Floyd Mayweather Jr. is a guy who loves to talk trash, stir up trouble, and incite controversy. In doing so, he always keeps his name on the tip of every boxing journalist's tongue. He's the ultimate villain of the sport, and it seems as though that's exactly the way he likes it.
 

This writer has been critical of his arrogance, and his unbelievable lack of people skills.

That said, there's no denying that the guy is a defensive genius the likes of which the sport has rarely seen. In fact, he may be the greatest defensive technician ever.

He can dodge, duck, and counterpunch like no other athlete in the sport today. He can land blindingly quick, accurate counterpunches as he backpedals.

He can slip a punch, disappear from a corner, and reappear in the middle of the ring—momentarily causing his opponent to have to search for him. Most opponents have found it all but impossible to land anything flush.
 

He often leans forward with his left hand dangling at his side, daring his opponent to take a shot. If his opponent accepts the challenge and misses, Mayweather can land that left hand at the speed of light.

Perhaps one of Mayweather's main assets his his ring intelligence. He's a very smart fighter who takes few risks.

He tends to conserve his energy by placing his shots carefully with pin-point accuracy. He rarely throws combinations consisting of more than two punches, but the ones he throws usually score.

If Mayweather has a weakness in the ring, it's yet to be discovered. His record is 40-0, with 25 KOs.

On Jan. 24, 2009 Shane Mosley completely annihilated Antonio Margarito in a ninth round TKO.

If he can come to the ring on May 1 looking like he did on that night, it should be a great fight.

Along with a knockout rate of 75 percent, Mosley possesses the ultimate combination of lightning-quick hands, excellent agility, and power. Mosley's record stands at 46-5, with 39 KOs.

Mosley’s main weakness is his lack of jabbing abilities. He is known for throwing lazy, pawing jabs that are intended more for measuring than for scoring purposes.This could be a major disadvantage in a bout against Mayweather. He'll certainly need to be throwing strong, hard jabs and concentrating on Mayweather's body.

Once thing that is certain is that Mosley will pressure Mayweather, and pressure combined with speed, power, and agility could actually spell trouble for Mayweather.
 

Jose Luis Castillo and Oscar De La Hoya gave Mayweather some degree of trouble when they pressured him. De La Hoya is the only boxer to lose to Mayweather by split decision.

Every other victory of Mayweather's career have come by KOs and UDs.

Forget about the Mayweather – Marquez fight. Mosley isn't going to be an easy fight for Mayweather.

Professional boxer and trainer, Stacy Goodson of Paris, Arkansas said: “I see it being one of the toughest fights of Mayweather's life. I think it'll go the distance unless there's a quit or a disqualification. I see two people who have a lot to prove, but I don't think Shane is fast enough or able to walk Mayweather down. I see 8 to 10 rounds in favor of Mayweather.”

Mayweather is heavily favored for the fight, and rightly so, but Mosley definitely has more than a puncher's chance.

It could be a long night for Mayweather.

Hopefully the winner of this match goes on to fight Manny Pacquiao for the WBO and WBA titles, as well as pound for pound bragging rights.

 

lscoggins@8ountnews.com

 

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Jones V.S. Raines was a draw !

By Robert Przybylo
BPrzybylo@opubco.com

Without having seen the fight, I don’t know whether to say Delray Raines brought his game up a whole ‘nother level to earn a draw or if Carson Jones was not on his game in fighting an even bout with Raines.

Whatever the case, Raines and Jones fought a six-round draw in a junior middleweight bout Friday night in Durant, following all the fights on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights.

This was originally scheduled to be the first ’swing’ bout that would have made TV, but it was changed to an off-TV bout and that’s too bad for someone like me.

I was receiving text messages during this bout, so from what I heard was Jones was getting tired late and Raines showed his toughness.

Raines is nothing if he’s not tough. His record makes you think he’s nothing, but there is a lot of fight in him, and he’s going to leave all of himself out there.

Jones, the Oklahoma City product, has been training for a bout with Antonio Margarito. When that fell threw, this kinda just came up as Raines took the bout on two weeks’ notice.

Jones is such a gifted fighter, really has the total package. But he has had some problems against fighters that put on the pressure.

So while Jones may have been in great shape physically with the best training regimen of his life, not so sure about his mental state of mind. Is the mental preparation the same if you’re fighting Raines compared to Margarito?

OK, I’m done speculating as I don’t want to say anything else on a bout I didn’t see. Like I said, this was just based off text messages being sent.

If anybody was there and would like to comment, the floor is yours.

Buzz up!


