"Pacquiao has some pretty good punching power. He has some different hitting power. He's not physically strong, but he hits pretty good, like he has a good snap or something. He's got something in his hands where he just, pop, and you can wobble. He can hurt you...I don't know how he throws his punches, but he does something where when he lands, it has a different impact. I mean, I get hit by, even now, I get hit by bigger guys all the time and there's no dazing, I don't wobble, I don't do any of that stuff. I don't feel like I'm getting ready to wobble or anything. With Pacquiao, he just touches you and you're already wobbling. It's not like he's heavy-handed. He's not heavy-handed. It's weird. It's the weirdest thing," stated former welterweight champion Shane Mosley, who spoke more about the experience of facing Manny Pacquiao. Check out what else Mosley had to say as he discusses Pacquiao's strengths, sheds light on his game plan going into the fight, and much more.
BT: Looking back before the fight, you obviously had one idea of what it would be like, but what did you take away from that fight with Pacquiao?
SM: Pacquiao has some pretty good punching power. He has some different hitting power. He's not physically strong, but he hits pretty good, like he has a good snap or something. He's got something in his hands where he just, pop, and you can wobble. He can hurt you.
BT: Is it because he's got so much speed or is it a certain way he throws his punches?
SM: It must be the way he throws his punches. He's not that fast; he's not faster than ever. He has decent speed, but it's not like, "Oh my God, this guy is so fast." I felt Mayweather was faster than Pacquiao. Pacquiao threw more rapid punches, but Mayweather was faster. I don't know how he throws his punches, but he does something where when he lands, it has a different impact. I mean, I get hit by, even now, I get hit by bigger guys all the time and there's no dazing, I don't wobble, I don't do any of that stuff. I don't feel like I'm getting ready to wobble or anything. With Pacquiao, he just touches you and you're already wobbling. It's not like he's heavy-handed. He's not heavy-handed. It's weird. It's the weirdest thing.
BT: I think you see that in all of his fights, like when he fought Marquez the first time. It's like a surprise, I guess, when he lands that left hand.
SM: You feel the impact of his punches and when you feel it in your glove, the impact is not hard. You're not like, "Oh my God, he's hitting hard. This is a hard punch." Only when he lands on your face is when you feel like you're getting dizzy. Either it's some kind of Chinese breaking bricks kind of thing, the 1-inch punch, or whatever, something like that, or it's something else. It's something different. It's not the same traditional punch that's strong. It's not the same. It's not the pressure of the impact. It's not like, "Boom! Oh shit, this shit's hard. Damn, he's hitting hard." When somebody gets a punch on you and you catch it on your glove, you're like, "Damn, that was hard. He hits hard. He's heavy-handed." He's not heavy-handed. That's what throws you off. He's not heavy-handed. It's like a snap at the end or something. It's like, POP, and then you fall down and then wobble or something; it's like the weirdest thing.
BT: When you fought him, it looked like you guys were going in with the right game plan, but after the knockdown and because your foot was messed up, you weren't going to get a chance to execute it. Do you think...
SM: (Cutting in) The thing was I couldn't load up or anything like I wanted to because the minute I loaded up is the minute I would have got knocked down because he was throwing short punches and his short punches was hurting me. He didn't have to load up with any hard shots. Maybe it was because my foot was messed up over here and the achilles, I couldn't come off of it the right way. I couldn't come off of it fast enough or I couldn't bring no explosion off of it when I was loading up. That just threw me off and I couldn't do what I need to do in the fight. The only thing I could've did was wait for him to overcommit and clip him when he overcommitted, but he respected my power so he never overcommitted. If you noticed in that fight, he never overcommitted in the fight. Like, he never just went balls out. Some people wanted to say it's because he had compassion for me and he didn't want to knock me out, but that wasn't the case. The case was that he knew, like even with Oscar, he knew, like, "Oh shit, this guy's got power to catch me, so I don't want to get caught or clipped or something because I know he can clip me."
BT: A couple times during the fight, Brother Naaz made the comment that you guys just gave someone else the game plan on how to beat Pacquiao. Do you think in some ways people can look at your fight with Pacquiao and take away some of the things you wanted to do in there and have success against him?
SM: The thing with the plan and the movement, it nullifies his offense a little bit, but it also nullifies your offense as well, you know what I'm saying? Like, when you move a certain way, I couldn't even come back and do my offense because I couldn't explode back off on him, but what it was doing to me was when I moved that way, to the left and kind of turned him, every time he was getting ready to punch, I turned him, I nullified my punching as well, so I couldn't really come back and punch like I wanted to unless I moved the way that I like to go so I can punch. I mean, it's a good game plan if you're going to be moving and stuff, but it's kind of hard to punch off that movement, if you will, for both guys. I couldn't really punch off that movement like that. I mean, somebody else might have a different style and throw a looping left hook and hit him behind the ear or something and land an uppercut, but I just couldn't do it because my footing wasn't right. You know, both feet were; one had blisters and one I had popped the achilles in January. People don't walk in a year when they get their achilles popped; I had to fight in four months with a popped achilles that had to be surgically repaired in January.
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