Mayweather, Another Victory!!!

Shot fighter” is a fluid term born of speculative psychology and boxing’s undying need to get inside the heads of its fighters. There is no real medical, technical, or even linguistic way to define who is shot and who is not, and because a fighter performs so infrequently and only for a maximum of 36 minutes at a time, evidence can be tough to find. Since taking a knee in the 11th round of his fight against Antonio Margarito and his allegedly loaded gloves back in 2008, all discussions about Miguel Cotto have begun with the question, “Is he shot?” Cotto, who was all of 27 years old when he fought Margarito the first time, has typified the sort of shot that has nothing to do with age, but rather stems from lost confidence and the fear that accompanies a brutal beating. Once a boxer is tagged as “shot,” there’s not much he can do to escape the speculation. It’s a particularly brutal and ubiquitous label, especially because it can be applied to nearly anyone at any age or condition. In his next fight, the seemingly invincible Margarito fought Shane Mosley, who, at the shot-to-all-hell age of 37, entered the ring as a 4:1 underdog. In nine stunning and violent rounds, Mosley destroyed Margarito and set himself up for big fights against Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. Margarito has never been the same and now carries the distinction of being the pound-for-pound most shot fighter in the world, a title he might have lost to Mosley on Saturday night.