"I think Floyd's a little intimidated and afraid of me and he doesn't really want to fight me. He wants to jump around and fight these little guys. He wants to fight Marquez and he's hoping Pacquiao will win so he can go and fight Pacquiao and then he'll go back into retirement...I know his style. I know what he's going to do and I know what he's going to try and do and I'm ready to capitalize on it," stated welterweight champion Shane Mosley as he talked about the recent confrontation he had with Floyd Mayweather Jr. after his lopsided victory over Juan Manuel Marquez. Check out what he had to say about Mayweather's performance, the confrontation and much more as Mosley makes it clear that he's eager to be the first to give Mayweaher a loss.
BT: What's good Sugar?
SM: Ah man, I'm just hanging out in LA right now.
BT: So you got the boxing world buzzing with that confrontation you had with Lil Floyd during the post-fight interview. I gotta admit, that was probably the most excitement there was on that entire card (laughing).
SM: I know. I give a lot of credit to Marquez for even going the distance. I mean, he was so little, being like two weight classes under Mayweather. For him to be able to do that was great on his part.
BT: No doubt. Can you give us a quick recap of what went down and what was said between you and Floyd?
SM: Well, first of all, I heard my name being mentioned. Max Kellerman called my name and started walking towards him and I see Mayweather flagging me over. I said, alright, maybe he wants to fight. He just did his warm-up fight and now he's ready to fight the welterweight champion. So I just went over there and I was like, "Yeah, let's give the fans what they want to see, a real fight; a good fight with two great fighters that fight!" I don't know if he liked that too much so he kind of got mad at Max Kellerman and was wanting to beat up Max Kellerman. All Max did was say there was another welterweight fighter out there by the name of Shane Mosley and that just threw Floyd for a loop. I think Floyd's a little intimidated and afraid of me and he doesn't really want to fight me. He wants to jump around and fight these little guys. He wants to fight Marquez and he's hoping Pacquiao will win so he can go and fight Pacquiao and then he'll go back into retirement. He'll steal money like he said on ESPN when he said he was going to steal some more money and then go back off and do such and such. That's what I really don't understand. Everybody wants to retire now. I mean, Mayweather's talking about he wants to retire, Pacquiao wants to retire and be President of the Philippines, Cotto wants to retire after the fight with Pacquiao; all that means is that nobody wants to fight Sugar Shane Mosley.
BT: Floyd was trying to accuse you of being disrespectful by stealing his shine and...
SM: (CUtting in) There wasn't no shine. There wasn't no shine. It was a snoozer and Floyd should be ashamed of beating up the lightweight champion of the world and really, he's not even a lightweight. He's really a jr. lightweight. He moved up and beat Juan Diaz, who's pretty much a lightweight, and that was good because it showed that he's pound-for-pound one of the best fighters, Marquez. But to jump from jr. lightweight all the way up to welterweight and try to fight somebody like a Mayweather that doesn't really engage or anything, I mean, that's like two or three different weight classes, you can't do that. It would be hard for me to jump up and fight a guy like Roy Jones or somebody back when I was pound-for-pound and he was considered to be pound-for-pound. That's just not fair.
BT: That's funny you say that because Floyd claims the only reason why he fought Marquez was because Marquez called him out and...
SM: (Cutting in) I called him out before Marquez. I called him out before, but nobody heard me. I said yeah, I want to fight Mayweather and I called him out right after he fought Oscar. I was like, "Okay, you fought Oscar. Good. You made your money, now fight me!"
BT: Right. You called him out then and you called him out after the Marquez fight. When Marquez called him out, it was okay, but when you called him out, he said you were being disrespectful. It seems like when he actually has guys in his own weight class calling him out, he wants to get defensive.
SM: He didn't say that when he was calling people out. When he was coming up, he was calling everybody out. He would say the same thing. He was calling out everybody, taking microphones and doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Now when it's done to him, he gets all defensive; he gets all scared and cries like a little baby.
BT: I saw Bernard up there with you guys when everything went down. What was Bernard saying?
SM: Bernard was probably saying a whole lot of things. "Fight the real welterweight champion" and stuff. Bernard was all over him. Bernard said a lot of things. He pissed him off some more. After, me and Bernard was basically telling him he needs to fight a real welterweight champion, not being disrespectful or anything, but just saying that he needs to fight a real fighter, he got scared, intimidated and what did he do? He wants to beat up Max Kellerman now (laughing). He don't want to fight Bernard, he don't want to fight me, but he'll fight Max Kellerman. He'll beat Max up. Actually, Max can beat him up. I was asking Max, because I know Max did a little bit of boxing in New York a little bit back when Zab Judah was coming up so he can box a little bit too as well, so maybe he might want to throw a few blows at Mayweather and see what happens. Mayweather would definitely fight him for some good money too. Mayweather would fight Max, he'll fight Marquez, he'll fight Pacquiao, he'll fight all the little guys. He may even fight Juan Diaz next.
BT: (Laughing) Max might weigh too much for Floyd.
SM: Yeah, but Max doesn't have that experience so he'll fight Max (laughing).
BT: (Laughing) What did you think about Floyd not even bothering to make the catchweight of 144 pounds?
SM: He knew he wasn't going down to 144. He figured he'd give away $600,000, not hurt himself or anything and blow up to whatever weight he went up to. Like I said, Marquez is really a jr. lightweight. He weighed in at 142 and probably went to the ring at 142 (laughing).
BT: (Laughing) It was pretty much an unfair fight, but just from what you saw out of Floyd in the ring, what did you think about his performance after being out of the ring for two years.
