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Showdown eludes Floyd Mayweather

PACMAN NOT INTERESTED: Unbeaten champion Floyd Mayweather, left, punishes an opponent recently. Mayweather will face Miguel Cotto at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas on May 5.
PACMAN NOT INTERESTED: Unbeaten champion Floyd Mayweather, left, punishes an opponent recently. Mayweather will face Miguel Cotto at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas on May 5.

LAS VEGAS - Floyd Mayweather Jr got almost everything he wanted on Wednesday - receiving a boxing licence and naming an opponent and a date for his next fight.

The unbeaten champion got everything except a showdown with Manny Pacquiao.

Mayweather will fight Miguel Cotto on May 5 at Las Vegas's MGM Grand Garden after Nevada's athletic commissioners granted him a conditional licence for one fight before he goes to jail in June.

Mayweather (42-0, 26 KOs) chose Cotto (36-2, 29 KOs), the respected Puerto Rican champion, as his next opponent only after failing to land a date with Pacquiao, the superstar Filipino congressman. The two sides have discussed what's likely to be the most lucrative fight in boxing history for nearly three years without reaching a deal.

"I presented Pacquiao with the fight," Mayweather said after meeting with the Nevada commission. "Pacquiao is blowing a lot of smoke. He doesn't really want to fight. I gave him a chance to step up to the plate. We're talking about a $10 million fighter that I tried to give $40 million to. We didn't even talk about the back end." While Mayweather once appeared to be uninterested in the bout, he's now very interested - but Pacquiao's interest appears to have cooled. In recent weeks, Pacquiao's promoter Bob Arum repeatedly discounted the possibility of setting up the fight.

Mayweather will take on Cotto at light middleweight (69.9kg), a move up from the longtime welterweight's past four fights. Mayweather, who beat Oscar De La Hoya at super welterweight in 2007, beat Victor Ortiz last September to win the WBC welterweight title.

Cotto is coming off of the second defence of his title, a 10th-round technical knockout win over Antonio Margarito in December. Cotto's only defeats are against Margarito and Pacquiao, who stopped Cotto in November 2009 in perhaps the Filipino champion's most impressive victory.

In a joint statement announcing the fight, Cotto said he intends to be the first boxer to beat Mayweather.

"I am here to fight the biggest names in boxing," Cotto said. "I've never ducked anyone or any challenge in front of me."

Both fighters have agreed to Olympic-style drug testing for the 12-round fight handled by Mayweather Promotions, Golden Boy Promotions and Miguel Cotto Promotions.

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