Shane Mosley

For Pomona's Shane Mosley, Saturday night marked the first return to the scene of his greatest victory, a thrilling split decision over Los Angeles' favorite boxer, Oscar De La Hoya in 2000. A massive Staples Center crowd of 20,820 relished the pre-fight festivities as Mosley entered to T.I./Rihanna's "Live Your Life," and Tijuana's Antonio Margarito came in as a traditional Mexican song played, bowing to the crowd with his arms folded in front of him.

LAS VEGAS — The two prime ribs of boxing, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, continue to create their sizzle separately. Their fight of the century, any century, seems to be going the way of the Edsel and the eight-track tape. Passage of time doesn't heal all, but it sure does dull things. It is Mayweather's time now. Boxing is nothing if not a huge attention grab, and Mayweather is in the center ring of the circus he so deeply loves. He will fight Miguel Cotto at the MGM Grand here May 5, and that correctly has the current spotlight.

LAS VEGAS — The two prime ribs of boxing, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, continue to create their sizzle separately. Their fight of the century, any century, seems to be going the way of the Edsel and the eight-track tape. Passage of time doesn't heal all, but it sure does dull things. It is Mayweather's time now. Boxing is nothing if not a huge attention grab, and Mayweather is in the center ring of the circus he so deeply loves. He will fight Miguel Cotto at the MGM Grand here May 5, and that correctly has the current spotlight.

HBO has followed Yuriorkis Gamboa's lead and backed out of participating in the April 14 Brandon Rios fight at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Promoter Bob Arum told The Times on Wednesday that his Top Rank company had filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Gamboa for pulling out of the scheduled bout that would pit the unbeaten featherweight champion against unbeaten ex-lightweight champ Rios at 135 pounds. "Gamboa just said he wasn't fighting," Arum said. "The kid is crazy.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. ended the dramatic pause before his signature Wednesday when he officially signed to fight Pomona's world welterweight champion Shane Mosley , Mosley's attorney told The Times. The bout between two of the sport's top pound-for-pound fighters of the past decade-plus will occur May 1 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Mosley signed to fight Friday night, and authorities close to the bout had expected Mayweather to sign no later than Monday. His delay caused some angst for the fight's promoter, Richard Schaefer , of Golden Boy Promotions, who watched Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao feud so heatedly over a pre-fight drug-testing plan that their planned March 13 bout was scrapped.

The criticism was immediate and relentless after Shane Mosley wilted badly in his May fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. Mosley rocked Mayweather in the second round, then Mosley faded so noticeably in the last 10 rounds in a lopsided loss that some didn't expect him to fight again. "Shane is looking his age in this fight," trainer Emanuel Steward said during the Mayweather-Mosley broadcast. Mosley turned 39 last week, but he didn't make it a birthday-retirement party.

At the moment, boxer Shane Mosley is the odd man out. He has much to offer, but he is like a screenwriter, shopping the studios. "I don't hear my name being called," Mosley says. He is in Las Vegas, as is most everybody else from the world of boxing, the week before Manny Pacquiao versus Ricky Hatton at MGM's Grand Garden. The hallways and lounges of the casino have started to fill up for Saturday's fight with people with pasty skin who use the word "mate" a lot. The Brits aren't coming.

Reporting from Las Vegas Manny Pacquiao wasn't pleased with his third consecutive unanimous decision, but in extending his victory streak to 14 he may have retired another Hall of Famer. In a dominant destruction of an aged Shane Mosley, Pacquiao rode a third-round knockdown and a steady barrage of left hands to a unanimous decision in his WBO welterweight title defense before 16,412 at MGM Grand Garden Arena. Judge Glenn Trowbridge scored the bout 119-108, Dave Moretti had it 120-108, and Duane Ford scored it 120-107.

What happened to Shane Mosley? Good question, says his father and trainer, Jack, who has seen his talented son move from dazzling lightweight prospect to frustrated contender to a long, bizarre stay in boxing limbo. Better question: What hasn't happened? "We were sitting in a restaurant a while ago, and we asked the waitress if she knew who Shane Mosley was and she said, 'No,' " Jack Mosley said. "And then we asked if she knew Vernon Forrest, and she says, 'Yeah.' Oscar De La Hoya? 'Yeah.'

Shane Mosley wants to be the solution to boxing's most troublesome possibility ? if Floyd Mayweather Jr. won't fight Manny Pacquiao, who will? To get there required a bold act of independence, something the world welterweight champion from Pomona is not used to doing, having struggled through bad promotional alliances, a strife-filled marriage and dealings with BALCO founder Victor Conte. But Mosley, 39, reached out to Top Rank's Bob Arum, Pacquiao's promoter, rather than wait for his Golden Boy Promotions team to end a stalemate with Top Rank, and rather than lean on his New York attorney, who is representing Golden Boy in a lawsuit over Pacquiao profits.

