By Michael Collins: Oscar De La Hoya isn’t saying who he plans on matching against Golden Promotions fighter Saul Alvarez on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Miguel Cotto on May 5th, but the word is already leaking out that 40-year-old Shane Mosley is the guy that will likely get the fight. Mosley has already said to ESPN that he’d like to fight Alvarez next.
The only thing that could possibly stop that from happening is if former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan is given Mosley instead. It goes without saying that Khan is needier because of his recent loss to Lamont Peterson. Khan has been unable to get a rematch with Peterson and needs an old toothless lion like Mosley to get a win over a fighter with a name so that boxing public will start believing in Khan again.
Khan might get the sacrificial lamb before Alvarez does, because he’s still fighting well and looking good. But Mosley still is a strong possibility for Alvarez to fight on the card. They need ideally a Mexican fighter to be facing Alvarez if they want to take advantage of the Mexican boxing fans celebrating the Cinco de Mayo holiday on May 5th, but there really isn’t any notable Mexicans in the junior middleweight division besides Alvarez and Antonio Margarito, and that’s not a possibility because Margarito fights for Top Rank and Alvarez for Golden Boy.
I’m not too interested in seeing Mosley get worked by the young 21-year-old Alvarez. It seems like a sad way to end, but Mosley wants the cash and might even think he can beat him. He can’t. He’ll lose badly and may even get knocked out. Having Mosley face Alvarez will sell a few tickets and bring in more PPV buys from casual boxing fans unaware of how old and over the hill Mosley is now.