1st post....:happy Not really sure I've seen many people call Mosley an ATG anyway. So he's not really overrated imo
Both prime Mosley and prime DLH are - correctly, IMO - regarded by most as having been ATG h2h lightweights.
I can't disagree with either argument, ATG or not, but I don't agree that Mosley is overrated since he's never been regarded as the best WW which is imo the most important part of his resume. They both were Humongous LWs so of course they were beasts there. But once they were h2h with boxers their size, we saw just what they were truly capable of. ATG when it came to exciting fights without question tho.
I actually consider them both lightweights (since they were prime there) who just happened to have fought on well a few divisions above their peak and prime weight. :conf The same way PBF is basically a super featherweight - spending the first six years of his pro career and entering his prime there - who is able to be successful at 147 and 154lbs decades later. Pacquiao is a flyweight (or, super bantamweight if you rather since he actually had exited his teens by then) who also found success at much higher weights. A select few great fighters can do that, be dominant or at least very successful well above their 'natural' weight. I think all four of the above did so. Mosley and DLH were never big junior middles (the latter was decidedly pudgy there - and he certainly never belong at middleweight) and weren't even really huge welters. I mean, Oscar you could say looked big at 147lb and may have actually had a more 'natural welter' frame, though he was already caking on a bit of unnecessary bulk there...whereas the more shredded Mosley was rarely the bigger looking man in the ring at 147.
Mosley was a great fighter. His 1st win over Oscar and the Margs beatdown are 2 of the best performances ever.
Definite HOFer. Too bad he had the advantage of being a high profile American fighter who was basically allowed to load up on PED's with impugnity. All fighters probably use but only certain ones get the best supporting cast to optimize their benefits.
People often say Mosley was better at lightweight than at welterweight, but I don't really think Mosley was any better at 135 than he was at WW in his late 20s/early 30s. He may have been marginally better at 135, but not by much. I think it was more of just facing better opposition at 147 and also a real tough style matchup in Forrest. Since then, his performances have been up and down, and where I definitely see a decline in performances along with weight is when Mosley fights at 154. That's where he certainly is inferior. He's rarely ever looked good at 154. But at 147, from 1999 to the early 2000s, he looked great in all but one of his first 5 fights. He looked probably the best he's ever looked in the first bout with DLH, and also looked great in other fights against Wise, Taylor, and Diaz (less so with Rivera). Mosley did have a size advantage at 135 where he was a very big lightweight. He was more comfortable however, at least according to Shane, at 147 since he wasn't cutting so much weight. He killed guys to the body in both divisions. In terms of power, he cracked hard at either weight, but was more of an accumulation puncher (at least against world class opposition).