By Bill Phanco: Shane Mosley (46-8-1, 39 KO’s) thinks the skies the limit for him if he can beat WBA World welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (32-4, 7 KO’s) on April 27th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Mosley wanted the fight with Malignaggi and he directly asked Golden Boy Promotions and they gave it to him despite his long four victory drought.
Golden Boy wanted a name for Malignaggi but were having no luck in finding anyone. They wanted Ricky Hatton but he got knocked out by Vyacheslav Senchenko. If Mosley hadn’t come along when he did, Malignaggi likely would have had to fight one of his little known contenders, presumably someone ranked near the bottom so that he wouldn’t get beat. Malignaggi was almost beaten by what was thought to be a safe title defense against Pablo Cesar Cano. That fight showed how precarious Malignaggi’s perch is as the WBA 147 lb champion. At this point there’s very few safe picks for him because he doesn’t have the power to beat guys decisively.
Mosley said to Radio Raheem “When I win this fight, everyone’s going to come to me to fight. I love that. When they come to me, I’m going to be knocking them down.”
I wonder who Mosley is referring to when he says “everyone” is going to come for me. Of course the contenders are going to want to fight him but I don’t think it’s going to be the guys that he’s hoping it will be. If Mosley is okay with fighting Marcos Maidana and Diego Chavez, then he’ll have those guys for him to choose from.
Maidana will probably beat Mosley at this point in his career, and Diego Chavez would be a lot of problems too. Those aren’t really big fights, and I don’t think Mosley will be “knocking them down.” I really think Mosley will be lucky if he can get past Malignaggi, and even if he can, he’s going to struggle against the average contenders in the division. The good contenders will likely beat him, and the average fighters will also give him a lot of problems just based on their youth and work rate.