Richard Schaefer's 4 million buys prediction for Mayweather vs. Mosley realistic?

Mayweather vs Mosley
Pittsburgh Fight Sports Examiner | Scott Heritage

Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer is known for his bold pay per view predictions, but his latest might have topped them all.

Not satisfied with his previous prediction that Mayweather vs. Mosley would merely break the all time pay per view record, he now thinks they could nearly double it.

Speaking to the media today at the final press conference, Shaefer said:

"I am not going to say that we are going to break the all time pay-per-view record. I am not going to say we are going to do 3 million either. 4 million pay-per-view buys are possible,"

Schaefer's buy rate predictions have been getting bigger and bigger as the fight has drawn nearer, and obviously 4 million is his most ambitious figure yet. Most doubt that this figure is achievable, but Shaefer has been right about this kind of thing before, and does have access to early sales figures and predictions from insiders.

The current pay per view record is 2.15 million purchases, which was for the May 5, 2007 Oscar De La Hoya - Floyd Mayweather fight. At that time though there were two big draws present, and both Oscar and Mayweather had sold well independently of each other before and after they fought.

Mayweather's last fight was a thrashing of an undersized Juan Manuel Marquez, which sold over one million buys even though the challenger was given very little chance against the returning Mayweather.

Mosley hasn't been seen as a huge draw in the past, and even against other big draws such as Oscar De La Hoya he has never put up huge numbers. His biggest to date was his second fight with the Golden Boy, which sold 950,000 buys, although much of the interest in this was the rematch angle. This was a big number back in 2003, since then Mosley has been hit and miss in his appearances, and until his last fight against Antonio Margarito was thought to be a spend force.

There are a couple of factors with this fight could enhance Mosley's selling power though. Firstly the fight is between two American athletes, which isn't something that happens all that regularly these days. This is significant simply because the United States is the biggest pay per view market. Of the biggest pay per view selling fights of all time, the vast majority of the fighters have been American.

A second factor could well be that Mosley is almost the complete opposite of Mayweather. Fans who don't like Mayweather's brash and at times arrogant demeanor are still buying the fight because he is against someone humble and quietly spoken in Shane Mosley.

Thirdly his first appearance on the 24/7 series will have helped Mosley to gain a slightly larger fan base than he would have had otherwise. At the age of 38 he isn't going to become a star overnight, or at all in fact, but the reserved Mosley is getting the exposure his pre fight talk tends to lack.

Source: Examiner.com

SIGNORELLA PREVIEWS MAYWEATHER VS. MOSLEY!

Mayweather vs Mosley
April 29th, 2010 By John Signorella

“SUPER FIGHT” BOXING RETURNS!

Millions around the world will be in anticipation of a memorable battle when pugilist genius legends and future hall of fame inductees Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. (40-0, 25 KOs) and “Sugar” Shane Mosley (46-5, 39 KOs) wage war for top “Pound for Pound” supremacy in a welterweight (147) showdown at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, NV, Saturday at 9 PM ET, live on HBO PPV.

LOVE’ EM OR HATE’ EM, NOBODY’S BEATEN FLOYD

Before his first true test at top level competition against former champion Diego Corrales, Mayweather emerged on the boxing scene destroying his first 24 foes with 18 wins by way of flashy knockout. During his dismantling of the warrior spirited scrapper Corrales (W TKO 10), Mayweather commanded the show and demonstrated a virtuoso of brilliant artistic assault. Floyd then went on to easily defend his title two more times before earning a controversial points decision victory in a “life and death” struggle to the finish against veteran brawler Jose Luis Castillo. Immediately thereafter, the boxing public demanded a rematch and Mayweather met and dominated Castillo eight months later (W UD 12). Over his next nine bouts, Mayweather took on formidable opposition, highlighted by a knockout win over gladiator fan favorite Arturo Gatti (W TKO 6). Because of the ease in which Mayweather blasted out his seemingly over matched adversaries, outcry from the boxing world ensued for Mayweather to step up and face a more dangerous and bigger fighter, which brought life to one of the richest fights in the history of the sport. In an intriguing bout on paper, Oscar De La Hoya accepted Floyd’s challenge. The fight failed to live up to expectation, and saw Mayweather win a close boxing exhibition against a seemingly faded once great champion (W SD 12). In the aftermath of the Oscar encounter, Mayweather pursued one of boxing’s biggest attractions Ricky Hatton for a mega fight. In a “back and forth” closely contested bout, Mayweather nailed an overly aggressive Ricky Hatton with a perfectly timed “check hook” which handed Hatton his first defeat and knockout loss (W TKO 10). After a brief retirement, Mayweather commendably came out of a two-year hibernation to easily outpoint one of the sports best competitors; Juan Manuel Marquez.

CLOSER LOOK AT “MONEY”

Mayweather brings an enormous amount of attributes to the dance. Floyd possesses exceptional hand and foot speed, accompanied by superb youthful reflexes and tremendous defensive movement. Mayweather’s from a family of decorated fighters and from this has obtained a proven brilliant boxing IQ which has garnered him consideration to one of the best fighters to ever step into a boxing ring.

MOSLEY’S ROAD TO BECOMING SUGAR SWEET

Shane Mosley exploded on the scene recording an outstanding perfect 34 victories with 32 knockouts before facing Oscar De La Hoya. In a career defining fight for Mosley, he and De La Hoya fought at an excruciatingly violent pace, and typified their act of madness with a memorable 12th round of reckless abandonment to the finish. Mosley proved to be the better man, winning a split decision handing Oscar his first true defeat. In the wake of his newly found super-stardom, Mosley successfully defended his titles three times before meeting a prime and hungry Vernon Forrest. Forrest shockingly handled the smaller Mosley with ease and managed to send him to the canvas twice in round two. The courageous Mosley was able to get up and fight valiantly to the finish. Losing the bout on all scorecards, Mosley won the admiration of fight fans world wide. Six months later, Mosley and Forrest would do it again, and a better version of Mosley surfaced on that night, however the result would read the same (L UD 12). Being the competitive enforcer that he his, Mosley regrouped and returned to earn a pair of wins, most notably against old rival Oscar De la Hoya (W UD 12), but in postmortem, Shane would then go on to be upset in a couple of scraps against defensive wizard Winky Wright (L UD 12, twice). Removed from the aforementioned setbacks to Wright, again, Shane would bounce back, and mark the return of the Mosley of old by scoring two consecutive back-to-back TKO wins over former belt holder Fernando Vargas (W TKO 10, W TKO 6). After dispatching of Vargas, and winning his next fight, Shane went onto face Miguel Cotto. In a closely contested scintillating war of action fighters, Mosley dropped a unanimous decision to Cotto. Always a good sportsmen, Mosley didn’t make excuses or complain about the unfavorable verdict and fueled another comeback. In his next bout, Shane knocked out madman thug Ricardo Mayorga with a blistering hook in the 12th round. Mosley is coming off his most impressive win in years by pounding the hell out of boxing’s latest feared bad boy Antonio Margarito.

CLOSER LOOK AT “SUGAR”

Mosley brings action, intensity, passion, heart and drama to the show. Despite his advanced age, like his counterpart, Shane has great hand speed, but unlike his opponent, has serious power that can turn your lights out at any moment, especially in the late rounds. In facing some of the best fighters of the past 20 years, Mosley also enjoys a highly keen boxing IQ and has been celebrated as one of the sports best fighters for the nearly a dozen of years.

SIGNORELLA WANTS TO KNOW: “WHO R U PICKING?”

Signorella’s Pick: Mosley, TKO 10

John Signorella

Source: ringtalk.com

Shane Mosley endures extra long training camp in preparation for Floyd Mayweather

Mayweather vs Mosley
By David Mayo

LAS VEGAS -- Shane Mosley hasn’t fought in more than 15 months. But when he steps into the ring Saturday night against Floyd Mayweather at MGM Grand Garden Arena, he effectively will do so after the longest training camp of his career.

Mosley was scheduled to fight Andre Berto in January when talks for a Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight fell apart.

Shortly thereafter, Berto withdrew from the fight with Mosley, citing personal distractions after the earthquake disaster in his native Haiti.

Mosley, already sharp from almost seven weeks in formal training, said he took off "maybe a week and a half" after Berto's withdrawal, which was his only training respite since early December and could help mitigate his career-long layoff of 15-plus months.

"And I really didn't take off that much," he said. "I have guys that I spar with that, if they have a fight coming up, I'll spar with them, even if I don't have anything. My son, I'm training him, so I'll go work with him. So I'm always doing something.”

Shane Mosley Jr., 19, is an amateur welterweight who is 6-feet-1 and probably soon headed to the middleweight division, his father said.

Having his namesake son on the rise will keep Shane Mosley Sr. attuned to boxing in a different way than he has become accustomed, although he said he never expected to stray far from the game even after his career ends.

"I'm never totally away from the gym,” he said. “Even when I retire, I won't get away from the gym. I'll probably still be around the gym, sparring, or doing something, because I can't get away from it."

Source: mlive.com

Comparing Mayweather to the all time greats: He's not even close

Mayweather vs Mosley
Fort Smith Boxing Examiner | Lorne Scoggins

Floyd Mayweather has already proclaimed himself the greatest boxer of all time, based on his undefeated record. There are some serious flaws in his ideology.

He's naming himself as the greatest ever, but he has yet to even prove that he's the greatest of his own era.

That doesn't add up.

"But Mayweather's undefeated," Floyd fans will say.

So what?

George Foreman was 40-0 when he was defeated by Muhammad Ali. Not bad.

Larry Holmes went 48-0 before losing to Michael Spinks. Even better.

Rocky Marciano retired at 49-0, with 43 knockouts.

Julio Cesar Chavez won his first 88 fights (yes, 88) before he finally suffered a draw against Pernell Whitaker.

Packy McFarland lost his first fight. He decided he didn't dig that so he went ahead and won his next 98.

The officially awarded greatest of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson, was 128-1 in the prime of his career. He finished his career at 173-19 with 108 KOs.

Willie Pep won his first 62 fights, lost one, then won his next 72 bouts. That put him at 134-1, at that point.

Which record would you prefer? 40-0 or 134-1?

Here's the real deal:

Not only did these guys have outstanding records, they built their tremendous stacks of stats without cherry-picking their opponents. The afore-mentioned pugilists fought everybody that was willing to step into the ring with them.

Who was that other guy again? Oh yeah, Floyd Mayweather, the greatest boxer ever.

If Mayweather beats Mosley he'll be 41-0.

Wow

Perhaps he needs to start with proving he's the best of his time before proclaiming himself as the best ever.

In order to do that he needs to defeat Mosley. That's no easy task, but he'll probably succeed.

Long-time boxing fan, Jason Harris of Garfield, thinks he'll get the job done.

"I think the fight will go the distance. I'm just interested in seeing how Mayweather plans on fighting Mosley," Harris said. "Mosley is an excellent boxer who posesses speed and power. It's going to be fun to watch. Ultimately, I think Mayweather will win the fight."

Even if Mayweather were to beat Mosley and then Pacquiao by first punch KOs, he still couldn't be compared to the old-school greats mentioned above.

He doesn't have enough time left to fight another 100 bouts, so he will have to do something truly extraordinary to establish himself as the greatest ever, and I do mean truly extraordinary.

If he takes on Nikolai Valuev and the Klitschko brothers simultaneously and knocks all three of them over the top rope in the first round while yelling "What's my name?!", he might be worthy of being mentioned in the same (run-on) sentence as Chavez, McFarley, Robinson and Pep.

Greatest ever?

No

Greatest of this era?

Manny Pacquiao is the fighter of the decade and the No. 1 Pound for Pound king.

He's the guy that Mayweather has to fight next if he really cares about his legacy.

Source: Examiner.com

MAYWEATHER STILL TO PROVE GREATNESS

Mayweather vs Mosley
By Mark Staniforth, PA Sport

Floyd Mayweather says he is a better boxer than Muhammad Ali or Sugar Ray Robinson.

But, approaching his fight against 38-year-old Shane Mosley on Saturday night, he has a funny way of trying to prove it.

"What makes them [Ali and Robinson] any better than I am?" said Mayweather.

"Muhammad Ali is one hell of a fighter but Floyd Mayweather is the best. Sugar Ray Robinson is one hell of a fighter but Floyd Mayweather is the best."

The cold fact is until Mayweather puts aside the excuses which scuppered his earlier negotiations with Manny Pacquiao, the fact is he cannot realistically be considered to be the best of his era, let alone the best of all time.

You might call his fight against Mosley an exercise in boxing cynicism. Since losing to Miguel Cotto in 2007, Mosley has fought just once a year, scoring stoppage wins over faded Ricardo Mayorga and discredited Antonio Margarito.

By virtue of his super-fast skills of old and the heap of world titles at his disposal, Mosley is a big name in US boxing so it was no surprise when he was plucked from the bunch of possible contenders for Mayweather's latest comeback.

There was a time perhaps three years ago when Mosley would surely have given Mayweather a real run for his money. One could say the same for Miguel Cotto, who never got a look-in on Mayweather's itinerary and is now a busted flush.

You can tell the folk around the fight are a little desperate, because they have launched a website specifically for the purpose of totalling votes for the winner - implying a pick 'em fight, but suggesting deep down they know it is anything but.

Mayweather should win with consummate ease, and lo and behold a fight against Pacquiao will magically appear on the horizon, the pair of them richer by a score or so million as a direct result of their alleged bickering.

It is not until that night that Mayweather will finally get the chance to prove he truly belongs in the pantheon inhabited by the likes of Ali and Robinson, both of whom beat off the best of the rest of numerous competitive eras.

Where is Mayweather's epic Joe Frazier trilogy? His St Valentine's Day Massacre? Arguably his best win came way back in 1998 when he exhibited his blazing hand speed to devour Genaro Hernandez via eighth round stoppage.

He beat a weight-drained Diego Corrales, a past-it Arturo Gatti, a not-up-to-it Ricky Hatton, and a too-slow Oscar De La Hoya. A harsh judgement, perhaps, but not in the context of his boast to be an all-time great.

Boxing in the US, for all its undoubted resurgence in recent years, most of it due to the breath of fresh air provided by De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions, is in danger of flailing under the weight of what helped it come back in the first place.

Serving up big-name bouts is one thing but not when the public are so easily misled into believing that just because someone is a recognisable enough public face it therefore qualifies him for a shot other fighters would dream of.

Mosley is no slouch but neither is he Pacquiao: a ferocious fighter at the top of his game. Neither is he Edwin Valero, who died tragically last week without ever getting even a sniff of a chance to show his potential.

Valero was the type of fighter whom the current boxing big-shots have nightmares about: possessing both the crippling disadvantage of virtual anonymity with the curse of being an explosive puncher anyone in their right mind would run a mile from.

If Mayweather truly wants to put himself up there as a contender for the mantle of the greatest ever, he should not be dipping out of so-called retirement once a year for pay-per-view showpiece fights against the likes of Mosley.

"I can't see how a guy like Mosley can even call himself great," said Mayweather this week.

"I can't see how Mosley can talk about putting himself as a future Hall of Famer. He is a solid welterweight."

The question, then, is what precisely Mayweather is doing sharing the Las Vegas ring with just a "solid welterweight" on Saturday night.

In the answer may lie the truth about usurping Ali and Robinson will remain a fanciful notion for some time yet.

Source: sportinglife.com