By Dave Lahr: Instead of putting Manny Pacquiao (52-3-2, 38 KO’s) in with a fighter that is still fighting in the prime of their careers, Pacquiao’s promoter has opted to match him up with the 39-year-old Shane Mosley (46-6-1, 39 KO’s) on May 7th at the MGM Grnad, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The only good thing I can see coming from this fight is that it won’t be held at a strength draining catch weight and it won’t have a new paper title on the line for Pacquiao to add to his collection of titles.

I’m so happy for that, because I figured that the next thing Pacquiao was going to do after beating Antonio Margarito for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title last November was to go after the weak link at middleweight, the newly crowned WBC champion Sebastian Zbik. I figured that would be the next move for Pacquiao, but at least we won’t have to see Pacquiao facing some paper champion at middleweight. However, the Mosley fight is still an awful match-up because of how shot Mosley is.

I guess I’m not the only one that hates this fight because HBO analyst Max Kellerman hates the fight as well. In an interview of Kellerman at fightnews.com, Kellerman said “I don’t like this fight. I like the fight a couple of years ago…I think this is a terrible match-up. He’s almost 40-years-old. He has so much heart that I’m worried for him in this fight.”

I agree with Kellerman. This is a bad match-up. What is Pacquiao doing fighting 40-year-olds at this point in his career? Guys that fight 40-year-old fighters are usually guys that are starting their career and trying to learn some things. But to match Pacquiao against someone this old right now reeks of cherry picking. Why isn’t Pacquiao being matched up against unbeaten Andre Berto or Sergio Martinez?