By Julie Cockerham: Through his superhuman achievements in the past few years, a belief in Manny Pacquiao’s virtual invincibility has crystallized. While the fervor for a match against Floyd Mayweather has subtly diminished, most don’t consider any other opponent for Pacquiao to be truly viable. For now, while Pacquiao is stripped of the option to fight Mayweather, he has little choice but to ply his trade against those more graciously available to him. Thus, his pay-per-view bout against Shane Mosley is the latest consolation effort, and like several prior, it isn’t generating a level of interest comparable to the billing. It’s ultimately the price tag and the marquise names that lift it from the basin of pedestrian combat.
Shane Mosley, as a pound-for-pound best in his prime, is battling cynicism before he enters the ring. There is a reason for it. The prospect of dynamic competitiveness against Pacquiao has all but dissolved with his systematic dismantling of fighters who were projected to pose great threat. While damage thresholds were commonly questioned and more easily identified after the fact, the sense that there was a fighter who might be able to surmount the obstacle of Pacquiao still prevailed for a while. But as the pool, at one time teeming with potential conquerors, was drained one by one, the likelihood of finding his nemesis seemed less and less likely.
With Shane Mosley, prior damage isn’t necessarily the concern at the forefront. At 39 years-old, he is dealing with naturally reduced attributes. His rousing victory over Antonio Margarito let him borrow a cloak of reinvigoration, but those who observe closely know that this victory will not lead him to any success against Pacquiao. Two more widely divergent styles couldn’t be demonstrated, and everything Margarito did flattered everything Mosley was capable of doing. Confronting the realities of his age, his habits, and the fates of those before him, Mosley is up against it. But even with all of this taken into consideration, there is always a chance. Mosley has to believe in it if we are to believe in it enough to reach into our pockets.
Manny Pacquiao is supremely gifted. His style is explosive and elegantly rhythmic. But beyond its stunning aesthetic, it’s not characterized by enigmatic qualities. In the ring, he isn’t as psychologically frustrating to fight as Mayweather. With Mayweather, the challenge of hunting for openings that never seem to appear burdens his opponent through every round. Pacquiao, in contrast, can be drawn out into open battle. There is a formula to competing effectively against Pacquiao and it’s been witnessed before in the wit and wile of the Mexican master, Juan Manuel Marquez.
Marquez as a natural lightweight, and a smaller boxer than Pacquiao’s recent opponents, was the one who best engaged him in significant combat. Some contest the results to this day. And while it can be argued that Pacquiao’s skills have advanced with each weight class he has ascended to, it doesn’t change the fact that he fights with discernible rhythm. Marquez was able to adjust to the style and mirror Pacquiao’s choreography. Matched move for move, their fights with each other were stunning spectacles. Showcased within those spectacles was the formula, but it is a tall order for Mosley to gather the ingredients to mix it.
Pacquiao, in his southpaw stance, fights on a pivot. He’ll make clockwise or counterclockwise revolutions, but he will also move straight forward, throwing extended combinations when his target lines up. Pacquiao’s lauded angles are easily flaunted when his opponent squares up and stalks him in a forward movement. At those times, the opponent is leaving Pacquiao at leisure to sling punches at both the head and the body. His precision is remarkable. Both his arcing and straight punches wisely confine their destination to a narrow space. These rapid-fire punches have such a high connect percentage because of that narrow destination point. On a skilled boxer, the head presents a small, roving, and elusive target. But even against the skilled number, Pacquiao is able to hit the head with both the right and left at will. Traced in the air, his fists flawlessly overlap on the target, occupying the precise mark.
Mosley will have a trial of minding his head. He has a tendency to rush forward at his opponent. It is in the least, unnecessary, and at the most, utter folly, to charge Pacquiao. He will move to the center by his own volition; he does not need to be chased down. Mosley’s hands are formidable weapons when he uses them wisely. But often times, he inexplicably conserves powerful combinations for times when he perceives the opponent to be weakening. He doesn’t use them as frequently as he should as a proactive measure to hasten the weakening of the opponent; he uses them instead as a reactive measure for when the opponent is already weakened. That kind of conservatism will serve as a method to lose points, and will compromise his opportunities to inflict damage.
Pacquiao’s cyclical movement will constrict Mosley’s lateral movement. Mosley has to join in the dance and turn likewise, or fall into the trap of being perpetually thrown off balance by Pacquiao’s residence at his sides. Pacquiao effortlessly surrounds his opponents with his movement, like a predator with its prey, and a fighter who can’t match that movement is at a superb disadvantage. It’s how Pacquiao achieves the illusion of omnipresence, of inhabiting all space in the ring at one time.
Marquez discovered that amidst a blizzard of activity, Pacquiao could be tagged by intelligent counterpunching. Marquez followed his lead, and knew that if he was patient, Pacquiao would eventually wander into the path of the right hand, and that if he timed the left hook just right, he could use it to set Pacquiao off balance and into the greater impact of the right hand.
What will Mosley be able to do to channel his inner Marquez? He is slower in comparison to Pacquiao, doesn’t guard his head diligently, and often restricts the throwing of combinations to those times when he senses the diminishing of his opponent.
Mosley needs to abandon ingrained destructive habits. He won’t be able to clinch with Pacquiao or rest against him, because the Filipino won’t allow it. He has to conserve energy by resisting the urge to chase the fleeting target. He needs to be patient and cultivated and match Pacquiao’s formation. Otherwise, he will find Pacquiao floating ceaselessly on his sides. By mirroring his circle formation, Mosley will maintain Pacquiao at a kind of drifting center, as Marquez did. He will then be able to launch flurries, and though they may be sifting through the vapors of an apparition, they will be thrown from the right position, and one or more will have a chance to land.
Mosley cannot leap into his punches with too much enthusiasm, as he sometimes does, because a leaping body is a dangerously exposed one, and Pacquiao will have no difficulty shooting beneath wild, arcing punches and rolling out to the side. Taking advantage of that particular flaw in an opponent has become one of his trademarks.
Much is being asked of Mosley in this fight. He is facing one of the most treacherous opponents of his career at an advanced age, and with a lessened arsenal. He knows that to have success in this fight, he needs to adapt his style, and he has fought long and hard for many years in a manner that he has become accustomed to. He has to wrestle with the image of those fighters before him, those who entered the ring with such vibrancy and who were then laid waste by Pacquiao.
In the end, Mosley doesn’t have the pressure of expectation on him. Most observers don’t credit him with the prospect of an actual victory. But inevitably weighing on him are the expectations of his own making, the internal questions that motivate and preserve his confidence. Here, he is quietly at a crossroads. The suggestion of a loss will gratify the prediction of the multitude, but the suggestion of a win will satisfy the one in the squared circle, and will compel him internally to recapture what time has taken away.