By Dave Lahr: After wasting much of the past year fruitlessly attempting to land fights against Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr., WBA welterweight champion Shane Mosley will have to settle for fighting a unification match against World Boxing Council title holder Andre Berto (25-0, 19 KO’s) on January 30th, according to latest boxing news.

Although Berto is a great match-up for Mosley, it’s a fight that pales in comparison to the kind of money and excitement that would be generated had Mosley been able to land a fight against Mayweather or Pacquiao, two of the biggest stars in boxing at this time. Neither of them, however, showed the slightest bit of interest in fighting Mosley, perhaps because he’s too good right now.

Pacquiao prefers to fight Miguel Cotto, a fighter who beat Mosley two years ago by a 12 round decision. That fight was very close and at the end, Cotto was running from Mosley in the last four rounds and didn’t look at all like the superior fighter at the end of the fight. Cotto got the win but failed to show that he was superior.

Since then, Cotto was badly beaten in his fight with Antonio Margarito, a beating that many boxing experts feel Cotto still hasn’t recovered from. This is perhaps why many boxing fans wonder why Pacquiao decided to fight Cotto right now instead of Mosley, who is coming off a 9th round stoppage of Margarito last January.

Mayweather chose to fight the smaller Juan Manuel Marquez instead of facing Mosley. It looked as if Mayweather was looking for an easier fight for his first bout back following a two year layoff. Mosley called Mayweather out after Mayweather’s one-sided 12 round decision over Marquez last month, but Mayweather looks to be waiting on the outcome of the Cotto vs.

Pacquiao before making a decision whom he’ll fight next. It looks a lot like it’s going to be Pacquiao. Mosley likely won’t be an option for Mayweather at any point from now on, because Mayweather might end up moving into the sunset again if he can big up a lot of loot in a fight against Pacquiao.

Berto, 26, has looked remarkably average and incredibly boring since picking up the World Boxing Council welterweight title last year in June. While he used to be a flashy fighter who threw a lot of blazing fast combinations, he’s now a punch and clinch fighter for the most part. His bouts are often painful to watch because they’re so boring. He’s beaten Steve Forbes, Luis Collazo and Juan Urango in his three title defenses and looked terrible in each of the fights.

Collazo almost beat Berto, which kind of suggests that Berto won’t be holding onto his title for long. The WBC is loaded with dreadful fighters almost in the entirety, but even as bad as the top 15 contenders are, each one of them is a threat to beat a fighter like Berto. Mosley is going to kill Berto. This is going to be a mismatch. Of all Berto’s fights that have been shown on HBO, this is the only one that I feel is watchable.