Weekend Review: Pacquiao Dominates Mosley

In a "fight" that was really no fight at all, pound for pound king Manny Pacquiao (now 53-3-2 w/ 38 KO's) pounded on the mortal remains of Shane Mosley (now 46-7-1 w/ 39 KO's) for twelve rounds on Saturday night, securing a very predictable unanimous decision victory, and retaining his WBO welterweight belt in the process.

Mosley was never in the fight and for all intents and purposes, he lost every minute of every round - even the one in which he was credited with a "knockdown" of  Pacquiao in the tenth. Apparently two of the judges refused to accept the knockdown as legitimate (which it wasn't) and scored the round accordingly, taking no point(s) away from Pacquiao for the "knockdown." Kudos to those two judges for not penalizing Pacquiao for a mistake made by the officials at ringside and then exacerbated by referee Kenny Bayless who, instead of ruling a knockdown, should have ruled it a slip.

Pacquiao, who on this night was not exactly the force of nature we had come to expect, did manage to seriously hurt Sugar Shane in the third, scoring a conclusive knockdown that Shane later admitted hurt him very badly and essentially ruined his appetite for fighting. From that point on, it looked like Shane Mosley was just doing his best to go the distance and not completely embarrass himself.

Official scores were: 119-108, 120-108, and 120-107.

KO Digest scored the fight 120-107, ignoring the "official" knockdown in the tenth and scoring that round  10-9 for Manny.

~Jorge Arce KO12 Wilfredo Vazquez Jr
(Wins WBO Super Bantamweight title)

This highly entertaining fight more or less saved the whole Pacquiao-Mosley pay per view card from being a completely boring wash. Jorge Arce (now 57-6-2 w/ 44 KO's) came on strong in the eleventh and then again in the twelfth round to score a dramatic TKO victory over Wilfredo Vazquez Jr (now 20-1-1 w/ 17 KO's), when Vazquez Sr. threw in the towel to save his son from any more punishment. It was a debatable call, and Vazquez Jr was naturally disappointed with his father's decision after the fight.

At the time of the stoppage, Vazquez appeared to have survived the Arce onslaught and was in a comfortable clinch, with Arce perhaps punched out, when the towel came in. Either way, Arce would have won the decision (assuming the judges would have given him the 12th round) so at that point it really just comes down to a father protecting his son, and who can argue with that?

Official scores at the time of the stoppage were: 104-104, 104-104, and 107-102 in favor of Arce.

~Kelly Pavlik W10 Alfonso Lopez
(Super Middleweights)

Going into this comeback fight, Kelly Pavlik seemed to understand the importance of not just winning it, but looking good. He got the win, but he didn't look so good. What happened? Either Kelly Pavlik picked a legitimately tough-to-beat opponent for his comeback fight, or he's just not the top level fighter he was before rehab. I am inclined to go with a little of the former but more of  the latter.



The ring rusty Pavlik (now 37-2 w/ 32 KO's) won a majority decision victory over Lopez (21-1 w/ 16 KO's) but he was not terribly impressive, and it was not the type of performance that would generate fan interest in seeing Pavlik take on the elite fighters at super middleweight. A win is a still a win though and Pavlik will probably get another chance to win back the fans.

Official scores were: 95-95, 98-92, and 99-91.

~Evander Holyfield KO10 Brian Nielson
(Heavyweights)

Holyfield (now 44-10-2 w/ 29 KO's) drops Nielson (now 64-3 w/ 43 KO's) in the third and stops him in the tenth with a volley of punches. Holyfield looked a little fresher than he had in recent performances but that probably had more to do with his opponent than anything else. This was the out-of-shape Nielson's first fight in nine years.



~Daniel Geale W12 Sebastian Sylvester
(Wins IBF Middleweight title)

The Australian Daniel Geale (now 25-1 w/ 15 KO's) wins a middlweight belt by split decision over Sebastian Sylvester (now 34-4-1 w/ 16 KO's) in Germany. Sylvester was attempting to make the fourth successful defense of his IBF belt. Amazing how differently judges can see a fight.

Official scores were 118-110 and 118-112 for Geale, and 118-110 for Sylvester.