Earlier tonight in front of a packed house at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao retained his title against future hall of famer Shane Mosley, dominating the veteran over 12 rounds to take a unanimous decision.
As most experts predicted, the difference between the pair was obvious from the beginning, with Mosley quickly struggling to deal with Pacquiao’s speed and movement.
As early as the third Mosley was in trouble, being knocked down for only the third time in his career by a Pacquiao combination. Although clearly in trouble Mosley managed to hang on through the end of the round and part of the way into the fourth before his head seemed to clear.
After being knocked down, Mosley seemed a lot less eager to engage and as a result Pacquiao more often that not had to go looking for his opponent in order to initiate action during the middle rounds.
Pacquiao too though seemed content to win rounds at points, perhaps respecting a clearly tiring Mosley too much to go in for the kill earlier than he did.
In the ninth referee Kenny Bayless made a rare wrong call, gifting Mosley a knockdown after a clear push to Pacquiao. Far from turning things in Mosley’s favor however this only served to worsen his situation as a now more aggressive Pacquiao battered him mercilessly, coming close to scoring a knockdown of his own. Advertisement
In the final rounds, Pacquiao once again seemed to be going for the finish, and by this point Mosley had little energy to do much more than try to avoid the worst of it.
As Mosley continued to defend and Pacquaio continued to land big punches, it eventually became clear that the 39 year old Californian was going to succeed in running out the clock. Simultaneously robbing Pacquiao of the opportunity to become the first to stop him and giving him ammunition to counter the inevitable calls for his retirement after the bout.
The referees scores were as follows: Trowbridge, 119-108; Moretti, 120-108; Ford 120-107. Needless to say all in favor of Manny Pacquiao.
At the post fight press conference, promoter Bob Arum confirmed that Pacquiao’s next fight will be in November and that the likely opponent will be Juan Manuel Marquez.
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