Although Mosley is a widely recognized bona fide boxing champ he entered the ring as a 5-1 underdog. Still, he had declared before the fight that he considered those figures an insult and that his power would neutralize the Filipino warrior.
Mosley looked tentative in the first two rounds and in the third, a straight left bomb sent him (and his heart and soul) to the canvas. You could see the dazzled look in his eyes. After the knockdown he turned into a defensive fighter. He ditched boxing and changed his sport to running and backpedaling. He became unwilling to engage and appeared interested only in survival.
In the end, the scorecards read 119-108 / 120-108 / 120-107 All by unanimous decision in favor of Mr. Paquiao. Another one bites the dust.
It's too bad - I like Sugar Shane; most people figured he'd lose, but everyone thought he would fight harder. The fight was a big upset in that sense. Pacman did his job, but you can also sort of blame him (for this boring fight) for agreeing to fight a faded Mosley in the first place. But then again, for $20 million anyone would've done the same thing!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Mosley planned all along to not fight. In that was his attitude, he punked Arum, Manny and boxing fans. This is the Mayweather philosophy, no on in the sport really cares about you, so why should you care about them. I think I remember Mayweather saying something like "It's not cool to get beat up." He fights for money, mainly. Unlike someone like Margacheeto, he's not willing to "die in the ring." Mosley probably figured that at his age he doesn't have many fights left, so he'd better cash out, if possible in a big way. This was the perfect cash out. He could have cashed out with a broken face like Margarito or with his his brain intact, which is what he did. Fight fans lost - all we got was the suspenseful anticipation of the fight. The fighters and promoters walked away much richer men.
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