Less than three months from now the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada may double as a funeral home for one of this generation's finest fighters. Shane Mosley, the same man that was widely recognized as the world's best lightweight some 13 years ago, will face Canelo Alvarez at junior middleweight in a fight made possible by the people at Golden Boy Promotions. The same people that claimed they were going to work to clean up boxing, and change the game.

When Oscar de la Hoya began his promotional company it was naturally met with some derision. Many fighters attempt such a task with limited or completely absent success. Oscar started by promoting small cards to get a feel for the business, and eventually (spoiler alert) they have grown to be one of the biggest promotional companies in the sport. In short, regardless of how little he now has to do with the finished product, he did follow through with his goal to have a legitimate promotional company. Bravo for him.

However, something has become startlingly clear over the past few years: Golden Boy Promotions is no different than any other promotional company. They protect their prospects just like other promoters. They have put on some terrible pay-per-view undercards just like other promoters. They can even bullshit just like other promoters.

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Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions continues to bash Bob Arum, a hilarious bit of irony given the seniors' tour undercard he's putting together for Mayweather vs Cotto. Here's what he said to BoxingScene.com's Rick Reeno about his supposed super duper fantasti-card, which will feature a shot Shane Mosley and perhaps a functionally retired Winky Wright, making this the event of the year for 2004:

"I think you really have two pay-per-views wrapped in one. The fact is, Mayweather and Cotto is as big as a fight can be. It is clearly the most dangerous fight that Mayweather has had for a long time. It is clearly, I would say, the most dangerous since the De La Hoya fight. Cotto is coming off one of the biggest wins of his career, a demolition of Antonio Margarito. This is a fight that quite frankly you wouldn't need any undercard because people want to see it [and instead] you could just put a couple of tuneups [on the undercard] and you're done....like most other promoters probably would," Schaefer said.

This is coming from the genius who put together such enormous pay-per-view flops as "Action Heroes" (a whopping 50,000 buys) and Hopkins vs Dawson (an even worse 40,000) in 2011. This from the guy who promoted Hopkins vs Jones II as a pay-per-view, and Mosley vs Mora.

Yup. Only the best from the fan-first gentlemen at Golden Boy Promotions. That damn Bob Arum, ruining boxing.

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For months now, I've been dreading the official announcement of a Canelo Alvarez vs Shane Mosley fight. That came last night, when Oscar De La Hoya made the fight a reality via his Twitter account.

Boxing fans were supposed to jump for joy. Some did -- I'm not ignoring that there are so-called "casual fans" who like this fight, but I believe they're wrong. I don't mean that to sound smug, even though I know that it does. I just cannot look at this fight and like it.

Except for those moments where I read quotes from Shane Mosley, the 40-year-old veteran who is more sitting at the bottom of the other side of the hill than he is simply over the top of it. In those brief moments, I remember the Shane Mosley I became a fan of so many years ago, and I remember how devastating he could be. How damn good (at times, truly great) he really was. And how I always just plain liked Shane Mosley along with liking his fights and admiring his talent.

Here's what he told ESPN.com about the fight:

"This is more of a fight to prove myself. I know I didn't look good in my last couple of fights and I really to make a statement in this fight," Mosley told ESPN.com on Friday night. "I just want to get in the ring, fight a world champion and win another belt.

"I'm very excited and happy. It's another chance for me to show that I still belong. He's a young guy and it's a tough fight, but I'm excited to get the fight. A lot of guys want to be in the position I am in to have this type of fight."

For a moment, "Gonna Fly Now" enters my mind and I see Mosley busting his ass at Big Bear with the esteemed Naazim Richardson, getting himself ready for this fight. Most of the informed feel he has little to no chance, but he doesn't see it that way. This is the final shot.

Then, I rejoin the real world.

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Mexican superstar and reigning WBC 154-pound titleholder Canelo Alvarez will return on May 5 on the Mayweather vs Cotto pay-per-view, possibly once again in a split site role as main eventer at another venue, possibly in Vegas, and Ryan Maquiñana reports that three men have emerged as potential opponents.

