{"id":775104,"date":"2026-09-18T21:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T21:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/775104\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T21:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T21:20:08","slug":"johnny-nelson-names-the-welterweight-champion-who-wouldve-beaten-crawford-and-mayweather-he-was-a-bad-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/775104\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnny Nelson names the welterweight champion who would&#8217;ve beaten Crawford and Mayweather: &#8220;He was a bad man&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former world champion Johnny Nelson has named a Hall of Famer who he would back against prime versions of Floyd Mayweather and <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/terence-crawford\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Terence Crawford<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The two Americans retired as unbeaten five-division world champions and, generally speaking, were regarded as the finest talents of their respective eras.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout Mayweather\u2019s career, there were often doubts over his appetite for the toughest challenges but, by the end of it, no one could dispute his status as an all-time great.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, Crawford crafted a Hall of Fame-worthy legacy and became a three-division undisputed champion by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/boxing\/story\/_\/id\/46224012\/canelo-alvarez-terence-crawford-live-updates-boxing-results-round-round-analysis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">dethroning Canelo Alvarez in his first outing at 168lbs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Yet even with both men having placed their greatness beyond any reasonable doubt, Nelson believes that a prime Shane Mosley would have defeated them both.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Sugar\u2019 was widely considered to be at the peak of his powers between the late 1990s and early 2000s, back when he made eight lightweight title defences before becoming a two-division world champion at 147lbs.<\/p>\n<p>Mosley did so by <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/features\/on-this-day-shane-mosley-became-a-star-with-a-superb-points-victory-over-oscar-de-la-hoya\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">dethroning Oscar De La Hoya with a split decision victory<\/a> and, against Crawford, Nelson has told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@dailymailsport\/video\/7679415717120199958?_r=1&amp;_t=ZN-99op3f6Gvwc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Daily Mail Sport<\/a> that he believes the American would have had comparable success.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m going Shane Mosley. On his day, he was a badman.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nelson also backed Mosley to defeat Mayweather, despite him losing their welterweight showdown in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen they fought, [Mayweather] got the old version of him. So I\u2019m going Mosley.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the age of 38, Mosley was widely credited with giving Mayweather one of his toughest fights and even managed to hurt \u2018Money\u2019 with a right hand in round two.<\/p>\n<p>                                            <script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former world champion Johnny Nelson has named a Hall of Famer who he would back against prime versions&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-775104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}