The seemingly unstoppable force that is Manny Pacquiao faces a living legend in Sugar Shane Mosley, and the fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Saturday has captured the imagination. Pacquiao is the wide betting favourite in the welterweight championship bout that will be televised on Showtime PPV, but great fighters sometimes have one last great fight left in them, and it is the possibility that Mosley might be able to reach down within himself and produce a performance for the ages that has in part led to the fight?s appeal.
Then again, there is the sense that in Pacquiao boxing has one of those fighters who come along once in a lifetime. People want to be able see him, to enjoy him while they can before he leaves the sport for a new battle, to fight poverty in his new role as a congressman in the Philippines.
I think it is fair to call Pacquiao a phenomenon. What other fighter in ring history won his first world title in the flyweight division and yet, 12 years later, was looking just as fast but much bigger and stronger as a welterweight champion?
In his last five fights, going back to his unexpected destruction of Oscar De La Hoya, it is as if Pacquiao has moved to a new level and, at 32, he seems to be fighting better than he has ever done.
Now Shane Mosley steps into the ring to try to stop the Filipino typhoon that has been sweeping all before it. Mosley has never been beaten inside the distance, and he did what Pacquiao was unable to do when he knocked out Antonio Margarito. Fans know that, no matter the result on Saturday, Mosley will come to win, and I fully expect Sugar Shane to offer stubborn resistance. However, Mosley?s form in the past two years ? with the obvious exception of the knockout win over Margarito ? has been unimpressive, and I believe that Margarito wasn?t at his best physically or mentally, having struggled to lose weight and been distracted by the backstage ?loaded handwraps? issue.
Let?s look at Mosley?s other performances in the last two years.
There was the difficult fight with Ricardo Mayorga when Mosley?s last-second KO win disguised what had been a laboured, often tentative performance.
Take away the dramatic second round, and the brutal truth is that Floyd Mayweather Jr. outclassed Mosley. I thought that Mayweather could have stopped Mosley had he really gone after him in the later rounds. Mosley was taking clean shots and he wasn?t reacting too well to them, blinking like a man who steps out of a dim interior into bright sunshine.
Then, in his last fight, Mosley needed a late-rounds rally to secure a draw with the awkwardly clever but overly cautious Sergio Mora.
Mosley, then, has, in his last four fights, given one superb performance but looked like a fading force in the other three bouts.
Pacquiao, meanwhile, has been consistent, hardly losing a round in his last five fights as he rolled over everyone put in front of him: Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey, Margarito ? none of them stood a chance.
Clottey got through to the final bell by staying behind a shell-like defence while Margarito showed incredible guts and toughness ? and some referees might have pulled Margarito out of the fight after the 10th round because he had been severely punished and stood no chance of winning.
Mosley might very well be the better one-punch banger in this fight, but he is 39, and I believe he is slowing down. He has a great chin, but he isn?t the slipperiest of fighters. I believe that Mosley will have great difficulties with Pacquiao?s hand speed. I can envisage Pacquiao running off combinations and then sliding around Mosley in sweeping motions.
The way Mosley buckled Mayweather?s legs with a big right hand a year ago showed that Sugar Shane is still dangerous, especially in the early rounds, but I see this developing into the sort of fight in which Mosley is getting hit but can?t land a telling punch on his bundle-of-energy opponent. As the bout reaches the later rounds I think we might see Mosley looking worn down and the worse for wear.
Pacquiao showed sympathy towards the beaten-up Margarito, and he seemed reluctant to keep hitting Cotto: trainer Freddie Roach wants no such Mr. Nice Guy stuff on Saturday. In fact, Roach told me in a phone conversation, the Pacquiao strategy is being geared towards getting Mosley out of the fight inside the distance.
Roach told me that as Mosley went the full 12 rounds with Mayweather it would send out a statement if Pacquiao wins this fight on a stoppage. ?He wants everyone to know who the best fighter in the world is,? Roach said ? and there would be no better way to do this than by becoming the first to halt Mosley.
Stopping Mosley is a very difficult thing to do, of course. Mosley is not only iron-chinned, he has great boxing knowledge and enormous pride. In many big fights, the only time I have seen Mosley noticeably hurt was when Vernon Forrest knocked him down nine years ago and Mosley grittily endured till the final bell. Pacquiao?s combination of speed and power, though, might be enough to force referee Kenny Bayless?s humane intervention at some point in the last four rounds.
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