By Scott Heritage
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Despite the fact that he has probably the best resume of any welterweight around at the moment, and can capture his second world title later on this month, Shane Mosley seems to have been left on the outside.
Obviously the major reason for this is that all the news at the moment is focusing on Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather and their ongoing negotiation saga.
On top of this though, Pacquiao and Mayweather are now above Mosley on a lot of rankings, and his name has seemingly been forgotten when talking about who the pair should have to face other than each other. It seems a little quick to rank either above Mosley at this stage, purely because of the fact that they have less quality wins against other welterweights.
In the case of Pacquiao, a lineal champion argument can be made for him because he beat Cotto who beat Mosley. This would be more difficult to make because Cotto was beaten by Margarito not so very long ago, who Mosley has beaten. The flaw with this though is that Margarito might well have been using loaded wraps for the Cotto fight, and might not otherwise have beaten him. Of course we will probably never know that now, and even if the two were to fight again ant Margarito were to beat Cotto a second time, the first win would still have been in doubt.
In the case of Mayweather, over the last three years he has beaten Oscar De la Hoya, Ricky Hatton and most recently Juan Manuel Marquez. De La Hoya was arguably past his best, but none the less this is a quality win. Hatton was a light welterweight for most of his career and although he was unbeaten at the time, was better at the lower weight.
Marquez similarly is a much better fighter at super flyweight and lightweight, and really isnt a force at welterweight.
So at the very least then Mosley should be ranked ahead of Mayweather at welterweight and should be the man everyone wants to beat?
Supposing he beats Andre Berto later this month then, which he should, to me he is the fighter both Pacquiao and Mayweather should be looking to fight. The mega fight of the pound for pound greats is still at an impasse at the moment, and could go either way. If the fight doesn’t happen though, either would benefit from a fight against Mosley. Obviously the timing means he won’t face either next because both are sticking to March dates it seems, but behind each other, Mosley is the man either should face.
If their fight between Manny and Floyd goes ahead and is fairly close, then they will probably have a rematch and perhaps even a third encounter if the money is right. If the fight is a one sided washout by one fighter over the other though, Mosley should be the man the winner is looking for.
Scott Heritage’s Web Site: http://www.examiner.com/x-20066-Pittsburgh-Fight-Sports-Examiner
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Scott Heritage covers both MMA and Boxing read his other articles at Pittsburgh-Fight-Sports-Examiner