Shane Mosley Will 'Shock The World' Against Manny Pacquiao

Three-division, five-time champion, Shane Mosley, looks the picture of confidence, pointing at the video camera of FanHouse's Elie Seckbach while wearing the smile of a man who may have just sold the world a bill of goods.

"I'm definitely going to be in shape. You can expect Sugar Shane to be in great shape," said Mosley, whose record stands at 46-6-1, with 39 knockouts. "You can expect a great fight. Manny Pacquiao is an explosive and very exciting fighter. Just like me. He loves to fight, and I love to fight."

And then, the 39-year-old Mosley balled his left and right hands into fists and pounded them together in front of his face three times for emphasis.

"When you have two guys like that in there together, it's like a head-on collision," said Mosley. "It's going to be one night to remember."

An eight-division champion, the 32-year-old Pacquiao (52-3-2, 38 knockouts) will face Mosley in defense of his WBO welterweight (147 pounds) crown in a Top Rank Promotions event on May 7 at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas in a Showtime pay per view televised bout.

Although Pacquiao has taken criticism for choosing the aging Mosley, the challenger told FanHouse that the following days' headlines will read, "Shane Mosley Shocks The World."

"It's great. A lot of times, people, they see that I might look vulnerable, and that maybe I look like I'm on my way out," said Mosley. "They say that I'm not the same fighter, or, whatever they want to think or say. So maybe that's why they chose me. Maybe that's part of God's plan."

Mosley's acknowledges that he did not look good in his past two fights, May's Golden Boy Promotions, lopsided, 12-round unanimous decision loss to six-time champion Floyd Mayweather (41-0, 25 KOs), and, September's split-decision draw with ex-champion, Sergio Mora (22-1-2, six KOs) that was contested at 154 pounds.

"I didn't look so well in my last fight. In the fight with Mayweather," said Mosley. "So now, I've got this big fight with Manny, and I'll look spectacular."




Pacquiao has three opponents in common with Mosley.

Pacquiao is coming off of a Nov. 13, HBO pay per view televised unanimous decision victory over ex-titlist Antonio Margarito (38-7, 27 KOs) at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium that was not only his 13th straight win with eight knockouts during that run, but which earned the Filipino super star the WBC's vacant junior middleweight (154 pounds) belt.

"Watching the fight between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito, I was kind of surprised at how many times Margarito was able to hit Manny Pacquiao, being that when me and Margarito fought, he didn't land that many shots on me," said Mosley.

"I didn't get that many bruises or lumps or anything. That was just very surprising," said Mosley. "And I know that Margarito, being able to land those types of shots, I should be able to land some good shots as well, being that I'm a lot faster."

Mosley has scored a January 2009, ninth-round knockout over Margarito, this, after having been unanimously decisioned in July of 2007 in his failed bid to earn the WBA welterweight crown from Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KOs), whom Pacquiao dethroned as WBO 147-pound king by 12th-round stoppage in November of 2009.

Pacquiao also debuted as a welterweight with a December, 2008, eighth-round knockout of Oscar De La Hoya, whom Mosley decisioned for WBC welterweight belt in June of 2000, and, yet again, in September of 2003 to add the WBC's junior middleweight title to the WBA 154-pound crown that he already owned.

Although the majority of the boxing public believes that Pacquiao will win, Mosley has, on occasion, heard from fans who think he has a puncher's chance.

"You know, my response is that some of those guys don't really know boxing. Even the ones who say that I'm going to knock him out. They just know that I have great hitting power. They don't understand how I'm going to knock him out," said Mosley.

"Being that Manny is a top, tough fighter. He's very fast and moves very well, punches very well, and he's very explosive, that will probably be his downfall," said Mosley. "Being so explosive and so willing to be in a fight. That will be his downfall in the fight. I'm just excited to be in this fight. It's going to be great."



Mosley feels that he has more speed than any opponent that Pacquiao has faced.

"All of the fighters that he has fought have kind of gone straight to him at some point with their hands up. Like I said, Manny's a great fighter, and he does a lot of great things," said Mosley. "But I think that my speed, and my hitting power and my physical strength are going to be a factor in the fight."

In the same way that he bounced back from the loss to Cotto by vanquishing Margarito, so Mosley says that he will rebound against Pacquiao from the loss to Mayweather and the draw with Mora.

"The same thing happened when I fought Margarito, after I didn't look so good fighting Ricardo Mayorga," said Mosley, referring to a 12th-round stoppage of Mayorga.

"It was like, all of a sudden, 'Oh, Margarito's going to kill him.' I was a four to one underdog, and then, Margarito didn't lay a glove on him and I knocked him out. So styles make fights. I'm just happy and excited to be in the ring," said Mosley. "I'm just happy to have my moment to shine and my moment of opportunity to get in there and face someone that I know is going to come at me and I know is going to try to fight me."

Mosley staggered Mayweather in the second round with a punch that probably hurt the unbeaten fighter worse than any fighter he has ever faced.

If Mosley hurts Pacquiao that way, Mosley believes that he will finish him.

"I hit Mayorga on the chin with a left hook at the last bell, and he looked at me like he was in awe with the punching power that I had. I don't think that he had been hit by anybody that hard in his entire boxing career. I hit extremely hard. Even some cruiser weights that I've sparred with They will tell me how heavy and how hard my shots are," said Mosley.

"It's a different shot. I mean, you saw that Margarito took a beating from Pacquiao. His eyes were closed and everything," said Mosley. "But Pacquiao couldn't rock him on the chin. He hurt him to the body, but couldn't rock him on the chin. So it's going to be a different sort of shot that Pacquiao has never felt before."