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Mosley defies Margarito's supernatural ability to take a punch, scoring upset in nine
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Mosley connects to the face of Margarito in the eighth round.
(AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
Nobody can stand up to that kind of punishment. Not even Antonio Margarito.
Shane Mosley stopped the seemingly unstoppable Mexican in nine rounds Saturday to win the WBA welterweight championship. The natural order of boxing is restored as the more talented (and harder punching) fighter won, six months after Margarito had defied that sort of logic by wearing down Miguel Cotto to win the title.
If you’ve been a Mosley fan as long as I have, the manner in which he won was equally satisfying. In the seven years since Mosley (46-5, 39 knockouts) suffered his only knockdown (caused by a head butt) against Vernon Forrest and subsequently moved up to the junior middleweight ranks, where his 5-foot-9 height was a liability instead of an asset, there had been no fight that showcased the offensive skills Mosley had demonstrated as a lightweight prior to his first win over Oscar De La Hoya in 2000.
Mosley’s two victories over Fernando Vargas didn’t count in that way, because Vargas was shot by then. Other than that, this fight was like those two, and then some.
Saturday’s bout was also a lot like Cotto-Margarito over the first four rounds, as Mosley, like Cotto, proved he could hit Margarito at will with power shots and win rounds. Mosley also proved he could work inside against Margarito and tie him up, negating Margarito’s ability to land his best punches from outside, and that he could land body shots while remaining elusive to Margarito.
By the fifth it was clear that this fight was not like the Cotto fight after all. Margarito (37-6) didn’t seem to be making any impact on Mosley, as he had while stalking Cotto, and Mosley was landing even more vicious punches than Cotto had, especially left hooks. This was surprising in that Cotto had defeated Mosley in 2007, ample cause for Margarito’s being a 4-1 favorite Saturday.
When Mosley accomplished less in the seventh than in the previous rounds (though HBO’s unofficial scorer Harold Ledermen was wrong to award that round to Margarito), and the pattern continued into the eighth, it seemed a turning point was possible. This was the juncture where, in my pre-fight analysis, I hoped Mosley could try to safeguard a decision win. And then Mosley landed a huge left hook near the end of the round, and Margarito began to stagger like any reasonable human being ought to.
Mosley knocked him down near the end of the eighth, and after talk in Margarito’s corner of tossing in the towel, the ninth round got under way. But the bout had ended for all practical purposes.
I still want Mosley, 37, to retire, to go out on top, but of course it doesn’t work that way. He finally had a truly great fight as a welterweight, which to many purists is the sport’s most important division and certainly is the most exciting these days. And now everyone will want a piece of him again. Paul Williams, Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, a rematch with Cotto; the talks are all under way already.
“THE GHOST” WINS EASILY: Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero of Gilroy scored a knockout of Edel Ruiz in 43 seconds on the undercard of their junior lightweight bout on the Margarito-Mosley undercard. For Guerrero (23-1-1) it was the first fight since he shed Dan Goossen as his promoter to join Golden Boy Promotions and the first fight since he abandoned his IBF featherweight title to move up in weight.
Read Boxing Examiner Vivek's Wallace take on the Mosley-Margarito fight.
