Manny Pacquiao/Shane Mosley: 10 Things We Learned from Las Vegas
The biggest fight of the year, Manny Pacquiao vs. Shane Mosley, is now just another super mega fight in the books.
There was a ton of hype and even a wider mass appeal due to Showtime's sister network, CBS, promoting the fight as well.
But unfortunately, like most super mega fights, this one did not exactly live up to the hype. Much of the criticism of this fight by the boxing media and fans turned out to be reality as we saw a younger, fresher prime dominating Pacquiao easily decision an over-the-hill Mosley who never was even in the fight.
For those millions who watched it at home, I'll provide you with an interesting personal account of how it was in Las Vegas for this big fight last weekend.
Here are 10 Things We Learned From Manny Pacquiao vs Shane Mosley from Las Vegas last weekend, KING J style.
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1. Manny Pacquiao Told Everyone to Wear Yellow and They Did
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Prior to the fight, Manny Pacquiao made an announcement that he would be wearing yellow gloves for the cause of peace and unity among his Filipino people back home and around the world.
Manny also told everyone to wear the color yellow at his fight and people actually did.
It was not just the Filipino fans, but Pacquiao fans of all ethnic backgrounds were seen wearing yellow as the pound for pound champion requested.
Here in this picture, I took notice of this Filipino girl wearing yellow, as well as what I told her looked like a superhero costume.
What did she say back to me?
"Didn't you get the memo?...Manny wanted all of us to wear yellow."
I thought this was pretty cool, cause I go to so many fights and see so many different fighters but I never seen anything like this where the fighter tells us to wear a certain color and the people actually listen.
I personally totally forgot to wear yellow for the fight. However, the next day I found a yellow San Diego Padres vintage shirt at the bottom of my luggage and wore that in Manny's honor of defeating Mosley.
2. Showtime Is Promoting the Super Six Tournament Properly
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After several, let's say, umm, months since the Showtime Super Middleweight Super Six Classic Tournament began, Showtime is realizing the mistakes that they have made with this tournament and they are once again promoting it as best as they can despite all the errors they made.
The injuries (whether they were indeed legitimate) and other drawbacks cannot stop us the fight fans from wanting to see one clear champion with his hands raised to be the man at 168 pounds.
Before it all began, many were favoring this man standing with me in the photo, Arthur Abraham, to dominate most of the opponents in the tournament just by his superior power alone knocking out his opponents late in the fight.
Abraham knocked out Jermain Taylor causing him to withdraw from the tournament. Then he got disqualified and lost for the first time of his career against Andre Dirrell with a highly controversial knockdown punch landed on Direll while he was already down on the canvas in the 11th round.
Abraham then went on to the second loss of his career in a one-sided clinic loss to Carl Froch.
Now this Saturday, Abraham takes on the current favorite front runner to win the tournament, undefeated American Andre Ward at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., on Showtime.
Showtime was smart enough to invite all the media to a press conference for this fight the day of the biggest fight of the year. Very wisely, all of the media got an email with capital letters stating: "LUNCH WILL BE SERVED".
So to all the promoters, networks, etc. Always send out a press release or invite with the words: "LUNCH WILL BE SERVED" and I assure you it will be a great success.
We will be ringside at the Home Depot Center covering this fight Saturday and we will be doing an interview with Andre Ward, so send in your questions if you have any.
P.S.: Literally as I'm writing this, I just received another media press conference invite for this fight at Morton's Steakhouse! Now that's what I'm talking about! (Sorry, Media Only, not open to public)
3. KING J Meets the President and He Was Actually Really Cool
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If you were following my live blog from Vegas before technical difficulties kicked in you might have read that I had 67 friends coming in to Vegas for the big fight weekend. 30 from Chicago, 25 from San Diego, and 12 from the Bay area.
As we all know, Pacquiao/Mosley was sold out, and even the closed circuit viewing sold out as well.
So I was on the quest to obtain tickets for my 67 unprepared friends who came out to see the fight but didn't bother to secure any tickets.
Many of you see Bob Arum all the time for he is the face of Top Rank being its founder and CEO, but Friday, I had the honor of meeting with the President of Top Rank, Todd Duboef.
Todd was giving away tickets for the fight I was actually lucky enough to be paying attention with the three bachelor parties going on and numerous pre-fight parties going on.
So I ended up securing tickets for .0299% of my large entourage that weekend thanks to Mr. President of Top Rank.
