Top 10 Reasons Why Margarito vs Mosley Was a Favorite Fight of 2009

Top boxing featured columnist KING J shares why he feels the January 24th, 2009 fight of Sugar Shane Mosley and Antonio "Tijuana Tornado" Margarito was his favorite fight of 2009.

He breaks it down into 10 top reasons why it was his personal favorite fight of 2009.

#1 . Mosley vs Margarito took place at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California in front of a sold out record breaking crowd. In fact it was the highest attended event ever held at Staples Center more than any Laker game, or concert held there. Yes a boxing match holds the record at Kobe’s playground.

#2. This fight was the first major big fight of 2009 happening on January 24^th providing excitement, encouragement and promise that the 2009 year will be a great year for boxing. It had two of the top welter weights fighting and it implied that the rest of the 147 champs would soon hopefully fight within the year and we could start to see some unification.

#3. At the time of the fight Margarito had one of the biggest hyped buzzes that the sport has ever seen in decades. He was riding high off of his big (now questionable win) over undefeated champion Miguel Cotto. He was winning over the masses with his highly aggressive pressure fighting style thus giving him the moniker: “Tijuana Tornado”. He also at the time had the reputation of having the most iron chin, never being stopped or seriously hurt in any of his previous 36 fights. Bob Arum did a miraculous job hyping him to be the most feared man in boxing even labeling him: “CUCUY”, which means Boogey Man in Spanish.

#4. As a result of Margarito being hyped as an indestructible Boogey Man the boxing world and general public viewed this fight as a complete mismatch.  The weekend before the fight I was in Las Vegas and the odds were 6 to 1 favoring Margarito. I had a couple Benjamins out and ready to bet on Mosley but the people I was with talked me out of it.  When I see these people I often bring up the Margarito vs Mosley fight and tell them they owe me dinner over and over again for missing out on this great financial investment.

#5. Mosley at the time was already 37 years old and no one had given him a chance in this fight except for me.  On top of him aging fast in the ring, outside of the ring he was dealing with many personal  issues from having to fire his father from his training team, leaving training camp to deal with the finalization of his divorce to his ex-wife/financial manager Jin, training under a new trainer Nazim Richardson and so on.

#6. Personally I never once bought into the Margarito hype. I am pretty good at reading people and seeing their true character and something about the hype and buzz of Margarito did not win me over. I just could not put a finger on what it was.  Antonio was already being compared to the great Julio Cesar Chavez already by this point and the comparison just made me sick. 

#7.  As I predicted I picked Mosley over Margarito mostly due to Mosley being able to out box him and having more speed and ring smarts than the one dimensional come forward aggressive style.  I thought Shane would school him for the majority of the rounds winning a one sided unanimous decision. I would have never guessed in a million years that Shane would be able to seriously hurt and stop Margarito the way he did in the fight.

#8.  This fight really put Nazim Richardson on the map. As one of the best trainers in the sport it was great to finally see the man get his due and recognition not only for training Shane to such a clear one sided victory against an opponent who had never been stopped or seriously hurt but it was as if he brought back his youth and confidence and had him fighting in his prime again. Richardson was the man responsible for catching Margarito’s illegal hand wraps with plaster of paris. This proves he is a far greater trainer who is more thorough and focused for the best interest of his fighters.  Hell this man even made Bernard Hopkins exciting to watch and that is saying a lot since Hopkins is the most boring fighter of our generation.

#9.   This fight reminds us that a great experienced boxer should always win against a one dimensional  cheating hype job. It also reminds us that we should not be so quick to buy into the hype of anything. We should be more educated and do the research.  When you cheat you may get quicker results but true honest hard working people will always prevail in the end if they are indeed true champions.

#10 . As you can see from the Article’s photo. I was able to meet Sugar Shane after the fight and the man is a great guy and of course you notice his “John Hancock”. It is always great to hear our favorite boxers turn out to be swell people when we meet them in person. This image of Shane knocking out Antonio is priceless as you can see it says a lot about that fight and what the atmosphere was surrounding that night. Notice the white towel being thrown in to save Antonio just a second too late.  We do not see corners throwing in the towel like we used to in the throw back fights that symbolizes a lot in my eyes.  If you have not guessed it this image hangs proudly above the desk of KING J, reminding him that when the world doubts you and no one believes in you then the most important thing is you believe in yourself and you show the world who is the better man.   

Thank you for reading and here is to a great 2010 for boxing cheers!