SM: It looks like he still has some speed and snap. I mean, I'll just be real, he's a talented fighter. He does good things, but it's hard to tell anything when you're fighting somebody so small. You can't really judge him and say, "Wow. He really looked good." It's hard for me to judge that. I can't judge really what he did. It looked like a little sparring session. Just like he said on ESPN, he went and stole some money and it's back off into the sunset. He paid his tax bill or whatever he had to pay and it's off into the sunset.
BT: I pretty much expected Floyd to win. I think the only thing that kind of shocked me was that Marquez only landed like 60 punches or something like that.
SM: 69 punches. That's shocking too, but it's the way you fight. If Floyd don't want you to land anything, he can move around, duck and dodge, and, you know, especially with a little guy. I mean, come on. When a guy is so much smaller than you, it's not even fair. It wasn't even a fair fight really. It was like him going in there and doing a sparring session, picking up a check and gone, claiming he's the best pound-for-pound and all that stuff. It's not fair to the fans. It's not fair to anybody. It's not fair to Marquez. It's just not...he needs to be fighting welterweights. If he came back and he fought Berto, if he came back and he fought Clottey or Margarito or myself, well, he wouldn't even have to fight me first because I'm the champion, but if he just fought anybody in the welterweight division, then I could say, "Okay, he looked good doing this and doing that against this opponent." But I can't judge that. Even if he went to the 140-pound division and fought somebody in the 140-pound divison that moved up to 47, Timothy Bradley or somebody, anybody, anybody in the 140-pound division, Nate Campbell, just fight anybody around your weight. You can't fight guys that are 130 pounds and make them move up to 47 and you don't even make 144. I mean, come on.
BT: Yeah, that's true. That's messed up when you put it like that.
SM: It's sad. It's just sad and there's no way around it. They wouldn't dare let me in the ring with anybody like Marquez. People wouldn't buy it. They'll criticize me, they'll talk bad about me and they'll almost want to ban me from boxing if I were to fight Marquez (laughing).
BT: (Laughing) Wow.
SM: They wouldn't even let me, at the time when Mayweather fought Arturo Gatti and the time he fought Carlos Baldomir, they didn't even want me to fight them two guys. I couldn't even fight them.
BT: Yeah, I think I remember them [HBO] rejecting Arturo Gatti as an opponent for you at one point.
SM: Yeah. They rejected Gatti. HBO, they rejected Gatti as an opponent for me and then Mayweather turns around and fights him. And then after that, I said, "Let me fight Carlos Baldomir." Mayweather just fought him and I think maybe I had lost to Winky or something like that so I said, "Let me fight Carlos Baldomir. I'll go back down to welterweight. Let me fight him." They said, "Oh, no. Mayweather just beat him up." I said, "Well, I mean, I just lost. Baldomir beat Arturo Gatti and Zab Judah. Mayweather beat him, but let's see how I do with him and we can make a match with me and Mayweather." They said, "Oh, no, no, no." They rejected me from Carlos Baldomir. I'm like, what's going on? Then Carlos Baldomir goes up to 154 and he fights Vernon Forrest. So I'm like, wait a minute, how does this happen? It's crazy. For me to fight Juan Manuel Marquez? Come on! I give Marquez all the credit in the world. I think that he's a great fighter and I respect him. I watch his tapes. I watch him fight. I like the way he fights. I like his style. I like everything that he does. He's got good power. He's got good speed. He's a technician. He's all that. At 130, 135 pounds, he's all that. I'd put my money on him, but you put him in there with me, I mean, come on. That's like me fighting Chad Dawson right now. I mean, yeah, I believe that I'm more skilled, I believe I'm pound-for-pound the best, I believe I'm this and that, but the man is a light heavyweight. Southpaw, tall, I mean, come on. He's good. He's champion. It'd be like me fighting Bernard Hopkins.
BT: I don't know, I'd give you a pretty good shot against Bernard. Bernard's getting up there in age (laughing).
SM: Oh, I'd have a good shot. I'd have a good shot against Bernard. Maybe that's something that actually might happen, but the fact is Bernard's a light heavyweight and I'm a welterweight. It's just different. We're not in the same weight class. He has a lot of advantages. I would say it's more like fighting Chad Dawson because Chad Dawson is a mover. He moves around, he boxes and I'd have to run in and try to get him. Bernard will probably plant a little bit more and try to do stuff, maybe, because Bernard moves a lot too. It's just the styles of the fight, a counterpuncher against a counterpuncer and then you have Marquez being so much smaller and Mayweather being so much bigger, it just wasn't fair. It wasn't fair.
BT: I didn't even get a chance to see Marquez doing anything against Mayweather. In fact, I didn't see any of Juan Manuel Marquez in that fight with Mayweather. I don't know if it's because he moved up in weight or because Floyd was just shutting him down like that, but...
SM: (Cutting in) That's exactly what it was. He moved up in weight. He's a 130-pounder. He's faster at 130, he has more power, everything. He goes up to 142, loses his speed, loses his snap, loses his power, because he hits harder when he's at 135 than he does at 142, I mean, all of these disadvantages, he was just at a disadvantage from the jump. He did everything he could do, he fought his heart out, went the distance with the guy, I mean, come on. Margarito didn't even go the distance with me. He went the distance with Floyd.
BT: I take it it would be a totally different fight with Sugar Shane Mosley in there with Mayweather. You do a pretty mean imitation of Floyd and his style.
SM: Right! I know his style. I know what he's going to do and I know what he's going to try and do and I'm ready to capitalize on it!
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