I wonder just 'How' Great Mosely could've been......

[donnydarkoIRL]

Mosley's one of my all time favourite's.

I had just re-watched his career before this fight and had him picked.
I think he may be similar to Lewis and Hagler in that a retrospective eye will allow him his due.

He was an ATG Lightweight. He's right up there with Duran, Chavez et al.

At Welter he also desreves a mention.

Great fighter, great guy

[Boom Boom]

He is a great fighter. Very gifted, reminds me of Meldrick Taylor a bit but. I think he would have faired very well against any lightweight of any era. His loses were to guys with good jabs, which imo has always been his biggest weakness. Hes not hard to find with the jab. Margarito doesnt use his jab so that played right into Shanes hands. All around, Shane is an excellent fighter.

[RozzySean]

Rant coming....

In my book, the measure of a fighters greatest comes more from the quantity of wins and great performances against other great/very good fighters. If you fight the best out there consistently, you are bound to have an off night or come up against a matchup that is stylistic nightmare for you. Most fighters today are way over protected and over managed and it probably has something to do with the public being so fickle. Nowadays, having an 0 zero in the loss column is more important to many fans (and fighters) than seeing wins against best available competition. Lossing is unacceptable. They seem to think great fighters can't loose AT ALL, even to other very good fighters, and still be an ATG.

Cotto loses one fight and people are questioning if he's done. Hatton gets sparked by the one of the best fighters of our generation and he people were questioning him. Paul Williams lost once and he was exposed overhyped (seems he proven those people wrong). Pavlik loses to Hopkins and now Pavlik is overrated. Even David Haye...the guy was frickin unified CW champ with some real quality wins at CW and people still harp on the Thompson fight, and I promise, once he fights a good, big, HW and gets his ass beat, everybody will call him crap instead of just saying that he's a very good fighter who is little small to beat the biggest and best HWs. If fact, you're people call you a hater and get angry when you tell them their favorite fighter isn't the second coming of Benny Leonard, only better.

In or near there PRIMES - Duran lost to Benitez and Leonard. Leonard lost to Duran. Hearns lost to Hagler and Leonard, Frazier lost to Foreman, Foreman lost to Ali (an older Ali). Benitez lost to Hearns and Leonard. Arguello lost to Fernandez. Louis lost to Schmelling. etc, etc etc. Very, very few fighters who fight in stacked divisions (like Mosley has since leaving LW) can say they fought the best, toughest fights out there and came away without losing.

Rant over.

I guess he could have fought Kostya Tszyu instead of Oscar and assuming he could keep making that weight, stuck around 140 for a while, beating up on Urkal, Sharmba Mitchell, Zab Judah, Chop-Chop and Ricky Hatton. I can't imagine anybody other than Floyd having a chance against him at that weight. That would have been great career, too, and he may have ended up undefeated and considered the greatest LWW of all time. Imagine the prospect of Shane and Floyd fighting at 140, circa 2004-2005. Wow.

But even factoring in the losses, I'm not sure that would make him greater than moving all the way up from LW to become unified LMW champion and 2x WW champion, beating ODLH twice, demolishing Vargas, Mayorga, and (at age 37) Margarito - the most feared, avoided, and recognized #1 WW in an extremely deep WW division. If anything, he screwed himself up by following Oscar up to 154 and then deciding to defend those belt against Winky, then taking a second shot a Winky. He probably should have dropped back down to WW right after the second Oscar fight and fought Mayorga for the belts Vernon took from him.

And what if Floyd come out of retirement to fight Mosley and Mosley managed to pull that off? Could it get much greater than that?