By Eric Thomas: You got to feel a little bit sorry for World Boxing Association welterweight champion Shane Mosley (46-5, 39 KO’s). After risking his neck last January against one of the toughest fighters in the welterweight division in Antonio Margarito and beating him by a 9th round TKO, Mosley has been left pretty much with nothing really to show for the win in terms of big mega fights.

Yesterday, it was learned that Mosley will be defending his WBA welterweight title against former International Boxing Federation welterweight champion Joshua Clottey (35-3, 20 KO’s) on December 26th, at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California.

Mosley is likely not too happy with having to settle for Clottey as an opponent, because although Clottey is a good fighter, he lacks a big fan base in the U.S. In addition to that, Clottey was recently defeated by Miguel Cotto in his last fight on June 13th. That’s not exactly something that boxing fans will see a good thing. How can you hype a fight when one of the fighters was defeated in their last bout?

I don’t care if Clottey narrowly lost the fight to Cotto. The fact remains Clottey faded late in the fight, got outworked by Cotto, and ended up losing. This is more or less the same thing that happened with Clottey in his fight with Margarito in 2006, except in that fight, Clottey did zero in the entire 2nd half of the fight and ended up losing by a 12 round decision to Margarito. Clottey said afterwards that he had injured one of his hands. It looked to me like Clottey just got tired.

This is no offense to Clottey, but this isn’t exactly the type of fighter that the 37-year-old Mosley – soon to be 38 on September 7th – was hoping to get when he defeated Margarito in January. However, Mosley has been unable to line up fights with Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, Miguel Cotto, Andre Berto or even Zab Judah.

It seems that no one wants to fight Mosley after the way he badly schooled Margarito. Maybe Mosley shouldn’t have looked so good in beating him, because it looks as if Mosley has scared away the entire welterweight division with his impressive performance.

Mosley’s a great fighter, but without another quality opponent, he won’t be able to make a ton of money. In other words, Mosley isn’t an Oscar De La Hoya or a Ricky Hatton, both of which could make millions no matter who they choose to fight.

If by fighting Clottey, Mosley is able to get a fight with another one of Bob Arum’s fighters, say, Pacquiao or Miguel Cotto, I can see the value in fighting Clottey. But beyond that, this is a poor substitute for a big named opponent. Clottey is ranked high in the welterweight division, #2 in the WBO, #5 IBF and #6 WBC, but his lack of name value is a problem.

Mosley won’t likely get a lot of money for this fight and will have to work had to get the win, which you can count on being a decision victory, due to Clottey have a good chin. However, it will still leave Mosley looking for a big named opponent afterwards, and depending on how badly he defeats Clottey, Mosley’s prospects for a big mega bout will likely be just as dim as they are now.

The problem is that Mayweather and Pacquiao are likely to fight each other next, so they’re out. Cotto, if he’s beaten by Pacquiao, will be looking for a tune-up bout and won’t want to take on a dangerous fighter like Mosley next. Judah could be an option, but he doesn’t have the big name value that Mayweather, Cotto and Pacquiao have, and wouldn’t bring in the kind of money that Mosley is looking for.