maybe he should have. lost twice at 147 to forrest soon after moving up, lost twice to winky at 154 where he didnt belong. he's obviously a natural welter now but he could have been aaron pryor at 140, which he totally skipped when moving to welter. does anybody remember how good he was at 135? he was a freak.
Because he wanted to make money. Same reason Floyd basically skipped the division after a few fights. Until recently the division was pretty bare, and you had Oscar at 147,.
It was because Mosley was a natural welterweight anyways. He was killing himself to get down to 135, and would have been draining himself as well to get down to 140. The man looks extremely well built and put together when he is walking around at 160-165.
He didnt duck anyone at 140 or anything..He just went for the big money fight against Oscar which everyone wanted to go for. Once he was there, the roid abuse surely meant he couldnt go back down. He suits welter fine...If he was that good at light and that good at welter he would have been awesome at 140 aswell.
Duran skipped it also. Roberto could have taken on Pryor. At the time he wanted Ray. One note on Aaron Pryor, did you know that he and Hearns both won their first world title on the same day? August 2, 1980. Hearns against Cueves and Pryor against Cervantes. Sorry my post was sort of off topic.
Not really..Pryor became champ 2 months after Duran fought Ray and over 2 years after Duran left lightweight. Even then he was far from an established champ until a couple of years later. Certainly not a better option than Leonard, probably not even as viable as Palomino at that stage. Duran had already beaten one of the current titlists when he moved up and had beaten several 140 pound contenders in non-title fights during his lightweight reign. The only guy worth fighting there was Cervantes, which would have been another great scalp to get. Cant remember why he didnt fight him, Im pretty sure ThreadStealer knows all the details.
Thats an interesting fact. Did you know that Aaron Pryor defeated Thomas Hearns at 135 lbs in the amatures back in the mid 70's?