Floyd Mayweather won the last 10 rounds to thrash Shane Mosley by unanimous decision in their welterweight bout Saturday in Las Vegas. But wasn?t that an interesting storm Mayweather weathered in the second round?
Mosley landed five or six huge right hands in that second round, hurting Mayweather with one and staggering him with another.
But that seemed to drain all the blood out of Mosley. At 38, he was a ghost of his former self after that.
Mayweather (41-0), forced to fight aggressively in the third round, established his jab, landed lead rights and pretty much showed Mosley (46-6) that he was not only too fast but too strong for the taller Californian, increasingly pot-shotting him as the fight ground on.
?We should have pressed the attack a lot earlier,? Mayweather said.
?I may have started loading up too much,? Mosley said of his lack of punch from the third round on. ?I played into his hands.?
If Mosley could have sustained the energy that enabled him to assault Mayweather in the second as no one else ever has, he would have had a chance to hand Floyd his first loss, which is beginning to seem such a prestigious feat that it may become the focus for Manny Pacquiao.
Mosley wasn?t used to being the slower man. ?He started being able to avoid the punches,? said Mosley, who avoided throwing them.
But then, Mosley was never as fast as Pacquiao, not to mention Mayweather. There?s no way Mosley in his prime would have outpointed Mayweather as Floyd performed Saturday, very much in his prime at 33.
He admitted he was hurt in the second, with grace he usually hides. ?That comes with the territory,? Mayweather said. Even for him.
Still, we learned that Mosley would have had a puncher?s chance seven or eight years ago waging three or four more rounds like the second. He showed that Mayweather can be abused by quick, accurate punches. Gosh, who throws those? Maybe a left-hander? Maybe a Filipino left-hander?
That second round Saturday was enough in itself to stoke the demand for Mayweather-Pacquiao, and I think Manny will agree to the steroids testing if it can be proposed in a gentlemanly way.
Of course it wasn?t the blood-letting that drained Mosley so quickly. It was the 38 years and 52 fights and finally facing one of the few fighters more talented than he.
Mayweather was great Saturday. But not quite invincible.
