Mosley: 'I'm not as slow as Margarito'

Shane Mosley said he also has in his arsenal what Manny Pacquiao has in his: Speed and power.

Four months before they square off in May at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Mosley told the LA Daily News that the scheduled 12-round welterweight title fight is “more of a scary fight for Pacquiao because I can hit and I do have speed.”


“I say my punching power is always going to give me a chance,” the 39-year-old Mosley, a heavy underdog, told fight scribe Robert Morales. “The last time I checked, I have pretty good speed. I’m not quite as slow as (Antonio) Margarito and I think I hit a little harder than Margarito.”

Mosley, who halted Margarito in nine rounds in January 2009, something Pacquiao failed to do as the Filipino only won by lopsided decision late last year, claimed he won’t find it difficult to land something on lvezPacquiao.

“If Margarito can hit Pacquiao, I can hit Pacquiao,” said Mosley, who beat out Mexican counter-puncher Juan Manuel Marquez for the opportunity to collide with the world’s pound-for-pound king.

Fight fans raised a howl as soon as Top Rank chief Bob Arum announced just before Christmas that Pacquiao and Mosley, who will be four months shy off his 40th birthday by fight night, are going to get it on.

But Arum also told the Daily News why it was a lot wiser to tap Mosley instead of Marquez, who even at 37 years old, remains an elite fighter to this day.

“As good a fighter as Juan Manuel Marquez is, they are in two different weight classes. I saw both of the first fights they had and the bigger, stronger Pacquiao now would annihilate Marquez,” Arum said.

The first time they fought was at featherweight (126 lbs) in May 2004 and the rematch was at super-feather (130) in March 2008.

Marquez was badly outclassed by Floyd Mayweather in his lone outing at welterweight and has opted to return to lightweight (135 lbs) where he feels more comfortable campaigning and his power and movement more suited to.

Arum said Pacquiao has adapted so much to the welter ranks that Marquez would simply melt away against Pacquiao at 147 lbs.

-mb.com.ph