YOU can’t beat fight night in Las Vegas when Manny Pacquiao is in town.
Floyd Mayweather might beg to differ, but no-one else would argue that the Pac Man is not boxing’s biggest star today.
Pacquiao is more distracted than ever. His political career back home in the Philippines and the millions that hang on his every word make preparation for fights increasingly awkward.
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So far he seems to be handling the fanfare well enough, but I do wonder if at some point it will all takes its toll.
But not yet, not in the early hours tomorrow.
His opponent Shane Mosley has been a great fighter, as brave as any and with more self-belief than most.
That can lead an older fighter into tricky waters, of course. Mosley is 39.
If you take away the Antonio Margarito fight he has not performed anywhere near championship class in his last five bouts.
Margarito had taken off an awful lot of weight and by all accounts had to crash the pounds.
He was coming into that fight as the scandal of his illegal hand-wraps was circling. He was nowhere near top shape and would be banned a month later.
In Mosley’s previous fight against Ricardo Mayorga he was behind on all cards until he pulled off that amazing punch to finish it in the 12th.
Apart from a point in the second round when he caught and hurt Floyd Mayweather he was utterly schooled.
If Mayweather had not taken his foot off the gas it could have been embarrassing.
And in his last fight against Sergio Mora he earned a draw. Not great, and certainly not the Mosley that we have been hearing about in the build-up to this fight.
And that might be because the Mosley being talked up has gone forever. That does not mean that Pacquiao does not have to be careful early on. That is when Mosley still carries a sting.
He had Mayweather in some trouble. If he were to convert that kind of chance and maybe drop Pacquiao then the whole dynamic of the fight changes.
No fighter is infallible. Juan Manuel Marquez hurt Pacquiao. He has been down in his career. So an early knockdown would not surprise.
If that were to happen it would also change opinions about how Pacquiao might deal with Mayweather were they ever to meet.
To claim the upper hand in the moral argument with Mayweather, Pacquiao will want to win this fight more convincingly, maybe stop Mosley for the first time.
Pacquiao wants to come out of this fight with his reputation as the greatest box-office fighter on the planet enhanced.
Pacquiao’s freshness, his speed and the volume of punches he throws will ultimately take Mosley down.
Under Freddie Roach Pacquiao isn’t the reckless puncher he was. He is a more strategic destroyer now.
And he has the best feet in boxing. He can shuttle across the ring quicker than any I have ever seen.
This allows him to bring power to the opponent and diffuse it when he is under attack. He is frighteningly fast getting in and out of position.
After four or five rounds Pacquiao will start to bite the canvas with his toes and let his shots go.
That is when life will start to get really tough for Mosley, the point at which he comes to understand what it is to be overwhelmed by the phenomenon that is Manny Pacquiao.
Source: mirror.co.uk
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