Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Victoriano Sosa
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| Date | April 19, 2003 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Venue | Selland Arena, Fresno, California, U.S. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Title(s) on the line | WBC and The Ring lightweight titles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tale of the tape | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Result | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mayweather wins via unanimous decision (119–109, 118–110, 118–110) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Victoriano Sosa was a professional boxing match contested on April 19, 2003 for the WBC and The Ring lightweight titles.[1]
Having moved up to lightweight and then defeated José Luis Castillo twice in 2002 to capture his second world title, Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s first defense of 2003 was announced to be against little-known Victoriano Sosa. Sosa was ranked as the number-five lightweight contender by the WBC, but had seldom fought outside his native Dominican Republic and lost his only other title fight to IBF champion Paul Spadafora. Before settling on Sosa, Mayweather's promoter Bob Arum had attempted to pit Mayweather against Spadafora in a unification bout tentatively set to take place in New York City's Madison Square Garden, but Spadafora turned down a reported $1,000,000 offer to pursue another unification bout with Leonard Doroftei. The fight was held in the non-traditional boxing market of Fresno, California after Arum was unable to get Madison Square Garden or any of the Las Vegas Valley area casinos to accept the fight.[2] This would be boxing's first world title fight to take place in the city of Fresno.[3]
The Fight
Mayweather cruised to an easy victory, winning lopsidedly by unanimous decision. One judge had Mayweather winning by a score of 119–109 (11 rounds to one) while the other two scored the fight 118–110 (10 rounds to two) also in Mayweather's favor. Fighting his usual defensive style, Mayweather held Sosa, who threw over 100 more punches than Mayweather, to a measly 14% success rate as Sosa landed just 79 of 565 thrown punches. Mayweather used his jab to his advantage as he frequently landed the punch to both Sosa's body and head, hitting Sosa 147 times for a 60% success rate while Sosa only mustered 12 landed jabs of his own.[4]
HBO unofficial scorer Harold Lederman scored the fight 116–112 (eight rounds to four).
