rokko
05-12-2011, 06:20 AM
It has been several days since pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao coasted to a one-sided, boring decision against Shane Mosley in a terrible fight.
That Pacquiao won with ease against the once-great Mosley, who is 39 and obviously over the hill, wasn't a shock. The surprise was that it was so bad. (I expected the fight to at least be decent.)
Simply, Mosley is unable to compete with the best anymore, especially fast and powerful opponents. Most of us knew that when the fight was made. So why are we surprised? Did we not see how bad Mosley looked in his previous two fights?
Those unhappy that they shelled out money for the pay-per-view (many of whom I have heard from) should have realized one thing: There is no guarantee of a great fight, or even a competitive one.
You might remember that I was not a fan of the match when the fight was made in December, and I warned you. In fact, the headline of the column I wrote read, "Pacquiao-Mosley a bad fight for boxing." And so, five months later, we got a forgettable event as the culmination of a massive promotion. Talk about a disappointment -- just not an entirely unexpected one.
Top Rank, which excels at putting on big events, did a superb job promoting the fight. The only negative was the fight itself -- on paper and in the ring.
Top Rank's alliance with Showtime and its sister network CBS -- the key to the deal to take Pacquiao away from HBO and deliver him to Showtime -- was supposed to create more awareness of the fight and boxing in general. It probably did just that. But with a fight like this, is that a good thing?
Top Rank was infatuated with the notion that heavy marketing and promotion from CBS, which is available in some 115 million homes and is the most watched network in America, would be important for the future of boxing and perhaps lead it back to the promised land -- live fights on network television.
CBS did its part. It advertised the fight in prime time. It advertised it heavily during the NCAA tournament. And it aired three of the four episodes of Showtime's buildup reality series "Fight Camp." Two of the episodes even aired in prime time.
But the outcome was an abysmal bout, so if you were a casual fan enticed by the hype and saw that dreadful fight, would you want to buy more boxing in the future? Probably not, and that is the unfortunate part of the whole thing.
However, I can't entirely blame Top Rank's Bob Arum for that. Now, I didn't like the fact that he signed Mosley for the fight, because I fully expected a one-sided Pacquiao win. What I didn't expect -- and I'm sure Arum didn't expect it either -- was that Mosley would turn in the biggest non-effort of his career. It was even less of a performance than his wipeout against Floyd Mayweather Jr. a year ago in the same MGM Grand Garden Arena ring. After suffering a clean knockdown in the third round against Pacquiao, Mosley basically gave up. He just did not want to put himself in harm's way. He was not willing to go down swinging trying to win.
"I wasn't going to take those kinds of risks," Mosley said after the fight, an insult to all those who paid for it.
Self-preservation was far more important than winning, so Mosley took his minimum $5 million purse and did a disservice to fight fans and all those folks watching who might have become serious fans had it turned out to be a memorable fight.
When I was told Wednesday by the Nevada State Athletic Commission that Mosley and Pacquiao (as well as Jorge Arce and Wilfredo Vazquez Jr., who waged a terrific junior featherweight title bout on the undercard) had clean results from their drug tests, I joked that I was surprised that Mosley's test didn't come back positive for sleeping pills.
Besides the pitiful effort, Mosley spent seemingly most of the fight wanting to tap gloves with Pacquiao. That's fine before the fight, in the event of a legitimate accidental foul and after the fight. I like sportsmanship as much as the next guy. But be friends afterward, not during the fight. It was like watching a sparring session.
Bernard Hopkins, who has been close to Mosley and shares trainer Naazim Richardson with him, was on the phone Tuesday talking to media members ahead of his light heavyweight championship rematch with Jean Pascal next week in Montreal.
When the subject of the Pacquiao-Mosley fight came up, Hopkins didn't go so far as to say that Mosley should retire. After all, Hopkins is 46 and many have called for him to retire.
"I will never say another fighter should retire," he said. "That's an individual choice. There's a lot of people who should retire. People were calling for my head when I fought Roy Jones Jr. [in a terrible fight in April 2010]. I will never be a guy who says another fighter should retire. That's an individual choice."
But Hopkins did say he believed Mosley essentially quit trying to win after suffering the knockdown.
"He didn't fight last Saturday the way I thought he was going to fight and the way he said he was going to fight," Hopkins said. "He submitted early in the fight. After the knockdown, something happened and he submitted after that."
In taking issue with Mosley's lack of effort, Hopkins specifically pointed to all the glove touching. Mosley seemed like he would rather have been Pacquiao's pal than opponent.
"Why did he keep touching gloves every round?" Hopkins said. "That's a sign of submission. It's part of the body language of submission to praise a guy and try to be friends. Every time Shane came out, he wanted to touch gloves and shake hands and hug. At the end of the day, we're fighting. That's what we do. The referee says, 'Shake hands and come out fighting.' He doesn't say, 'Shake hands every round.' That's on you."
So the promotion for the fight hummed along in impressive fashion and undoubtedly will do a seven-figure pay-per-view buy rate.
Pacquiao may not have gone after Mosley as fervently as many of us would have liked to see him do, but he did score the knockdown and dominated, all while dealing with cramping in his left leg.
Showtime and CBS were on their games helping market and promote the event.
Top Rank was in its usual top form, too, including putting on a solid undercard and creating a spectacular in-arena experience for those who were there. The production quality, lighting and music made for one of the best atmospheres for a big fight I have experienced. In fact, it's my opinion that the ring walks -- Pacquiao to his usual "Eye of the Tiger," with Survivor lead singer Jimi Jamison singing alongside him, and Mosley being led out by LL Cool J rapping his classic "Mama Said Knock You Out" -- were the two best back-to-back ringwalks I have ever been ringside for, and it's not close.
