Mosley-Mayweather Fight in May

Manny Pacquiao picked a respectable replacement when negotiations for his March 13 fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. ended because of a disagreement over Olympic-style blood testing.

Mayweather has accepted an even more difficult fight than Pacquiao’s battle against Joshua Clottey. He has agreed to face Shane Mosley on May 1 in Las Vegas.

Judd Burstein, Mosley’s attorney, told Yahoo! Sports that Mosley has signed a contract to meet Mayweather in a long-awaited 12-round fight for Mosley’s World Boxing Association welterweight title. Leonard Ellerbe, Mayweather’s adviser, said Mayweather agreed to all contract terms and would soon sign it.

An official press conference to announce the fight is expected to occur next week in New York.

Agreeing to fight Mosley (46-5, 39 KOs, one NC), a three-division champion from Pomona, Calif., means Mayweather (40-0, 25 KOs) is prepared to silence skeptics by boxing one of the top welterweights in the sport. The five-division champion from Grand Rapids, Mich., has lost the top spot on many mythical pound-for-pound lists to the Philippines’ Pacquiao (50-3-2, 38 KOs) for regularly facing fighters who’ve moved up from the junior welterweight and lightweight divisions just to fight him.

Mosley widely is viewed as one of the top five pound-for-pound boxers in the world, despite that he is 38. He dominated favored Antonio Margarito (37-6, 27 KOs, one NC) in his last fight, but Mosley hasn’t fought in the 53 weeks since he recorded a ninth-round technical knockout victory over Mexico’s Margarito in Los Angeles.

Mosley was supposed to box undefeated Andre Berto (25-0, 19 KOs) in a welterweight championship unification fight Saturday night in Las Vegas, but Berto withdrew from the bout two weeks ago to concentrate on relief efforts in Haiti. At least eight members of Berto’s family died in the earthquake that devastated that island nation on Jan. 12.

Source : NorthJersey