By Jim Dower: Unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. still as of yet hasn’t signed the contract for his May 1st bout against World Boxing Association welterweight champion Shane Mosley, and it isn’t making Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer, Mosley or his attorney happy about it, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. Mosley, 38, signed the contract for the fight five days ago. At the time, it was thought that Mayweather would be soon signing his part of the contract. However, there’s been no word from Mayweather since that time.
Schaefer has been in contact with Mayweather’s representatives, and they are telling him that he will be getting the contract soon. However, nothing has happened thus far. The problem with the fight not being signed is that it prevents the bout from being promoted early.
Although there is still a lot of time before the fight takes place on May 1st, the longer Mayweather delays in signing the contract the more it will hurt the fight because Golden Boy Promotions won’t be able to market the fight to the boxing public until they’re absolutely sure that Mayweather has signed the contact.
There is concern with some boxing fans that Mayweather may be having second thoughts about taking a tough fight against Mosley, and might not want to sign the contract because of the risk involved. But it could be just Mayweather putting off something that he doesn’t see as a big deal. After all, if he knows that the contract has already been signed by Mosley, he might not see it as urgent for him to rush the signing of the contract.
He could be just waiting to sign it when he pleases. It’s unfortunate, though, that Mayweather’s promoter and Mosley have to sit and wait for Mayweather to sign the contract, because it’s causing them worry. If Mayweather does decide not to fight Mosley, this would be a huge disappointment for boxing fans. Many of them have been looking forward to this fight since the news for this bout broke several weeks ago.
It would also likely make Mayweather look bad, especially if he were to decide to fight an easier opponent than Mosley. Mayweather detractors, and there are many of them, would see him as afraid to get hurt by Mosley. And fans of his probably wouldn’t take the news very well either, because it’s been years since Mayweather took on an appealing opponent.
In his last fight, Mayweather fought the 36-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez, who had to move up from the lightweight division to fight Mayweather at a catch weight. Marquez was far too small for Mayweather and the weight that Marquez put on to fight Mayweather seemed to hurt Marquez, making him too slow to compete.
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