Floyd ?Money? Mayweather Jr.?s ?0? did not go on Saturday night. In winning a wide unanimous decision ? and the WBA junior-middleweight title ? from the capable Miguel Cotto, Mayweather ran his record to 43-0, with neither a defeat nor a draw to blemish that ledger. The victory gains him a slight foothold atop the pound-for-pound standings, ahead of Manny Pacquiao, Nonito Donaire and Sergio Martinez.
Even so, the Cotto fight wasn?t like the cakewalks Mayweather has enjoyed over the past several years. Cotto was not in awe of his stellar opponent, and he pressed Mayweather with a consistency no one else has matched since Oscar De La Hoya, who lost a split decision to Floyd back in 2007. Mayweather came away from this fight with a bloody nose. And his ribs have to be sore even now from the body punches Cotto was able to land.
Yet for all the effective aggression Cotto managed to muster, the judges? cards read 118-110 and 117-111 twice for Mayweather. And unlike the disputed scoring in certain recent bouts (see Luis Rivera?s 114-114 interpretation of Chad Dawson?s obvious win over Bernard Hopkins), Mayweather?s decision over Cotto was far from controversial.
The reason Mayweather clearly won a fight that turned out to be more competitive than most people expected is that he was able to make the adjustments necessary to counteract Cotto?s spirited efforts. Mayweather used the ropes effectively ? much more so than Muhammad Ali, whose ?rope-a-dope? tactic was primarily a ploy to tire out his opponents. The ropes are Mayweather?s ?office? when he wants them to be, and he can punch both offensively and defensively with his back scraping the strands.
Cotto found this out the hard way. But to his credit, he kept on trying, and he forced Mayweather to do something he hasn?t in a while ? produce an entertaining contest while handling unanticipated adversity.
Still ? why did Cotto, an underdog despite being younger and bigger, cause such difficulties for Mayweather? Was it because the now 35-year-old Mayweather is finally beginning to show his age? Or has Cotto ? a three-division champion ? recovered from the beatings he took from Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito much better than most observers thought? After all, he came back to brutalize Margarito in their rematch last December.
Well, if Mayweather showed any signs of slippage on Saturday, they were few and far between. He continues to combine talent and technique better than anyone else in the game, with the possible exception of Pacquiao. And anyone else (again, except Pacquiao) would likely have wilted under the pressure Cotto applied.
Cotto has, indeed, recovered well from a pair of setbacks that could easily have broken the spirit of another man. At his best ? before Margarito clobbered him in their first fight ? Cotto would have given a younger Mayweather a stiff argument. But Mayweather would still have won, though probably not as widely, in what could have been a Fight-of-the-Year candidate ? which Saturday?s encounter was certainly not.
In a way, the victory has to be bittersweet for Mayweather. On June 1, ?Money? is scheduled to begin a 90-day jail sentence stemming from his misdeeds outside the ring. That hiatus will give him plenty of time to think about whether or not he really wants to fight Pacquiao. Of course, if Pacquiao loses to the young and hungry Timothy Bradley next month, the Mayweather-Pacquiao matchup will lose just about all its appeal, not to mention relevance.
Meanwhile, on the same card, the boxing public witnessed what may have been the last stand of Sugar Shane Mosley, who failed in his attempt to wrest the WBC 154-pound title from Saul ?Canelo? Alvarez. Although Mosley lasted the distance and did not go down, the judges? scores of 118-110 and 119-109 twice indicate Alvarez?s dominance of a fighter who was once among the pound-for-pound best. But at age 40, Mosley?s best is far behind him. He?s now 0-3-1 in his last four fights. Mayweather and Pacquiao gave him one-sided beatings, and Yuri Foreman made him look bad in a draw. Now, Mosley gets outworked by a kid he would have taken to school a few years ago.
It?s up to Mosley to decide whether he wants to go on. But he should seriously consider hanging them up, and being satisfied with the best of his career and the fact that he has never been knocked out, even though he faced some of the hardest hitters in three divisions. The Hall of Fame awaits him.