So everyone did their job to make it the best night it could be. Everyone, that is, except Shane Mosley.
That Pacquiao won with ease against the once-great Mosley, who is 39 and obviously over the hill, wasn't a shock. The surprise was that it was so bad. (I expected the fight to at least be decent.)
Simply, Mosley is unable to compete with the best anymore, especially fast and powerful opponents. Most of us knew that when the fight was made. So why are we surprised? Did we not see how bad Mosley looked in his previous two fights?
Those unhappy that they shelled out money for the pay-per-view (many of whom I have heard from) should have realized one thing: There is no guarantee of a great fight, or even a competitive one.
You might remember that I was not a fan of the match when the fight was made in December, and I warned you. In fact, the headline of the column I wrote read, "Pacquiao-Mosley a bad fight for boxing." And so, five months later, we got a forgettable event as the culmination of a massive promotion. Talk about a disappointment -- just not an entirely unexpected one.
Top Rank, which excels at putting on big events, did a superb job promoting the fight. The only negative was the fight itself -- on paper and in the ring.
Top Rank's alliance with Showtime and its sister network CBS -- the key to the deal to take Pacquiao away from HBO and deliver him to Showtime -- was supposed to create more awareness of the fight and boxing in general. It probably did just that. But with a fight like this, is that a good thing?
Top Rank was infatuated with the notion that heavy marketing and promotion from CBS, which is available in some 115 million homes and is the most watched network in America, would be important for the future of boxing and perhaps lead it back to the promised land -- live fights on network television.
CBS did its part. It advertised the fight in prime time. It advertised it heavily during the NCAA tournament. And it aired three of the four episodes of Showtime's buildup reality series "Fight Camp." Two of the episodes even aired in prime time.
But the outcome was an abysmal bout, so if you were a casual fan enticed by the hype and saw that dreadful fight, would you want to buy more boxing in the future? Probably not, and that is the unfortunate part of the whole thing.
However, I can't entirely blame Top Rank's Bob Arum for that. Now, I didn't like the fact that he signed Mosley for the fight, because I fully expected a one-sided Pacquiao win. What I didn't expect -- and I'm sure Arum didn't expect it either -- was that Mosley would turn in the biggest non-effort of his career. It was even less of a performance than his wipeout against Floyd Mayweather Jr. a year ago in the same MGM Grand Garden Arena ring. After suffering a clean knockdown in the third round against Pacquiao, Mosley basically gave up. He just did not want to put himself in harm's way. He was not willing to go down swinging trying to win.
"I wasn't going to take those kinds of risks," Mosley said after the fight, an insult to all those who paid for it.
Self-preservation was far more important than winning, so Mosley took his minimum $5 million purse and did a disservice to fight fans and all those folks watching who might have become serious fans had it turned out to be a memorable fight.
When I was told Wednesday by the Nevada State Athletic Commission that Mosley and Pacquiao (as well as Jorge Arce and Wilfredo Vazquez Jr., who waged a terrific junior featherweight title bout on the undercard) had clean results from their drug tests, I joked that I was surprised that Mosley's test didn't come back positive for sleeping pills.
Besides the pitiful effort, Mosley spent seemingly most of the fight wanting to tap gloves with Pacquiao. That's fine before the fight, in the event of a legitimate accidental foul and after the fight. I like sportsmanship as much as the next guy. But be friends afterward, not during the fight. It was like watching a sparring session.
Bernard Hopkins, who has been close to Mosley and shares trainer Naazim Richardson with him, was on the phone Tuesday talking to media members ahead of his light heavyweight championship rematch with Jean Pascal next week in Montreal.
When the subject of the Pacquiao-Mosley fight came up, Hopkins didn't go so far as to say that Mosley should retire. After all, Hopkins is 46 and many have called for him to retire.
"I will never say another fighter should retire," he said. "That's an individual choice. There's a lot of people who should retire. People were calling for my head when I fought Roy Jones Jr. [in a terrible fight in April 2010]. I will never be a guy who says another fighter should retire. That's an individual choice."
But Hopkins did say he believed Mosley essentially quit trying to win after suffering the knockdown.
"He didn't fight last Saturday the way I thought he was going to fight and the way he said he was going to fight," Hopkins said. "He submitted early in the fight. After the knockdown, something happened and he submitted after that."
In taking issue with Mosley's lack of effort, Hopkins specifically pointed to all the glove touching. Mosley seemed like he would rather have been Pacquiao's pal than opponent.
"Why did he keep touching gloves every round?" Hopkins said. "That's a sign of submission. It's part of the body language of submission to praise a guy and try to be friends. Every time Shane came out, he wanted to touch gloves and shake hands and hug. At the end of the day, we're fighting. That's what we do. The referee says, 'Shake hands and come out fighting.' He doesn't say, 'Shake hands every round.' That's on you."
So the promotion for the fight hummed along in impressive fashion and undoubtedly will do a seven-figure pay-per-view buy rate.
Pacquiao may not have gone after Mosley as fervently as many of us would have liked to see him do, but he did score the knockdown and dominated, all while dealing with cramping in his left leg.
Showtime and CBS were on their games helping market and promote the event.
Top Rank was in its usual top form, too, including putting on a solid undercard and creating a spectacular in-arena experience for those who were there. The production quality, lighting and music made for one of the best atmospheres for a big fight I have experienced. In fact, it's my opinion that the ring walks -- Pacquiao to his usual "Eye of the Tiger," with Survivor lead singer Jimi Jamison singing alongside him, and Mosley being led out by LL Cool J rapping his classic "Mama Said Knock You Out" -- were the two best back-to-back ringwalks I have ever been ringside for, and it's not close.
So everyone did their job to make it the best night it could be. Everyone, that is, except Shane Mosley.