By Chris Williams: Arguably the best fight of the May 7th fight card disappeared with the news that WBC lightweight champion Humberto Soto (55-7-2, 32 KO’s) has dropped off the Manny Pacquiao vs. Shane Mosley fight undercard at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Soto, 30, was supposed to be fighting a rematch with lightweight contender Urbano Antillon. The two fighters went at it last year in December in one of the most fights of the year.

It was hoped that a rematch between Soto and Antillon would help bring some badly needed excitement to the Pacquiao-Mosley card. Without Soto vs. Antillon 2, the following fights are on the Pacquiao vs. Mosley card: Kelly Pavlik vs. Alfonso Lopez, Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. vs. Jorge Arce, Pier Oliver Cote vs. Aris Ambriz, Karl Dargan vs. TBA, Jose Benavidez vs. TBA, and Rodel Mayol vs. TBA.

All of those fights, including the Pacquiao-Mosley bout, figure to be ugly mismatches. Perhaps the boxing fans that purchase the fight on PPV won’t mind all the one-sided fights and not care about the lack of interesting fights on the undercard. Frankly, I don’t see this card as a PPV card. There isn’t enough compelling fights for me to see this as a PPV worthy fight card.

As far as Soto goes, he reportedly is having promoter issues and there’s talk of him possibly signing on with Golden Boy Promotions. In regards to Antillon, he could wind up facing WBA lightweight champ Brandon Rios on July 9th in a mouth watering fight. That would be an even better match-up than the Soto vs. Antillon rematch because Rios is the hot fighter right now in the lightweight division and has a lot of new fans after his recent win over Miguel Acosta.