Todd was a very nice man and he had a group of friends who all appeared to be good looking and successful and were also probably presidents of their own corporations as well. We talked a lot about the sport of boxing; most of it was off-record, though.
Thanks again to Todd: I had great time talking with you and your friends.
Also shout out to JT and especially Steve of Top Rank for everything; you guys are always doing a swell job.
But since we are on the topic of boxing ticket give away contests. I see all these big time shot callers always doing fight ticket giveaway contests for the fans. I see Oscar De La Hoya, even Dana White of the UFC often gives away tickets to the fans via contests and these seats are often up in the nose bleeds.
But I never see anyone ever giving away RINGSIDE tickets...Oh, wait; I know one man who gave away a RINGSIDE ticket and his name was KING J.
I'm just saying give the TRUE FIGHT FANS RINGSIDE tickets and not to the VIP's and celebs who don't know jack about the sport of boxing and couldn't score a round if their life depended on it.
Be more like KING J and reward the TRUE FIGHT fans once in a while. I'm just saying. WINK.
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4. Will the REAL Manny Pacquiao Please Stand Up
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This photo was taken at the Pacquiao/Mosley weigh-in when a Pacquiao look-a-like excited the 6,000-plus crowd that had been waiting for over three hours to see the weigh in.
This man had the British couple in front of me fooled and begging him for pictures thinking it was the REAL Manny.
Even the media is seen there interviewing him.
Apparently I was told that this man was from Texas and has his own clothing company and was promoting his Pacquiao T-shirts.
There was a Pacquiao look-a-like who even looked more like Manny than this guy but he left the weigh-in because everyone kept harassing him for pictures and autographs nonstop, and I guess he got tired of explaining that he was not the real Manny.
I wonder if any of these Manny look-alikes took full advantage of their looks with some hot gold digger women that night who knew about Manny making a $20 million plus guarantee purse?
5. Jorge Arce Is Back!
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The always-exciting, action-packed former Mexican champion Jorge Arce made a huge comeback with his fight of the night performance against undefeated Puerto Rican WBO super bantamweight champion Wilfredo Vazquez Jr.
Prior to this fight, I, like many, simply thought Arce had been in way too many wars back-to-back and this was just a chance for Vazquez to finally have a big name on his impressive perfect record.
This fight had all the action going back and forth to make up for the dull main event.
Arce was knocked down in Round 4 but got up to fight toe to toe with the champ for almost every round, eventually knocking him out via TKO stoppage in the 12th round.
This 12th round literally had everyone on their feet cheering as Arce stopped Vazquez, giving Mexico a huge victory during their Cinco De Mayo weekend celebration.
In the post fight conference, Arce was all smiles, as the media was giving him a lot of love. Arce's career is now back on fire with this huge win and performance. A rematch with Darchinyan has been talked about since.
6. Kelly Pavlik Looked Horrible in His Comeback Fight
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Kelly Pavlik looked as bad as his new wack tattoos in his long-awaited comeback fight with Alfonso Lopez.
I like Pavlik; I think he's exciting to watch and he has some hard knockout power; however, he often gets in trouble with any fighter who is a highly skilled technical fighter.
Pavlik looks best against sluggers who trade toe to toe with him; any opponent who can move and box well will give him issues.
It could have been the long year layoff and his battles with alcohol and rehab.
Pavlik was still able to pull off a majority decision over Lopez, giving him his first loss.
At the weigh-in Pavlik weighed the maximum contracted weight of 170 pounds and looked like a fighter who was not training in peak form.
7. Manny Pacquiao's Cheesy 80's Ring Entrance Songs
7 of 10So now Manny has done it again. He has become so huge that he has been choosing cheesy 80's songs to walk into the ring to, and he's such a bad mofo that we just accept it and cheer on as if it is 1985 all over again.
In the Antonio Margarito fight in Dallas Cowboys Stadium he almost gave the 50,000 fans in attendance a mild stroke when he entered into the ring to the Karate Kid movie theme song "You're the Best" by Joe Esposito.
Saturday night, he walked into the ring with Survivor frontman Jimi Jamison singing "Eye of the Tiger" live.
Even though traditionally we all know this to be the ultimate bad ass motivational song in Rocky, I could not stop laughing for all I could picture was that episode of Family Guy where Peter Griffin starts singing this same very song.
But as cool, or for me hilarious, as this ring entrance was that night, I could not help but wonder what the hell happened to Rick Ross?
Wasn't Rick Ross supposed to walk Manny to the ring and rap?
