Retired former world champion ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley has praised Manny Pacquiao for his career longevity while lamenting the lack of grit among the current crop of titleholders and contenders.
“Manny Pacquiao is doing a great job,” Mosley told Boxing News. “He fought in an era where people wanted to fight and he fought in the lighter weights where people had to fight.
“He fought (Marco Antonio) Barrera, (Juan Manuel) Marquez, (Erik) Morales and all those guys. He fought in an era where a lot of people fought at their best time.
“Now he comes up to welterweight and he’s fighting these younger guys who know how to fight but I don’t really know if they have it like we had it. You know, in our heart, to go out there and bang it out.
“They’re good and they’re doing good stuff, but I don’t know if they’re showing the same type of grit that we had coming up.
“It’s a different level, a different type of fight, a different mentality. You don’t fear anything. You go for it a little more. These guys will pop-pop move, pop-pop move.”
The 40-year-old Pacquaio turned pro almost a quarter of a century ago, winning his first world title as a flyweight in 1998.
In his most recent outing the classy Filipino southpaw annexed the WBA welterweight championship from previously undefeated American Keith Thurman on points in Las Vegas in July.
“Sometimes they’ll go for it. You’ll have some guys who try. Errol Spence will try. Even Keith Thurman fought really good, I thought. He did better than I expected when he got hit and knocked down,” continued Mosley, who lost a wide 12-round decision to Pacquiao eight years ago.
“I was actually impressed by him. I thought he did a great job of fighting back. He was trying to knock Pacquiao out and that’s great. I didn’t think he was going to be that gritty.
“But a lot of fighters of this era are not really gritty like that. That’s why Keith Thurman was champion. He had more grit than most of them.”
