By William Trillo
After almost a week of wondering why Floyd Mayweather Jr. had not signed the contract to make the May 1st Las Vegas battle with Shane Mosley official, the wheels are finally officially in motion as Mayweather scratched his name on a contract that was promptly put into Golden Boy Promotion’s Richard Schaefer possession. Shortly after Mayweather had signed the contract Schaefer contacted yours truly saying, “William, Just got back from a meeting and I have the contract signed. The fight is on!”
This time there was no premature speculation or innuendo, (more on that later), the fight is a done and if all goes according to plan, Floyd and Shane will be in Miami this weekend to be a part of the Super Bowl festivities and of course they will be there to pump the volume up on a fight that is a sure fire can’t miss event!
It’s no secret that there were rumblings that Mayweather was looking for a way out when he went MIA for a few days after Shane put his autograph to paper, but whatever rumors were out there can now be put to bed, Floyd has autographed the contract!
The fight that will be held at The MGM Grand in Las Vegas on the first of May promises to be a very interesting and hard fought test of will, strength and finesse. Throw in the fact that there is no love lost between Shane and Floyd and what you have here is exactly what the drug testing doctor ordered.
Yes, Shane has agreed to Mayweather’s Olympic style drug testing demands. Coming from a guy who is an admitted PED abuser that is a big step and worthy of at least a little praise. There has not been much more revealed about the contract but it is likely Floyd came out with the lions share of the purse and other concessions, something Mosley most likely was willing to put aside as he has been wanting to tear out a pound of Mayweather’s flesh for years, and now he has his chance to do it.
For Floyd, this is his proving ground. He has said he wants to fight only the best of his generation and now he is finally going to do it. Signing the contract is the first step to proving he is the fighter he has always claimed he is and a victory over Mosley would make a lot of reporters like me eat a plate full of crow for questioning Floyd’s testicular fortitude…a win over Mosley would put a lot of us in our place. I’ll even go so far to say that a loss to Mosley won’t be as detrimental to Floyd’s career as he thinks if he goes out there and makes a fight out of it. But he has to fight!
Personally I think that even though Shane is the one with his WBA Welterweight Championship belt at stake it’s Floyd who has more to lose if he gets beat. You can assume Mayweather feels the same.
The next hurdle we have to cross now is getting these guys to the ring on May 1st. There is 2 months between now and fight night and that’s a lot of time for something crazy to happen. If the worst does happen and this fight gets canceled or postponed, in light of all that has transpired in boxing recently, no one is going to take it lightly, especially the fans.
We don’t want to hear about phantom rib injuries. We don’t want to find out Floyd twisted his leg in a late night basketball game nor do we want to hear that Shane has wrenched his back in some ill advised snow boarding run in Big Bear. We want these guys to climb into the ring on May 1st and if they don’t, trust me, there is going to be hell to pay!
And To Those Scribes Who Jumped The Gun…
Allow me to take you back in time if I may. It was this past Tuesday night and the fact that Floyd had not yet signed the contract was becoming a bit of an issue. It was quite a few days earlier that Yahoo’s Kevin Iole amongst others had proclaimed the fight a done deal because Leonard “Hot Flashes” Ellerbe had told them Floyd would sign the contract in 2 days. I told everyone immediately that stories that THE FIGHT IS ON were very premature. As it turned out 2 days turned into 3-4 and then 5 and the press was getting anxious.
It was then that I wrote an email to Golden Boy’s Richard Schaefer saying:
Dear Richard,
I am writing in regards to the premature announcements on Mosley vs. Mayweather being a done deal. Every website on the planet has written that the fight was on. That includes Yahoo/Ring Online writer Kevin Iole who over a week ago deemed this fight a done deal and claimed it was set for May 1st. Yet here we are on late Tuesday afternoon some 5 days after Leonard Ellerbe assured everyone Floyd would sign the contract and still we have nothing.
With the fight still in limbo Schaefer took the time to respond by saying:
Dear William,
I agree totally with your statement regarding pre-mature announcements. That is why you did not see me making any statements. I don’t know why so many reporters always like to “jump the gun”. I think they do a disservice to the fighters, the sport and their readers. The fact is that Mayweather still has not signed… Regards, Richard
My point exactly when I wrote my article on Saturday!
Why do reporters like to jump the gun?
Because in this day and age of instant news via the Internet, getting news up first is a badge of honor, but when you are jumping the gun just to say you got things up first you are, to quote Schaefer, “Doing a disservice to the fighters, the sport and their readers.”
Dictionary.com defines disservice this way: to provide inadequate or faulty service.
Nice work! You must be proud!
By the way after we posted the “official” news of the Mayweather signing on Wednesday I checked the sites that had posted the premature “Done Deal” news last week, and guess what…NOTHING!
I guess they were all asleep at the wheel, in the buffet line at their favorite “All You Can Eat” or what is most likely is nobody had spoon fed them the information yet.
Again….. Nice work! You must be proud!
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