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The obligatory ‘Skip Bayless goes Skip Bayless on ESPN’ about Pacquiao & Mayweather

By Zach Arnold | May 10, 2011

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You want mainstream media coverage of your favorite fighting sport? Here’s a taste of it. I actually pulled out the best discussion (from Monday on ESPN) of last Saturday’s Manny Pacquiao/Shane Mosley fight. The discussion participants are Skip Bayless (a man who has 162,000 more followers than me — let’s change this) & NBA writer Chris Broussard.

Here’s the audio of Monday’s discussion. The question: “Do you feel any better or worse about Mayweather’s chances if he were actually to agree to fight Pacquiao, which is the fight that everybody’s been dying for, for what, like two years?”

SKIP BAYLESS: “Now I feel much worse than Floyd should feel, much, much worse. Now, you saw that he Tweeted just before the fight that everybody should watch his network, HBO, featuring Lady Gaga. But I will bet you a dinner that Floyd closely, closely watched this fight, hoping against hope that he would see an aging Pacquiao who’s now more interested in being a Congressman in his home country. That is not what we saw because what I saw at the end of the fight was Mosley’s red, swollen face that looked a heck of a lot worse than what Floyd did to him when they fought. … So, the point is that Mosley was the one who volunteered that he has never felt that much power from an opponent and volunteered that he has never fought a faster fighter than Pacquiao, which should not be music to the ears of one Floyd Mayweather. Who, I remind you, he remains two older than Pacquiao and he hasn’t fought in the longest time and he’s got legal issues and I just thin he’s sitting back saying, I’m still in trouble.”

CHRIS BROUSSARD: “I didn’t think Pacquiao was that impressive ,though. I mean, you had a 39-year old guy in front of you and I’m not saying Pacquiao’s not faster than Floyd, I’m not sure, I thought for a while he may be, but at 39 you’re not as fast and so it may feel like you think this guy’s a lot faster than he is. When he fought Floyd, he was in better condition. And you got a 39-year old guy who’s afraid of you, right? After he got knocked down in the third round, he said he didn’t really want any. This guy… Shane threw, what, six, seven combinations the whole fight? He wasn’t throwing the right hook to the head, threw it a couple of times to the body, and you still couldn’t take him out? And I know Shane has never been knocked out, but he didn’t do that much damage to Shane.”

SKIP BAYLESS: “Oh, C’MON! His face looked like raw hamburger meat!”

CHRIS BROUSSARD: “Did he punish Shane?”

SKIP BAYLESS: “Oh, yes he did!”

CHRIS BROUSSARD: “He did not punish him.”

SKIP BAYLESS: “Did you see his face?! It was pathetic for a guy who was trying to protect himself.”

CHRIS BROUSSARD: “He could not solve Shane Mosley, so how in the world is he going to solve Mayweather?”

SKIP BAYLESS: “Wait a second…”

CHRIS BROUSSARD: “Pacquiao has beat on older guys, Shane Mosley, Oscar De La Hoya, or guys that come right up in his face and want to fight. Antonio Margarito, Miguel Cotto, Ricky Hatton. Floyd is going to be deceptive, he’s going to be moving, he’s going to be picking him apart…”

SKIP BAYLESS: “Oh c’mon, he’s not fast enough!”

CHRIS BROUSSARD: “If he couldn’t get into Shane Mosley, how’s he going to hit (Floyd)? Now, Floyd can’t knock him out…”

SKIP BAYLESS: “Timeout! Shane Mosley is much bigger and stronger than Pacquiao. That’s why he was covering up and he was still getting punished!”

CHRIS BROUSSARD: “He wasn’t getting punished. He really didn’t hit him that much! He didn’t hit Shane as much as he should have. 39 years old, in your face…”

SKIP BAYLESS: “And then, Pacquiao did say he had some leg issue, I had no idea what is was but he said and his corner said…”

CHRIS BROUSSARD: “Well, everybody’s got (issues). I mean, Floyd, how many fights has he had hand issues? Everybody’s got an ailment.”

SKIP BAYLESS: “I’m going to say it again. Floyd would get hit for the first time in his career and he would get cut for the first time in his career.”

CHRIS BROUSSARD: “I think Pacquiao would have trouble catching Floyd. Now, I don’t doubt that he’s more powerful, Floyd’s not a knockout puncher at this weight, he couldn’t knock him out. I think he would win by decision.”

SKIP BAYLESS: “He’s afraid. Floyd is afraid.”

CHRIS BROUSSARD: “You shouldn’t be, Floyd, get out there and fight!”

For a more in-depth, detailed discussion about this past weekend and where things are heading, I would highly recommend you check out Josh Gross’ 75-minute radio show this week with Kieran Mulvaney. Excellent!

Topics: Boxing, Media, Zach Arnold | 36 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

36 Responses to “The obligatory ‘Skip Bayless goes Skip Bayless on ESPN’ about Pacquiao & Mayweather”

  1. A. Taveras says:

    I’m with K. Mulvaney, I don’t really think Mayweather cares for boxing anymore. I do believe he was watching Lady Gaga and not this fight. Mayweather’s legal & tax troubles, or his gambling habits, may eventually get him back in there. On a personal level he seems bored, and apparently facing Pac is unbalanced risk/reward for Mayweahther, even with millions of dollars on the line.

  2. The Gaijin says:

    Yeah, that fight sucked. There were spurts of good things, but Mosley wanted to collect his $5m and not get hurt. Constantly shelling, not throwing punches and running away never makes for a good fight – you need two guys that are willing to engage. From Shane’s perspective I think he proved that he’s just too old to pull the trigger anymore. And I’m not saying you need two guys that wanna stand in front of each other trading bombs (a great brawl is a great brawl mind you), but you need to have two fighters that are going out there to win.

    This is another example (like the Curran/Alvarez fight) of how a really good (Alvarez) and even really great (Pac) can look “bad” when they are fighting someone that refuses to “fight” and is just looking to go bell to bell.

    PBF will probably fight Ortiz next, who unfortunately is the type of guy that PBF feasts on. I don’t blame Ortiz for taking the payday and getting a shot at taking out PBF, but Floyd wants to fight him for a reason.

    Looks like Kessler is lining up a tune up fight for July 4th in Copenhagen, with Bute having a fight set for July 9th in Romania. If all goes planned we could see a pretty awesome bout later this fall!!

    Who you guys got for the Super Six on Saturday?
    – After the Dirrell/Froch fights, I think we’ve seen a pretty solid blueprint for Ward to box circles around Abraham…this will probably be a pretty one-sided affair unless Artur’s drastically changed his game-plan.
    – I think Froch should be able to take out the Road Warrior, but that old buzzard always scares me b/c he’s not the type of fighter that just shows up for his paycheck and Froch hasn’t faced many guys as tough as Johnson.

    • A. Taveras says:

      Froch – Johnson is guaranteed to entertain. Abraham should get dissected over 12 by Ward but then again he might try some dirty stunt in retaliation if Ward gets up to his roughhousing…then we’ll get another DQ instead.

      Given how the last few fights have gone it seems everyone ends up shutting down their offense against the welterweight Manny. Shane may indeed be old and looking shot but then again he just fought three guys in a row that make anyone look bad. That has been a big story in Shane’s career; taking tough challenges (Forrest, Wright) with questionable upside. At least the last couple of years should have been quite lucrative for him. Instead of retiring I think Shane should fight Andre Berto on HBO, it would answer a lot of questions.

      • edub says:

        A.Taveras- I agree on the Mosely-Berto idea. Especially if he wants to keep fighting.

        Gaij- I think we see a Ward (butt aided) dominant performance, and I am completely unsure on who to pick in Froch-Johnson. Johnson won me money against Green, but Froch is obviously no Green. I can’t wait to watch it June I can tell you that much.

        • mr. roadblock says:

          I’d like to see Mosley fight Morales if he wants one last hurrah. Maybe do 143-lb as a catch weight if Shane doesn’t want to/can’t do 140.

          It’d be a fun fight on HBO with a couple up and comers in the co-feature.

        • Chuck says:

          I never would imagine that a Shane Mosley/Erik Morales fight could be made possible. But, looking back, it absolutely can now because Morales fought Marcos Maidana at 140 lbs. Hell, Morales’ comeback fights have all been at 140 lbs. So a 143 or so lbs. catch weight would make sense for a Morales/Mosley fight. Good lord….

  3. Kelvin Hunt says:

    Floyd has the tools to beat Pac-man…the only question would be if Floyd would fight TOO defensive. Of course Pac-man is a volume puncher most of the time, so I could certainly see that convincing the judges for a decision. However, Mayweather could possibly counter pretty well and edge a decision as well if he put his punches together moreso than trying to dodge/block all of Pac-man’s offense.

  4. Robert Poole says:

    I know they ask their commentators to take opposite sides just to stir debate but if Chris Broussard actually believes an ounce of what he is saying, he should be banned from commenting on boxing.

    “He could not solve Shane Mosley, so how in the world is he going to solve Mayweather?”

    I didn’t exactly see Mayweather “solve” Mosley either, if you mean knockout. Hell, Mayweather never even knocked Mosley down.

    It’s incredible how certain people are so willing to go over the top to be Mayweather fans when he himself has a VERY shady record when it comes to wanting to fight top competition.

    • Mark says:

      I don’t think his point had anything to do with whether Mayweather could crack Mosley’s defense. The point was Mayweather is going to be even tougher to catch than Mosley was, so Pacquiao spent most of the fight unable to engage with Shane, what can he possibly do to Floyd? Especially if Floyd doesn’t come in already mentally defeated and just there for a quick payday like Mosley was. (I still think Manny wins, but it’s not going to be the cakewalk the Mayweather Haters believe.)

      • The Gaijin says:

        Good to see you back. Where have you been?

        • Mark says:

          I got tired of the shrill “Dana vs. The Universe in the Epic War of Great Justice” monotony. But now that he actually does own the universe, now we can play more than one note. Although I’m sure that won’t last long before a new Great Satan is discovered.

  5. edub says:

    Just a few observations:

    -Manny didn’t punish Shane, but he clearly beat him.

    -Shane fighting defensively was the biggest reason Pacman looked bad, BUT not the only reason. Sometimes you are going to encounter defensive first fighters. This is boxing not everybody is gonna hunt you down to KO you. Pacquiao showed a lapse in speed from his previous fights IMO here.

    -Shane said he was the hardest puncher he ever faced, to my knowledge he never said he was the fastest.

    -Sadly, this fight reaffirmed to me a couple things: First, Manny is still close enough to top form that PBF isn’t going to take a chance on fighting him soon. Second, the way Manny had trouble with the defense first approach makes me think, even more than before, that PBF would beat him if they did ever fight (after weathering some early trouble).

    -Victor Ortiz will give Mayweather more trouble than most think. Especially if he catches him early.

    • Robert Poole says:

      edub: your entire post is rendered moot when you realize Manny was having severe leg cramps that were slowing him down and preventing him from moving.

      • edub says:

        Yes because no high profile fighter in MMA or boxing has made some type of excuse after the fight was over, pertaining to a less than stellar performance…

        • edub says:

          …Oh wait it happens all the time.

        • edub says:

          On top of that, who’s to say those leg cramps (if they were truly that bad) don’t come back the next time he fights. It’s pretty common knowledge that 145 lbs is an unnatural weight for an in shape Manny to fight at. This could just be his body finally starting to show signs of the weight gain putting too much stress on his body.

        • The Gaijin says:

          “On top of that, who’s to say those leg cramps (if they were truly that bad) don’t come back the next time he fights. It’s pretty common knowledge that 145 lbs is an unnatural weight for an in shape Manny to fight at.”

          I was juuust about to make the same comment. He said post-fight that this has happened to him in previous fights as well…so there’s always the chance that comes up again. A lot of the extra weight Manny carries to move up is in his legs too, so maybe he’s overtraining or bulking them up to much and they’re giving him problems as his career progresses/he gets older.

          Also, I know Shane was backpedalling and fighting really defensively but Manny was prone to lunging a whole lot…looked a lot like Khan in his last fight (Roach must be ready to burst)…maybe Manny knew he wasn’t taking risks doing that with Shane, but you can’t pull that against Floyd and not expect to pay for it.

          Also – legs cramps or not, I don’t know how that renders your opinion of Ortiz-Mayweather moot! 🙂

        • edub says:

          Haha yea, I didn’t even think of that.

          “Also, I know Shane was backpedalling and fighting really defensively but Manny was prone to lunging a whole lot…looked a lot like Khan in his last fight (Roach must be ready to burst)…maybe Manny knew he wasn’t taking risks doing that with Shane, but you can’t pull that against Floyd and not expect to pay for it.”

          These were my exact thoughts watching the fights, because Khan was WIDE open in his match against McCloskey. If Manny fights that way against Floyd even in a more reserved manner he will be countered all fight. And if he is it will be the first time since his fight against Marquez (and to a lesser extent Cotto) that he will actually have to figure out a way mid fight to beat his opponent. Since he has done nothing but dominate recently.

    • He actually did say Manny was the fastest fighter he ever fought

  6. sammy says:

    Well unfortunately we’ll never get to find out how Mayweather fares against the P4P king, as he is clearly too scared to fight Pacquiao..

    He’s gonna wait and wait and wait…commit some crimes…and then wait some more.. He might be willing to sign once Manny hits 40 (years old).

  7. edub says:

    Big, big news:

    Omar Henry is moving from boxing to MMA.

    This is the first true prospect, and by a lot of people’s accounts future star, that is moving from boxing to MMA.

    Big week so far.

    • 45 Huddle says:

      And luckily for the UFC…. a MMA prospect’s ability to make the switch is much less likely.

      I’m interested in seeing what type of trend this potentially creates.

  8. 45 Huddle says:

    Yahoo’s main page had an article on Manny that wasn’t too kind either.

    This is the central problem with having people pay $55+ for one fight that they care about. When it doesn’t deliver, the fallout isn’t a good thing.

    Compare that to GSP…. Who was super boring…. But because the undercard not only was exciting, but had fights people cared about…. The complaining wasn’t half as bad.

    • The Gaijin says:

      That sucks for the people that only watched the Pac/Sugar fight because I enjoyed the undercard. I really liked Arce’s war with Vazquez Jr. and Pavlik’s return fight – the were really good undercard fights. I thought Arce’s performance stole the show.

      I guess the problem is those fights miss the last half of your point, which was most people “didn’t care” about the them.

      • edub says:

        I also thought they were great fights. Especially Arce vs. Vazquez jr. Eventhough I felt bad for Wilfredo at the end because of the controversial corner stoppage.

      • 45 Huddle says:

        The Gaijin,

        Yeap, exactly. There were some great fights on the undercard for the boxing PPV. But Boxing does nothing to promote them so the majority of fans have zero invested interest in them.

        The payscale dictates that the main event fighters are the central theme of the PPV. So the buys live or die by their name value.

    • Chuck says:

      45;

      That is the consumers’ problem. That ppv actually had a very solid undercard, which is, admittedly, rare for a boxing ppv. The Jorge Arce/Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. fight is a legit fight of the year contender. And the Pavlik/Lopez fight was pretty good. But I have a feeling Pavlick’s time as a top fighter is coming to a close.

      And for the record, I was actually more looking forward to the Arce/Vazquez fight more than Pac/Mosley.

      Boxing and MMA are legit combat sports. It is common for fights to not be total fire fights, especially when the fighters don’t have the style for it (even though Pacquiao and Mosley do). It happens.

      • 45 Huddle says:

        The weight of this issue is squarely on the shoulders of the promoter. They do nothing to advertise the rest of the PPV card. Because of this, the fans have no vested interest in the fights.

        A great fight will be a great fight no matter what. But it can also be easily forgotten if fans don’t have a vested interest and a context to the fight. That is something the UFC does perfectly. Almost too much sometimes as they give importance to fights that don’t deserve it (which is a hole different issue on the other spectrum of this problem).

        But for a fight to truly be memoriable…. It needs to be great and for the fans to have a vested interest in them. And boxing fails at that time and time again with their undercards on PPV’s.

        • The Gaijin says:

          No arguments on those points here.

        • Chuck says:

          Yeah, that is true. I can’t deny any of those points.

        • The Gaijin says:

          And seriously would it have killed them to cover these two fights on the Fight Camp 360 for like 5-10 minutes/episode?

          They easily could have had a cut away segment about Pavlik’s big comeback/redemption from rehab how he’s trying to rebuild a once promising career against a tough opponent and sold that story a million times over. Same for Vazquez Jr. “son of a legend” against an old warrior like Arce. Then these fights would have meant a whole lot more to fans that tuned in to “see Manny” going forward.

  9. edub says:

    So apparently Gus Johnson is staying on with Showtime sports to keep calling fights…

    That means he’s leaving CBS, which had him calling the NCAA games for Bball and Football (which he was universally praised for; And he’s staying at Showtime to call MMA and Boxing (which he has been panned by pretty much everyone on).

    What the hell is wrong with the guys making these decisions?

    • The Gaijin says:

      Did I hear correctly that he’s actually leaving to go do football for FOX?

      At least they’re letting him continue to piss people off calling two sports people unanimously agree he’s terrible at (“NUTS AND GUTS! NUTS AND GUTS!”, “SERGEI KARTOV!”, “THESE THINGS HAPPEN IN MMA FOLKS!”, “ROCKY! ROCKY!” [I don’t remember the exact quote re. Seth and Kimbo) while looking like Aunt Maeda. *sigh*

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