BoxRec

No problem.

OK. Here's a summary of the arguments about what could have been going on tonight, and what it means for the future. I will try to frame them objectively, and hopefully it can provide a framework for our future discussions.

So, I think that the story will be why wasn't Pacquaio as dominant and as explosively destructive as he was against Hatton, Cotto, Clottey, Margarito and De La Hoya?

I guess there are three potential schools of thought here, and they would be: (1) It was simply a bad style match up for Manny, and it involved fighting a man who was interested in doing nothing other than survive; (2) Pacquaio had a bad training camp or was otherwise distracted; and (3) Pacquiao is just losing it slightly and can no longer maintain that buzz-saw pace.

Taking these in order, I think that it was definitely a bad style matchup. Pacquaio obviously likes guys who come on to him, and further, he needs guys to leave gaps. Pacquiao is fast, but not so blindingly fast and accurate that he can find his own gaps, and certainly he doesn't have the guile to set traps and walk opponents onto things. Also, Mosley has the kind of power (or the reputation of it, because we didn't really see it during the fight) that could make Pacquaio think twice before rushing in. I wonder whether Mosley landed one or two, or Pacquaio could feel the shots on his gloves, and realized that the old man had a bit more left in the power tank that he had thought. Either way, it was a bad matchup. Second, Mosley deserves a lot of credit/blame for the way the fight worked out. He was very defensive and showed just enough old man skills to keep Pacquaio at bay. Because he had literally no ambition, he didn't leave any gaps, really, and Pacquaio had to force matters. And we all know that Pacquaio looks far worse against cagey boxers than he does against men who are in front of him.

But really, when Pacquiao did force matters, he looked dominant. Why didn't he do it more often?

Well, Jim Watt suggested a bad training camp, or other distractions that meant that he couldn't keep up the pace. I'm not sure if I can accept this. Against Margarito, there was much talk about the bad training camp, and certainly in the HBO 24/7 documentary series, you could tell that Roach and Ariza were extremely frustrated with what went on. And yet in the fight. Pacquaio kept up a blinding pace. Here, there was nothing but good said about training in the build up. Roach has gone out of his way to say that it's been a great training camp.

This leaves us with two options. The first is that Pacquiao is genuinely losing a bit. He could be, actually. I thought that some of his sharpness was missing against Margarito, to be honest. He looked a milisecond slower and he took more punches than I thought he would have a year or so earlier. But I put this down to a bad camp. But this his is now the second fight in a row. I think we need to see one more fight to confirm, though, because it could have equally been the bad style matchup tonight that did it. You'd have to say though, bad training camp, bad style matchup, how many more excuses are there going to be for sub-par performances before we accept he's on the slide?

The counter argument to the "losing it" hypothesis would be this: The style match up was bad, Pacquaio was winning easily, had felt Mosley's power and didn't want to give the older fighter his only chance of victory. So, given he was sweeping the rounds, why push matters? And besides, didn't people criticise him for taking too many punches against Margarito? Here he can't have taken ten power shots.

But then, that still leaves us with the unanswered question of why he didn't notice that every time he lifted the pace he looked like Mosley couldn't cope.

Anyway, as for Mayweather, I think people are going to overreact and now say that Mayweather will easily win. I've always thought that Mayweather would be favourite, so I haven't really got any way of disagreeing with that, but what I can disagree with is the knee jerk swing of opinion. Look, if Mayweather follows Mosley's template, he's going to lose to Pacquiao. To beat someone, you have to actually throw punches, don't you? If Mosley had thrown punches, I have no doubt he would have been clean knocked out. If Pacquiao now shows patience and the willingness to win boring but sweep the scorecards, that could actually be more trouble for Mayweather than the old Pacquaio. And clearly, Pacquaio hasn't lost his power. Mosley has one of the best chins in the game (which we often forget), and he was badly shaken by a left that didn't catch him on the point of the chin, but on the side of the chin.

But, of course, that's assuming Pacquiao isn't on the slide, or is now unable to fully concentrate on training.

Thoughts?

A lot of people have also been saying that Manny carried Mosley because he had too much respect for him. I'm not sure I buy that theory because Manny seems to have respect for almost every opponent he faces.

crusader wrote:A lot of people have also been saying that Manny carried Mosley because he had too much respect for him. I'm not sure I buy that theory because Manny seems to have respect for almost every opponent he faces.

