly made Mosley look out of place in the ring against one of the best fighters of this era.
Mayweather not only displayed his usual defensive brilliance, he also proved that he can fight coming forward as he surprised boxing experts by playing the role of the aggressor for most of the fight.
Mayweather was simply too fast and too smart for the out-gunned Mosley. It was as if Mayweather was reading Mosley’s every move like an open book.
Mosley’s only bright moment in the fight came in the second round when he rocked Mayweather with a right that almost knocked the undefeated fighter down.
Mosley did live up to his moniker as well and fought like a man who had too much sugar before the fight. Mosley looked nervous, tentative and overly anxious while repetitively shaking his fist as if to confuse Mayweather only to have majority of his punches telegraphed and countered.
With the victory, boxing fans are back to square one as talks about a superfight between Mayweather and boxing’s current best pound for pound fighter Manny Pacquiao have resurfaced.
Obviously, there’s several factors outside the ring that prevent the fight from happening and I’m staying away from that for now. I wanted to break down Mayweather’s performance against Mosley and relate it to how he will hypothetically fare against Pacquiao if the fight does indeed happen in the near future.
First thing’s first. A fight between Pacquiao and Mayweather will be as the lines reflect it to be right now- a toss-up. It’s almost as if it’s one of those fights that should go 15 rounds so fans can really determine who’s the clear winner. Mayweather presents some problems for Pacquiao primarily because of his instincts and quickness.
Mayweather won’t just stay flat-footed and eat combos from Pacquiao like Cotto did nor will he just cover up like Clottey, but the thing that concerns me is how will Floyd sustain Pacquiao’s perpetual aggression. If he opts to go toe-to-toe with Pacquiao similar to how he did against Mosley, he’s going down- multiple times!
If that single shot from Mosley rocked him, Pacquiao’s left cross will blow him away like it’s done with pretty much everyone who got hit clean with it. And Pacquiao follows up his punches with relentless combinations and has the best killer instincts boxing has seen since Mike Tyson’s prime.
Floyd can’t go toe-to-toe with Pacquiao. I just can’t see how he will last. He can definitely win by decision though, but he will probably have to do it moving backwards and use his ring generalship and counter punching all night long. He is quick enough to be able to get away from Pacquiao’s big punches and smart enough to frustrate the Filipino slugger in the ring. Mayweather knows how to score points and has mastered the unanimous decision win.
At the end of the day however, a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight might not be as competitive as a lot of people think. With fear of getting knocked out, Pacquiao can impose his will on Mayweather and force him to fight. Freddie Roach also has the perfect game plan to defeat Mayweather and the ultimate weapon in Pacquiao to shoot down that zero. Take it for what it’s worth, it’s too early to do predictions on a fight that’s not anywhere close to happening yet anyway.
Mayweather has been adamant that a fight will not happen if Pacquiao refuses to take the random Olympics style drug tests and Pacquiao continues to refuse to submit to Mayweather’s demands. Last time I checked, Pacquiao agreed to a 24-day cutoff prior to the fight while Floyd demanded 14. Shoot, meet somewhere in the middle like 18 and lace em up. Sounds simple right? But this is boxing after all.
