Mayweather/Mosley is coming up next weekend. I’m looking forward to it; Mosley is a come-forward fighter, and I don’t think Mayweather will be able to turn it into a snorefest. Below, I present my thoughts on how this fight might go. (Short version: Bet Mosley.)
Betting
This seems like a tough fight to pick, but an easy one to bet. Mosley is a +365 underdog, which doesn’t seem remotely justified to me. That makes this easier for me to write; I don’t need to argue about who’s going to win, just that this is much closer to a pick-em fight that the line indicates.
Overview
A lot of people say that Mosley’s best days are behind him, which is likely to be true; I believe that at one point he was 38(35)-0, and he was probably the best lightweight since Duran. This doesn’t mean that he’s not still a very, very good boxer. In this connection, I think that people overlook the fact that Floyd’s best days are probably behind him, as well: FMJ is now in his 30s, 17 pounds up from his best weight, and coming off a 2 1/2 year layoff against serious competition. (In my opinion, JMM was entirely too small to be fighting at WW.)
Complicating the business of prediction is that a fighter can only be measured against his opponents: he can look very good against one guy, and mediocre against another. Take Lennox Lewis: Against Golota, Rahman II, Tyson, Grant, and Botha he looked like an unstoppable force in the HW division. On the other hand, even leaving aside the 2 freakish KO losses to McCall and Rahman I, Lewis looked unspectacular against journeymen such as Ocasio and Billups, and very beatable against Holyfield II and Mercer. Since I believe that Mayweather is a master of cherry-picking his opponents, while Mosley has faced much tougher opposition (e.g., fighting Winky Wright twice, a top guy at 154, a division Shane really had no business in), I think that there’s a certain perceptual bias that causes most people to underestimate Mosley’s chances.
Mayweather
Mayweather is a slick guy, and it’s hard to pick against him. The biggest danger I see for Mosley is Floyd’s adaptability; he seems to be very good at finding and exploiting an opponent’s weaknesses, and Mosley has, in the past, been unable to adapt to a guy who had his number. I don’t see this as dispositive for two reasons: First, Mosley has a new trainer, with whom he seems to work very well, and second, just because Mosley could fall victim to certain attacks, that doesn’t mean that Floyd can successfully employ them.
Mayweather also has a lot of speed, but more impressive I think is his timing, and sense of space. Boxing is a game of inches every bit as much as football, and Mayweather seems to have an excellent sense of where to position himself in the ring. These qualities make him a formidable opponent for anyone.
Mosley
Mosley combines strength, speed, toughness, conditioning, and heart into a fairly awesome package. Let me point out just three things from his last two fights: the jab he employed against Margarito, and the finishes he delivered against both Margarito and Mayorga.
If you look at Mosley’s jab in the Margarito fight, I think you’ll agree that it’s remarkably strong, quick, and accurate. FMJ has never really liked a good jab coming at him, and Mosley should have the conditioning to throw it for all 12 rounds. I forsee this causing problems for Floyd.
The second thing that caught my eye in the Margarito fight was some tape. In the 9th, as Mosley had Margarito on the ropes and was going for the finish, the tape came loose on Mosley’s left glove. You could see him take note of this, evaluate it, and then get back to work. This signifies a dangerous presence of mind; even at the point of victory, Mosley was calm and in complete control of himself. I think that Mayweather gets a lot of mileage out of getting guys wound up, and I don’t believe he’ll be able to do that against Shane.
Finally: Consider the last-second (literally) KO of Ricardo Mayorga. Mosley never lets up, and he’s never given up. That should pose a challenge for Mayweather, who (a.) likes to control the pace and (b.) likes it to be a little on the leisurely side.
I hesitate to call it for Mosley, but with the line the way it is, wouldn’t bet against him. You probably want a straight prediction, though. Okay: Mosley by TKO between the 7th and 10th rounds.
Plug
Incidentally, if you’ve got an iPhone and want to use it to score this fight, I’ve knocked down the price of Fightcard to, well, free. This week only!
