Margarito to Mosley: I’ll pass

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World welterweight champion Antonio Margarito faced a Tuesday deadline to decide if he wanted to fight Pomona’s ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley, and he opted not to take on the former four-division champion.

Top Rank President Todd duBoef told The Times on Tuesday night that he had received a note from Margarito’s manager, Sergio Diaz, that his boxer would be ‘passing on the fight.’ Margarito will have a high-profile, likely lucrative rematch with Miguel Cotto later this year, and a fight with Mosley could’ve resulted in a loss that would’ve spoiled the plan.

‘Part of their thinking, I’m sure, is that the Cotto fight did good numbers [more than 450,000 pay-per-view buys] and that’s the fight they want, more than a guy that Cotto beat,’ duBoef said. ‘Shane Mosley was a big name seven years ago, but they weighed the consequences and decided it was onward and upward.’

That decision riled Mosley’s promoter, Richard Schaefer, who noted that Margarito weeks earlier had chastised Mosley about ‘hiding.’

‘Margarito should shut up and not call out people anymore after this, when they accept and then he chickens out,’ Schaefer said. ‘Margarito says he’s the most feared fighter in the world. Well, he’s now lost that title.’

Schaefer said he’ll turn his attention on Mosley to unbeaten World Boxing Council welterweight champion Andre Berto, whose promoter, Lou DiBella, is in Las Vegas with Schaefer to co-promote Saturday’s Ricky Hatton-Paulie Malignaggi junior-welterweight bout.

‘Like Bernard Hopkins taught young Kelly Pavlik, Shane will teach Berto not to disrespect his elders,’ Schaefer said.

That bout could take place as soon as Jan. 24.

-- Lance Pugmire