By Eric Thomas: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer says that unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (40-0, 25 KO’s) is willing to take the fight against World Boxing Association welterweight champion Shane Mosley (46-5, 39 KO’s). In an article at the Los Angeles Times, Schaefer said “At 147, the man to beat is ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley. Floyd Will take that fight, and will shut up all those [boxing fans] who are saying he’s a coward.” This is great news for fans, because many of them assumed that Mayweather wasn’t interested in taking on a dangerous fighter like Mosley. Mayweather has focused on competing against smaller fighters since his fight against light welterweight Ricky Hatton in December 2007.
After coming off of a two year retirement in September 2009, Mayweather defeated Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez, who had to move up in weight from the lightweight division to fight Mayweather at a catch weight. As many expected, Marquez was simply too small to compete against Mayweather, and the added weight – nine pounds – that Marquez put on only slowed him down.
Although Schaefer says that Mayweather is willing to fight Mosley, Floyd still has to fight an alternate opponent for March 13th, because his mega fight with WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao fell through because of the random blood testing that Mayweather was insisting on for the fight.
Pacquiao agreed to three blood tests, but Mayweather wanted testing to be done up until 14 days before the fight. Pacquiao wanted it stopped at 24 days. Pacquiao wasted little time in picking a replacement fighter former International Boxing Federation welterweight champion Joshua Clottey after his talks with Mayweather disintegrated. However, Mayweather still has to find someone. Paulie Malignaggi and Matthew Hatton have been mentioned as possible opponents for Mayweather to fight on March 13th. However, neither of them has excited boxing fans all that much.
Before Mayweather can fight Mosley, though, Shane must first get by his next fight, a January 30th unification bout against World Boxing council welterweight champion Andre Berto. That fight is no gimme for Mosley, and he’s going to have to be smart and fight his heart out if he wants to beat the fast and talented Berto. Mosley is 38, and hasn’t fought since last year when he defeated then WBA welterweight champion Antonio Margarito by a 9th round stoppage. A lot of things can change in a year, and Mosley may have slipped some since notching that win over Margarito. If Mosley can get by Berto, then the Mosley-Mayweather fight could be really huge in terms of pay-per-view buys. Naturally, it wouldn’t be anything like a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight would have been, but it would be still huge none the less because of Mosley’s fame.
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