By Tim Smith, New York Daily News
LAS VEGAS - Underneath all of Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s bravado and the showy display of his cash resides one of the most intelligent and skilled boxers of this generation.
That combination of athleticism and ring savvy has resulted in Mayweather's unblemished record against 40 previous opponents. To his credit Shane Mosley, the WBA 147-pound champion hasn't gotten caught up in the sideshow and lost sight of Mayweather's bountiful boxing gifts.
Mosley and his trainer, Naazim Richardson, know what they are going to face when Mosley takes on Mayweather in a 12-round welterweight HBO PPV megafight at the MGM Grand on Saturday night.
Even so Mosley (46-5, 39 KOs) isn't taking a backseat to Mayweather in any department."I think he has good hand speed, but I think my hand speed is good, too," Mosley said. "I don't know if I'm going to be faster or I'm going to be slower. I have to get in the ring and see. I believe I'm faster. I believe that I'm going to have the advantage in the speed, but we'll see."
One thing that Mosley can't anticipate is Mayweather's uncanny timing. Mayweather seems to know exactly when his opponent is going to throw a punch and precisely where it will land, allowing him to avoid it by inches and to deliver the perfect counterpunch.
"Life is about timing and inches," Mayweather said. "Boxing is about timing and inches. I'm able to time a guy pretty well."
"Pretty well" is an understatement. A few years ago Mayweather invited me to the gym to watch him workout. He called over a sparring partner, placed him two feet in front of him and ordered the boxer to hit him. Mayweather dropped his hands down to his side and the sparring partner threw punches from every conceivable angle and couldn't touch Mayweather as he ducked, twisted and turned without ever moving his feet. It was one of the most amazing athletic displays I've ever witnessed.
Afterwards I asked Mayweather to explain it and he said he just knew where the punches would be coming from. I don't believe it's a mystical Jedi trick. It's probably more related to a hitter's ability to pick up a pitch as it leaves a pitcher's hand and being able to slow it down to recognize the rotation on the ball to determine what kind of pitch it is. But even the greatest hitters only succeed 35% of the time. Mosley is batting 1.000.
That ability, coupled with his natural speed and quickness, has given Mayweather a tremendous defensive and offensive advantage over most of his opponents.
It is the intangible that Mosley and Richardson have to contend with in their pre-fight strategy.
"The timing is just one of your problems you're going to face in dealing with Floyd Mayweather," Richardson said. "But if you sit there and you try to depict everything you're going to have to face with him and people start talking about sparring partners ... Who's going to spar like Floyd Mayweather?
"All you can do is train the athlete to the best of their ability and then bring him in and have him follow your game plan to the best of his ability and I feel as though Shane will be able to execute everything that we're working on, and then Floyd will need to make adjustments as Shane will have to make adjustments throughout the fight."
Those adjustments will have to be made on the fly, sometimes during the heat of the battle. That will require Mosley
to match wits with Mayweather. So this match will shape up as a fistic cat and mouse game. We've seen it before with both fighters.
The general consensus from the boxing experts before Mayweather fought Ricky Hatton was that Hatton would try to rough up Mayweather by grabbing and punching after he pushed Mayweather away. Instead Mayweather turned the tables on Hatton and roughed him up inside, before knocking him out in the 10th round.
Before Mosley fought Miguel Cotto, most people thought that Mosley would be able to easily outbox Cotto. But Cotto turned the tables on Mosley. Cotto used a stiff jab as a platform and outboxed Mosley on the way to a narrow decision victory.
Mosley acknowledged that on the occasions that he lost, he might not have been as sharp mentally as he needed to be.
"The fight game is really a mental game. People don't realize that. It's not really that physical," Mosley said. "I think mentally, at that point in my career I wasn't on top of my game mentally."
That better not be the case when he gets in against Mayweather. Richardson said he's not worried about that, even though Mosley hasn't fought since he overwhelmed Antonio Margarito on Jan. 21, 2009. He had a fight with Andre Berto on Jan. 30 that was cancelled when Berto, who is of Haitian descent, was shaken up by the loss of relatives and friends in the earthquake in Haiti.
"As far as Shane preparing for the Margarito fight and Shane preparing for the Mayweather fight, I'm very comfortable with his mental preparation," Richardson said. "I'm very comfortable, and I'm more comfortable in either one of those fights than I was for the Berto fight because this is the level that Shane desires. This is where Shane knows he belongs."
Source: nydailynews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment