Breaking down the big fights

By Robert Morales

So there we were, sitting at a table at a restaurant in downtown Los Angeles last week, talking shop. It was Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions; Eric Gomez, Golden Boy matchmaker; and lovely independent publicist Debbie Caplan, who does most of her work for Golden Boy.

As we ate and awaited the beginning of a news conference, the conversation went the direction of upcoming mega fights. These three, of course, wanted to talk specifically about ones involving Golden Boy. They would be the Oct. 6 super featherweight fight between Marco Antonio Barrera and Manny Pacquiao, the Nov. 10 welterweight title fight between “Sugar” Shane Mosley and Miguel Cotto and the Dec. 8 welterweight championship between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Ricky Hatton. It was not shocking to find out that all three Golden Boy employees are picking Barrera, Mosley and Hatton, since Golden Boy promotes them. To be fair, Golden Boy does have a piece of Pacquiao, but it has all of Barrera.

Anyway, the topic spawned the idea that this would be a good time to handicap those fights, as well as one other not involving Golden Boy – the Sept. 29 tilt between middleweight champion Jermain Taylor and Kelly Pavlik.

Let’s start with Pacquiao-Barrera II at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. As we all know, Pacquiao stopped Barrera in the 11th round in their first fight in November 2003. Afterward, Barrera said he wasn’t himself. He had a lack of focus, he said, because of several distractions outside the ring. That may be true, but the mistake Barrera made was using them as an excuse for his loss. Before the fight, on a televised interview, he assured everyone that he was indeed focused, that everything going on around him would not disrupt his mental state.

Tell you what, coming up with a cop-out and attempting to take away from Pacquiao’s impressive victory was bush league. And it cost Barrera any chance at victory in this rematch because Pacquiao has for the past four years been perturbed at Barrera for trying to steal away some of his glory. If you ask Gomez, the distractions currently hampering Pacquiao in his training camp in the Philippines are going to lead to his undoing.

“He is not focused on boxing,” Gomez said of Pacquiao. “He has too many distractions.”

Distractions notwithstanding, Pacquiao will be in tune come Oct. 6. If it were any other opponent, perhaps not. For Barrera, Pacquiao will be all there. Aside from that, Barrera is tailor-made for Pacquiao, and Pacquiao is just an animal in the ring. An animal Barrera won’t be able to tame. The pick here is Pacquiao by knockout once again. Probably by the eighth round.

Mosley and Cotto will get it on at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Admittedly, we have come across several reporters who are picking Mosley in this one. What is astonishing is that some of them believe Mosley is going to win rather handily. Gomez is of that mind. He believes that Mosley is going to have an easy time of it.

“Cotto’s chin is questionable,” said Gomez, as his gorgeous wife and their young son sat across from him, enjoying the food at Liberty Grill.

Gomez was reminded, however, of two things: One, that every time Cotto has been decked, he’s gotten up and won. Two, that Mosley isn’t exactly a knockout artist at this weight. He was at lightweight, where he stopped 30 of 32 opponents. At welterweight, Mosley’s knockout ratio drops dramatically, as his five knockouts in 11 fights in that division attest.

There’s another thing. Cotto is a monster body puncher. Let’s not forget that in Mosley’s first of two defeats at the hands of Vernon Forrest, he let out quite a scream when he got nailed in the ribs by a vicious Forrest body shot. Mosley later said he had never been hit that hard to the body in his life. Mosley has had a nice turn-around from a time when he went 1-4 with a no-contest from January 2002 to November 2004. But the five wins he’s had since have come against David Estrada, Jose Luis Cruz, Fernando Vargas twice and Luis Collazo.

Only the win over Collazo is anything to shout about. Please, let’s not count the two knockout wins over Vargas at junior middleweight as big accomplishments. Vargas, all due respect, is a mere shadow of himself. Also, Mosley will be 36 on Friday, so it will be interesting to see his reaction after getting cracked first in the ribs, then in the head, by Cotto’s big left hooks.

The pick here is Cotto. It’s not likely to end in a stoppage because Mosley has not been stopped in 49 fights. If anyone can do that, it’s Cotto. But let’s go with a lopsided decision by the Puerto Rican superstar.

Golden Boy figures to be 0 for 3 the following month when Hatton tries to do something few have done – land more than one or two clean punches on Mayweather when they square off at MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The skinny on Mayweather is if you’re able to put pressure on him, you could be successful. Both Caplan and Schaefer believe that Hatton is just the hombre to do that to Mayweather. Well, De La Hoya put pressure on Mayweather when they fought last May. De La Hoya was effective in that he seemingly had Mayweather where he wanted him many times during the 12 rounds. But as quickly as Mayweather was there, he was not. Even when he stayed, Mayweather made De La Hoya miss a remarkable amount of punches with sheer defensive wizardry on his way to a split decision.

Caplan pointed out that Hatton is just about the same size as Mayweather, so there will be no advantage for either fighter in that regard. But it should be noted that Hatton did not look real good in his one welterweight fight to date – a May 2006 victory over the aforementioned Collazo. Collazo had Hatton hurt in that fight, and Collazo is not a heavy puncher. Also, people forget that Mayweather isn’t exactly a pitter-patter puncher. He does have 24 knockouts among his 38 victories.

Bottom line is, Mayweather will once again be nearly impossible to hit cleanly. The pick here is that he will avoid most of Hatton’s offensive and will launch enough of one himself to win an easy decision. Don’t be surprised if Mayweather stops Hatton.

Now, for the one non-Golden Boy fight in this equation. Taylor and Pavlik will get it on at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City as a prelude to Barrera-Pacquiao II the following Saturday.

You know, it’s interesting about Taylor. The man is 27-0-1 with 17 knockouts and owns two victories over Bernard Hopkins. Yet, Taylor gets more criticism than positive feedback for his performances. First of all, few people thought Taylor won his first fight against Hopkins, and the second one could have gone Hopkins’ way as well. Taylor’s draw came against Winky Wright, and most thought Wright won. Two recent title defenses against blown-up junior middleweights did not help Taylor’s cause. But in a news release Tuesday, Taylor said he is anxious to show what he can do against a man like Pavlik, who will stand and fight.

“From a style standpoint, my last couple of fights were wrong for me, but they were fighters who stepped up to the plate,” Taylor said in reference to decision victories over Kassim Ouma and Cory Spinks, respectively. “Kelly Pavlik is a fighter, just like me. He comes to fight; no running, no holding. It’s about time. People are going to be surprised by what they see on Sept. 29. I’m expecting a lot of fireworks in the ring with Kelly Pavlik. This is my kind of fight.”

You have to like Taylor’s attitude. But this will be Pavlik’s kind of fight. This determined prize-fighter from Youngstown, Ohio, is the real deal. Believe that. He hits very, very hard. All of his punches are straight from the shoulders. And he is tough as nails with a granite chin. He will get in there and slug it out for as long as Taylor can hang. That should be about eight rounds. At which time Pavlik is going to overwhelm Taylor with a vicious assault unlike anything Taylor has ever encountered. Ring announcer Michael Buffer will then say, “And the NEW middleweight champion of the world …”