Nothin’ like some crow in the mornin’…
By Robert Przybylo
BPrzybylo@opubco.com
(Antonio Margarito, left, had no answers for Sugar Shane Mosley. Photo by Chris Cozzone of Fightnews.com)
After another extremely fun day of HS basketball, I popped in the ol’ Shane Mosley and Antonio Margarito fight around 2 a.m. this morning.
And the excitement had me up until about 4.
Never have I been so glad to have been so outlandishly wrong. Mosley dominated nearly every minute of every round before stopping Margarito in the ninth.
Before the fight, Margarito was forced to have his hands wrapped three times because Mosley’s new trainer Naazim Richardson had issues with the amount of tape Margarito had.
In unwrapping his hands, a plaster-like substance was found.
Oh boy.
For those not fully aware of what this means, what that does is basically give the fighter a cast to work with.
The fighter can hit the bejeesus out of you and not have it hurt their own hand. The last time this was mentioned was ironically enough with Richardson in Bernard Hopkins’ corner on Felix Trinidad on Sept. 29, 2001.
It definitely casts, no pun intended, a cloud over Margarito’s career-defining win aginst Miguel Cotto in July.
But we’re not here to debate that. When more info becomes available, yeah sure, we will. But this night belonged to Sugar Shane Mosley.
Where to start? How about the game plan of Richardson? In his first bout with Mosley after taking over for Shane’s father, Jack, this was a perfect plan.
Use Margarito’s aggressiveness against him. I gotta agree with HBO commentator Emanuel Steward who brought up two things: 1) Mosley’s consistent body attack and 2) Mosley’s use of a solid, stiff jab.
Mosley has always been what he’s referred to as a power-boxer. He’s got the power to starch you, but the skills to frustrate you.
On this night, he put it all together. And he’s 37.
Mosley hit Margarito at will with his right hand and pestered him enough with the jab. And of course a trademark for Mosley is that leaping left hook.
Through five, it was clearly Mosley up 5-0. I can’t/don’t understand why Margarito didn’t force the action. Where was the arrogance/confidence that he had against Cotto? Cotto has beaten Mosley (not in my opinion, but in the record books).
Margarito throws on average more than 100 punches per round. I don’t have the official stats in front of me, but I don’t think he got over 80 once and maybe not even 70 but a couple of times.
Mosley doesn’t wilt under pressure, and that was huge. Margarito is used to imposing his will and breaking down a fighter. You don’t do that with Mosley.
He gets hit, he wants to hit you back. And he was man enough to hold. Sounds like a contradiction, right?
Wrong.
Whenever Mosley’s back hit the ropes, he lunged in and grabbed. Got the fight back to his distance and went back to work.
A glancing right uppercut followed by a home run left hook started the beginning of the end late in round eight. With seconds to go, the patented leaping left hook sent Margarito sprawling into the ropes before overhand rights dropped him.
Fight should have been over. Not the ref’s call to make. Margarito got up and staggered back to the corner where it should have been stopped.
But since it wasn’t, it allowed Mosley to have some fun and batter Margarito for the first minute of the ninth before Margarito fell, the ref stopped it and the corner threw in the towel.
It was the ol’ Floyd Mayweather-Ricky Hatton perfect trio.
So Mosley is the top dog again at welterweight. And Hopkins is one of the best fighters in the world. What is this, 2001 again?
In Affliction, Fedor knocked out Andrei Arlovski in one round, much to no one’s surprise. Until it’s Fedor/Brock Lesnar, not going to get too excited.
Back tomorrow with WEC thoughts.
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