Showtime may get Pacquiao-Mosley fight

January 24th, 2011 6:12pm by Stiff Jab Tumblr

It looks like HBO is out of the running to carry the May 7th Manny Pacquiao-Shane Mosley fight. From Multichannel News:

Securing the rights to Pacquiao-Mosley would be a major coup for the pay TV service. Once the leading PPV distributor of boxing events during the genre’s heyday in the late 1990s, Showtime yielded the category to HBO in the 2000s - its last PPV event was an October 2005 rematch between Diego Corrales and Jose Louis Castillo. Since then the pay TV network has focused most of its boxing efforts on its two on-air franchises - Showtime Championship Boxing and ShoBox, which features up-and-coming fighters.

HBO has distributed the last eleven Pacquiao fights, so the acknowledgment from spokesman Ray Stallone the cable network is moving on could have major implications.

Last week Showtime announced it will distribute the Miguel Cotto-Ricardo Mayorga fight on March 12. Coupled with today’s news it appears Showtime is opening up its wallet to compete for more fights, which can only mean good things for the sport.