By Mark Vester
The returning Floyd Mayweather Jr. was confronted with a serious question. Why is he fighting Juan Manuel Marquez instead of Shane Mosley? Mosley is viewed by many as the top fighter at 147-pounds, a division where Mayweather resides. Floyd returns on July 18 against Marquez at catch-weight of 144-pounds. Marquez, the WBA/WBO lightweight champ, moves up by nearly two weight divisions.
Mayweather tells BoxingScene.com that Mosley blew his chance nearly ten years ago. He tried to make a fight with Mosley when the two boxers were competing in the lower weight divisions. Mayweather claims that Mosley had no interest in the fight. Now Mosley is requesting the fight, and Mayweather has little interest in obliging.
“It was after the fight when I fought Genaro Hernandez, when he was a lightweight and I was a junior lightweight - we tried to make the fight happen. He wants me now that he has five losses and his career is coming to an end,” Mayweather said.
Mayweather tells BoxingScene that Mosley is not capable of selling tickets in any venue outside of California.
“No disrespect to him, Mosley can only sell tickets in California. I'm not saying that he's not a good fighter, but when you talk about pay-per-view numbers and selling tickets - Shane Mosley is a good fighter but Floyd Mayweather can go anywhere and sell it out,” Mayweather said.
As far as Mosley’s status, Mayweather views him as a fighter who was broken down and had to be completely rebuilt. He also wasn’t impressed with Mosley’s two recent wins over Antonio Margarito and Ricardo Mayorga.
“I've dominated and been in this sport since the 90s. You forgot, just a little while ago you had to rebuild Shane Mosley. Against Mayorga, I thought if Mayorga would have won the last round it would have been a draw. And Margarito was a guy who had one tremendous win and this is what he got to doing - he began reading his articles, got a couple of dollars and his head got big. Everybody said Margarito was the guy to fight [for Mosley] but they forget that he lost to Paul Williams,” Mayweather said.
Floyd’s close friend and adviser, Leonard Ellerbe, chimed in and gave his final thought on Mosley’s status.
“When has Mosley been on the A-side of any equation. That's all I have to say,” Ellerbe said.
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