On May 7th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas three-division world champion "Sugar" Shane Mosley will take on Manny Pacquiao for the WBO Welterweight Championship. According to Bodog Sportsbook, Manny "Pac Man" Pacquiao is a big favorite and is currently listed at -625 (you would need to bet $625.00 to win $100.00 on Pacquiao), while Shane Mosley is in the underdog role and would pay a bettor $425.00 on a $100.00 wager. Besides the oddsmakers, almost every boxing expert across the board has Pacquiao winning this fight on boxing skill alone. Even President Barack Obama will be rooting for Manny and had him and his wife visit the White House to talk basketball and boxing. So with everyone from the oddsmakers to the leader of the free world backing "Pac Man", does Mosley have any shot in this fight?
Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach said the approach will be focused around precision punching and movement to essentially just outbox Mosely ala Miguel Cotto and Floyd Mayweather. Even though Mosley seemed early on to be on the way of a possible upset of Mayweather, Floyd quickly responded and dominated the rest of the fight and won an unanimous (but close) decision back in 2007. Roach was quick to point out that even though Manny is not afraid to trade punches, with Pacquiao clearly being the better boxer the game plan will be to avoid giving Shane any shot at a lucky knockout.
The latest from the Mosley camp comes from trainer Nazim Richardson who said Shane is in great shape and they are working daily on how to counter the Pacquiao punching approach. Despite being 39, you can can't count out Mosley's fighting style and if he can get into a "punch-out" with Manny anything can happen. 39 of his 46 wins have come from a KO, so the power is there for the one shot "luck-out-knock-out".
"Sugar" Shane has taken the fight into the social media world and is using Twitter to try and get into the head of Manny Pacquiao by tweeting some of the following:
*All the vitamins in the world is no match for my Sugar It's
*Hey Pacquiao (@), I'm going to beat you so hard that you're going to need botox just to take the worry off your face!
*Just cause u have
the bieber hair style doesn't mean u can sing like him, NO WORRIES, Ill
beat you and have you singing right...
So does Mosley have a shot and is it worth taking a shot on him in the underdog role? Will he "shock the world" like he did when defeating Oscar De La Hoya two times? Even though everyone loves the dog in a fight, pending a miracle punch we can't fathom any scenario where Shane can defeat Pacquiao. If Manny can stick to the plan and just "box" and not "fight", he should coast to an easy victory and further set the stage for the showdown the world is asking for between him and Floyd Mayweather.