By Michael Marley

You go ahead if you feel like playing dirty but I refuse to kick Sugar Shane Mosley after Sergio "I Admire Him So Much I Held Back" Mora dragged him down.

No way, Don Jose, will I stomp on SSM because the offensively defensive "Latin Fake" turned their bout into a stinker rivaling a group of pachyderms with diarrhea in a confined area.

I spoke with a top Golden Guy and he agreed with me. The company where he serves as an "executive" - knows that the nearly age 40 fighter is nearing his sell by date.

But they can't kick him in the can or throw him in the street, either.

The man has given so much to his sport/business he's more than entitled to one more chance to shine.

If the Mora debacle was an abberation, we'll find out. If not and he's sliding like some elderly citizen with one foot on a roller skate and the other on a banana peel, we'll discover that in his next outing.

There's only fight left to Mosley, really, and it's a reset of his supposed to have been bout against WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto, which was scheduled for January 30 of this year, and later postponed for personal reasons on the side of Berto.

In my hands I hold an MGM Grand betting sheet dated 11/15/2009 and it lists Mosley as the minus $2.30 favorite and unbeaten Berto as a plus $1.90 underdog.

Kiss those odds bye bye as Berto has been inactive the whole year and has nothing solid on the horizon. And Mosley's stock tanked in the Mora boreathon.

I'm sure adviser Al Haymon, having put Paul Williams-Sergio Martinez to bed for Nov. 20, is working on something but this is a good crossroads fight.

If Mosley loses and is dull, he gets the sandbag treatment.

If he wins, he might qualify for a Manny Pacquiao match especially now that Freddie Roach is talking one 2011 bout before the Floyd Mayweather garguantuan bout.

If Berto hurdles Mosley, then he can be Pacman's post-Margarito foe.

Hit their reset button for January and the winner could box Pacman in May.

Shane and Manny is, no doubt, a decent PPV TV main go with Berto a bit sketchy unless he creams the older man.

Michael Marley is the national boxing examiner for examiner.com. To read more stories by Michael Marley, Click Here .