 
       I was informed today that the State of Oklahoma decided to join John McCain
& the ABC in its extermination of the Middle Class American Boxer by adding unwanted
blood work to the local club shows that are suffering in this unstable economy as it is.
So now a state known for its activity in participating blue collar American boxing has
joined states like Nevada,New York & California that simply tells the average Middle
Class American if you can't pay you simply can't play.This is sad news  for our sport and for
our nation for that matter, I only hope the politicians we elect to office will somehow open
their eyes and save this dying sport before bureaucracy kills it off completely.But I wonder
what else they will take away next.I guess before long  they will say we need someone to
vote for us as well.Stop this madness ,give boxing back to boxing and make these
bureaucrats get another job because we the middle class are tired of paying their
salary.


              Thanks
   American Clubfighter
Stacy"Goodnight"Goodson
      slugout@aol.com


By Ewan Fletcher
Published: 11:12AM BST 09 Jul 2009

When a local promoter rang Karin Hobbs, the sales director of the Fort Smith Convention Centre in Arkansas, asking her if she would be happy for the facility to host a cage fight - a no-holds barred extreme wrestling event - nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She had no idea that she was agreeing to stage a scene for the Brüno movie. She had heard of the promoter and the Blue Collar Brawlin’ team who had commissioned him had a convincing website.

‘They were clever. They first contacted us via an intermediary company called Ring Rulers. In this area cage fighting is popular. They told me that they would be doing videotaping for a reality show. We’ve dealt with Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie when they were here filming The Simple Life so it wasn’t too unusual.

‘What was unusual was at the last minute they started changing the set up. They originally contracted to use our chairs. Then, barely an hour before opening the doors, they brought in their own. These were all literally roped together with wire so you couldn’t untie them.

‘Then they brought in a metal tube from the back doors to the ring which the fighters were meant to walk along. Later on we were to find out why that was there. It was an escape route.

‘Then as I was leaving at 5pm on the Friday six guys in suits - obviously from Hollywood - marched into my office with a bundle of legal paperwork wanting me to sign a waiver. It would have stopped us saying anything about what happened. I told them that they could give it to my lawyer and he’d have a look on Monday but we’re not signing anything before. They weren’t happy with that.

‘Beer here is normally four bucks. That night it was a dollar a cup. The production company had paid the difference. And there were between 750 to 1200 people there so that was a lot of people they were buying drinks for. They gave most of the tickets away plus it cost $13,000 to rent the venue. They just kept throwing money around. It was crazy.

‘As people were waiting in lines to go in through the doors everybody signed a waiver stating that they knew they would be videotaped. It was incredible the number of police officers we had here. There were 20 or 30. They had all been requested by the production company. Everyone was patted down to check for weapons.

‘It started out like a normal cage fight. They had this guy in the ring called Straight Dave. He was all dressed up in camouflage with a beard and looked like Ted Nugent. He had these t-shirts he was throwing into the crowd that were vulgar and very anti-gay. Anyway this Straight Dave, who was really getting the crowd going, was Sacha; not that anyone knew that. Then Straight Dave said, when the crowd were really worked up: ‘If there’s any gay person out there I’ll fight you right now’. He had a plant in the crowd who at this point climbed into the ring. They pretended to fight for a few moments. Then they started to make out in the cage.

‘At that point the crowd went totally ape. Probably 1200 cups of beer go straight into the cage, the t-shirts too. Someone managed to get a chair free and threw that in. Luckily no one was injured.

‘They had escalated the gay bashing throughout the whole thing and then at the end, when they [started to kiss], wow. The police hit the house lights and shut the whole thing down. Within minutes the room was cleared. The police had to escort them out.

‘People were really pissed [off], to put it mildly. They felt duped, but of course we didn’t know what was going to happen. It was so frustrating for everyone who had come along to see a cage fight.

‘The guy who organised it for them, Will Broyles from Ring Rulers, was the person who was really damaged by what happened. He has a legitimate cage fighting company.’

Boxer Stacy ‘Goodnight’ Goodson of Slugout Promotions, helped organise the security at the event: ‘I was right at the front but I didn’t know what was going on. I spoke to the promoter from Blue Collar Brawlin’ and said that I thought that this was pretty cool what he was doing as I promote blue collar boxing. He said to me: ‘Believe me you’ve never seen anything like this.’

‘As soon as I saw Sacha Cohen walk by I knew who he was instantly. When [Cohen and the plant from the crowd] stopped fighting and started tearing each other’s clothes off I could just hear this roar behind me of my redneck brothers screaming and I thought: ‘Here we go.’

‘There was this woman who was screaming bloody murder right in my face. I told her that there was a camera right on her but she kept going nuts.

‘People were asking me: “Why are you bringing this s--- here? Why are you doing this?” And I was like: “I’m working security. I’m not part of this. But here are cameras behind me and they’re watching you make a right idiot out of yourself, especially if you signed something when you walked in this building like I did.”

‘Sacha Cohen has got a real good taste for rednecks. We’re obviously really funny to him.’