Shane Mosley-Anthony Mundine fight canceled after alleged contract breach

Shane Mosley and Anthony Mundine won't fight on Wednesday and the fight may be off for good. (Paul Miller/EPA)

A junior middleweight fight between Shane Mosley and Anthony Mundine that was scheduled for October 23rd in Sydney, Australia has been cancelled, Golden Boy promoter Richard Schaefer told SI.com. According to Schaefer, Mundine’s promoter, Vlad Warton, breached the contract by not putting a scheduled payment to Mosley into escrow.

“We asked him numerous times to fulfill the contract and it hasn’t happened,” Schaefer said. “Shane’s team thought the best action to take was not to fight.”

Mosley (47-8-1), a faded former champion coming off of a narrow decision win over Pablo Cesar Cano, hoped to rebuild his career for one more world title shot. Though Mundine (44-5) is himself a long faded former titleholder, a fight against a name like Mosley was expected to do solid business in Mundine’s home country of Australia.

The fight, however, has been dogged by financial problems from the start. In August, a payment of $300,000 was put into escrow a few days late, which put the bout in jeopardy. According to industry sources, another $700,000 was due to Mosley 10 days before the fight, on October 13. Mosley waited a week after the due date for the payment to go through. When it never arrived, he decided to scrap the fight.

According to Schaefer, there are no plans to reschedule.

“Once you do business with someone like that, it’s hard to want to do it again,” Schaefer said.

—Chris Mannix