There was a lot of glove touching going on. Even after the knockdown. Too much for my liking, but both men are classy, decent people, and I don't put more it down to anything more than that.

If Pacquiao was carrying him, that left he landed as early as the third was a funny way of showing it.

Another argument I'm seeing in the Current Scene is that Pacquiao intentionally looked poor so Mayweather would be more likely to accept a fight. It's probably best not to even get started on that one.

Ring TV dot com has just savaged Mosley in its review of the fight.

LAS VEGAS – Shane Mosley surprised us in at least two regards in his fight against Manny Pacquiao on Saturday at the MGM Grand.

One, the 39-year-old was much quicker and had better reflexes than many expected him to have. And, two, a boxer known the past two decades for his fighting spirit left his heart in the dressing room.

In short, he was far more determined to survive the 12 rounds than engage Pacquaio in anything resembling a fight.

As a result, 16,412 frustrated fans in the arena and millions watching on television worldwide had to suffer through a painfully boring – and profoundly disappointing – night.

The boos that rained down upon the ring at various points of the fight told the story.

Pacquiao, who won a near-shutout decision, did his part. He attacked with great fire from the second round on even though he suffered from a cramp in his left leg for most of the fight.

The Filipino warrior relentlessly tracked his reluctant foe, desperately trying to cut off the ring and land effective punches as his fans urged him on with chants of “Manny! Manny! Manny!” And he did do some damage, including a knock down in third round in which Mosley was hurt.

Mostly, though, Mosley backpedaled or held or did whatever else it took to avoid getting hit when Pacquiao attacked while throwing few punches of his own. The idea of fighting back apparently never (or at least rarely) crossed his mind.

Afterward, in the post-fight interview, Mosley seemed to rub his utter lack of fortitude in our faces.

He was asked, “Why didn’t you take more risks?” He responded: “I wasn’t going to take risks.”

Too bad he didn’t tell us that beforehand. He would have saved millions of people a lot of time and money.

Pacquiao’s reputation is as stellar as ever. He tried to make it a fight, he tried to entertain the fans in spite of the cramp. And, even though the fight was horrible, he won for 14th consecutive time since he was outpointed by Erik Morales in 2005.

“I thought it was a gutty performance by Manny,” said trainer Freddie Roach, referring to Pacquiao’s perseverance in spite of the cramp.

Mosley?

The former three-division titleholder will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame five years after he retires. He has earned that.

That said, he will never live down his performance on Saturday night.

Mosley has crowed about his fighting spirit his entire career and almost always demonstrated it in the ring. Those who paid to see him fight on Saturday has reason to expect that Mosley to show up.

Well, he fooled us. That Mosley was nowhere to be found. The one who entered the ring only came for the payday – a guaranteed $6 million – with no thought whatsoever of the fans who made him what he is today.

We thought Mosley might have problems with Pacquiao’s speed and all-around ability. We never imagined that he wouldn’t at least stand and fight, at least show signs of the warrior we have come to know over the years.

Mosley booed? Unthinkable.

And then to tell us that he never even planned to take risks?

No one can say whether Mosley let himself down with his pathetic performance. He definitely let down the millions of fans and supporters who believed in him, though.

i honestly thought mosley had hurt his right hand. he never through it with any venom from round 2 onwards and that looked the punch manny was scared of.

very frustrating to watch, they gave each other way to much respect, touching gloves every minute

Terrible fight. Boring actually. Far too much respect going on for there to be any venom in it at all.

Mosely needs to reire and Pacman needs to start fighhting young/hungry fighters on their way up. We need to see people who try to beat him, not suppossed mega matches that are not delivering.

I think the expectation level around Manny is a bit too high. The commentators were criticising manny yet he was winning every round (or nearly every round) quite easily.

Was a bit dissapointed with Mosley, thought he would go for it in the last two rounds but he seemed to want to get to the bell.

Mosley needs to go out now, he can't pull the trigger as he once could. The good news is I think he knows it, I thought he would try and push Pacquiao back firing his own combinations but it appeared to me like he felt he wouldn't be able to pull that off! He made Pacquiao make mistakes but couldn't capatilize on them. I had it 118-110. I would be surprised if Mayweather never fought Manny now, and I fancy him to do a spectacular job on him!!