8. Paris Hilton Is a Pacquiao Fan & She Was Nice
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By now, many of you have seen Paris Hilton was at the Pacquiao/Mosley fight and even at the postfight conference.
I actually bumped into her the night before at Cosmopolitan. I told her, you got Pacquiao, right?
She said: "Yeah, that's hot."
Just kidding about the "that's hot" part.
Paris was actually really nice and friendly; despite what many of you might think or say about her, you should really meet a person before you say anything about them, I always do.
I'm not just saying that because I want to stay at Hilton hotels for free, but if it happens, hey WINK. But now that we are on the subject of hotels, the Cosmopolitan is one sick hotel/casino!
All of my 67-person entourage were at various parties there that weekend and the ratio from girl to guy was the best I ever seen.
So the powers that be at the Cosmopolitan if you want to give me comped hotel rooms and VIP entrance to your clubs, then I guess I'll have to accept that offer WINK.
But yes the fact that Paris Hilton is a Pacquiao fan does really say a lot about the wide mass appeal of Pacquiao.
Whether you like it or not, thousands of girls copy and try to do whatever Paris Hilton does. Her career is based on image and publicity and for her to be a Manny supporter says a lot.
9. Manny Pacquiao Should Fight a Mexican Next
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Manny Pacquiao is the most sought-after opponent for all the fighters campaigning around his weight class.
At the post fight conference I saw Tim Bradley, Robert Guerrero, Juan Manuel Marquez and Zab Judah all looking for that next huge pay day.
I've said it a number of times before that Mexicans are the most hardcore fans of the sport of boxing. This past weekend proved that again when the only time the fans got really wild was when the Mexican fans stood up to cheer for fellow countryman Jorge Arce.
Of course, Pacquiao has been dubbed the Mexicutioner for defeating so many great Mexican champions, but the Mexicans in the crowd make a huge difference as well.
When a big Mexican champion fights in the main event, it really brings out the Mexicans and Mexican-American community full force. They have such great energy and passion that, unfortunately, no other ethnic group can match.
Obviously the crowd at the weigh-in and fight were overwhelmingly Filipino and Filipino-American, and for the most part, they were rather tame and reserved.
It is a whole different experience and event when Manny fights a Mexican fighter. I even told this to Todd, the president of Top Rank that night.
But also style-wise, Pacquiao definitely does much better and is more effective and entertaining vs. a Mexican fighter, who traditionally fights aggressively toe to toe with him.
It seems that Marquez is the front runner for Pacquiao's next fight which should take place in either October or November and has been said to take place at 145 pounds. This is probably the best and most meaningful fight for Manny at this point with their intriguing history and record with each other.
I would even go as far as saying Manny could even call it a career with a big clear win over Marquez if it needed to end that way. His legacy is secure and will last the test of time as I pointed out in this article. Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather: Who Needs Who More?
10. Pacquiao Was Not Able to Knock Out Mosley
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Shane Mosley was the huge betting underdog in this fight. Some sports books had him as a 10 to 1 underdog.
When I arrived in Las Vegas late Thursday night the most logical safe bet of Pacquiao winning a decision over Mosley was at -150. Which means you had to bet $150 just to win $1.
Obviously, these were horrible odds to bet on. So just like my official prediction in our collaboration piece I stated I would spread a few benjis over the last half of the fight. The problem was even those last six rounds were pretty weak odds as well.
So what I ended up doing was betting on the last three rounds since they had the best odds and most likely chance of Manny actually stopping Mosley.
As you can see from my betting ticket, had Manny knocked out Shane in the 12th round, I was going to win $3,000.
Manny did seem to go for the knock out in certain rounds more than others, but for whatever reasons either he is on the decline, or he did indeed have leg cramps preventing him from being at his best or that Mosley was just simply running or doing whatever it took to survive, the fact is there was no knockout.
Alex Ariza, Manny's strength and conditioning coach, felt Manny had peaked too early in his training camp and that was the reason why he could not stop Mosley.
Whatever the case may be Manny is known to be an aggressive, pressure fighter who knocks his opponents out. When he does not produce the knock out, many critics will hate even when his opponent has never been stopped, as was in the case with Mosley.
As more and more fight fans came into Vegas on Friday and Saturday the odds shifted enormously and everyone was betting on a Pacquiao to knock out Mosley so much so that the bet for Pacquiao winning by decision got shifted to a +155.
I've never seen that happen before in any boxing match that I covered or attended as a fan.
I think this is evidence that the people want Manny to knock out his opponents and not just beat them down to an easy decision so much that they would bet their money on it.
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