Just as a casual reminder for those that are stopping in and aren't familiar with the place, we'll have live, round-by-round coverage and scoring of tonight's Antonio Margarito-Shane Mosley welterweight title clash, which starts at 10pm ET on HBO. If you're not an HBO subscriber, have to work late, or just want to enjoy the fight while talking to some fellow boxing fans, this is the place to be tonight. Our coverage updates live in our comments section with zero refreshing necessary on your part.
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As I'm sure you heard by now, Antonio Margarito weighed in at 145.6 pounds yesterday, with Shane Mosley just over the limit at 147.2. Mosley got back on the scale about a half hour later and made weight, so the fight is fine, dandy, and on like donkey kong. This should be a good one.
On the topic of welterweights, Luis Collazo is saying the fight with Andre Berto wasn't as close as the scorecards, citing his activity level and Berto's holding and "running." I'll go ahead and firmly disagree. The fight was very close, and he made it that way by literally giving away at least three rounds. I still say Luis has nobody to blame but himself. Berto dominated the final round and won the fight. Had Collazo not taken those rounds off earlier, that final round may have been a moot point.
Veteran scribe Graham Houston takes a look at Margarito against 10 all-time greats at welter.
Kevin Iole has a feature on Shane Mosley, who has thus far been ageless at 147 pounds.
Michael Rosenthal of The Ring sizes up the similarities between Margarito and Mosley.
Chuck Johnson's fight week blog over at HBO Sports recaps the weigh-in.
There's another big fight card in California tonight, with Affliction heading to pay-per-view. Last I'd heard ticket sales weren't so hot, but believe me I'm not making this a, "Ha! Affliction can't sell tickets and Margarito-Mosley is an 18,000-seat sellout! Ha!" kind of thing. Affliction's business model ain't exactly the UFC's, let's put it that way. Anyhoo, the show is main evented by Fedor Emelianenko and Freddie Roach's guy, Andrei Arlovski. Brent Brookhouse of Bloody Elbow dares to pick Arlovski.
Dan Rafael's final pre-fight words on Margarito-Mosley address that Shane is, in fact, having some marital difficulties right now. Mosley insists it's not a professional distraction for him.
One Rafael chat note: Malignaggi-Alvarado is out of consideration for the February 21 pay-per-view, but Bob Arum has set up a replacement fight between John Duddy and Matt Vanda, which isn't thrilling in terms of star power but will be a war. Count me in. Hopefully it legitimately gets done. I've loved Arum during the talks of this PPV card; he's mentioned every potential fight ever. Anthony Peterson will open the show against Edner Cherry.
OK, dudes and dudettes, it's pickin' time. Who ya got tonight? We've got an all-time great headed to the Hall of Fame up against the immovable object. We all know Shane will fight however the pace dictates. Does Margarito wear him down? Does Shane outbox him? Does Margarito become the first man to ever stop Mosley inside the limit?
I'll even go first. Give me Margarito, but he's not knocking Shane out, and it'll be close.