By Jake Donovan

Depending upon whom you ask, news of Manny Pacquiao and Shane Mosley agreeing to terms for a May 7 showdown is a dream come true or the worst possible scenario.

The winners from this event do not make for a very extensive list.

Mosley obviously benefits more than anyone else. Winless since his ninth-round knockout of Antonio Margarito in January 2009, it was unclear as recent as two months ago what was in store for the 39-year old as he approaches the twilight of his career.

The fight comes more than a year after he all but demanded such a showdown, at one point even going so far as to meet Pacquiao at a weight closer to 140 lb. than at the welterweight limit. Patience proved to be of virtue – that and the revelation that he wasn’t obligated to fight exclusively under the Golden Boy Promotions banner, despite serving as a minor stakeholder in the company.

Chances are that even had he landed the fight in 2009 like he wished, Top Rank would’ve never offered him anywhere near the package he will receive for this fight – a $5 million guarantee, plus a piece of the pay-per-view upside.

Even more so than Mosley, the city of Las Vegas has been longing for a superfight that will bring fans and revenue to its declining economy.

Once known as the fight capital of the world, Sin City played host to just one blockbuster event this year – Mosley’s landslide loss at the hands of Floyd Mayweather, Jr, who has since buried himself in legal troubles which could potentially end his days as a factor in today’s boxing landscape.

The May 7 event marks Pacquiao’s return to Vegas his since 12th round stoppage of Miguel Cotto in November 2009. The pound-for-pound king had played the strip for six straight fights prior to this year, before taking the show to Dallas for both of his ring appearances in 2010.

Even with the swarm of negative reactions surrounding the announcement of the fight, chances are the MGM Grand will find itself filled to capacity or very close to it. Such a scene will be a far cry from recent boxing events in Las Vegas, with three separate shows in the span of six weeks – all headlined by Fight of the Year candidates – each failing to draw even 5,000 fans in attendance.

That both sides have agreed to terms allows Top Rank to proceed with other business, a lot of which seems to be heading back to its Vegas hometown.

Miguel Cotto will be making his ring return next March, with Ricardo Mayorga as the frontrunner and for the fight to take place in… you guessed it, Las Vegas. The target date is March 12, which comes three weeks after the highly anticipated February 19 HBO-televised bantamweight title fight between Fernando Montiel and Nonito Donaire.

Needless to say, it’s a good time to be a member of the Top Rank family.

Unfortunately for the rest of the sport, their good news in this case is completely self-serving.

Boxing itself is left with the daunting task of convincing the mainstream that this is honestly the best we have to offer. With each passing day, the chances of Pacquiao and Mayweather ever squaring off appear to be less and less likely. It’s to the point where most within the sport are willing to move on from the one-time dream matchup and just carry on with business as usual.

However, the announcement of a Pacquiao-Mosley fight couldn’t come at a worse time for one of the previous finalists in the Pac-Man sweepstakes – undefeated welterweight titlist Andre Berto.

The Floridian remained a long shot to land the assignment, but it was hoped at the very least that he would still land a payday elsewhere, namely a long desired showdown with Miguel Cotto.

But with the Puerto Rican star close to finalizing terms for his March 12 pay-per-view date, Berto is forced to look elsewhere.

All he sees for the moment are a bunch of closed doors.

Chances are that he won’t be first in line for the winner of the January 29 showdown between Tim Bradley and Devon Alexander, one that will determine title lineage at the 140 lb. division. Both fighters have already expressed a willingness to move up to face Pacquiao, though of course with that assignment comes the millions of dollars that makes it well worth the risk. A date with Berto… doesn’t.

There was once talks of Berto possibly facing fellow unbeaten welterweight Mike Jones, who looked vulnerable enough in his November 13 pay-per-view preliminary against Jesus Soto Karass for other welterweights to suddenly remember his name.

However, any plans for a Berto-Jones showdown dried up the moment Arum revealed plans for a Jones-Soto Karass rematch, which is rumored to serve as the televised co-feature slot for the earlier mentioned February 19 HBO telecast.

Also gone are whatever plans Golden Boy Promotions had for planning an event around the coveted Cinco de Mayo weekend.

When it was first announced that Pacquiao’s ring return was planned for April 16, Golden Boy proceeded with plans to stage an event on May 7. That obviously changed once Arum decided to switch dates and claim May 7 for his cash cow, though Golden Boy was still willing to participate in the event – even if it meant stepping aside and allowing their rival to promote the event himself.

Their involvement would’ve been limited to delivering the services of Juan Manuel Marquez, who has been campaigning for a third fight with Pacquiao basically moments after their second fight ended.

It’s all been for naught. No matter how far Golden Boy was willing to bend in satisfying demands for the sake of securing a lucrative assignment for their fighter, Arum seemed hell bent on disqualifying Marquez from the running – even if spits in the face of the overwhelming number of fans and media members who openly rooted for the fight to come to fruition.

In a weird way, the junior middleweight division is also left standing at the altar in all of this.

With Arum’s announcement that Pacquiao-Mosley will take place at the welterweight limit as opposed to a catchweight, the next bit of news that will be soon to follow will be Pacquiao having to give up the alphabet belt he acquired in his November 13 win over Antonio Margarito.

That the fight took place at a catchweight of 150 lb. allowed one sanctioning body to put their junior middleweight title at stake, allowing Pacquiao to extend his own boxing records of belts collected in different weight classes. The win gave the Filipino a belt in an eighth weight class, even if it comes with a big, fat asterisk.

Where he could’ve lent validity to the title status claim was by actually defending it – not against Mosley but a worthy junior middleweight foe. There are plenty to go around, but the division sorely lacks notoriety as the most sellable commodities are either seven pounds south or six pounds north.

Instead, he continues to follow in the footsteps of Sugar Ray Leonard, another incredibly gifted fighter whose place in boxing history is well-deserved, but also an opportunist, by-and-large. The Hall of Famer reached a point in his career where collecting belts became far more important than defending them against top challengers.

Pacquiao has clearly reached a similar point in his career, having won championships at 130, 135, 140 and 154 without ever attempting to make a single defense at any of the aforementioned divisions.

While it would appear that a Pacquiao title vacancy opens up an opportunity for at least two other contenders in the division, the truth is that with Pacquiao’s official departure comes a massive reduction in asking price for those hoping to vie for his old belt.

It’s also become clear that Pacquiao – for as much power as he holds as the sport’s biggest draw – is content with the tired old cliché, ‘I fight who they put in front of me.’  The fighters put in front of him these days are the ones most willing to kowtow to all of his demands as well as those of Top Rank.

For a while, it was the fighters within the Top Rank family. Now that Arum – by his own admission – has run out of fighters in his own stable to put in front of him, 39-year-old winless-in-two-years Shane Mosley becomes the latest to fit the uniform.

Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at twitter.com/JakeNDaBox or submit questions/comments to JakeNDaBox@gmail.com .