11.09.07 – By Jack Presscot: This fight is the one that has the most potential for boxing fireworks, and thunder and lightning. Speed vs. speed, power vs power, the best technician against the best tactician. Flash vs. Superman. Sugar Shane Mosley (44-4, 37 KOs) has simply re-invented himself and resurrected his career with two huge victories over Fernando Vargas, and a great win over Luis Collazo for a WBC interim belt. But now, the King of the Welterweights, Baby Floyd has decided that he has no interest in controlling the relatively dull jr, middleweight division.
Somehow, watching the Pretty Boy destroy Vernon Forrest, and slap around Cory Spinks just doesn’t seem all that exciting. Floyd has come back home, and reclaimed his WBC welterweight title that nobody can deny him, and the RING’s belt, proclaiming him the True World Champion at 147.
Team Mayweather has decided to challenge the popular Brit, undefeated Ricky Hatton, in the last Superfight of 2007, on December 8th, live at the MGM Grand.
Ricky Hatton is a great warrior, but simply too small for Floyd Jr. The tale of the tape tells us that the reach advantage for Floyd is seven inches, and this alone tells the entire story of the fight. ’65 to ’72 means that Floyd is going to be able to sit on the outside, and stick and move, and basically, box circles around hapless Hatton, while Ricky undoubtedly will rush Floyd into the ropes and attempt to flurry. We will find, as Oscar de la Hoya did in May, that Mayweather is damned
near impossible to hit clean.
It wont be a particularly exciting fight, as Floyd has no real reason to trade with Hatton, and will pile up so many points. If open scoring is the order of the day, Team Hatton may elect to throw in the towel after the 8th, as Hatton will be hopelessly behind in points by then. I see a frustrated Hatton, bleeding and bruised at the end of 11, trying desperately for a kayo as PBF simply boxes circles around him, sticking out his tongue to Hatton’s corner.
On the other side of the coin, we have a similar reach advantage to the Mosley DOJO. Mosley is light years faster than Cotto, and has a 5 inch reach advantage that will be happily capitalized on. Sugar is also a lot physically stronger than Zab Judah, and Cotto will find this out, as he sees that Mosley can match his physical power, but is a much better technician. I don’t see anyone going down, or even taking a knee in this fight, and it goes pretty much the same way as the Mayweather-Hatton fight, a tactician scoring a points victory over a brawler. Jack Mosley is going to come out smelling like a rose in this fight, as he possibly garnishes RING Magazine’s Trainer of the Year honors. And Shane will once again have WBA Gold around his waist. The post fight interview is what I am interested in, as Shane’s boss, the egotistical Oscar is going to be fighting Shane for camera time, and Shane is, as we all know, going to be calling out Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Heres where it gets really interesting. Oscar de la Hoya is far from the best promoter in this game, but I’m sure he has some options on Floyd Jr, following the defeat of Hatton. Oscar has a chance to set up one of the Biggest Welterweight Fights since Leonard-Duran. And GBP needs some redemption after the embarrassing fiasco that the September 15 canceled fight turned out to be. (Why Oscar thinks Juarez can headline a 40 buck PPV Event is beyond me) Floyd wants the fight, and probably wouldn’t mind beating on Sugar, and taking away his little WBA trinket, whereas Sugar surely wants this fight, as the victor walks away with pretty much all the marbles.
Now, the President of GBP, from the looks of it, wants nothing to do with a rematch with Floyd Jr. He, embarrassingly made a comment about not wanting to face a “runner” in his last two fights. And if he is serious about that statement, he needs to re-watch the final four rounds of the Fight of the Millennium, and perhaps look up the word “hypocrite” on Wikipedia. But aside from all that, Oscar needs a fight for next Cinco de Mayo. There is another titleholder out there, Kermit Cintron, who is the IBF champion at welterweight, who might make Oscar an easy comeback victory for next year, and put him smack dab in the middle of a massive rematch with Floyd in one year’s time.
This time, at welterweight, for all three belts, and the RING Championship on the line. This can all go down, but only if Oscar, as a Promoter, puts all his energies into ensuring that his new WBA Champion (If Shane does what I know he can) lands a title shot against our Pound for Pound Champion next year by the spring. It should all be very interesting. Pretty Boy Floyd has the footwork, speed and dexterity to win the Dancing with the Stars contest. But can he beat all three of the best welters in the World in 365 days? This writer thinks he can do it all.