Monday, April 26, 2010

Trainers' take: Age a deciding factor in Floyd Mayweather's fight against Shane Mosley

LAS VEGAS -- Two boxing statesmen, both former world champions turned trainers, with a keen eye for the irreversible templates of the punch-for-pay game and the toll it takes, watch Floyd Mayweather intently. One has a vested interest in Saturday’s Mayweather-Shane Mosley fight. The other doesn’t.

Both think they see the same thing at play in the welterweight extravaganza, an experience they lived through during their own careers as active boxers.

Cornelius Boza Edwards and Roger Mayweather were world champions whose principal role in professional boxing was Hall of Fame gatekeeper, because almost anyone who beat them in their primes became an immediate candidate.

shane-mosley-26.jpgAP PhotoAt 38, Shane Mosley has 52 professional and more than 250 amateur bouts under his belt.They also overstayed those primes and said Mosley, 38, is making the same mistake.

“There’s five years difference between them,” Boza Edwards said. “As we know, over the years, even with great fighters, one or two years could be huge.

“We always have this scenario. Fighting is a young man’s sport. In this fight, between Floyd and Shane, Floyd is the younger man. The reflexes aren’t the same. The quickness isn’t the same. And the other thing is, the last time Shane fought, was more than a year ago. So all those things are combined.”

Roger Mayweather trains his nephew and has an obvious bias. He also is an astute observer of boxing and a student of its history who considers Mosley a great fighter and surefire Hall of Famer, with dangerous power and a big heart.

Read more at mlive.com

Watch Online of the Mayweather-Mosley boxing fight at Boxing Live.

P.S.
Join me at PEOPLESTRING.COM

1 comment: