No way is De La Hoya knocking out a Mugabi, well not a pre-Hagler Mugabi. Pre-Hagler Mugabi was a beast, he was pretty much a killer in the ring. The shots Hagler and Mugabi took in their fight was incredible. I honestly feel that Hagler stripped the beast out of him that night. I'd favour De La Hoya slightly, only because he was the better boxer, has more experience against better fighters and has a good chin. However, Mugabi hits alot harder than Mosley, Hopkins and Vargas...he was pretty fast too for a heavy handed guy.
Or he could hurt him sufficiently early enough, that Oscar's offensive output is too blunted to win. maybe drop him a few times and DLH goes into survival mode etc he doesn't outright need the stoppage.Just needs to punch holes in him and get him cautious. Was Oscar at this stage in his career even really willing to lay it all on the line, to really thrown combinations like Hagler did to beat the beast? He gave a perfunctory effort against Hopkins, enough not to look bad and then quit as soon as Nard started to land frequently.And Hopkins was by no means working hard in that fight.Tht Oscar would have his skull horribly caved in. Vargas was a good peformance but i see a fighter there that can be bullied, can't control a bigger aggressive fighter with pure boxing ability alone and gets hit far too much. imo Oscar can do well with pure boxing against a good amount of the 154 2nd-tier champs and contenders, guys from that era like Hard **** Green, Skouma, Minchillo..., obviously damaged goods Vargas from his own era, Boudouani etc but real power punching physicalfighters that were comfortable at 160 like Mugabi and Jackson are far too much and a notch above that. Does anyone really think Oscar could contain someone like Roldan?These are the kind of punchers that would physically bully, abuse and starch or shutout a guy like Mosley at 154, someone Oscar was going all out to even contain physically and keep him on the end of the jab at the weight.
Yep ok Lora I agree mugabi could win on pts but I don't think if it was close he would get the decision in America Also the roldan reference is a very good point
I suppose because I don't rate Mugabi very highly. He doesn't really have any good wins, but I suppose he gave Hagler a toughish fight and maybe he was just ruined after that. Then again maybe Hagler fighting in close quarters flattered Mugabi Yes he was strong and hit hard and quite athletic. But also easy to hit himself and telegraphed as he needed to plant his feet to punch. I suppose he could be too strong for Oscar at 160 and I suppose you could say Mugabi was a bigger Mosley in allot of ways.
I'm not really a massive fan of him either, in fact i thought he was overhyped and over-ranked at the time, but i guess i come at it from the opposite angle of feeling Oscar and Shane above Welter were nothing special and highly beatable by decent contender level fighters that were bigger and natural to those weights. Mugabi doesn't have any big-name wins, but he did beat in brutally impressive fashion some other decent legit top-ten prime contenders before Hagler like Hargrove, hard rock Green, Curtis Parker and Frank Fletcher(who was probably damaged goods after too many wars and the Roldan KO) as well as your typical slew of former contenders\fringe contenders\challengers and tough journeymen...Nino Gonzalez, Vampire Johnson, Eddie Gazo, Doug Demmings, Gary Guiden etc Did Oscar really do any more at these weights? Castillejo was worse than those top four imo.Campas fits in with that latter list and that leaves you with beating damaged goods Vargas-- a good enough win and Nando was still a tough fighter, but not really any better than a guy like Parker at that stage-- and another damaged fighter in Mayorga who only really had a brief peak which was at Welter. He's got the controversial loss to damaged goods Mosley, who was looking so ****ed up from the Forrest fights the forum were abuzz at the time with claims he was already shot and speculation if he would ever throw those old combo's again. I think he has an argument for winning that one, but it was hardly a particularly impressive showing from either-no better than you can find in plenty of fights between 2nd-tier 154lbers since the division came to be.Not a fight that will ever be pointed to as one of either man's showcase performances. Least said about Sturm and Hopkins the better imo. Mayweather fight was a commendable effort from someone now clearly past prime, but still that fight wasn't the kind of effort from either one that had me thinking it would take only the very best around this weight to win.It was what it was, a past prime fighter at a weight he had looked less effective at years ago giving a good effort against a more-prime man even smaller than him.Both would clearly struggle against bigger, natural fighters of good talent here. Overall i suppose MUgabi vs DLH is a pretty even sort of matchup for the weight considering what they accomplished and Oscar's previous rep balancing out MUgabi's size advantage. Who do you think was better at 154 between Oscar and Floyd overall? Would the Oscar that fought Castillejo, vargas and Mosley still lose to the Floyd that beat the older version and Cotto? Not sure myself.