By Dan Ambrose: Shane Mosley (46-6, 39 KO’s) may not have been thinking straight when he chose former World Boxing Council junior middleweight champion Sergio Mora (22-1, 6 KO’s) to fight on September 18th, instead of someone from his own weight class who is more likely to stand in front of him and give him a traditional fight. Mosley will be turning 39 next month on September 7th, and looked dreadful in his last fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr., losing by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 119-109, 118-110 and 119-109 on May 1st. Fans of Mosley point out that Mayweather often makes his opponents look bad, but Mosley didn’t just look bad, he looked old and tired. He looked like a textbook version of a shot fighter.

And this is why it seems kind of weird that Mosley would fight a hit and run type fighter like Mora. He’s like a bigger, slower version of Mayweather. Mora makes guys look bad and is very slippery in the way he is able to get out of the way of punches. If this was a young Mosley, I’d still think he was crazy for fighting a guy like Mora rather than someone more popular and predictable like Berto. Maybe Mosley has some kind of fatalistic attraction, where he’s picking out the fighter that he would have the most trouble beating.

Mora is very beatable. In fact, I think a lot of guys from his own weight division would likely beat him, but it wouldn’t be easy. Mosley isn’t a junior middleweight, and that’s pretty much been established in his two losses to Winky Wright. Mosley is going to be giving up three inches in height to the 6’0” Mora, and that’s just the beginning of Mosley’s problems.

Boxing fans haven’t shown much interest in the Mosley-Mora fight. That’s something Mosley should have known before he agreed to fight Mora. If he wanted boxing fans to show interest in his next fight, he should have taken on Berto, Zab Judah or even a guy like International Boxing Federation welterweight champion Jan Zaveck, but not a non-champion like Mora. That’s a mistake fight and a bad decision if you ask me. Mora, 29, has fought only once in the past two years, beating little known Calvin Green in a 7th round stoppage last April.

Before that, Mora hadn’t fought since losing a 12 round decision to Vernon Forrest in September 2008. So Mosley has an opponent that boxing fans haven’t seen much of in the past two years, and who has a fighting style that’s not appealing and is very hard to beat. I think Mosley is going to lose and look bad in doing so. He’s going to be asking himself afterwards why he chose Mora of all the fighters out there that he could have picked. I just hope Mosley doesn’t look as old as bad as he did in the Mayweather fight.