Pacquiao vs Mosley getting closer

Shane Mosley has one foot inside the ring, as Manny Pacquiao’s next opponent. Bob Arum of Top Rank said the Filipino icon will be back in action on April 16 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas or just five months after his 12-round demolition of Antonio Margarito in Dallas. Arum wants two fights for Pacquiao next year, and probably the only way to this is if the fighting congressman in Sarangani holds his next fight no later than May.

“I have to make sure with Manny and make sure he’s okay with it. It’s an ideal date, right after the Final Four and the start of the baseball season and right around the beginning of the NBA playoffs,” said Arum,

“As long as it doesn’t interfere with his duties as a congressman, I think we’ll be in good shape,” he told the Las Vegas Review Journal.

There are a couple of names being considered, and since it’s highly improbable for Floyd Mayweather to step up the plate, the choice is down to Mosley or Juan Manuel Marquez.

“It looks like it’s Mosley,” said Pacquiao’s business manager, Eric Pineda, yesterday.

“The only thing we don’t have now is the contract,” he added.

Reports said negotiations have been ongoing between Pacquiao’s representatives in the US, including his adviser Mike Koncz, and Mosley, who’s willing to seal the deal by himself. Mosley is ready to keep Golden Boy, which promoted his most recent fights, out of the deal because he must have realized that it’s the only way for him to land the fight with Pacquiao. Golden Boy and Top Rank are locked in a legal battle regarding Pacquiao’s fight earnings. A fight with Mayweather could earn Pacquiao as much as $70 million (roughly P3 billion), according to one of his advisers, Chavit Singson. But there are too many obstacles facing the superfight. Pineda said Pacquiao is not backing off from any fight, not even with Mayweather or Marquez, who’s been shouting all over that he had beaten Pacquiao twice.

“Manny wil fight anybody. We know that,” said Pineda.

“But I think it’s going to be Mosley. I just don’t know anything about the date. Manny said he wants to return to the ring in May,” Pineda added.