Saturday, May 1st, 2010, Floyd Mayweather, Jr., for all but one round, beat Shane Mosley like he was Arturo Gatti or Carlos Baldomir. Mayweather remained undefeated with a decisive unanimous shellacking over the aged Mosley by scores of 119-109, 119-109, and 118-110. This observer scored it 119-109, with the lone Mosley round being an explosive second round in which he wobbled Mayweather’s legs and dropped his hands for a second. Mayweather handled adversity well and held on before regaining himself and tagging the 38-year old Mosley with regularity to close out the stanza. Floyd landed nearly fifty percent of his punches against Mosley, who is never that easy a target. Mosley had never been taken apart like that, as losses to Vernon Forrest and Winky Wright twice as well as Miguel Cotto were much closer. Mosley detroyed the welterweight Terminator Antonio Margarito last January but sixteen months is an awful long time to be off when you get to that age. Don’t forget that Mosley was prepped for a fight this past January against Andre Berto before the distaster in Haiti [and likely horrendous ticket sales] nixed the fight just a week before.
If Shane’s legs were any indication of anything, it looked to me to be a guy who overtrained. Take into account the rumors that Shane was getting sonned in sparring, and that has me believing that this was the case. If you think about it, Shane had a full camp for the Berto fight, and when that fell through he almost immediately went into camp for the Floyd fight. That being said, it is still a thoroughly impressive performance and has to rank as one of Floyd’s best victories. Moments late in the fight had me wondering if Floyd as actually going to stop Mosley, who I thought I never would see looking utterly confused while operating in a boxing ring.
That result, along with estimated pay-per-view buy rates [unsubstantiated reports are saying it hit the 3 million mark that Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaffer predicted] have Floyd holding the upper hand at a potential negotiating table with Top Rank and Manny Pacquiao. Floyd will point to Mosley always being the B-side in his biggest fights [even against Miguel Cotto] and Floyd still did x amount of buys. Floyd will call it the “biggest black fight in boxing history” or something like that in future interviews. The terrible numbers for Mosley-Berto proved just how un-mainstream Mosley is, regardless of the fact that he has a mentality of fighting anyone and his ability to war it out.
Still, Pacquiao has few options but to fight Mayweather and call it a career. Talks of him retiring now and running for mayor in the Philippines have people worried we have seen the last of the Pinoy whirlwind. For once, it is not Floyd Mayweather, Jr. backing down from a fight.
Golden Boy did a good job at selling Mayweather-Mosley as a competitive fight, and even though I thought the event name “Who R U Picking” was lame, it probably did sell a few casual fans on it being a pick’em fight. Before the opening bell, Shane was a 4-1 dog and Mayweather by decision was -200. For being the year’s biggest fight, the result was far from illogical. Still, Mosley ranks as a more legitimate opponent in comparison to Joshua Clottey, who Manny Pacquiao played twelve rounds of volume punching with in March.
Pacquiao could potentially move up to 154 and fight for a belt there and add another weight division to his belt. Let’s just hope if he goes that route its not a meaningless rematch with Miguel Cotto, or a fight with Antonio Margarito, who does not deserve the payday [but he does deserve the terrible buttwhooping] that comes with a Pacquiao fight.
Real quick, I’m thinking that the way Mayweather’s legs buckled in the second only rival how he looked against DeMarcus Corley earlier in his career in terms of how hurt Floyd has ever been.
If Manny doesn’t suck it up and take the blood tests and fight Floyd, not only will boxing fans be denied the biggest fight since Leonard-Hearns, but Pacquiao’s entire career will remain under a cloud of suspicion as to whether he was clean or not. More and more people are starting to lean towards Manny being dirty.
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Watching 19-year old red-headed Mexican prospect Saul Alvarez [33-0-1, 24 KOs] take apart Jose Miguel Cotto [31-2-1, 23 KOs] was not as impressive as HBO would try and have you believe. The entire PPV, it felt like the HBO crew was acting as a shill for the promotional company. The fact that Alvarez was almost out against the older brother of Miguel Cotto, who was best as a 130-pounder, in the first round should have Golden Boy pulling back from putting him in tough anytime soon. Cotto was never a big puncher even at 130. He was outpunched by Juan Diaz. JUAN DIAZ. Still, I was impressed by Alvarez’ ability to mix his punches and have power through nearly nine full rounds. He is a tad bit slower than you would want in a welterweight but he is only 19 years old and has a lot of time to improve. This is how Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. should have been moved, mostly off of TV in the United States before finding an opponent that could make him look good and exciting. I had more than a dozen people over to watch the PPV and one guy kept singing parts of the chorus from that Rick Astley song anytime Alvarez would walk out of his corner to start each round. “Never gonna give you up…”
Daniel Ponce de Leon [39-2, 32 KOs] turned in a decent performance against perennial B-lister Cornelius Lock [19-5-1, 12 KOs], winning a ten-round unanimous decision. Not really the most intriguing fight to be apart of the year’s biggest PPV. Too often this is the case. Said Ouali [27-3, 19 KOs] and Hector Saldivia [31-2 24 KOs]delivered a two-round scorcher that featured three knockdowns until Ouali emerged the winner.
The only other fight I paid attention to this weekend was one I actually figured would be better than them all. Hozumi Hasegawa [28-3, 12 KOs] was defending his WBC bantamweight title for the eleventh time since 2005 in his native Japan against Mexico’s Fernando Montiel [41-2-2, 31 KOs]. The bout was the first time two reigning bantamweight champions fought each other at the 118 pound limit, and for four rounds it was an interesting battle. Hasegawa displayed better speed early on and was accurate with his left hand and through three hands enjoyed a lead on all three cards [30-27, 29-28 x2]. Hasegawa was competitive in the fourth before quick thundering left hooks from Montiel landed square and turned Hasegawa’s legs into jelly. Montiel followed up with a vicious flurry and Laurence Cole for once in his life did not blow a call and saved Hasegawa from further punishment with one second remaining in the round. A Hasegawa win could have set up super fights in the South Pacific with fellow stablemate Toshiaki Nishioka, who holds the WBC 122-pound title. A fight with Thai fighter and WBA 122-pound champ Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym would be an excellent fight as well. I would love to see Hasegawa man up and travel to Mexico for a rematch in an attempt to regain his title. Something I’d love to see Chris Arreola do against Tomasz Adamek, travel to Jersey in a rematch attempt. I personally thought Hasegawa was going to stop Montiel as he had impressed me in the dozen or so fights I had seen of his.
All in all, a good weekend of fights and a perfect setup for the negotiating headaches that will ensue in future Mayweather-Pacquiao fight talks.