The most problematic issue preventing a Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao super-fight has been Mayweather's insistence that both submit to random, Olympic-style blood tests for performance-enhancing drugs. Mayweather doesn't want to budge from this position because, from his perspective, it's just an extension of the principles he's based his boxing career on: Stay out of harm's way, make a lot of money. The 34-year-old Mayweather (41-0, 25 knockouts) has long said there's no glory in taking punishment to the head in the boxing ring, and he's established a legacy as one of the greatest defensive fighters in the sport's history.

Once again, an event that claimed to showcase the Sept. 17 bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Victor Ortiz instead focused on an absent Manny Pacquiao. Both Mayweather (41-0, 25 knockouts) and Ortiz (29-2-2, 22 KOs) mentioned Pacquiao throughout their news conference Wednesday at LA Live. Mayweather declared he wanted to face Pacquiao in his next fight. Ortiz said such statements were offensive and would come back to haunt Mayweather. "I'm tired of hearing he's fighting Pacquiao next," said Ortiz, who will defend his World Boxing Council welterweight title in Las Vegas.

Reporting from Las Vegas — The recluse has emerged. Floyd Mayweather Jr., the unbeaten former multiple-weight-class world champion beset by criminal charges, controversy and no-comments since dominating Shane Mosley 13 months ago, announced Tuesday he'll return to the ring Sept. 17 against welterweight champion Victor Ortiz of Oxnard. "My fans have been waiting long enough," Mayweather tweeted Tuesday morning. Golden Boy Promotions is negotiating to place the bout at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, with HBO pay-per-view televising it. "I am ready to return to the ring and give my fans a fantastic night of boxing by fighting the best out there and for me, that is Victor Ortiz," Mayweather said in a news release.

A problem with boxing is that the punches you don't see are often more significant than those you do. Such was the case with Saturday night's Manny Pacquiao-Shane Mosley fight in Las Vegas. If you were there, in the crowd of 16,412 at the sold-out MGM Grand Garden Arena, you saw Pacquiao do pretty much what he has for the last four or five years. He beat up the other guy. He is too fast, too well trained and too strong — despite usually being smaller than the other guy — to lose.

Reporting from Las Vegas — It takes quite a bit to get Manny Pacquiao upset, but Shane Mosley accomplished the feat Saturday night with his unwillingness to engage in what a million-plus people paid millions of dollars to watch: a fight. "I expected him toe-to-toe with me for at least five of the 12 rounds," Pacquiao said after cruising to a one-sided, unanimous-decision victory over Mosley at MGM Grand Garden Arena. "I want to give people a good fight. " Instead, Pomona's Mosley (46-7-1)

Reporting from Las Vegas Manny Pacquiao wasn't pleased with his third consecutive unanimous decision, but in extending his victory streak to 14 he may have retired another Hall of Famer. In a dominant destruction of an aged Shane Mosley, Pacquiao rode a third-round knockdown and a steady barrage of left hands to a unanimous decision in his WBO welterweight title defense before 16,412 at MGM Grand Garden Arena. Judge Glenn Trowbridge scored the bout 119-108, Dave Moretti had it 120-108, and Duane Ford scored it 120-107.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Shane Mosley both addressed nagging criticisms about each other as the hours ticked down to their Saturday night welterweight title fight. "We don't know how many fights he fought clean," Mayweather said about Mosley at Wednesday's final news conference, digging once more at Mosley's 2003 use of performance-enhancing drugs. "Mayweather deserves credit for taking this chance [to fight me]," said Mosley, who has knocked out 39 of his 51 opponents and stands as the toughest opponent Mayweather has fought since taking on a close-to-retirement Oscar De La Hoya in 2007.

LAS VEGAS -- Floyd Mayweather Jr. overcame a slow start to wear down a game but overmatched Shane Mosley on Saturday, scoring a unanimous-decision victory in a 12-round welterweight bout at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. The 38-year-old Mosley, fighting for the first time since January 2009, set a furious pace from the start but it caught up with him as early as the third round. By the finish both of his eyes were swollen. Two judges scored the fight 119-109 for Mayweather while another judge had it 118-110 for the winner.

The contradictions in Manny Pacquiao's dual careers are unmistakable. He is embracing a humanitarian campaign in his significant day job, and is being asked to knock a man out in his lucrative work at night. Yet as much as Pacquiao at this week's news conference discussed his fight Saturday night, even more time was spent on how he would be wearing yellow boxing gloves as he takes on Shane Mosley, imploring anyone listening to don yellow clothing to show unity in the worldwide fight to end poverty.

Reporting from Las Vegas Manny Pacquiao's fans swarmed, filling to capacity the draped-off MGM Grand Garden Arena on Friday to get a look at the flexed, sculpted physique of their hero. Pacquiao satisfied the announced 8,000 fans by weighing in at a lean 145 pounds for Saturday's welterweight title defense, even embracing his opponent Shane Mosley, who weighed the 147-pound limit. Behind the drapes, there was more reason for Filipino pride, as Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach assessed his fighter's condition Friday after an eight-week-long effort that Roach says was Pacquiao's best training camp ever.