Shane Mosley Signs Contract to Fight Floyd Mayweather on May 1

Maybe boxing will be able to heal the wounds to its goodwill following the disintegration of the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight faster than we thought. First Manny agreed to face Joshua Clottey, and now Floyd's bout with Shane Mosley is all but a done deal.

Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports is reporting that Mosley has signed his contract to fight Mayweather on May 1 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Iole's piece states that Leonard Ellerbe expects Floyd to sign his contract ASAP, and that a press conference will take place in New York to announce the fight within the next few days.

I've used some space elsewhere to spell out my complete feelings on this announcement, but suffice it to say that I'm impressed that Mayweather agreed to the bout. Yes, Shane is no spring chicken and has been inactive for over a year. But if you don't think Mosley poses at least some danger as a foe for Floyd, your opinion of him must be pretty low indeed.

My early gut feeling says Mayweather will win the fight because his defense will trump Mosley's offense. But I'll be pulling for Sugar Shane since he's a personal favorite of mine.

Does the fact that Floyd is facing the man many consider to be the next best guy make Manny look worse? Not really, because Mosley wasn't available when he was putting together a fight - Andre Berto hadn't pulled out of his fight with Shane at that point - and Clottey is no pushover.

It's certainly a good look for Mayweather and a nice situation for Mosley to get at least one more big payday before he calls it a career. And who knows, perhaps victories by Floyd and Manny will have them revisiting their negotiations for later this year.

I don't know anyone who would be opposed to that.

Posted by The Franchise