Shane Mosley

I've made my feelings on Alvarez vs Mosley very clear -- if you haven't read those by now, I'll just quickly sum it up with, "I've already seen Alvarez vs Kermit Cintron." I quite accurately predicted that Cintron would have nothing in the ring against Alvarez in November, and nothing is pretty much what we got.

If they do make this fight, expect Golden Boy to once again hard-sell you a washed-up fighter as some stern challenge to Alvarez, when they know for a fact exactly what they're doing and are just hoping to dupe viewers with another easy fight against a known name. I'm convinced Golden Boy will have people going, "Man, Shane could win this fight, if you think about it," but the promoter's role in selling a fight like this is the exact opposite, really, to keep you from thinking about it, because thinking about it reveals the illusion.

For those who think Alvarez gains much by beating Mosley, he won't -- there aren't a lot of boxing fans still seeing Mosley as a top fighter, and those who do will come out of this fight believing he's old and shot if they somehow don't feel that way already.

But this fight isn't nearly as close to reality as some might expect, probably, as Dan Rafael reported on Saturday that Mosley and his team were at the Chavez-Rubio fight in Texas reaching out to Top Rank, too.

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Before I start, let me just put out this disclaimer. Most of this article is pure speculation based on a promotional company and likely matchups for the fight on June 9th. In order to narrow down potential undercard opponents, I first thought of who are the big stars for Top Rank and if they will be ready to fight on June 9th.

Since Vanes Martirosyan has been very angry at our coverage of him, let's start with a good possible fight for him. A good step up fight for Vanes would be him against Delvin Rodriguez. Delvin has proven his willingness to fight in his war with Pavel Wolak and he is decent fighter. If Vanes has significantly improved over the past couple of years with Freddie Roach, then he should take this fight hopefully in an exciting fashion. This fight will also be a measuring stick for Martirosyan. Fail to get a victory and it will be a long road back to the top. Win and bigger name fights like Margarito are going to be in his future.

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Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr are, as always, at the forefront of basically all boxing discussion. Though the two pound-for-pound standouts won't be facing one another, they have both signed up for fights that have a lot of people talking, and do present some challenge.

Pacquiao has agreed to terms to face Timothy Bradley on June 9, which was reported earlier today. Mayweather will face Miguel Cotto on May 5.

So what's the better fight? Which one are you most looking forward to?

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On Sunday morning, junior middleweight Vanes Martirosyan took to Twitter to retweet all his congratulations and thank everyone who gave him props for his absurd mismatch victory on Saturday night over Troy Lowry.

He also mentioned that he'd never do any interviews with this web site, because we're a bunch of haters -- to be fair, I don't think he meant anyone but me, so let's rephrase that: He won't do interviews with this site because I'm a hater.

That's fine. For one thing, I'm a lousy interviewer. It's just not my strong suit. (Some would question whether or not I have a strong suit, but that's another story.)

Second, too often boxing interviews amount to PR material and very little more, and it's one of many games played with fight media. You get these guys calling everyone "champ" all the time and congratulating them on this or that. This is not the worst crime in the world or anything, and I honestly do get it, but did any media at the post-Super Bowl press conference call Eli Manning "champ" and try to be his buddy when asking him questions?

But this part is entirely unimportant. What's important here is the fight itself.

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Yesterday's announcement that Floyd Mayweather Jr will face Miguel Cotto on May 5 was met with a mixed response by different sections of the boxing fanbase.

Some diehard fans seemed in favor of the fight, if only because it's a fresh matchup between two legitimate stars. Casual fans, apparently operating under the idea that Mayweather vs Pacquiao was still remotely in play, rejected the fight pretty much 100% across the board.

With a day to process the fight, has anyone come around on the fight? Does anyone like it more or less? And most important, does anyone think Miguel Cotto can win this thing?

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