Mayweather vs Mosley overshadows Pacquiao vs Clottey

By Dave Lahr: If this was a chess match between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, Floyd would have knocked off Pacquiao’s king with his latest move of setting up a May 1st bout against World Boxing Association welterweight champion Shane Mosley. In contrast, Pacquiao will have to settle for fighting former IBF welterweight champion Joshua Clottey, who is coming off of a recent loss to Miguel Cotto. There’s really no comparison between the Mayweather-Mosley and the Pacquiao-Clottey fight.


Hands down, the Mayweather-Mosley fight is the much more interesting bout of the two, and you got to give Mayweather a ton of credit for being intelligent to see the opportunity for a fight with Mosley and then be courageous enough to go for the fight. Pacquiao had an opportunity to fight Mosley last year but instead chose to fight Cotto for some odd reason.
In hindsight, the fight against Cotto seems like a mistake in my book because Cotto had been recently pulverized by Mexican Antonio Margarito only a year earlier, and many boxing fans felt that Cotto wasn’t the same fighter he once was. Pacquiao fans like to point out that Cotto won a controversial 12 round decision over Mosley in 2007, but what they fail to point out is that was before Cotto’s brutal beating at the hands of Antonio Margarito.

Yeah, Cotto beat Mosley by a controversial decision, but Cotto didn’t look like the same fighter after Margarito got through with him. This is why the Mosley fight should have been the opponent that Pacquiao fought instead of Cotto. But I can also understand why it would be an appealing fight. After all, with Cotto not looking like the same fighter, he would be less dangerous and the easier bout.

I got to hand it to Mayweather for setting up the Mosley fight. This was sure brilliance on his part. I think this fight is going to do a lot better than the Pacquiao vs. Clottey fight on pay per view. It might not do as well as far as selling more tickets to the fight. The MGM Grand, where the fight Mayweather-Mosley fight will be taking place, is much smaller than the Dallas Cowboy stadium.

But if the Mayweather-Mosley fight was going to take place at the Dallas Cowboy stadium, I have no doubts that it would do better than the Pacquiao-Clottey fight. The reason is because this is a competitive fight. You don’t know who’s going to win the fight. Mosley is a huge talent and is still fighting at a high level despite his advanced age. You can’t say the same thing about the Pacquiao-Clottey fight.

That’s going to be an easy win for Pacquiao. Clottey just lost to Cotto, and has few wins against top tier talent. He also has only one knockout in his last eleven fights, has a poor work rate and history of fading late in his fights. Clottey doesn’t move well and likes to cover up and focus on defending rather than attacking. In other words, Clottey will be like a punching bag with gloves.

That to me spells mismatch. If you had the choice of seeing a mismatch between Pacquiao and Clottey or a competitive fight between Mayweather and Mosley, which would you rather see? I think for most people it will be the Mayweather-Mosley fight.

Source: boxingnews24.com