This is the last of our four previews that we’ve put up over the last two days. It’s a great weekend to be a wrestling/boxing/MMA fan that’s for sure. In our last preview, we’ll look at Antonio Margarito’s welterweight title defense against Shane Mosley. Margarito is defending his WBA welterweight title that he won from Miguel Cotto last year in what was my favorite fight of the year. Mosley is coming off a win in which he stopped Ricardo Mayorga late in the 12th round in a junior middleweight bout.
Before I get to the predictions by Duan and myself, I wanted to direct you to two really good articles about this fight.
Dan Rafael, from ESPN.com, has an article about the distractions that both fighters are facing. Margarito is dealing with being a true boxing superstar for the first time, while Mosley is dealing with more personal distractions.
Mosley also enters the fight having fired his father, Jack Mosley, as his trainer and replaced him with Nazim Richardson, who also trains Hopkins.
Mosley said the change in his corner has been smooth. It’s the second time he and his father have split.
“[Richardson] sees a lot of different things; he watches a lot of films, watches a lot of fighters fight, amateur and professionally,” Mosley said. “So I think that kind of rejuvenated me, bringing me back to life.”
And there is still more. Mosley’s marriage in shambles. He and his wife, Jin, who have three children together, have been having problems for months.
Here’s to hoping that Shane can take some time to get those things together after this fight.
Kieran Mulvaney, also from ESPN.com, is doing a running commentary of short stories while in Los Angeles at the fight.
Some confusion and controversy at the weigh-in. Shane Mosley initially appeared to weigh in at 147 pounds, but commission officials ruled the needle had shifted to 147.2, so he was asked to step off and back on the scale. He did so, and the official weight was given as 147.2.
Mosley went away to lose those two-tenths of a pound. Meanwhile, Antonio Margarito weighed in at a surprisingly light 145.8.
Mosley did make the weight 5 minutes later according to Mulvaney.
Antonio Margarito vs. Shane Mosley
Duan: Margarito by decision
I’m going to play it safe, and pick Margarito to take this one by a narrow decision. After watching the way in which Antonio handled Miguel Cotto back in July, it’s hard to envision how a 37 year old Mosley will be able to hang with him over 12 full rounds.
Margarito is huge at the weight, he’s absolutely relentless, and has as good a chin as any at welterweight. He’s a nightmare opponent for anybody, but particularly for an aging fighter like Shane. He pressures opponents, making them work every second of the round, and gradually wears them down. This type of fight does not suit Mosley who will be looking to fight in bursts and conserves energy for the later stages of the fight.
However, even with all that being said, I would not write off Shane Mosley in this one. I still see this as being a very close fight, and should Shane score the upset, it will not surprise me at all.
Cotto was able to comfortably outbox Margarito in the early part of their fight, but eventually cracked under consistent pressure from Antonio. Mosley has seen it all and done it all, more or less, in boxing. I don’t expect him to unravel in the same way Cotto did. He should also be better equipped to deal with the size of Margarito. Mosley has fought frequently at junior middleweight (less successfully admittedly) in the past, and shouldn’t struggle with Margarito’s size as much as other welterweights. He will also have a slight reach advantage which may help him stay out of harms way.
The one thing that really defines Margarito as a fighter is his ability to absorb punishment, and keep pressing forward. Cotto learned midway through their fight that he would not be able to keep him at a distance for the full duration of the fight. Mosley needs to deter him from rushing forward early if he’s going to have a chance. And that’s the big question here. Does Shane have enough power to do that? He showed that he still has the power to land a devastating one punch knock out against Mayorga, but can he still hit consistently hard round after round? We will just have to wait and see.
My feeling is that Mosley will outbox him early, but will fade in the later rounds, and lose a close but unanimous decision. Margarito’s work rate will prove to be too much.
GG: Margarito by decision
My feelings about this fight are pretty close to how Duan sees it going. It can be easy to look at their recent common opponent and say that because Mosley lost a close decision to Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito stopped him in a tough fight, that Margarito should beat Mosley. I think that Mosley is going to make this fight. It might be wise for him to fight a defensively brilliant and tactical fight with his sole offense being counter punching, trying to score points and offset Margarito’s constant offense. But I don’t see Mosley doing that. He’s going to fight Margarito tough, whether to his advantage or not. I think he’s going to try to out punch and out fight the champ, which should make this a really good fight. Like Duan says, he fights in bursts. I think this could look a lot like Cotto/Margarito where Mosley might win the early rounds and then Margarito’s consistent punishment just starts to wear him down.
I don’t think Margarito is going to stop him. I think we’ll get to a decision and he’ll pull out a close one. I’m looking forward to it.
We should have play by play of this fight tomorrow on the site.
